How did I live with 2000 songs in my pocket

For Father's day I got a Creative Zen Micro. I had been looking at the Creative products and was ready to pull the trigger on a 30G model, but the wife beat me to it.

Let me say this. How did people live with out having 2000 songs in their pocket? Fortunately, I'd been ripping songs to my PC for a couple of years, so most of the good stuff from my CD collection was on my PC and ready to go. HOnestly it only took a couple of hours to get 1300 songs on my Zen. But these songs were MP3s at 128kps. So, I did so more research and figured I could convert songs to WMA at a lower bitrate and have more songs. So, I used Creative's software to convert over 1850 songs to WMA at 80kps. HOnestly I can't hear the difference and all the audio snobs who tell you your MP3 player should have songs at 160kps or higher and in MP3 are nuts.

You might be able to tell the difference with $300 headphones in a sound proof room, but that's not the reality of listening to your MP3 player.

I can tell you though that with the Creative stock ear buds (which I hate and just bought some mediocre Sennheiser phones from amazon the other day) at 80kps WMA I'm hearing instruments I've never heard before.

Anyway, along with TiVo and Netflix, the multigig MP3 player are the three greatest products of the 21st century.

I can't wait until all our computers are Zen (or iPod) sized devices with Internet access, phone, full MS office sweet all for about $400. Probably about 5 years

Tom Cruise...losing his shit

So, Tom's losing his mind.

The Katie Holmes thing. I really don't care too much about this, but I think Tom's a little careless here. Katie looks at him like a dream. She had a poster of him on her wall growing up for God sake. It would be like if Selma Hayek asked to marry me, it wouldn't matter what she was like in real life. Katie is in love with the image of Tom...this marriage (if it happens) won't last 2 years.

I don't care about what happened on Oprah, he's just a guy in love.

As for the "fight" with Matt Lauer. This is were Tom jumped the shark. Tom "knows the history of psychiatry", but no one else does. Puh-leeze. Tom gets his info from some a Science Fiction writer who started a cult. Hardly seems like robust education. Tom apparently knows that there is no chemical reason for mental issues, wow, I didn't know he had a medical degree.

Do you think Rummy "thinks about Iraq every single day" too?

Rummy apparently not getting the memo on how to lie about Iraq. This truth telling is going to get him in trouble. I mean everyone else who tells the truth gets their patriotism questioned, so how will they destroy his character after he says the insurgency could go on for 12 more years?




He “DOESN”T REMEMBER”? (See below) He’s the freakin Sec of Defense and he can’t remember what he warned the President about as we prepared for war. He’s either a liar or incompetent.

Before the war, Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that Iraqis freed from
Saddam Hussein's rule would greet Americans as liberators. Rumsfeld said Sunday
he gave Bush a list of about 15 things ``that could go terribly, terribly wrong
before the war started.'' He said they included Iraq's oil wells being set
on fire; mass refugees and relocations; blown-up bridges; and a moat of oil
around Baghdad, the capital. Asked if his list included the possibility of
such a strong insurgency, he said: ``I don't remember whether that was on there,
but certainly it was discussed.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5101278,00.html

Novak the Traitor

Isn’t it ironic that the one man who engaged in aiding and abetting the enemy by disclosing the names of US spies is not facing jail time?

I guess it helps when your on the payroll of the White House, no?
Although, Judith Miller has been quite the Bushie Cheerleader too.

Regardless, it is Novak that released the information and the guy who should be facing serious jail time for his treasonous acts. Why does this obvious WH lapdog and a man who put US foreign agents in jeopardy still have a job in the “liberal media”? Why, I ask, Why?



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062700489.html

I've been away from the bloggin'

Have to do some make up posts to catch up...here goes

More Conservative Media Bias

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050704&s=gitlin

It was left to an opinion columnist, the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, not a news reporter, to declare on May 27 that "the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks?"


I used the LexisNexis database to see what major US news organs have reported about deaths of prisoners in US hands since the beginning of 2005. Here are the results. On television: nothing on CBS, one brief mention on NBC, another on ABC. Nothing on CNN, nothing on Fox, nothing on MSNBC. On public television and radio, now under fire from the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for "liberal bias": After Friedman's column appeared, Jim Lehrer cited 100 deaths, considering twenty to be "homicide," and NPR's Talk of the Nation interviewed Amnesty International's William Schulz, who said, "Twenty-seven of those detained by the United States have been ruled to be the victims of homicide by medical examiners." That's it from the broadcasting subversives. Nothing from Time--or Newsweek.

"Entourage" reaches a new level

Do you have the HBO? If not you should get it if only for Entourage. A show that last year was very funny. So far this year, 2 eps in, it's even better.

You're familiar with the concept of "Jumping the Shark", well Sunday's episode of Entourage was the opposite of that. An episode that took the show from good to great. Kevin Dillon and Jeremy Piven are fantastic.

Anyway, if you like the comic gold, tune into HBO tomorrow as they re-run the first two episodes of the season.

Can you guess if this 1950's Russia or 2005 America?

Holding prisoners in perpetuity, without charges, without trial, without access to attorneys, and without basic human rights oversight. No, that’s not Stalin…that’s your President…GO AMERICA…Freedom is on the March…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican senators called on Wednesday for the rights of foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay prison to be legally defined even
as the Bush administration said the inmates could be jailed there "in
perpetuity."
.

Go Howard Dean

YOu want to know why the Democrats have absolutely no power in Washington these days. JUst listen to the whining about Howard Dean being tough on the GOP. That is is his job and apparently the only person in the Democratic party with the balls to do it.

The GOP can lie about Kerry's war record, lie about reasons to go to war, lie about EVERY single thing the Bushies do and by hypocritical about every single issue they discuss, but as soon as Dean calls them on it, the rest of the party abandons him. It's this wimpy behavior that allows the GOP to controll the WH, Senate, House and Supreme Court. It's about damn time the Dems showed some muscle.

Dean called the GOP "a mostly white Christian" party. YEAH? It's not? that's what the GOP tells us every single day and when Dean says it that's a bad thing?

It's almost as if the Dems want to remain powerless for the next 8 years.

Grow up people, this is how the GOP got to where it is. It wasn't about playing nice.

Debt Relief

From what I have heard from people this debt relief is supposed to be a good thing. So, here are my questions.

What happened to the money that was borrowed? Apparently it didn’t go into infrastructure or helping eliminate poverty, AIDS, and a host of other ills that fall upon the poor of these countries. We all know it most likely went to corrupt officials who may or may not still be in power. If they’re not in power, someone just like them most likely is.

So, now they’ve got debt relief, they don’t have to pay back the money they wasted, so how does this help the farmer who lives on $1 a day? Does this trickle down to him? I would guess not. What I envision is the same despots who borrowed the money before, nationalized industry, stole private property, waged tribal and regional wars will continue to squander this goodwill the G8 gives them.

Until these economies have a rule of law, are rid of dictators and have a capitalist incentive (supported by a rule of law) this money does nothing but make the rulers richer.

Am I wrong?

Remember when countries were either "with us or against us" in the fight for freedom?

If you do, how do you reconcile these two items. It should be very troubling for the Bushies that Bush’s two favorite leaders are this guy and the Russian Dictator?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8085619/


Photo of Bush nuzzling with the Prince
http://www.american-buddha.com/fah911.vignettej1.htm

Shameful

Remember when Bush stood on top of the rubble pile and promised more money for First Responders. Well, he lied then. Then, the WH forced the EPA to lie about the safety of the air around the site to rescue workers and New Yorkers…now he won’t even own up to the responsibility to help the people he lied to for the health problems their bravery and the WH lies resulted from.

Appalling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03air.html?

Shameful.

My take on the new Sleater-Kinney album

As Carrie Brownstein alluded to in her recent SPIN interview, you aren't going to hear this CD in the GAP. You won't hear it on the radio either and having lived in their hometown of Portland since they moved from Olympia, I can assure that S-K doesn't even get any love locally. But that's ok, S-K isn't for everyone. Just go to their website these days and the opening chords from the CD hit you as soon as the page loads, be forewarned...turn down your PC Speakers.

After the first listen all I could think of was how hard, no, HEAVY it was. I initially described it to a friend as if the band had only been listening to Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix whle recording it. But upon further listens you realize that it's not all heavy. There are moments were it becomes quiet, but not for long.

I saw SK in Portland last night and it was then that it occurred to me that THIS is Carrie's record. She sings a lot of songs and it just seems to exude her whole attitude. I don't know of the true dynamics of the group, but it would seem that with Corin now being a mom and Janet doing a lot of work with her other band, Quasi, Carrie had more influence in the direction of this ablum. Just my take really. For what it's worth.

Others have called this their best album yet. Well, you'll have a tough time convincing me that "Dig Me Out" will ever be surpassed. Nonetheless, after about 5 complete listens and seeing the songs performed live, this album is in their top 3. That may not seem like much, but when you're the "Best band in America" that's saying something.

it's been a while

I guess nothing to unusually hypocritical going on with the Bushies in the past weeks, and I've been out of town so little time for "the bloggin".

Some random thoughts. purchased Sleater-Kinney's new CD (actually pre-ordered it and it was at my home when I returned from my trip). I've only listened through a couple of times, but I like it. It's different, more "Sonic". Almost like all those listens to Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth finally took over. There is some serious noise on this record, it's not your sister's Coldplay.

You see the S-K Interview in SPIN? Carrie B said (paraphrase) All these new bands sound like Gang of Four if Gang of Four sucked. THAT"S FUNNY.

in the same trip to Amazon.com I purchased LCD Soundsystem and let me tell you, if "Daft PUnk is playing at my house" doesn't get into your head, there is something wrong with that part of your brain that controls "that song in your head". This CD gets better with each listen and it's a recommend for every fan of funk-disco-punk-house.

Newsweek just retelling an old story...

Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.
-----
The reports kept coming: Dec. 30, 2004, "Released Moroccan Guantanamo Detainee Tells Islamist Paper of His Ordeal," reported the Financial Times. "They watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of Koran and throw them in the toilet. ..." said the released prisoner.

----

On Jan. 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times of London, said: "We now know a great deal about what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that the United States has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in U.S. custody under suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practiced by almost every branch of the U.S. military in sites all over the world -- from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
"This is America? While White House lawyers were arguing about what separates torture from legitimate 'coercive interrogation techniques,' the following was taking place: Prisoners were hanged for hours or days from bars or doors in semi-crucifixions; they were repeatedly beaten unconscious, woken and then beaten again for days on end; they were sodomized; they were urinated on, kicked in the head, had their ribs broken, and were subjected to electric shocks.
"Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Koran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members."
---
The New York Times reported on May 1 on the same investigation Newsweek was writing about and interviewed a released Kuwaiti, who spoke of three major hunger strikes, one of them touched off by "guards' handling copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stomped on. A senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology. A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans."

---
Here’s Olberman’s take on the issue: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/\

But, "wacked out liberal" Eric Alterman comes down hard on Newsweek for bad journalism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/

Sullivan Says: Call McClellan’s bluff: http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_05_15_dish_archive.html#111637021330032892

Kill em all

This defies logic: By remaining perfectly still you are being hostile. Orwell is pounding on his casket right now.

"

Accordingly, it was reasonable to believe that the corporal fired on the AIF
after reasonably believing that the individual was committing a hostile act" by
feigning death and subsequently moving his concealed arm.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/05/falluja.marine/index.html

I thought that if the enemy was wounded you were to provide medical treatment to him, not shoot him because he’s not dead yet. Can you IMAGINE THE OUTRAGE if an Iraqi did this to an American solider?

To repeat:

the individual was committing a hostile act" by feigning death

If this is progress...what does failure look like?

Context:

The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last
year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks
that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on
terrorism due to Congress this week.

Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides who were briefed on statistics covering incidents including the bloody school seizure in Russia and violence related to the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.

So, the State Department doesn’t release the report for the first time in 19 years.

THEN, the President is asked at his press conference:

QUESTION: Mr. President, your State Department has reported that terrorist attacks around the world are at an all-time high. If we're winning the war on terrorism, as you say, how do you explain that more people are dying in terrorist attacks on your watch than ever before?

BUSH: Well, we've made the decision to defeat the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face them here at home. And when you engage the terrorists abroad, it causes activity and action.
And we're relentless -- we, America and our coalition partners. We understand the stakes.

BUSH: And they're very high, because there are people still out there that would like to do harm to the American people.
But our strategy is stay on the offense, is to keep the pressure on these people, is to cut off their money and to share intelligence and to find them where they hide.
And we are making good progress. The Al Qaida network that attacked the United States has been severely diminished. We are slowly but surely dismantling that organization.
In the long run, like I said earlier, the way to defeat terror, though, is to spread freedom and democracy. It's really the only way in the long term.
In the short term we'll use our troops and assets and agents to find these people and to protect American. But in the long term, we must defeat the hopelessness that allows them to recruit by spreading freedom and democracy.
But we're making progress.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...injustice

OK, it's been said before, by people smarter than me, but COME ON...Black Sabbath needs to be in the RR HofF. If you're going to put Fleetwood Mac in there and these assorted 60's teeny bopper bands in there, Sabbath needs the nod.

Zeppelin gets credit for "inventing" metal all the time, and I am a huge Zep fan. When I was a kid there were 4 bands and everything else was crap. Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones and the Who and Zeppelin was my favorite. THAT said, Sabbath was more "metal".

Try to imagine, if possible, it's 1970 and you listen to Black Sabbath's first album...oh my God you were scared. There was nothing like that before them. Without Sabbath there is no Metallica, no Megadeth, no Anthrax, Slayer, etc, etc, etc.

For inventing what we've come to know as Metal...the class of 2006 should include Black Sabbath.

Tom DeLay...Criminal?...hypocrite and supporter of brutal regimes for SURE...here is the PHOTO evidence

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1054968,00.html?cnn=yes

CAN the GOP types go ONE freakin day without proving your hypocrisy?

More Hypocrisy

I was reading in BusinessWeek (and I can't access link w/o subscription...sorry) about how the Dems are going to try to apply the Schiavo Law to everyone. Their reasoning, if Schiavo has the Constitutional Right to State funded health care....EVERYONE else does too.

Most believe the law would be ruled Unconstitutional, but it's an interesting move by the Dems.

The sad part is that why Jeb Bush tried to move heaven and earth to involve himself in the Schiavo case, Bush has proposed a Hard Cap on what the state pays to keep someone alive. So, I guess you only get Jebs attention, if you can help him and his brother politically.