The best America can do is to treat Iran the way it treated South Africa or Communist Eastern Europe, building an international consensus among democracies on isolating them while offering an olive branch to keep local populations yearning for change. Already, America's recent conciliatory stance on Iran, and Iran's aggressive responses, have put us in a stronger diplomatic position. The question is whether Americans can muster the patience to support this kind of policy, or whether we will view it as "weak". The policy itself—isolation, containment, deterrence, offers of friendship if freedom breaks out—is little different from the way America treated the Soviet bloc in the 1980s; Ronald Reagan never called for air strikes on Poland. But in the current political alignment, the temptation for the opposition to slam the president for "losing Iran" if sanctions don't produce quick results may be too strong to resist.
- GAH
Look, either put your money where your mouth is, or shut up, hawks. Either say that you're willing to start World War III, or get off it. Either admit that you'd be fine with the untold number of U.S. Army (and Iranian civilian) casualties we'd incur if we were actually willing to follow through with your implications, or shove it down your war-holes. Weak, my ass. Suit up or SHUT THE FUCK UP, GODDAMMIT. How are we going to afford this aggression anyway? Take healthcare reform and multiply that times a billion and it would roughly be the cost of occupying Afghanistan, Iraq, AND IRAN. And what's more, some of you know that. I'm so sick of hearing this. Growling and waving your dick at a perceived threat is not a way to achieve nuclear surrender. MORONS.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Happy Yom Kippur
My opener from last night's set:
Sha! Shtil!
Shhh! Quiet!
Khor
Sha shtil, makh nit keyn gerider,
Shhh! Quiet, make no noise,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn vider.
The rabbi is going to dance again.
Sha shtil, makh nit keyn gevald,
Be quiet, make no commotion,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn bald.
The rabbi is going to dance soon.
Un az der rebe tantst,
And when the rabbi dances,
Tantsn dokh di vent,
The walls dance with him,
Lomir ale plyeskn mit di hent!
Let's all clap our hands!
Khor
Un az der rebe tantst,
And when the rabbi dances,
Tantst dokh mit der tish,
The table dances along,
Lomir ale tupn mit di fis!
Let's all stamp our feet!
Khor
Un az der rebe zingt dem heylikn nign,
And when the rabbi sings the holy nign,
blaybt der sotn
The evil one remains
a toyter lign.
lying dead.
Hey khsidim,
Hey everybody,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn.
The rabbi is going to dance already.
Hey khsidim,
Hey everybody,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn bald!
The rabbi is going to dance right away!
No, seriously.
Sha! Shtil!
Shhh! Quiet!
Khor
Sha shtil, makh nit keyn gerider,
Shhh! Quiet, make no noise,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn vider.
The rabbi is going to dance again.
Sha shtil, makh nit keyn gevald,
Be quiet, make no commotion,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn bald.
The rabbi is going to dance soon.
Un az der rebe tantst,
And when the rabbi dances,
Tantsn dokh di vent,
The walls dance with him,
Lomir ale plyeskn mit di hent!
Let's all clap our hands!
Khor
Un az der rebe tantst,
And when the rabbi dances,
Tantst dokh mit der tish,
The table dances along,
Lomir ale tupn mit di fis!
Let's all stamp our feet!
Khor
Un az der rebe zingt dem heylikn nign,
And when the rabbi sings the holy nign,
blaybt der sotn
The evil one remains
a toyter lign.
lying dead.
Hey khsidim,
Hey everybody,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn.
The rabbi is going to dance already.
Hey khsidim,
Hey everybody,
Der rebe geyt shoyn tantsn bald!
The rabbi is going to dance right away!
No, seriously.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tom Delay Danced The Gay Out Of Me
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Moral Kombat | ||||
| ||||
That's right, after seeing this, I promptly traded in my sexuality for a copy of A Room of One's Own. Are you happy, GOP?!!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Not Gonna Teach Ya
Two of the best producers in the world hail from Brazil and have a bio you can check here.
The Twelves have just now released a set I'm still absorbing, but it's damned good. It features remixes or reworks of Radiohead, Black Kids, Fever Ray, etc., that are very much worth noting (it's also worth noting that no one on this planet remixes Radiohead better, proof of that here).
At a time when Deejaying has become more digitized, removing certain limitations that might actually make most sets better, The Twelves use the technology as an instrument where others use the instrument as technology. The result is classic disco. Enjoy:
The Twelfth Hour - The Twelves
Methusalem - Robotism
Groove Armada - Drop The Tough (The Twelves Remix)
Glass Candy - Miss Broadway
Daft Punk - Da Funk
DJ Agent 86 - Wavestate
Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control
Gaz Nevada - I-C Love Affair
Phoenix - Lisztomania
Arpadys - Mystery Rock (Vlad Maywad edit)
The Do - On My Shoulders
Zoot Woman - Information First
The Jacksons - Shake your Body
Mr Oizo - Two Takes It
Bushy - Sqezy Soul
Zeigeist - Humanitarianism (The Twelves Remix)
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Sensual Seduction
Juan Maclean - No Time
DJ Agent 86 - Magic
K.I.D. - Hupendi Musiki
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
Siriusmo - Discoding
Dan Hartman - Vertigo / Relight my Fire
Air - Sexy Boy
Fever Ray - Seven (The Twelves Remix)
Pacific - Hot Lips (The Twelves Remix)
Patrick Alavi - Power
Dynasty - I Dont Wanna be a Freak
Metronomy - Radio Ladio
Siriusmo - Last Dear
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
Elitechnique - Spectral Escape
The Virgins - Rich Girls
Black Kids - ...Dance With You (The Twelves Remake)
The Juan Maclean - Happy House
M.I.A. - Boyz
Cut Copy - So Haunted
Space - Magic Fly
PNAU - With You Forever
Eddie Tour - Up The Glitter
Mr. Oizo - Hun
Cerrone - Give Me Love
Mr. Oizo - Steroids (ft. Uffie)
Tiga - Shoes
Kano - It's a War
Daft Punk - Revolution 909
Radiohead - Scatterbrain (The Twelves Remix)
Terry Poison - Comme Ci Comme Ça (The Twelves Remix)
Sebastien Tellier - Sexual Sportswear
Chemical Brothers - It Doesn't
Matter
Database vs. French Horn Rebellion - Beaches and Friends (The Twelves Remix)
The Twelves have just now released a set I'm still absorbing, but it's damned good. It features remixes or reworks of Radiohead, Black Kids, Fever Ray, etc., that are very much worth noting (it's also worth noting that no one on this planet remixes Radiohead better, proof of that here).
At a time when Deejaying has become more digitized, removing certain limitations that might actually make most sets better, The Twelves use the technology as an instrument where others use the instrument as technology. The result is classic disco. Enjoy:
The Twelfth Hour - The Twelves
Methusalem - Robotism
Groove Armada - Drop The Tough (The Twelves Remix)
Glass Candy - Miss Broadway
Daft Punk - Da Funk
DJ Agent 86 - Wavestate
Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control
Gaz Nevada - I-C Love Affair
Phoenix - Lisztomania
Arpadys - Mystery Rock (Vlad Maywad edit)
The Do - On My Shoulders
Zoot Woman - Information First
The Jacksons - Shake your Body
Mr Oizo - Two Takes It
Bushy - Sqezy Soul
Zeigeist - Humanitarianism (The Twelves Remix)
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Sensual Seduction
Juan Maclean - No Time
DJ Agent 86 - Magic
K.I.D. - Hupendi Musiki
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
Siriusmo - Discoding
Dan Hartman - Vertigo / Relight my Fire
Air - Sexy Boy
Fever Ray - Seven (The Twelves Remix)
Pacific - Hot Lips (The Twelves Remix)
Patrick Alavi - Power
Dynasty - I Dont Wanna be a Freak
Metronomy - Radio Ladio
Siriusmo - Last Dear
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
Elitechnique - Spectral Escape
The Virgins - Rich Girls
Black Kids - ...Dance With You (The Twelves Remake)
The Juan Maclean - Happy House
M.I.A. - Boyz
Cut Copy - So Haunted
Space - Magic Fly
PNAU - With You Forever
Eddie Tour - Up The Glitter
Mr. Oizo - Hun
Cerrone - Give Me Love
Mr. Oizo - Steroids (ft. Uffie)
Tiga - Shoes
Kano - It's a War
Daft Punk - Revolution 909
Radiohead - Scatterbrain (The Twelves Remix)
Terry Poison - Comme Ci Comme Ça (The Twelves Remix)
Sebastien Tellier - Sexual Sportswear
Chemical Brothers - It Doesn't
Matter
Database vs. French Horn Rebellion - Beaches and Friends (The Twelves Remix)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Atlas Tugged
...Rand spent her first months in this country subsisting on loans from relatives in Chicago, which she promised to repay lavishly when she struck it rich. (She reneged, never speaking to her Chicago family again.) She also enjoyed the great fortune of breaking into Hollywood at the moment it was exploding in size, and of bumping into DeMille. Many writers equal to her in their talents never got the chance to develop their abilities. That was not because they were bad or delinquent people. They were merely the victims of the commonplace phenomenon that Bernard Williams described as "moral luck."
LOANS?!! Miss Pull-Yourself-Up-From-Your-Own-Communized-Bootstraps? What will your legions say when they hear that? I'm guessing they just WON'T hear that.
From this excellent piece on Ayn Rand.
I'm especially fond of the way Rand used the tools of soviet propaganda to create a movement equally fascistic. I wish I could have lucked into a gig writing adolescent, redundant prose, venerating myself to libertarian nitwits for an eternity. I also like the part where she couldn't get laid until her cult got up and running, and then, imagine that, looks didn't matter.
And that cult is still alive and well today. Christ, and I say this objectively, her books are unbelievable trash.
LOANS?!! Miss Pull-Yourself-Up-From-Your-Own-Communized-Bootstraps? What will your legions say when they hear that? I'm guessing they just WON'T hear that.
From this excellent piece on Ayn Rand.
I'm especially fond of the way Rand used the tools of soviet propaganda to create a movement equally fascistic. I wish I could have lucked into a gig writing adolescent, redundant prose, venerating myself to libertarian nitwits for an eternity. I also like the part where she couldn't get laid until her cult got up and running, and then, imagine that, looks didn't matter.
And that cult is still alive and well today. Christ, and I say this objectively, her books are unbelievable trash.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Send the Injuns Back to Africa
...if there had in fact been 2 million protesters in Washington yesterday, there would have been no need to lie about it -- the magnitude of the protests would have been self-evident. I was in Washington for the inauguration, an event at which there really were almost 2 million people present -- and let me tell you, it was a Holy Mess. Hotels, charging double or treble their usual rates, were booked weeks in advance. Major stations on the Metro system were shut down for hours at a time. The National Guard was brought in. At least 3,000 people got stuck in a tunnel. Essentially the entirely of the National Mall, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, was dotted with onlookers. Heaps of trash were left behind. The entire city was basically a warzone for a period of about 20 hours, from midnight through mid-evening.
- Nate Silver, debunking the ridiculous claim of 2 million tea-party protesters in April
I don't have a problem with seeing numerous reports filled with pictures of racist, stupid signs, and videos of walking, talking mouth-breathing Beckazoid illiterates shambling across the D.C. mall, contributing to the decline in the Republican party's national digits. I don't get upset because these people currently represent a scintilla of our population.
We've always had them, though. Look:
The more things change....
The only time I've gotten mad about it in the past few months was the whole Education Speech debacle. The average American should have more common sense than that, but not below the Mason-Dixon, apparently.
I wish these people would just eschew the word socialism altogether, the actual meaning of which will always escape them. Just use the real words, the real epithets you'd like to use, is all I'd ask.
And as for us lefties, center-lefties, moderates, center-righties, Americans otherwise still nestled cortex-ally within the stubborn grasp of reason, let's not blow this out of proportion, either. Yes, it would be disastrous if these people took congress in a year. But they're not serious people. Their reaction is animal, not rational. It's no different than when actual animals sense an earthquake coming. They know they've lost, and lost big, and they know it instinctively. Aside from it being their right to protest, however insanely, against the president, this may also be a cathartic platform through which some of this old-timey venom and violence might purge itself off, if only by a fraction.
- Nate Silver, debunking the ridiculous claim of 2 million tea-party protesters in April
I don't have a problem with seeing numerous reports filled with pictures of racist, stupid signs, and videos of walking, talking mouth-breathing Beckazoid illiterates shambling across the D.C. mall, contributing to the decline in the Republican party's national digits. I don't get upset because these people currently represent a scintilla of our population.
We've always had them, though. Look:
The more things change....
The only time I've gotten mad about it in the past few months was the whole Education Speech debacle. The average American should have more common sense than that, but not below the Mason-Dixon, apparently.
I wish these people would just eschew the word socialism altogether, the actual meaning of which will always escape them. Just use the real words, the real epithets you'd like to use, is all I'd ask.
And as for us lefties, center-lefties, moderates, center-righties, Americans otherwise still nestled cortex-ally within the stubborn grasp of reason, let's not blow this out of proportion, either. Yes, it would be disastrous if these people took congress in a year. But they're not serious people. Their reaction is animal, not rational. It's no different than when actual animals sense an earthquake coming. They know they've lost, and lost big, and they know it instinctively. Aside from it being their right to protest, however insanely, against the president, this may also be a cathartic platform through which some of this old-timey venom and violence might purge itself off, if only by a fraction.
Lost Gospel
Slide on back to 2002, where breaks are at the very height of their power and influence over the collective techno-sphere, and I'm at the center of that vortex, absorbing and downloading all the best of this music I can find. I have so much good, diverse, interesting stuff, I reject an entirely worthy side B of a mixtape, in favor of a more bangin' one.
The result was The Gospel of Subsonic Funk. Used to be, I had forty-five minutes on both sides of each tape, and I would make side A my main-floor and side B my head-scratchy, weird side.
That was what I thought this mix was, but turns out, it has a few really nice breaks tracks from the time, and I found it, recently, backed up with my other sets. Viddy:
Apocryphal Mix
By all means, head on to the Droid-Rock Show and download it. You know the drill. Much respect to Steve Bug and DJ-T's Monsterbaze, a track so huge I'm tempted to throw it back into rotation nearly a decade later. We heard Adam Freeland play it in Nashville in 2001 and it made the crowd stop dancing. Stopped dancing because they were so unbelievably mind-blown by it they had to just take it in.
13. Ananda Ghost - Idol (Dark Globe Mix)
14. Raze - Break 4 Love (Future Funk Squad Mix)
15. Sonic Animation - I'm Afraid I Think I'm Human (Nubreed vs Phil K mix)
16. David James - A Permanent State (Waveform mix)
17. Steve Bug Vs DJ-T - Monsterbaze
18. Bushwacka! - Butterfly
19. Banca De Gaia - Obsidian (The Light Vs. Proper Filthy Naughty mix)
20. Planet Funk - Inside All The People (Lee Coombs Dub)
21. Quinn Whalley - Crack Whore
The result was The Gospel of Subsonic Funk. Used to be, I had forty-five minutes on both sides of each tape, and I would make side A my main-floor and side B my head-scratchy, weird side.
That was what I thought this mix was, but turns out, it has a few really nice breaks tracks from the time, and I found it, recently, backed up with my other sets. Viddy:
Apocryphal Mix
By all means, head on to the Droid-Rock Show and download it. You know the drill. Much respect to Steve Bug and DJ-T's Monsterbaze, a track so huge I'm tempted to throw it back into rotation nearly a decade later. We heard Adam Freeland play it in Nashville in 2001 and it made the crowd stop dancing. Stopped dancing because they were so unbelievably mind-blown by it they had to just take it in.
13. Ananda Ghost - Idol (Dark Globe Mix)
14. Raze - Break 4 Love (Future Funk Squad Mix)
15. Sonic Animation - I'm Afraid I Think I'm Human (Nubreed vs Phil K mix)
16. David James - A Permanent State (Waveform mix)
17. Steve Bug Vs DJ-T - Monsterbaze
18. Bushwacka! - Butterfly
19. Banca De Gaia - Obsidian (The Light Vs. Proper Filthy Naughty mix)
20. Planet Funk - Inside All The People (Lee Coombs Dub)
21. Quinn Whalley - Crack Whore
Monday, September 14, 2009
Herzog FAIL....
...or Herzog WIN?
I'm going to go with probable win, because there's nothing more interesting than the prospect of a truly successful Nic Cage-Is-Batshit-Crazy-Film:
I'm going to go with probable win, because there's nothing more interesting than the prospect of a truly successful Nic Cage-Is-Batshit-Crazy-Film:
Thursday, September 10, 2009
One Honest Term
This has been a long time in the making. Even more striking to me than that, really, is that non-response rebuttals like this one and a ditto-populace undermined compassionate public service for so many years. What was it about Reagan's response here that sounded so authentic? Wish I knew. It's about as monosyllabic as Joe Wilson's moron-spasm last night, really.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Have a Beer With Hellboy
Adam Savage (half of Mythbusters duo) did one of my favorite panels at DCon. The first half was one hundred things he'd like to do:
There's at least one more of these. Clicky clicky.
There's at least one more of these. Clicky clicky.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Johannesburg Slaughter
My problem with E.T., and I think it would be a better film, are those big Walter Keane moonstone eyes, because you immediately love that little creature. There’s a moment in the film when they’re dissecting the frogs and they do a close-up of the frogs with those alien slit eyes. Now if E.T. had those eyes, then he’s a really grotesque ugly thing and the kid has to learn to love a grotesque ugly thing. It’s easy to love E.T. It should have been difficult to love E.T.
- Terry Gilliam
Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is definitely made in that spirit. It's like riding on a thoroughfare that takes you from Hotel Rwanda to Cronenberg. It is unbelievably brutal, or at least its level of violence and grotesquerie surprised me until I thought about the producer, Peter Jackson, and his earlier films.
The creatures are only half-heartedly anthropomorphized, and the nepotist hero goes from nebbish to fighter-boy without much time for a consistent transition between (though his transition is certainly a bodily one). It is overlong, and far too uncompromising to have grossed as much as it has.
And we should all be thankful to Peter Jackson for introducing such a talented new filmmaker to the world. This is simply the best and most riveting science fiction film in years, so long as you have the stomach for it.
- Terry Gilliam
Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is definitely made in that spirit. It's like riding on a thoroughfare that takes you from Hotel Rwanda to Cronenberg. It is unbelievably brutal, or at least its level of violence and grotesquerie surprised me until I thought about the producer, Peter Jackson, and his earlier films.
The creatures are only half-heartedly anthropomorphized, and the nepotist hero goes from nebbish to fighter-boy without much time for a consistent transition between (though his transition is certainly a bodily one). It is overlong, and far too uncompromising to have grossed as much as it has.
And we should all be thankful to Peter Jackson for introducing such a talented new filmmaker to the world. This is simply the best and most riveting science fiction film in years, so long as you have the stomach for it.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
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