Note to Atrios: the kewl kids
aren't creating old fashioned MP3 lists. They're creating their own
television channels. I told you I'd have my vengeance Reginald Hudlin.
Newest version of the Anti Bet on J/Anti Tony Mowad jazz channel.
Actually, it's more than just acid jazz. There's straight ahead and a few
rock tunes thrown in for good measure. Plus toons and politics. This is
set on random play so every time you refresh the 8023035050210602100 4500 or so vids appear in a different order. You shall rue the day that you crossed me
Reginald Hudlin. And Goddamn you
Reginald Hudlin. Goddamn you and
BET on J to Hell. UPDATE: WIDESCREEN
VERSION HERE. More legal update: This is actually
more of a search engine (me plus the tech). All of these vids are
available on the public youtubes and such. Vids that are copyright violations are
often taken down. More Update: Fullscreen function fully enabled. ON the
bottom right corner that's the box that's furthest to the left.
May 7
By
the way, barring involvement withbrothels with nazi
paraphernalia and the usual bad things that
happen
to black leaders, Barack Obama is the Democratic Party nominee.
Its the math. Obama might be
able to win it with pledged delegates if he gets a big win in Oregon. I
also agree that Bill Richardson, or "Judas" as he's known in Clinton
quarters, makes sense as the VP. He's likeable, shores up Latino support
and he puts New Mexico in the win column. That would be a real
change ticket. I think Hillary has run a disgraceful campaign which should
disqualify her for the VP spot. Not to mention that it would not be unlike
having Lady Macbeth as your VP, always with helpful advice I'm sure.
But never say never in politics. My other VP pick is Sherrod Brown, the
new senator from Ohio.
Let's
face it: the wife of my
blood cousin on my father's side might be some kind of frackin'
artistic genius. Her latest paintings are also a tribute to the novels of
Jules Verne. The one above is called "Captain Nemo". Might try a more
contemporary science fiction writer though. Say, Greg Egan.
Related: She has
also made the Youtubes. Very talented woman. Somewhat Related:
Mother's Side cousin Leonce Gaiter, more masculine than Michael Jackson
but probably not more masculine than Prince, has removed his vids from the
Youtubes. I wish he hadn't done that. They were very thoughtful and sort
of serve as a historical record. Ah well.
The real basic take away here is that if you
are going to tip elections, you aren’t going to be able to do it “one
vote at a time” as these voter id, anti-voter laws purport to
combat.
You do it by rigging the system from the
inside - by massive voter roll purges that are designed to purge the
very demographics that are most likely to hurt the other party, by
challenging districting in order to “make it more fair for people’s
votes to be reflective of the district”, by implementing laws that are
meant to keep millions of people who are likely to vote for the other
party from voting and by stacking the deck in the positions where the
voting machines are selected and monitored, where the federal and state
election laws are “interpreted”, where the decisions are made with
respect to voter registration and how the elections are run and even
having
cousins in the very media outlets who are calling the races for their
candidate-cousins.
Make no mistake - this is a more than just a
major partisan initiative. This is an all out assault on the voting
rights of millions of potential Democratic voters and therefore, votes.
This is a premeditated, long term, wide ranging attack against millions
of Americans’ voting rights. But it isn’t just an assault on Democratic
voters. It is an assault on the most basic right that a democracy
affords.
And it should be referred to accordingly.
May 4
One more issue of one
of the best comic series I have ever read. Two quick short reviews: "You
killed Dom! You bastards!"
And two: Most comics don't end with what looks like a
nuclear explosion....I also agree with
Wikipedia and the
fan page at
White Chapel: Tom Noir is still alive. He faked his death.
As you may or may not know,
there's a split over at 2 Political Junkies. Dayvoe backs Obama and Maria
backs the Clintons. It's getting a little testy. They might be down to one
political junkie in the future. Anyway, I left this comment at
one of Dayvoe's posts where I speculate what would happen to the
always dependable black vote if Hillary were to steal the nomination:
Thank you for setting the record straight as
usual. I might note that Keith Olbermann is the most courageous newsman on
the air today. That he still has a job shocks and surprises me. That isn't
to say that he's beyond criticism but he's one of the few real friends in
the MSM, (but) if you're reduced to attacking him and not seeing that
Scaife/Hillary lovefest ...not to mention that his paper is playing up the
Wright thing (Obama knows a scary black man didn't you know how awful...)
Question for Maria: Okay, so Hillary pulls out all the stops, maligns Obama
until he's left a bleeding corpse, buys off the remaining superdelegates
(she has the money of course being that she made 100 million off the
presidency...how Jimmy Carter honorable...) and wins the nomination. The
black vote, of which I am one, will then dutifully vote for the rich old
white lady, who thinks lobbyists is people too?
Well, I don't think that would happen. There would be a huge backlash among
arguably the most loyal constituency that the dems have. It would split the
party if she were to muscle the superdelegates into violating the popular
will.
I might also note that every African American knows that if the positions
were switched Obama would be out of the race. Period. On the other hand, I
suppose I've always wondered if Obama has actually faced real bigotry, or a
kind of irrational hatred that reverts to stereotype no matter Obama's
personal resume of excellence. I guess he's learning about the kind of "america"
most african americans live on. Or: when you have a shot at winning we'll
change the rules.
Why Richard Dawkins, for no
good reason, continues to
be a mean ol' atheist. I mean, where does the man's hostility come from.
Who knows. Reality perhaps?
Interesting
conversation about science featuring hot woman who looks like a hot
woman I used to date (Or as I used to joke about
Christine: We both thought
she could do better.). If you really enjoyed the
film Mindwalk, then this
is for you...
Quantity
isn't the only reason people prefer the Internets over traditional media.
A lot of the time the quality is better as well. For Exhibit One:
the often incredible
writings of Agent Ska's brother, who's been traveling all over the
world and he's not visiting safe places, either. He's a
Year of Living
Dangerously kind of guy. I might note that what he does sounds like a
cover for a spy (in the movies anyway) but I'm sure he's not. (See
torture scene in
latest Bond movie...) Contrast and compare
this piece that he wrote with, say,
Ruth
Ann's latest:
As much as I like Sri Lanka, I’m not going to
miss this stuff - it was a cheap, guilty thrill at first (look! guys with
guns! posters of dead people! boy I ain’t in Kansas anymore!!) but it
fades very very quickly into dull apathy, occasionally broken by revulsion
and, to be honest, sometimes even real fear - standing alone on the side
of a road as stressed, heavily-armed police prepare for an oncoming
motorcade, you look around and idly ponder just how many ways you could
die or lose a limb in the next minute. Bomb or claymore mine in that open
drain or that pile of trash or tucked into the concrete lane divider; car
coming from that lightly-guarded alley ramming the motorcade as it passes
by you; bodyguards panicking and firing wildly as a sniper unloads from a
rooftop.
Usually just a bloody-minded mental exercise,
but sometimes it escalates beyond as the time trickles on and there’s
nowhere you can go; the imagination accelerates its speculations, the
brain imagines how upset friends and family will be, if you get yourself
killed, that you stupidly put yourself in harm’s way instead of simply
going by a different route, and the pit in the stomach starts to overcome
the professional’s interest in the security preparation, convoy and escort
packages, etc. Myopic, cowardly, selfish, paranoid, ridiculous,
melodramatic, sure, but that’s life. Then the Hummers and troop trucks and
motorcycle outriders and ambulances and armored SUVs and darkened-windows
limos blaze by, horns honking and lights flashing and guns pointing, and
disappear into the distance. And there you are again on the other side, a
bit sweatier, a little later in the day, looking for a place to reload
your cell phone account and pick up some cookies.
I also fast realized that much of the
intellectual interest one can take in the place is completely dependent on
the fact that you have a ticket out - for actual normal people with
nowhere else to go (in the broadest possible sense), checkpoints and
propaganda and assassination reminders are just hell. Hopefully as I come
back here again and again over the years things will improve. For my (but
mostly their) sake then I’d no longer viscerally feel “there but for the
grace of God go I” as I walk, eyes averted, past the jumpy 19-year
soldiers visibly bracing when an unidentified car pulls up to a sensitive
checkpoint, the middle-aged men missing arms, the civilians being dragged
off their bus and yelled at by nervous police in Tamil neighborhoods, and
the galloping convoys trying to out-run the shadowy IEDs that haunt
drivers’ dreams.
Side
note: Looks like Ted Rall is back in this week's City Paper. I think
my one man public outcry turned it all around. Or maybe they skipped him
for a week. But I'm watching you City Paper..."in
brightest day, in darkest night" etc...
April 29
I got this from the
Prolefeed guy. I'm pretty sure the guy with the gun is an auto insurance
agent. Related and
hilarious clip here. Is it just me or is the Prolefeed as good as
anybody on teevee or in my newspapers?
More political stencils here. We can only beat them with stencils you
see.
When
I asked Chris Potter what happened to Ted Rall I also noted--perhaps a
bit too obtusely-- that the Pennsylvania primary results were essentially
unverifiable. Perhaps it was really a 52 to 48 race like the exit polls.
Perhaps Hillary won by 20 points. Who knows. And who can check. Trust
politicians because they would never never ever lie to us, right Chris?
Now, as it turns out, they've been having this debate in New Jersey except
its happening in a courtroom. Get the background here from
Bradblog. Long
story short: Sequoia doesn't want you looking inside their
machines, or the machines that were used all over Pennsylvania last week
and Allegheny County in particular. (I could be wrong about that.) Sequoia
had been fighting in court to make sure that their machines couldn't be
examined. That this would be an issue in a real democracy is stunning.
Then again, I suppose I don't live in a real democracy. Anyway, super
hacker Ed Felton is getting a look.
Here's what he's found so far. Remember, Fast
"Eddy" Rendell and our Secretary of State said everything worked fine last
Tuesday. Compare and contrast with these
graphs from
Slashdot:
"Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a
series of
blogentries in which he
shows the printed tapes he obtained from the NJ voting machines don't
report the ballots correctly. In response to the first one, Sequoia
admitted that the machines had a known software design error that did not
correctly record which kind of ballots were cast (republican or democratic
primary ballots) but insisted the vote totals were correct. Then, further
tapes showed this explanation to be insufficient. In response, State
officials insisted that the (poorly printed) tapes were misread by Felton.
Again further tapes showed this not to be a sufficient explanation.
However all those did not foreclose the optimistic assessment that the
errors were benign — that is, the possibility that vote totals might
really be correct even though the ballot totals were wrong and the origin
of the errors had not been explained. Now he has found (well-printed)
tapes that show what appears to be
hard proof that it's
the vote totals that are wrong, since two different readout methods
don't agree. Sequoia has made trade-secret
legal threats
against those wishing to mount an independent examination of the
equipment. One small hat-tip to Sequoia: at least they are reporting
enough raw data in different formats that these kinds of errors can come
to light — that lesson should be kept in mind when writing future
requirements for voting machines."
By the way, if you're playing the home game, this would
be evidence of election fraud. But remember, only dirty fucking
hippies on the internets think this story matters.
My cousin Leonce Gaiter
has made the Youtubes.He is out and gay so I suppose as Eddie
Murphy once described Michael Jackson: "Not necessarily the most masculine
brother in the world..." But he's much more masculine than Mr. Jackson
anyway. He also comes off as highly intelligent and thoughtful. I got
sort of a Malcolm
Gladwell vibe but without the funny hair. He seems to be doing these
vids to promote a book proposal. That's not promising. Perhaps he doesn't
have a better agent than me. Anyway. The vids are
here and
here. Part two
features a critique of Christianity in the black community, I think.Judge for yourself.
I see our cutting edge "alt"
weekly The City Paper seems to have canned Ted Rall. If you're keeping
count they have gotten rid of their funniest and most political
cartoonists, Rall and that Tom the Dancing Bug guy, and kept on their
least political and least funny cartoons or Red Meat and that Derf fella.
I will try to provide where they have failed. Update: I'm
going to ask the city editor if that's the case or if it was just last
week's issue. I know Tom hasn't appeared in weeks. I'm not absolutely sure
about Rall.
From
Boing Boing. Also from Boing Boing contributor Cory Doctorow: He
will soon be releasing
his well reviewed
young adult novel "Little Brother". And check out this crazy premise:
apparently, in the far off future, you'll be a kid and some evil
government will try to make everything that you enjoy doing over the
Internet completely illegal.
Ker Razy. I can't wait
to read it when Cory releases the Creative Commons version of this book in
several days. It feels like 1984 with a viable resistance movement. Some
of us would really like to know how such a resistance movement would work.
We really would. Especially if it involves not blowing up stuff.
April 28
My cousin
Leonce Gaiter is
blogging again. This time for the
Huffington Post.
He apparently has a better agent than the person who is writing this or
he's a better writer perish the thought. He's back and he's pissed off
about Obama.
"If the Pennsylvania debate proved one thing, it's the state of the
political landscape in which Democrats will compete come November.
Unfortunately, we're like the third act heroes on too many TV shows: The
villain has tortured, raped and maimed the hero's wife, child and pet
hamster. The hero has the villain dead-to-rights. The villain sweats
profusely, trembling in fear. Just then, the hero's trusty sidekick steps
in to whisper to the hero, "If you do it like this, you're no better than
he is."
At that point, I'm screaming, "Smoke the Bastard!! Shoot! Shoooooot!!
I am deathly tired of the Democratic "we don't want to win like that"
attitude. I'm sick of being part of a party of losers with clean
consciences. I want my Democratic candidates to out-lie, out-cheat and
out-steal their Republican opponents. I want them to practice dog-whistle
politics, send me private signals telling me that they don't really mean a
word they're saying, and giving me confidence that their campaign
soundbites are just lures for the mob. I want them to assume the asininity
of the bulk of the mainstream television press corps (have you seen a TV
news broadcast lately?) and use it as opposed to being used by it.
I know. I know. We're trying to "take back the system." We want a better
press corps. I want to be 3 inches taller. That's not going to happen
either.
Also related: The
Supreme Court upholds voter ID ban. I found the dissents particularly
interesting. Just for the record: no evidence whatsoever that Democrats
have used fake voters to win elections. Massive evidence that the GOP has
used every trick in the book to steal the last two presidential elections and
at least one house seat. This has to be said: A lot of Democrats weren't
unhappy that their party was robbed of two presidential elections. If you
were upset, then you might pass a bill that would change things.
Related:
Dems failed to pass newest version of Holt bill. The bill required the
abnormal two thirds and apparently there is