These auto-tune mash-ups use technology to satire the news.  You can even enjoy these if you have a predisposed political persuasion because “both sides” get “hit” by the mash-up machine.  Don’t be afraid to laugh!

Here are the links to a few more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Psfn6iOfS8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bduQaCRkgg4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGhsbRb_pqE

Concerned about looking like a fool in a digital age?  Enter Brad Pitt with pointers on tech etiquette.  The Hollywood superstar is on the cover of Wired as a Mr. Manners for technology.  Who is more qualified that one of the coolest guys around to offer tech advice on hot topics including “Facebook Faux Pas, Twitter Tribulations and Blogging Blunders?”

Actually, in typical Brad Pitt fashion, he offers statically suggestions on how to behave in a tech world.  And in typical Hollywood marketing tradition he is promoting his upcoming Quentin Tarantino film, “Inglourious Basterds”.   But some of his tongue-and-cheek recommendations are really funny.

Here are just a few examples:

Brad Pitt’s advice for talking on your cell in a pubic restroom:
“No, you can’t talk on the phone!  Do you want the guy next to you to hear your entire conversation?
That’s why you should only text in the bathroom. Just be sure you don’t hit the wrong button and end up putting a photo of your junk on Twitter. Trust me, you don’t want those followers.”

Here’s what Brad has to say when ask if you should confess if you “exaggerate” about your salary on an online dating profile.
“Hell no, everyone lies online. In fact, readers expect you to lie. If you don’t, they’ll think you make less than you actually do. So the only way to tell the truth is to lie.”

To those who live in the alternate reality of online gaming:
“Who cares if your ‘Warcraft’ wife is really a dude – if it’s good, don’t check under the hood,” Brad says.

And my personal favorite, Brad’s advice on why you should not make emergency calls on your cell during a movie:
“It may be a brief interruption — just a few seconds — but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called ‘emergency,’ don’t be so damn selfish.”

The August 2009 Wired magazine with the rest of Brad’s sage tech guidance hits the stands July 21, 2009.

Technology and the Web have given the First Amendment freedom-of-speech an upgrade.  Call it Freedom of Speech 2.0 or Freedom of e-Speech.  But there are cyber-nuts out there who try to ruin it.  Let’s exercise our right of free speech and label them e-idiots, and then quit listening to them so they can’t spoil it for the rest of us.

And good example is the MySpace suicide case.  Lori Drew is a 49 year old O’Fallon, Missouri woman who used a fake MySpace page to extract revenge on Megan Meier, a 13 year old girl who supposedly said bad things about her daughter.  She did this by setting up a fake MySpace profile of a 16-year-old male named “Josh Evans” and showed interest in Megan.  Once she got Megan’s attention, she used her Josh avatar to cyber-bully Megan.  The once amorous messages turned harsh and cold saying things like, “You are a bad person and everybody hates you…The world would be a better place without you.”

Megan responded by committing suicide by hanging.   She was taking medicine for depression before this online assault.  My condolences to Megan’s family for their loss.

A jury of her peers found Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor charges.  However, this past week a California judge overturned the conviction because it is constitutionally vague, especially in respect to freedom of speech.

I do not profess to understand the technical legal issues of this case.  And on the surface, one can see how this Lori Drew woman can stand behind the free speech clause.

So I am going to practice my freedom of speech and can call Lori Drew an idiot!  A stupid, stupid, e-IDIOT!  I am not cowering behind a fake online profile, but saying this adult to adult.  You should be ashamed of your self and it is people like you who spoil this great and wonderful liberty for the rest of us.

When our founding fathers forged this great doctrine they knew that with great power comes great responsibility.  I’m sure they did not intend for us to use this freedom to act like a bratty teenager.  But when those of us in adult-land see this type of misuse it behooves us to point it out and then more on.

So enjoy your Freedom of e-Speech, but enjoy it responsibly.