Recently in Politics Category

It's suddenly fall here. Coincidentally there was a lot of good fall music I heard last month (although it seemed like it was 90 degrees every day in August), but just in time for the cool weather, they're on a mix.

Everything I heard about St Paul during the convention was that it was a tomb. I guess even if you add a crowd of people larger than the town in which Sarah Palin was mayor to downtown St Paul, it still feels like a ghost town. With idiot protesters. And tear gas. Is it a coincidence that will all of the republicans in town that I couldn't step into a crosswalk in St Paul without twice nearly getting run over by an SUV? (It's normally only once).

Anyways, this Sarah Palin thing is absolutely fantastic. Who's McCain planning on having as his Secretary of State? The mayor of Hayward, WI? Is his UPS guy going to run the Department of Defense? Maybe Harriet Miers can be Attorney General. This whole thing is making Obama look like Henry Kissinger. My favorite spin is the one where she's qualified because she has more executive experience than McCain.

1. Lackthereof - Ask Permission
2. Bowerbirds - La Denigración
3. Paper Airplanes - An Account Of Surprising Accuracy, Given The Messenger
4. Death Vessel - Block My Eye
5. Laura Marling - Failure
6. Conor Oberst - Milk Thistle
7. Elephant9 - Dodovoodoo
8. The Sea and Cake - Window Sills
9. Parenthetical Girls - Four Words
10. Clare & The Reasons - Nothing-Nowhere
11. Randy Newman - Potholes
12. Neil Halstead - Oh! Mighty Engine
13. The New Year - Folios
14. Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron - You Swan, Go On
15. Inara George & Van Dyke Parks - Idaho
16. A Weather - Shirley Road Shirley
17. Dilla Ghost Doom - Murder Goons feat. Ghostface Killah
18. Stereolab - Self Portrait with Electric Brain
19. Talkdemonic - Civilian
20. Nana Grizol - Circles 'Round The Moon

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Previously: Mix #34, August '08

The other day, I called the customer service number of a large corporation who's name I can't recall at the moment. Their phone greeted me with "For english, press one. Para español, press two."

Today I drove the 2. Stuck in traffic, I noticed the for sale sign on a mid-90's SUV. It advertised the cars features: power locks, power windows, and "curse control".

I really enjoyed that NPR Democratic candidates debate. I hope the Republicans aren't so fond of bickering about sanctuaries that they don't do one of their own.

Yesterday I saw a rusted out F-150 from the early 80's plastered with bumper stickers. There were all of the expected stickers, the Git r Duns, the Calvin peeing on a Chevrolet logo, the gassy ass for grass thing, the slanty number 8, and campaign stickers for everybody's favorite neo-facist pres. Interestingly, however, mixed in were all those annoying pagan stickers (my other car is a broom, I'm an Ameriwiccan, etc.) that you normally see next to stickers advertising for the raise-taxes-for-public-welfare crowd (as opposed to the raise-taxes-for-corporate-welfare crowd).

People that think the liberal media includes major newspapers, television stations, and radio stations in spite of the facts. Star Tribune has a major bias, sure, but nobody can seriously look at what they print, the wording they use in headlines and in stories, what stories they pass on, and say that it's not a conservative bias. I guess the problem is that the fascists in this country somehow view themselves as moderates.

I saw this posted at the UnCapitalist Journal. I like old hymns, and I like Wobblies, and I know that Bush, Dobson, and just about everybody else running the American exploitation machine are acting like no kinds of Christian lately, so I thought I'd post it. If you grew up in a church, you know the melody.

I realize my last few posts have been downers, so here's a light-hearted downer post, however serious. George W. Bush, hated by all, has now decided to ban Cuba from the World Baseball Classic this spring at the expense of future US baseball in the Olympics! I didn't know the guy could get any dumber, but apparantly his baseball policy is just like his national policy. Screw everybody else while going after his own personal grudge, and let the rest of us figure out the fallout in five or more years when we've got a president named Dean, Warner, or, in a perfect world, Kucinich (but not Clinton please).

ACLU: You're way off on your siding with people who operate motor vehicles recklessly. Sorry, but the right to walk across a street in a marked crosswalk with a green light more than trumps any supposed right people have to drive their automobiles through a crowd of people because they're running late for a soccer practice.

Way to kill civil liberties while siding with the upper class. Sounds awful right-wing to me.

No I'm not being sarcastic. Yesterday's announcement that GM will be cutting jobs and benefits just proves to me that the US needs a national health care system. Do any conservatives feel like explaining this one to me? Companies are paying an awful lot on health care for their employees, and are then forced to raise prices. $1,525 of every GM car sold in the United States goes to paying for that healthcare. How much of every GM car would go to healthcare if the care was taxed instead of sold at a profit? $0. They wouldn't have to pay for it! Their employees would pay for the whole thing! Am I saying that companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise their free-market whatevers to make a profit off of pain, suffering, illness, and death? Yes. Especially when the byproduct is more money for employers and more money for employees.

Allow me to preemptively bar talking points. No, Canada doesn't have long lines of people waiting for care. No, Canadians are not crossing the border for better coverage. Yes, statistics show that Canadians are on average healthier than Americans. No you may not dispute facts using some letter to some editor written by Ben Stein. No, Ben Stein is not an intelligent person (it has nothing to do with his politics. He would be a horrible liberal, also).

The song that just missed making the winter mix: I know this is old by now, but I can't stop laughing at this song, some new plan to turn kids into neo-cons (at least the ones that get Zell Miller references). The song is so pathetically hilarious that I'm guessing it will work about as well as Creed worked to get people to go to Solomon's Porch (haha anybody remember that?)

Pat Robertson tells Dover, PA "Don't turn to God."