Get This While You Can!

Apparently there's an incredibly rare Velvet Underground bootleg from 1967 that has just surfaced which includes a song that has never been heard before, as well as the first ever live performance of Sister Ray (all 19 minutes of it)! Here's the info, and here's where to download it. If you don't understand why this is a really big deal... well I don't really want to insult you, just take my word for it that this is a really big deal, download it, listen and either get it or not.

Quick Hits

Land of the free? Not so much. On the Iraq war, Obama 1, McCain 0. On our tanking economy, Obama 1, Bush 0. Why should I write about hypocrisy when there's Glen Greenwald? Here he discusses the double standards of religious extremists and discussing Israel much better than I could ever even attempt to do. And lastly, just watch this. It's totally work safe, I promise, and it's really really cool:

Desperation, Ego and Stupidity

The primaries are just about over. On the republican side, McCain is all but official as nominee though crazy theocrat guy continues to try to stay in the race nipping at his ankles. JSF says that Huck is a Clinton puppet and I'm not entirely sure I buy that theory. But if it's true, it's the smartest thing the Clintons have ever done! And that's kind of why I doubt that it's true. Hillary's campaign is all but derailed at this point. She is lashing out in anger and sarcasm at Obama and I can just picture her convention speech, berating the democrats for rejecting her like an angry mom on her period. Leave the sarcasm to the bloggers, lady! It was entertaining when your husband was sarcastic about Bush. But the thing he has that you don't is a likable personality! If you had an ounce of dignity, you'd see the writing on the wall and drop out now. And while Hillary spins out of control, Obama has been acting more presidential by the day. It thrills me to hear a presidential candidate talk about how trade agreements like NAFTA need to be reworked to not screw over the workers. And as the wackjob right tries to swift boat him on his patriotism, he doesn't play their game for one second. He dismisses it for the sheer stupidity that it is. How refreshing it is to have a candidate who acts like a rational person rather than part of a well oiled political machine set to play the game in very specific and narrow ways! It's awfully nice to have a candidate who actually calls bullshit while shining a bright light on the actions of those who are ineffectively trying to smear him. Just look at his response... About not wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama said Republicans have no lock on patriotism. "A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary? "That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism." Right wing noise machine, YOU GOT SERVED, BEEYOTCHES!!! And the rest of you bunch of spineless excuses for an opposition party, take note of this. Don't get suckered into the silly games of a side that has zero substance or credibility. Laugh at their lame attempt at political gamesmanship and spotlight their lack of substance and credibility on the very issue they want to try to smear you on. If they weren't wrong on the issues, they would offer better arguments against you. Smears and character assassination are the surest sign that they don't have anything better to offer. An then there was Ralph. Yep, Ralph Nader is running again. In 2000, he taught a valuable lesson to progressives. We may not like a lot about the democratic party. We consider them the lesser of two evils. But as long as we are in a two-party system, we have little choice but to support the lesser evil. After the wakeup call of the 2000 election fiasco, a cool thing happened. We progressives started getting organized and flexing our collective muscle within the democratic party. I really like the idea of more than just the 2 headed corporate party, but you can't just start off by running a president from a third party. For a third party to be even remotely viable, they have to build from the bottom up. Start with a school board or two, maybe a mayor or county legislator. Get members in state governments and maybe a governorship. Then start getting members of congress. By then, you've got the grassroots party machine that you need to mount a serious presidential campaign with people in the legislative branch to work with them if they actually win. Ralph's run now, especially with Obama as the likely democratic nominee, is an ugly display of stubbornness, ego and more than likely irrelevance. I agree with Ralph that corporate interests own both parties, but there are more effective ways of combating that than running for president. I hope to post about the Academy Awards later on today.

Smurf-a-liscious!

The following link is not even remotely safe for work, but it's the greatest thing you will see this week. Yeah, this is better than shooting down satellites with missiles, better than a full lunar eclipse, better than watching John McCain try to weasel his way out of allegations of extreme unethical behavior, even better than naked Lindsay Lohan. What could be better than that, you ask? How about live action Smurf porn en Espanol? What else do I really need to say about this. Smurf it out, my smurfy readers.

Obama on a Tear!

I wouldn't want to be anywhere near Hillary Clinton today. I've always had the vibe that she's not a particularly nice person, and she doesn't handle losses very well. Remember back before the primaries started when she considered herself the inevitable nominee? She must be angrier than a nest of hornets that democratic voters are rejecting her in droves. And as Obama continues his post-Super Tuesday sweep taking Wisconsin and Hawaii, she's getting nastier and nastier. I expect a full screaming hissy fit after she loses Ohio. Hillary, here's a clue for you... America is rejecting your brand of bullshit politics as usual. We want change and we're willing to take it from anybody who hasn't played too much of a role in this broken and corrupt system where you thrive. Twenty years of Bushes and Clintons are enough. On the republican side, there's really no story, but JSF might post some analysis from the right in our cross-blog, left-right, completely ignored by the vast majority of the blogosphere coverage of the primary season. In the rest of the world, Fidel Castro just quit as dictator of Cuba and while I'm no fan of authoritarian dictators, he has been a great thorn in the side of the right for the last 50 years. I hope that now Cubans will get to live more freely without losing their national healthcare and that Fidel spends his retirement continuing to thumb his nose at the American right. And speaking of dictators, Bush's favorite dictator was just voted out of Pakistan but he refuses to step down. I look forward to miles and miles of right wing hypocrisy and double standards in how they interpret the actions of both of these dictators at the ends of their dictatorial careers. And lastly, on a more frivolous note, I figured that Lindsay Lohan nudie pix would hand me a sure fire battle of the blogs win. Apparently not. What do you people have against bare breasts?

Cue the Wah-guitar...

I guess all it took to finally get Lindsay Lohan to pose nude (intentionally, at least) was letting her pretend to be Marilyn Monroe and calling it art. Thanks New York Magazine for coming up with that brilliant trick idea! In regards to my previous post, I suppose that every now and then the corporate media is good for something.

What is Wrong With Corporate Media?

I guess one should rather be asking what is right with it? The crap that is passing for "journalism" today is an absolute joke. Chez Pazienza was fired from his job as a producer at CNN for having a blog and an opinion. He has since fired off a lengthy screed about the state of the media industry that is a must-read. Here's a small taste, but do yourself a favor and spend 10 minutes reading the whole thing. During my last couple of years as a television news producer, I watched the networks try to recover from a six year failure to bring truth to power (the political party in power being irrelevant incidentally; the job of the press is to maintain an adversarial relationship with the government at all times) and what's worse, to pretend that they had a backbone all along. I watched my bosses literally stand in the middle of the newsroom and ask, "What can we do to not lead with Iraq?" -- the reason being that Iraq, although an important story, wasn't always a surefire ratings draw. I was asked to complete self-evaluations which pressed me to describe the ways in which I'd "increased shareholder value." (For the record, if you're a rank-and-file member of a newsroom, you should never under any circumstances even hear the word "shareholders," let alone be reminded that you're beholden to them.) I watched the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public -- to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks. I marveled at our elevation of the death of Anna Nicole Smith to near-mythic status and our willingness to let the airwaves be taken hostage by every permutation of opportunistic degenerate from a crying judge to a Hollywood hanger-on with an emo haircut. I watched qualified, passionate people worked nearly to death while mindless talking heads were coddled. I listened to Lou Dobbs play the loud-mouthed fascist demagogue, Nancy Grace fake ratings-baiting indignation, and Glenn Beck essentially do nightly stand-up -- and that's not even taking into account the 24/7 Vaudeville act over at Fox News. I watched The Daily Show laugh not at our mistakes but at our intentional absurdity.

Hey Senate Dems, Pay Attention!

Senate Democrats, you spineless bunch of rollover sellouts, take notice of what your colleagues in the House have been up to. While the senators caved to the White House by enabling the criminal regime to continue spying on Americans without any sort of accountability whatsoever and letting the law breaking telecom companies off the hook, the House dems not only refused to give up on holding them accountable, they stalled the vote and instead voted to hold Josh Bolten and Hariet Meirs in contempt of congress, leading the entire house republican caucus to take the ball and run home crying like little babies! Senators, this is the way you treat a lame duck administration who has not given a damn about accountability since day 1, especially in an election year! Their caving on this was not playing it safe politically. As Glen Greenwald so eloquently puts it... Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them. Outside of National Review, K Street, and the fear-paralyzed imagination of our shrinking faux-warrior class, there is no constituency in America demanding warrantless eavesdropping or amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms. [full post] This vote leads me to believe that these Senators (including one of my own) have betrayed their constituents for no other reason than that they are sucking at the teat of the telecom lobby. Hey assholes (yeah DiFi, I'm talking straight to you too), you do not work for your corporate sponsors! You work for we the people! Don't forget it, because groups like MoveOn.org sure won't forget it next time you think you've got an easy shot at re-election. Just ask Bush collaborator (and now an outspoken advocate of torture) Joe Lieberman. His sanctimonious holier-than-thou neocon ass got kicked straight the hell out of the party. Perhaps if the democratic voters started cleaning house of these corrupt corporate whores and started replacing them with people who actually represented their constituency every once in a while, I could consider myself a proud supporter rather than a reluctant one choosing the second worst of two bad choices.

Obama Sweeps and the Senate Caves

The Potomac Primaries were yesterday and they gave a resounding ass whupping to Hillary, who continues to shake up her campaign staff and spin her losses. McCain won them too, but who cares? JSF might have some coverage on these primaries, but not yet as of this posting. As always, we are providing left-right coverage of the primaries to an audience smaller than Bush's approval ratings. The political story that is really bothering me right now is the Senate's vote to "legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans." What the hell good is it to have a democratic majority when they constantly keep handing Bush blank fucking checks to do whatever it is that he wants? How is this better than a 3-branch republican monopoly? I realize it's a slim majority, but they had enough votes to pass this one along party lines if not for these 18 spineless sellouts: Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. Oh yeah, and Hillary was the only senator not to vote because I guess she was too busy with her losses spinning out of control.

The Veepstakes

This may be a bit premature, but I was thinking about who might be some good vice president choices. On the lesser of two evils side, Bill Richardson was running for VP from the start of the primaries and he would be a good progressive choice for either of the democratic candidates just as long as he did something about his hair. In fact, just about any of the also-rans would be good choices with varying degrees of electability. But there's one ticket that would rile up so much anger and hostility that so many wingnut heads would spontaneously explode that there would be a statistical impossibility of electing a republican for the next 18 years. And what is that dream ticket? Hillary Clinton and Rosie O'Donnell! Could you imagine the levels of hate thrown at those two? And could you imagine the press conferences? Hillary would never get a word out. While I'm still not a Hillary fan, I think if the rabid right's heads all exploded she might actually be able to get something done. And of course the added bonus is that the rabid right's heads have all exploded. So if the old boys network of party elite decide not to let Obama win, I am in full support of Clinton/O'Donnell and exploding heads.

Yes We Can?

By now just about everyone has seen the Obama Yes We Can video. Now John McCain has one too!

Weekend Wrapup

So a few states had primaries and caucuses this weekend. On the democratic side, Obama swept all three four, and with healthy margins too! Oh yeah, and he also picked up the grammy for best Audiobook. He's clearly in the lead now, but the news is all about whether or not the party elite super delegates will choose a nominee over the rank and file voters, quite possibly tearing the party apart in the process to the glee of the republicans whose party is currently imploding over their nominee. There's nothing they like better than to be able to sanctimoniously point their fingers and say that democrats don't believe in democracy as if this gang on hypocritical theocrats, thugs and chickenhawks who just failed miserably at creating their empire of permanent majority are such big fans of any kind of democracy that involves people who think differently than them. And speaking of the greater of two evils party, the conservative backlash against their presumed nominee got heavier with Theocrat Huckabee taking two states from the phony "maverick" John McCain and his platform of Four More Wars. Conservative bloggers are not happy about the situation and there's nothing that gives me quite as much joy as seeing conservative bloggers unhappy. For the dark side perspective, don't forget to check out Valley of the Shadow. Together we are providing left-right coverage to all 4 of our readers.

Settle Down, People!

The crazies have been out in full force in the last 24 hours. No, I'm not talking about the conservatives who are in hysterics over having John McCain as their nominee, or their outrage over the denial of super-delegate status to their mole at the democratic convention. This is a worse kind of crazy than the usual partisan asshattery. In fact, this crazy transcends politics. Last night some crazy dude shot up a city council meeting outside of St. Louis because he was mad about getting a bunch of parking tickets, killing 5 and wounding 2 before being shot by the cops. And this morning a 23 year old woman shot and killed 2 other women at a vocational school in Baton Rouge before killing herself. Our society is sick. Opportunists will quickly rush in front of TV cameras to put the blame on the NRA or video games or secular humanism or hiphop or heavy metal or the Sopranos or Janet Jackson's nipple or whatever happens to be the pet issue that gets them their fix of the media spotlight. But can something as complicated as the obvious rise in mass murder sprees over the last decade or so really be blamed on one thing? Our society needs to heel. I don't know how. I just know that we need to. Though I sure wouldn't complain about a temporary national moratorium on parking tickets. Those things can make people do some crazy shit.

One Neocon to Lose it All

Did you hear Scary Plastic Mormon Dude just dropped out of the race? The republican game is over, and they're stuck with a candidate who the base hates. It's a good day to be an American! There's a general air of depression in the world of right wing punditry today and that is always a beautiful thing to see. Game over, fuckers! It doesn't matter who the dems choose. You lose. America wins. Sort of.

Stupid Fat Tuesday!!!

Wow, not only is today Stupid Tuesday, but it's also Fat Tuesday and I would much rather be drunk off my ass looking at bare boobies in New Orleans right now than tired and sober looking at the primary election results on the internets. But who wouldn't? So as the polls are closing across the country, we've got a bunch of results. It's going to be hard to pick a clear winner on the democratic side until all of the states are done, but so far (at 7:50pm PST here) Clinton and Obama are neck in neck, each with a bunch of states. Nothing too unpredictable. On the republican side, Scary Theocrat Guy swept the bible belt, Scary Plastic Mormon Guy won a few states here and there, Scary Libertarian Guy picked up a delegate or two to the joys of his rabid online following, and for being as hated by the conservatives and bible thumpers as he is, Scary Endless War Guy is kicking ass. I'm no fan of McCain by any stretch, but any republican who can get Rush Limbaugh to bash him must be just slightly less of a piece of shit than the rest of these pieces of shit. The only surprise so far on the republican side is that 15% of Utah republicans did not vote for the Plastic Mormon. For a rosier picture of the greater of two evils party, check out JSF's coverage as part of our ongoing left-right blog coverage in an empty forest. That's it for now. More when they call California. In the meantime, here are some chuckles at the expense of the religious rightwingnuts: Update: I am disappointed by my fellow Californians for letting Hillary win the state, but it's not the first time in recent memory. Remember that time when they voted that bad action movie star as governor? But the democratic nomination is still up for grabs and could even be decided at the convention which would be some exciting and intriguing shit, as far as partisan politics go.

Just Nod if You Can Hear Me

In the heyday of this blog, I was getting upwards of 100 hits a day from actual readers. Now when I look at my web stats it makes me feel like I'm just some crazy dude yelling in a bullhorn on the street corner who people walk by pretending not to see. But I do enjoy some of the search engine strings that get people here. There's the ever popular searches for Kelly Tripplehorn, the obnoxious young evangelical guy who will never live down an embarrassing breakup email he sent to a girl when he was a congressional intern. I thought it was funny when he was just some disgraced republican intern, but now that he's spewing pseudo-intellectual nonsense for the lunatic fringe of Christianity (and since he blocked me on YouTube when I posted part of his email as a comment to one of his dumb videos) it brings a smile to my face that people googling him find out exactly what a tool he is. In the same vein, I really enjoy the fact that I am the number two search result for "Joe Lieberman Douche!" No, the democrat independent republican senator from Connecticut has not started his own line of kosher feminine hygiene products, but the Senate would be a slightly better place if he switched careers to that. If you want to have some angry laughs, I suggest you read some of the other links on that page. So what's coming next? Stupid Tuesday is in a couple of days which to a political junkie like me is bigger than the Superbowl (I don't care much about sports at all, but as a NYer in exile, I'm pretty happy about the Giants win). The democratic side is still too close to call but I'm rooting for Obama. On the republican side, I think I'm hoping for a Romney win since he would fare far worse in the general election than McCain. As always, JSF and myself will be providing our left-right coverage to all 3 of you people reading.