The Redeeming Qualities of Greeks

By far, the most surprising pleasure of the evolving summer season is Greeks on the ABC Family Network. The show revolves around Rusty the Freshmen negotiating his way through the ins and outs of rushing a fraternity. Rusty's adventures are impacted by his geekiness and the role his sister plays in one of the school's premier sororities.

Dale, Rusty's abstinent, evangelical electronic engineering major of a roommate is by far one of the most innovative side characters in a long time. My favorite line of his to a fraternity boy he was evangelizing to: "No, David smote the Philistine with a stone, he didn't smoke with the Philistine and get stoned!"

However, the most intriguing thing about Greeks is the subtle exploration of the issue of meritocracy vs. aristocracy and their uneasy co-existence. Meritocracy in Greeks is embodied in the character of Rusty's sister Cassie who plays by the rules and does what it takes to achieve her goals. Aristocracy by Cassie's sorority little sister, and daughter of one of the states Senaors, who posesses a lesser sense of ethics which is driven by a sense of entitlement.

Cassie's boyfriend cheats on her at the beginning of the show with the Senator's daughter, thus setting up the series of subtle conflicts between the two that presumably go on all semester. The conflict culminates in Evan, Cassie's boyfriend, having to ditch Cassie in favor of the Senator's daughter as his date for a benefit with his parents. He does it without hesitation, because of the connections he will help forge for his family. Meanwhile, Cassie the Meritocrat is left on the sidelines because of her ethic of earning everything she has/needs.

Rusty also earns his way to what he wants. He rushes all the fraternities and ends up in the one most laid back, and coincidentally run by his sister, which rewards him with cheers of admiration when he exhibits various skills which benefit the fraternity. He isn't required to conform to any standard, unlike the implied members of the rival fraternity lead by Cassie's new boyfriend.

Pop Culture really hasn't explored issues of class like this since the heydays of the John Waters film.

Smashing Pumpkins Is Still a Heavy Metal Machine

I hope Virgin decides to keep its Festival in Pimilico for the next several years. It will be a welcome replacement for the HFStival and a good place to hear new bands. And this year's show was replete with excellent performances by some of the best bands around. It was a hard choice at first when deciding between this and Lollapalooza in Chicago. I love Chicago, and I love My Morning Jacket. But the Pumpkins weren't playing there this year, and all the other Lollapalooza bands I wanted to see were at Virgin Festival. (oh, and I liked the jokey riding guitar pick logo - very cool post-modern allusion to Preakness.

The atmosphere was free and fun, and as the Washington Post alluded to, there was plently of pot to go around if you're into that. I have always adhered to the South Park philosophy: "There's a time and a place for everyting, and it's called college."

One not-so-new-band that continued to Rock the House was Smashing Pumpkins with a tour de force performance of their new material interspersed with classics from their past CDs. They even hit "Heavy Metal Machine" from their ill-fated Machina/Machines of God concept double albumn. Of the six performances I've seen beginning with the inaugural date on the Siamese Dream tour (more out of luck, than rock knowledge), this was by far the best. The performances were outstanding, and the giant screens focused a lot on Billy's chord-play and Jimmy's stick banging. The fact that it dien't really focus on the bassist or other guitarist reminded me of rumors that D'Arcy and James Iha have not rejoined the band. However, Jimmy is back in despite almost dying of a heroin overdose.

While I got a teasing taste of The Police at Live Earth, their full-on concert rocked from beginning to end, demonstrating why theirs has been one of the most anticipated reunion tours in years. Evey song was played perfectly, and they thrived off the crowd's energy with one of the best performances I've ever scene. And Sting was gracious enough to reintroduce Stuart Copeland and Andy Sommers after their 20 year eclipse by Sting's solo act.

The Beasties of course rocked the house as well, setting up the crowd for the afore mentioned performance. Like the Pumpkins, they performed a variety of classics from each albumn. Unfortunately, they did not perform the always crowd pleasing"Paul Revere". Either that or I was overserved at that time.

Panic At the Disco won thousands of new fans with their performance. Reports of their eleclectic sound are not to be dismissed, and a major reason why you should see them at the next opportunity.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs put on a solid performance, that slowly built the crowd into a frenzy as Karen O crooned all our favorites.

Interpol was good. They may be a good studio band, but they need more festival experience. Not that they didn't rock, but they just didn't seem to connect with the crowd as much as they could have.

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals put on another first rate show and converted me to full on fan. Their music is complex, mellow, funky, and radically fun. Anyone who hasn't checked them out, should definitely do so.

Incubus put on the first great performance I witnessed at the show. Though I got there late due to working on Saturday.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Vindicated

According to Congress Daily/AM, it turns out that it was Congressman Anthony Weiner who caused the ruckus which Congressman Terry went over to discuss with Rep. Jackson. Jackson, being completely in the right and not understanding why Rep. Terry was confronting him, reacted in a very natural way. Mr. Rothman of New Jersey made sure nothing untoward happened that night, and Lee Terry later apologized to Jesse Jackson, Jr.

As a native Chicago Southsider, I'm proud of him for standing up for himself in the manner in which he did.

Though I still like the Cat in the Hat pic vs. the Karate pic.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (in Congress)

Congressmen Lee Terry vs Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr.!!!

Nebraska's Second District Rep. Lee Terry went toe-to-toe with Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL). I guess you can take the boy out of the South Side of Chicago . . .



Terry and Jackson

Hat tip to Leavenworth Street for the below post which I blatantly stole (but at least I admit it).

And by toe-to-toe, we don’t mean they argued their positions – we mean they nearly came to fisticuffs off the House floor.

Apparently House Republicans have been using delaying tactics on some bills that have come through lately and the Democrat House Leader decided to take action against it. The Dems say they had a deal, the GOP said they’re being railroaded. (Lawmakers Shout Across House Floor Over Kids Health Spending Bill - FOXNews - 8/1/07.)

So, according to Congressional Quarterly, it went like this:

The dustup nearly touched off a fight between two members. Profanity flew after Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., yelled out that Republicans "can’t be trusted." "Shut up," Lee Terry, R-Neb., shot back. The two squared off later, and Terry said Jackson used the F-word repeatedly and invited him to "step outside" the chamber. They didn’t, thanks in part to a third lawmaker who separated them.
Now we’re not saying that Lee would have gotten his butt kicked – ok maybe we are. I mean, check out these pics on Jackson Jr.’s freaking campaign website! He’s apparently some kind of Kung-Fu grand-master, and he has pics of him breaking this little guy’s jaw!



But I’ll tell you this: Lee Terry may only be 5’7” (5’10” with the hair) and 190 lbs dripping wet, but he’s scrappy. He’d be in there biting ankles and gouging eyes. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

So there’s your new campaign slogan: “Lee Terry: Fighting (literally) for Nebraska”.

(Come back to Leavenworth Street as we update.)

[Update: Congressman "Fightin'" Lee Terry's office responded to Leavenworth Street that Terry decided not to "go outside" with Congressman Jackson (good choice), and that today they shook hands and decided to put it behind them. (No word on whether it was one of those handshakes where each of them grips really hard and tries to crush the other guy's hand.)

Apparently some other Members suggested they have a Smack Down for Charity. Lee (again, wisely) declined.]

[Update 10:00 PM 8/1/07: Well, how about the OWH and Washington Post reporting on this story and BOTH referring to the Jesse Jackson Jr. karate pics. And the Post even using the Kung Fu term, just like Leavenworth Street. And the OWH using the exact same photo as Leavenworth Street. How about that? And not a single hat-tip to Leavenworth Street. It's all flattery, right? Right?]

Will Traveler's Painting That Reveals All

I found a copy of the painting that Will Traveler stole from the Drexler Museum. The copy I found is a giant mural on the landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors of the U.S. Capitol, and it depicts the Continental Congress at work.

The central figure (by which I mean the one in the center) in the painting is holding up 4 fingers, which must relate to the 4th Branch which seems to be the central conspiracy/mystery of the Traveller series. There likely is some historical reason for the 4 fingers,e.g. casting proxy votes for other colonial/patriot delegates to the Constitutional Convention, but that's not relevant for our purposes.

Oh, and Robert E. Lee's war horse was named Traveller. Since he was a leader of the Rebellion Against the Union, maybe this means that the 4th Branch is in rebellion against the current government.

I'm So Tired of The Hillary/Obama Discussion

Of course Hillary will beat Obama. She has the institution behind her, the political savvy gained from being one of the top 100 lawyers in the nation (so designated before Bill became President), serving on corporate boards and being First Counsel to a United States President. The Clinton's also have a knack for destroying their enemies. As their close friend and campaign manager James Carville puts it "When you're enemy is drowning, you don't just let him, you throw the sum bitch an anchor."

And there is no way in Hell the ticket will be Hillary-Obama. She will not pick her political rival and reward him for her attacks while she looks over her story. She will pick a minority though, and it won't be Bill Richardson either. That would just alienate the black vote completely and demonstrate to African-Americans that the Democrats take their votes for granted.

No, it will be Harold Ford, Jr. He is currently the head of the DLC, which will give Hillary cover after she runs far enough left to get the nomination. Harold Ford also has run a statewide campaign and knows its rigors. He also likely feels cheated by the race-baiting ad and therefore likely to work harder for the ticket since he has no other political office to fall back upon, unlike both Hillary and Obama.

Mr. Ford has the charm, savvy, political background and past positions to make him an ideal VP Nominee. And I predict he will be.

USA: Master of the Summer Season

USA Network has moved aggrerssively over the past few years to capitalize on the "summer season" for television, during which the major networks priarily run ru-runs of thei existising programming.

Check out all of these programs which are all well written and well acted:

Burn Notice (Thursday)
Psyche ( (Friday)
Monk (Friday)
The 4000(Sunday)
The Dead Zone (Sunday)

These are all exceptional shows, some of which have won emmy's Obviously Burn Notice and the 4400 are my favorites of those above, since they involved conspiracies, etc. Burn Notice expertly handles the tedium of what a spy really does duing inner monologueo ver the dos and don'ts of spycraft in teh form of a lecture. This show obvisously caters to our collective yearning to learn what our spy agencies are up to while the rest us of live in sweet bliss

The 4400
The 4400 is interesteting because it's gone all meta on us this season. First The 4400 were sent collected along the timeline, given powers through genetic engineering (or some type of synaptic manipulation) and sent back to prevent and unspecified disaster for the human race. However, last season primarily was about Isabel Tyler who was a special arrival on earth with special powers and the , and who made the number of returnees officially 4401. Isabel fell under the sway of one of the "the marked" and became convinced her purpose was to eliminate the 4400. To this end she cooperated with the former head of NTAC (basically DHS under another name) leaving under a shroud of disgrace for his plan to kill the 4400, only to emerge working for Defense Department Contractors manufactring promycin, the miracle drug that allows anybody to acquire 4400 abiliites. His plan was thwarted when the promycin was acquired by a radical 4400 splinter group called Nova (a reference to the sun as a star) that it begarn being distributed to anyone who asked.

This season began with the implied resurrection of Jason Collier (J.C - Jesus Christ - the messiah's reappearance - only reinforced when we see him emerging from a lake covered in water - evoking the image of Christ's baptism) season is about a group of 10 indviduals from the future who are part of a movement to stop the timeline changes the 4400 were sent back to change. Their faction is satisfied with their existing status quo and don't want any changes because it will wipe out their existence and accomplishments. This is the same faction (presumably) who sent Isabel and are referred to as "The Marked" - as revealed in a 4400's film that claimed to expose the conspiracy before he was "gotten too."

The conspiracy within conspiracy within conspiracy leads one to wonder which is true, which is lie, and which is somewhere in between Gotta love it. Tonight we get to find out whether JC truly is good or whether he is still manipulative and desiring only to accomplish his own ends.

Burn Notice
Burn Notice is about a spy who gets black listed or "burned" and dropped in his homw town with few resources and only two reliable contacts, one of whom is playing double agent for Michael and the FBI. It's a fun romp, with Michael and his motley crew echoing the A-Team, but less formulaic and more interesting because of the ongoing, overreaching story arc ( a la Veronica Mars's first season). I highly Nip/Tuckrecommend it.


Fox and F/X virtually invented the summer season. The first with the summer seasons of Beverly Hills 90210Melsose Place
and latter with the first few seasons of Nip Tuck and Rescue Me, as well as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

TBS has been trying to break into the summer season market with their programs
My Boys

And let's not forget SciFi Network with their summer series' Flash Gordon and Eureka.

Dingell vs. Pelosi

New York Times Story


This week’s National Journal article on the conflict between Chairman Dingell and Speaker Pelosi over the shape of future energy legislation illustrates a point I have long maintained: leadership of small majorities is inherently different than the leadership of large majorities.

Speaker Pelosi has demonstrated that she inherently grasps this concept by adopting the Republican model of using the Committees as an extension of the House Leadership, and bypassing committees entirely when they likely wouldn’t obey leadership’s desires as Republicans did with abortion-related issues and the Energy & Commerce Committee or alternatively creating new Committees to bypass those found troubling a la the new Global Climate panel. Like Speakers Gingrich and Hastert before her, Speaker Pelosi rewards those who fall in line, or need fundraising help, with seats on so-called “A Committees” or “Super A Committees” depending on the party by using the Democratic version of the Republican Steering Committee to dole these seats out. These Committees happen to be: Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Appropriations.

Large majorities, such as those the Democrats enjoyed for approximately 70 years before Gingrich Revolution (give or take a few Congresses), and those enjoyed by Republicans for the 70 years prior than that have a different dynamic. The House Leadership needs to adopt a Laissez-faire attitude towards Committees because the larger the majority, the larger and more numerous the competing party factions it contains, and Leadership needs to spend more time negotiating and finessing the fissures among these factions. This leaves far less time for involvement in policy development per se.

Chairman Dingell hails from “Old Bull” era of large majorities when House Committee Chairmen were all Barons with their Committees as their individual fiefdoms. The new arrangement must be somewhat of a shock to the Committee Chairmen like Dingell who have been around for a while and remember the days of their former glory.

For personal reasons I wish him well in the conflict over the shape of energy legislation.

Snap Review: The Ms. DC Pageant – Few Contestants Knew Anything About DC

Q: How come in a “chocolate city” like DC (apologies to George Clinton), African-American contestants were outnumbered 3:1?
A: Most of them likely came here to try for the Ms. DC crown because they thought it would be easier to win than their own state pageant.

Note: How do I know pageant contestants do this? Ms. America 1990, Debbye Turner, told me in an interview that year that she moved to Missouri to participate in Missouri’s pageant after being runner up in her native state. It was her victory there that qualified her for the Ms. American Pageant, which she won.

Another reason I believe that most of the DC contestants aren’t really from here is that most of them could not answer any questions about DC that were related to their “platforms.” One contestant was asked about a DC institution, musical group, performance group etc which inspired her. Her answer: The Kennedy Center. How completely trite, and it doesn’t even require any knowledge of DC to say that. There are a million things she could have said including HR 57 – the Center for the Preservation of Jazz and Blues – after all, she claimed to be influenced by Jazz and blues in her interview and her talent was vocals.

I’m very pleased that the girl who won, Shayna Rudd, obviously was was familiar with DC and beat the others.

The pro-life contestant, Ashley Ahlquist, came across as borderline racist. Her platform “Providing Positive Solutions for Crisis Pregnancies” basically boils down to tricking poor women who want an abortion into entering a center where she will be lectured to and threatened with eternal damnation. Regardless, her question was along the lines of “How would you make DC safer for women?” Her answer: “I would increase police presence in certain areas” and used the phrase “certain areas” two other times in relation to how more police in “certain areas” would reduce crime. I wonder to which areas this Catholic University student was referring? Hmm. Anyone else care to hazard a guess?

On to the review:
The audience was composed primarily of contestant's family members and supporters, and had a surprisingly low number of drag queens in attendance Though one did seem to have more than a passing acquaintance with the outgoing Miss DC. (Oh for the good old days of Zigfield’s).

I have only this to say about the rest of the interviews: those girls need to learn better grammar, and it would be nice if they bothered to learn a thing or two about our fair city beyond the typical crap any tourist could tell you. (I know, it’s ironic because I sometimes use bad grammar, but my excuse is drunken blogging, not that I don’t know better).

The talent portion was surprisingly trite (including a Mariah Carey song and “All that Jazz” from Chicago) until one of the contestants sang a Porgy & Bess song.

In the Miss Teen DC Pageant, the dramatic readings were powerful. And all of the girls had great poise and posture throughout the show, and the little Princesses (girls 4-12) were of course adorable.

Live Earth Post-Mortem: We Were Only In It For the Music

I forgot to mention in my last post that the scientists playing in Antarctica were surprisingly good, and of course we all love penguins, so their images crossing the screen during the performance produced serotonin unloading among the rocking masses.

Anyway, the most discouraging thing about the concert was that immediaty outside the show, as we walked back to the shuttle buses back to Port Authority, there were no trash cans and loads of litter stacked along barriers or simply on the ground. This was the result of concert goers being given free Sunchips and Dannon Yogurt drinks as they left the show. The willingness of everyone to just blatantly litter after spending the whole day being lectured on the importance of being environmentally correct shows just how serious the concert goers were about the political message.

The products demonstrated by the concerts' sponsors showed how unserious they were about the global climate change message as well. Philips wanted everyone to switch to their new highly efficient, helix-like light bulbs which happen to contain mercury and therefore will only result in worse landfill problems, albeit gradually since the lightbulbs really do last significantly longer. And Democrats in Congress want to mandate that all schools and nursing homes have these mercury filled lightbulbs. If you don't believe me, read the official outline of the bill here.

And Smart, a Mercedes subsidiary showed off their 3-cylinder death bubble. This car, about the same size as the Mini with a bubble top, doesn't look like it could make it over a steep hill, let alone get you anywhere you needed to be in rural America. And you'd likely die in any accident, given the design of the car and the use of light materials to build it. However, my bigger point is that the majority of cars in the U.S. are 6 or 8 cylinders. Even most European cars are at least 4 cylinders. This car can't get you anywhere.

When I asked the company representatives if the car was either flex-fuel or a hybrid, the almost literal response I got was "No. We just want people to change the way they approach driving and then we'll work on those things." They would rather get you to change your behaviour than actually manufacture a car that produces less exhaust through better catlytic converters or other advances in technology.

I was not impressed, and little disgusted. A car that won't be able to do a damn thing on a farm and will kill you in a wreck. What's Mercedes trying to do - kill us and wreck our ag economy?

Live Earth: Snap Reviews

The concert yesterday rocked! Of course it would - the lineup was amazing, but the performances uneven (like me). The only real problem was that the artists only played 4-6 songs each.


The Police - Started off with a strong performance of Roxanne, and then seemed to play the order of their set list from the their 1980s best of albumn. Their solid performance definitely earns them a strong recommendation that you see them at Pimlico for the Virgin Festival on August 4th.

Roger Waters - First time I've seen him perform, and it was excellent. His superb performance of Us and Them seemed to be especially attuned to the current zeitgeist. For the less intelligent in the crowd, he beat them over the head by mixing the final juxtaposiiton of the song and war images with that of President Bush in a flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gave a strong performance out of the gate with a lot of guitar gnashing before going into a new song from their next albumn (Zeigeist, out on Tuesday). Great performances of crowd pleasers Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Today. Based on this performance, I highly recommend you buy tix to their Tuesday show at the 930 Club, and see their August 5th performance at Pimlico during The Virgin Festival, on August 5th.

Bon Jovi - Obviously, the hometown favorite, after all the Meadowlands is actually in New Jersey. Added thousands of new faces that he's rocked at the concert. Ok, he spent his alotted time mostly playing from Slippery When Wet, and seriously rocked the stadium with Dead or Alive , which was one of the highlights of the night. The rumors of a surprise Bruce Springsteen appearance to paly with Bon Jovi proved unfounded. Unfortunately.

Kelly Clarkson - Put on a solid perfomance and really moved the crowd with Since You've Been Gone. Her newer music didn't sound as good.

Akon - Definitely won new fans with his great performance.

Dave Mattews Band - Not as strong as other performances I've seen. Mostly focused on early favorites that seemed to especially please the folks who came up from Virginiga. a surprisingly high number of the much younger fans could sing along to the early favorites too.

Missed John Mayer and Alicia Keys, both to my chagrin. Also missed Melissa Ethridge - a good artist, i just felt like eating instead.

The Problem With Romney

Isn't that he is a born-again converst to social conservativism. The problem isne't even that he is a Mormon. The problem is that he is an inhumane subhuman who intentionally made his Irish setter ride for 12 hours in a carrier on top of the car. He didn't stop to walk the dog for exercise or bathroom purposes and instead let it soil its cage. That is an inhumane act in terms of interaction with dogs. This by itself is a fatal character flaw which should disqualify him from ever occupying the White House.

And not only is what he did inhumane, it is against the law in Massachusetts, where he lived at the time.

For more on this disturbing story, please visit:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1638065,00.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011591.php

Why Illegals Should Not Be Allowed to Become Citizens

Unfortunately, the comprehensive immigration bill died this week - likely for the rest of the Bush Administration. Establishing a path to legalized status is a good idea, but allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens is not. Here's Why:

The right to vote is the only true right anyone possesses in our society. And it is a powerful possession we exercise periodically in order to elect individuals in whom we vest the power to establish the laws (or rules) by which we all agree to live.

People who have shown a willingness to break our laws should not be given the privilege of participating in the process of their creation. For this reason, anyone who entered this country illegally or illegally over stayed their visas in order to remain in America should not be allowed to become citizens. They should be allowed a path to legalized status, but it should be a status below that of current legal permanent residents. Because they were unwilling to obey our laws, they should not be given the privilege of inviting any of their family members to benefit from their illegal behavior with the exception of MINOR children and one spouse.

I also believe that US fellons, except for those convicted of non-violent drug offenses, should be permanently stripped of the franchise for the same basic reason: an unwillingness to obey the laws that exist disqualifies one from participating in the creation of new laws.

The Best Thing Ever!

The upside of bio-genetics - Scientists jave bred cows that give skimmed milk. This is an incredibly efficient way to get skimmed milk, which most people like, and will reduce the amount of operating expenses dairies have to pay. Looks win-win right now. Now all we have to do is eliminate the outdated milk pricing system.


Scientists breed cows that give skimmed milk-News-UK-Science-TimesOnline

WTF? Giant Wild Pigs in the South?

Since this is the second giant boar (both about 1000 pounds) caught and killed in the South, does that meant there is a whole species wandering around down there in wild forests? It also gives credence to the idea that there are stil large, undiscovered mammals even in North American. If these animals can go so long undetected, is it possible that Bigfoot and the Chupacabra actually do exist?

Perhaps wer're only encountering these creatures only now has to do wtih the growth of the human population and destruction of wild habitat. Perhaps.

And the kid that killed it was 11! Dude, what an adventure. I bet there will be few things in his life to top killing this monster. And I especially like the fact the kid is going to get 700-800 pounds of sausage from this, AND have the head mounted.

How they Screwed the Subway Hero

The subway hero is a guy in New York who risked his life to save somebody else. They way I understand it is he jumped down onto the subway tracks to save person having a seizure by pulling them both into a crawl space on the other side of the tracks. A truly selfless act committed in a very selfish city. He is a hero.

Now for the disturbing part which proves that no good deed goes unpunished - This guy has been completely fucked over by everyone who's gotten near him. He lost his job, his time is not his own because he is expected to make so many public appearances, someone screwed him out of the rights to his own life story, he had to pay his own expenses for his trip to Washington. He can barely afford his own legal fees, much less the taxes on the "free" jeeps he got from Chrysler and Deal or No Deal. I feel for him.

Poor Jimmy Carter . . .

The only President worse than him in recent memory is George W. Bush and he's so obsessed with erasing the disaster that was his administration, that he'll attack Bush on anythimg.

Carter's administration has now done the nearly impossible - moved up from worst Presidecny of the post-World War II period to the 2nd worst Presidential Administration since World War II. His administration was an utter disaster from start to finish (anyone else remember singing "Cause Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up teh USA to the tune of the Oscar Mayer weiner song?)

Had Carter the courage in 1979 to have the Marines protect the US Embassy in Iran from the student rioters, there would have been no hostage crisis and it is likely that we would have avoided the series of events that eventually lead to the current War in Iraq because Middle Easterners would have known we meant business The events I refert to specifically are the US support for and arming of Iraq in its 1980-1988 war with Iran, which emboldened Iraq to invade Kuwait in 1990 in order to recoup its financial expenses from that war. However, President H.W. Bush's US Ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, played a "small" part in letting Iraq think that the US wouldn't oppose its Iraq invasion.

That of course led to one well conducted war and over ten years of no-fly zones before the 2nd Iraq War.

Getting back to the main point, had Carter any real courage during his Presidency, these later events would not have happened in the way they did and the Global position of the U.S. would be much enhanced.

All the good works in his post-Presidency can't make upfor his disastrous administration. All he can hope for is to be rated better than W. Bush. I doubt that'll be hard at this point, but he'll never get higher than W.

Is Battlestar Galactica Racist?

The mini-marathon last night got me thinking about this. And I'm not talking about the complex human-cylon relationship - I'm talking about in real American terms. The original series had a much better integrated cast and black characters that were greater parts of the show. Does adding central hispanic and asian characters really make up for the lack of black actors on the show?

Out of the entire human population in the civilian and military fleets, there have only been two black characters. One completely minor, and the other the subject of an entire episode (which exposed Admiral Adama's abandonment of him in Cylon territory previously.

How do we even attempt to measure racism in a science fiction show? Is it just that there weren't that many blacks that escaped Caprica, the colonies and New Caprica? Earth presumably represents the Atlantis-like 13th Colony, and those settlers came from the same places as the other members of the fleet. We know empirically that earth has a diverse racial/ethnic mix (which are meaningless terms outside of politics - biology and genetics have demonstrated that there is more variation within racial groups, than there is between them).

At least the show makes up for the extreme lack of diversity by beginning to address class issues that exist on the fleet and its original (now destroyed) civilzation.

The Downside of Commodifying Your Body

Black-Market Scandal Shakes India's Ban on Organ Sales -

I, and Western Culture illicitly support the commodification of the body in multiple ways. We pay for superior egg and ova, we pay to enhance our physical attributes through such means as breast and calf implants, and we pay to abort unwanted fetuses. (The entire idea that it is an unwated fetus actually comes from the commodification of the body. But we have to support it illicitly to fool ourselves that we don't really commodify the body). We ban the sales of organs, though most of the middle and upper classes oppose this ban and will purchase the organs they need in China or elsewhere.

I also support unfettered capitalism. I support the right to sell any part of my body and patent any gene sequence or protein, prion, bacteria, etc. that is unique to me.

But the intersection of unfettered capitalism and growing commodification of the body, are likely to produce a very ugly period in World History. The poor, often from the poorest nations, will increasingly sell their organs. In a moderate-sized population this could result in the need for many new caretakers for all of the new post-operative complications that will pop up. The poor won't be able to pay for these health care procedures, and the rich, safe continents away won't care.

It's going to get ugly before it gets better,

The Slope Gets a Bit More Slippery

A British clinc recently obtained permission to screen embryos for a COSMETIC defect. Screening features to date have focused on congenital defects. Now this specific cosmetic defect can be screened for, and there likely soon will be other cosmetic defect screening tests.

Once we start doing this, there really is no bright line between cosmetic and athletic/eugenic screening tests. If you have have enough money, you'll be able to create the perfect embryo from the egg and sperm of you and your partner. Even if such procedures are banned here, China and other nations don't share "our" values a and will proceed with such research. Western doctors will look the other way when pregnant women begin showing up for pre-natal care they weren't aware of needing to perform in advance, much the way western doctors treat the side effects of liver transplants on Westerners who receive their new kidneys from Chinese prisoners etc.

It just seems like the the slope is getting steeper. While I may like where it's going, not everyone will. And our society really does not debate the cultural impact of these technologies in a sober, reflective manner.

And as I've mentioned before, once technology like this becomes widely available, those with the money and foresight to jump on it first, my succeed in permanently embedding a social strata alien to America's national DNA.

The Beginnings of Brain Implants & Artificial Intelligence. . .

BBC NEWS | Technology | Mouse brain simulated on computer

This is the first necessary, but not sufficient step towards the creation both of artificial intelligence, but also brain tissue-computer chip interfacing. This last presents the possibility of being able to "download" entire sections of world history, quantum mechanics, or learn a new language relatively effortlessly.

Of course Terminator predicted that AI would spontaneously generate and become a threat to humanity on August 29, 1997. We've made it 10 years past that deadline, and I'm not sure how to feel about the advent of AIs with complex reasoning skills. Its possible that their emergence will cement the current social strata and hinder vertical income movement.

From the BBC article:

US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.
In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.
Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.

Potentially scary stuff. How do our politics catch up with such potential social change? How will the current faux left-right structure be replace by a dominant, shared national ideology that could be effortlessly transmitted to anyone by virtue of a brain-computer automatic "update." How do such advances interact with advances in biotechnology and is there some type of possible synergy.

Looks like 20th Century Science Fiction may eventually become 21st Century science and consumer goods.

Support the Innocence Project

The 200th person innocently sent to death prison was freed this week due to the work of the Innocence Project.

Jerry Miller was cleared because DNA testing proved he couldn’t have committed the crime for which he was accused. An Illinois judge this week exonerated 48, of all charges relating to a brutal 1981 rape after Chicago police tested Miller's DNA against DNA found at the crime scene. The test cleared Miller, who was paroled in 2006 after serving 25 years. As a result of this week’s order, Miller will no longer be required to register as a sex offender.

The work the Innocence Project does is essential in preserving public support for the Death Penalty. The more people freed BEFORE DNA exonerration, the fewer "martyr cases" to rally around by the left.

I am a staunch supporter of the Death Penatly, but it must be applied fairly and appropriately in each case. And I believe that positive DNA evidence should be mandatory in all Death Penalty convictions.

I also believe the Death Penatly should apply to all pre-meditated murders, all violent rapes, and all sexual crimes against children.

Why Republicans Should Like Obama (but not necessarily vote for him)

Barack Obama did well in the debates tonight. That's not why GOPers should like him. Republicans should like him because as a person he represents the type of world in which Republicans want to live (minus the patriarchal oppression of women). He is a true product of the meritocracy. He used his natural abilities to become part of what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the "Natural Aristocracy." He was elected the first African-American head of the Law Review through a competitive process and has been excelling ever since.

He also has spent a significant portion of his life working to improve local communities. While he may persue policy goals Republicans find anathema, he does so honorably and to achieve goals that republicans often share.

In short, he may not be a member of the GOP or support its platform, but his life story is exactly the story Republicans want for everyone. Onward and upward for everyone through competition and commitment to community.

Happy Hour Boycott is on

DHS is officially the new FEMA . . .

. . . in the conspiracy community. Of course this may seem obvious 5 years after 9/11 and the resulting creation of DHS which, of course then became the new FEMA. It only took mainstream media culture (MMC) 5 years to officially catch up. (FEMA had played prominently in conspiracy culture for about 15 years prior to this).

I am of course referring to Jericho's revelation that the Department of Homeland Security is the party culpable for setting off the nukes and creating a new "emergency government."

I guess Rayelan and Theresa (and their associated communities) get it right sometimes.

Alien Abduction is All in Your Head

Belief in reincarnation tied to memory errors - LiveScience - MSNBC.com:

Here's the money quote:

"Past life memories are not the only type of implausible memories that have been studied in this manner. Richard McNally, a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, has found that self-proclaimed alien abductees are also twice as likely to commit source monitoring errors. "

Of course, couldn't the memory loss be caused by the repeated abductions. In statistics that would be called the alternative hypothesis and I doubt anyone tested it here.

CVS Responds to A Mo(u)rning Portrait

As mentioned in a follow-up item to the guy who criticized me for not helping the old man at CVS (which I actually did do), I mentioned that Ms. Uneven called CVS to share her thoughts on the matter.

CVS responded very positively in writing and promised to send someone to the store to make sure that the store was following all CVS customer service guidelines. Someone from their corporate office is going to take this up with all 3 pharmacy techs and the manager.

Even though the individual employees did not display the level of customer service one would hope for, the corporate response is excellent and CVS gets mad kudos from US.

Another U.S. Governor Has UFO Sighting

The first was Jimmy Carter when he was governor of Georgia. Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington says UFOs flew over Phoenix in '97. The money quote:

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people," Symington said Thursday. "I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Symington, who was in his second term as governor of Arizona during the Phoenix Lights incident, recently told a UFO investigator making a documentary that he had kept quiet about his personal close encounter because he didn't want to panic the populace.

The two notable things about this are: (1) Symington is a very credible witness as both a trained pilot and high ranking government official; and (2) fear of panicking the public as a reason to cover up alien contact has become a cultural meme.

In fact, there would have been good cause to believe (2) 60 years ago. The pandemonium caused by the Orson Welles's radio broadcast of War of the Worlds had occured fewer than 10 years before the Roswell crash. Any Eisenhower Administration official involved in the Roswell event would have had this in the forefront of his mind when handling the issue.

Assuming you believe the Roswell events occurred, then there are some very interesting questions. Have we been gradualy accurated to the idea of extraterrestrial biological entities through our popular culture for the past 60 years? If so, how would we react now if the government actually revealed "the truth" about Roswell? Would we behave as our grandparents had in the 1930s, or would we just shrug it off and silently think "I knew it!" Would the government reveal such information to the public before developing weapons to defend ourselves from the new "invasive" species?

The cultural impact of such a governmental revelation, if mishandled, (and is there a correct way to handle it?) COULD be severe. The political consequences range from impeachment of the President and Vice-President whose administration revealed the info (because they hadn't come clean sooner and had covered it up) to a sprawling decades long Congressional investigation. And then there's the potential religious upheavel which is impossible to estimate.

The massive potential chaos caused by such a revelation could reverberate around the globe and result in a global temporary autonomous zone. What an event to live through. It would be almost like living through the Biblical endtimes. Maybe that's why the meme keeps spreading - it simply updates an underlying fear.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Roswell event.

The Revolution Will Be Webcast

A Brave New World of Political Skulduggery? - washingtonpost.com

Finally, politics has embraced our post-modern condition with thr massive dissemination of the Hillary-Obama 1984 ad via (print, tv and web) media in addition to blog and email forwards. The ad is everything good about post-modernism - the mixing of media (video and text), the use of sampling (the reuse of the 1984 Macintosh commercial - aired during that year's superbowl incidentally), superbly crafted subtext(s) (which I go into here using only the video and not the audio) and the ability to spread itself virally. Oh Joy!

Gil Scott Heron was right in that the Revolution will not be televised. It will be brought about by thousands of free spirits creatively using the tools at their disposal to effect massive change. James Carville once made the point that the entire Renaissance was only 1500 people but they changed the world. This ad could herald something similar. I hope it really is the beginning of "citizen political ads" as the MSM has stated. And this WaPo article makes the point that the commercial was made very easily. While it "only" reached a few million of our 300 million citizens, those are the people paying attention early and who will be opinion and grassroots leaders in their communities.

This brings me to a point I haven't made on this blog yet. Namely, that political campaigns belong to the people, not the politicians. Abominations like McCain-Feingold give politicians too much control over the direction of political debate and cultural discourse by limiting who may participate and when they may participate. This is simply the political class's unique version of rent-seeking.

Ads like this show that the barrier to entry for political ads (now that YouTube and its rivals exist) is extremely low and relatively inexpensive. Normal citizens can now make their own advertisements (assuming the FEC doesn't freak out and ban them all) very cheaply and still have impact. What happens now is the question.

Another Nation Admits to Trackg UFOs

Breitbart reports that France has opened its secret UFO files to the public. These files cover 50 years of sitings.

It's fairly interesting that France is the second nation since 2005 to admit to researching UFOs up to the present day. The U.S. Disclosure Project has been trying to accomplish the same thing over here, even though Project Blue Book was officially closed in the late 1960s.

There are really two explanations as to why elite members of these last two nations are pushing to open their nations' respective files:

1) To prove that "there's no there there" and try to dispel the growing cultural belief in alien visitations (Jung would have an interesting take on the UFO phenomena).

2) It is part of the gradual acculturation process that began decades ago with the first alien-human contact during the Eisenhower Administration with the crash at Roswell.

Occam's Razor says that option (1) is more likely. I think I'll go with that one. The second option is too creepy to contemplate in any event.

Of course, we can now get into a conversation about Faction One vs. Faction Two, but we'll leave that for another time.

Hey Asshole - More info on CVS poor service

If you're going to leave a comment, be a (wo)man about it and leave an actual email address for me to respond to your comments and criticisms - and I will respond via email to comments. (Aside from this post) I'm not going to waste my blog space on replying to idiot/self-righteous morons. Unfortunately, some people are too cowardly to leave comments w/o doing it anonymously.

To the asshole who wrote saying I should have helped the old guy at CVS and criticized me for not being a decent human:

The fact is that I am the one who asked her to call the pharmacy tech from the day before, and Ms. Uneven suggested the pharmacy tech call her doctor. Yes, I used some literary license - it is afterall called a "portrait" as opposed to an actual retelling of the event. If you don't understand the difference, look at the differences between James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man vs. his actual biography. There are significant differences. Too bad you're too much of a coward to leave an actual email address to respond to so that we could have a real conversation about this.

For the record, the portrait was of an old man being beaten down by the beauracracy. It wasn't supposed to be a completely true story, just the outlines of a sad one.

Deconstructing the Hillary-Obama 1984 Ad

The Hillary-Obama Ad is a great juxtaposition of the most famous commerical of all time (Apple's initial upstart assault on dominant Microsoft, in turn based on Orwell's 1984) with the dates of the a previous general election and the commercial's first airing (1984) and the next general election 2008. Scroll down to watch the ad.

What happened in the 1984 election? - the Democratic candidate annointed by primogeniture (as only Republicans do), Walter Mondale, had beaten off an insurgent campaign based on new ideas and charisma, Gary Hart, to lose in a disastrous landslide in the 1984 general election (to Ronald Reagan). The visual reference to the 1984 commercial also provides the undertones (subtexts) that Hillary:

(1) Is Big Brother, again enforcing orthodoxy
(2) Again advancing through primogeniture in a party which finds such a process alien to its political DNA and distateful to its (small d) democratic roots.
(3) Will lose disastrously because (1) will produce an result completely in sync with the American People

What could happen in the 2008 election? - The American people, tired of the same (type) of people running the government as those of the last 20 years will pick a new (type?) of politician. It could be Barack Obama, Chuck Hagel, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore and a few others.

The visual statement: "2008 won't be like 1984" provides the undertones (subtexts):

1) It won't be Hillary. She represents the continuity of the political past, not the break from it we're all yearning for.
2) The above-referenced yearning which didn't really exist in 1984 because people were relatively satisified with President Reagan
3) Poses a direct challenge to Hillary (from the Obama campaign based on the logo, but they have denied it).
4) Hillary as recipient of the "two-minute hate" against which true-believers can rebel.

A Mo(u)rning Portrait

At the Waterfrong CVS earlier today (store #1348) , I overheard a distraught elderly gentlman patiently trying to pick up medicine for his wife/daughter (I wasn't paying that much attention). Apparently CVS had misplaced the prescritions he dropped off yesterday so that he could have them today. The CVS technician offered neither to call the doctor (most of which have answering services for emergencies) nor to call the CVS pharmacy tech working yesterday (whom he described well - I've been to that pharmacy before) to find out if she knew if she had misplaced them.

Instead of helping him resolve the issue, she blew him off and shooed him out. When he asked if she would call the doctor about the prescriptions, she said it was unlikely the doc would answer and his best bet would be to come back tomorrow. She also refused to call the accurately-describted pharmacy tech. As he patiently pointed out (if it were ME, I'd be boiling over at this point), he had dropped off the prescriptions Yesterday so he could have them TODAY for his sick loved one. No one should have to wait a day for basic medical treatment because a retail employee is lazy.

Watching him shuffle out of the door has darkened my mood. I hope that missing one day of medication won't harm his loved one's medical treatment. I wish customer service were a bigger priority for CVS pharmacies.

I think I'll transfer my prescriptions to a different branch or find a entirely new pharmacy in my neighborhood - hopefully I can find a locally-owned one.

External Validation Rocks!

"I even saw the lights of the Goodyear blimp, and it read Uneven Steven's a pimp." (With apologies to Ice Cube)

Of course, it WAS an honor to be nominated. I'd like to give a shout out to the Dewey Crew who have been calling me "Big Sexy" for years - you know who you are (of course most of those people have actually partied with me). I'm also grateful for the many votes I received from the DC blogging community. While some of the gracious people in this community know (and have done body shots with) me, not enough of you could possibly know me for me to win this award straight out. But thanks again for (further) external validation.

I won because of the method of voting. Different methods of voting produce different results. There is a whole branch of Rational Choice Political Theory dedicated to the different results that different voting methodologies produce. This is important enough that Democrats and Republicans both have crafted specific rules on legislative issue in hope of engendering their desired result through "democratic" means. Both parties are equally known for using their majority power to structure favorable voting rules for legislation coming to the floor (the acually most important method for determining what public policy will pass the House of Representatives). Both parties had their favorite rules, but the previous Democratic majority was masterful at it in a way that Republican never were. We'll have to see how this Democratic majority fairs

Being the second or third choice for most people when you're able to cast four per person means that you can be nobody's favorite and still win. This raises significant issues as to whether someone coming in first in such a contest (e.g., myself) is actually the democratic choice. In some sense the only contestant that can claim to be the "true" democratic choice is the "Condorcet winner", the one that beats EVERY other option in a head-to-head competition. I likely would not since I don't know enough of you.

All of that said, I DO APPRECIATE THE VOTES.

- US

Oh C'Mon, typical incompetence is not a conspiracy

Apparently, Mayor Nagin Suspects a plot To keep blacks away from New Orleans. Apparently it's all part of some plot by evil Republicans (or whichever party is now the party of racists - it used by the Dems until Nixon's Southern Strategy) to use natural disasters to disperse populations to benefit their party. Doubtful.

(ed - but Hurricane Katrina really did vastly redistribute hundreds of thousands of poor people who had never left their home neighborhoods, let alone towns. Many of them won't be coming back. But the lack of federal help (i.e., tax expenditures) in bringing these people back to New Orleans doesn't make it a conspiracy)

The government is generally very bad at big things (like this), and very good at little things (actually processing Social Security checks etc.). And I doubt the folks that brought us the Iraq War (complete with flower offering children), the ham-handed firings of the US Attorneys, and Plamegate could really get away with something like this.

Bad things happen. There's not always an invisible hand (except in capitalism) no matter how much we want the bad things to be CAUSED so that we have someone/thing to rail against.

A True Conspiracy? Did RFK Really Kill Marilyn?

FBI file links Kennedy to Monroe's death - World - smh.com.au

According to this articlte, the FBI had an ACTUAL FILE about RFK's role in inducing Marilyne Monroe's suicide. Even more, it was buried for DECADES as a classified document that detailed RKF's on and off again sexual relationship w/ Norma Jean. Apparently, it even conjectures that RFK had her killed when she realized he had no intention of divorcing his wife and marrying her.

Of course, this is a Kennedy Hater's dream.

Taegan Goddard Describes My Life

This describes a lot of my life w/ a few caveats. I really like to read Political Wire before the WaPo or NYT, and having a dual-tuner TiVo means never having to get out of bed to tape anything on Sunday. Plus, the PBS and local weekend political shows are always worth watching. I'm also pretty much over Prime Minister's question hour until there's a new PM (though that's just a matter of taste and I think we should require something similar of our President(s).


Instructions for becoming a political junkie, courtesy of Political Insider. (Required reading for college students and budding politicos).

But enough about me.

The routine of one obsessed political junkie:

DAILY TASKS: Wake up. Check Drudge. Read the NYT and WaPo. Check Political Wire, the hotline blog, politico.com, the AP wire, the Reuters political wire, and MSNBC.com. Read ABC's The Note when it arrives in my inbox, around 10am. Throughout the day, check Drudge at least once an hour, check Political Wire a few times, check the hotline blog every hour or two. Once or twice a day, read Wonkette, Political Insider, potomacflacks.com, cqpolitics.com, HuffingtonPost, and TVNewser. Watch Hardball at 5pm or 7pm. During commercials, check in on Sit Room.

MUST READS: Everything by Howard Fineman (Newsweek). Almost everything by George Will. Everything by David Yepsen and Tom Beaumont (DM Register). Everything written by Mike Allen and Roger Simon (Politico).

TRICKS OF THE TRADE: Keep '08 staff list. Google alert names of spokespeople from campaigns to follow messaging. Check presidential websites weekly.

MONDAYS: Read Dana Milbank's Washington Sketch (WaPo).

TUESDAYS: Read E.J. Dionne's column in the WaPo.

WEDNESDAYS: Read Maureen Dowd and Tom Friedman's NYT columns.

THURSDAYS: Read Novak's column. Read John DiStaso's weekly Union Leader column. Read David Brooks' Thursday NYT column.

FRIDAYS: Read the Time articles that matter. Tivo HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

WEEKEND: Savvy political junkies know that Novak's must read "Inside Report" column is printed on townhall.com on Saturday, a full day before it's available in his syndicated column. Read Maureen Dowd's Sat column in the NYT. Read David Brooks' Sun NYT column. Tivo all three network Sunday talk shows and FNC's Fox News Sunday. Tivo the Chris Matthews Show. Tivo McLaughlin Group and McLaughlin One-on-One. (Sunday recording requires taping shows at the same time). Watch at my leisure on Sunday. Watch C-SPAN's Road to the White House on Sunday night. Fall asleep watching Prime Minister's questions on C-SPAN.

REPEAT

Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery - I'm looking at you Jazz Chill Corner

Jazz Chill Corner decided to repost my 2007 Music Festival listing w/o any type of attribution. You can compare them side by side - a his here and mine here and you'll see they're identical. He couldn't even be bothered to add a few new ones.

Not only does this probably violate my creative commons license, it's just rude not to give credit where it's due. It's called a footnote in academia (or a hat tip in the blogosphere). When I reposted E)'s stoner job search ad and commented on it, I gave her credit because that's appropriate.

While I'm flattered, it'a just not polite to acknowldege my hard work to compile that list (and solicit more info for future updates) or provide a link to the original source.

Gotta Love the Post-Modernism of Robotics Ethics Laws Based on Asimov

The tradition of SciFi writers predicting the future continues and has now advanced from Jules Verne to Isaac Asimov. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes to get to some of the things Heinlein predicted.

That said there is something vaguely creepy about an entire national obsession with robots and the need for a nation to actually have a robotic ethics codes. Even the Europeans are getting in on the act. Though it does make practical sense for nations whose populations are imploding. However, it seems premature to establish robotic ethics at all before any of them pass the Turing test.

The most interesting implications of robotics combined w/limited AI are those related to creating sex robots. And all new successful technology from the VCR to the internet has been driven through its applicability to pornography (and making its use more anonymous). If robots are to become commonplace this is the most profitable place for manufacturers/researchers to start. And regardless of what I think, it's only a matter of time before some company starts doing this. Most likely Korea or Japan due to the population pressures mentioned above (which is getting worse due to the aborting of what would be female children in those cultures - we're actually witnessing cultural suicide, from a detached perspective, it would make an excellent PhD thesis).

The positive aspects the spread of sex robots could virtually eliminate trafficking in women and sexual slavery. This has enormous potential to reduce human rights abuses and vastly improve the lives of women around the world since sexual slavery would become comparatively more expensive.

Of course, despite these positive cultural impacts, the christianists likely will rise up in outraged opposition. I'm sure they'll find some obscure Biblical passage to justify opposing another form of sexual release. More likely however, they'll just trot out the chestnut about Onan. Any literate reader of Scripture would realize his punishment was due to "gaming the system" to keep fucking his sister-in-law - which Hebrew law condoned in order to give her a son, but which activity would have to stop once she became pregnant - not for having sex that didn't result in conception (even the Song of Songs praises sexuality) which as become the justification for opposing birth control etc.

Does it matter what the Pope thinks about Biotech?

Obviously the Pope's opinion is wrong, especially his comments on artificical insemination for infertile couples (doesn't that go against God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" - of course people like Benedict don't really use logic). Additionally, the Pope is wrong and Andrew Sullivan right on gay marriage - if you're pro-marriage you allow gays to have civil union because it would provide the same social benefits to and from these couples that married people receive.

But does it even matter that he has an opinion? He is not the head of Christendom, only Catholicism (which recently has been seeking to reconcile with many of the protestant denominations). Aside from Catholics and christianists, do we even care?Most Europeans seem to ignore him. And what about the Chinese who have no cultural connection to the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)? It's unlikely they would respond to his opinion either.

Additionally, the entire protestant movement was based on the idea that the Catholic church was too dogmatic and didn't allow others to interpret Christianity as they saw fit. So there's really no reason for him to pay much attention to him since the Anglican Church, to which I belong, does not agree with him.

Designer Babies in the UK

At the end of the day I completely support this. The individual and social benefits to eliminating genetic diseases such as diabetes, parkinsons, alcholism etc. are enormous.

I'd love to have my future children partially designed to eliminate hereditary diseases. That's a no brainer.

Unintended Social Consequences & Controversies of This Technology

Would I use this technology to enhance their intelligence and athletic ability - of course, what responsible parent wouldn't want their child to have every possible advantage. This is more controversial because thousands(millions?) of individuals making individual decisions for similar reasons can cause an unintential social movement. Such genetic enhancement runs counter to our American ideals of fair play (witness our laws against performance enhancing drugs for athletes).

What about the ethics of deleting a gay gene, deaf gene or genes that make you fat? Parts of our society would do this without blinking. But other parts of our society(beyond the christianists) will have severe issues with this? E.g., won't deaf culture die out and should it (which is a huge issue)?

Depending on how far such technology progresses, it also has has the potential to cement the position of those at the top and eliminatig the eternal goal of meritocracy and social mobility. Without the last two, our Democratic-Capitalist society will eventually collapse due to revolts and possible revolutions - they'll be slow in coming, but they'll come. And it won't just be our nation, it will occur in other nation where the same technology is available and utilized.

Biological Data Storage

How cool is this? Using artificial DNA to store information in bacteria is just brilliant and potentially will lead to faster computer processors, and EMP-proof data storage for corporations. Someone's going to figure how to make a lot of money off of this.

For all the potential benefits, it does raise three questions:

(1) What exactly is "artificial DNA," and what are its other potentially malicious uses of which we should be wary?

(2) Can this data be written into creatures beyond bacteria? Will I eventually be able to use my dog as a backup storage device? How cool would that be?

(3) Will scientists be able to use this artifical DNA to modify humans? In what way will they choose/be able/forced to do so? How far away is this?

Anyway, just things to consider. Still doesnt' change the coolness factor.

Of Course the Government Abused Its Power

Another name for Big Government Conservativism is Fascism and we're rapidly sliding down that slope. Fortunately, American-style fascism hasn't made "the trains run on time" (witness Katrina, Walter Reed, Iraq), so America likely will survive and recover from the latest assault on the Bill of Rights.

I'm shocked, shocked the FBI is abusing the powers granted to in the abomination known by the Orwellian name "The Patriot Act." Most of the extreme provisions in this bill should have been allowed to sunset per the originial law. However Congress, and especially the spineless Democrats raised few objections to expanding to renewing these provisions and only eliminate some of them.

And now the government is attempting to resurrect the Total Information Awareness system. Of course this time they're getting the private sector to do it for them so they contract for the services instead. [Note: to bring in another of my favorite themes,the original seal for the TIA office prompted many concerns from conspiracy groups about the Masons, Illuminati etc. taking over]. FOr real problems TIA could cause, see here.

Begin Self-Involved Explication

Many of the provisions in the Patriot Act simply gave the FBI the same powers to pursue suspected terrorists that the DEA already possessed for going after potential drug traffickers. On that front these provisions could be considered relatively harmless. One the other hand the War on (Some) Drugs could easily be ended by legalizing most drug consumption, regulating it and putting it in the hands of corporations. This would also result in the defunding of many of the terrorism organizations. I had a really interesting conversation about this at CPAC with a law enforcement officer advocating legalizing drugs for these reasons. For what it's worth, he told me he had a much better reception this year than last.

End Self-Involved Explication.

Shamrock Festival Rocked! RFK Management Blows! DC Police Are Professional

I say the festival rocked because I am no longer there. The management company decided to stop honoring VIP wrist bands for the VIP area (which was not the organizers fault). Like I always do with bad customer service, I asked to speak to the supervisor but was told no. He was only 10 feet away so I walked towards him to straighten everything out. Before I even got to him I was physically assualted by the staff - attempting to break my arm by pushing it up behind my back - and physically threatened further by the staff. The staff also refused to give me their names etc. so that I could file a formal complaint with the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission (who run RFK) and the police. That is unacceptable, but typical cover your ass behavior by the type of uneducated people who work these jobs and realize their in the wrong. (To quote the asshole professor from Real Genius "[they're] laborers ... that's what you get for not having an education").

I was visibly upset by their unwarranted assault and called the police on 911. Someone came very promptly, and I was escorted out of the event. I don't blame the police - they were doing their job and in their situation I would take the management company's word over mine since the management company is also part of DC government. I was very tense and the officers kept commenting on it and asked me to relax as we walked out. They were very professional the whole time and I appreciate their difficult jobs. I also believe that law enforcement at any level is second only to military servicen in terms of noble callings and professions deserving respect. Kudos to the DC police for handling this well.

However, if I were the guys who sponsored the event and the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission stopped honoring the tickets I had sold (as well as vendor passes - many of whom also were barred from the VIP area despite the fact they were supposed to have access), I would stop having Shamrock Fest and Blocktober Fest at RFK. They did not provide acceptable customer service to the festival promoters.

Instead, I would do like the HFStival and do the events at Ravens stadium in Baltimore. In addition to better management, there is more to do around the stadium than at RFK, and it's just a better environment for having a good time than the RFK area. Of course, there will be a new Nationals stadium, so maybe they can do it there in the future.

RFK deserves to close due to poor management and inability to resolve customer service issues. Maybe the DC United (our excellent soccer team that not enough people see) could play at the new stadium too. For a WaPo article that mentions previous management problems at the stadium, click here.I worked in customer service for over five years service is a big thing for me.

Despite all the drama the festival was fun. The Connells aren't quite as good as they were 15 years ago, but still put on a solid show, as did all the Dewey Bands and Kelly Bell. I'm bummed I'm missing DJ AM and Carbon Leaf, but that's what happens for sticking up for yourself with the government (you can't fight city hall). I'm sure they'll both put on excellent performances.

Even a Convicted Pot Smuggler Needs a Job

Hat tip to E:) for this great picture.



And let's face it, the guy is qualified to run a medium size business. I mean managing 120 employees and shipping operations for a $100 million business must take some solid education and management skills. That said, do you really want to hire somebody who may start laundering illegal funds through your company? I don't think that's a good risk consdiering US Zero Tolerance laws Could result in the government seizing the company.

Of course, only in Canada would someone think about something like this.

Sell the book! Sell the book quick!

As a libertarian, I am deeply conflicted about the now-infamous " Beltway Madam", Ms. Debra Palfrey, but think that she should sell her little black book of clients before the courts stop her from doing so. (ed - little black book my ass - the 10,000 names and phone records weigh 46 pounds)

Begin Self-Involved Explication

My main source of internal conflict is that while I support the right to engage in prostitution as a matter of principle, I abhor trafficking in people and sexual slavery. I don't doubt that Ms. Palfrey and people at her level of the sex industry don't buy and sell people to provide sexual services. However, the fact that they exist helps fuels demand for all types of escort services, especially the more downscale ones. Escort services that compete on price (as most services do in our capitalist society - I am pro-capitalist btw) seem more likely to be run by those who engage in sex trafficking.

End Self-Involved Explication

Now that that's over, I really do think that she has the absolute right to publish the book or sell it since it is her property and I am offended the prosecutor is trying to stop it. Simply doing that and embarassing some people is not the same as blackmail and the prosecution should stop pretending that it is. There is no law against embarassing thousands of people simultaneously.

At this point there has mainly been only small comments of titillation that some people will be embarassed. No one yet has really thought through the implications. After all, Brent Wilkes is going to jail for procuring prostitutes for Congressman Duke Cunnigham and others. There likely will be many other lobbyists in there as well, which will present problems for some of them, and not just of the going to jail variety. I'm talking about their personal life fallout.

Many of the people in the book likely procured sexual services for themselves. However, many of the lobbyists in the book will tell their wives/girlfriends/boyfriends that they simply were procuring the escorts for their clients. Many of the significant others will believe this because people who play at the level where it's plausible to hire an escort for a Congressman know how the game works. The problems will come for those who have cheated on their wives in the past and remained together or those who have had past relationship problems that this further contributes to. I feel bad for them

Finally, the publication of this book may result in some resignations from Congress or other scandals on K Street. We can only hope . . .

I got Lollapalooza Tix! I got Lollapalooza Tix!

All 3 days for $60! Limited Pre-sales are THE BEST REASON to sign up for festival email lists and band listservs. Regular tickets for Lollapalooza go on sale next month.

For a list of other upcoming music festivals, see here , which will be updated sporadically.

Oh, and Big Props to Blogger for hosting their party at SXSW this weekend!

2007 Music Festivals (Updated)

Thanks to everyone who helped update the Music Festiva list. As you may know, I put this list together because I have missed too many of them by not knowing their exact dates until it was too late. Some of these are a bit off the beaten path, but should be well worth it.

Again, thanks to everyone who helped update this list. Please Keep 'em coming.


The List So Far

March 9-11 Langerado (Sunrise, CA)
March 9-18 South x Southwest Music Festival (Austin, TX)
March 10 Shamrock Festival 2007 (Washington, DC - RFK Stadium)
March 15 - April 1 Savannah Music Festival
March 23-24 Ultra Music Festival (Montreal, Canada)
April 20-21 Dewey Beach Pop Festival(Rehoboth,DE)
April 27-29 Coachella (Indio, CA)
April 27-29 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (New Orleans, LA)
May 4-6 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
(New Orleans, LA)
June 1-3 Rock am Ring (Germany)
June 1-2 Rock im Ring (Nuremberg, Germany)
June 7-10 Chicago Blues Festival
June 8-10 The Download Festival (Donnington Park, Leceistershire, UK
June 22-24 Glastonbury Festival (U.K.)
June 22-24 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (Booneville, CA)
July 5-7 Essence Music Festival (New Orleans, LA)
July 5-8 Roskilde Festival (Roskilde, Denmark)
July 6-8 Vancouver Island Music Festival.
July 7 Live Earth/Earth Aid (henceforth referred to as Live Earth Aid). (Washington, DC)
July 7 Ozzfest begins
Mid-July Heineken Jammin' Festival (Italy)
July 14-15 Pitchfork Music Festival (Chicago)(lineup TBA 3/16)
July 18-21 10,000 Lakes Festival (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota)
July 19-21 Goodstock (West Virginia)
July 19-22 Festival Internacional de Benicassim (near Valencia, Spain with an excellent line-up)
July 27-30 Eclipe Outdoor Electronic Music Festival (Montreal, Candada)
August (TBA) Burning Man
August 3-5 Lollapallooza (Chicago, IL)
August 8-13 Shambhala (Canada)
August 18-19 V Festival (Hylands Park, Chelmsford & Weston Park, Staffordshire - UK)
August 24-26 Reading and Leeds Festival (U.K.)
August 30 - September 2 Chicago Jazz Festival
September 1-3 Bumbershoot link is to last year's lineup but Rumor is that Kanye West is headlining again. (Washington State)

I have some downtime in August, so I'd love to start at the Eclipse Festival in Montreal end at Bumbershoot in WA and then head home.

I would like for this list to be as comprehensive as possible, so please let me know (and include a link) about festivals left off this list, no matter where they are in the world. Thanks!

Also please let me know if the Pixies or Garbage are playing near you, so I can figure out where I can see them play again. Thanks!

Ok, So Al Gore Didn't Announce (Yet)

Ok, so Gore didn't announce for President at the Oscars the way I predicted. Oh well, sometimes I'm wrong. However, he basically received a nomination speech from Leonardo DiCaprio.

Gore also is nominated for a Nobel Prize. Given the Nobel Committee's recent penchant for including political considerations in its awarding process, Gore likely will win. He also has accumulated enough money in the private sector to jump start a late campaign (similar to the Gingrich strategy).

I believe that Gore will announce for the Presidency shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and will be the nominee.

The Shamrock Festival is Going to Rock!

I love music and music festivals (no surprise to regular readers). The Shamrock Festival is going to ROCK! And let me tell you why.

In the past, the Shamrock and Octoberfest music festivals have been held in Ballston. They generally feature a mix of local talent and VERY popular cover bands such as Mr. Greengenes, Burnt Sienna, Kristen and the Noise, Laura Lea & Trip Fabulous. Love Seed Mama Jump usually plays too - they have an eclectic mix of their excellent original music plus covers. (You know - the typical Dewey Beach bands). Kelly Bell usually plays too and this year features Scott's New Band - a reworking or LRS.

This year is going to be better because it will be at RFK. This will minimize the crowding, but possibly make it bigger. It also is going to have major headliners and a lot of the favorites I mentioned above.

I hope that this eventually supplants the now-defunct HFStival.

Bad Service at Best Buy (Another One for the Best Buy/Ketchum Viewers)

Best Buy's customer service leaves much to be desired - Pay Attention you Best Buy and Ketchum folks still checking out my entries about boycotting Geek Squad for corrupt practices.

Ms. Uneven and I went to two different Best Buy locations last night since both our laptops have crapped out in the past week (My real boycott effort/annoyance is aimed specifically at Geek Squad, and not Best Buy per se). The first location we went to (Best Buy in Potomac Yards off Route One - Store 493) we had to stand in line for 45 minutes just to get some service. And then we had to go to the other Arlington location to get what we needed.

Per the norm, the Pentagon City store (Store 276) was so understaffed we couldn't find anyone to help us. We knew specifically what we wanted (due to the help we received at the Potomac Yards branch), but we couldn't find a sales associate and no one bothered to help us for 20 minutes. Due to this poor service, we walked out only with the new laptop and nothing else despite our intention to purchase a significant dollar amount of periperals.

The fact that customer service is so bad at those locations is a real problem. Best Buy's poor service at that location lost them several hundred dollars in sales from me.

PS - I have over 5 years experience working in retail and customer service. Best Buy needs to take lessons from some of the other retail giants on how to provide good service.

The War at Home is still on!

I'm very excited about this generally. Given the sheer amount of references to/jokes about drugs and premarital sex, I'm surprised the Lifestyle Police have let them stay on the air. BTW - I predicted a while back it would only last one season. I was wrong.

I think the use of the characters performing a monologue against a totally white backdrop is great for demonstrating the inner monologue, as well as for setting future jokes. Very PoMo.

Geek Squad Paranoid of Boycott Effort

Best Buy Executives and Ketchum folks (their PR) firm have been checking out my last post on boycotting Geek Squad all week. Apparently, some folks at Ketchum and Best Buy haven't figured out how to mask their IP addresses from the Stat counter. The Best Buy and Ketchum people spent over an hour on the site. Apparently figuring out how to respond to the original article I linked to and commented on.

Some Circuit City people have been checking it out too. Possibly to figure out how to benefit from this.