Dr_Evil_Mouse

Gotta love it when they don't need search warrants to bust into your house this past weekend too.

Holy crap - what a nightmare. They say they won't sue, but I don't know what kind of response they'll ever get if they don't.

When's the next election again? It's frightening how latent this kind of stuff is, and all it needs is some sense of complicity from the higher-ups to let it go south like this. People like Milgram and Zimbardo just go on making more and more sense. People really will do horrific stuff if you set the table in just the right (or wrong) way.

I am really starting to look forward to this Bluesfest gig.

Hear hear .

My daughter forced me to sit through a Stereos set last summer in KW and I remember thinking at the time that it was absolute hell (except in terms of ironic comedy). She's since shifted her thinking on them, and there were even worse bands on the bill that day, bands which I'd mention except that I'd feel guilty for bringing them into anybody's consciousness.

The only power we ever get is once every few (arbitrarily chosen, despite the promises) years to put a little "x" on a slip of paper. My hope is that Harper finally crossed a line with a lot of his base this time around, but I haven't talked with enough conservative in-laws yet to get much of a sense of things .

But yeah, awfully shitty that there is no coverage for people's whose property was ruined in TO. That's what a $billion gets you under this government.

However you cut it, that's all pretty shameful. What a bunch of narcissitic fuckwads. Who cares whether cops could be as bad. The point was to have proven otherwise.

Happy bday! Glad to have finally met you last summer, btw h

Popomo... sounds like a Louis Armstrong tune.

NSFW?

Etc.

Link

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One of the links in the Globe article on this led here - Heart Attack Grill .

I think it circles back to cave-painting.

Spot-on, I think - there is that insider-privilege thing that goes on so often among people purportedly working for the common good. Maybe it's a result of critique having been forced to the margins, so that the people that manage to carve out a niche there end up getting all territorial about it. Whenever the term "postmodernism" comes up with my students (which, thankfully, is less and less each year), I always get into the Sokal affair, and how pomo was just a clever way of saying that there are no absolutes (which Nietzsche did so well) while sticking your head up your own ass at the same time.

"Revolutionary", though, is such a loaded term. Hedges points to it in the Marxist sense, as antithesis to feudalism, so in that way it's really a neutral concept - even (especially?) in the sense that revolutions seem to always end up devouring their own children.

I'm not convinced that it's possible in The Big Picture for an enlightened, "common good" mode of social organisation can ever come about, at least, not as we can presently conceive it - not unless some miracle happened and everybody suddenly "got" that our power over one another and our environment has always been our most intimate nemesis.

I mean, who's got more just pop-cultural clout, Gandhi or Che Guevara?

blue screen of death in live performance isn't cool or something I'm wiling to go through on stage.

Wouldn't that be a horrific moment.... I swear I've had nightmares based on that theme.

I think as I get older, I like the idea of less technology rather than more. The less catastrophically systems fail, the better, imo (and to put it in context, finding two patchcords that work is an uphill struggle for me).

Thanks for that. I like Hedges' stuff. This piece makes me nostalgic for all the old Frankfurt School/Western Marxist critiques.

I'm not sure if this is just a stab at some cheap PR, but at the least, maybe it'll open it up to new audiences, somewhere.

Mission Accomplished: Vatican Blesses Blues Brothers

They really were "on a mission from God."

In a stunning move by the Vatican, the classic Dan Aykroyd-John Belushi comedy film "The Blues Brothers" was declared a "Catholic classic" alongside more pious films such as "The Ten Commandments" and "The Passion of the Christ."

The announcement was made in the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, corresponding with 30th anniversary of the release of the film.

"As a former altar boy from age 6 . . . but a somewhat lapsed Catholic, I was delighted with the endorsement," Aykroyd said in a message to The Post yesterday.

"My local monsignor will immediately be receiving a check for parish needs."

L'Osservatore editor Gian Maria Vian praised the flick for its plot, in which Jake Blues (Belushi) and his brother Elwood (Aykroyd) battle cops, neo-Nazis and crazed country fans in a bid to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.

"For them, this Catholic institution is their only family," Vian wrote. "And they decide to save it at any cost."

L'Osservatore's editorial lavishes praise on the 1980 comic romp, in which Aykroyd and Belushi say that they're "on a mission from God." The writers call it "incredibly shrewd" noting that in one scene a picture of Pope John Paul II could clearly be seen.

I really, really, really can't wait till September or whenever it is that s. 4 starts up; episode 13 nailed it with resetting the whole game. This show has absolute mastery over plots twists and cliffhangers. At least there are three seasons to casually watch again between now and then.

Good debrief of the final episode here .

Innocents have been killed on both sides by people trying to each make a point. Nobody is more innocent than anyone else, except the great many people on both sides who want none of the fuckery - which means there is a relatively small number of people on each side who are committed to terrorism-in-the-eyes-of-the-other.

Oh, and those people that vote for the mean guys because they think that it'll get something done.

That said, those Waters tix were just way too expensive for my tastes. Plus, I hear he's lip-syncing these days.

Nicely put.

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Happy birthday to ye!

That Ralph Macchio bit was the belly-laugh of the day !

That's where I discovered the Manson Family connection .

This says an awful lot.

"Ground Zero Mosque" Protest Ends Up, Predictably, with Racially Motivated Hatred

There was a protest yesterday, attended by various wingnuts, racists, riled-up nativists, and terrified fools, of the supposed "Ground Zero mosque." (It will not be at Ground Zero, and it will actually be a community center that will include a mosque. But still.)

While national conservatives have picked up the ball, what local opposition there is to the proposed community center has been ginned up by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post -- mainly via perpetually outraged columnist Andrea Peyser, whose anti-mosque columns are regularly teased on the front page.

The entire anti-mosque campaign isn't about anything other than pure, paranoid Islamophobia. A Peyser column a few weeks ago was entirely about people in Sheepshead Bay -- some miles from Ground Zero -- protesting a proposed mosque solely because they're scared of Muslims.

Anyway, they had their protest yesterday. Mike Kelly of the Bergen (New Jersey) Record reported this heartwarming incident:

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.

"Get out," others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

"I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here," a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.

But don't you dare call these people bigots!

Sounds like a good time - though some people have raised eyebrows about this going on while the oil keeps billowing out and out and out.... The crack at Bush makes it a keeper, though .

Paul McCartney Makes Fun of George W. Bush, Praises Obama at White House

WASHINGTON — If the first British invasion of the White House ended with the house afire, the latest had Barack and Michelle Obama and their kids rocking out in their seats Wednesday night at a tribute concert for former Beatle Paul McCartney.

The setting was the ornate East Room, chandeliers overhead, George and Martha Washington portraits on the walls and an all-star lineup of performers cranking out some of McCartney's greatest hits.

Stevie Wonder had the Obamas clapping to "We Can Work It Out." The Jonas Brothers did "Baby You Can Drive My Car." Corinne Bailey Rae slowed things down with "Blackbird." And Faith Hill stroked "Long and Winding Road."

It was McCartney himself who brought down the house by belting out "Michelle," aiming his words straight at a first lady named Michelle.

He said he'd been "itching" to perform it at the White House, and asked the president's forgiveness in advance. The first lady was soon mouthing the words along with McCartney and the president was swaying in his seat.

After serenading the first lady with the lyrics "I love you, I love you, I love you," McCartney joked that he just might be the "first guy ever to be punched out by a president."

The whole night was built around Obama's presentation to McCartney of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded by the Library of Congress.

McCartney said it was a moment like no other.

"I don't think there could be anything more special than to play here," the Englishman said.

And then he volunteered to make it a regular gig.

"Lunchtimes, we could come around," he offered. "We're cheap."

McCartney, 67, left no question about how he felt about Obama, telling the president that in tough times, "You have billions of us who are rooting for you and we know you are going to come through."

Later, after the TV cameras had left, he expressed appreciation for the Library of Congress and added a zinger: "After the last eight years, it's great to have a president who knows what a library is."

Obama hailed McCartney's songs as a huge part of American culture, telling the singer-songwriter, "That's right, we stole you, Sir Paul."

The Beatles might not have been the first rock group, Obama said, but "they blew the walls down for everyone else."

"They helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation," the president said.

McCartney closed out the concert with a string of hits that had the whole audience singing along to "Hey Jude."

By the end, Obama and his family were on stage singing along with the "nah, nah, hey Jude."

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld supplied the concert with its comic relief. He had lots of compliments for McCartney and one complaint – he couldn't quite figure some of McCartney's lyrics.

Such as: "She was just 17. You know what I mean."

Seinfeld: "I'm not sure I do know what you mean, Sir Paul. I think I know what you mean. And I think there's a law enforcement agency in a couple of states that might want to ask you a few questions."

Among others performing were Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Herbie Hancock, White Stripes singer and guitarist Jack White, Lang Lang and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.

The Gershwin prize is named for the songwriting brothers George and Ira Gershwin, whose collections are housed at the library. Previous recipients of the Gershwin award are Wonder and Paul Simon.

Those not lucky enough to snag tickets to the East Room gig can catch the concert July 28, when it's televised on PBS' "In Performance at the White House."

___

Associated Press writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

Happy one to you!