Frank Zappa on Crossfire in 1986, from a forgotten age where a right-wing Republican administration was leading a sideshow persecution of pointless, stupid social issues to distract from egregious displays of imperial hubris abroad. Zappa mentions at point that we're heading for a "fascist theocracy". Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Thank God we nipped that in the bud. Thanks to elthar for the link.
Quote of the day goes to Richard Stamp:
Richard Stamp, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Foundation, which filed briefs supporting the government in the case, called the ruling a "disappointment" and an example of judges "clearly making it up as they go along."
...
Mr. Stamp also said he believed the court "has set itself up against both the Congress and the president" by rejecting a law passed last year that stripped the Supreme Court over jurisdiction over appeals by Guantánamo inmates.
The terrorists have now officially won. What is with this so-called "supreme" court being against not just Congress, but the President.. acting almost like some sort of "check" to their power. Who do they think they are? Who gave them that right? It's almost like it was set up that way, but I don't remember an Executive Order from Bush decreeing anything like that, do you? I didn't think so. We need to dissolve this rogue "third pillar" of the government before it threatens to "balance" Bush's authority entirely!
I know I'm probably ignoring a vast and colorful history in saying this, but I think the flag-burning amendment is possibly the dumbest thing I've seen congress do in a while (with the possible exception of the various attempts at "marriage protection"), and it's a little frightening to me that it made it as far as the Senate, much less a narrow defeat. As far as I'm concerned, support for this amendment should be considered a litmus test for crippling retardation.
So, you will not be surprised to learn that I am glad it was defeated. Flag-burning party at my place? No? Well, okay.
Amanda and I saw District B-13 last night at the Belcourt. Do yourself a favor and check out this movie. It's a lot of fun.
It's being billed as science fiction for some reason, even though it's not, really -- I guess maybe because it's in the future, and Luc Besson wrote it. It's basically just a fun 85-minute action movie. It stars David Belle, a guy I have blogged about before -- he's the founder (more or less) of "Parkour", which is features in several scenes in the movie. In fact, I didn't know it at the time, but the movie clips I linked to in that post, including the screencap, are actually from District B-13, which I guess was released France years ago.
UPDATE: Trailer below:
I had heard people sing the praises of JB Weld in the past, but I had never had occasion to use it .. until last week.
Boring car stuff below:
So, Oleg is going to sell me a Canon D30, which means I'll be diving headlong in to the world of DSLRs. However I still needed to dig up a lens.. Luckily, a friend of mine generously offered to send me his Canon EOS 650 for basically the cost of shipping, and I received it this week.
The lens is a basic zoom: 35-70mm 1:3.5-4.5. Since I'm impatient, while waiting for the D30, I've been taking the EOS 650 out and taking some pictures on actual film. The highlights (as such) are here. Taking pictures without instant feedback is hard.
Also, I just realized that the roll of film I dropped off at Wal-greens had 36 pictures but there are only 22 on the CD I got back. Buh?
Aaron finally got off his lazy duff and posted these pictures of Will and assorted fools, yours truly included, which are, in a word: completely totally freaking awesome.
I probably should not have looked at them before bed. Check out the fluffy clouds in the background. Pretty nice. I am guessing that Steve took this picture? Nice work.
So, while I was waiting for my server to rebuild, I was wandering downtown and some kids stopped me to give me a flyer: apparently Harold Ford was speaking in a few hours. So, I went down there to check it out. Man, what a tool. I mean, don't get me wrong -- I am gonna vote for the guy. But, honestly, people: for the party that is ostensibly representing a progressive movement in this country, I was not impressed.
First, there's Lincoln Davis, who introduces Ford by first going off on some sort of awkward, deranged rant about Republican accusations that Democrats "cut and run". If Democrats had been in charge during [some unpopular war], we would have won, dagnabbit! We wanted to stay and fight! And we all know that Vietnam was Eisenhower's fault .. or something. Honestly I couldn't follow it well, because the grasp on history seemed a little tenuous and, well, inconsequential. I think he even mentioned the War of 1812. WTF?
So, anyways, then Ford comes out, and kisses Henry's ass for a while and then gives a very brief speech. Ford is a very good public speaker -- very charismatic, likeable, and well-spoken. It's too bad a lot of it is wasted on such crap. First of all, he cited Andrew Jackson as the ideal model for the Democratic party several times -- i.e., "that's not the country that Andrew Jackson stood for" (paraphrased) and such. I'm sorry. Did he say "Andrew Jackson"? The same Andrew Jackson that owned slaves? Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson? Seriously?
The crowd loved it, though, and applauded wildly. Maybe slavery and genocide are still progressive issues in Tennessee. Or maybe they just didn't know who Andrew Jackson is.
Hi, I'm Chris. You may remember me from such blogs as .. this one.
My main fileserver drive died. I'll spare you the nerdy details, but my awesome setup saved me a lot of trouble but it also took almost 18 hours. I am not sure if I really won out on that one.
Amanda and I met some friends at Mothership BBQ this afternoon, and saw a bunch of other bloggers, including Sarcastro, who was Live-blogging the affair.
I was pretty impressed by the food. You guys know me, and you all know I'm a dick. If it sucked, I'd say so, but the hype isn't just blogger-circle-jerking. It's pretty good BBQ. I had the pulled pork plate and Amanda had the ribs. The pork was good but I shoulda got the ribs. They were pretty amazing.
Normal blogging will resume around here .. eventually. I promise.
In the meantime, here's something fun for Friday. A couple of songs I dug up from a show that I played a few years ago. It was Daniel Hearn, who I played with in Agent Eight, and his brother, Harvey, along with a drummer, whose name I have regrettably forgotten. I think they were recorded with our fabulous and famous stereo dictaphone duct-taped to a chair. Very high tech. They actually aren't bad, after some heavy normalization and noise-reduction:
Harry And That Girl
Riding Circles
Cool Things