Model Musician

For those who haven't heard of Serj Tankian, he is best known as the front man for one of my favorite bands, System of a Down. I like them for their odd and humorous take on rock, and because they occasionally sprinkle some purpose into their music.

I've known for a while that Serj did a solo album last year, but haven't looked into it until recently. It has a bit more of an agenda than SOAD, but still has the fun feel. Better yet, the music compels people to look into the agenda, which includes Serj's foundation Axis of Justice as well as activism on war, politics, and the US in general.

Two of his initiatives I really like:
1. Abolish the electoral college. (we now have the means for true democracy; lets take advantage)
2. On your tax form you should be able to specify which projects your money will be spent on. e.g. I might allow my taxes to be spent on health care, education (including research), infrastructure, and humanitarian efforts, but NOT on war, nation-building, or other careless spending.

Here are a pair of interviews with Serj:

Good Google Talk

Google recently had Noam Chomsky take questions.
For those outside the fields of AI, Linguistics, Psych, etc., he is a very influential and highly quoted theorist. The talk begins on the topic of universal grammar (which I think is a misleading and utterly useless premise), but quickly(about 16min in) opens to politics, history, culture, and current events (on which, his insights are more useful).

If you can spare an hour, it's worth a watch.
Heres the link so you can go watch it full screen, and it's also embedded below.