Sorry about the technical issues in the Dino chat everyone. That sucked. I'm still not sure what went wrong, and I still can't see all the comments. It's odd cuz we've done this before without any problems. If you have a question for Dino that didn't get answered, leave it in the comments for this post and I promise I'll get Dino to answer it.
DINO'S GONNA CHAT AGAIN!!!!
Welcome everybody! I see a lot of new faces out there! Hope you're all pumped up for the big chat with Dino Stamatopoulos! This chat will be the technological equivalent to a rubber-band powered airplane. Just go to the comments for this post, post a comment or question for Dino, then sit back and watch the fireworks!!
Well, not really. I think you have to keep hitting refresh to see answers and new questions and such.
It's gonna be great!! Dino should be here any minute, so let's just rev up the ol blog and let er rip!!
UPDATE: The official chat time is 4PM EST. The duration of the chat will be, at most, an hour.
Crazy Horses
Rock Critics Are Idiots
I heard this in one of my favorite Scharpling & Wurster bits, namely "Kid eBay."
(Kid eBay is a bit where Wurster plays a cocky guy who uses nefarious means to profit on eBay. The bit is great because of the bizarre twist it takes when Kid eBay falls down some stairs, and then while fatally injured and in horrible pain, he proceeds to have an incredibly nuanced discussion with Scharpling about music. I loved this the minute I heard it, but I love it even more after hearing their interview on A Special Thing and learning that everything after Kid eBay's fall was pretty much improvised. I hate improv comedy as a rule. But this was great.)
Anyway, one of the things they mention in their discussion of rockdom is a Harp article about Exile on Main Street, and how it is a "Desert Island Dud."
So I looked it up. Exile is about my favorite album of all time, so I figured if some writer has a beef with it I'd like to hear it. I read it last night, and I have to say, it gave me pause. Apparantly, the Rolling Stones are sort of dicks! And they did a lot of DRUGS! And sometimes, Keith Richards would call the engineer guy and make him come to the studio in the middle of the night because he had an idea about something, but maybe then he would fall asleep again, probably because he was on DRUGS!
What a fucking tool this Harp guy is. His other complaint is that NOT ALL OF THE STONES PLAYED ON EVERY SINGLE TRACK!
Well, I for one would like my money back.
I have always said that the Rolling Stones are not at their best as a live act. I don't care how much some idiots pay to see them. Jagger's vocals when he's on the road are atrocious. And their best songs all revel in the little things that are added in studio. They are a studio band, and whatever it takes to get them through each track is fine with me. How much do I care that Bill Wyman didn't play bass on that last track? Uh, not at all. If the song has Jagger and/or Richards in it, I'm OK with that.
Anyway, this guy made me a little mad. And I listened to Exile again just to make sure it was as great as I remembered it. (It was.)
EVERYTHING about this record is great. I don't care if Sweet Black Angel offends the Harp guy. He's an idiot. This is a fantastic record. It is my favorite record. The Harp guy is stupid. Whatever his desert island pick is, I can guarantee you I would rather have Exile.
The Power of the Nuge
Here is a good reason to keep checking in with Crooks and Liars. You just don't see this kind of video anywhere else. Here's a bit of text...
Nugent: I was in Chicago last week I said—Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these you punk? Obama, he’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns…Let’s hear it for them. I was in NY and I said hey Hillary—you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch…Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find– she might wanna suck on my machine gun! Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions? Freeeeedom!
Very classy, Nuge.
Dick...
UPDATE: This is obviously all over the place now. But the first posting I saw was on Crooks and Liars, so the KUDOS remains. Good job, gang.
Unfortunately, Up Is Still Down
Matthew Yglesias points this NY Post article, which offers up a Hillary Clinton quote. To wit:
Discussing the possibility of a new nightmare assault while campaigning in New Hampshire, Clinton also insisted she is the Democratic candidate best equipped to deal with it.
"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.
"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.
Yglesias takes Hillary to task, thusly...
...I think the Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization in a post-attack environment is going to be the one who isn't reflexively inclined to see failed Republican policies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Americans as a political advantage for the Republicans.
I wish this were true, but I completely disagree. Even with the "departure" of Rove (he's relocating, that's it) I'm pretty sure that Laura Bush could raze an orphanage with an Abrams tank and the Republicans would be able to use it to their advantage. (I have no doubt that politicians and pundits of all types would be gravely declaring that Republicans are the only ones who know how to wage the War on Laura) And I think that the Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization is the one that DOES recognized that.
I know, Bush's numbers are crazy low. But I'm a cynic, and sorry, but I just don't have so much faith the general population. What I do have faith in is the amoral win-at-all-cost attitude of the Republican party. Lying to America, cheating America means nothing to them. War means nothing to them. Power is everything. Power at all cost.
Bush and Cheney have been lying to the country for years. So have Rice, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Fleischer, McClellan, Snow, Perino, etc, etc, etc... It doesn't matter. We're still in Iraq 4 years later. FISA was just gutted so that Bush and Co. could continue their unconstitutional spying on Americans (which they lied about BLATANTLY). And FUCKING HOW DO YOU GET PAST FUCKING NEW ORLEANS???? And how do you get past Cheney saying Iraq would be a quagmire if we tried to dispose of Saddam back when he was SecDef? And how do you get to be a major Republican presidential candidate and also get past NOT believing in EVOLUTION??
And now we're all waiting for Gen. Petreaus' report, the one he's not going to give personally, because he didn't write it, but will justify the continuation of this War on Sanity.
Go back further. Iran-Contra. How many of those guys are still major players today? How many reasonably intelligent people do you know that still think it was a "good and brave" thing for Ford to do when he pardoned Nixon? Phew! Good thing that healed the country, right?
Mark FUCKING Foley! Yeah, they lost some seats for that, but Denny Hastert gets to RESIGN?!?!
Is anyone still talking about Mark Vitter? Didn't he admit to breaking the law?
Jack Abramoff.
(Sorry, this post is sort of all over the place. This is all just off the top of my head...)
My point is, they are GOOD at this. The Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization in a post-attack environment will recognize that, then plan and act accordingly. Are some Americans wising up? Sure, I guess so. A lot more have turned against the president and his war than I would have thought. But the war's been going on for years. I think a lot of that is fatigue. And I think that if there is another major terrorist attack on our soil, many them are going to turn back to the so-called "Daddy party" as asinine as that is.
I wish I didn't believe this. It's GD depressing. Yglesias is a smart guy and he disagrees. Atrios is a smart guy, and he disagrees. I would love to be wrong here.
UPDATE: Add to the list of people who disagree with me Josh Marshall. For the record, I think he is much smarter than me.
I agree with Matt on this one. It is extremely important for the Democrats to nominate someone who doesn't think like a loser. And assuming that any failure of the president's anti-terrorism policies will automatically be a political boon for the Republican party means thinking like a loser.
It also signals a lack of confidence either in your own policies or the American people's reasoning powers. And quite possibly both. And whether or not your policies make sense and whether or not the American people know jack you just can't be an effective advocate of those policies unless you think average Americans can be persuaded that they make sense.
Otherwise, you are permanently off balance, ill-prepared and incoherent.
I would like to say that I do not think it is "thinking like a loser" to recognize your opponent's strengths. And as far as that goes, the Republicans are REALLY REALLY GOOD AT PORTAYING THEMSELVES AS THE STRONGER PARTY WHEN IT COMES TO BATTLING TERRORISM.
(And on a broader scale, they are REALLY REALLY GOOD at making their weaknesses look like strengths.)
When you recognize this business, you can confront it, and (hopefully) demonstrate why it is absurd to the electorate.
This has nothing to do with a lack in confidence in your policies, although it certainly does have something to do with thinking the American people don't know jack. There's pretty ample evidence of that.
I really really like Josh, but I think he's off on this one.
By The Way...
Fuck you.
Go to hell.
Go fuck yourself.
In hell.
P.S. Go fuck yourself.
P.P.S. In hell.
Real Or Fake?
Real or fake (and I lean toward the latter) this is pretty awesome.
Thanks (AGAIN) to the WFMU blog.
