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Clinton Got A Blow Job

Ann and I just spent the weekend in Memphis at the 2007 Folk Alliance Conference.  We  we stayed up until like 3-AM for three nights in a row wandering the top floors of the Marriott Hotel listening to all manner of musicians ("folk" doesn't really begin to describe it) showcasing their music.  One of the most engaging entertainers we found was Eric Scwhartz, who's blend of contemporary singer/songwriter fare with a biting political humor was worth seeing three or four times.  Here's one of Eric's most popular pieces:

There are a number of versions of this song at Eric's page on YouTube.  And, should you find any of this content offensive... well, just be grateful we're not showing the video from some of Eric's other tunes...

Maybe the "Dirty Jobs" Guy Should Run for President

Link: It's A Dirty Job But You Have To Run, Mr. Gore

... the presidency Al Gore would inherit isn't the one to which he would've ascended in 2001; the 2009 presidency will be wrought with chaos. I have to hand it to the present field of candidates for their Herculean level of fortitude and their near-suicidal degree of masochism in wanting to dedicate their lives to cleaning up President Bush's erupting dunghill of malfeasance.

Whoever wins qualifies as a subject for that Dirty Jobs show on Discovery Channel, with a permanent spot between the rat puckers and septic sludge divers.

Whatever Happened to.... Songs.com ?

I'm pleased to see this article is still available on the web.  I hope it stays there forever...

"Frankly, at that point, it was over. We could see sites like CD Baby that were doing it right. They had learned everything we had learned in the previous 5 years, but were implementing those lessons as well. We knew what needed to be done, but these guys wouldn't let us do it.

"And there were personality conflicts beginning to surface. I was-frankly - "the Yankee, pagan bull in Gaylord's Southern, Christian, china shop."

Link: MusicDish Industry e-Journal.  Pictured above: my partners in Songs.com, Tom Kimmel and Michael Camp -- and me in the middle -- accepting a commemoration of the first-ever webcast from the Kerrville Folk Festival in May, 2000.  Those were the days for the Internet pioneers.  These are the days for the Internet farmers.

Inventor of the Couch Potato Has Died

Link: Inventor of the TV remote dies

BOISE, Idaho --Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died.

Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made the couch potato possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93,

Zenith Electronics Corp.

said Friday.

Buried By The Tennessean

So I finally got around to sending a letter to the editor of the stupid Tennessean on Monday.  They didn't run it Tuesday -- it's tough when you're competing with Anna Nicole Smith and the still-simmering rancor over the Dixie Chicks and their Grammy Awards.  They didn't run it in the paper this morning, either, but I see they've included it in the extended "Letters" section on their website.  And here it is for those of you who don't happen to spend a lot of time rummaging around the bowels of tennessean.com:

- - - -

To the Editor:

Whatever happened to the pretext of "balance" that the Tennessean has always promised to observe in its opinion pages?

The recent reconfiguration of your editorial page offers a  variety of voices on the issue of the day; but the op-ed pages have lately been force-feeding readers with a disturbingly one-sided diet on national issues.

Recent weeks have seen a relentless rotation of liberal-bashing invective from conservative columnists like Mona Charen, Cal Thomas, Kathleen Parker and Thomas Sowell, one of whose columns appears almost daily. 

Too often, these right-wing screeds are countered by local writers commenting on local issues, rather than nationally recognized columnists with opposing viewpoints.  On a good day we might get a puff-satirical piece by Buchwald-wanna-be Rick Horowitz. But gone are the days when we could read a biting commentary from the likes of Thomas Friedman or Maureen Dowd in The Tennessean.

Your most egregious failing came on Friday, February 3, when the op-ed section published  a column by Kathleen Parker that faintly praised the late Molly Ivins as "one great broad" despite being "often wrong." If your editors were serious about "balance," you would have also run Paul Krugman's touching tribute from the New York Times, which recounted the many times Molly was right anticipating the endless carnage in Iraq. 

Has The Tennessean has fallen on such hard financial times that you can no longer afford the Times' syndicated columnists?  It's not going to any better if I and hundreds of other like-minded readers cancel our subscriptions.

--PS

Now, that counts out to exactly 250 words, but apparently that was more than the Tennessean felt worthy of running in the print addition.  To their credit, though they did run about a 400 word letter ripping Congresswoman Marsh Blackburn (R-Brentwood) a new one for toeing so close to the Bush and Republican party lines. 

But, today's op-ed piece was another perfect case in point:  On the right, Oreo-man Thomas Sewell; on the left, Buchwald-wanna-be Rick Horowitz.  I rest my case.

Poor Hilary, if She'd Just Stop Trusting MEN

This time it's Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:

Yet another man has betrayed Hillary Clinton. This time it's George W. Bush, who not only deceived her about weapons of mass destruction but, when granted congressional authorization to go to war in Iraq, actually did so. This, apparently, came as a surprise to her, although in every hamlet and village in America, every resident who could either read or watch Fox News knew that Bush was going to take the country to war. Among other things, troops were already being dispatched.

It's About the Judgment, Stupid

Once again, Frank Rich cuts to the heart of the issue.  What the nation needs now is sound judgment, not a laundry list of political "experience:"

“If the criterion is how long you’ve been in Washington, then we should just go ahead and assign Joe Biden or Chris Dodd the nomination,” [Obama] said. “What people are looking for is judgment.”

Hilary can back pedal and prevaricate all she wants.  When pinned down in New Hampshire over this past weekend on her vote on Iraq, she dodged the real question by shifting the blame to Bush's mishandling of the war. 

But the fact remains we would not be dealing with Bush's mishandling of the war if Hilary and more of her colleagues had had the good sense to see through the lies and ginned-up "intel" and vote against the "Use of Force" in Iraq resolution in the first place. 

Her vote makes this fiasco is as much her fault as it is Bush's, and now amount of posturing can change that fact. 

This Is Why The Country Is Fucked Up

And from a "conservative" columnist, no less:

Link: Private Virtue, Public Vice - New York Times.

if it ever got out that these pols were sensible and independent, it would ruin their careers. If it ever got out that they could think for themselves or often had subversive and honest thoughts, they would be branded traitors to their party and uncertain champions for their cause.

Hurry, this one is in the paid "Times Select" section, and the link will only be good for another six days.

Bumper Stickers

Some of these I have actually seen:

Recent American Bumper Stickers 

1) Embarrassed in '04 / Horrified in '05 / Terrified in '06 

2) 1/20/09: End of an Error 

3) That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway 

4) Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First 

5) If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran 

6) Bush. Like a Rock! Only Dumber. 

7) You Can't Be Pro-War and Pro-Life At The Same Time 

8) If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President 

9) Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant 

10) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet? 

11) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight 

12) Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore 

13) Give Bush a Blowjob So We Can Impeach Him, Too 

14) America: One Nation, Under Surveillance 

15) They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It 

16) Which God Do You Kill For? 

17) Cheney/Satan '08 

18) Jail to the Chief 

19) Who Would Jesus Torture? 

20) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade? 

21) Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap 

22) Bad president! No Banana. 

23) We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language 

24) We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them 

25) I'm tired of all the BUSHIT !!!!

26) Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Blood &Guts 

27) Is It Vietnam Yet? 

28) Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either 

29) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him. 

30) Impeach Cheney First 

31) Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too 

32) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46 

33) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century

Nobody's Watching?

...but these guys got my attention: