The best the GOP has to offer?

This is the best the GOP has to offer? You'd think the Republican nominee for Senate would be at least casually familiar with the 1st Amendment, especially when she's always wrapping herself up in the document.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miwSljJAzqg&feature=player_embedded

Seriously, what is it with the "tea party" candidates. Paladino in NY. You've got the fake Doctor in Rand Paul, The Thug up in Alaska using the military to detain American Journalists on American Soil at public events, California's tough on immigration candidate who employs illegal immigrants, crazy lady in Nevada and the most sad of all, O'Donnell in DE.

Seriously is the the best the GOP has to offer? This group of clowns will be the further undoing of the GOP. At least Rove had the balls to say that about O'Donnell. No Republican can think this is good for the Party.

My (humble) review of "Let the Great World Spin" Colum McCann

I'll start by saying I don't feel qualified to "review" a book like this, don't have the training, the education or well-read enough. I don't even read a lot of Modern fiction, but I've read everything McCann has published, except "Zoli". So, I'm very much a fan of his writing.


Also, I think many of us like to believe we have a book or two in us, especially when you see what passes for writing these days and even more so when you know who gets book deals. I know I've thought, "Maybe I could do this", but then you read a book like "Let the Great World Spin" and realize "I could never do THIS". It's just so well done that it makes you not want to attempt it because you know you could never achieve something like this even if I had the discipline to start and finish the effort.

This book is extremely well-written as are McCann's other books. I've always loved his descriptions of everyday things and scenes, he does in a way that make images so vivid and real but without cliche and in such a manner that you've heard before.

What captured me most about this book was the creative and inventive story-telling. Sometimes the genius of the story-telling made me pause and I had to leave the narrative to contemplete the brilliance of the ideas within the story. To sit up and say "jesus, that's brilliant". I loved the characters, even when I didn't "like" the characters.

It is one of those books where you wish there was more because you enjoyed the journey so much you don't want it to end.

Why I'm still not buying a Kindle

Recently read an article complaining about prices for new eBooks and how publishers had become greedy and were running the risk of putting off adoption. This is a great example.

An electronically delivered eBook costs next to NOTHING to produce, no printing costs, no transportation, virtually zero storage costs (probably less than a penny for server storage space maybe???), yet this book is only 80 cents less than the hardcover book. A book I could later sell and even if I only got a $1 for it I come out ahead.

I don’t buy the idea that I’m going to pay for the privilege of carrying around a Kindle instead of a real book, even if I can carry 25 books on it (how many books do people read at a time anyway?).

Until publishers get less greedy, out of principle I could very well put off my purchase of a Kindle

Cover Songs

I think I rant about this from time to time, but it's apparently important to me.  COVER SONGS.  I love a great cover song and I've been putting together some rules about music in general (10 year statute of limitations for ALL bands for example) for the folks at work, but the Cover song rule is easy. 

MAKE YOUR VERSION OF THE SONG YOUR OWN.

This was brought home most recently in the course of a day in listening to Sirius in the truck.  Exhibit A- Devo's version of "Satisfaction".  Not my favorite cover song, but I"m not a big Devo Devotee (ha) but that song is their own.  it is the epitome of a great cover song.  They made a Stones Classic into their own.  It's recognizable which is part of it, but making it their own ...damn it it sounds like a Devo song.  You know it's Devo, not jsut from the voice, but the whole sound.

Exhibit B- 10,000 Maniacs Doing "Because the night" a near note for note cover indistinguishable from the Patti Smith version.  WHY FREAKING BOTHER?  Is it to prove you can read music and simulate the exact notes and sounds of another artist...NO ONE CARES.  In fact, this version of the song has made hate 10kM since the time I first heard it.  You wanna hear exact copies go listen to Mini Kiss. 

Other great covers that come to mind, that fit my rule above.  Anthrax doing "London" (The Smiths),  "Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson (Eurythmics), Johnny Cash doing "Hurt" , and pretty much any cover song that Dwight Yoakam ever did. And "All along the Watchtower" by Jimi goes without saying (yet, there I said it).

So damn it "artists" don't show us how you can copy another's song exactly, do something with it.  Hell if I was a record company executive I'd never let some of that crap get released...too lazy and a waste of vinyl.

Fox's lies reverberate through ill-informed masses

from a tweet @markos 1/3 think Obama raised taxes. 50% think they stayed the same, only 8% think taxes have gone down. Only 8% are right. http://is.gd/fctct

Change in plans for the right wing fringe...and a chance to give Beck/Palin even more money

Now that the book burning is called off, you can give some more money to multi-millionaires,Beck and Palin as they profit off the deaths of 3000 Americans.


Again, they have MORE than the right to do this, but it's pretty crass and shows what Palin and Beck are really about. Selling the fear they generate to make even more money. Classy. These are the leaders of your party. Good show.


Palin, Beck team up on 9/11 event

(CNN) - After a wildly successful rally on the National Mall, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are teaming up again - but this time for a cost.

The two conservative rock-stars are set to appear together in Alaska on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in an event that costs a minimum of $65 to attend.

"We can count on Glenn to make the night interesting and inspiring, and I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will 'never forget,'" said Palin on her Facebook page earlier this week. "Hope to see you there!"

But in sharp contrast to the free event in Washington last month, tickets to this latest Palin-Beck affair run as high as $225 – a price tag that some Democrats are making hay about given the somber timing of the event.

But Christopher Cox, the Anchorage-based promoter of the event, told the Anchorage Daily News the date is purely coincidental and was originally scheduled for a week earlier.

Trying to figure this out

So according to the right wing fringe, Obama is a Muslim, but 2 years ago he was unfit to be President because of his 20 year relationship with a "crazy, racist" Christian minister.

He's also an idiot, who can't form a sentence without a teleprompter, but he also orchestrated the downfall of Capitalism and the American Republic and instituted an entire new economic system of Socialism in 18 months.

I wish the right wing fringe would stick to a narrative longer than a few minutes. I know it's not confusing to the mental midgets that comprise the unruly mob, but for anyone with a brain it seems a bit disingenuous. Kudos to the puppet masters at Fox for knowing that facts and consistency don't matter in riling up the masses so they have no qualms about being inconsistent...they know their audience isn't that bright.

the Palin/Beck/Gingrich army

i wonder if those on the far right will continue stoking the Anti-islam fires until someone gets murdered. Palin, Newt and the rest should be proud that they can bring out this behavior in their minions.

Sad day in America

While we all know that far right fringe that is running the GOP these days has long since abandondend any sort of adherence to the Constitution (save Amendment #2), but it was shocking to see the hatred expressed over weekend in NYC by the anti-Islamic groups (anti-freedom is more like it). Did it not remind you of protests in the south in the late 1950s? Those times in the fifties are looked back on with shame by most Americans and this anti-muslim/intolerance/abondonment of Bill of Rights rhetoric will also be a source of shame in years to come. But for now, it seems ok that that's even more shameful (Did you know...Gov. Faubus was included among the "Ten Men in the World Most Admired by Americans", according to the Gallup Poll for 1958...per Wikipedia).

Sarah Palin and her ilk will be looked on with the same shame in coming years. Shame on her and shame on Fox news for stirring up this hatred of all Muslims...Shame. Our forefathers, the real Tea Party, are rolling over in their graves right now at this dispicable use of their cause and their name to justify this intolerance.

If only reality was part of the right wing's knowledge base

I know the basic fundamentals of the issue are not known to the right wing nuts, so I thought I do him the service that Sarah Palin’s Facebook posts and Glenn Beck aren’t doing.

Prayers have been going on at this site for nearly a year…

and

The "Ground Zero Mosque" that we have been and will be hearing so much about is not exactly a mosque, nor is it at Ground Zero. Here's why: you can't see Ground Zero -- the former site of the World Trade Center -- from the future site of the Cordoba House.

From 45 Park Place, the former Burlington Coat Factory building that will make way for the Cordoba House, it's two blocks, around a corner, to get to the WTC site. Park Place doesn't lie between the construction site and any mass transit stations, so you would need to go out of your way to have it offend you.

In addition, the building planned for 45 Park Place is a cultural center with a prayer room -- not a single-purpose house of worship for Muslims, which is probably what we should reserve the word "mosque" for. As Haberman also explains, "That it may even be called a mosque is debatable. It is designed as a multi-use complex with a space set aside for prayer -- no minarets, no muezzin calls to prayer blaring onto Park Place."
The 92nd Street Y, on which the Cordoba House is explicitly modeled, has a whole host of Jewish events take place inside of it, but no one calls it a synagogue. There's no good reason why Cordoba House should be misleadingly called a "mosque." I've been guilty of using this word too, in conversation and in writing, but it's inaccurate. Muslims already read the Quran and pray at 45 Park Place, but that does not and will not turn it into a "mosque."
There's one more catch for the opponents of the so-called Ground Zero mosque: by the same logical leap you can call the Cordoba Center a "mosque," you can also call Ground Zero as it already exists a giant, open-air mosque. Muslim prayers are already taking place right on the edge of the construction site, and not for world domination. Families are going there to pray -- for the souls of the dozens of innocent Muslim victims who died on September 11.

White, Straight, Christian Males are apparently the ONLY group in America that has never shown any bias

Just proves again (from the bashing from the right wing nuts) that anyone who is not White, Straight or Male has to "explain" or prove that they will overcome their "inherent bias' in not being Straight, White and Male. Straight White Males (and Christian too) are not asked to prove that they won't favor their own demographic in their rulings, but everyone else is (Can you imagine if a Muslim was nominated for the Supreme Court???). When Sotomayor was being confirmed she had to prove she wasn't biased toward hispanics because of her heritage, while Sam Alito was praised for his Italian heritage during his confirmation.

As we all know Straight White Males have never had any biases in the history of America.

It just shows how this country still believes that straight white and male is the "normal" state of things and anything else MUST be explained.

Why wouldn't a straight judge be biased toward his own sexuality? A question that would NEVER even be asked, but for a gay judge...





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gay judge has proven record of impartiality
ON U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE VAUGHN WALKER
February 09, 2010
Vaughn Walker almost lost his chance to reach the federal bench because of claims that he was anti-gay and hostile to civil rights. Two dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, opposed his nomination because of his alleged "insensitivity" to gays and the poor. His first appointment, from President Ronald Reagan in 1987, stalled out in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
His nomination was renewed by President George H.W. Bush in early 1989.
Back then, Walker struggled to assure skeptical liberals that, as a judge, he could rule with impartiality even though he had represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in its successful effort to prevent an athletic competition in San Francisco from being called the Gay Olympic Games. He was harshly criticized for putting a lien on the home of a gay-games leader who was dying of AIDS. Walker insisted that he was not anti-gay and was only doing his best to serve his client.

Walker also was under fire for his membership in San Francisco's all-male Olympic Club. He resigned during the nomination process, which helped cement his confirmation.
Those who understood the distinct roles of lawyer-advocate and judge recognized that a person of ethics and fidelity to the law could separate his or her personal views and experiences from professional duty.
Today, at age 65, Judge Walker is presiding over the challenge to Proposition 8, which may well determine how quickly gays and lesbians achieve full marriage equality in this country. We now know what Walker never bothered to reveal when he was being castigated as anti-gay: He is gay, which changes neither his legal history nor his fitness for this assignment.
A judge's sexual orientation does not inherently shade his ability to read and interpret the U.S. Constitution with clear-eyed wisdom. Assuming this case advances on appeal, no matter how Walker rules, there almost certainly will be jurists who will need to set aside their religion's teachings - and, quite likely, the impact of their ruling on close friends or even a family member - as they do their utmost to uphold the meaning of the Constitution.
Walker did not think his private life was relevant to his ability to preside with fairness in the Prop. 8 trial. There is nothing in his long and laudable career to suggest otherwise.

Why doesn't the media's love affair with Palin include some actual Journalism?

I know we all just love to her about how the great Alaskan quitter has witty quips about Obama or tells us that the AZ governor has balls (is there a citizen without a radio or tv show in America that gets more positive press than this woman? The right wing media even turned her into hero for being the parent of an unwed teenage mother), but why do we never see any journalism investigating some of her claims?

http://www.politicususa.com/en/palin-steals-500-million

Palin’s Phantom Pipeline Steals $500 Million from Taxpayers

Some of that pesky truth you'll never hear on Fox

Deportations have soared under Obama administration

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38548026

Statistics put together by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University show that more illegal immigrants were removed from the United States during the first nine months of this fiscal year than during the same period in 2008. That is when Republican George W. Bush was in the White House and his administration controlled Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In fact, the number of those ejected from the country between Oct. 1, 2009 and June 30 of this year is nearly twice as much as it was in the same period ending June 30, 2005.

During the first nine months of the fiscal year, TRAC, using Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, figures that 136,714 "criminal aliens'' were deported. That same figure in 2008 was 85,334.

Did you also know that when Brewer first decided the Immigration was going to be her go-to relection issue she DEMANDED Obama send 250 additional troops to the AZ border, Obama responded by sending 524 plus additional border agents. THEN she has continued to have the balls to get on Obama for not doing enough, even though he did TWICE as much as she wanted.

Why does Newt Hate America's religous freedoms and the Constitution?

I know the Former Speaker thinks that Saudi Arabia should be the model for America's policy in re: Religous Tolerance (although I assume their take on Adultery I assume he has less in agreement with), but why does a man who has made a career out of deriding the East Coast Liberals in New York be so concerned about a community center?

HYPOCRISY

I can't wait for the "apology" blaming his words on our stupidity for hearing them

the head of the GOP is a little unclear on what America's been doing in Afghanistan for the past 8 years

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/07/obama-gop-rival-michael-steele-in-hot-water-over-afghanistan-comments-1/1

I can't wait for the retraction where he "apologizes" for everyone being too stupid to actually listen to the words that came out of his mouth and realize that he didn't mean that, but the exact opposite. (I apologize for anyone who misunderstood me...it will go)

Even after he chalks this up to miscommunication, shouldn't the head of the party be better at communicating?

Utilizing the Fox "News" standard for climate analysis

Considering whenever it snows during December in Minneapolis Fox and the rest of the anti-science crowd like to use that to "prove" that global warming is bunk, I'd like to submit the same standard of concrete proof of global warming.

Here in Phoenix, AZ at 9:52AM MST- the temp is 101 degrees. Yesterday's low was 82, the high 110. More of same today, with high of 110 predicted.

Another reason why American don't like Soccer

Adding to my points about how Americans don't like the faking and the falling down that happens way too much in Soccer, I've got to add that referee's have wayyyy too much power. I was watching the Australia-Germany game a few days ago and the AUS star gets a red card on a tackle where he had actually drawn his legs back up in order to avoid contact. Yet, some other time a much more aggressive foul didn't even result in a foul forget about a card. The fact that a referee has unreviewable power to force a team to play a man down at any time is stupid and I don't think Americans like that as if violates a sense of fair play. Aus wasn't going to beat Germany, but playing a man down helped give GER two more goals.

And the red card with all it's inherent power is used too much. ON that same day, Sunday maybe, all three games had a red card. I guess it's one thing to kick a guy out for a flagrant foul, but for his team to play down the rest of the game is too much of a punishment, especially with the subjectivity of what action results in a Red Card.

It's almost like the Republicans have been watching the Democrats on how to screw up politically

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100617/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_bp_s_ally

Imagine the outrage if a Democrat apologized to the head of a foreign company...that was destroying American's property and likelihoods with no end in sight. Idiocy so egregious that even the far right wing of the GOP was outraged at his stupidity.

Although I absolutely love that he claims that the entire world "misconstrued" his words as an apology, even though he used the words "I apologize". He even said he didn't want to live in this country (you know Rush would be spinning it that way).

In classic political apology fashion, he didn't really apologize for what he said or did, but only to those who "misconstrued" his words....ASS

Right Wing Media breaks FOUR YEAR OLD STORY...

Again, one can be against illegal immigration, but I feel I must shed a little truth that you probably won't hear from Fox as it doesn't fit the talking points. 1- The Sherriff quoted is from Pinal County which is NOT a border county, but he has become a poster boy for the right on the issue because the Sheriffs of the border counties don't support the AZ legislature's recent laws, as they believe it does nothing to help them or WORSE harms their efforts at law enforcement. (It's telling that the quote about crime on the border quotes only from a sheriff whose county isn't on the border, no?) 2- The park in the story was closed 4 YES FOUR YEARS AGO. Yet, this headline screams "recent events", otherwise why is it a "news story"??? 3- Violent Crime is AZ is at historic lows: "According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the violent crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 -- the most recent year from which data are available -- than any year since 1983. The property crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 than any year since 1968."
Additionally, "FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade"

Again, people can be against illegal immigration on it's own merits without distorting the reality of the situation. Despite what you may have heard, those of us in Arizona are not locked down in our houses in fear.

It would be nice if both sides had a little more respect for the truth and reality of what's going on here.

Finally, here is a FWS press release clarifying that the Park is NOT closed and points out that violence in the less than .02% of the park (yes 99.98% of park is open) is down significantly since 2006: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/arizona/buenosaires/PDFs/USFWS%20MediaAdvisory%20BorderRefugeRemainsOpen%206%2016%202010.pdf

Seattle cop punches women in face

This story has everything.

This is the kind of solid defending of the public well-being that gives pissed off cops the "justification" to demand your papers in Arizona. Thank God, this officer was protecting the citizenry of Seattle form the scurge of jaywalking.

Chuck will no doubt join with the Union's position on this, he always seems to side with Police Unions when cops are doing something bad like Punching Women or shooting unarmed teenagers. Ironic considering his recent call for the elimination of unions, no? (I remember once in Portland where a cop let a felon get away because he was too fat to stop him and chase him as he ran away from the patrol car WITH handcuffs on. The office who weighed about 300 pounds was vigoursly defended by the union despite his inablity to do a very basic and simple policing task like running.)

Finally, what kind of solid individual punches a women in the face? Is that the kind of mentality you want in a peace officer? It takes a special kind of mindset to punch a women in the face.

It's interesting that the women who "grabbed" his arm is charged with "Assault", yet simply because he wears a badge he gets to punch women in the face. if that had been her boyfriend/husband he'd be in jail right now. Nice hall pass.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/16/police.jaywalker/index.html?hpt=T2