Infrequent Musical Interlude

.. and new artist discovery. For me, anyway. The Knife, a swedish duo, who are a bit left wing and odd, protesting award ceremonies, refusing live performances, wearing masks. Electronic, slightly industrial although this track tends toward the more creepily ambient. They won, best album, best artist, best production, etc at the 2004 Swedish equivilent of the Grammy’s. The song is called Marble House.

A whole new way to plug and play.

All I can say is: Oh. My. #@&#(&@. The OhMiBod can be found on its own website. The video scares me. Truly.

Anyone else here the sounds of San Jose lawyers getting richer?

A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead

This morning’s amusement is provided by YouTube and whoever created this fake moving preview. I give you The Beatles vs. the Zombies. Please put your tray tables in their upright position and secure all liquids.

The Leaning Post and Stealing Coulter's wallet.

The Leaning Post of Washington is something we wish could be a memorable monument like the Tower that stands in Pisa; another pinnacle of the DC skyline. However, all they are doing is leaning towards a more and more biased presentation. I really think they are treading into their own delusional realms of fancy; because this piece seems like a complete contradiction to the rest of the news reports. (or anything not directly from the Bush Administration actually.)

“The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.”

Oh, and if you are of the opinion that Ann Coulter went to far last week in referring to Sen. Edwards as a ‘faggot’; or are annoyed at the fact that she claimed on Fox News that Gay people are not offended by the word: take the time to join in the Human Rights Campaigns action effort to have Universal Press stop syndicating her column. Already two major newspapers have dropped it, and Verizon and other companies have pulled their advertising from her Website.

Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, has some interesting comments on her actions at The Huffington Post. I think he has it exactly right. We can’t change her, but we can stick her in the wallet, and encourage others to get a clue.

“We are never going to change Ann Coulter -- she will always be hateful and ignorant. However her bigotry is big business. It provides a huge revenue stream for Universal Press Syndicate, the largest independent newspaper syndicate in the world. They are betting than Ann's hate will bring more readers to her columns and they will be left out of the fray. Well they bet wrong. Companies cannot be allowed to profit from hate speech and that's exactly what Universal Press Syndicate does.”

IRAQ 101: All America should be reading.

Do you know the different between a Sunni and a Shiite? Well, perhaps everyone wasn’t forced to have a parochial education K through College, but I get very scared when the news media shows demonstrate complete ignorance on the issue.

Mother Jones has the answer, the IRAQ 101 guide. Its not as indepth as I might like, but its certainly more that I would guess most American’s know about the country.

CPAC its own Plague of Madness?

I’m seriously beginning to think someone ought to check all the attendees at the CPAC conference for some contagen. Some kind of republican ‘mad cow’ virus that leads to stupidity.

Blog for our Future reports on Newt Gingrich’s comments from his grande finale address to CPAC attendees by calling for a ‘deep investigation’ into the ‘failure of the citizenship’ in New Orleans.

Here’s his full comments:

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.

This can only bring me to ask ‘What are you smoking, Newt?!’

The Huffington Post’s Harry Shearer responded better than I possibly could, since I was reduced by shock to a mere “WTF?!”:

...the folks in the Ninth Ward weren't caught by a hurricane. They were surprised at 5:30 Monday morning (according to [LSU Hurricane Center co-founder Ivor] Van Heerden's timeline) by an eighteen-foot-high wall of water as their federally built flood protection structure catastrophically failed.

Who's the uneducated one?

Beatings over Pink Pants?

HOBOKEN - A man was followed off a PATH train by two men and brutally beaten in what cops are calling an antigay bias attack.

Police said the incident started on a PATH train at 4:30 a.m. Friday, when two men started taunting a 21-year-old Bayonne man for wearing pink pants.

When the train pulled into the Hoboken station, the two men followed the Bayonne man off the train and up the stairs, then attacked him near a newsstand on the concourse in Hoboken Terminal, police said.

The man required 12 stitches to close facial wounds, police said, adding that he also had a black eye and was temporarily blinded in one eye.

WTF? For crying out loud, if you don’t like the pants, DON’T LOOK AT THEM!

Note to Self: Never have Cam convention in New Jersey. (I can say that, I was born there.)

Suck it up conservative America!

The kiss that rocked the Academy awards.

Then again, not everyone has such a pretty wife. I can also applaud the bipartisan thank you that was even short.

Too funny to be real

A fake bleach blonde country singer girl married to drunken trailer trash nascar loving men? Put it all together and its a rude irreverant laugh with foul language.

That and I spewed coffee on my laptop.

Draft, or write-in campaign?

The Draft Gore folks may have the right idea. After all, we did really elect him in the first place, just that pesky Supreme Court got in the way. But maybe, just maybe they aren’t going far enough. Perhaps instead of a petition to draft him into running, we should just go ahead with a write-in campaign.

If he could be elected in the first place, after all the fiascoes of the past eight years write in aught to be a landslide.

He's eloquent, passionate, relentless, undaunted. The first political figure to oppose the Iraq war, Al Gore is also the lead champion in the fight against global warming, a passionate defender of our Constitution, and an unyielding voice against the Bush Administration's abuse of power.

Given his unmatched experience and leadership on issues of moral imperative, Gore is increasingly seen as Democrats' best bet to win back the White House.

Who can argue with that? Or the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, or an academy award, or just the fact that the man has a sense of humor and his jokes aren’t rude, contrived or lame. Let’s face it, we won’t have to worry about him groping foreign heads of state. Tipper would cut his heart out with a dull spoon. (Although Tipper is an entirely different subject, and if he runs, she has to stay away from the book burning bon-fires or any legislation.)

He jokes on TV about pretending to run, he even does a skit on Saturday Night Live where he does a humorous ‘Presidential’ address. (Watch the clip at Crooks and Liars Video-WMP Video-QT)

I guess the real reason is, as much as I might like Obama and Hillary as the potential Democratic Candidates; I think between them the issue of the hype surrounding being the first potential presidential nominees of their minority might actually do more harm than good. Especially if McCain is the Republican Nominee, he’s enough of a moderate to swing some of the democratic voters. As sad as it is to conclude, because I really would like an African American or Woman President, I’d rather be positive with the ‘good old boy’ appeal.

Even if he is as much of a hypocrite as the rest, supposedly using twice as much electricity in his house in one month than the rest of America uses in a year.

War Corporatism

I like the phrase, penned by this short film explaining some of the results and effects of the Project for a New American Century. Even if the short film is a bit simplistic, leaving much of the scope of their beliefs and plans out of the equation.

Banning freedom of Ideas?

No offense to the Honorable Janet Napolitano, but she can kiss my butt. If you agree with me, and no offense to any readers from Arizona, let the wench know what you think.

Seriously, I enjoyed arguing with teachers, you learn more. You learn to go out in the world and not be a lemming, because you’ve learned to look at the issues and formulate and defend your own position.

I weep for our children, I really do. Hopefully we’ll be lucky and Al’s global warming will put us out of our misery before the future we are creating does.

PHOENIX (AP) -- A proposed state law would prohibit any instructor in a public school or college from advocating or opposing a political candidate or one side of a social, political or cultural issue that is part of a partisan debate

A group of Arizona lawmakers concluded Thursday that classrooms should not be forums for schoolteachers and college professors to espouse political opinions.

Supporters said the measure would let students disagree with instructors without fearing retribution.

However, college students and education advocates worry it would discourage instructors from leading discussions and debates on controversial topics.

As if we weren’t already considered slipping on educational and freedom of the press issues. I feel like I’m living in a V for Vendetta dream.

Religious Migration

A must see short film showing the history of religion in just a bit more than a minute. From so small to so large, its hard to see the impact of a long period of changes, until you look at it in graphical form. Thanks to Maps of War for things of visual interest.

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!