perfidy

Welcome to Carnival of Horror... No, Carnival of Gory Death... No, Carnival of Creep... No, Carnival of Music! Yes, that's it. Welcome to the nineteenth edition of the Carnival of Music. The Halloween edition, in fact.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

It's All Hallow's Eve

Wherein we learn about the use of music in film, and are subjected to butt-rock This edition of the carnival hits the interweb on Halloween. Therefore, it is only appropriate that we begin with some scary creepy stuff. Mark at Kaedrin has spewed forth a disquisition on music in horror movies, one with quotes and everything. People will start thinking he's serious or something. Along the same lines, but a bit outside the blog world is this survey of horror music by John Hübinette.

For all your horror music needs, one need go no further than right here. Of course, we will. Here is a collection, ripped straight from google, of low-rent horror metal bands. I think most of this is what Minister Johno would refer to as, "Butt-Rock." Suicide Solution, Dark Seclusion, The Others, Dark Autumn and of course, Rob Zombie. Lot of Darkness there. Not there's anything wrong with that.

Of course, the life of a horror metal band is not, to be sure, all sweetness and light. For some, it is misery and destruction. In this case, not self inflicted – everyone lend a hand to Antartica vs. the World, who lost all their gear in Hurricane Katrina.

The absolute best horror music link, I have saved for last. It Will End In Pure Horror. I have always been convinced that that is literally true. But if ending in pure horror meant being surrounded by this:

I might be a little more comfortable with the concept. I sent away for their free demo, Night of the Living Demo, and so should you.

Oh, and speaking of eldritch horror, what could be more soul-suckingly, achingly terrifying than cute thirteen year old singing Nazi twins?

Among a great multitude, my pal Murdoc offers some coverage of the Aryan Olsen twins.

Cronyism

Wherein the Ministry thrives on nepotism, and throws a bone to the little people

Because the Ministry not only supports, but actually thrives on nepotism, this section contains links to us, and to people we know. We'll begin with me. Mrs. Buckethead is one of three lead vocalists in a bluegrass/Americana/roots music/gospel/country blues band called Dead Men's Hollow. They recently released an album, which you can buy. It's funny, but ten years ago if you had told me that in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century that all I'd be listening to was death metal and hundred year old country music, I'd have laughed at you. Or hit you, depending on my mood. Yet here I am. Looking at the recently played list on my iPod, I see Doc Watson, Drowning Pool, Tool, Monster Magnet, Johnny Cash, the Kossoy Sisters (thanks, Johno) and "Oklahoma Stomp" from band called Spade Cooley and His Orchestra off a collection called Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys that is mostly country swing from before WWII.

Dead Men's Hollow – well, let me let Johno do the music reviewing, because he's a professional:

DMH splits the difference between the ethereal rubato of the old timey singers and the in-time clarity of classical and good rock singers. However you're doing it, it's really freaking cool...I'll be putting it on my IPod immediately.

They're playing all around the DC area, so check the website to see when you can see them. And, in a few weeks, they'll be headlining a big show at Ft. Riley, Kansas for troops heading out to Iraq. I'll have more on this later, or again, check their site. And lastly, listen to this song.

Johno is the alpha music geek here at Perfidy. In fact we created a category just for him – Music Wonkery. Click that link to get access to hundreds of insightful, sage, and at times indelicate reviews. A lot of the musicians Johno writes of so knowledgeably, I had never heard of. Once I listened to their music, I wondered how I had ever missed them. Johno has produced two new reviews just for this carnival, you can see them here and here. Read them both. I have already ordered a copy of Cast King's album. It won't be the first album I've bought on Johno's recommendation, and it certainly won't be the last.

One last Johno note: over here, Johno has offered hand-crafted mix discs to anyone who reaches a hand into their pocket and comes up with $15 for charity. Johno's suggesting hurricane or earthquake relief, but I'm sure he'd accept anything short of a donation for the Free Katie Foundation.

Next up is Phil Dennison, founder and CEO of the blog November Musings. His band, the Fragments, is on a little hiatus thanks to their own personal stick in the eye to the zero population growth people. The band has recently spawned two kids, and another is on the way. So far, only Phil and bandmate Gene remain childless freaks. The Fragments play a heady style of power pop, and are well worth a listen. Phil, being the musician type guy that he is, has on occasion held forth on some musical topics.

Here is Phil peeking behind the curtain of Trent Reznor's musical past, complaining about the existence of Ashlee Simpson, and penning an encomium to fellow power-pop band, The Figgs. As an added bonus, here is Phil's Top Ten Underrated Guitar Solos List.

Phil also kindly recommends, for your reading pleasure, several music blogs, including Bob Mould's blog, Copy, right?, Fluxblog, Lost Bands of the New Wave Era and Mystery and Misery. Joe-Bob says check 'em out.

Next on our list of cronies, yes-men and yeasayers is Ted of the excellent blog Rocket Jones. Ted recommends the podcasts of the Simian Syndicate. Especially this one. Why? They'll tell you:

"We have a special treat in this show, something very unique, a recorded monologue by our buddy Stuart Swink. Stuart takes plenty of pictures for us and attends most of the Booze Monkey shows, he is a good friend. He created a monologue comprised entirely of Beatles song-titles. It is a very unique piece, and he graciously allowed us to share it, I hope you enjoy it."

That just can't go wrong. Simian's podcasts typically include music, typically of the bluesy nature. That, plus split your sides funny, is a hell of bargain when you consider that it's all free. Added bonus: Ted also recommends the blog RetroBabe. 

Princess Cat has run across an inspirational ditty from Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band. A good band name, but not as good as my personal favorite band name ever, Special Ed and the Short Bus - who can be heard doing a great high speed cover of John Hardy over here.

Finally, another blogger with a band: Andrew Ian Dodge of the justly famous Dodgeblogium. I emailed Andrew to see if he had anything for the carnival (and to complain that he got a better logo from blogs in space than I did) and he replied in his unique idiom, "What jolly good timing. The band site has just had a face-lift (ala Joan Rivers) and the EP is finally f***ing finished!"

His band, Growing Old Disgracefully has only one snippet of music up, but hopefully we will soon be able to hear the EP, or even buy it from CD Baby. CD Baby, btw, is my personal favorite online music-getting thingies. Witness this email I received from CD Baby last time I ordered from them:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. 

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. 

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. 

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, August 27th. 

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

[wik] Returning as if from the dead, our own resident Canadian comes in with playlist a that has therapeutic overtones. 

Carnival of Submissions

Wherein we gingerly dip our toe into the wider world of music blogging

Barbara of Trying to Catch Up sends us a reminiscence of her time as a flute player, triggered by her son's taking up the saxophone.

BradRubenstein of Odd Quanta shamelessly plugs his own music festival. If you're in New York on Dec 4, check it the New York Festival of Song. Not music related, but he also links to a really cool idea for positional, rather than temporal, alarms. This can't be far, and whoever invents the killer app for this sort of thing will be rich, rich, rich.

The award for best blog name goes to Assimilated Negro. It's retro. It's PM. It's likely offensive to many. I dig it. Assimilated Negro blog is just over a month old, but he's already working the carnivals to get linkage. He's more assimilated than I am, as I just figured this out after two and a half years.

I will leave it again to Johno to provide the theoretical underpinnings and academic apparatus surrounding this. (Scroll to the bottom and press play. After you read the rest of the post, of course.) But hey, it was perhaps inevitable that blogs and hip hop were fated to collide.

Next week's host, Elisa Camahort, throws in a post regarding her iTunes music purchases. But it's not just a simple list, she provides us with reviews of the music, too. Check her other posts, too, she's got lots of links to cool music, like this one. 

Michelle of A Small Victory has given up the blog. We'll miss her music lists, though we can still follow her fiction, and the always amusing 100 Words or Less Nessman.

The Well-Tempered Blog (I just discovered what, exactly, well-tempered means just a month ago. From TV!) reports on an interesting thing: the Extensible Toy Piano.

And don't forget that Strongbad can sing.

Brian Sacawa has some thoughts on the effect of the web on music, especially of the classical variety.

Has anyone seen a trailer for the new Johnny Cash movie? I'm hopeful, and afraid.

Earlier, I mentioned that I recently learned what well-tempered means. I learned it from this series. Saw it on the Ovation cable network, they might show it again. Very well done series, and even my music education trained wife was impressed.

If you want to really get going on the music blog reading, go to the bottom of Carnival of Music #7. There's a big list that I am far too lazy to recreate.

Musical Perceptions has some interesting stuff on Singing Neanderthals, and trying to hear Bolero.

Here's an Online Mandolin Museum, courtesy of Lynn at A Sweet, Familiar Dissonance.

This guy maybe likes Batman too much.

And finally, if you really want to you know, delve, into the music blogging thing – go here.

The End

Wherein we blame the innocent, free the culpable, and frame the unwary

Thanks (from us) and blame (from you) should be directed to John of Texas Best Grok for allowing Perfidy to host this, the 19th Carnival of Music. Admiration and plaudits should go to previous hosts of the carnival, for we only see so far because we stand on the shoulders of giants. They can be found here, along with other needful and pertinent information regarding the Carnival of Music. Postdated thanks should also be directed to Elisa, who will host the next CoM.

I am turning on trackbacks for this post, so if you have a music related post, just do that thing, and I'll integrate it into the post. If it starts getting closer to next week, send submissions to Elisa so she has some material to work with.

Everyone who knows me (and who doesn't know me? I'm the cat with a bazillion friends!) knows that I really dig emanations from what Greil Marcus called "the old, weird America." Whether it's the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, the half-fried blues stylings of the late R.L. Burnside, or video footage of the great Bobby Rush taming the wild booty ooty ooty.

Cast King, a 79 year old native of Old Sand Mountain, Alabama - a place too small and remote to show up on maps readily available on the newfangled interweb - has been making music on his own for sixty-five years now. He toured extensively in the 1940s and 1950s with his band, "Cast King and the Country Drifters" and even recorded a few sides for Sam Phillips at the Sun studios in Memphis. But nothing really came of those sessions and King settled down to life on Old Sand Mountain, writing songs for the benefit of himself and those around him.

He was rediscovered, according to the presskit I have, when a musician named Matt Downer began making field recordings of local musicians in and around Old Sand Mountain, and on the recommendation of practically every other musician around tracked down Cast King and his "sackful of songs." Downer eventually persuaded King to sit down and record some of these in a shed next to his house, and the result is now an album, Saw Mill Man.

Cast King's debut is a interesting document, literally a transmission from the old weird America I treasure, something that sounds like a lost fragment of the Harry Smith or Lomax brothers collections. At 79, King's voice is soft and tremulous, which only adds to the fragility and plaintiveness of the songs he has written, every one of which is about drinking, death, heartbreak, or the futility of living on another day. (Now that's entertainment!) His homegrown style of songwriting has a great deal in common with the folk-infused country that eventually catapulted Johnny Cash to fame - a sound that has long transcended fashion and cliche to become part of the DNA of the American songbook. Some of the songs feature Matt Downer helping out on his Stratocaster to provide some ornament, but mostly they float past one by one, bouyed by the quiet strum of King's guitar and swaying lilt of his hoary voice.

Having developed over fifty years a unique conversational lyrical style, King has a knack for lining out a scene in a few well chosen words. Not every song is equally great, and some rely a little too much on cliche, but every so often an especially stark stanza reaches out of the speakers to smack you on the head. For example on "Numb," King sings

I don't care if your tears fall in my whiskey
I don't care if he hurts you more and more
I don't mind that drunken clown
Pushing that old man around
For I'm as numb as the knob on the door.

That's about as succinct as country weepers get. The best songs on Saw Mill Man hit with this same soft punch, especially "Cheap Motel," "Wino," and the miserable hard-luck song "Saw Mill Man." On "Long Time Now" and "Peggy," King raises the ghost of authentic rockabilly, the half-crazy kind that got kicked off the radio (or co-opted) by the rise of rock and roll. It's a hoot to hear a new recording in 2005 that could have come directly out of a Bobby Sisco session for Mar-Vel in 1955. Some, like the worst-party-ever vignette of "Wrong Time To Be Right" and the funereal murder ballad "Under The Snow" sound especially great in King's weary baritone.

Overall, what seems at first blush to be a slightly muddy set of moderately interesting old-timey country songs reveals itself after repeated listenings to be a set of archetypal country songs sung by a man who, if life had been just a little different, might have had a real shot at being on the Opry stage next to Carl Perkins and Buck Owens. I don't know if it's something in the water or something in the whiskey, but Cast King of Old Sand Mountain has made a bleak and affecting debut album. I hope there's more where this came from.

Cast King's Saw Mill Man is available directly from Locust Music

In January 1963, energized by a recent tour of Europe with former labelmate Little Richard, Sam Cooke took the stage at the Harlem Square Club in Miami to turn in an electric, electrifying set of sweaty, sanctified, manic and masterful soul music. The night was recorded for a live album called One Night Stand!: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club which sat on the shelf for twenty years until it was released in 1985. Sony Legacy has remastered the album for a new reissue this year, and it is now obvious that One Night Stand completely overturns everything you think you know about the smooth and urbane maker of sweet soul music.

Along with Ray Charles, Sam Cooke arguably invented soul music with his great crossover hits of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Everything that came after owes in some measure to his alchemic blending of gospel, R&B, pop and standards, his bravura performances that split the difference between agape and eros. In his brand-new and excellent biography of Sam Cooke, Peter Guralnick lovingly details Sam Cooke's evolution from a young member of nationally-known gospel quartets to the urbane, good-looking, articulate, laid back and genial pop inferno that he became. Along the way, various personages from Atlantic Records' Jerry Wexler to singing peers like Harry Belafonte, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Elvis Presley check in to attest to their admiration for Cooke's unbelievably facile voice.

And what a voice it was! Sam Cooke was blessed with a remarkable instrument, clear as a bell except when he wanted to make it gritty, high and proud and stunningly beautiful. His ability to use it to get right inside the most banal lyrics and project stark and affecting emotional content made him great, and once he figured out how to draw out the simplest words, "No-no-no-no," "I-i-i-i-i-i," in Coltranesque cascades of pure joy, nothing could stop him from killing an audience cold.

Live at the Harlem Square Club captures an amazing moment in Sam Cooke's career. Riding high off a nearly unbroken string of chart successes, he was yet to enter the great and terrible eighteen month perioud which would see his infant son die, see the recording of possibly his finest music, and end in his death. All that was in the future.

When Sam Cooke took the stage at the Harlem Square Club, it was with Little Richard's dirty sound in mind, the future out before him, and a songbook of pop, standards, and what we now call "soul." Imagine the scene: the big room sweating in the humid Florida night. Three shows, at 10:00, 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning. Sam Cooke, fresh off his European tour, with the rowdy King Curtis on sax beside him and a band of crack players behind him, energized, inspired, and ready to take the crowd as high as they want to go.

It is a little strange how dated some of Sam Cooke's songs sound today. With such strong roots in the pop of the 1950s, the I-vi-IV-V "ice cream" changes and uptempo R&B swing of his most famous songs tie him more securely to Frankie Valli and doo-wop than to his musical children like Al Green and Otis Redding. And surely, his clean-cut image was an artifact of his ambition, his intention to appeal to as many people as possible, white or black, rich or poor. But that night at the Harlem Square Club, Cooke strained against the urbane felicity and pop sheen that had made him famous and brought a roughness and grit to his voice that surely few in the audience had ever heard from him before.

In his biography, Guralnick dwells at length on the contraditions embodied in Sam Cooke. He was the American dream, a good-looking and well-mannered young black man singing music that transcended racial boundaries: he was "safe." He was the preternaturally talented, even arrogant architect of his own career, ruthlessly moving from one opportunity to another as he saw fit, leaving behind him a wake of disappointed compatriots and business partners. He was the most charismatic guy in the room, the ladykiller who made every one of them feel special, leaving behind him a wake of single mothers and dying hopes. That same charisma came through loud and clear on stage, on vinyl, and on camera, drawing audiences into the vortex of his personality through the sheer power and swing of his musical genius. He was the generous friend. He was the big spender. He was, from time to time, the source of towering rage and fury when his trademark savoire-faire was exhausted.

Every single one of these features of his outsize personality are on display on Live at the Harlem Square Club. The audience is delirious even before he takes the stage, and as Cook asks the crowd, "How are you doing out there? ... How ARE, you DOING, out THERE?" there is something powerful, smug, and almost cold behind his voice, as if he already knows the audience is his without even asking: he is really saying "you are mine." And so they were. As Guralnick writes,

There was nothing soft, measured or polite about the Sam Cooke you saw at the Harlem Square Club; there was none of the self-effacing, mannerable, 'fair-haired little colored boy' that the white man was always looking for. This was Sam Cooke undisguised, charmingly self-assured, "he had his crowd," said [guitarist] Clif White....

Indeed, everything Sam Cooke sang at the Harlem Square club took on weight. Lightweight teenybopper pop fare like Cooke's fad single "Twistin' The Night Away" becomes more serious, like the last party before Judgment Day. The lovely teen-romance crooner "Cupid" turns into an essay in joyous singing as Cooke takes flight all around the melody and sells the young love story it tells. Cooke calls on his gospel roots on the rowdy "Feel It (Don't Fight It)," riding the band hit by hit, exhorting the crowd higher and higher and walking a line between sanctified and sinful that conventional wisdom would maintain wasn't Cooke's to discover. The darker subject matter of Cooke's "Chain Gang" comes fully into its own with the band and backup singers digging into its groove, and Cooke bearing down on the chorus.

On the medley of "It's All Right" and "For Sentimental Reasons," you can hear the crowd singing along rapturously as Cooke scats in Coltranesque sprays of notes. In the liner notes to the album, Peter Guralnick (again!) writes about the importance of community to the chitlin circut, and this is where it all comes together. Cooke and the audience are one, trading energy, good humor, and the sweet melancholy of the songs between themselves fearlessly. By the time we come to the closer "Having A Party," a frantic five-minute workout, Sam Cooke and the band have transcended pretty, transcended slick, transcended easy, transcended everything Sam Cooke seemed to embody to the (white) public and taken the audience to a place blissfully like the white-hot crawl-on-the-floor frenzy of James Brown's classic Live At The Apollo.

The remastering has fixed the crowd noise at a level that is audible but doesn't get in the way of the incandescent performances of Sam Cooke, King Curtis, and the band. Between songs you can hear the crowd begging for mercy, begging for more. They, they cry, they scream for Sam Cooke to take them higher, and as the last notes of "Having A Party" fade into the smoky Miami night, you can hear them erupting in an ecstatic chaos that feels a little like afterglow.

Sam Cooke invented sweet soul music and then died too soon. In the years intervening, that mantle has passed to cofounder Ray Charles, to Al Green and Marvin Gaye, to the R&B crooners who I recently denigrated, and of course back to the world of gospel. Live At The Harlem Square Club is not only a very fine live album but a call for a drastic reassessment of Sam Cooke's legacy. With excellent and informative liner notes by Peter Guralnick (first written twenty years ago with a postscript added for this reissue), the entire package is a loving revival of an unjustly neglected moment in music history.

I really hate to say this twice in one week, but Live At The Harlem Square Club is one of the finest releases I have heard this millennium, worthy of standing next to James Brown's landmark Apollo Theater date (recorded just a month earlier) as one of the great moments in the history of soul music. Don't fight it, just feel it.

This review also appears at blogcritics.org.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am on my first vacation in, oh, five years or so. By vacation I mean a real vacation, sans family. Sure, it's only about 48 hours, but that's enough when the weirdo Protestant work ethic that has its tendrils wrapped around my medulla oblongata like the most relentlessly constructive tumor in the history of man has me busy busy busy nearly every working minute of every working day. (Usually just bullshit stuff like writing or piddling with my hobbies... otherwise I'd rule the world.)

So here I am in Vermont's northeast kingdom, way out here where the hoot owl rapes the chicken, with nothing to do, nowhere to be, and all the hippie-dippie handmade beer, cheese, and meat I can stand. Sure, Goodwyfe Johno has crap to do, but hey... I'm not her.

See you later, suckers.

I am now leaving for home. There, waiting in a small brown package, is the object of my lust. Civilization IV. Only an hour away. I have updated the countdown timer to reflect this new reality.

John bought himself a copy over lunch today, and GeekLethal finally got the Russian Mafia to pay him what they owed, and he'll be getting a copy tomorrow. That's the start of a good multiplayer game. Anyone else interested? Johno? Johno?

If you are unconvinced of the benefits of joining our little game, read this fictionalized but yet truer than true visualization by our own GL:

G33kL3th4l > I need iron. Who has iron?

John0 > I got 99 problems, but iron ain’t one.

G33kL3th4l > Wha u want trade for iron?

8ucketH3D > Johno, I’ll trade you not kicking your ass for not giving GL iron.

G33kL3th4l > wtf did I do?

John0 > You don’t know me I do what I want

8ucketH3D > J as soon as he has iron he builds Legions and he’s gonna march them up your ass

G33kL3th4l > wtf bitch let him trade what he wants and I can’t even build Legions yet and you have fucking ironclads fielded

[wik] I have it! Mwahahahaha!

[alsø wik] I have started my first Civ IV game. But not until having to...

[alsø alsø wik] If you are buying Civ IV, and you have an ATI Graphics card, prepare for some bullshit. I floundered around for far too long before checking the civ support site. I new that I had some graphics issues, as I recently built a new computer. I had gotten it so it worked, but I hadn't actually fixed it completely. So, when Civ bombed after I tried to run it and the error message indicated graphics problems, well, I just did some research and started reinstalling drivers. Reinstalled Civ and it bombed. Btw, if you're ever having problems, the diagnostic tool included in the game Black and White 2, which I bought a few weeks ago out of sheer frustation at my inability to play Civ, is actually rather fantastic.

Finally, went to the support site, and hey! There's a page just for my problem. It instructed me to uninstall Civ and delete all folders. Then uninstall every single bit of ATI software on the computer. Then, reinstall Civ and DirectX, start the game, let it bomb, then install the ATI drivers - but not any of the other software - then start the game, let it bomb, then unpack some art archive, move some files around, then start the game. That process included restarting the computer about ninety-four billion times and took about two hours altogether. But hey! my video driver problem is now really, really, solved.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] So, first impressions after running the tutorial? I think it will really kick ass. My initial concerns/peeves are limited to the main map. One thing I liked about Civ III was the fact that you could zoom out and still see units, and move them. That doesn't appear to be possible here - once you zoom out (with the scroll wheel, cool) past a certain point all the units disappear. On the plus side, there's a globe view option kinda like google earth that looks really nifty.

All of the screnes I saw in the tutorial were clean and elegantly designed. Navigation through the menus was easy and at least so far relatively intuitive. Graphics are cool, but it will take me a while to get used to them as the style is a bit different than in III. Lots of context information pops when you rollover items on the screen, which I really dig. The interface provides lots of information without being busy or cluttered. Some UI team deserves bonuses.

We'll see about all the nitty gritty details, but so far, color me impressed.

[see the løveli lakes...] The intro movie was also impressive, and the music is significantly less irritating than in previous editions. I had brought my iPod into the office with me just in case, but so far, I haven't needed it.

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] Looking at the manual... the American unique unit is the Navy SEAL. That sounds so much cooler than the nearly useless F-15 from III. The Romans now have the Praetorian, which seems to be just a Legionary, so I don't know why they changed it to a worse sounding name. On the whole, though, the naming of things seems to be a lot more, I don't know, precise or appropriate than in III. There is indeed a space elevator great wonder, which kicks all ass: but I was also impressed at some of the others, like the Hagia Sophia, Hollywood and Angkor Wat.

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] I am so ready to kick someone's ass on this game. wtf r nukes?

Gizmag, which to me has always sounded like an industry publication for the adult film industry or - worse - a union rag for the International Benevolent Order of Jizmoppers, has an in-depth article on the Snark VTOL UCAV. For those of you not up on your acronyms, that's a vertical takeoff and landin unmanned combat air vehicle.

The Snark is wicked cool.

Constructed mainly of Carbon Fibre and Kevlar, the Snark is light and fast (280 km/h), quiet (special rotor blades make it extremely quiet ), virtually invisible to radar or infrared detetection (it recycles its exhaust gases and emits little heat) and can carry a payload of 680kg, offering the ability to pack both massive firepower (enough to sink a ship) and surveillance equipment (such as high res infrared cameras with a magnification of 7500). But wait, there’s more, and this is the clincher. The Snark is the first UAV that runs on diesel fuel, which means it can be easily integrated into any military force – current UAVs require their own special fuel supply to be transported with them whereas the entire US Army plans to run on a single one fuel - diesel. Last and probably most importantly, the Snark can stay airborne for 24 hours at a time, offering an unprecedented loiter time for a machine of this capability.

As cool as its capabilities are, the really important thing to be understood about the advent of the Snark is the fact that it's being built by a company out of New Zealand, TGR Helicorp. Technology is not just advancing, but it is becoming cheaper and easier to make those advances. Computer technology, and the computer aided design software that runs on it, and the computer controlled machines that turn those designs into real objects are all becoming cheap. Before too long, any nation that wants to, and has a populace capable of understanding and operating the tools can become in short order a substantial power.

We are leaving the industrial age of warfare. For the last century or more, the limits of technology have encouraged the mass production of weapons, vehicles and the soldiers who use them. Any nation that lacked not just the industrial base, but the population would be doomed to being a second rate power at best. But before the industrial age, small nations were often great powers thanks to clever and efficient and disciplined use of military technology; but more importantly, the training of soldiers. Prussia was outnumbered and outgunned, but her well trained army often was able to fight off significantly large foes.

Training and technology will form the basis of the new balance of power. The United States is making a huge effort to stay at the forefront of this change - but our size is not really what's driving the expansion of our military power. It's highly trained troops and lethally clever hardware. Other nations could, and eventually will develop the technology that we are playing with now. Imagine a high tech city state like Singapore in fifteen years, fielding armies of armed drones controlled by a small but elite force of soldiers. Singapore, despite its small size could end up a significant regional power by virtue of its wealth, technology base and a certain amount of political will. Other small nations could leverage the potentials of the new weapons that are being developed to gain military power all out of proportion to their size - in much the same way that the Dutch used ship technology (and the power of stock markets and banking institutions that they had just invented) became a world power in the 1600s.

James at Outside the Beltway links an interesting piece in the Washington Post about a judge right in my backyard. It seems that maverick judge Ian M. O'Flaherty has tossed out as unconstitutional DUI cases that presume the guilt of the alleged. Naturally, the prosecutor in Fairfax county has issues with this sort of interference:

"We've been really racking our brains, trying to come up with some solution to it," said Robert F. Horan Jr. (D), the county's longtime chief prosecutor. "It's a crazy situation. He is, for all practical and legal purposes, the Supreme Court of Virginia in these cases, even though, on the Supreme Court, it would take four of him" to issue a majority opinion invalidating a statute.

The usual cries of endangering public safety have also been leveled at the judge. But some are sympathetic, pointing out that even though the laws allow the accused to rebut the charges, that unfairly shifts the burden of proof to the accused. Other courts have ruled as O'Flaherty has, and University of Richmond criminal law professor Ronald J. Bacigal said, "I think he's exactly right. There are U.S. Supreme Court cases saying you can't relieve the government of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what a presumption does."

"The Fifth Amendment," said O'Flaherty, 59, "is an absolute protection against requiring the defendant to say or do anything in the course of a trial. . . . The Fifth Amendment means the defendant can sit there, not say or do anything, and at the end of the case say, 'Can I go home now?' "

No other judge in Fairfax -- or elsewhere in Virginia, as far as can be determined -- has joined O'Flaherty. But the judge said some other jurists have told him they agree with him. "I had one judge tell me, 'I'd rule that way, but I don't have the guts to,' " O'Flaherty said. "I told him, 'You should be driving a truck.' "

James points out the similarity between these cases and your average traffic stop. However, since most of these are civil cases, not criminal cases, the same standards of proof do not apply. It has always been my view that speed limits and the like are unconstitutional, as they are really a presumption of my incompetence by the government. I've seen plenty of people driving unsafely but under the speed limit. They're free and clear. But a highly skilled nascar driver going five miles over yet in perfect control of his vehicle is breaking the law and creating a public danger.

Another thing that should be ruled unconstitutional is DUI checkpoints. Smacks of fascism, if you ask me.

I think we should nominate O'Flaherty for the Supreme Court.

The Ministry is pleased to announce that by the application of violence, cunning, trickery, fakery and acting crazy, and then through the exceedingly tricky ploy of just asking, the Ministry has secured the right to host the Halloween edition of the Carnival of Music. Ministry operatives are even now scouring the interweb for fascinating nuggets of webby goodness to offer up for your perusal. However, this is not enough to satisfy the Ministry's insatiable lust for links. Therefore, you, you and, you - the unshaven one in the back there with the goofy look on your face, yes, you! - all need align your interests with the Ministry's interests. The Ministry wants a nonpareil Carnival experience. You want a nonpareil Carnival experience. Therefore, send music links to {encode="music@perfidy.org" title="the Ministry"}, so that we may include them.

The consequences of not complying with our simple and oh, so reasonable request are unpleasant, and do not bear contemplation.

This Message from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy
Thank you for your cooperation

Speaking of movie lists, I found this list of the fifty most significant SF movies of all time over at Texas Best Grok. The list originates with SF author John Scalzi, who has composed a Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies.

The list itself is below the fold, where I have indicated those movies that I have seen with italics. You can assume that I want to see any movie that I have not, unless I indicate otherwise.

But first, some commentary on the list itself. Generally speaking, Zombie flicks and Superhero movies do not belong on a science fiction list. Even though the choices he makes are fairly good ones. The Incredibles, I find, is a bit of a borderline case. I can't really pin down a specific reason, but part of me feels that it should be on this list. Also, I think Scalzi has made some missteps in crafting this list. Movies that should have been on the list include:

• The first Terminator, maybe even entirely in place of the second. The second was no where near as important as the first, and no where near as innovative in terms of story. (It's a sequel, hard to be, really.) The only reason I would include the second would be for the ground breaking special effects.
• Altered States
• Andromeda Strain
• Charlie
• Gattaca
• Fifth Element
• The Time Machine (Early version)
• Soylent Green

Another recent movie that isn't earthshaking, but only because it got such limited exposure. Prime is a fantastic low budget time travel movie. Rent it at once.

So, on with the list:

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! - I love this movie. Gonzo garage band style sf.
• Akira
• Alien - Classic horror in a thoughtful sf setting.
• Aliens - Arguably the best action adventure style sf movie ever made. More great lines in five minutes of this movie than in a whole summer of sequels.
  Alphaville
• Back to the Future - Silly, but pure fun.
• Blade Runner - Director's cut, naturally. Nothing like the book, really, but a masterful and beautiful film.
• Brazil - How many directors have two movies on this list?
• Bride of Frankenstein - A monster flick, but if we can argue that Frankenstein is the first sf novel, then we can legitimately argue that this is an sf film.
• Brother From Another Planet
• A Clockwork Orange - Much as I love this movie, I really can't watch it anymore. The violence is more disturbing than hundreds of Matrix showings.
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind - kind of silly, now, but that catchy little tune…
• Contact - A lot of people slagged this, but I dig it. Jodie Foster can't make bad movies, and despite Sagan's saccharine notions of alien intentions, much more thoughtful than your run of the mill first contact story.
• The Damned
• Destination Moon - Truly groundbreaking. It's actually kind of painful to watch now (though I own it) but this was made in the early fifties with all the tech supplied by Heinlein. More accurate than many movies made half a century later, and they had real space flight to use as an example.
• The Day The Earth Stood Still - Classic. Must see, if you haven't.
• Delicatessen
• Escape From New York - Perfect dystopian shoot em up. Too many dystopian movies and stories are depressingly philosophical. Thing is, if things go bad, they'll go bad.
• ET: The Extraterrestrial - Not violent enough. Hated the reworked version.
• Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
• The Fly (1985 version) - Two words: perfect casting.
• Forbidden Planet - Another classic.
• Ghost in the Shell - I'm not into anime that much, but this was a good flick. We need a live action version of starblazers.
• Gojira/Godzilla - The platonic form of sf monster movies.
• The Incredibles - Pixar's best work to date.
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version) - You may call it a Cold War allegory. I call it a good explanation for the behavior of some of my coworkers and superiors.
• Jurassic Park - Magical. Even with the goofy kids. That scene with the velociraptors in the kitchen – imho, one of the best single scenes ever filmed.
• Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior - See comments for Escape from NY.
• The Matrix - When Trinity levitated and beat the crap out of those donut eaters, I turned to wife and said, this movie is gonna kick ass.
• Metropolis – I really, really, need to see this, especially seeing as they've released it with the original score.
• On the Beach – The book is fantastic, I need to see this one.
• Planet of the Apes (1968 version) - Seven words: "Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"
• Robocop - I'll buy that for a dollar. Verhoeven's only good movie. What fucktard, though. Starship Troopers still breaks my heart.
• Sleeper - The only Woody Allen movie that I unreservedly love.
• Solaris (1972 version)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - You had me at Ricardo Montalban's fake pecks. The best of the ST movies, though they stole the battle scene straight from Run Silent, Run Deep.
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope - Good,
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back - Better, and then shit for the next four movies. Damn you, George Lucas!
• The Stepford Wives The original is great, the remake was okay.
• Superman - Great movie, but doesn't belong here.
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day - See my earlier comments.
• The Thing From Another World
• Things to Come
• Tron - Goofy now, but amazing at the time.
• 12 Monkeys - One of my all time favorite movies. Brad Pitt's best performance – "Fuck the bozos!"
• 28 Days Later - One of the best zombie flicks ever, but not an sf movie really.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - A classic.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey Except for the last twenty minutes, a truly great film. HAL is one of the best sf film characters ever.
• La Voyage Dans la Lune
• War of the Worlds (1953 version) Awesome.

Perfidy will be broadcast into deepest, darkest space.

Thanks to Andrew for the cool link.

This year has been a really hard year for disasters. From the giant tsunami that struck Asia just after Christmas last year to the recent earthquakes and hurricanes that have spread misery almost as fast and wide as humankind could have done if left to its own devices, many terrible things have befallen the hapless and helpless populations of Earth of late.

But I have been hearing rumblings of "disaster fatigue." Indeed, the Red Cross reports that, in the wake of the massive relief efforts mounted for Indonesia and Louisiana, relatively little charity has been left over for the Red Cross' efforts in Pakistan, Guatemala, etc. Although money can only do so much, it can do a damn sight more than nothing at all.

So I have a proposition. If you, meaning "you right there with a Diet Coke, a gas station burrito and a Star Trek t-shirt riding up over your belly (I mean... with the snifter of brandy, the great hair, and the air of nonchalant cool that some would kill to possess)," donate at least $15 to the charity of your choice to help fund relief efforts in these relatively needful areas: e.g. the Pakistan/India earthquate, Hurricane Stan, or indeed any one of the thousands of worthy and underfunded causes out there in the world trying to do their part, I will send you, meaning "you right there the benighted soul whose life is enriched incrementally each day as our perfidious electrons bathe your benumbed eyes," two mix cds I have personally compiled from songs selected from among the 1,500 albums in my collection. I cannot guarantee each song will be new to you, but I can guarantee that you have never heard them in that particular order. So how about it?

(Offer expires November 31. Offer not valid in Albania, Uzbekistan, or Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.)

The Ministry is pleased to note the attention brought to NaDruWriNi. All minions, readers, and hangers-on associated with the Ministry are herewith encouraged to make every effort to participate in this endeavor; only through concerted action will our enemies be driven in terror before us.

When the robots come your cooperation will not be forgotten; remember this act of kindness.

That is all.

If NaNoWriMo is the marathon race of the writing/blogging set, then NaDruWriNi is the beer-soaked game of backyard wiffle ball.

National Drunk Writing Night, this year scheduled for Saturday, November 5, is your opportunity to uncork your logorrhea and let loose a firehose of ill-considered and unsteadily libidinous verbage directly from the lizard brain at the top of your spine to glorious nigh-eternal enshrinement on the intar-nets.

There are a few rules:
Rule 1: You do not talk about Fight Club.

Rule 2: You kick without mercy the ass of anyone who cracks that weak and tired old Fight Club joke. (Yeah, you try it!)

Rule 3: You must tell us what you're drinking.

Rule D: You may not edit. You may spellcheck, backspace, and edit on the fly as normal, but what goes up on your webpage must be the sloppy first draft of whatever it was you were.... yeah.

Rule V: You MUST post whatever you write to your web log. Site. Web site. "Blog" is sooooo 2003. You must post whatever crapulous drivel you write to your website.

Rule 42: You DO NOT talk about Fight Club.

Game on!!!

Geneticists have completed a map of the common variations in the human genome. Sadly, this will not immediately lead to technology that would make our brains, muscles or, uh, units bigger. However, it is a major step forward in our understanding of what actually makes us tick. The HapMap, as it is called, is a sort of a complement for Craig Venter's human genome project. Where the human genome project detailed the genetics that all humans have in common, the HapMap details the genes that make us different.

As scientists dig into the details, it is expected that we may begin to get a handle on how genes can contribute to disease. In the past, single genes have been linked to rare disorders, but the technology did not exist to look at patterns in large numbers of genes. Analysis of the data in HapMap may lead to stunning advances in medical treatments.

The idea behind the map is rather clever, as we would expect of highly paid genetic scientists. There are over three billion letters in the human genetic code. That's a lot, and presents a problem for researchers trying to track down subtle interrelationships between genes. However,

Each person differs from someone else by, on average, 3 million of these units, but every time two people are compared, it is a different set of 3 million. To find all those differences, scientists had feared they would need to determine the full genome, all 3 billion units, of every volunteer in a study, which would be too expensive using current technology.

But then researchers began to notice consistent patterns in the DNA of different individuals that suggested a shortcut, said Mark Daly, a scientist at Mass. General and the Broad who was one of the first to discover the patterns. They found that DNA can be thought of as a series of sections, called ''haplotype blocks." Each block comes in only a handful of variations, and each person has just one of the variations. (Each of these variations is known as a haplotype, which is why the map is known as the HapMap.)

To determine which block a person has, researchers have only to look at one spot where the block varieties are different, giving them a ''tag" that identifies the block.

So instead of laboriously trawling through billions of units, only a relative few need to be checked. Maybe we'll beat the robots yet...

And maybe, we can all get tiger-shaped eyes. 'Cause that would be so cool!

In honor of the looming pagan bacchanalia, perfidy presents to you this wonderful pumpkin carving web thingy devised by the clever yet morally suspect gnomes at Toilette Humor. For your All-Hallows Eve enjoyment, a custom-designed, perfidious Jack-O-Lantern:

Sixty-five years after winning the Battle of Britain, the sceptered isle has fallen to the fascists. In this case, the health nazis who have banned smoking across the entire nation, save only in alcohol-only pubs and clubs. Of course the government is reserving the right to ban smoking in those places as well. I imagine they're planning to wait and see if the British accept the first round like sheep, and then take away the rest of their rights.

"Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt says she is "proud" to be introducing new smoke-free legislation for England - despite widespread dismay at the Government's proposals." Goering was proud of the Luftwaffe, too.

I work at a government agency. We were recently forwarded this message regarding the upcoming switch back to Eastern Standard Time:

UNCLAS STATE 196946
INFORM CONSULS
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ACOA
SUBJECT: DEPARTMENT/WASHINGTON TIME CHANGE.

1. All posts are advised that WASHINGTON will return to EASTERN STANDARD TIME (From ZULU minus four (4) to ZULU minus five (5) hours) on Sunday, October 30, 2005, at 0200 local, (0700 Zulu).
2. Minimize considered.
RICE
BT
#6946


NNNN
UNCLASSIFIED STATE 00196946

Exsqeeze me? Why all of that, when, instead of forwarding some pseudo-cryptic message from the State Department, they could have merely typed a friendly reminder to all staff, that, "Hey, kids, don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend." And further, wtf is up with item two?

Tropical Storm Beta has formed in the Caribbean. Sounds like they're still in testing. Anyone want to lay odds on Hurricane Epsilon ravaging the East Coast? I bet Rocket Jones and most of the munuvians are desperately praying for at least Tropical Storm Mu. If they could have Mu and Nu, well, they'd probably all just die.

For those of you who are insufficiently classically trained and cannot, as I can, recite the greek alphabet; here for your convenience is the list of the next score or so hurricanes that will form in the next five weeks:

Okay, so that's an overstatement. I never had any personal animus toward Miers, and I am sure that she is a bright lady who is kind to strangers and small woodland creatures. But I am provisionally glad that she is no longer in the race for a seat at the big kid's table. Provisionally, because I am deeply afeared that Bush, being the stubborn guy he is, will nominate Gonzales just as a personal dry-pop to the uppity conservatives who dissed his first choice. If Bush does the sensible and right thing, he will appoint someone from the long list of highly qualified and respected conservative jurists everyone thought he'd dip into the first time 'round.

What cracked me up was this quote:

Democrats accused him of bowing to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."

Oh really? First off, it's truly ridiculous to refer to a wing of a conservative party as "radical." Second, the reason Bush picked this chick in the first place was that he thought she'd do exactly everything the Democrats are most afraid a Republican nominee would do on the court. Like overturn Roe v Wade or immantize the eschaton.

It looks like the White House is using Krauthammer's strategy for face saving, claiming that the Senate's desire for at least some documentation on Miers conflicted with executive privilege. Well and good, but we all know why she's ducking out the back door. Let us hope that the next pick will not be Gonzales or Larry Thompson, or we'll go through this mess all over again, and probably worse.

Living the rough and tumble, high adventure lifestyle I do, it's very dfficult for me to sit and watch a little TV at night. I catch a show now and then, but I increasingly rely on DVR to bank what I care to see. Which, alas, isn't as much as I feared it might be- mainly because most of TV sucks so mightily.

So OK, I sit and spend 10 minutes a week scrolling through the menu, finding shows and movies Lady Lethal or I might care about, and set them up to record. It's in that way that it really hits home how just criminally poor television programming is, and the amount of garbage viewers will tolerate.

Case in point: several days ago I was home in the pm, flipping around, and there was Superfly on Cinemax. How I missed it in previous scan/record sessions I don't know, but there it was. Once. One time only, on a random Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I was pissed because I missed it, and an opportunity to conduct a side project I've been considering for awhile now (viewing with a stopwatch to record how much of the film is devoted to showing the front end of Priest's car as he drives around. Seriously.)

What really gets under my skin is that I can catch Top Gun, Major League, and A League of Their Own in any language seemingly at any moment on about any movie channel. Look, we've all seen them. Many, many, many times. And I think each brings their own value or insight to the medium, particularly Top Gun's exploration of gay military aviators. That's super.

But why do choice flicks like Superfly have to get the Shaft every time?

This amuses me so much, I'm going to dance on the dessicated corpse of fair-use, and post it in its entirety:

Iraq Constitution Approval Another Setback for Bush
by Scott Ott

(2005-10-25) -- In yet another setback for the Bush administration, Iraqi electoral officials announced today that voters have approved the new Iraqi Constitution by a margin of 78-to-21 percent.

This new bit of bad news will likely drive President George Bush's popularity ratings into the single digits, according to an unnamed expert from a non-partisan, progressive political think-tank.

"The Bush foreign policy continues to be fatally-wounded by clarity of purpose, dogged persistence and a pathetic failure to capitulate in the face of opposition," the source said. "At a time when a real leader would be paralyzed with self-doubt over the meaningless deaths of 2,000 American troops, Bush continues to act as if freeing 25 million Iraqis from decades of oppression, torture and death is somehow worth the price paid by those who volunteered to fight."

"It's sad to watch our international credibility crumble like this," the anonymous policy expert said. "In 2008, I'm afraid you're going to see voters leaving the Republican party in droves, desperate to find a leader who provides a stronger sense of nuance and ambiguity."

Ken, the lovable (and red and scratchy) Brickmuppet, has gone completely overboard in responding to one of my comments on his earlier space post. Brickmuppet's first post was about NASA's new Constellation project - which intends to build a disposable crew capsule that is eerily similar to the Apollo capsule of forty years past. But bigger! With electronics! Brickmuppet was excited about this development. But then he's a wet-behind-the-ears youngster of 35. But with the vast experience and jaded cynisism that my 36 years have given me, I have less reason for joy. I think that NASA is congenitally unable to conceive, let alone design and operate, a functional manned space program leading to a permanent presence in space achieved through lowered cost of access to orbit. In short, not gonna happen, and I don't like the dry itchy feeling of NASA blowing smoke up my ass with a sixties retro space program spun as exciting and new developments in space.

Honestly, I'd like to believe that this was cool, and would lead to something good. But I just can't. Brickmuppet followed up on my comment with an extensive and well researched post. I've started posts like his, but depression and ennui generally kill the project after a few minutes. He even throws in a pic of what he somehow knew that I would love to see more than anything else. I steal and present it here:

But Brickmuppet's obsequious (but welcome) praise will not distract me from my goal:

The great and wise Buckethead

You can't use the Jedi mind trick on me, I am immune to your powers.

His arguments are not without merit.

From gushing praise to damning with faint praise in one paragraph! Sheesh!

The thing is, everything Ken says short of the last few paragraph supports my argument that NASA is unfit and incapable of doing what they claim they are going to do with Constellation. We're sympatico on that. Where I disagree is with his belief that Constellation will not adversely effect private space development. NASA has always viewed the private sector as a competitor. Further, Constellation will compete with private launch, not just because NASA will try to block private development, but because private devlopment will be hindered by the availability of subsidized manned space flight. And further further, NASA is so repugnant to me because they won't do what's right, and won't let anyone else do it either. This is the classic endstate of a bureaucratic organization.

A lot of people have been slagging heavy lift, for little reason. In fact, that very topic is one of the posts I couldn't finish because it made me cry. It's not so much that there's a problem with the hardware - shuttle components could easily be configured into a reasonable heavy lift vehicle, as I've stated here before. The problem is that, up til now and for the foreseeable future, NASA will own those components. The only solution is to kill NASA and release those designs as open source hardware. Other people could make better, and more innovative use of them; and not spend billions in infrastructure and labor costs to use them just three times a year.

Is the NASA architecture viable economically? Is it spiffy and cutting edge? No.

But private industry will be, and they will compete and try new and risky things to tap into the space market. The constellation retro-rockets are a temporary fix, and a means of jump starting a manned space program that was boldly going nowhere.

In a generation NASA will be buying its spacecraft from the same companies that will be building them for space hotels, asteroid mining companies and even colonists heading to the Moon, Mars, the asteroids,and maybe Titan.

Exactly. That's why the Constellation is so much wanking. If it never flies, its useless. If it does, it's either pathetically redundant next to Rutan's SpaceShipFour or whatever - or it kept that ship from flying.

[wik] I forgot to mention, Brickmuppet hits the nail on the head with this one, too. Talking about Space-X's antitrust lawsuit against the big aerospace companies, BM says:

This could break open the door to commercial space...or nail it shut

That's good and bad. On one hand, the ambiguities of the current situation could really be in favor of the small space startups. If this goes badly for Space-X, then the future spins clockwise out of the picture.

Alert readers will have noted that the countdown timer to your right is now counting up. I ordered Civilization IV from Amazon on the understanding that I would recieve the game yesterday. Five minutes ago, I logged into Amazon to find out, as they say, "Where's my stuff?"

Amazon is still under the impression that I will receive my package on the 25th:

Corksucking Iceholes. I want my civ, dammit!

[wik] Farging Bastiches! I just checked my account and the picture is exactly the same as the one above. Those fucktards are still guessing that I'll get my game on the 25th.

The pennant race in the deranged dictator division is heating up. Iran, perpetual second place finisher in a division dominated for decades by league titan North Korea, has instituted some key lineup changes in hopes of displacing the defending champs. Kim Jong Il has led his team to victory for year after year with cunning diplomatic strategy composed of equal parts bald-faced lying, last minute appeals to charity and simple bugfuck craziness. This is a tough combination to beat, especially considering that the NK team has two to eight nukes batting clean-up.

Iran has not taken a pennant since 1979, when in a storied inter-league game, they beat the Superpower league's USA with a ballsy hostage taking play. Things might have ended badly for the Iranian underdogs, but a welcome assist from a sandstorm and below par coaching on the American side proved sufficient for the big win. Since the glory days of the first few years after expansion team Iran joined the DDD, it has been frustrated hopes and horrific casualties. An eight year slugfest with division rivals Iraq allowed North Korea to coast into division leadership year after year.

This season, things are looking up for the Iranians. With Iraq knocked clear out of the division by some superb play by both the Americans and the British, Iran has only one team to beat. With North Korea on the ropes thanks to a concerted diplomatic effort from regional rivals and the Americans, and the American military team locked in an extended playoff with nutbag religious fundamentalist splodeydopes league champs Al Qaida, now is the time for the big play.

This sets the stage for today's match up. Iranian coach Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event today that Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians will destroy it. Enough crazy talk like that, and the Iranians might have a shot at the pennant. Anti-Zionism has been a reliable strategy for the Islamic members of the DDD for half a century. But the game isn’t over yet. Iran, eager to match North Korea's hitting power in the middle of the lineup, is going for nukes.

This is a dangerous move in any match-up with the canny and ruthless Israelis. Astute watchers of the game will remember the last time a DDD contender tried that play against Israel's fearsome defense. It's a bold move for Iran, but the smart money is on Israeli strike planes over Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant by year's end, ending Iran's bid to reach the top of the division – and clearing the way for yet another championship for North Korea.

There are some things I will never get. Scientology. Necco wafers. Feet as a food, be they pig or chicken. The Da Vinci Code. The enduring appeal of Jessica Simpson's music (the appeal of her butt I get).

One thing that constantly eludes my understanding is the continued success of modern R&B. Well, I understand why it's popular; it's good to have sex to, but I just don't get it. I try, oh God, I try. I frigging love funk, crunk, and hip-hop from Brooklyn, Compton, Houston, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, Miami, Jamaica and France. I adore Chacka Khan, Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Mary J. Blige, and Beyonce. But a lot of the time, when the temp slows down, I get lost.

R&B has become an impoverished genre over the last twenty years. Although there are some signs of life, since the mid-80s it has been dominated by singers who oversing every line, make every word a payoff and every song a three-minute orgasm rather than laying back and establishing a groove, a melody that will support all the million melismatic notes that singers carelessly spatter all over the modern R&B landscape.

R&B duets are notable mainly for being an opportunity for two singers to circle each other, egging each other on past any sense of melody with moans, runs, and ad libs over an interchangably generic music bed (can't forget the windchimes!). Used to be, this was a hallmark of the gospel style, but years of overuse by thousands of talented but tasteless songbirds have blunted what impact it once had. The key insight is in a quote from blogcritics founder Eric Olsen, who wrote about Mariah Carey: "the essence of Mariah's problem and why she is doomed to suck is that she sings to serve her own ego, not the song: great singers respect the song above their own glorification." Of course, the best is still the best: Luther Vandross was and will remain the king of bedroom R&B. However, he practically invented the style, a distinct advantage over subsequent practitioners who seem bent on sucking all the life out of it.

What brings all this to mind is the recent release of a new Gerald Levert duets compilation, Voices. Gerald Levert is the son of O'Jays founder Eddie Levert and one of the longtime big players on the modern R&B scene. Voices collects duets from throughout his career, featuring guests like Kelly Price, Faith Evans, Vanessa Williams, Missy Elliott, Teena Marie, and Eddie Levert, Sr., as well as three new songs. Not being very familiar with Gerald Levert, I was optimistic that there would be something here I could get into.

Gerald Levert is an amazing singer, both technically gifted and emotive, with a voice that hits the spot perfectly when he remembers to exercise restraint. The trouble comes when he forgets. On the one non-duet selection on Voices, "I Like It," Levert sings the song halfway to straight, and the result is halfway to great. But in general he too succumbs to the showy, sugary tendencies of modern R&B. One reason, surely, is because without the oversinging, there would be nothing left of the songs. Without good material, all the crying in the world is just for show. I'm sure Gerald Levert and his guests would beg to differ, but the sad fact is that if you took the ego out of most of the performances here, the underlying songs are so trite and lightweight that they would just melt away. Whether it's with Faith Evans, Keith Sweat, Coko, and Missy Elliott on "All the Times" or with his father on "Wind Beneath My Wings," the sappy production and one-note (so to speak) vocal performances sometimes edge very close to self-parody, wasting a great deal of talent in the process.

The backing tracks are halfway to parody too: always with a snare drum burdened with miles of reverb, the synth piano, the canned strings, and the omnipresent tingly windchimes to announce every chorus. Sometimes there is a dash of hip hop, but in general there is little to dilute the sappy lyrics and cascades of unnecessary notes.

A few of the songs are okay enough taken individually, but when collected in one place they all smear together into a long numbing sugar coma. By the sixth song in, I'm checking to see if the disc has started over again, and by the tenth I never want to hear another windchime as long as I live. By the time we get to the cover of the omnipresent and overdone "I Believe I Can Fly," I'm running to dig out my Al Green records to see if I can still remember a time when they made good music to make love to your old lady by.

I know there's an audience out there for Gerald Levert's music, just like I know there's an audience for Dragonball Z, Tommy Hilfiger, and those street basketball videos they push on basic cable. Any members of that audience who happen past this review will undoubtedly try to persuade me with poor spelling and non sequiturs that I just don't get the genius. I'll save you the trouble, kids. I try to get it, given my tastes I probably should get it, but I don't get it and I don't care. Voices puts me to sleep, and on the only occasions I'd ever have cause to put this in, I, *ahem* really don't want to be sleeping. If Gerald Levert ever makes an album without windchimes, I'll check it out. But until that time, I'll have to content myself with worn out corny old R&B like "Sexual Healing" and "Here And Now."

Cindy Sheehan, who has already seriously abused the fifteen minute rule for fame, has vowed to chain herself to the White House Fence until all the troops are brought home. I had some sympathy for her when she first appeared on the scene. No longer. To insist that all the troops be brought home immediately - in defiance of any logic or strategic considerations - is merely petulance.

I'm sure her son would be proud of the use to which she's put his memory.

When soul legend Solomon Burke returned from obscurity in 2002 with Don't Give Up On Me, he was singing material by some of the greatest songwriters of the last half century: Dan Penn, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Nick Lowe among them. But with the exception of Van Morrison and Dan Penn, the names under the titles weren't exactly the first that come to mind when soul music is the topic. What elevated their offerings from genre exercises or curiosities to near-perfection were Burke's performances. His soaring gospel-soul tenor cut straight to the narrative heart of each song, making each a grand drama of loss, love, or tribulation. It was a thrilling return to fame for Burke, and especially surprising for how different it was from the gospel-infused soul rave-ups that he rode to fame in the 1960s. In a more expansive and sedate setting with a slate of (mostly) excellent new songs, we saw a new side of a great old artist.

It now seems that that album's success was due not only to Burke but to white-boy producer Joe Henry who picked the songs and helmed the sessions. Henry, who has also engineered and produced for quirky acts like Kristin Hersh and Jim White and has released numerous albums of his own, made Don't Give Up On Me a warm and cozy sounding album that put the spotlight right where it needed to be - on Burke's powerful tenor - and leaned instruments right up against that marvelous instrument where need be. Relying mainly on piano and organ, acoustic guitars, quiet kit drums, and hushed backup singers, Henry created a gorgeous, lo-fi old school vibe with the one-band/one-room sound that recalled the glory days of Motown, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals, but with a twist. Henry seems to have realized that trying to ape the sound of classic Stax or Atlantic sides is a sucker's game. Instead, he settled on a sparse, intimate production that sounded classic but was in reality all new and all his own.

Now Joe Henry is producer of the new compilation album I Believe To My Soul, a project which raises the stakes immensely on Don't Give Up On Me. For this album Henry recruited not one but five great voices of soul music: Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples, Allen Toussaint, and Billy Preston. All five, though not household names, are legends of Southern soul, among the greats of the genre. Together they bring their strengths in straight sanctified gospel, percolating funk, gritty R&B, New Orleans muck, and classic Memphis soul into one new creation that, although soul has been around for fifty years, sounds as fresh and new as if it were born yesterday.

It's like a ninja movie. Ann Peebles came out of the Memphis scene in the early 1970s and is best known for her hit "I Can't Stand The Rain," her powerful voice, and her mastery of Crane Style kung fu and judo. Irma Thomas, the Queen of New Orleans Soul (a title bestowed by the city), has been bubbling under for more than forty years, recording excellent sides that never achieved national success. Her secret weapons are her restraint, taking her performances from a whisper to a scream, and her deadliness with the katana. She is master of Dragon style kung fu. Mavis Staples is best known as the lead vocalist for the Staples Singers ("I'll Take You There"), and her mastery of rhythm and phrasing is without equal. Her weapon of choice is the matched sais and her kung fu style is Snake. Billy Preston has been playing professional music since the age of ten, and his abilities led him to be a session player on the Beatles' Let It Be and to later chart success with several 70's funk-soul hits. He is a master of stealth, poison, and Drunken Boxing. Allen Toussaint is the Master, a grey eminence of New Orleans music who produced Irma Thomas, the Meters, Lee Dorsey, Patti Labelle, and Doctor John, penned numerous hits, and has recorded several albums of his own. He is a master of Dragon style, t'ai chi, and the secret art of ninjitsu. Brought together by a mysterious warlord named Joe they are: The Soul Patrol. Cue theme music and flashy title sequence.

With incredible talent like this the best thing to do is to get out of the way. Joe Henry is smart enough to do just that, laying down low-key skeletal tracks embellished by Toussaint's keyboards, horns, well-placed guitar rhythms and perfectly done backup vocals. His vocabulary as a producer is deep, allowing him to support a song with old-style gospel backup or with Meters-inspired funk as the situation demands. The song selections range from old soul and gospel chestnuts to Bob Dylan, and Henry does his best to make that diversity work in his favor, showcasing each singer's particular strengths with the choice of material.

After all this buildup, I can say without exaggeration that I Believe To My Soul is the best new album I have heard this year, and possibly this decade. Every single song is an instant classic performance, thirteen black-belt exhibitions of the deepest, most beautiful, most sanctified soul music to be made since the golden era of the genre. Purists might sneer at the inauthenticity of Hardy's warm and intimate production and the Starbucks-readiness of the marketing campaign, but purists be damned. This is one amazing, transcendent, spectacular album that deserves to be in as many lives as possible.

If I had to pick one high point, it would have to be Ann Peebles' otherworldly reading of Bob Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," a performance so powerful, so beautiful, that it almost broke me down the first time I heard it, and keeps breaking me down every single time since. But that's practically an arbitrary choice. Billy Preston's burbling Philly-via-New Orleans "As One," Irma Thomas' gorgeous and plaintive "Lovin' Arms," Mavis Staples' intense "You Must Have That True Religion," or Allan Toussaint's unspeakably funky instrumental "Turvalon" are each candidates for 'best song,' and those four choices are ultimately arbitrary as well. How often does an original album come along that is composed of nothing but high points?

It's possible that I'm the only person on the planet moved in this way by I Believe To My Soul, but I'd bet against that. The liner notes to the album indicate that this is the first volume in a planned series of similar releases. Even if future installments fall short of this first one (and how could they possibly measure up?), Joe Henry is amassing a track record as a producer to watch, a true believer of rare talent and discernment. If he keeps it up, we might be able to say his name in the same breath as Jerry Wexler, Phil Spector, George Clinton, and Quincy Jones as producers whose names inspire awed reverence among a segment of the music-loving public. Keep it up, Joe.

A portion of the proceeds from sales of I Believe To My Soul will go to fund Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Mapgirl found IMDB's list of the 100 greatest movies, along with a meme to indicate which you have seen and not seen. This I have done, and as an added bonus, indicated with an asterisk which movies on the list I own. I was rather surprised to discover that I have seen every single one of the top thirty, and 43 of the top fifty. That's a lot, I think. My total count was 82 out of 100. My list is below the fold:

I included links for the first fifty, then got tired of that shizzle.

I don't know why the table appears so far down, but scroll a bit, it's there.

What if WWII had been a real time strategy game? It might have gone something like this in the early stages:

deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha

Stalin runs into some problems with his non-aggression pact:

Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL

Hitler has some interface issues:

paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*

Roosevelt leaves, Truman enters:

*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*

Stalin is frustrated with the outcome:

Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*

Ran into this over at Cold Fury, originally from your source for military humor, the Strategy Page

Brew #4

Very Special Bitter

6.6 lbs (2 cans) John Bull light liquid malt extract
1/2 lb crystal malt 60L
1/2 lb caramunich malt (~40L)
1 pkg water crystals
1.25 oz Northern Brewer hops (pellet)- bittering
1 oz East Kent Goldings hops (whole)- aroma
1 oz East Kent Goldings hops (whole)- dry hopping
1 pkg dry Windsor yeast

Steeped specialty grains for 45 minutes in muslin bag at 165 +/-5 degrees in 1 gallon filtered tap water, and squoze bag out real good upon removal. Brought 2.2 gallons filtered tap water to boil and added steeping water to make 3.2 gallons of wort, more or less. Added malt extract and water crystals and returned to boil. Added Northern Brewer and started the 60-minute timer. At 48 min added the EKG in a muslin bag and boiled 12 minutes. Removed from heat, removed hop bag and squoze out real good.

Transferred to bathtub with 24 lbs ice plus cold water. Got the wort down to 113 degrees in less than half an hour.

To fermenting bucket added 2 gallons refrigerated distilled water at about 40 degrees. Added wort, filtered out break material and hop sludge, and poured back and forth to aerate. Final temperature was about 78 degrees. A little warmer than I'd like, but I was pinched for time.

Rehydrated yeast in 8 oz water at 90 degrees. Let stand 20 min, and pitched at about 85 degrees. I was worried about the temperature difference beween the yeast slurry and the temperature of the wort, but again... pinched for time. After 24 hours the yeast was working fine, so I know it's not dead. As to whether the high start temperature will affect the final flavor through production of
undesirable byproducts, I won't know until I taste it. I think I should be fine. Ish. Fermentation temperature is between 70 and 72 degrees, again a smidge higher than Windsor reputedly likes, so I might end up with some funny flavors like diacetyl butteriness.

Presuming the fermentation is pretty much wrapped up by Thursday, on Friday I will dry hop the primary with the second ounce of EKG and leave for 15 more days. That will hopefully be enough time for the hop flavor to reasonably fully extract. I paid enough for them, so I want my dang old money's worth.

Original Gravity: unknown. I managed to melt my plastic hygrometer flask trying to take boiling gravity reading. Meh. I'm gonna call it 1.045 for the hell of it. Who cares, anyway, as long as the beer turns out tasty?

With this one I am after something not entirely unlike Fuller's Extra Special Bitter. Even though ESBs can't really be done in bottles, the Windsor yeast and full pound of specialty grains (as well as the John Bull extract, which I'm told tends to be high in unfermentable sugars) ought to result in a nicely malty, very fragrant and estery beer with a balance bitterness. I love the aroma of East Kent Goldings, and my first tasting suggests they play very very well with the Northern Brewers. The only slightly sad part at this point is that the gas coming out of the airlock smells decidedly of EKG, which means that there's not a lot of aroma necessarily staying in the beer. Oh well... that's what the dry-hopping is for. I only hope it doesn't come out too bitter with the curranty bite I dislike in the local microbrew's ESB, which sometimes verges on the undrinkably awful. We shall see.

Other notes: used B-Brite as sanitizer. It's a percarbonate, not a peroxide, which some people argue makes it less effective as a sanitizer (and indeed it's marketed as a heavy-duty cleanser), but I
think it'll be okay. I bottled my brown ale using B-Brite as the sanitizer, and it is turning out fine. Nevertheless, I'll be ordering some One-Step right soon now. With One-Step there is no need to rinse as the hydrogen peroxide residue actually ends up contributing a tiny amount of oxygen to the brew, which might even help the fermentation but isn't enough to risk oxygenating the beer when it's bottled. As if a batch would stick around long enough to go stale. Please.

[wik] Upon bottling, the beer is delicious! Malty and sweet with a nice caramel bite and estery softness from the yeast, balanced with a proportional bitterness and that lovely, lovely EKG flavor. I think if I dry-hopped in secondary fermentation instead, the hop aroma would be even more pronounced. I expect that the hoppiness will fade a little over time as the free oxygen in the bottle (in headroom and the minute amount from the no-rinse One-Step) reacts with the hop oils. That's cool. I will drink it all before that becomes much of a problem. This is one I expect I'll be making again. Oh.... right. Used 4.3 oz corn suger to prime before bottling.

[alsø wik]Finished four of the last five bottles over the weekend of March 10, and this beer is better than ever. In fact, it seems to be coming into its own. I do think that the high fermentation temperature contributed an untoward amount of fruitiness to the flavor, but the basic idea behind the beer is very sound. Next time, it would be interesting to throw even more caramel malt into the mix, maybe 2 oz of 40L and 4 oz of 80 or 90L crystal, and dry hop in secondary for three weeks with 1-2 oz of Kent Goldings. Maybe also up the alcohol by adding a pound of dry malt extract, make this into a Big American Beer... With Tailfins! Also, 4.3 oz of corn sugar was too much. Next time cut it back to 3.5, more in line with how an English Ale should be. Also, next time I will break up the flavoring hops a bit. Instead of 1 ounce of EKG for 12 minutes, I should go with 1/2 oz for 20 minutes and 1/2 oz for 5. I want to get a little more grapefruity flavor out of the hops, and also a little more nose. Basically, I'm just surprised that this beer lasted since Thanksgiving!

A platoon of the 506th PIR is pinned down on a mountainside, surrounded by an unexpectedly large - and growing - number of jihadis. They parachuted in the night before, to set up an observation post to monitor traffic in this remote region. The American troops have a good defensive position. They could hold it forever against the ill-trained and under-equipped mujj. But no position is secure when you run out of ammo. And that time is not far away.

The nearest airbase is five hundred klicks to the south. Two transports have been shot down in past month, and brass is concerned about losses. They're not about to lose millions of dollars of expensive transport. But the sergeant seems serenely unconcerned about remf penny-pinching cowardice. The reason becomes clear when a low hum begins to sound from behind the ridge above them.

Seconds later, a flock of jeep sized helicopters popup over the ridge – each clearing the ridge by inches, and each in exactly the same place. The drone cargo helicopters (operated by some spec-4 in Bahrain, the sergeant imagines) circle the paratroopers’ small defensive enclave. As each passes over the small beacon the troops placed in the small clearing, the jeep helicopter snap-flares to a complete stop, and drops a cargo pallet out before moving on. In ten seconds, a ton of ammunition, mortars, and (thank you, God! cigarettes) has been robotically, automatically delivered.

Over at Murdoc’s post on the V-22 Osprey, James left a comment that really caught my imagination.

Stepping back though - advances in tech are rendering alot of its functions redundant. For example GPS guided air drops could replace many of its cargo functions.

Personally, I think a hummer based ducted fan UAV that can carry about 300- 500 lbs of cargo would be more effective. (Basically it would enable the creation of a GPS unmanned mobile resupply function) Think of just in time resupply chain.

Of course, appealing to the “advances in technology” idea is sure to catch my imagination. I can’t believe I never thought of this, but it is so obvious in retrospect.

The advances that are driving the rapid development of reconnaissance uavs (and soon, ucavs) could just as easily drive the development of cargo uavs. Once we’ve got the trick of using flocks of uavs dependably, there’s no reason not to scale up the size of the vehicles. There’s no inherent reason that drones need to be small. (And the Global hawk isn’t tiny, even now.) The same intelligence that will keep a recon uav on station for days at a time, and maneuver it to the targets it needs to provide imagery for would guide a cargo plane or helicopter from a depot to wherever troops need supplies.

An automated airdrop mechanism wouldn’t be too hard to develop – just something that would open a door and kick out a pallet on command. GPS and local beacons would make it all work. And because there’s no pilot, there’s no risk to flying in low and slow for deliveries.

James’ idea of humvee sized ducted fan uavs is right out of Bladerunner, and it would be cool as hell to have those. It would be cool as hell to have manned versions as gunships, too. But people have been trying to get the ducted fan thing to work for decades, with not even as much success as the V-22. But the same software that would work for fixed wing uavs would also work for rotor uavs.

The HURT system I posted on earlier, matched up with a inventory/supply management system, could easily form the basis of a nearly automated tactical combat supply distribution system. Palletized supplies would be automatically loaded on unmanned cargo planes and helicopters, and these would be automatically organized into flocks for delivery to troops in need. The management of the individual uavs would be independent of the management of the supplies, the system and its operators would handle the coordination.

Ms. Miers nomination has certainly stirred up the hornet's nest amongst the "conservative" rank and file. What we can glean from scant information about her centrist notions on affirmative action, RvW, and other "conservative" causes cause consternation or optimism, in accordance with the beholder's eye. Of course, there's that complete lack of any public record that really leaves us all pretty much scratching our heads.

The religious right just can't understand why their payoff isn't the nomination of a prominent judge who loudly agrees with (and even repeats!) their slogans. Someone who doesn't "legislate from the bench", whatever the hell that means -- I have yet to meet a GOP voter who can successfully articulate an instance of this with any level of specificity. What I mostly get is, "you know -- when they write laws and stuff". Yeah, like when? Where?

Most people just don't get what the Supreme Court does, most of the time. The Supreme Court serves as a check on the power of government. The constitution is the only law of this land that tells the government what it may and may not do. When the Supreme Court (or any other court) is interpreting the constitution, the primary reason it is done is to ensure that your freedoms remain intact, despite the "best intentions" of those in power.

Do you seriously want to dissolve the ability of the Supreme Court to enforce constitutional limits on government? That is a notion of stunning foolishness. Should we wait for a four-year election cycle and use our votes as the sole means of checking government power? One look at the democracy-destroying nature of gerrymandering should convince us all of the inefficacy of that.

What good is a constitution if there is no-one to enforce it? What good is a right to vote if the rules of the game are manipulated by a party immune to constitutional review? The only right to a vote you have is that guaranteed to you by the constitution. Enforcement of the constitution is the cornerstone of democracy.

But back to our Ms. Miers. Why Miers? Does Bush just, uh, like her or something? Does he like her more than Laura? Maybe so. Maybe he really was the "best governor ever!". We should see if she ever lived in Arkansas.

But maybe there's something more to this. The crowd currently in control of the White House (I hold out the possibility that Bush is a member) knows that the GOP is based on an unstable amalgam of a number of groups: The Religious Right, the Anti-Democrats, the Business-Firsters, the Establishment Preservationists, the Fuck-You-I'm-A-Winners, and the Xenophobes. What do they all have in common? Each of these has a single issue that overwhelms all other concerns for them. They are all single-issue voters, so if you tell them what they want to hear on their single issue, they'll vote for you even if you're completely screwing them over in every other way.

I’m using common terminology for the Religious Right, but perhaps you are somewhat mystified by my other GOP-voting categories.

I’ll cheerfully and hopefully place my GOP-voting Perfidy colleagues in the “Anti-Democrat” category. Anti-Democrats vote for the GOP because there’s only one thing they know for sure – as bad as the GOP and all that crooked crowd are, the Democrats are worse. Can’t argue with that – it’s a purely subjective take on the political situation, and they’ve got a right to it.

Business-Firsters want deregulation and low business taxes. They’re a very small group, but they have the money and use it to influence the political process. They want deregulation so they can screw over the public at large while avoiding any responsibility for doing so. They want low business taxes so they can make as much money as possible doing it. Long term, they want something even better than deregulation. They want de-de-regulation. That’s when the government says it’s completely legal for them to do what they want, and it’s illegal for their competitors to do the same thing.

Establishment Preservationists, besides being an ass-kicking name for a band, refers to those wealthy families and groups who believe that change is all fine and good right up until it place them or any of their possessions into any form of risk, or opens them up to any kind of competition. For example, civil rights are fine unless there’s too many brown people showing up in the neighborhood. That “changes” the nature of the establishment, and is thus UnAmerican. The most important example is that of preservation of social class – any changes that would jeopardize the social class (derived from economic status) of those currently at the top is an egregious, UnAmerican change. Can’t have those.

Ah, Fuck-You-I’m-A-Winners: Just like kids playing basketball on the playground, they are all utterly convinced that someday they’re going to be playing in the NBA, or on top of the world. And they’re going to do it by following a system: If they have the right attitude, and connect with the right people, they’ll get what they deserve! Of course, when their spiraling credit card debt hits them between the eyes, they whine about their taxes being too high. When they don’t find themselves “on top”, it’s someone else’s fault. They’re dreamers, and schemers, and playing fair isn’t even slightly on their minds. It’s about getting ahead, and about the competition. The GOP has a special pitch for these folks: They tell them they’re the smart guys, that they get it, and that those stupid liberals just don’t understand the fundamental natural laws, the kill-or-be-killed of it all. They tell them they’re on the team, and that’s all the Fuck-Yous need to hear. They’re a part of the winning team. Virtually all Fuck-Yous circle the drain for a while then end up down, out, and confused, but by that time they’ve voted for the GOP often enough that they become automatic Anti-Democrats.

Xenophobes are the special sub-breed that can’t stand the damn foreigners – they’re like Establishment Preservationists who don’t have money as an excuse. In spite of the fact that declining birthrates mean that structures like Social Security are going to be in trouble they figure that permanently shutting the doors to immigration is the solution to their problems. And screw tourism – we don’t need’em. When pressed they are unable to connect immigration to whatever is troubling them in their personal lives, but dammit, you have to hate somebody, and immigrants are the easiest of all targets.

And the Religious Right? They’re single issue people – abortion. They know that doesn’t play all that well so they’ve jumped on the “legislating from the bench” bullshit so they have at least one secular issue they can talk about. But since they don’t know what it means and can’t cite any examples of it, they’re back to what they really care about, which is abortion.

You may notice the unsurprising lack of the “fiscal conservative”. Fiscal conservatives are currently in hibernation. They find themselves largely in the Anti-Democrat category. If in the future the GOP once again establishes any minute form of credibility when it comes to financial issues, they will re-emerge. In the mean time, they are sliding further and further towards the Democrats. They might even vote for one, someday, or even in the next election. Damn, never thought that would happen.

No, really, I’m getting back to Miers this time – I swear. If you’re the political genius in charge of the GOP, you know that you need to find a way to keep this whole darn crazy thing together. If you gave the religious conservatives what they wanted (abortion), you run the risk of having them look at any other issue. And then you’re dealing with the population at large – a significant portion aren’t going to like what they see in the GOP.

So the very best chance the GOP crowd has to stay in power is to do precisely what George Bush always advocates – Stay The Course. Don’t solve the problems, or give anything to any part of the base that will truly satisfy that base. The cultural war must be continued, for that distraction provides the leverage necessary to win elections, while engaging in policies that harm those who vote for you. If you can’t prove you’re right, then for God’s sake, obscure the fact that you’re wrong.

Harriet Miers keeps the cultural war alive. She’s one skirmish in a larger war.

...if such indictments even occur, that is.

I've been struck by the blood-in-the-water partisanship this saga has engendered, even as it's seemed clearer and clearer that no crime was committed under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Yeah, I know, she either was or she wasn't covert, and we can argue about that all day long. Well, you can, because I don't really care. We can also argue about intent to disclose known classified information for the purposes of thwarting the agent's mission, but you'd have trouble finding justification for any assertions of "intent", "known classified" and "thwarting". That, and, well I really don't care about that part either.

The part I do care about is the assumption underlying all this nastiness.

Via an op-ed found in today's Houston Barnacle, which attempts to compare & contrast the role of the press in what the author appears to think are the two defining scandals of our time, the discerning reader can learn that:

The break-in at the Watergate was carried out by a team of burglars hired by a White House operative. The current probe points to a scenario in which the dirty work apparently was done, perhaps unwittingly, by reporters who were fed classified information from officials out to get even with Wilson.

The op-editorialist issues some weasel-like qualifiers and then states with authority what everyone knows, just knows!, about the story, namely that officials were "out to get even with Wilson".

I demur. They weren't trying to get even with him, because it's not like they got Valerie Wilson fired, demoted, or anything else. Absent Administration knowledge of some Joe Wilson peccadillo that relied on the illusion of regular congress with an undercover (or, not, but I still don't care) CIA operative, revenge isn't a credible assertion. Some would call it clarification, some rebuttal, and still others an attempt to discredit Wilson. Sadly, leaving him alone to continue thinking himself crucial and important would have been enough to do that, without any effort on anyone else's part. Wilson, undone by his own yammering cake-hole, would have faded from view many months ago.

There may be indictments, but my guess is that they'd be for obstruction of one sort or another, rather than for a violation of Title 50421 of the US Code. Which is a real shame, because while Joe Wilson is a fatuous fabulist, the world could have found that out with no outside help. And the underlying theme, that revenge somehow played a part in this drama, is hogwash.

Other views exist. But they, too, are focused on everything but the stupidity of the underlying assumption.

Via the 'Dredge Report, we find a story that tracks down the truth, corners it, and has it cowering in fear before skewering it with something pointy. We've run out of names on the hurricane list. The next named storm will have the awe-inspiring moniker "Alpha," and given that we have more than a month left in the season, we might be confronted by the terrifying spectre of hurricane Delta rampaging through the Gulf of Mexico like a sorority chick on spring break going through sissy drinks. (Maybe hurricane Phi Mu (a fat but slow category three) would be lingering off to the side, not really hitting anything but seeming vaguely embarrassed to be there, yet determined to stick it out and make sure that Delta gets home without too much vomit or roof fragments in her hair.)

The DCeiver has some thoughts for how the National Weather Service could improve matters by changing its system of nomenclature:

We want to fear these storms. We really do. But I'll be damned if I run from Hurricane Florence. I already have had the experience of being in a mandatory evacuation over a Hurricane named Bob. I didn't want to evacuate. I felt like a grade-A pussy running from someone named Bob. I still feel that way.

... If the National Weather Service wants to get serious about protecting people, they have got to rethink this name thing. They need to start giving these storms some names that absolutely leave NO doubt that they are going to seriously FUCK US UP. Names like Hurricane Deathbroth or the Kneecapper or Margaret Thatcher. Something that's going to inspire the average person to fear for their lives.

Look at the names they're getting into next year. Hurricane Beryl? Hurricane Ernesto? I can see a little germ of fear growing in the face of a hurricane named Oscar, maybe. I knew a thorough-going bitch named Joyce once. But most of these names are just no good! Nadine is the cute barista at the coffeeshop across the street. Tony is the lead in West Side Story. Isaac is the Love Boat bartender. No, no, no. These are mixed messages!

What we need is a hurricane named, let's say, The Penetrator. You tell me that The Penetrator is coming ashore in 24 hours and I am gone like Keyser Soze. Use the names of famous human predators, like Adolph or Idi Amin or Attilla or Affleck, and people will break out in a mad dash for higher ground. Think about it--when the media reports on the "aftermath of Leslie", how worked up do you expect the Federal responders to get? But if you have reporters beaming out picture live from the devastation wrought by The Defecator--then we'll see some motherfuckers rolling out to save some people on roofs!

Amen.

Loyal Reader #0016, Edog, reminds me of this device, one of those gobsmackingly obvious inventions I've seen in a while. And one of the silliest.

From the FAQs:

Q: "Is there a battery attachment?"
A: No. The Banana Guard was designed for its intended purpose only as a device to prevent banana trauma during transport.

(Is it any wonder they're Canadian?)

Of course, I've been trying to remind myself for months to order a couple of these for me and Goodwyfe Johno so we can commute with bananas. It's all about priorities, people! Hats off to Edog!

Turbonegro used to be such fun! Leather-clad (and sailor-suited) glammed up Norwegians (some of whom may or may not have been midgets) singing freaky songs influenced by Priest and the Crue and Kiss the Scorps and Slade and especially Tap with titles like "Rock Against Ass" and "Rendezvous with Anus," all delivered in slightly Continental English with not the slightest hint of a smirk. Their 1998 album Apocalypse Dudes is one of my absoluto favorito butt-rock albums of all time, a pitch perfect slab of 80s-glam-metal punk goodness spiked with equal parts tribute and irony.

Their name, by the way, is reputedly an un-politically correct anti-racist jab at Norwegian xenophobes. According to the band, "A turbonegro is a large, well-equipped, armed black male in a fast car, out for vengeance. We are his prophets." Okay, then. We have a band of ugly, ballsy, raucous anti-racists operating in Norway's famously messed-up freaky metal scene, singing big hooky songs about boobs and rock and sex and stupid crap like that. Take it from me: when they were on their game, as on Apocalypse Dudes, it was something like genius.

Then they broke up. Something about that breakup, short though it was, apparently blew out whatever strange chemistry made them work.Their reunion album, 2003's Scandinavian Leather was panned by the notably harsh critics at pitchforkmedia as "cliched," "exhausted," and as deep and satisfying as Europe's unfortunate musical turd The Final Countdown. Ouch.

I am sorry to report that their new album, Party Animals isn't much better. The hooks are rote, the choruses are stilted, and the funny parts are obvious, and not in a good-ironic way. If Apocalypse Dudes was Robin Williams in 1986, climbing the sets and ad libbing deranged fantasies in front of delerious audiences, Party Animals is Robin Williams in 2005, mugging and sweating and mugging and grimacing and mugging and begging with his eyes for you to love him! For a paycheck! For one more shot at subbing for Bruce Vilanch on Hollywood Squares!

Party Animals does contain a few bright moments. "Blow Me Like The Wind" is fun in a sub-Spinal Tap way, and "All My Friends Are Dead" does the same thing as Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" except without quite as much angst. But on the other hand there are tracks like "Wasted Again," which is pretty much a note-for-note ripoff of The Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer," "If You See Kaye (Tell Her I Love Her)," a mere excuse to spell If-You-See-Kay over and over for two and a half minutes, and the stunningly dumb-in-the-bad-way "City of Satan." In general, it is difficult to tell what is meant as ironic skewering of 80s-metal cliches, and what is just tired acquiescense to same. Although the sounds are in general inoffensive enough, you will get far more bang for your buck out of your old copy of Love at First Sting or Holy Diver, and that's not to mention Smell The Glove. Moreover, the very idea of an inoffensive Turbonegro album should give you, dear reader, some idea of how very far they have fallen.

It's not that Party Animals is a particularly awful album; it's not. To be awful the band would have had to try much harder. But it's also not any good, and I can't see much point in Turbonegro having made it, either. Turbonegro deserve some sidelong praise for their past successes and for helping other Scandanavian bands get a break- the Hives apparently owe their careers in part to Turbonegro's help- but if they're in it for the thrill, I think the thrill is gone, and if it's for the money, the pity's gone too.

Robert Prather and Insults Unpunished are back from their lengthy hiatus. (Thanks to Kathy for the heads up. We probably owe her money.) Glad to see that he's back, and Sgt. Hook, too.

Robert has a post on peak oil that is kind of a complement to my recent post on abiogenic petroleum. Even if all the oil we'll ever have is what we know about now, it's still not the end of human civilization.

Outside the Beltway has an informative round up and lots of links to reaction on SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers' answers to the Senate questionaire. Looks like the Judiciary committee looked at it and told her, "do over!" And next time, answer the questions with more "particularity and precision." And that command came from both Republican and Democrats on the committee.

Of course, the fact that she only spent 3-1/2 pages answering the substantive questions is, to put it mildly, less than impressive. Indeed, her answers amount to a regurgitation of the first few days of an undergraduate ConLaw course.

I'm ever more convinced that she just ain't it. Loyal is a good, but not sufficient recommendation for a position as important as this. And we've had very little evidence that she has any qualifications beyond loyalty - except perhaps that she is also nice.

Bush needs to take the hit and nominate someone who is manifestly qualified. Doesn't need to be a judge necessarily, but someone who has a record of thinking clearly on constitutional issues.

EDog happened upon an interesting web game. Using Google's marvelous image search, search on the following items, and post the first image returned. 

The town where you were born

[The rest are below the fold.] 
The town where you live now

I forgot to enter the state. This cool map was near the top of the list when I added Virginia:

Your name

This guy was apparently at Kent State the same time I was going to school only twenty miles away. If I enter my blognomen, I get:

Your grandmother's name (Pick one)

My grandmother didn't look like that. At any point in her life.

Your favorite food

I cheated. This was actually image number three. But it's much more amusing than the first one.

Your favorite drink

My second favorite drink retrieved another cool image:

Your favorite song

Your favorite smell

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed in a BBC interview that the United States is planning to invade his country. That's what the headline said. But the actual quote is, "We have detected with intelligence reports plans of a supposed invasion, one that would never happen. But we have to denounce it."

I'm sure the Pentagon has plans to invade Britain and Canada, too. Doesn't mean we're going to. While Chavez is certainly higher on the list of potential libervasion targets than Paul Martin or Tony Blair, I'm also certain that there are many countries ahead of him in line. Like Syria and Iran. With our military stretched out the way it is, we're not going to go around invading countries for shits and giggles. Chavez is an annoyance, not a threat. And he does still sell us gas. No real problem there. Just more hysterical windbaggery from a leftwing dictator.

Ted at Rocket Jones nearly made me aspirate my coffee with this:

Too bad the name eHarmony is already taken

Australia launches world's largest sheep database.

Nothing will ever (in my mind, for that is what we are discussing) match the majesty and towering crudity of this sentence, drawn from the sad but proud ranks of the runners-up of the never to be sufficiently praised and damned Bulwer-Lytton contest:

Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: "Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep."

But some of these come pretty damn close:

"A few hours had passed since they had been pulled away from the moon. A few hours and millions of miles. The moon was no longer visible, not even as a star. The whole thing was so crazy, weird and far-out. It was as though they were floating in a giant vacuum." -- Sara Cavanaugh, A Woman in Space

Ya think?

"They shook hands, and Jason set about retrieving his balls." -- Peter Heath, The Mind Brothers

That's some kind of handshake.

"Wearing an aura of rugged-intellectual charm like a plastic raincoat ..." -- Sam Merwin Jr, The Time Shifters

He knows me! Except I would have said rain slicker...

"Her very existence made his forebrain swell until it threatened to leak out his sinuses." -- Nancy A. Collins, Sunglasses After Dark

Speaking of Hilary...

"He lifted her tee-shirt over her head. Her silk panties followed." -- Peter F. Hamilton, Mindstar Rising

That's gotta sting. Atomic wedgie from hell.

Thanks to Cassandra Villainous Company for finding this painful compendium of science-fictional excrescences. All of these (I think) are taken from the middle of books. On the whole, though, it strikes me that most sf novels generally have good first sentences.

Hold your finger right in front of your nose. Close one eye, then the other. See how your finger appears to jump back and forth? That's parallax. A few feet away, the effect is almost indetectable. Hold to needles in front of your eyes. (Pointy bits facing away, just to be safe.) Its easy at that distance to tell that there are in fact two needles. Hold the two needles at arm's length. Much harder. The further two objects are apart, the farther you have to move away before they appear indistinguishable again. This concept has been used to determine the distance to nearby stars - using the orbit of the Earth as a baseline rather than the couple inches between your eyeballs.

So how frickin far away do you have to get to be in a place where you can no longer distinguish Hillary Clinton from Rush Limbaugh? Well wherever the hell that is, Cindy Sheehan's found it. I always figured that if you went that far left, you'd fall off the planet. In fact, I secretly hoped that that was the case. But in a letter published on Fat Bastard's website, she does just that, and as an added bonus throws in a lot of other loopy shit.

I read somewhere (I cannot now recall where) that the next time she uses the word "sacrifice" she ought to be referring to her son. Somehow, I think that isn't gonna happen. She says:

Playing politics with our soldiers' lives is despicable.

Hello? What does that make playing politics with your own son's death? Sheesh.

I feel an untowardly grand sense of accomplishment this morning, having last night set up a wireless network in my home. It only took nine months to network two computers, which has to be some kind of low-end record for pathetic technical wimpery.*

[wik]* And no, both machines are modern-era Pentiums with plenty of RAM and so forth, running a recentish version of Windows. If I had managed to network Linux to Windoze, that'd be cause for laurels and champagne, but it was a simple matter of hooking up two machines running the same OS through a router**, and it took nine.... months. Yeesh. Don't let me near your car if it's broken.

[alsø wik]** And this after being the "network guy" in a small office in a past life. I know how to do this stuff. It's not hard and I have the skills. Nine months. Same time it takes to make a baby, a sentient being. And all I got was a laptop and a desktop to talk to each other***. Yeesh again.

[alsø alsø wik] Maybe I should rename the two machines "India" and "Pakistan." Haw!

Do you think the first culinary mavens to eat a dish prepared by a chef wielding a syringe and a foamer enjoyed it? Say it was duck breast injected with concentrated muskmelon nectar and then pan-seared and steamed over black tea and truffles and sauced with a foam consisting of lingonberry juice, lobster roe, bacon fat and lemongrass. Do you think the hardcore foodies who tasted this theoretical trainwreck of taste, texure, and cutting-edge technique really dug it for what it was, or just tripped out on the novelty?

I sort of suspect the latter. I am a big fan of "difficult" music (meaning everything from experimental noise rock to the mathematical compositions of Webern and Subotnick), but I do have to ask sometimes whether a particular example is more pretentious than good. Even leaving aside obvious rock-era eff-yous as Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" and the famous lost Van Morrison Contractual Fulfillment album, how many owners of legitimately musical yet hard to listen to albums by the Boredoms, Big Black, Captain Beefheart and Cecil Taylor give them a spin very often?

Oh, I know, some people really really can't get enough of Steve Albini or skronky free jazz, but on the whole... how does one tell Shinola from the other stuff? How do you distinguish "weird but kinda good" from "weird for the sake of weird?" Sometimes, sophisticate that I am, I feel like the Original Rube standing on a tiled floor in an art gallery asking passers-by about that Duchamp piece, "am I supposed to admire this, or am I supposed to pee in it?"

I raise this question thanks to the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Consisting of five Bay Area musicians who, all veterans of various avant-garde projects, the Museum present themselves as the travelling roadshow for the fictitious institution in question (no humans allowed!), a group of musicians "unified in [their] various crafts by the simplicity of their opposition to rock music." Their presskit and general presentation is strongly reminiscent of the anarcho-dada absurdist smartassery of Semiotext[e], the Church of the Subgenius, and of the original Dada and Surrealist movements. This is a dangerous road to travel: Dada and Surrealism proved that absurdism and randomness are a neat tricks once and once only, and only a few individuals have the patience and mental fortitude to hang on through the mass of random fish and sludgehammers to find their own faces in the wallpaper. (What?)

...On Natural History, the new album by the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, isn't simply random. That much I can tell. In fact, there are as many as five minutes at a stretch where the band play enjoyable freaky music without bizarre intrusions or unheralded switch-ups. There also seems to be some kind of overarching concept to the album, a story pitting humanity against the "Adversary" in a prog-rock pastiche of everything from Pilgrim's Progress to "Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome." My best proof of this is from the song titles, the first few of which are: "A Hymn to the Morning Star," "The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity Opens The Discussion," "Phthisis" (a gloss on Egyptian gods P'tah and Isis?), and "Bring Back The Apocalypse." I'm not sure from the lyrics either exactly what they're getting at, but I've read Naked Lunch about a dozen times too, and even though I figured out the plot after the third or fourth time I still have no idea what that scene where they autoerotically execute that beautiful young boy is supposed to do with, well, anything at all.

Although I can tell sort of what ...On Natural History is about, I'm much less certain whether it's any good. One saving grace of some avant-rock albums is that they retain song structures even as they jettison most other musical conventions. Structure helps the mind orient itself to the piece so that the listener has something to hang onto-- it does help to be able to say to oneself "oh, here's the trashcan and screaming lady part again... I get it!" The Boredoms are great at this trick, as was Captain Beefheart's Magic Band circa "Trout Mask Replica." Even that little morsel of order can help a bewildered listener make an aestheic and emotional judgement as to whether or not they like what they're hearing.

But other times this strategy falls down. There's a difference, for example, between the Frank Zappa of Weasels Ripped My Flesh and the Frank Zappa of 200 Motels, and that difference means the world to me. "Weasels" makes sense, more or less. The "ee-uuh! Eee-uuh!" part of "Toads of the Short Forest" works, in that it makes musical sense and in fact shows up elsewhere as what Romantic composers would call a leitmotiv. On the other hand, the entirety of 200 Motels sounds to me like a totally incomprehensible hermetic fever-dream. The result: despite the presence of some nominal structure, the listener (i.e., me) remains bewildered (by chance or design) and in the case of this listener, feels a bit like the nonplussed victim of some obscure and unfunny practical joke. Is it damn thing art or a urinal?

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's music falls into a middle region between Naked Lunch and 200 Motels. Most of the album does away with traditional structures (with parts organized ABACA for example), instead putting parts one after another (ABCDEF) in a string. When Metallica used to do this, it was okay (they didn't use the opportunity to, say switch abruptly between guitar and flute choir), but The Museum's transitions tend to be more jarring than the scale of their compositions can support. I suppose I should have expected this kind of high weirdness from a Bay Area collective featuring one third of the excellent Tin Hat Trio (violinist etc. Carla Kihlstedt) and veterans of other arty-sounding acts like Skeleton Key, Idiot Flesh, and Vic Thrill. Still, the experimental structures of ...Of Natural History make it very much a land without a map, and it's up to you to decide whether that's your bag of candy.

The actual musical sounds that are hung on the structure are... interesting... too. Rocketing between mock-opera flourishes (like a baritone intoning "O loathesome crawling thing, be done / with your miniscule affairs" accompanied by autoharp) and arty soundscapes replete with scratchy violin, homemade instruments and the occasional headbanging metal guitar interlude, most of ...On Natural History feels pretty much like weird for weird's sake. Many of the melodies, such as they are, are reminiscent of French-opera recitative, the quasimusical talky bits that move matters along between big numbers. This isn't so bad in and of itself, and there is nothing inherently wrong with doing weird things. However, this can quickly turn into a stunt, a tightrope walk between thwarting listener expectations and making music so involuted and twisty that the listener just wants it to stop.

After a good dozen runs through ...On Natural History, I have come to admire the care that went into recording the album, complete with great layering and separation and wonderfully mastered agreement between soft and loud patches, but have found most of the actual music forbiddingly formless and inscrutably, even enthusiastically weird, like Alfred Jarre's absurdist theater piece Pere Ubu performed entirely in Pig Latin. And I don't dig it.

Understand: there are albums outside music that for whatever reason grab me as a listener and music enthusiast and shows me something I'd never thought of before. I dig the Boredoms and Mr. Bungle for that reason exactly. And then there are albums of outside music that aspire to do the same thing and fail as such high-risk endeavors do: awfully, publicly, and utterly. Zappa managed this unfortunate trick a good half dozen times throughout his career. And as much as it surprises me to say so, ... On Natural History does so too.

I know for a fact there is an audience out there for this kind of thing. You might find ...on Natural History entertainingly freaky. In fact, I with my recordings of Xenakis and Harry Parch and lifesize cardboard cutout of Anton Webern am shocked and appalled to find that I am not part of that audience.

It is probable that the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum really excel in a
live setting where the Felliniesque quality of their music can be matched by equally wacky visuals, sort of a carnival-apocalyptic live-action Un Chien Andalou, if you'll let me mix my art-movie metaphors. But as an album, as a piece of music in its own right, this reluctant rube is pretty sure ...On Natural History is just a urinal.

This post also appears at blogcritics.org

Reggae was born on island which has seen endless trouble, a tropical stone that often seems two meals away from total social breakdown. And yet, the protest music from Jamaica sounds so happy if you don't stop to listen to the words. Even the bouyant sounds of international icon Bob Marley are full of parables of social justice and frank calls for political revolution. Just what does "the stone that the builder refuse / will always be the head cornerstone" mean if not "the last will be first" or "the meek shall (conquer?) (inherit?) the earth (and right soon)?" Although largely diluted through repeated exposure, Marley sang revolution music.

And indeed for all the pot and talk of "one love" real Jamaican reggae is a revolutionary music, full of anger, fierce pride, and religious fervor. Sure, it sounds placid and groovy (presumably thanks to the weed and the humidity in Jamaica) but underneath that lopsided jerking throbs the heart of a million Marcus Garveys.

This goes triple for the true radicals. Burning Spear (born Winston Rodney) is one of the greatest and most influential roots reggae artists in the history of the genre. Since 1969 Rodney has been writing and producing reggae in his own trademark style, dubbier and less poppy than the Wailers, more concise and less trippy than dub masters like King Tubby. And although some of his albums from the 1980s and 1990s sound incongrously light and shiny, there has always been a lived-in funkiness to his sound. More importantly, throughout his career he has displayed a sharp, even militant, political consciousness, singing about Rastafarianism, poverty, and justice, and even naming one of his albums Marcus Garvey. The name 'Burning Spear' is itself a pointed reference to black nationalism, having originally belonged to the first president of Kenya, the former Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta. In a way, Burning Spear is a gospel musician first and foremost - just for a gospel that most people outside Jamaica don't vibe with automatically.

If there is one rap against Burning Spear as a musician, it might be that sometimes his message has gotten in the way of his music. That is not to say that his political statements have been misguided (and I'm in no position to judge that), but that some of his song have not necessarily been songs as much as manifestos. When he is hitting his mark on both fronts, the results are exhilarating, funky, and deep. His greatest songs are like this - I am a huge fan of "Social Living," "Slavery Days," "Marcus Garvey," and "Marcus Say Jah No Dead" for that very reason. The first time I heard these songs, I remember being stunned and thinking to myself, damn: this isn't 'No Woman No Cry,' this is deep.

But too often I have felt the grim convictions in Burning Spear songs almost defeat themselves and come across as halfway to hopeless. A shining example of this is "African Woman" off 1990's album Mek We Dweet, an impassioned song about famine and poverty in Africa that looks at the pain of that continent, and despite an uptempo groove and bright (and dated) 1980s production, descends into despair.

The new Our Music completely manages to avoid these pitfalls of despair and datedness, sounding rootsier, skankier, and more focused than anything I've heard from Burning Spear in quite a while. Granted, I'm no expert to say the least, but gone is the overproduction that made much of his later Island-era output sound a bit slick. Back is a more analog vibe that recalls the sounds of the legendary Studio One, where the first Burning Spear music was recorded back when that name still referred to a trio.

The lyrics, though still as fervent as ever, are for the most part uplifting, complementing the negativity with positive ways to move forward. Yes, it's defiant, yes it's evangelical about Jah and Rastafarianism and the messianic black nationalism of Marcus Garvey, but I'm happy to be hearing again a Burning Spear record that contains more true hope than despair.

With the notable exception of "Together," which despite its title asks an anonymous traitor how many was he has betrayed Africa (an indictment of the kleptocracies that rule much of the continent?), nearly everything on Our Music is positive. On the title track Burning Spear sings about reclaiming reggae from the pretenders and fashionistas, and on "Walk" Spear visits people around the world. "Try Again" is a positively bubbly song about forgiveness, self-reliance, and the teachings of Marcus Garvey. "One Marcus" rides a laid-back organ-and-horn groove while teaching about... Marcus Garvey. All the while the bass throbs, the keyboards bounce, the horns writhe, and the rhythm section keeps things percolating beautifully.

It is good to see a mature musician moving forward without spiralling into irrelevance or forgetting their strengths. Our Music is a top-shelf addition to the already distinguished catalog of one of reggae's all-time greats. I suppose it's by now obligatory for reviewers to say this, so, uh... keep the spear burning.

This review also appears on blogcritics.org.

Again via the Onion, some so-wrong-it's-right non-reportage.

An important PSA from the Onion of all places, on the paramount importance of zombie preparedness.

PITTSBURGH—A zombie-preparedness study, commissioned by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and released Monday, indicates that the city could easily succumb to a devastating zombie attack. Insufficient emergency-management-personnel training and poorly conceived undead-defense measures have left the city at great risk for all-out destruction at the hands of the living dead, according to the Zombie Preparedness Institute.

"When it comes to defending ourselves against an army of reanimated human corpses, the officials in charge have fallen asleep at the wheel," Murphy said. "Who's in charge of sweep-and-burn missions to clear out infected areas? Who's going to guard the cemeteries at night? If zombies were to arrive in the city tomorrow, we'd all be roaming the earth in search of human brains by Friday."

That does raise a good question - given the very particular nature of zombie attacks, is it fair to say that local and state officials are solely responsible for handling such a disaster? After all, it only takes one shambling brain-eater to slip by a police cordon to spread the infection beyond its point of origin. Not that I am calling for martial law, mind you, or anything like it. But the zombie threat is unlike any other (except aliens and space robots), so much that a local-state-national chain of command must be established before it's needed. If suits are still hammering out those details while carrion-bedangled fists pound on the doors of Pittsburgh, it's too late.

After all, your National Guard or (heaven forbid) Army man can better cap the monster who used to be your sister than you can. You'd be all like "Sis... sis... I know there's a spark of humanity in there YEOOOOOOWWWWWGGGGH!!!!" and die wondering if you made a mistake letting her get a grip on your eye sockets, where a pro would probably reflexively drop five rounds into the brainpan before zombie-sis ever got near. Indeed,

"Children need to be taught from preschool that they might have to put a bullet between the eyes of their own undead mother," Fulci said. "'Destroy The Brain' banners should be hung above the entrances of schools, churches, and town halls everywhere."

Unfortunately, the Onion's reporting falls disastrously short in one respect. They quote an official as recommending that citizens keep a "go-bag" handy containing a Glock and 50 rounds of ammunition.

Please. A Glock? The Ministry has begun extensive research into the optimal weaponage needed to beat back the zombie threat. Currently the concensus leans toward a 20-gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot, and a good pistol as a backup. 9mm is fine, but something with more stopping power is better. Zombies don't feel pain, so it's crucial to either actually destroy the brain or blow bits off the body. Hence, something that throws a .357 round is probably a good compromise between power and weight. Sure, use a Glock if you must, but if that's what you're reduced to you're probably just as well off using the aluminum bat you undoubtedly remembered to bring.

In tomorrow's Telegraph, there's a story entitled "Benefits cheat's high-flying life paid for by 'secret' inheritance".

Standard fare, really. The story's protagonist, while hardly evil, is not among the most sympathetic of characters:

Malcolm Bingley, a former gentleman's outfitter who had not worked for 17 years, was later discovered to have £75,000 in a bank account.

He was among the last passengers of the Concorde, which was a fine, fine ride in its day, but there's a catch:

Bingley, 60, was convicted of 10 counts of benefit fraud by Sunderland magistrates, fined £500 with £300 costs and given 14 days to pay back £5,456 he received for two years' Jobseekers' Allowance while failing to declare his true financial position.

Neil Snaith, for the Department of Work and Pensions, said Bingley was caught when a computer found anomalies between interest on his bank accounts and the fact that he was on means-tested benefit.

Questioned about transactions from his account, one of which he explained was for airline tickets, Bingley told officials: "It was expensive because it was Concorde. I can bring a picture of it in, and a certificate with my name on."

OK, so that explains why it was so expensive, but not the lack of recognition of the ironic juxtaposition between 17 years of unemployment benefits and his extravagance. Turns out he thought, and claims to have had confirmation, that this was all just ducky.

He was less effusive, however, when asked why he had ticked "no" on a benefits claims form asking about savings and accounts. He did not declare his inheritance, after his mother and aunt died, because he "didn't think it was relevant".

He claimed that Jobcentre staff had told him he could carry on claiming.

Not relevant? Of course not.

But while in an absolute sense, the bilked money we're talking about here is truly small beer, the more I read, the more I waited for a punchline, the better to assuage my bulging eyes, bulging caused by the fact this guy clearly has the balls of a brass monkey. And at the end, I got my punchline. Without hint of irony (which is often lost in print media, so perhaps we was being ironic), he said:

"The court's decision is very harsh. I have to pay back the full amount. I think everyone should be entitled to a holiday."

If he wasn't just joshing, I'd contend we've found a role model for the Howard Dean's self-styled Democrat Wing of the Democrat Party.

Some clever domeheads at DARPA have learned to get uavs of different feathers to flock together. DARPA's HURT program (damn, do I love their names) has developed a system that allows soldiers to control multiple, dissimilar uavs from a single handheld computer. In a test, four uavs of three separate types - both fixed and rotary winged - all fed imagery of an abandoned barracks area to the Humvee mounted HURT system.

...the soldier was able to view broad-area surveillance images from the low-flying UAVs on his handheld and request imagery using simple cursor commands.

The HURT system autonomously determined which UAV was most capable of providing the requested imagery based on each vehicle’s position and current tasking. Commands were then sent to the individual vehicles’ ground control stations. Imagery from the UAVs was fused by the HURT system then sent to the handheld computer. The soldier was able to request imagery of a building, surveillance of a moving truck, or a replay from several minutes earlier.

“HURT communicates only with the ground control system for each UAV. We do not change the UAV,” says Charlie Guthrie, director advanced capability development. “The operator launches the vehicle and sends it to a marshalling point where it is available for use. HURT looks at the systems assigned to it and programs them to give the best data it can, setting up reconnaissance patterns and scan areas.” The soldier can then make simple, high-level requests like “follow that car”, he says.

Future tests will attempt to integrate a larger and more diverse array of uavs, as well as ground sensors and other systems like red force- and blue force tracking. Part of the problem of surveillance and tactical intelligence on the modern battlefield is information overload. Rather than having many operators each trying to process imagery from one bird, here you have multiple birds providing one operator with just what he needs.

From here, I imagine the next step would be to get HURT to process multiple requests from its flock of airborne drones. Essentially, it would be a tactical network of sensors that works something like the internet does. Analysts would be able to - without having to bother with the details of individual drones - get what they need while the HURT system handles the the mechanics of maneuvering the drones around.

Sweet.