Thursday, September 27, 2007
Get em' Billy
Maybe having Hillarah in there wouldn't be so awful. I still think it's stupid, but Bill is even more entertaining these days, it seems. For a great article on the GOP outrage over the MoveOn.org add, look here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sarah Chang
She is only 25 now, so that or younger when this was performed. Good to see my favorite tenor, Placido Domingo, as conductor as well. Two musical phenoms humbling the hell out of me here:
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friends and Family
So I spent Friday night at my cousin's 30th bday party and then Saturday night playing a gig with friends for a charity event in front of a couple hundred police officers, then went to a friend's 30th bday party later that night. I had a great time doing all of them and, however sappy or cliche it might sound, I can't help by feeling so fortunate for my family and friends.
At my cousin's place, the exception to the rule was when people were not laughing. Old and new stories, off-color jokes, some booze, some food, and...well, love. It's a good way to be.
At my friend's place, I didn't know too many people there and, truthfully, she's more of my brother's friend than mine, but she's a fantastic woman and I was just flattered that I was invited. One of her friends from childhood flew in all the way from Maryland to come to the party (we are in Phoenix, AZ). And, as I was excusing myself for the evening, that same friend had left just prior to go back to Maryland. S (the birthday girl) was in tears, and I've never seen her emotional before. When I asked why she was crying, she just said, "because my best friend left again." It was enough.
I've always been distrustful of people that can't have deep emotional attachments to people, and S isn't one of them. Neither is my cousin, or members of my family, or the many friends I'm fortunate enough to have. It makes us messy, emotional, sometimes impractical, sometimes illogical, flawed, silly, and vulnerable, but human in the best way. And beautiful.
At my cousin's place, the exception to the rule was when people were not laughing. Old and new stories, off-color jokes, some booze, some food, and...well, love. It's a good way to be.
At my friend's place, I didn't know too many people there and, truthfully, she's more of my brother's friend than mine, but she's a fantastic woman and I was just flattered that I was invited. One of her friends from childhood flew in all the way from Maryland to come to the party (we are in Phoenix, AZ). And, as I was excusing myself for the evening, that same friend had left just prior to go back to Maryland. S (the birthday girl) was in tears, and I've never seen her emotional before. When I asked why she was crying, she just said, "because my best friend left again." It was enough.
I've always been distrustful of people that can't have deep emotional attachments to people, and S isn't one of them. Neither is my cousin, or members of my family, or the many friends I'm fortunate enough to have. It makes us messy, emotional, sometimes impractical, sometimes illogical, flawed, silly, and vulnerable, but human in the best way. And beautiful.
French Badass?
Meet Monsieur Chabal. Ireland still beat the French in the Rugby Union World Cup, but France was at least able to make a couple statements as to how seriously they take the sport. They don't like it in the same way as the Aussies or Kiwis do, but who does?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
No Mercy
Saw "No End in Sight" this weekend, the newest documentary about the Iraq war.
It was actually hard to sit through. The level of incompetency could not be captured in this close to two hour film and I can only hope that a documentary series comes out about this failed effort someday so we can have a fuller understanding. What really got me was the part when a former Iraqi general came to our Director of Strategic Policy (an Army Colonel) and said, during the height of the looting and lawlessness immediately after the fall of Baghdad, "I can have 10,000 troops on the street here next week," and it wasn't acted upon. The Colonel wanted to take him up on the offer, mind you, but couldn't get word from Washington. It's a theme throughout. In fact, he found out that the Iraqi Army was disbanded via TV news. Apparently, so did the President.
It would be a failed effort to try to go through all the things in the documentary that makes one cringe, so just go see the thing. Regardless of Party or principle, I find it hard not to call this President the worst that has ever sat at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue in at least 100 years. It actually almost numbs the mind to think of. The damage done by this administration is just too painful to even fathom at this point.
It was actually hard to sit through. The level of incompetency could not be captured in this close to two hour film and I can only hope that a documentary series comes out about this failed effort someday so we can have a fuller understanding. What really got me was the part when a former Iraqi general came to our Director of Strategic Policy (an Army Colonel) and said, during the height of the looting and lawlessness immediately after the fall of Baghdad, "I can have 10,000 troops on the street here next week," and it wasn't acted upon. The Colonel wanted to take him up on the offer, mind you, but couldn't get word from Washington. It's a theme throughout. In fact, he found out that the Iraqi Army was disbanded via TV news. Apparently, so did the President.
It would be a failed effort to try to go through all the things in the documentary that makes one cringe, so just go see the thing. Regardless of Party or principle, I find it hard not to call this President the worst that has ever sat at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue in at least 100 years. It actually almost numbs the mind to think of. The damage done by this administration is just too painful to even fathom at this point.
Radical Moderate?
Andrew Sullivan pointed me to a link that's supposed to compare one with other Liberals and Conservatives to see just how liberal or conservative one is. Go here if interested. I leaned left on their questions, though I was more conservative than Conservatives on a few issues and more liberal than Liberals on others. I'm, apparently, whacko liberal on immigration, middle of the road on gun ownership, anti-authoritarian, but prize loyalty very highly. There were other things too, of course, but this is boring enough as it is.
What surprised me somewhat was their more general assessment in that, in the end, I'm more of a left-leaning moderate on the basics (see graph below). It seems like this invalidates their test somewhat. If I'm far left here and far right there, then I average a moderate? Whatever, it's a simple test. For your amusement:
What surprised me somewhat was their more general assessment in that, in the end, I'm more of a left-leaning moderate on the basics (see graph below). It seems like this invalidates their test somewhat. If I'm far left here and far right there, then I average a moderate? Whatever, it's a simple test. For your amusement:
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Just About Perfect
Andrew Sullivan is at about the best I've ever heard him here. Note that he is not calling W stupid, just self-delusional and (unknowingly) deeply, deeply morally lazy.
I've always thought that the moment one calls President Bush stupid is the second one lets him of the hook. He is not stupid. He is not an irretrievable dolt. He is just lazy in his morals and cowardly in his conscience. He knows, he knows that things are terribly, terribly wrong in Iraq. He knows thousands of people are dying because of his incompetence. He knows it is only becoming worse. He knows all of it and, I would venture to say, feels at least much of it. But he lacks the courage to say "I was wrong." He will leave it to history to decide, leave it to the military to resolve, leave it to God to vindicate him and soothe his conscience, but will never, ever, until the day he dies, take responsibility precisely because it is too painful to admit to.
Bush is a leader, but an awful one. He is a leader that acts like a stressful teenager--put out of the mind all things that might be stressful. Stand aloft the critics, patronize those that disagree, scoff at those who howl, roll one's eyes at criticism as so much banter from the dirty people that "just don't get it." This is the method--juvenile behavior that condescends upon those that he knows are probably right. Selfishly, vainly, cruelly, and recklessly does he continue to wrap himself into a cacoon of happy thoughts of Jesus and vindication and prescience that no one seems to be able to understand but a select few--thus the huddle of sycophants he surrounds himself with.
It's simultaneously sickening and pathetic--beyond lugubrious, beyond rational, beyond Party, and beyond principle. And I say all of this as one who once supported this Iraqi war effort and, perhaps very naively, I think it had a chance. But no more. How anyone of even the slightest conscience can continue along this path of failure and death and insanity with this childish disaster of a leader at the helm is beyond me. To do so only feeds into the hands of the petty "no blood for oil" cliche Left and the just as petty "they hate us for our freedom" cliche Right--not to mention the continued mindless deaths of thousands more.
I don't envy W Bush, though I don't pity him either. LBJ made his mistakes in Vietnam and--though far from fully--accepted and apologized for his error. He retreated from politics, grew his hair out, privately admitted that he "felt the weight of all those dead boys," and it killed him--pretty much literally. But at least he died as a man. I fear, President Bush will die as he is, a self-righteous child.
I've always thought that the moment one calls President Bush stupid is the second one lets him of the hook. He is not stupid. He is not an irretrievable dolt. He is just lazy in his morals and cowardly in his conscience. He knows, he knows that things are terribly, terribly wrong in Iraq. He knows thousands of people are dying because of his incompetence. He knows it is only becoming worse. He knows all of it and, I would venture to say, feels at least much of it. But he lacks the courage to say "I was wrong." He will leave it to history to decide, leave it to the military to resolve, leave it to God to vindicate him and soothe his conscience, but will never, ever, until the day he dies, take responsibility precisely because it is too painful to admit to.
Bush is a leader, but an awful one. He is a leader that acts like a stressful teenager--put out of the mind all things that might be stressful. Stand aloft the critics, patronize those that disagree, scoff at those who howl, roll one's eyes at criticism as so much banter from the dirty people that "just don't get it." This is the method--juvenile behavior that condescends upon those that he knows are probably right. Selfishly, vainly, cruelly, and recklessly does he continue to wrap himself into a cacoon of happy thoughts of Jesus and vindication and prescience that no one seems to be able to understand but a select few--thus the huddle of sycophants he surrounds himself with.
It's simultaneously sickening and pathetic--beyond lugubrious, beyond rational, beyond Party, and beyond principle. And I say all of this as one who once supported this Iraqi war effort and, perhaps very naively, I think it had a chance. But no more. How anyone of even the slightest conscience can continue along this path of failure and death and insanity with this childish disaster of a leader at the helm is beyond me. To do so only feeds into the hands of the petty "no blood for oil" cliche Left and the just as petty "they hate us for our freedom" cliche Right--not to mention the continued mindless deaths of thousands more.
I don't envy W Bush, though I don't pity him either. LBJ made his mistakes in Vietnam and--though far from fully--accepted and apologized for his error. He retreated from politics, grew his hair out, privately admitted that he "felt the weight of all those dead boys," and it killed him--pretty much literally. But at least he died as a man. I fear, President Bush will die as he is, a self-righteous child.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Sex and Conscience
I've always been afraid that this could become my fate. Perhaps I should be more watchful of my behavior.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
New World?
Slashdot actually has a very interesting story linked on their page (not the first time by any stretch, but this one is not pure geek). The end of agriculture as the dominant form of economy is upon us. This is, as Peter Magnusson notes, a change in 10,000 years of history. We in the West might want to think of ourselves as having passed that point some time ago, and it wouldn't be too far off, but still wrong. Until the 1980's agriculture was still the biggest form of wealth creation in the State of California--the richest state in the U.S. It is still a multi-billion dollar industry and will be for as long as we need food to live. But, though agriculture has shaped civilizations for millennia, in this age and for the first time in about 10,000 years, it's not the driving force of our world's economy.
I would still submit that it is the largest form of production and wealth creation, as services produce no wealth--they just pass money around. However, the development would still be silly to dismiss--and though we will likely not live long enough to know how it really effects society in the future--it seems reasonable to say that it will effect society greatly.
We may well have had some tastes of it already without knowing it. Agriculture in general, farming in particular, does force community. Community roads, markets, and water; fair land taxation, trade with neighboring areas. To a point, a reasonable agricultural society compels everyone from the richest to the poorest to take a common interest in, well, the dirt and everything that makes it yield production. In a service economy (and, of course in other modern industrial production), not so much. We still need markets and roads and the like, but we can pick and choose more easily from our modern abundance of options. We don't feel a common, communal suffering or a common success because we aren't nearly as dependent upon each other--or so it seems, anyway.
Perhaps now the emphasis is more upon the abstract as a result--individual liberties, privacy, equal opportunity, etc. since it's just that wide open and there is no true "common good" that is empirically obvious in nature. Perhaps we are now trying to define ourselves more as individuals and less as community members because we recognize the community as almost an abstraction itself. Or, most likely, I just don't know what I'm talking about. Still it's interesting to cerebate about.
I would still submit that it is the largest form of production and wealth creation, as services produce no wealth--they just pass money around. However, the development would still be silly to dismiss--and though we will likely not live long enough to know how it really effects society in the future--it seems reasonable to say that it will effect society greatly.
We may well have had some tastes of it already without knowing it. Agriculture in general, farming in particular, does force community. Community roads, markets, and water; fair land taxation, trade with neighboring areas. To a point, a reasonable agricultural society compels everyone from the richest to the poorest to take a common interest in, well, the dirt and everything that makes it yield production. In a service economy (and, of course in other modern industrial production), not so much. We still need markets and roads and the like, but we can pick and choose more easily from our modern abundance of options. We don't feel a common, communal suffering or a common success because we aren't nearly as dependent upon each other--or so it seems, anyway.
Perhaps now the emphasis is more upon the abstract as a result--individual liberties, privacy, equal opportunity, etc. since it's just that wide open and there is no true "common good" that is empirically obvious in nature. Perhaps we are now trying to define ourselves more as individuals and less as community members because we recognize the community as almost an abstraction itself. Or, most likely, I just don't know what I'm talking about. Still it's interesting to cerebate about.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Ding Dong, the Bitch is Dead
Finally, mercifully, the well-gaped bitch of Bush is gone. Celebrate. The Wall Street Journal issues a ridiculous defense here. Bottom line, the man who facilitated Guantanamo, who said--out loud--that Habeus Corpus wasn't guaranteed in the Constitution before the Senate, that it was a-okay to torture people and wisk people away to foreign prisons with no charges, is gone. Thank Goodness, and let us hope that a new Supreme Court will get us some of our liberties back, because the D's in Congress are too chicken-shit to try, apparently.
Chew your gum, Honey
A lesson in Beauty before Brains or, as I like to call it, my college dating life.
Self-loathing pervs
It has seemingly almost become a requirement to be not just gay, but creepy gay to be in the GOP. Take a look at this dude. And, of course, the Senator supported the defense of marriage act, supported a Constitutional ammendment to ban same-sex marriage, opposed hate crime laws to protect gays, etc. My favorite part of the article:
He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
So be traditionally married and just blow guys in the men's room, that's healthy and protects America. Amazing...
He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
So be traditionally married and just blow guys in the men's room, that's healthy and protects America. Amazing...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
No End in Sight
I really, really, want to see this one. For those in the Phoenix area, it comes out Friday, 7 September at Camelview 5 in Scottsdale. A full theater listing is on their site as well.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Whole Ass
Go ahead and play word games with that. Mr. Rove leaves with the grace we've all grown accustomed to from him here. My favorite quote:
“The dividers, over the last six years,” he said, “have been the Democrats, who have routinely said he was not elected, he’s illegitimate, he’s a liar, he deliberately misled the country.”
Isn't that just precious? Why didn't he just call them poopyfaces while he was at it? And, for the record, I think it's pretty much proven that Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000 (though he certainly did in 2004--that is not disputed). He is a liar. And, he deliberately tries to mislead this country almost every time I hear him speak.
He misled conservatives into thinking he was going to be humble about foreign policy and control spending and the size of the government. He misled liberals into thinking that he would reach out to them--though he doesn't appear to reach out to other conservatives either, so I guess they shouldn't take it personally. He misled the American public day after day after day about the situation on the ground in Iraq. He misled the entire nation into thinking that a Homeland Security department was able to handle disasters and that we were safer.
Sometimes, Karl, a spade really is a spade. Your boy and his administration is a failure--just is. It may hurt, but I wouldn't point the finger at the other guy. Instead, you may well be wise to just bow your head, say goodbye and, most especially, "I'm sorry."
“The dividers, over the last six years,” he said, “have been the Democrats, who have routinely said he was not elected, he’s illegitimate, he’s a liar, he deliberately misled the country.”
Isn't that just precious? Why didn't he just call them poopyfaces while he was at it? And, for the record, I think it's pretty much proven that Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000 (though he certainly did in 2004--that is not disputed). He is a liar. And, he deliberately tries to mislead this country almost every time I hear him speak.
He misled conservatives into thinking he was going to be humble about foreign policy and control spending and the size of the government. He misled liberals into thinking that he would reach out to them--though he doesn't appear to reach out to other conservatives either, so I guess they shouldn't take it personally. He misled the American public day after day after day about the situation on the ground in Iraq. He misled the entire nation into thinking that a Homeland Security department was able to handle disasters and that we were safer.
Sometimes, Karl, a spade really is a spade. Your boy and his administration is a failure--just is. It may hurt, but I wouldn't point the finger at the other guy. Instead, you may well be wise to just bow your head, say goodbye and, most especially, "I'm sorry."
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
My Beloved Montery
Told you this mac is pretty cool. The pictures are not near as sharp in a video, but you will get the idea.
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