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I had just a few thoughts, one of which is that Kerry was exceptionally successful at answering coherently with fact filled answers, while avoiding sounding like a know-it-all. There is I'm sure to be debate about the worst of the evening, but let me submit this.
Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges years ago said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all - you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America
C'mon, seriously, didn't the Reagan-Carter debates of 1980 settle the Dred Scott case?
More in a Freudian-slip column is the allusion to wanting the vote of all Supreme Court judges.
I'm not telling. I really don't have, haven't picked anybody yet. Plus I want them all voting for me.
On a side note, I read this morning about the Afghan elections and the wide-spread boycott because the ink which was meant to prevent people from voting twice actually washes off, and I wondered, do you think the woman who designed the butterfly ballot could be at fault with this too?
Kerry was flawless in tonight's debate. His best line?
I just think I can do that far more effectively, because the most important weapon in doing that is intelligence.
Yeah, intelligence. Nice double entendre there, John. Any other thoughts from the peanut gallery?
(from one of the sponsors of Get Off The Internet And Vote)
It's clear, the WaPo headling says it all.
96,000 jobs a month isn't enough to keep up with a growing population. Period. We're losing ground, not gaining it.
JibJab has done it again.
It's worth it for two reasons: hearing politicians sing a song to a rebel tune, and getting to see John Ashcroft rip off his shirt to reveal a gay pride t-shirt underneath.
Go check it out today! It's sedilicious!
It’s nice when a blog entry can combine the mutual obsessions of Edward (keeping America free) and myself (keeping America entertained). (For the record, Helena wants to keep America green, Deborah wants to keep America Deutsch, and Brad wants to keep America apprised of Edward’s health the way C.O.B.R.A. operative Xamot did for Tomax on G.I. Joe.) Anyway my $25 donation to MoveOn.org rewarded my helping the cause with a great compilation. (That promotion is over now—read: you’ll pay half what I did—but profits still go to defeating Bush. At time of writing Barsuk Records will give you a discount on future orders, and Amazon will get it to you for cheap as well.) Future Soundtrack for America is packed with awesome bands who top the indie charts and hover at the edge of mainstream media consciousness—Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, Flaming Lips, OK Go, Sleater-Kinney, Yeah Yeah Yeahs—as well as some actual hit-makers—Jimmy Eat World, Elliott Smith, They Might Be Giants—and genuine big names like David Byrne, R.E.M., and even Blink-182.
I’m addicted to compilations, but even I have to admit that most comps are full of B-sides and ill-considered covers, or are just showcases for the bottom of the label’s metaphorical barrel. But since these artists actually care about the success of this disc, the quality of this collection is uniformly high. As far as commenting on the generating impulse behind the album, many of the songs speak to a sense of urgency or obliquely touch on politics. Some are less oblique, which may put the listener off a track or two. For instance, even after several weeks of spinning this, I haven’t figured out how I feel about (or deciphered the meaning of) David Byrne’s fable “Ain’t Got So Far to Go”—“It’s genius! No, treacle! No wait…”—but Soul Coughing’s Mike Doughty delivers the most straight-up lyrics of his life (“Yeah, I believe the war is wrong / I don’t believe that nations can be steered”) that manage to be an anthem to MoveOn and yet still really, really groove. There’s a dash of alt-country/folk thanks to Laura Cantrell, Old 97’s, and Tom Waits, and a light dusting of rhythm courtesy of will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. (To those readers whose unofficial mascot was an ungulate of a shade not found in nature, class of ’89 alums Fountains of Wayne also have a nice acoustic track.) All in all, a great addition to your collection—even the graphic design is cool—that will be the least guilty of the pleasures you indulge in this election season. (Listen to Future Soundtrack for America here or request it here.)
I'll cover the VPOTUS debate in a bit (hopefully Meat posts first) but for now, just three minor code notes.
There is now a music reviews section to the website. If anyone has any other sectional requests, just e-mail me and I'll add them. (Dwight, I moved your article into the proper section, fyi.)
Also, evidently there was a problem for IE users who wished to add articles. Normally, I'd say I don't care, but I want everyone to be able to post, so I fixed it. However, it's several days late...so next time, if you try to add an article and cannot, you should tell me. I'm happy to help.
Finally, when you make links to places on the website, you now need to include the full path. In the past, you could use a root symbol "/" to indicate a path relative to the root. Unfortunately, because of the way the RDF feed works, you need to have full paths specified in the link. Yes, this conflicts slightly with the archive system. (In the past, using an archive page would keep you at that time period as long as all the links were relative.) But the archive page is rarely used, so I'm not concerned. Besides, you can still go back in time...you just can't move between certain pages the way you used to without using the back button. Which I assume most people can use.
So I’m late posting this, but the Track You Should Be Listening To Right Now (actually, August’s TYSBLTRN) is White Mud Free Way’s “Mercury,” from their album Last Year’s Junk. The female-fronted White Mud Free Way is everything great about Luscious Jackson without the noted downside of being…well, Luscious Jackson. “Mercury” opens with the plaintive line “I don’t think about cowboys anymore,” and an image of long, lonely desert stretches. It then quickly manages to morph into a meditation on space, distance, and the perils of asteroids colliding with Earth. Meanwhile, the hurried bass rhythms combine with laidback vocals for a unique combination of urgency and resignation. Most songs couldn’t successfully conjure up images of dusty, worn cowgirls and sterile, lab-coated astronomers in the same breath, but “Mercury” does it, both in music and in imagery. The linking factor is the invocation of the Western sky—a star-studded expanse that can’t help but be massive, fraught, empty, exhausting…and worth dancing under. (Listen to "Mercury" here or request it here.)
Okay, I've finally added an RSS feed to the website. Just click on the little "RDF" icon at the bottom of the page to pull up the feed.
Rather than get into the holy wars surrounding RSS and RDF (and the unholy Atom!), I'll just say that I'm using RSS 1.0, which is to say, RDF. I contains full posts, so any good RSS newsreader should be able to visit the site completely without, actually.
And that's why, really, I've resisted implementing RSS. Because I'd rather people come to the site, instead of reading it in a newsreader. Because the next round of changes will require people to visit the site to get the full effect. However, in the interim, I figured throwing up an RSS feed was good form, so I did. The code was annoying but it's now up and I now know more about RDF than I ever planned to.
My coding procrastination now has to end, as the next three projects (staff, charts and foreigners) are major and I have nothing left until them.
I've uploaded the sailing pictures here. Unfortunately, I need to get a new camera phone with a better resolution, but Nokia keeps delaying the 7610. Annoying.
The mainpage image currently is of a helicopter (one of several that morning) that buzzed Kevin and Carrie and myself while sailing. It felt as if it were right on top of us, although the image doesn't do it justice.
Okay, back to work. Things here are extremely busy...
Go check it out...who says the French are best at montage?
Here we go again...
Friday evening I hit First Friday with a smaller (but still fun!) crew than usual. Nicely, almost every gallery was open, which was a pleasant surprise after the last two months when almost everything was closed. Later, I traveled up north to hit some sushi followed by "Motorcycle Diaries" with Fincher. Altogether, a great time except for the late bus misadventure.
Saturday I enjoyed the cloudy weather by taking care of some house stuff, followed by some law review. I'm starting to get better at the hypos, but still not 100% behind the hearsay arguments. The day was interrupted by a sudden thunderstorm in which I got soaked. Saturday evening, Fincher and a friend came over to watch City of God. I learned an important lesson: don't attempt to watch a movie in Portugese while eating chinese food if said movie is so fast-paced that every other second someone is getting their face blown in. Once I finished my meal, it was easier to keep track of the psychopath, main character, and various hoods throughout. Saturday night we went out and discovered that U street was a complete madhouse. After losing some of our crew, we retreated back to our original target, Utopia. We had meant to go there in the first place, but the high drink/food minimum price scared us off. (I'm more of a blues person than a jazz person, but it was enjoyable>) Upon our return, we discovered the minimum was a fiction, and enjoyed chilling out there.
Sunday I went sailing with Kevin and a friend. I'll try to upload the pix later. It was an amazing day, with perfectly blue skies and plenty of sun. Post sail, I did some yardwork, then grilled some meat in the evening, followed by a little fire-pit love. Altogether, a great way to end a great weekend.
Now, if only it weren't Monday...
I watched glass melt tonight.
Everything seemed solid until one particular moment, no different than any other, when enough energy had passed through it...suddenly it was like plastic.
Phase shifting is curious because people think that you can warm ice up, or cool water down to freezing. Instead, you may already be at that point, merely adding joule to joule, until the tipping point occurs. Or it may already be passed, and the substance you thought was solid merely appears so, when the lightest touch will reveal it is liquid.
It's tough to gauge that exact moment when something passes over. Much like trying to hold onto the final moment before sleep.
I won't think about it soon.
werkz advice: go rent it today.
Fernando Meirelles' epic tale of the slums of Rio, "City of God" is a great film that never slows down for you to catch your breath. A vivid description of a hellish life, random killings, beatings and falls from grace, the movie is so fast-paced you can't look away for a second or a pivotal character may be either introduced or shot. By the time the film is over, the last shot fired, you'll be grateful for the soft cushy life you lead. No one deserves to live this story...
after central station, director walter salles brings us the luscious, the real, and the not too over-the-top motorcycle diaries. gael garcia bernal (oh my!) plays ernesto guevara de la serna, a young argentinian medical student who later goes on to become the revolutionary guerrilla leader "che" guevara, in a story about a formative journey taken around south america with his friend alberto granado, played by rodrigo de la serna (who, incidentally, happens to be a second cousin of che). the movie begins in argentina and continues through chile, peru, colombia, and venezuela, treating us to beautiful scenes and stories about real people encountered along the way. we meet enchanting women, persecuted communists, displaced indigenous farmers, and the residents of a leper colony on the amazon. the film is truly made for the big screen and is pleasurable because the politics and turmoil to come in che's life are merely hinted at, and the movie is quite simply a story about a human being to which all of us can relate.
dear dredwerkz, is it an insurmountable dating obstacle that someone voted for mitt romney in the last massachusetts gubernatorial election?
yours truly, diehard democrat
helena says:
Flirting with conservatives can be mildly entertaining, so if your dating is still in the realm of nonexclusive grabbing drinks when you're up for a debate, I think that this person would be fine to keep around. But to me, that's a friend, not a boy/girl-friend.
Getting serious with someone whose fundamental beliefs are evil is a bad idea. Politics aren't like preferring chocolate or vanilla. I see it as an irreconcilable difference. Heath is slightly less left than I and even that sometimes makes me want to strangle him.
- Conversion is a waste of time, unless this person is exaggerating his/her conservatism in order to get a rise out of you. If that's the case, I find it obnoxious, but you might find it fun.
- Always date within your own league or one higher. You're a Democrat; this person is a Republican. You are too good for him/her.
edward says: I've always believed that you can convert anyone from the dark-side. Of course, this approach takes for granted that you have the time and energy to engage in what could prove to be a fruitless quest. (Be sure to score plenty of free dinner/jewelry/gifts in the process, though, so that you at least come out ahead!) Just remember two points if you want to do it:
If you don't convert him/her, leave him/her wanting more. Better to have them think "Wow, that really hot Democrat got away...I wish I hadn't been such an idiot" than "Whew, I'm sure glad I didn't end up with that annoying liberal."
They have to convert. If they don't, you don't go out with them anymore.
brad says: I wonder when someone brings this up - is this a first date sort of thing? You know, 'this t-bone kicks ass, but not as much as lyndon larouche'...? And though I don't know who diehard democrat is offhand, I'm willing to guess that it's a 'she' because I can't think of a single woman who would openly mention mitt romney while on a date. But you want advice, so here are my two points:
Republicans from 'the other commonwealth' are pretty rare, so they're likely to have a chip on their shoulder about politics. Conversation will be frigging irritating...
Time spent converting space monkeys sends the wrong message to the other gender...it basically says that you don't care enough about politics to reward those who use their brains when voting. enough said.