May 8: Free John McCutcheon Concert in Flint, Michigan

Wow. Wish I could be there. His Web site is here. And here's a song:

Rock the Casbah

I don't know which is funnier: the armadillo, the oil well, or the line "He thinks it's not kosher!"

April 22, 2010

* Socialists Say "Stop Calling Obama a Socialist!" Someone tell the teabaggers. (via)

* Republicans trying to build a time machine.

* Stopping rapists, burglars, muggers, and purse snatchers will hurt America.

* The solution to every problem in America: Start over!

* Worst Defense of a Book Ever, summarized: "Yeah, what he wrote might not be true, but it's true-ish!" ( I shit you not.)

Music History

If for little more than its value to me historically, and the challenge it will offer my fading powers of memory, I'm going to try and see how many concerts I can remember seeing in my life, all the way back to the very first - Rush, in, I think, 1978, at the age of 15. (Actually Rush was the first big act I saw. There were possibly earlier ones, small acts in bars. Yes, I went to bars before I was 15. Sue me. I know I saw April Wine, I think in a long gone bar called The Grapevine in Clarence, New York, and possibly in 1977. I'm just not sure.) And I'll try to find YouTube video of each act. Okay, we're off.

Rush: This site has the history of every Rush concert, along with their opening acts. Hilarious. It tells me that I may have actually seen them at Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium on the "Farewell to Kings" tour in November 1977, when I was 14, as the opening acts listed, UFO and Blue Oyster Cult, I know I've seen. Either that it was January 1979 on the Hemispheres tour at War Memorial. The opening act, Starz, does not sound familiar at all. In any case I went with friends, we smoked a lot of weed, it's all very blurry.

Here's a 1978 video from a song I haven't thought about in decades. But I was very into it back then. Very deep, don't ya know. (And it's actually a very good video of a live practice before a show.)

Oil Rig Explodes in Gulf [updtd]

Off Louisiana, 12 missing.



Update: It has now sunk.

"The DoD Put a Microchip in My Vaginal-Rectum Area"

When you play with CrazyStupid, CrazyStupid bites you in the ass sometimes:

The Georgia House Judiciary Committee took up a bill last week that would "prohibit requiring a person to be implanted with a microchip," and would make violating the ban a misdemeanor. According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one exchange from the hearing could have been ripped right from Dr. Strangelove.[...]

"Ma'am, did you say you have a microchip?" state Rep. Tom Weldon (R) asked the woman.

"Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area," she replied.

No one laughed. [...]

“And who in the federal government implanted it?” Willard asked.

“The Department of Defense.”

The worst part - or the best, depending on how much you appreciate the special kind of insanity that is the human race - is that, after hearing testimony that should have been evidence that they were being stupid and crazy at the same time, they passed the bill. Take that, Department of Defense!

Go Forth And Teabag No More!

Fuhhhny:

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

One down, a few thousand to go. Maybe then they'll get them off the tv.

Life is a Carnival

I watched Bill Murray's 1996 film Larger Than Life last night. Sometimes very funny, not great, but Matthew McConnaughey makes a surprisingly fun appearance as a nutball trucker. But even that kind of reminded me of Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys, which came out just a year earlier.

But the thing about it was that the soundtrack included regular forays into The Band's "Life is a Carnival." Can't go wrong with that. This recording is from 1976—and season two of Saturday Night Live.

47% of Americans Pay No Taxes!!!

Only rich people pay taxes! We should stop demonizing them, because they work so hard—unlike us—and take care of us poor, lazy bastards!

Or not:

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

Do Modern Republicans know that there income tax is not the only kind of federal tax?

Chinese Coal Ship Damages 1km of Great Barrier Reef

What a monumental disaster:

The Australian authorities have said a Chinese bulk carrier which ran aground off Queensland has caused widespread damage to the famed Great Barrier Reef.

The cleanup is likely to be the biggest operation ever undertaken there.

The Shen Neng 1 was refloated on Monday night, in a salvage operation brought forward because of the threat of bad weather and heavy seas.

The Australian government has indicated that a prosecution will follow because the ship ran aground in a no-go zone.

Here's a map made by someone on Google Earth of the route the ship was supposed to be taking, and the route it did. It was headed north, between the mainland and the reef, when it suddenly headed west, straight through the reef. Authorities think the skipper may have been trying to save time. He and his crew have been arrested.

On top of the physical damage the 755-foot ship did, besides the tons of oil spilled on the delicate reef, authorities are afraid that paint from the ship's hull - which is toxic and meant to stop marine life from growing on the hull - was rubbed off the ship, "because it has immediately started killing off corals in the vicinity."

Photos here.

Poland

Just one of the many people lost in today's tragedy:

Anna Walentynowicz (August 13, 1929 – April 10, 2010) was a Polish free trade union activist. Her firing in August 1980 was the event that led to the strike in the Gdansk Shipyard that paralyzed the Baltic coast and led to the giant wave of strikes in Poland and eventually the creation of Solidarity, of which she became a prominent member. By September nearly a million workers were on strike in support of the twenty one demands, making it the largest strike ever.

Can you imagine? Just terrible.

John Cowan and Sam Bush

Don't Cross the Streams!

Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin will be appearing together. In one place. Together.

Please, I beg. That much crazystupid in one locale might be more than our poor universe can take.

P.S. Don't cross the streams, for the three of you who didn't get it.

Mercy!

Mark Buehrle, this is your sick: