Van Morrison: 40 Years Later, 'Astral Weeks' Chills and Thrills:
Terrific article by Jesse Kornbluth !!!
And you are so right. I was the recording mixer on some of his live on-the-radio recordings - the legendary PHR recordings. Never got to really know him, and never worked with him on any of his albums, but he was around the area and in and out of the fantastic PHR studios many times. Not an easy guy to know, but the music is as wonderful as you say, and the original Astral Weeks - which I have, is one of the greatest music recordings ever made. Word.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
"I Want One Million Per Episode" like Chandler Bing
Nada Bing Nada Boom - Rick Santelli Has Psychotic Episode - Insults The Contessa
A golden piñata just broke in front of Santelli – and Joe the Plumber’s bullhorn is screaming “Big Bucks in the Bank for Bitching”, the birth cry of the whining asshat. It doesn’t sound like Santelli plans to resist the siren.
A golden piñata just broke in front of Santelli – and Joe the Plumber’s bullhorn is screaming “Big Bucks in the Bank for Bitching”, the birth cry of the whining asshat. It doesn’t sound like Santelli plans to resist the siren.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Professionals
Bye Bye Miss American Pie:
Forget all the other stuff. The death of professionalism is the wolf at the door.
The wolf lived with the GOP for the last 8 years as they built up bigger and bigger piles of federal debt, embracing and celebrating any and all theories that justified making truly gigantic piles of money - where customers are consumers who need only to hear a professional tell them to "buy it, it's all going up forever."
The professionals - on whom we must depend, conned the common man and may have buried the American dream.
The Glans Professional:
Alan Greenspan says, "The vast increase in the size of the over-the-counter derivatives markets is the result of the market finding them a very useful vehicle. And the question is, should these be regulated? Well, indeed, for the United States, they are obviously regulated to the extent that banks, being the crucial creators of these derivatives, are regulated by the banking agencies, but not beyond that. And the reason why we think it would be a mistake to go beyond that degree of regulation is that these derivative transactions are transactions amongst professionals. And the institutions which are involved have very considerable what we call counterparty surveillance, where, for example, one major bank will know far more about its customer, whether it's a bank or something else, than we could conceivably know as regulators. In a sense, this counterparty surveillance has become the crucial element which has created stability in that particular system."
Now you know.
Forget all the other stuff. The death of professionalism is the wolf at the door.
The wolf lived with the GOP for the last 8 years as they built up bigger and bigger piles of federal debt, embracing and celebrating any and all theories that justified making truly gigantic piles of money - where customers are consumers who need only to hear a professional tell them to "buy it, it's all going up forever."
The professionals - on whom we must depend, conned the common man and may have buried the American dream.
The Glans Professional:
Alan Greenspan says, "The vast increase in the size of the over-the-counter derivatives markets is the result of the market finding them a very useful vehicle. And the question is, should these be regulated? Well, indeed, for the United States, they are obviously regulated to the extent that banks, being the crucial creators of these derivatives, are regulated by the banking agencies, but not beyond that. And the reason why we think it would be a mistake to go beyond that degree of regulation is that these derivative transactions are transactions amongst professionals. And the institutions which are involved have very considerable what we call counterparty surveillance, where, for example, one major bank will know far more about its customer, whether it's a bank or something else, than we could conceivably know as regulators. In a sense, this counterparty surveillance has become the crucial element which has created stability in that particular system."
Now you know.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Hey, Stop Mistreating Madoff
SEC And Madoff Reach Agreement On Fraud Case: "Madoff, who has not been indicted, is widely expected to eventually enter into a criminal deal with prosecutors in which he would plead guilty in exchange for some form of leniency."
Yes, that certainly would be a 'criminal deal'.
Leniency !
Yeah, all kinds of leniency - just as soon as we disembowel the disgusting insect, slap around the prosecutors, the SEC and the judges in this case, then make the evil curr adjust Christian Bale's lights.
Then give him to me. He stole one of my best friend's money - all of it. She can no longer afford health insurance and must un-retire and return to the job market at 62 years of age.
If this man is given any comfort or any leniency, I will haunt the fuckers that did so. Word.
Yes, that certainly would be a 'criminal deal'.
Leniency !
Yeah, all kinds of leniency - just as soon as we disembowel the disgusting insect, slap around the prosecutors, the SEC and the judges in this case, then make the evil curr adjust Christian Bale's lights.
Then give him to me. He stole one of my best friend's money - all of it. She can no longer afford health insurance and must un-retire and return to the job market at 62 years of age.
If this man is given any comfort or any leniency, I will haunt the fuckers that did so. Word.
Monday, February 09, 2009
"It Cures Horseness !"
Carnival Worker Burrows Deep Into the GOP Wilderness: "Brad Blakeman, a senior aide to Mr. Bush from 2001 to 2004, said the new president's language is immature.
'It's not presidential. An American leader needs to be hopeful and optimistic - and truthful. Everything he says is parsed; everything he says is searched for deep meaning. When he goes to 'DefCon 5' on the economy and says that we're on the brink of catastrophe, it's absolutely insane.'"
Brad is a total sleaze. He's a sparkly-eyed rattle-pate that sells crap to assholes. But he calls it delivering truth to power. Not to worry; just flush and he goes away - at least until the next...
'It's not presidential. An American leader needs to be hopeful and optimistic - and truthful. Everything he says is parsed; everything he says is searched for deep meaning. When he goes to 'DefCon 5' on the economy and says that we're on the brink of catastrophe, it's absolutely insane.'"
Brad is a total sleaze. He's a sparkly-eyed rattle-pate that sells crap to assholes. But he calls it delivering truth to power. Not to worry; just flush and he goes away - at least until the next...
Sunday, February 08, 2009
The Theory Theory
The Betrayal That the Centrists Have Wrought: "This is really, really bad." - Paul Krugman, NYT
I’m with Krugman on this one. Cutting funds to the states is a fatal flaw of the Senate bill. Moving funds to the state level provides demonstrably faster and well-focused ways to provide relief. And most of the infrastructure already exists to implement the benefits.
For the GOP, to protect its grand old theories of government, to deliberately deny the American people a powerful strategy with a good chance of success, infuriates me to no end.
The GOP version of Capitalism – with its Weegee Board, “invisible hand” fantasies, looks ugly as sin when the curtain is pulled back to reveal a bazaar of criminal corporations run by value-proof amoral nerds and made legitimate by lawyers fully able to loot anything of everything.
So here we all are, stripped and abandoned – truly looted, hiding our nuts and buying very little; our banks hiding their nuts and lending very little. An unprecedentedly huge population of the mega-wealthy waits uninvolved in another landscape, while the rest of us find American life suddenly out of focus, recognizing in our bones that everything we counted on may be in play and at stake.
It is that serious, but even as we are pulled into the center of the misery itself, the GOP and its bile-filled air bullies will still sell us all out for a theory.
---------------------
Update: Here’s what I think people expect of their government right now: provide big amounts of money to the states and let their channels of distribution get needed assistance to out-of-work citizens. Remove the catastrophic inability of financial institutions to evaluate the quality of their assets, or others’ assets, by carving out the toxic debt and placing it in Federal Government ownership and control for further disposition. Then when you have an extra moment, incarcerate the Wall Street Bugsies and seize their assets. Then stand by for further instructions.
I’m with Krugman on this one. Cutting funds to the states is a fatal flaw of the Senate bill. Moving funds to the state level provides demonstrably faster and well-focused ways to provide relief. And most of the infrastructure already exists to implement the benefits.
For the GOP, to protect its grand old theories of government, to deliberately deny the American people a powerful strategy with a good chance of success, infuriates me to no end.
The GOP version of Capitalism – with its Weegee Board, “invisible hand” fantasies, looks ugly as sin when the curtain is pulled back to reveal a bazaar of criminal corporations run by value-proof amoral nerds and made legitimate by lawyers fully able to loot anything of everything.
So here we all are, stripped and abandoned – truly looted, hiding our nuts and buying very little; our banks hiding their nuts and lending very little. An unprecedentedly huge population of the mega-wealthy waits uninvolved in another landscape, while the rest of us find American life suddenly out of focus, recognizing in our bones that everything we counted on may be in play and at stake.
It is that serious, but even as we are pulled into the center of the misery itself, the GOP and its bile-filled air bullies will still sell us all out for a theory.
---------------------
Update: Here’s what I think people expect of their government right now: provide big amounts of money to the states and let their channels of distribution get needed assistance to out-of-work citizens. Remove the catastrophic inability of financial institutions to evaluate the quality of their assets, or others’ assets, by carving out the toxic debt and placing it in Federal Government ownership and control for further disposition. Then when you have an extra moment, incarcerate the Wall Street Bugsies and seize their assets. Then stand by for further instructions.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
The Groans of the Rusties
Wall Street Deserted the Rust Belt States: and now what's left are the groans of the jobless as they contemplate their fate and fear for their withered families.
But one of the loudest sounds of all is the Mayor of Lansing, Michigan when he speaks to the issue of jobs with near perfect pitch, his voice strident and quaking with anger and honesty. American workers are being screwed quite handily by greedsters and power monkeys - living far from the values and realities shared by the vast majority of Americans, and it is quite clear that this guy, Virg Bernero, is reluctant to shut up and ride the Titanic.
Bernero hears Wall Street say that manufacturing is the way of the past and that we must now become a service industry nation, and asks, "What are we supposed to do, sell each other hamburgers?" And, he knows that Wall Street's answer is "yes."
Virg Bernero is the real deal for his constituents. He is demanding that everyone know that some of their fellow Americans have been written-off and abandoned in agreements made by their own leaders. He is insisting that the powers-that-be deal with the fact that the country is flooded with cars from countries where auto manufacturers don't even have to provide health-care to their workers - their government pays for it.
He demands that we all bear witness that "between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned."
If the groans of rust-belt workers are not answered with solutions, the rusties will be as abandoned as were those old Roman Britons who sent their "Groans of the Britons" to a beleaguered Emperor - and then disappeared from history as their pleas went unanswered.
I'm for an America that doesn't suck, how 'bout you?
But one of the loudest sounds of all is the Mayor of Lansing, Michigan when he speaks to the issue of jobs with near perfect pitch, his voice strident and quaking with anger and honesty. American workers are being screwed quite handily by greedsters and power monkeys - living far from the values and realities shared by the vast majority of Americans, and it is quite clear that this guy, Virg Bernero, is reluctant to shut up and ride the Titanic.
Bernero hears Wall Street say that manufacturing is the way of the past and that we must now become a service industry nation, and asks, "What are we supposed to do, sell each other hamburgers?" And, he knows that Wall Street's answer is "yes."
Virg Bernero is the real deal for his constituents. He is demanding that everyone know that some of their fellow Americans have been written-off and abandoned in agreements made by their own leaders. He is insisting that the powers-that-be deal with the fact that the country is flooded with cars from countries where auto manufacturers don't even have to provide health-care to their workers - their government pays for it.
He demands that we all bear witness that "between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned."
If the groans of rust-belt workers are not answered with solutions, the rusties will be as abandoned as were those old Roman Britons who sent their "Groans of the Britons" to a beleaguered Emperor - and then disappeared from history as their pleas went unanswered.
I'm for an America that doesn't suck, how 'bout you?
Friday, February 06, 2009
"J.O.B.S. is on the way !!!"
( Yes, the Firesign Theater did indeed say it best. )
I think Americans want to hear about a Jobs Bill - nothing else.
Americans fearing the loss of their jobs will never spend enough to rebound the economy until there is a safety net beneath their feet.
So why would anyone be interested in championing Republican ideas that were drenched in failure as recently as 3 weeks ago?
If trapping Obama is all they've got, then Republicans have nothing - helped along by mean little cranks like Charles Krauthammer and his egg-beater fake rhetoric. The America I live in should be rid of these dark, damp men who stew and quicken their bleak nastiness.
I think Americans want to hear about a Jobs Bill - nothing else.
Americans fearing the loss of their jobs will never spend enough to rebound the economy until there is a safety net beneath their feet.
So why would anyone be interested in championing Republican ideas that were drenched in failure as recently as 3 weeks ago?
If trapping Obama is all they've got, then Republicans have nothing - helped along by mean little cranks like Charles Krauthammer and his egg-beater fake rhetoric. The America I live in should be rid of these dark, damp men who stew and quicken their bleak nastiness.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
"This Fabulous Moment"
Posted by: Lia January 21, 2009 at 06:15 AM in a comment to a Huffingtonpost.com article:
"Im here so far from you guys..Beauty city in Africa...My english is poor because my official language is Portuguese... I dont understand about politics and god or bad pronounces, i only know 2 things: "mistakes are human things". Prs. Obama can did mistake with words, but "you" did others mistakes in your life more badly and worst that a simple word...so before see other peoples mistake take a look of you. The second thing i know is CHANGE-PEACE-AND-LOVE... you guys should try to accept that the change came, and try to live better with that... dont waste time thinkin and lookin for Obama words mistakes, take a time to breath and be open eyes to see his WORK. for now, just live your life better, "carpe diem", because we are human and we only live one time in this world. Stop talking shits because whatever you do or say it not gone change the fact: OBAMA IS A NEW PRESIDENT OF USA, 44TH OR 43TH, BACK OR WHITE...IS YOURS PRESIDENT,WHATHEVER YOU LIKE OR YOU HEAT...
im glad to be alive to see change in the world... im glad to live this fabulous moment that America gives this gifth to all of the world...im African Women, but now i can say without debuts that AMERICA IS THE TOP OF THE WORLD...not because they have economy but because they have mind...
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD LOOK FOR AFRICA!"
And I thank Lia for the expressive mix of language and passion in her wonderfully fractured blessing for America.
"Im here so far from you guys..Beauty city in Africa...My english is poor because my official language is Portuguese... I dont understand about politics and god or bad pronounces, i only know 2 things: "mistakes are human things". Prs. Obama can did mistake with words, but "you" did others mistakes in your life more badly and worst that a simple word...so before see other peoples mistake take a look of you. The second thing i know is CHANGE-PEACE-AND-LOVE... you guys should try to accept that the change came, and try to live better with that... dont waste time thinkin and lookin for Obama words mistakes, take a time to breath and be open eyes to see his WORK. for now, just live your life better, "carpe diem", because we are human and we only live one time in this world. Stop talking shits because whatever you do or say it not gone change the fact: OBAMA IS A NEW PRESIDENT OF USA, 44TH OR 43TH, BACK OR WHITE...IS YOURS PRESIDENT,WHATHEVER YOU LIKE OR YOU HEAT...
im glad to be alive to see change in the world... im glad to live this fabulous moment that America gives this gifth to all of the world...im African Women, but now i can say without debuts that AMERICA IS THE TOP OF THE WORLD...not because they have economy but because they have mind...
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD LOOK FOR AFRICA!"
And I thank Lia for the expressive mix of language and passion in her wonderfully fractured blessing for America.
Gone With The Web
News from Newspapers - it won't survive: On 'Morning Joe' today, guest Jack Welch said that going forward the news will be delivered from the web - newspapers will be out of that business.
Ok.
I get nervous contemplating that still unknown danger to a city's cohesion when it loses its "paper of record" - heretofore one of the essential components of the modern-world-community. How essential was that component to our emotional safety?
I'm just sayin'...
Ok.
I get nervous contemplating that still unknown danger to a city's cohesion when it loses its "paper of record" - heretofore one of the essential components of the modern-world-community. How essential was that component to our emotional safety?
I'm just sayin'...
Sunday, February 01, 2009
The Dick Armey
Dick Armey to Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh on 'Hardball':
"I am so damn glad that you could never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't want to have to listen to that prattle from you every day."
It's instructive to remember that Dick Armey admires Ann Coulter, and Ann Coulter admires Dick Armey - in fact, if she could she'd join it.
"I am so damn glad that you could never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't want to have to listen to that prattle from you every day."
It's instructive to remember that Dick Armey admires Ann Coulter, and Ann Coulter admires Dick Armey - in fact, if she could she'd join it.
Friday, January 30, 2009
No Place To Hide
The Tiger Rides Are Coming:"The financial crisis is 'attributable to inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies and their unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption; excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit." - China's Premier Wen Jiabao.
"The entire economic growth system, where one regional center prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional centre manufactures inexpensive goods … has suffered a major setback." - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Rupert Murdock - "World financial markets are in a great state of disarray": "'It doesn’t really matter where you’re talking about in the world,” Murdoch said. “There’s no hiding place.'"
This bell tolls for you: "There's a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due." - Peggy Noonan
It's all around us, like particles in the air; everyone feels it, and feels it gathering into something else - something to dread, some first act of a most frightfull drama that will engulf the world.
"The entire economic growth system, where one regional center prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional centre manufactures inexpensive goods … has suffered a major setback." - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Rupert Murdock - "World financial markets are in a great state of disarray": "'It doesn’t really matter where you’re talking about in the world,” Murdoch said. “There’s no hiding place.'"
This bell tolls for you: "There's a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due." - Peggy Noonan
It's all around us, like particles in the air; everyone feels it, and feels it gathering into something else - something to dread, some first act of a most frightfull drama that will engulf the world.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I Wanna Be A Slave
The Boomers Got A First-Class Education - The GOP Will Never Let That Happen Again!: "'There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or by brainwashing; or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.'
Aldous Huxley
California Medical School
San Francisco California
1961"
Gulp !
Aldous Huxley
California Medical School
San Francisco California
1961"
Gulp !
The Obvious Prevails
Matt Damon Is From Where I'm From: "''Look, the best line about torture I've heard came from [retired CIA officer turned war-on-terrorism critic] Milt Beardon,'' Damon says. ``He said, `If a guy knows where a dirty bomb is hidden that's going to go off in a Marriott, put me in a room with him and I'll find out. But don't codify that. Just let me break the law.'"
That's how it should be. It's awful, it's an ethical mess, and it's barbaric from every angle. But it's the way it should be.
That's how it should be. It's awful, it's an ethical mess, and it's barbaric from every angle. But it's the way it should be.
Zero Republicans
Masters of the Men's Room: "A nearly $820 billion stimulus package passed the House of Representatives Wednesday without a single Republican vote."
Repubs have nothing. They brought the country's economy to its knees, exposed the criminal intent and actions of major capitalists, and killed over 4000 soldiers fighting the wrong enemy.
They are liars and crooks and hardly far enough out of the ground to be sanitary.
Word to the mother - there's nothing that conservatives like better than a good lie that brings home the bacon.
Watch your wallet and watch your six.
Repubs have nothing. They brought the country's economy to its knees, exposed the criminal intent and actions of major capitalists, and killed over 4000 soldiers fighting the wrong enemy.
They are liars and crooks and hardly far enough out of the ground to be sanitary.
Word to the mother - there's nothing that conservatives like better than a good lie that brings home the bacon.
Watch your wallet and watch your six.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Morning Dump - Joe and Mika Pull The Chain
Mika refers to Boxer's proposed education funding as "dumping" because she believes in a mythical capitalism that doesn't even exist - except in pompous tones at the breakfast table in a manse.
These days, Americans are surrounded by idiots like Joe and Mika who hawk books, kiss butt, rub each others egos, varnish their warped political pronouncements - all the while looking into the camera with a promise to viewers that their dribble is a value to someone.
It isn't.
Yet I watch, like a kid watching a house burn down.
These days, Americans are surrounded by idiots like Joe and Mika who hawk books, kiss butt, rub each others egos, varnish their warped political pronouncements - all the while looking into the camera with a promise to viewers that their dribble is a value to someone.
It isn't.
Yet I watch, like a kid watching a house burn down.
Peter King - The Idiot
King of N.Y. Is One Sick Puppy - "Always has been", say those in the know : "Smile, say cheese and hold that pose till you hear the 'click'. A new bill introduced in the Congress by New York Republican Rep. Peter King requires mobile phones with digital cameras 'to make a sound' when a photograph is taken."
That's gonna be terrific! Now at concerts and weddings and impeachments you will hear a cacaphony of "clacks".
I urge folks to read more of what this asshat has proposed in the past. I can smell this guy - and so will you. He is a fake, mean man and cares about nothing except his unsane poltical stance.
That's gonna be terrific! Now at concerts and weddings and impeachments you will hear a cacaphony of "clacks".
I urge folks to read more of what this asshat has proposed in the past. I can smell this guy - and so will you. He is a fake, mean man and cares about nothing except his unsane poltical stance.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Biden Cuts Another One
We knew he's the cringe-worthy gaffe-machine, but I actually thought he would self-correct. I shudder to realize that maybe he can't, and that maybe Joe Biden doesn't know that his mouth is digging a hole beneath his feet.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Motor Home Driver
Black Like Him is Nobody's Goal - Clarence Thomas Unqualified for Emulation: "But he is not crazy, he's just... Clarence; Uncle Remus wearing a robe: an embittered, eclipsed, forgotten Negro -- outted by the most admired man in the world, the first African American President, a Black man who earned his way to the top, a self-made man, not an appointed man, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and never forgot or rejected his people.
And Clarence Thomas? Once a footstool of the right wing, now just a footnote, He will be known now and forever for what he really is: The Unqualified Justice. Thank goodness Obama has pulled that robe off, and laid bare this pathetic little man who thought himself a king, but was and is, only a pawn. And Thomas knows only too well that the real king resides down the block."
Great, scathing article - must read it !
Clarence Thomas has famously expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the position he occupies and has declared that he would rather just drive his motor home. He might as well have said that his shit smells, for all anyone cares. He has proven to be a debased coin of the realm and nothing seems to be too low for him to grasp to further that legacy.
And Clarence Thomas? Once a footstool of the right wing, now just a footnote, He will be known now and forever for what he really is: The Unqualified Justice. Thank goodness Obama has pulled that robe off, and laid bare this pathetic little man who thought himself a king, but was and is, only a pawn. And Thomas knows only too well that the real king resides down the block."
Great, scathing article - must read it !
Clarence Thomas has famously expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the position he occupies and has declared that he would rather just drive his motor home. He might as well have said that his shit smells, for all anyone cares. He has proven to be a debased coin of the realm and nothing seems to be too low for him to grasp to further that legacy.
The Care and Feeding of History
Hmmm...: "Lincoln likely would have been appalled. How could he not? He was a 19th century white man who famously said in 1858 that 'there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which . . . will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality.''
How do you reconcile that with all those cartoons of Lincoln congratulating Obama? You don't. You simply recognize it for what it is: yet another illustration of how shallow our comprehension of history is, yet another instance where myth supersedes reality."
Yet, if Lincoln had lived from then to now I suspect that he would be pleased with the fact of President Obama.
How do you reconcile that with all those cartoons of Lincoln congratulating Obama? You don't. You simply recognize it for what it is: yet another illustration of how shallow our comprehension of history is, yet another instance where myth supersedes reality."
Yet, if Lincoln had lived from then to now I suspect that he would be pleased with the fact of President Obama.
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