quadrajets - the real fucked up blues (1997 360 twist)

Alabama garage-blues-trash-scuz-punk. Did I miss an adjective?

1. Ain't Red No More
2. Hidden Charms (Willie Dixon)
3. Crawl

lastfm
myspace

DOWNLOAD 'THE REAL FUCKED UP BLUES'

mclaughlin predictions 02-16-08

Here we go:

MR. BUCHANAN: The stock market is still swooning. Bernanke, at the next meeting of the Fed, will cut the basis rate -- the interest rate by 50 basis points, John.

I don't know a lot about the way the Fed works. This indicates that the "next meeting" was on March 18th, and "The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 75 basis points to 2-1/4 percent." +1

MS. CLIFT: President Bush's positive legacy will be the work he's done with AIDS and malaria in Africa, which is why he's going to Africa over the coming weekend.

This is true, but any praise should be tempered by Bush withdrawal of funding for any agencies that performed or promoted abortion, undoing a lot of good work that Planned Parenthood had done on the continent. +1

MS. CROWLEY: I now think that the trial of Tony Rezko, which is due to begin on March 3rd, will have a bigger impact on this campaign than any of us foresaw.

Wishful thinking, Monica. Only mattered to Hannity-ites. +0

MR. PAGE: My prediction is the American College of Physicians has just come out in favor of moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2, meaning it does have redeeming qualities. And this puts new pressure on the AMA now to agree.

Clarence, there is no prediction here. But marijuana is still Schedule I. +0

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I predict that when Fidel Castro dies, Cuban political insiders will not take over the Cuban government. The Cuban military will, and it will introduce democratic freedoms.

You're silly, John. Fidel Castro is never going to die. +0

SCORECARD

Buchanan 2.25
Crowley 1.35
Zuckerman 1.0
Clift 2.0
McLaughlin 1.25
Freeland 1.0

sweet and tender hooligans

SC is a huge Smiths fan, so by proxy, I should be too. Except that I'm not. My negative feelings for The Smiths began in Junior High, when I was a metalhead who worshiped Dokken, WASP, Ratt, and most of all, Motley Crue. My friends between classes and after school listened to the same stuff I did, But my friends in class leaned towards what was considered college rock back then - The Smiths, The Cure, U2, INXS, etc. We had friendly debates on the merits of our music choices all the time. But while the debates may have been friendly, my dislike of their music was real.

So, last week a Smiths cover band called Sweet and Tender Hooligans played the Belly Up in Solano Beach for Morrissey's 50th Unhappy Birthday. I was asked if I would go, and because I'm so sweet on SC, I said yes. But, privately, I was not all that thrilled to go; I just considered it my duty. 

We get there, and almost immediately there are signs that this is going to be at least tolerable. I was wearing an Ill Repute shirt, and this guy who works there says to me, "Dude, I love Nardcore!"  Responding to to my confused look, he lifts up his word shirt and he has a Nardcore t-shirt under it. What are the chances of that? Count the odds.

Things are looking up. Then the band takes the stage, but instead of the cover band, for some reason, it's a mariachi band, which I found very cool.

 

That was cool. But then the singer of the cover band comes out and sings some Smiths songs with the mariachi band. That was very cool. 

 

Everything is going well. So then the band comes out and starts playing. Not bad, not bad. I'm feeling a little left out as I seem to be the only person who doesn't know the words to the songs, but that's alright. But then I notice the bassist, who looks very familiar. I ask SC's friend where this band is from. "Somewhere in Los Angeles." I ask if the bassist happens to be Joe Escalante from The Vandals. "Yep." WTF? Joe Escalante plays bass for a Smiths cover band? Craziness.

So, a night I was secretly dreading turned out to be really fun and eye-opening. I'm not gonna lie and procalim a newfound love for The Smiths or anything, but progress was definitely made. I can see the appeal, I actually like a lot of the lyrics and especially way the are crooned. The music is never going to be aggressive enough for me, but I'm quite sure SC will be giving me plenty of chances to become acclimated as we head into old age.

(Oh, if anyone from SATH happens to read this, SC's major complaint was "I can still go and see Morrissey, I can't see the Smiths, so play more Smiths songs")

gonokox - abject rock'n roll ep (1989 katakomb)

 

French punk. I honestly don't know anything about them. Wikipedia says they were part of the Froguerock scene, but that must have been later, because this is straight ahead punk rock, done well.

1. Le Retour De La Dezaï
2. L'Antepenultieme
3. P'Tites Vacances

lastfm

DOWNLOAD 'ABJECT ROCK'N ROLL'

oh, i am a conservative now

They convinced me.

hot sauce power rankings

1. Trujillo's (tomatillo)
2. Cotixan
3. Trujillo's (regular)
4. Santana's 
5. Mama Testa (sesame salsa)
   

feel good story of the day

A homeless man beheaded a good Samaritan who had given him a place to stay, south Florida authorities say. Lee County Sheriff's deputies went to 70-year-old Charles Rogers' apartment Thursday and found his body in his wheelchair. His head had been placed near the front door 

[yikes]

charger fan

Is the owner of Chile Peppers in Tierrasanta a die hard Charger fan, or just lazy, and found an awesome excuse for his laziness?

culture / roosevelt split ep (1995 intention records)

These two Florida bands were the seeds that spawned As Friends Rust.

Culture are on the vegan metal-tinged hardcore end of the spectrum. Features Damian Moyal  (As Friends Rust/Shai Hulud/Morning Again - he quit soon after this was released), Rich Thurston (Terror/Walls Of Jericho), John Wylie (Morning Again/Where Fear And Weapons Meet/Until The End), Gordon Trapley (As Friends Rust).

Roosevelt are mellower, and epitomize what emo used to be before it got hijacked. Kind of a mix of Hot Water Music and mid-90's midwestern bands like Christie Front Drive. Features James Glayat (As Friends Rust), Tim Kirkpatrick (As Friends Rust), Justin Shaner (The Burgundy Romance) and that is about all I know.

1. Culture - Exchange
2. Roosevelt - Smile

Culture myspace
Roosevelt lastfm

DOWNLOAD 'CULTURE / ROOSEVELT'

collateral damage - s/t ep (1994 indecision records)

Orange County hardcore featuring Chris Lohman (Blackspot/John Henry Holiday), Mike Vogelsang (Ice/Farside), Jeff Caudill (Ice/Gameface), and Evan Jacobs (Ice/Enswell).

1. I Am Not That Man
2. If You Survive
3. Enlist Me
4. Nation

DOWNLOAD 'COLLATERAL DAMAGE'

psycho

Every time I hear The Sonics, I wonder why there isn't more sax in rock'n'roll. Not Morphine type sax, upbeat RFTC type sax. Or maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Suggestions?

[boingboing]

oh, no

I am really, really hoping this turns out to be false.

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. 

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. 

Feeling nauseous. Please do not be true. If even partly true, I completely understand Obama refusing to release the photos, and I hope they stay unreleased.

 

thanks a lot, jeff

An anonymous source tells me that Jeffrey Rosen likes to join Mickey Kaus in various goat-blowing activities.

But if you use this as evidence that Jeffrey Rosen likes to join Mickey Kaus in various goat-blowing activities, you are willfully misreading this post.

[tpm]

oh, i get it

Unless you pick a straight, white, male, you are playing "identity" politics.

How could a non-white male possibly be qualified on merits alone?

7 inch boots - drei lieder für bruce lee ep (1991 organon)

Doomy, sludgy, metal-tinged hardcore from Germany.

1. The Tempest
2. Ulysses Siren
3. As The Pyramids Tremble

lastfm

DOWNLOAD 'DREI LIEDER FÜR BRUCE LEE'


[predictionerrorsignal]

white (and male) is right

Jim Inhofe (R-Okla):

In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences."

Funny, I don't recall this being an issue for Roberts or Alito.

david petreaus hates america

Obviously.

General David Petraeus said this past weekend that President Obama's decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques would benefit the United States in the broader war on terror. 

"I think, on balance, that those moves help [us]," said the chief of U.S. Central Command. "In fact, I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.


"With respect to Guantanamo," Petraeus added, "I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the Attorney General the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TICKING TIME BOMB, YOU COWARD?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

and suddenly that name will never be the same

I'm not surprised this happened. But if this is what happens on DAY ONE, from a "mainstream" politician no less (imagine what the fringes are saying), it's gonna be a looooong confirmation process.

PMI:

Wonder how that whole GOP Hispanic outreach thingy is going?  Maybe they should hold the next event at Taco Bell, cause isn’t that what those people eat?

the lennons - blutorgie in der leichengrube (1990 incognito)

 

The Lennons (or, more accurately (Die Lennons) are a long running German punk band, off and on since 1981. 

Title and artwork come from this book. Google translates the title to Blood Orgy In The Demon Pit. AWESOME.

1. Roland Kaiser
2. Gewalt Auf Video
3. Ich Schlag Dichtot
4. Wolfmar

website

lastfm

myspace 

DOWNLOAD 'BLUTORGIE IN DER LEICHENGRUBE'

newt gingrich, moron

A fine political scientist named David Cross once said:

You cannot win a war on terrorism. It's like having a war on jealousy—Ya ain't gonna win it, man. It's an absurd notion. At no point in time, ever are we gonna go, Whew got 'em all. Everybody loves us again.

Newt Gingrich disagrees:

MR. GREGORY:  How long should Gitmo remain open?

REP. GINGRICH:  Until the war is over.

MR. GREGORY:  When is that?

REP. GINGRICH:  We'll--when the terrorists disappear.

So forever it is!

[sn!]

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[awkwardfamilyphotos]

raooul - fresh and nubile (1993 lookout! records)

 

This is what it would sound like if a bunch of screeching East Bay 14-year old girls played punk rock.

Molly Schnick and Phyllis Forbes went on to play in Out Hud, once again proving than in the 00's, you must to move to NYC to have the hipsters take you seriously (see: Lifter Puller, The Yah Mo's). 

1. Anna Joy
2. Mike Tee Vee
3. Straitedge
4. Summer Nights
5. Good Girls
6. I Had Richie Bucher 

myspace
lastfm

DOWNLOAD 'FRESH AND NUBILE'

dawn is the greatest detergent ever

[ksktwitter]

kung fu monkeys - shindig ep (1997 mutant pop)

Geeks. New York City. Bubblegum. Surf. Punk. That's the Kung Fu Monkeys in a nutshell (not to be confused with Tijuana's Los Kung Fu Monkeys). Great stuff. If I didn't tell you that the lead singer is a guy, you might have never known.

1. Summer School
2. Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good
3. Pop Rocks And Coke
   

myspace
lastfm

This isn't on the EP, but a little bonus KFM:



DOWNLOAD 'SHINDIG'

wtf

Morrisey is now singer of a mariachi band.

wtf

th' downer boys - hot mistake ep (1998 eye 95/free our mind)

Spastic 90's DC punk featuring Shawn Brown (Dag Nasty/Swiz/Sweetbelly Freakdown), Dan Terchek (The Coffin Daggers/Head Vs. Wall), Brian Clancy (Bluetip/Dawn Of Man/Blind Ambition) and a couple of mystery men. Reminds of later Black Flag at times. If it seems like track 2 cuts out suddenly, that's not an accident, it's the way it came.

1. Anti-Government Youth Anthem 90's Style
2. A Mortals Reply To Deities Walking Among Us
3. Crime As A Religion
4. Non-Conformist Rantings To The Existing Society
5. Downer Boys Own The Night

DOWNLOAD 'HOT MISTAKE'

white trash italian

This was one of those "well, what's in the fridge" abominations. Polenta, mozzerella, puttanesca sauce, and polish sausage. I know, right? Looks awful, but it was pretty good!

well if mancow says so, it's settled

Are we really still debating if waterboarding is torture?

Do you think the Khmer Rouge liked to fuck around? Because they waterboarded people.

Do you think the Spanish Inquisition was just a bunch of frat boy pranks? Because it was used then.

The Japanese in WWII? Yep.

During the Algerian War? Indeed.

Pinochet was a fan.

But if all that doesn't sway you, well, a dipshit shock jock say so. End of debate.

do want

[marklisanti]

huh?

I'm generally sick of Carrie Prejean, her supporters, and her detractors (paging Dr. Freud). But this seems relevant: 

A woman claims she had a lesbian relationship with Miss California's mom that ended right before the anti-gay marriage beauty queen competed in the biggest pageant of her career, according to ABCNews.com.

that's hot

[warminglow]

polarizing

The media has a habit of calling Dick Cheney a "polarizing" figure. Yglesias makes a good point.

When I think of a “polarizing” figure, I think of someone about whom the public has strong, but closely divided feelings. Like if you were at 45 percent “strongly favorable” and 45 percent “strongly unfavorable” with only a few people in the middle. Cheney is just unpopular.

kill the poor

One percent property taxes rule.

To balance the books, Schwarzenegger is eyeing the dismantling of the state's CalWorks program, which serves more than 500,000 poor families with children, as well as the elimination of Healthy Families, which provides medical coverage to 928,000 children and teens. Mothballing the two programs would save the state about $1.4 billion in the coming fiscal year, officials said.


If the proposals to slash the safety net come to pass, they would completely reshape the state's social service network, transforming California from one of the country's most generous states to one of the most tightfisted in aiding the poor.

Also potentially on the chopping block is CalGrants, a financial assistance program that offers cash grants to lower- and middle-income college students each year. The governor's proposal would eliminate the 77,000 new grants awarded each year at a cost of $180 million, but that saving would eventually grow to more than $900 million as students graduated and the program was phased out.

positive state - label me ep (1995 torque records)

 

DC punk with a little bit of pop, hardcore, and even reggae thrown in. Still, this EP is a little more straightforward that their great album, The Bullshit Initiative. 

1. No Faces
2. Fresh Start
3. My Song
4. In My Face
5. Unsheltered
6. Generation X

lastfm  

DOWNLOAD 'LABEL ME'

nepotism in fandom

I think the Padres front office reads my blog. I complain that there is no one on the Padres that captures my imagination, the role that Tony Gwynn used to play. And bada boom bada bing - the Padres trade for Anthony Gwynn.

Consider my imagination captured. Of course, Junior isn't nearly the player his pops was, but the genes alone mean I have a new favorite player!

At least until he eventually gets waived, that is. I'm not delusional.

no, we don't

We really, really don't.

We're a state of narcissists (said the guy who think's he's so important he has a blog). We recalled Gray Davis for getting screwed by Enron and daring to raise the car tax in order to balance the budget, and then elect Arnold Fucking Schwarzenegger. Then, when Arnold finally figures out that you can't balance the budget without some sort of tax increase, we vote against that, too. We refuse to even discuss Prop 13. We allow developers to do just about anything they want. We think we lead the country, yet we vote for Prop 8, while freaking Iowa legalizes gay marriage. We're home to Michael Savage, Paris Hilton, and Perez Hilton. We have Stockton, Modesto, and Bakersfield. I could go on and on.

Don't get me wrong, I love California. We also have Big Sur, Tony Gwynn, and Superior Dairy. I was born,  raised, and will most likely die here. But to say we deserve any better than what we have is ridiculous, and yes, narcissistic.

heigh-ho silver, away

Remember when I couldn't decide if the Oak Ridge Boys covering The White Stripes was awesome or awful?

Turns out, it was awful.

The filing also lists the value of gifts Cheney received during his final year in office. The Lucchese Boot Company of Hendersonville, Tenn. and the Oak Ridge Boys, a country band, jointly provided the former vice president with $631 worth of black cherry goat leather boots and three CDs, appraised at $631.

[ackerman]

heartwarming story of the day

And people wonder why I'm a pessimist.

The police chief said Toribio told detectives that she suffocated her son in Alvarado Park before dawn on May 13 by putting her hand over his mouth and nose. She said she had second thoughts and performed CPR on the boy, resuscitating him, but reconsidered and smothered him again.

dillinger four / pinhead gunpowder split ep (1999 adeline records)

What could be more brave
Than dancing on your own grave?

I've already covered how much I love Dillinger Four. They've failed to put out a bad song ever, and these two are not exceptions.

The Pinhead Gunpowder side is almost as good though, as you might expect from an Aaron Cometbus band. "At Your Funeral" is my favorite song of theirs ever.

BTW this EP  sowed the seed for my D4-Green Day conspiracy theory. You know that Billie Joe is in Pinhead Gunpowder and runds Adeline Records? Good. So it's save to say D4 and Billie Joe, if not all of Green Day, are friends. OK. So. I stopped listening to Green Day long ago.  Yes, because I'm like that.

So one day, I borrow my sisters car. Sh she had American Idiot in the CD player, so I checked it out. I was shocked. On at least half the songs, if I just imagined Paddy or Billy singing, it was Dillinger Four. To this day, I maintain that D4 are getting secret royalties from that album.  This is just the most obvious example:



And yes, Tupac is still alive, why do you ask?

1. D4 - Are You The Motherfucker With The Banana?
2. D4 - Thanks For Nothing, Part II: The Revenge
3. PG - At Your Funeral
4. PG - Porch Song
5. PG- Second Street

DOWNLOAD 'DILLINGER FOUR / PINHEAD GUNPOWDER'

feinstein ftw!

Wow. I usually complain about Dianne Feinstein, but she hits a bullseye here.

thank you, jon & ken

atrios:

I'm so old I can remember when our national media decided their greatly inflated claims about California's deficit and Davis's attempts to address it were reason enough to chuck him out.

(if you don't know who John & Ken are, consider yourself blessed.)

save our prisons!

dillinger four - more songs about girlfriends and bubblegum (1997 mutant pop)

fuck the banks i`ve heard them say but then someone has to cash this check
a third goes to the government and then half goes down to rent
and then what`s left seems like a gift it nearly brings tears to these eyes
cause there`s folks in d.c. that sleep in satin sheets and say my value`s recognized

could this be the freedom that mother spoke of at home?
didn`t life guarantee me anything besides overtime for low-interest loans?
i want to tear this fucker down

Dillinger Four is my favorite active band (#2 all time, behind Hickey). They are just the perfect mix of everything - hooks, lyrics, humor, politics, sarcasm, intelligence, and punk rock. They get mislabeled as a pop-punk band all the time. Yeah, there's pop elements aplenty, but that label is just way too narrow. The best description I've heard came from someone in the Something Awful forums a few years back: Hardcore Pop.


Anyways, for my money, the best band around. And C I V I L W A R was the best album of 2008, but I may be a tad biased.

1. Fuck You, Ms. Rochelle
2. Thanks For Nothing
3. An American Banned
4. Twin Cities Sinners, United

MySpace
Last.fm

DOWNLOAD 'MORE SONGS ABOUT GIRLFRIENDS AND BUBBLEGUM'

chuck berry holiday

[buddyhead]

omar

11 Omar scenes from The Wire. 

My fave:





[warmingglow]

newt gingrich is a tool

I didn't know until tonight's Daily Show that Newt Gingrich has a new book. That's not schocking. He writes a lot of books. The shocking part is that it is called 5 Principles for a Successful Life: From Our Family to Yours.

I'm going assume these five are not among them.

• Divorce your first wife while she is in the hospital recuperating from cancer surgery. 
• Marry your next wife six months after divorcing the first.
  
• Divorce your second wife and marry the woman you were having an affair with.
  
• Shut down the government because you had to sit at the back of Air Force One.
  
• Have 84 ethics charges brought against you.

If there is one family I would absolutely not take advice from, it would be the Gingrich family. Nevertheless, Gingrich's third wife, the one he was cheating on his second wife with, writes:

Finally, here is my vision of success – being part of a strong, healthy family; being involved in my community and being inspired to act based on what is right and proper rather than on what is easiest or cheapest.

Somebody actually paid to publish this. What a country!

teabag change

A wonderful thing.

21st century breakdown

You owe it to yourselves to read (?) Buddyhead's review of the new Green Day album.

hoping for a bubble

This is the mentality that worries me. The mindset that zenith of the boom cycle was the ideal, and we just need to get back to it. But, that was insanity, and now prices are heading to where they should be. Prices need to get to a sane level, and then stabilize. Even stabilizing current prices would be sane, but no one should be cheer leading rising prices. Hoping they get back to 2006 levels is insane.

BTW, I'm speaking for San Diego. I know prices in some places are extremely low, too low, in fact. Not here.

newsflash: 'prison break' is a fictional show

I don't understand the "no Guantanamo detainees in my backyard prison" nonsense. If you are worried that an alleged* terrorist is in a prison near you, well, there are likely brutal murderers and rapists in that same prison, yet people seem to be cool with that. I think I know why, too, because it's a prison.

 

In Lemoore, where I grew up, there are three prisons within a forty five minute drive, and many more if you expand that radius slightly. One of them, Corcoran (which is actually two prisons), houses Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. I never really worried about them. Because they were in prison.  

 

Plus, if you take a hardline position on treatment of detainees, good news! Our prisons have been torturing inmates for years. See? You cannot lose. Solitary confinement will drive them mad, but putting them in the general population will probably have Dahmer-esque results.

 

If the U.S. prison system can handle Timothy McVeigh, Charles Manson, I'm sure it can handle some alleged* Al-Qaeda riff raff.

 

 

 

*I use "alleged" not because I think the detainees are not terrorists and/or Al Qaeda members, I'm positive many are. I use it because I'm just as positive that some are not.

 

rumsfeld

I've never read anything from GQ in my life, but all the blog chatter about Robert Draper's article on Don Rumsfield (there's a Mad Men pun in there somewhere) meant I needed to pop my GQ cherry.

Holy shit.

Crusade, much?

The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

Rumsfeld's peeps are denying this, but, really, how could they not?

And once again we find that the troops paid the price for the DOD-State Dept pissing match.

Shortly before the Iraq invasion, King Abdullah II of Jordan decreed that warplanes could not overfly his country if they had previously flown over Israel. The king’s demand meant that U.S. fighters would need to make a multiple-hour detour before proceeding to their targets. Rumsfeld had himself been a fighter pilot and presumably recognized the absurdity of the detour, and so one NSC aide approached him during a meeting in the Situation Room as the matter was being discussed.

Excuse me, Mr. Secretary,” said the aide. “I want you to know that Dr. Rice is prepared to call the king to get that restriction removed so that our kids don’t have to fly the extra two and a half or three hours.”

Rumsfeld looked up from his coffee. “When I need your help,” he said, “I’ll ask.”

The secretary did not ask for the help, and so his soldiers went the extra distance, unnecessarily.

And he was sugar in the gastank during Katrina.

Noticing that their chopper was outfitted with a search-and-rescue lift, one of the advance men said to the pilot, “We’re not taking you away from grabbing people off of rooftops, are we?”

“No, sir,” said the pilot. He explained that he was from Florida’s Hurlburt Field Air Force base—roughly 200 miles from New Orleans—which contained an entire fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters. “I’m just here because you’re here,” the pilot added. “My whole unit’s sitting back at Hurlburt, wondering why we’re not being used.”

The search-and-rescue helicopters were not being used because Donald Rumsfeld had not yet approved their deployment—even though, as Lieutenant General Russ Honoré, the cigar-chomping commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, would later tell me, “that Wednesday, we needed to evacuate people. The few helicopters we had in there were busy, and we were trying to deploy more.”

The next day, three days after landfall, word of disorder in New Orleans had reached a fever pitch. According to sources familiar with the conversation, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff called Rumsfeld that morning and said, “You’re going to need several thousand troops.”

“Well, I disagree,” said the SecDef. “And I’m going to tell the president we don’t need any more than the National Guard.”

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of George W. Bush. But he did himself no favors by surrounding himself with the likes of Cheney & Rumsfeld. Without them, it likely would have been merely a bad presidency; with them, it was among the worst ever.

capitol punishment - glutton for punishment (1988 we bite)

Confession.

I'm a poseur. I was not always into punk and I didn't even get into it until the early 90's. This is not completely my fault, as I was hardly even aware punk existed until then. See, I was raised in  Lemoore, California, a small town, isolated by miles of dairies, corn fields, and meth labs. Forty miles away was the nearest large city, Fresno (sorry, Visalia). So yeah, I was a little culturally isolated. On top of the cultural isolation, I was much too young for the early waves of punk, and I was in high school from 86-90, a pretty dead period for punk rock in general, unless you liked NYHC.  I do remember one guy and his girlfriend wore Youth of Today shirts and we had a small population of skaters, and I'm sure some of them were into punk, but that was a world I did not know about. Punk just never really made it to Lemoore. So I defaulted to metal. Yes, I was a teenage metalhead.

But if you examine the metal I liked, you could tell I was in some way desperate to find punk. I thought of D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies as "metal" bands - even Dealing With It and ST's first album. Loved S.O.D., M.O.D., C.O.C. I liked things fast and short. Sure I mixed in the occasional David Lee Roth or Scorpions concert, and my favorite bands in the latter high school years were Anthrax and Voivod, but I had a wide ranging definition of metal, just as I now have a wide definition of punk.

So all this confessional biographical nonsense is just a way to point out that Capitol Punishment is the most famous punk band from Fresno. And that means a lot since it was while living in Fresno that I discovered punk rock. So they are important to me. They are the closest thing to a home town band I have. Even if they aren't from my home town. And I didn't hear them until long after they peaked.

The version of Capitol Punishment on this release included a Fresno artist you may be familiar with - drummer Tim Biskup (Boing Boing just spewed).

1. Severin 
   
2. Everyday My Life's A Living Hell
3. When You're Helpin' The Shepherd, You're Helpin' The Sheep
4. Old George Cloud

Little Jon's CP biography
Last.fm 

DOWNLOAD 'GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT'

cheap and fast

Inspired by a Salon article, Lifehacker asked it's readers for their top five fast food dollar menu items. They came up with Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, Burger King Whopper Jr, Wendy's Small Chili, McDonald's McChicken, and Wendy's Chicken Nuggets.

They are wrong. Here's the correct top five.

1. Jack In The Box - 2 taco's for 99 cents. 

This is a no brainer. How a mysterious possibly-not-meat with a slice of American cheese and grease-softened bottom "taco" captured the imaginations of cheapskates and stoners, I have no idea. But I do know I'm craving one, uh I mean two, right now.

I didn't realize Jack In The Box was not nationwide, so I'll let Lifehacker readers slide on this.


2. McDonald's - Double Cheeseburger

Besides the fries, there's nothing else at McDonald's worth getting.


3. Wendy's - Double Stack. 

The Junior Bacon Cheesburger is a JOKE. Why would you possibly order that when the Double Stack is on the same menu. 

4. Taco Bell - Bean Burrito. 

Red sauce, ask for onions and olives. Simple, cheap, good. If you bring it home, whip out the Tapatio.


5. McDonald's - Fudge Sundae. 

With nuts. I don't know what it is about these cheap ass ghetto sundae's, but got damn.

sliding scale

The San Francisco Giants are taking the sliding scale pricing model for baseball games to a new extreme: raising prices based on scheduled pitching matchups. Now, I'm not really opposed to basing prices on the opponent or the day of the week - I'm actually surprised it wasn't done sooner. The Giants model has some obvious flaws - people are going to be pissed if they pay for these "premium" pitching matchups and then one of the starters ends up not pitching - but if it takes hold around the league, it sure as hell better take place in reverse as well.
Meaning: if the Padres are playing the Nationals on a Wednesday night, with scheduled starters Josh Geer and Scott Olsen, tickets better cost negative $20, with free concessions.

[deadspin]

beisbol musings

The Padres swept the Reds! The ship has been righted! Ok, maybe not, but it sure was a nice little reprieve from all the losing. But what’s bumming me out about the Padres isn’t the losing. Heck, I’m a lifelong Padres fan, I’m very used to losing, and I wasn’t expecting anything this year, although that 9-3 start almost tricked me. Nah, what’s bumming me out is there is no one on the team that grabs my attention on a regular basis, so I am consistently bored with the product. .

On the bad Padres teams of the 80’s and 90’s, I always had Tony Gwynn. Watching Tony hit was like watching Picasso paint (I imagine). And to a large extent it made the losing years bearable. Nowadays there is no one on the Padres who captures my imagination. It probably has more to do with being an old fart now, as my Gwynn obsession began when I was in 7th grade. Probably not healthy for someone my age to become infatuated with a professional baseball player. But still. What do I have now? Jake Peavy? Absolutely. Except that he a) pitches every five days, b) will probably be traded any day now, and c) the Padres never score enough runs for him to be rewarded for his efforts (yes he won Sunday, getting a whopping three runs to work with). Adrian Gonzales is the closest thing I've got. If he manages to keep doing what he's been doing (I would like to see a higher batting average; I tend to be a BA whore - before Gwynn, Rod Carew was my favorite player) and somehow develop a personality, we could be back in business.

I guess I’ve set the bar pretty high, asking for another Gwynn. But if we’re gonna lose, I need something to keep me interested. Losing in a boring fashion with boring players is not working.

Which reminds me of this Malcolm Gladwell article in last week’s New Yorker (living in California, my issue comes four days late). The story is about “Davids” and “Goliaths”. Basic point being when David plays by Goliath’s rules, David loses. When David comes up with a strategy that nuetralizes and/or eliminates Goliath’s strengths, David has a chance, and more often than not, wins. Gladwell uses a few different examples, a girl’s basketball team who uses the press consistently to defeat more skilled teams, TE Lawrence blowing up railroads rather than confronting the Ottomans (since strategies in girl's basketball should always be extrapolated to WWII strategy, ha). Gladwell's article, as usual, has taken a lot of flak, but I liked it. Should the Padres take notes?

What options are there? We have no trade prospects short of Peavy and Gonzalez. While I expect Peavy to go, and I understand the reasons, but Adrian cannot go. He's all we have. Nobody else on the current roster will return anything above mediocre. The farm system blows. There are really no good answers short of a Gladwell-esque re-imagining of the game of baseball.

So, how do you do that ? In basketball, you can do something like the press. In football, you can use a new scheme like the run ‘n shoot or the A-11 offense, which will be successful until your opponent figures out a response. But baseball? I have no idea. Gaslamp Ball suggests the Padres should use midgets. A rotation specializing in the eephus? Screwball? Hire a bunch of track stars and have them master the art of bunting for base hits?

Help us Malcolm Gladwell, you're our only hope.

heartwarming story of the day

PCP is hell of a drug.

A Bakersfield father is accused of biting out one of the eyes of his small child and similarly mutilating the other eye, leaving the child blind.

After attacking the child, 34-year-old Angel Vidal Mendoza Sr. quickly left his apartment in a wheelchair, entered a backyard of a nearby vacant home and attacked his own legs with an ax, severely injuring himself, Bakersfield police reported.

The child, 4-year-old Angelo Mendoza Jr., later told police, "My daddy ate my eyes."

[boingboing]

palomino's

Pastor burrito from Palomino's. Not sure if it was authentic pastor - I didn't see a spit like I do in TJ. Still, good stuff, with the exeption of one inedible piece of fat.

"reverse nuremburg"

re: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Torture

We’ve got what amounts to a reverse Nuremberg defense, where Bush administration officials are let off the hook because they were only giving orders.  I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.

passed out

james harrison, master of the obvious

James Harrison of the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, on the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers visiting the White House, because they, uh, won the Super Bowl.

"This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won," said Harrison.

I'll raise Harrison's "as far as I'm concerned" - I am 110% positive that Obama would've invited the Cardinals if they had won. I'm also willing to bet Harrison his 2009 salary that whoever wins the 2010 Super Bowl will also be invited to the White House.

[shutdown corner]

agreed

In a just world, The Editors would have a Pulitzer, A Polk, and a Heisman.

 [eschaton]

oblivion / gods reflex - split ep (1997 johann's face)

 

Two Chicago bands on a Chicago label. Until I started posting 7 inches, I guess I didn't realize how influential the Chicago scene has been on me personally. Crazy how many great bands hail from the Windy City.

I love Oblivion, and consider them to be one of the more overlooked bands of the 90's. Pop punk done right. You should buy anything and everything they've put out.

Gods Reflex, I'm not so familiar with - I actually thought they were from Texas, but they do a form of late 90's emo-tinged punk that isn't nauseating at all. I associate them Texas band Sore Loser (who they sound a bit reminisent of) for some reason. I think they shared the same label. Arm's Reach or something. That may be the source of my confusion.

1. O - The Day The Calvary Got Gum Cancer
   
2. O - The Rock Game
   
3. GR - I'm Not Sorry
   
4. GR - One Down Ten To Go
   

Oblivion's Last.fm page 

Oblivion's MySpace

Gods Reflex Last.fm

Gods Reflex MySpace 

DOWNLOAD 'OBLIVION/GODS REFLEX'

vandals - fat club ep (2000)

 

Not much to say about this, as you are probably familiar with The Vandals. Part of the Fat Club series from 2000.  

1. Underground
2. Why Are You Alive

Last.fm
MySpace

DOWNLOAD 'FAT CLUB EP' 

contentment

round nine - s/t ep (1995)

Second Mutant Pop release. Pop punk with ska influences, but this isn't ska punk. The ska influence is pretty subdued except on "Happy Day". Not a lot of info on these guy, somehow I remember them being from Portland, OR, but I could be way off on that.

1. Inspirashine
2. Sweet Wine
3. Stability
4. Pelvic Assault
5. Happy Day 

Last.fm
Buy

DOWNLOAD 'ROUND NINE'

darling you can't add, and your subtraction skills are sad

a nice drive in the country finds a nice cliff to drop off

waiting....

we'll never be divided

holier than thou? - s/t ep (2000)

 

Old school skatecore on Six Weeks Records. On the leading edge of the hardcore revival. Shreds.

1. Infinity +7 Divided By The Root Of All Evil
2. Rat Patrol
3. It's A Crime
4. Board To Death
   

Last.fm 



DOWNLOAD 'HOLIER THAN THOU?'

jam wow

i relax with coffee

Plinky: With all the stress in the world right now, it's important to de-stress-ify every now and again. How do you do it?

I know it makes no sense, but coffee. Specifically, grabbing a book or the latest issue of The New Yorker, heading to a coffee shop with a good vibe, and just hunkering down and mainlining espresso. I haven't found the perfect place in San Diego yet, though Krakatoa and Influx come close . In Sacramento, The Naked Lounge and Tupelo were perfect.

the joke's on you

The Daily Beast links to a WSJ story about Obama's joke at ASU's commencement. Obama:

"I do think we all learned an important lesson," Obama said. "I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. It won't happen again. President Crow and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

My take, and I'm assuming the take of most sane people: pretty funny.

The take of a couple Daily Beast commenters:

Obama's bullying continues....if you don't play his game, he sends his thugs out to get you.

Even in jest, a threat is still a threat, IRS is serious stuff, there's nothing classy about that. To say he will never pick another team is silly and I don't believe him, he's pandering too hard. ASU is right, Obama had a slick election with secret monies, but that's about it for accomplishments.

Oh, it's gonna be a fun four years.

Oh, and also...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Arizona State Snubs Obama
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

(Comedy Central's video embedding code is one of the most ridiculous things I have seen)

awesome or awful?

I keep wavering.

the road

No Country For Old Men was rad because the movie was as close to the book as you could possibly get. Some scenes were exactly as I pictured them in the book. And how could you not cast Tommy Lee Jones at the sheriff?

I zipped through The Road as fast as I did NCFOM. As I was reading it, I thought it too would make an awesome movie. I just figured no one would, since it would have to speak more through mood and scenery than dialogue. But the trailer gives me hope. The only thing that has me worried is Charlize Theron. I hope they didn't expand the role of the wife and/or try to explain what happened in too much detail. The vagueness of what precipitated the journey was one of the selling points.

But still, I think I'm excited.

[filmdrunk]

confirmed: i am a geek, barely

Ralph Koster lists the reasons my year of birth, 1971, is the perfect geek age. Some of the ones I can confirm:

• It meant I got to see Star Wars in the theater, 13 times, at ages 6 and 7, exactly when it would overwhelm my sense of wonder. 

Yep. But I'd argue that's about the age you should stop obsessing on Star Wars. I remember when Independence Day came out, and my nieces and nephews thought it was the greatest thing ever, I'd be all "please, you need to see Star Wars before you say that." Then I watched it as an adult and was amazed at how bad it was. 

• I got an 8-bit computer at exactly the age when boys get obsessive about details, and I spent days PEEKing and POKEing and typing in listings from magazines and learning how computers actually worked. 

I did not have a "computer" (just the Atari VCS nee 2600) until I got a Commodore 64, but I do remember how the Commodore 64 magazines would have pages of code you could type to program your own game. And I remember how a mistyped line would make all that work useless. 

• I was there for when the X-Men were new and fresh 

Yeah, but I wasn't into them near as much as third tier comics like Power Man & Iron Fist and Moon Knight. 

• I got to high school when PCs were becoming ubiquitous.

Our big project in computer class was to create an image of a dog, and then to, get this, have the dog wag it's tail. l337!

• I got to college when Macs were on Apple campuses, and actually useful. 

Are you saying the Macs in grade school were not useful? How the hell else was I supposed to play Oregon Trail?

• And when you had no choice but to use libraries for research, so I actually learned what real research is.

Well, I gotta say, I prefer the "new" way. I have no fond memories of card catalogs.

Looking at Ralph's list, I definitely wasn't as geeky as I could have been. Yeah, I loved arcade's (Video Giz Wiz! Willie O's!), but I avoided D&D, graphic novels, most science fiction (except for Star Galatica - don't ask), and hardcore computing.

[boingboing]

queen mab - s/t ep (1994)

 

Short lived East Bay punk band with a sort of Ebullition feel. You may have never heard of Queen Mab, but sure as shit you've  heard of at least one of the band that sprung from them. Derek Fudesco (Murder City Devils, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Hookers) sings, Deb Dupas (The Gr'ups) plays bass, Cassandra Millspaugh (ummm...?) on guitar,  and Jerry Buchanan (Embers) on drums.

1. Smile Big Today
2. Depth
3. Unbalanced
4. J Is For Jesus Christ
   

1994 Judgementil Music.

DOWNLOAD 'QUEEN MAB'

asness

A hedge fund douche whines because in dealing with Chrysler, Obama called hedge fund managers on their bluff.

Expected.

Not a big deal.

Except, like Joe The Plumber, Carrie Prejean, and Rick Santelli, it doesn't take much more than a retarded blog post or campaign question or Miss USA answer or trading floor rant to zoom to the top of the conservative charts.

Smackdown shall commence in three, two, one:

I confess I don’t know a whole lot about finance, so maybe everyone would be better off if I had no opinion.  OTOH, I don’t know a whole lot about how the espresso machine at the coffee place works, either, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s some super-complicated thing that is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.  Also, the espresso machine doesn’t periodically blind all the customers with scalding water, and the guy who runs it doesn’t then explain how that’s how the machine works, and it will soon fix itself as long as we don’t try to contain the spray of scalding water, and can he please have a few hundred billion dollars from the government now or he’ll boil everyone alive, then dressing up like Thomas Jefferson and muttering darkly about ACORN.  If you want people to take you seriously, investment firm executives, stop writing open letters that make it sound like Marie Antoinette lobotomized you with an ice cream scoop.  Because it gives people ideas.  Do yourselves a very, very large favor and shut the fuck up.

i don't mind

the madoff affair

If you have an hour to kill, Frontline had an excellent program on Bernie Madoff. 

fifi - not again EP (1995)

 

NOTE: This is in the worst condition of any EP I've posted. I tried using Audacity's Noise Removal feature, but that ended up making it sound even worse. So I left all the noise in. If you have a program or a method in Audacity that will eliminate noise effectively, let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Just nothing with too steep of a learning curve; I don't have the patience. Since these songs also appear of Fifi's Sinkhole album, I went ahead and included those versions as well.

Fifi was a Los Angeles band that sadly didn't get a lot of attention. Surprising, considering their Bad Religion links (Pete Finestone was their drummer). Straight ahead, old school, SoCal punk rock. Plus an English Beat cover. Remember the movie SLC Punk? Remember the punk rock version of "Mirror In The Bathroom"? That was FiFi.

1. Not Again
2. Mirror

Last.fm


DOWNLOAD 'NOT AGAIN'
DOWNLOAD 'NOT AGAIN (ALBUM VERSIONS)'