Saturday Nite Music

News to me: Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) was a drummer for The Byrds in the seventies. When I first saw this on YouTube, I assumed whoever posted it just made a mistake - oops - I love it when I discover something weird like this. Anyway, here's Gene Parsons covering a Gram Parsons tune with a band both men were closely associated with at about the same time. BTW: this tune is further evidence that White Soul may actually exist after all.

Saturday Nite Music

I don't even remember hearing he'd died (Aug 09). Willy DeVille was one of the great eccentrics of pop culture.



HEAVEN STOOD STILL
Album: La Chat Blue (1979)
(Written by Mink DeVille)
Mink DeVille

As a tear fades away
and the dawn dries a lover's eyes
No more tears, they're all gone
Just believe it will always be

My heart in your hand
knows that all this belongs to me
and like the child here I stand
while your heart sings inside of me

One dream of my life
One night in eternity
The wind whispered soft to me
And heaven stood still

One sigh of the dawn
Sweet instant of memory
One celestial rhapsody
And heaven stood still

The Awesomeness Of Louis CK

A bit curmudgeonly, but still some rather astute observations.

Getting What We Pay For(?)

As a devout capitalist and a proud adherent to most of Ayn Rand's preachings, I just can't see how anybody can make an honest assessment of the US healthcare system and still contend we're getting a solid return on our investment.

Measuring a system's effectiveness solely on Life Expectancy is kinda tricky, but really, if we reduce the goal to simple terms; and we say the main point of the exercise is to keep us alive and kickin'; well then I think it's pretty obvious we're gettin' snookered.

If your task was to make healthcare work for your company, and you brought this graph in to the meeting thinking it would support your argument that "we have the best healthcare money can buy", you'd be bounced out of that company so fast your feet wouldn't touch the ground.

So why do we continue just to put up with this shit?

(with a hat tip to Nick)

Fighting Creationist Bullshit

DADT Repeal

So the DADT studies are out - Mike Mullen says he's ready to shit-can DADT;  Bob Gates says the Pentagon should get rid of DADT themselves because that'll be better than when the courts order them to take it down - and somehow, we're all still walkin' around wondering why nothing is changing.

And some pundits are saying that this must surely be one of those bi-partisan moments, or at least just this one time the Repubs and "conservatives" get real and go along with it.  Uh, no, kids - look, let's go over it again.  We're talking about John McCain and Joe WIlson and Jim Demint - they're NOT CONSERVATIVES.  They're radicals and they aren't interested in doing anything that doesn't hurt Obama.  It doesn't matter what the policy question is.  It doesn't matter what the majority of public opinion says.  Nothing matters to these guys except doing political damage to Obama.  They'll oppose the repeal of DADT (prob'ly pushing for a trade on something totally unrelated) and when they're absolutely sure that the thing will pass without their support, they'll let it thru.  And then they'll let Dumb Fux News spin it for them so they can use it as a campaign issue in every election cycle forever after.

In the end, I'm still sittin' here with my arms folded, waiting to see if Obama actually has the balls to stand by his word.

Well, Crap

I think I'm done now.  I've been holding on to whatever slim straw I could feel, hoping Obama would come out of the fog (or at least give me a tiny bit better inkling that he's got something up his sleeve other than a sweaty armpit).  But he won't move on DADT; he's caving on the Bush tax cuts; he's shorting the payments he promised to make to people who most need some help fighting foreclosure; and the list goes on.  It just doesn't look like he knows how to get out of his own way.

So I'm done with him - at least for now.  Right now, the only thing that gets me back is if he mounts an unbelievably effective comeback.  The kind of campaign where he takes everything the Repubs say, he turns it around, and beats the crap out of 'em with it.  Every day for the next 2 years.  But he won't.

I hope I'm wrong.  I hope he actually has the greatness I thought I saw in him 2 years ago.  But I'm not, and he doesn't.  This really sucks.

Send an email to Obama.

Blair v Hitchens On Religion

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8

Makin' Whoopee

Me thinks Ms Jones might be just a touch loaded in this one.

This Won't End Well

If you like the way things have worked in Iraq and Afghanistan with outfits like CACI and Blackwater, then you're just gonna love what happens over time with pay-to-play cops.

Your tax cuts at work.  And you can see a much clearer connection now between the push for more tax cuts and the growing trend towards more privatization from the Free-Marketeers and the Adam Smith-ers.

This particular development is alarming to me because a private police force fits neatly into a private prison system.  Where before the Corrections Industry had to rely on expensive lobbying efforts to influence policy that would keep the prisons full, now they can kinda cut out the middle man and be almost assured a steady stream of revenue simply by helping to supply the means of investigation and arrest.

Activist Post

The Freeman

Washington Post (archives 2007)