The Answers To Everything

Geez.

2009-04-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

Recent Jeremy Enigk solo/keyboard version of the best Sunny Day songs. This guy can do no wrong. Except for maybe in the hair growing department.

Not recent version of Sunny Day playing the same song

Lost nerds

2009-04-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

A few of my fellow Lost nerds have asked me lately where I get my vast wealth of knowledge from. I will direct you to the following webpages:

The AV Club's TV section. Here they review/recap each week, and have a pretty extensive message board section which usually have some pretty good insights.

Lostpedia. All you need to know. It has some theories related to each episode, but they're not great.

EW.com, specifically Doc Jensen's blog/analysis.

The Fuselage is Lost's official message board. I used to read it a lot, but it's fairly time consuming to find the good stuff on it, so I haven't spent a lot of time on it this season.

And I have recently been directed to (but haven't really investigated) these TV analysis oriented blogs: The House Next Door and What's Alan Watching?

Nerd it up my friends.

Dear Blog...

2009-02-16T23:48:00.001-08:00

Dear Blog,
I'm sorry I have been neglecting you. It's not you, really- it's me. You're great, with your cool colors, and classy font. And we've had some great times, you and me. Remember that one time we talked about how pathetic that American Office is? That was great. And remember all the great shows you've helped me to solidify in my memory? That was cool too.

But as you know, I've been seeing this other blog for a while, you know, the political-type one, with all the opinions. There are other people who write for it too, and I'd be letting them down if I didn't devote time to it. And I don't really have a lot of free time in the first place, which usually means my relationship with you gets a little, back burner-ish. I apologize. For reals. You're special to me, and I do want you in my life. I haven't forgotten you, and I promise to try and show you that I care about you, in little ways, and more often. We can make this work, I know it.

Love always,
J

Sanity

2009-02-10T23:04:00.000-08:00

American public, please learn about basic economics. It's really a much more simple subject than you are led to believe, and it's pretty interesting and applicable too. Your lack of even the most elementary concepts is what has brought us here today, and until you spend some time learning about more than MTV, the cycle will only get worse. This webpage/orginization is a good start.

Best Super Bowl Ad ever.

2009-02-02T17:43:00.001-08:00

Best Music of 2008

2009-01-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

Looking back at what came out this year, there really isn't a whole lot that I've been super excited about. Usually when I think about this type of thing it's hard for me to narrow it down to only 10... this year I don't even think I can even think of 10 that I feel genuinely belong on a "best of" list. Rather than a "10 Best Records of 2008" it's more like a "Better than the rest of the crap" type list. I guess I'll break it down into sub-categories to better spell out what I think. Seriously, a pathetic year for music.

Good:
Thrice- The Alchemy Index (half came out in 07, but the other half in 08, so it counts... sort of)
Sigur Ros-Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Death Cab For Cutie- Narrow Stairs
Fleet Foxes
Sayvinyl- God Forbid
First Wave Hello- God Bless, Devil You
NIN- The Slip

Biggest Disappointments (should of/could have been amazing):
Damiera-
Mock Orange- Captain Love (but at least it's growing on me a little)

Get away from me:
Vampire Weekend
Coldplay
Guns N Roses (2008)
The Hold Steady

I have recently gotten, but I haven't totally absorbed yet (so maybe would have otherwise been on the list if I wasn't lazy):
TV on The Radio
Portishead
The Fireman
Amos Lee
Dead Confederate
M83
Ryan Adams

Songs I was obsessed with from time to time this last year (not necessarily released in 08):
Norma Jean- Robots 3, Humans 0
Paramore- Decode
Radiohead- All I Want
Leona Lewis- Bleeding Love
Owen- Never Meant
The Whigs- Right Hand On My Heart
Brighten- Love On My Mind
Mock Orange- Song In D
First Wave Hello- I Don't Want to Be Down
Fleet Foxes- Blue Ridge Mountains
Kings Of Leon- Sex On Fire
Thrice- Firebreather, The Whaler, and Broken Lungs
Jawbox- Mirrorful
The Beatles- She's Leaving Home
Alexisonfire- This Could Be Anywhere In the World
Saosin- Voices
Brand New- Jesus
The Life and Times- I Know You Are
Sia- Breathe Me

Guilty pleasures

2008-12-22T23:16:00.001-08:00

Maybe if the singer would somehow overnight become in her mid-20s it would make the huge crush I have on her less creepy.

Weird

2008-12-22T23:12:00.002-08:00

Holy crap. This guy sounds so much like Steve Perry it's scary. Five singers later and they got the exact same guy, but Asian and without a mullet.

Calling all fans of me

2008-12-12T22:31:00.001-08:00

I was somehow able to secure a guest DJ slot on the FM 94.9 Coup D'etat Weekend. I will be on tomorrow night, from 2-3am. That's Saturday night/Sunday morning. So if you are a crazy person, don't sleep, do a lot of drugs, or are just a big fan of me (which wouldn't be hard to understand really) then tune in and hear the best selection of music San Diego's radio has heard in the history of our fair city.

J

Tired

2008-11-30T01:02:00.001-08:00

I always hate it when people say that they're too busy to do stuff, ie hang out with me. In my own lame, non-sympathetic way I'm always thinking, "yeah, yeah, we're all busy." So with that being said, I'm the jerk right now, and I'm really busy. It's not terribly fun. I get to the end of my day, or get to the weekend (if I get a weekend), and I'm usually too tired to do anything constructive like read, write, play music, etc. I really don't like it. My brain feels like mush. I usually just end up playing video games at night because they're mindless. In addition to trying to maintain friendships/relationships I am currently:

1) In full fledged busy/crazy/stressful season at work
2) Playing in Resonate a few times a month
3) Practicing for the Resonate Christmas program
4) Helping out with the McMillan Music School upcoming Rock Show
5) Trying (with moderate success) to write/read (well) for the new blog (www.boldson.com)
6) Thinking seriously about grad school, and the accompanying preparations required
7) Playing soccer on Saturdays

I guess it's ok then that the band is on hiatus, since I don't have any time for it anyway. I'm really not whining, I have entered into all of those willingly and have a lot of fun with most of them (not work). It's just a packed month. Thankfully a few of them will be done by the end of December. Either way, like usual, writing out a list makes me feel better. There's not much of me that's Type A, but the list making part is definitely there.

On a completely unrelated note, at least I get to go see the Pumpkins tomorrow night!

Grab your barf bags!

2008-11-17T22:52:00.000-08:00

This is a total cross post (I just posted something about it on the political blog), but I had to share this video from an upcoming documentary from my all time favorite radio talk show host, now turned documentary maker, John Ziegler. I felt ill after watching it.

Format change

2008-11-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

My few, faithful readers, (I think I have readers anyway...) I have cool news. At least I think so anyway. I have managed to convince a few friends to start a new blog, dealing primarily with Political/News issues. We also reserve the right to discuss faith issues, and will do so. The webpage is not totally new, we kind of took over a friend's blog he had already started, but the premise is new. At least to us anyway. They are all much smarter than me, so it should be informative and hopefully, entertaining for all. Please check it out at www.boldson.com. We are all operating under pseudonyms, so Obama's people don't use their gestapo tactics to hurt us (like they did to this lady). (Mostly kidding... some people have jobs/may have jobs that would require some anonymity) On this particular webpage I'll be Walter Galt. Please visit it. Thanks!

J

Terror

2008-11-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's pretty freaking scary to know that people who are so obviously detached from reality are allowed to vote:

Or that this guy is in our new President's corner:

It's even more scary that Obama thinks exactly the same him. Way to go America. I hope you get exactly what you want.

J

Gracious

2008-11-04T23:09:00.000-08:00

There's a lot that I can say, but I'll save it and allow you Obama fans your elation.

I'll comment in a few days when reality sinks in.

On a related note, some good friends and I are planning on starting a new Politics/Culture/Faith blog, and at least we're now guaranteed 4 years of ammunition. It's just a shame he's going to forcibly take the money we make and give it to people who didn't earn it. Oops! That one slipped. :) Ok, I'm done now. Goodnight.

J

Well...

2008-11-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

Here we go. God help us all.

Pause

2008-11-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

Before tomorrow comes and everything (potentially) goes to hell, let's take a moment and reflect on how good Hum (one of my favorite bands, not to mention one of my biggest influences ever) was, and how awesome Matt Talbot's clothes/glasses are. Oh 1995, what an era you were, where some of the most amazing bands in existence looked like grad students studying nuclear physics who got out of bed 5 minutes before going on stage.

Read!

2008-10-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Ha! The French don't even like Obama. At least their new president doesn't anyway. Who would have thought? Apparently, the

reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

If you're an Obama fan, you owe it to yourself to listen to this (terrifying) bit of pure socialist gold, from a radio interview he gave in 2001:

Are you freaking kidding me?

"...the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society... generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."

Here's some commentary on it from someone much smarter than me:

The government does not exist to determine the acceptable level of wealth of its individual citizens. For government to assume that role, it would have to end private property rights and assume all property belonged to the State. That is classic Marxism, and as Barbara West of WFTV noted, it runs in Marx’s classic philosophy of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. That economic direction has been an abject failure everywhere it has been tried, and in many cases resulted in famines that killed millions of people... Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties”. That’s because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states and the individual. The founders intended at the time to limit the reach of the federal government, and built the Constitution accordingly.

It's a shame that 95% of America probably has no ideo how far this stuff is from what the founders would have wanted, and are this close to putting this guy in office. It's like living in a parallel universe.

Something Obama would never read/study himself are the thoughts/words of our country's founding fathers, like this selection from Jefferson's inaugural address:

a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Doesn't sound like "spreading the wealth" to me.

I bought a couple books (The Constitution of Liberty, and The Road To Serfdom) today by this guy. I'm pretty excited, in an extremely nerdy way of course. Also excited about learning more about the New Deal in this book, as soon as it comes in the mail. While I'm on the subject, I would also very much like to read Human Action, by this guy, an important thinker in classical liberalism (which later basically turned into libertarianism), but it appears to be way out of print and every copy I can find on the internet is like $60+. Lame!

Playlist:
Marvin Gaye- What's Going On
Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here

Reading material

2008-10-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

US turns over control of 12th Iraqi province from AP. Wow, all this listening to Obama and I'd just figured the whole thing was done and we'd tucked tail and ran away. Good thing he hasn't gotten in there... yet.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? by Orson Scott Card. A fairly hardcore (according to googling his name) Democrat ripping his fellow pathetic excuses for reporters a new one over their misreporting (read: lying) over Obama, McCain, the housing crisis, etc. Nice dude!

Best parts...

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

and

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

McCain for President by Charles Krauthammer. He's really smart; I like his writing. A nicely written, easily laid out article about why Obama sucks.

If you weren't aware (maybe you live under a rock?), Obama raised an ungodly amount of money in the election, including (I believe) $150 million in Sep. alone. I'd be more impressed if George Soros and all of Hollywood weren't blindly in the tank for him, but who's surprised by that? Besides the fact that he lied through his teeth before the campaign when he told the world he was going to use public financing (like everyone else) and then didn't, his campaign has been fraught with charges of illegal money raising. As an experiement, Powerlineblog.com readers made donations to his campaign with obvious fake names/repeat credit cards, all of which worked perfectly. Which, as you might imagine, is illegal. Check out the stories here, here, and here.

His merciful Lord, Obama, who never deviates from the issues, has sure spent a lot of time the last week talking about Palin's clothes. Good article on how stupid that is here (aside from the obvious reasons), from Powerlineblog.com.

More on Obama being a possible member of an actual Socialist party here, and how the press completely ignores it here.

Chris Matthews, a class A idiot, gets owned.

We have little hope that MSNBC will take a more even handed approach in covering this race over these last few days, but it is outrageous that Chris Matthews would rely on an HBO mini-series as the basis for his condescending attacks on Governor Palin. If he wishes to pose as a Constitutional scholar, he should read the document. This campaign has sent a copy to his office.

How Palin Governed by Byron York. I know, I know, it's lame to bring actual facts into any kind of discussion about Palin, Obama, whoever, but I'm going to do it anyway. Or at least this guy is, who is smarter and a better writer than I am.

What is John Woo, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson made ads for McCain? They would be awesome, and look like this:

Obama on Abortion

2008-10-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Recently I stumbled upon these two webpages/articles: "Put Away Falsehood" from The Matthew 25 Network and from there a link to Pro-Life Obama. I would encourage you to read them for yourself, especially if you fall under their target audience umbrella- Christians who are doubting whether or not they should vote for Obama, based on his extremist positions on issues like abortion. Then come back here, and read my analysis of their arguments. Or you could just skip ahead and have your view skewed by my opinion.

Done? Ok. So here's what I think. People are ridiculous and will tell themselves anything to make themselves feel better. Seriously. I am not at all a one issue type guy, though I do believe abortion as an issue crosses over into many extremely important categories (character, judgment, willingness to accept responsibility for one's actions, determination to defend life/the defenseless, etc). With that said, I don't think I would necessarily not vote for someone based solely on their abortion position. But trying to turn Obama's positions 180 degrees around based on one or two interviews where he used some slick lawyer talk is just stupid. His record on this issue is clear and public, and everyone knows it. This is the guy who won't take a position on when a fetus gains human rights because it's "above his pay grade." I don't know what takes bigger balls, giving an honest answer or giving that answer. As such, the main rationale that the Matthew 25 webpage uses to defend Obama is that he tells them so. Basically it works like this:

Big terrible lie- Obama is pro-choice and therefore will not defend the rights of the unborn.
Truth, as stated by Obama- "No way! I love babies, I'd never do that. But I am pro-choice, just so you know." See, it doesn't matter that he's pro-choice, he likes babies!

My favorite thing they repeat over and over again is that he choice to vote one way, knowing that it didn't matter anyway because the bill "wouldn't pass constitutional muster." Wow, that's convenient. Way to go with your conviction.

In conclusion, all I needed to do to find Obama's actual position on abortion was spend about 5 minutes on google. If abortion is not a big issue for you, then fine. But don't try to tell me that Obama is going to make things better just because he says so to a few magazines what they wanted to hear. Hey Prolifeforobama.com, why don't you try some actual research next time? I guess lying to yourself is easier.

Obama Statement on 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Decision from BarackObama.com

Freedom of Choice Act from Wikipedia. (For you lazy people, this is what Obama says will be one of his priorities within his first few days of being in office.)

Freedom of Choice
Act (actual bill)

Focusing On FOCA: 'Freedom Of Choice Act' Would Harm Women And Remove Freedoms from The Family Research Council.

Obama's Abortion Extremism from Public Discourse.

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Playlist-
Otis Redding- Love Man (my record player is working again!)
Bob Dylan- Blood on the tracks

Good stuff

2008-10-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

In Green Jobs, John Stossel destroys Obama's claim that he's going to create jobs through government investment in the green sector. (Thanks Kerr!) Great article, and a good lesson if you want to brush up on your economics.

Obama's foreign policy -- Carter's ends through Clinton's means? from PowerlineBlog.

The Ayers Cover-Up Continues from PowerlineBlog.com

Also see Stanley Kurtz's continuing investigation of Obama's shady past, (this article is a little older, but more relevant than ever now) here at Obama’s Challenge, from The National Review.

Operation Destroy Joe the Plumber by Michelle Malkin. Michelle documents a number of the crazy attacks on Joe the Plumber from the media. If they spent half as much time investigating Obama or the people in his past this race would be over. But instead they attempt to bury some poor guy who had the audacity to ask the Messiah a question his teleprompter didn't have a response for.

Social Engineering Derailed Our Economy from TownHall.com

Tax cuts? Yeah right.

2008-10-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

This is a great article detailing how ridiculous (read: full of lies) Obama's "tax cut for the 95%" line is: Obama's 95% Illusion from the Wall Street Journal.

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit."

I cannot stress enough that perhaps the most terrifying aspect of a possible (though not inevitable) Obama presidency is his not-so-subtle Socialist leanings. And I suppose saying "leaning" is giving him far too much credit. He's not leaning towards Socialism; he's firmly and deeply rooted there. You, the casual American political observer might ask yourself, "why is that a bad thing?" I'm sure some people who don't think about might even think that it's a good thing. Isn't Socialism leveling the playing field? That's what the Democrats (and even a fair amount of current Republicans) would have you think. It is technically leveling the playing field, but rather than doing it by helping people at the bottom, it works by lowering the people at the top. Which, no matter how you spin it, is not what America is about. (Although some might argue it is now.) At least it is not what our country was founded on, anyway. The point is this: we don't need government intervention because the field is already level. Success in America is attained by hard work, ingenuity, and persistence. Period. It is not Obama's job (or any other politician) to decide how much money is too much for a private citizen to have.

This is the beauty of the whole "Joe the Plumber" hysteria over the past week. He was asking a question that should be on every America's mind. It certainly has been on mine. Joe the Plumber and I are the same guy. My family owns a small business, which we want to be as successful as possible. We want it to make lots of money, enough so that later, the hard work we are putting in now will pay off and we won't have to work as much. We want to employ as many people as possible. Where does Obama get the right to "spread our wealth around"? Are we going to be able to employ as many people when the government is taking a bigger and bigger chunk of our profits? Why should anyone else have the benefits of my hard work without me choosing giving it to them myself? They shouldn't. If I am putting in the work, in a free society, I should get the benefits. Is that rocket science?

I know these ideas are all completely foreign to most career politicians, especially ones who have spent their lives soaking up all the Marxism they can find. Yeah, that's you Obama. Keep your hand out of my freaking pocket.

For your enrichment...

2008-10-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

Here are two great articles by two people who are much smarter than me. You should read them. Thanks to BoldSon.com for the link to the Strassel article.

1) Obama & Friends: Judge Not? by Charles Krauthammer, from the Washington Post. Great article, describing why Obama's sketchy (at best) past associations are extremely important in understanding his character and judgment.

As a side note, I love when McCain puts out ads or stumps about this subject, and Obama's response is always to either a) declare how unfair and out of line these "negative" ads are, followed up by his own "negative" ads, stump speeches, or spokes person freakout, or b) blantantly lie about whatever the ad is. For example, in response to McCain's new attack on the Obama being buddies with William Ayers, Obama's camp spent a good amount of time this week talking about whether or not McCain saying "that one" was racist. And then Obama said he "didn't know about Ayers' terrorist past," followed up by today saying he "thought he was reformed." I couldn't make this up if I tried. Don't you love this guy and he "new politics?" I'm so glad he's beyond it all.

2) Obama's Magic by Kimberley Strassel. From the Wall Street Journal (via Real Clear Politics). Discusses how many of Obama's ideas/promises are completely outside of reality. Here's my favorite part:

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It's called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show.

For his next trick, the Great Obama will jumpstart the economy, and he'll do it by raising taxes on the very businesses that are today adrift in a financial tsunami! That will include all those among the top 1% of taxpayers who are in fact small-business owners, and the nation's biggest employers who currently pay some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Mr. Obama will, with a flick of his fingers, show them how to create more jobs with less money. It's simple, really. He has a wand.

I'm currently working on a little write up to do my best to explain how we got into this financial crisis since neither candidate has a clue. Which is especially interesting seeing as Obama's buddies (and himself too) are mostly responsible for it.

Playlist-
Fleet Foxes
Mock Orange- Captain Love
Underoath- Lost in the sound of separation
Sigur Ros- Med Sud I...
The Beatles- Sgt. Peppers (no Nate, I did not steal your copy.)
Death Cab- Narrow Stairs
Norma Jean- The Antimother
Metallica- Death Magnetic
M83- Saturdays = Youth

Who would have thought?

2008-10-08T23:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, Obama is possibly a past member of an avowed Socialist organization? Now way!

Don't vote! Definitely don't think! Yay celebrities!

2008-10-07T23:12:00.001-07:00

Some good friends of mine beat me to blogging about this ridiculous new commercial, but here is my commentary on it anyway.

I'll decode the underlying subtext for everyone who is unaware:

1) They don't mean go vote. They mean vote for Obama. If you are voting for McCain (or anyone else) they'd all rather you not vote.

2) By this "get out the vote" crap, they certainly don't mean, "read, research, think, understand the issues, and then vote." They mean, "listen to your heart, maybe read a little US Weekly, and then go vote based upon who connects with you on an MTV level. Which in this case, means Obama."

3) Of course celebrities are smarter than us, and of course their opinions matter more than a normal civilian. And why not? A bunch of high school drop outs who get paid millions of dollars to work 3 months out of the year are obviously the pinnacle of societal prestige. They have the big megaphone of fame, which means they are entitled and obligated to use it as much as they can. (Oh, and if you didn't pick up on it, I can't stand 95% of celebrities in general. Of that 95%, I probably despise 99.7% of actors, and of those I pretty much hate 100% of any of them who open their mouths about politics. Seriously, shut up, and make your freaking movies. Maybe if you go to college and/or actually read a history book (Howard Zinn does not count) I might listen to you for like 5 seconds.)

I would really like for anyone who is actually persuaded by this video to show themselves, be banned from voting, and then be permanently sterilized.

Sigur Ros, Oct 1 2008

2008-10-06T19:37:00.001-07:00

Last week I had the great pleasure of attending a Sigur Ros show at the Copley Symphony Hall with my good friend Mr. Kirk "Resonate" Miller. We had a wonderful time, capped off by the fact that I won 2 tickets from FM 94.9, which gave us (free) awesome seats, autographed posters, and a little visit into the room to see their sound check/warm up session. It was so so so cool to get to be in the gigantic room, and see them practice a little with no one else there, besides the 15 or so of us. I took some pictures but haven't uploaded them yet.

Really there is no way to describe their live sound without having experienced it. I don't understand how they get some of the tones/sounds they get, especially out of just 4 guys. They didn't bring the string section on this tour, so it was a much more raw, even rockin', type of set list. The Symphony Hall was a great place to see them; the sound was pretty much flawless.

I found the setlist online, and for those of you who are fans, I took the liberty of writing in the record and track number for each song. If you're anything like me, you really have no idea what any of the songs are called anyway, so it's helpful. I also found a few cool, but overall poor quality live videos from the show. You can at least see how rad the accompanying light show was.

Oct 1, 2008
Copley Symphony Hall
San Diego, California

Heysátan - [Takk track 11]
All right - [Med Sud... track 11]
Njósnavélin - [ ( ) track 4]
Ný Batterí - [Ágætis Byrjun track 5]
E-bow - [ ( ) track 6]
Við Spilum Endalaust - [ Med Sud... track 4]
Hoppípolla/Með Blóðnasir - [Takk tracks 3 and 4]
Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur - [Med Sud... track 2]
Viðrar vel til loftárása - [Ágætis Byrjun track 7]
Glósóli - [Takk track 2]
Sæglópur - [Takk track 6]
Festival - [Med Sud... track 5]
Gobbledigook - [Med Sud... track 1]

Fljótavík - [Med Sud... track 9]
Popplagið - [ ( ) track 8]

Oh, and...

2008-09-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

The Chargers game, namely the last 5 minutes, was the most unbelievable thing I have every seen in a football game. Yes, it never should have been that close, and yes, the Chargers defense was abysmal, but are you freaking kidding me? An obvious fumble (and therefore game changer) getting overturned because some idiot blew the whistle too early? How in the world can that happen?

After that crap, the Padres entire season, and UCLA's unspeakable performance Saturday, I would be basically inconsolable if not for my Niners finally pulling it together. Who would have thought it would be them to grow a pair? What a weekend.

Please, make it end!

2008-09-15T23:02:00.001-07:00

I seriously cannot wait for this election cycle to end. I'm tired of having to read for an hour almost every night just to be caught up on everything so I can actually know what I'm talking about with people. I'm tired of having to expend so much effort to sift through the BS to actually hear what these ridiculous politicians are trying to say. I'm tired of something getting me so worked up that I send eMails to people that a few days later I totally regret, even if I am able to stand by the facts/logic proposed. I started some dumb facebook group thing as a joke, and now I just think it's kind of dumb. Still sort of funny I suppose, but ultimately pointless. Possibly most of all, I just want to know which stupid turd is going to win, so everything will be over and we can all move on. They're both perfectly positioned and capable to screw a lot of stuff up, so let's just get on with it. I'm tired of hearing and thinking about it all time. Are we going to move slowly towards socialism or quickly? Does anyone even care any more? Can 90% of the population of America even spell socialism, let alone explain what it is? Ugh. Who needs a drink?

Slacking

2008-09-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

My lack of postings lately is troubling. The annoying thing is that I have been reading a lot of stuff that I have been meaning to post, but then I end up reading a lot and have no time to write. Plus I've started 4 or 5 posts recently and haven't finished them. Regardless, content coming soon. Interesting political stuff to comment on, lots of new music, and a fair amount of new movies I've been privy too. Fun stuff. Oh, and of course, both the Chargers and the Niners were ridiculous disappointments this weekend. The Padres can go basically without mentioning.

Be good kids.

J

Our Lord and Savior, The Messiah.

2008-08-22T16:57:00.001-07:00

Rick Warren's interview w/ Obama

2008-08-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Like many of you, I watched the interview on CNN this weekend between Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church in Orange County, The Messiah himself, Obama, and John McCain. And, also like many of you, I found Our Lord and Savior's performance to be fairly pathetic, though wholly predictable, and was pleasantly surprised to see McCain do well. Very well in fact. I would even go as far as to say as he completely wiped the floor with Obama, which very few expected. The forum, if you are unaware, was designed to highlight the candidate's worldview, character, and morality, by asking them the same, simple and direct questions. Naturally, hilarity ensued, as would obviously happen when trying to pin His Mercifulness down to an actual answer. I would like to offer a few, hopefully short, impressions on some of the responses from the candidates.

Perhaps the issue that sticks out most in my mind was Obama's answer to the question "At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?" Like anyone I know His Lordship to be staunchly pro-choice, even to the point that he twice voted in the Illinois State Senate against a bill that would have required doctors to save the lives of babies born after botched late term abortions. Keep in mind very few other people voted against that bill, he was standing on some serious principle on that one. So I naturally assumed this would be a fairly easy question to answer, as to hold such a extreme position (live babies should not be saved) he must have a pretty well thought opinion on it. He answer was, and I quote from the transcript (which has it in all caps... sorry, I'm not going to re-type it):

WELL, I THINK THAT WHETHER YOU ARE LOOKING AT IT FROM A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OR A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE, ANSWERING THAT QUESTION WITH SPECIFICITY, YOU KNOW, IS ABOVE MY PAY GRADE. BUT LET ME JUST SPEAK MORE GENERALLY ABOUT THE ISSUE OF ABORTION BECAUSE THIS IS SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY THE COUNTRY WRESTLES WITH. ONE THING THAT I'M ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED OF IS THERE IS A MORAL AND ETHICAL CONTENT TO THIS ISSUE. SO I THINK THAT ANYBODY WHO TRIES TO DENY THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES AND GRAVITY OF THE ABORTION ISSUE I THINK IS NOT PAYING ATTENTION. SO THAT WOULD BE POINT NUMBER ONE. BUT POINT NUMBER TWO, I AM PRO-CHOICE. I BELIEVE IN ROE V. WADE AND COME TO THAT CONCLUSION NOT BECAUSE I'M PRO ABORTION, BUT BECAUSE ULTIMATELY I DON'T THINK WOMEN MAKE THESE DECISIONS CASUALLY. THEY WRESTLE WITH THESE THINGS IN PROFOUND WAYS. IN CONSULTATION WITH THEIR PASTORS OR SPOUSES OR THEIR DOCTORS AND THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS.

So, let me decode this for you. Firstly, while he obviously has a belief about when he thinks life begins, he refuses to answer the questions. Secondly, he changes the subject and rambles on about how the reason that he is pro-choice is because it's a hard decision to make? Seriously? That's the best thing he can come up with? No crap it's hard! Does he really think anyone comes to that conclusion lightly? What a bunch of BS. I thought he was a man of principle and conviction, not to mention the most wonderful public speaker this world has ever seen. Apparently they didn't let him have a teleprompter on this night, since he sounded ridiculous.

Most importantly, I would like to point out some massive hypocrisy. He had just got done explaining, a mere 5 minutes before, about how the greatest moral failure of America was

THAT WE STILL DON'T ABIDE BY THAT BASIC RECEPT IN MATTHEW THAT WHATEVER YOU DO FOR THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS, YOU DO FOR ME.

Really. Too bad that doesn't apply to babies. McCain, strangely enough, actually answered the question, that he believes that human rights apply at conception. Interesting, we actually can see what he thinks without having to break out the code breaking books.

Another question McCain trounced Obama on was the issue of taxes. The question was "how would you define rich?" His Gracious Lord stated that if you make $150,000 or less, you might be poor or middle class, and if you make $250,000 that you are doing pretty well. Then he reminded us that we have a lot of things to pay for in America, and if we want them we're going to have to pay for them in taxes. First off, I can think of about a million things that we don't need that get paid for with my taxes. Why not cut a few of them back first. Obama's plans involve massive increases in the government's budgetary needs. Which obviously means massive tax hikes, and for him, means raising taxes on the "rich," which of course is something defined by him. I like McCain's answer, which was that he wants everyone to be rich and won't play into this "class warfare and wealth redistribution game." Which is of course exactly what His Perfectness does all day, in his apparent dream to turn American sharply into socialism. Why does it always have to be about tearing down success instead of teaching and helping the unsuccessful get to that level?

Lastly, and I'll be real quick on this one since other people have said it much better than me (see the following news articles), Obama's answers about the Judges was pathetic. The question was "which current judges would you not have nominated?" To which McCain simply named the 4 obviously liberal judges (Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens), and that he believed their role is to interpret the constitution and instead the choose to legislate from the bench. Totally acceptable answer. His Majesty, however, chose to ramble on and on about how he didn't think Thomas is exper... I mean strong enough (he actually started to say experience and then stopped... obviously experience is not a word he wants associated with himself) and then said he doesn't agree with Scolia. (someone who would crush Obama with his mind in 2 seconds flat, as a side note) Only after Warren mentions Roberts does Obama talk about how he doesn't agree with him either. As pointed out on Powerline,

Obama did not name Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. This is odd. Obama voted against the confirmation of both men, so clearly he would not have nominated either one. But Obama realizes that Roberts and Alito were popular nominees, which probably explains why he declined to name them.

Once again, a forum designed to give Obama a chance to show some character, and he chooses to be a disgusting politician over, and over again. What a complete load. Sources:

The Roger Hedgecock show today

Official Transcript

He's dancing as fast as he can from Powerlineblog.com

A tortured answer to an easy question from Powerlineblog.com

The purpose driven candidates from Powerlineblog.com

Required Reading: Obama Ready to Soak the Rich from the Weekly Standard

For Obama, Taxes Are About Fairness from The Wall Street Journal

Hiatus

2008-08-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation right now, and it is awesome. Definitely a whirlwind roadtrip over much of our great state, but still fun. We spent Friday and Saturday in a San Luis Obispo at a wedding, drove up through Yosemite to Mammoth Sunday, and are leaving tomorrow to head up through South Lake Tahoe and into my homeland of Garden Valley/Georgetown/the middle of nowhere. Who knows what adventures we will encounter there. So far it's been awesome. Did some great hiking, spent quality time with each other, family and friends, had a few hippy style jam sessions, ate ridiculously over priced (and delicious) food, and many other things. Many pictures to come. Hope you're all doing well! Talk to you soon.

the latest

2008-08-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

So I took a little time off. What mostly happened is that I got so into my Harry Potter books (yes, I'm a geek, sue me) that I really didn't feel like reading too much else. Especially the news over the last few weeks, which was mostly just every pooping themselves silly over Obama (whom I will furthermore refer to as any of his given names, The Messiah, the Chosen One, or Our Lord and Savior) in Europe. Fun stuff there. I will say that is was pretty fun seeing him get slammed pretty hard by Katie Couric (sp?) of all people when he refused to acknowledge that the surge is working. Which is pretty hilarious, if you ask me. What's the big deal? I thought liberals were all about acknowledging their mistakes, isn't that what they are constantly asking Bush to do? Now The Messiah can't talk about his? He's changed his position on the war 5 times already, what's one more going to hurt?

Also, in case you haven't been paying attention, or have just been waiting for me to comment on it like the rest of the world, The Chosen One's new economic plan is one of the most defining moments of his campaign. I am refering to this one, where he states that oil companies should be forced to pay $1000 per household, as a new "economic stimulus plan." I'm glad to see that he's not dancing around being a Communist any more, he's coming right out and saying it: "Hey guys... I, The Messiah, and a freaking Commie. I believe that American companies should be forced through legislation to pay their profits out to private citizens. Yes, I am blatantly trying to buy your vote, and I don't care if that is completely Anti-American." Seriously, if that doesn't freak you out, you are crazy. This guy said it much better than I could:

In regards to the plan, the word “simplistic” springs to mind. One wonders whether Obama knows that Exxon Mobil is not in fact owned by the greedy pair of Mr. Exxon and Mr. Mobil but rather by millions of stockholders, including virtually every citizen with an interest in a mutual fund or a pension fund. It would be fun to see how CALPERS (for instance) would react if President Obama became serious about diminishing the value of their portfolio.

The other word that springs to mind regarding the plan is “demagoguery.” There was a time in this election when John McCain conceded he didn’t know much about economics. With the release of this plan, Barack Obama has essentially screamed, “Me too! Doubly so!!”

I also found Friday's House happenings to be pretty amusing. The Republicans finally grew some balls. Pelosi (Satan incarnate) made a call for the summer recess (month long vacation) and 10 Republicans said "no way, we haven't solved anything on the energy front yet." To which Pelosi basically gave them the finger, turned off all the lights, sent the press out, etc. So those 10 guys found a way to get the lights on, got some of the press back, and kept debating on the floor, eventually via megaphone, until 100 or so came back. And apparently they're planning on doing that all this week too. A stunt, obviously, and while they've had years to get things done, it's still a fairly gutsy move, and one that is proving that they might actually have some will power and momentum to get something done. We'll see.

On a completely unrelated topic, I am pretty sad to report that the X-Files movie is pretty no bueno. I might have enjoyed it a little more if they wouldn't have been so freaking secretive about it, but instead they made all of us think they had some awesome plot hidden under there. They didn't. More like a stock episode, with a few cool things thrown in for us super fans. Sad sad. Oh well.

'Till next time...

Awesomeness

2008-07-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

The missing Dark Knight script, written by Michael Bay!

You'll laugh, you'll cry. It's genius.

Other stuff

2008-07-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

I have been flying through the Harry Potter books, and am loving them. Super fun, well written, really cool stories. I've heard the Lost writers talk about how much them like Harry Potter, and I can see why. Harry Potter is like Lost in book form.

I've gotten a bunch of new music in the past week or two, but haven't absorbed most of it. I can say this much however:

Sigur Ros- Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. Super good. I'm loving it, and I can't wait to see them in October. A pretty big shift in sound for them. Poppy (I know!), actually singable, and dare I say happy? There's even a song in English, though you can't really understand what he's saying anyway. But there are actually chorus's and discernible melodies, and it's still really pretty of course. There's even acoustic guitars. If you're a fan, get it. If you're not, you're dumb.

Damiera- Quiet Mouth, Loud Hands. I was really excited about this one, and have been mostly disappointed. I keep trying, thinking maybe it'll grow on me, but it hasn't so far. It doesn't really do anything for me. I know they have 3 new guys (out of 4) in the band, and they didn't want to make the same record twice, but the outcome is boring. Maybe they should have made the last one again. They try a few really new things, like a song that is a blatant Maroon 5 rip off, which is kind of fun I guess. Gone are the nearly shred-worthy guitars, crazy mathy-ness, and interesting melodies, replaced by... yawn. I don't even know what. I find myself forgetting it's even on after about 4 or 5 songs. So sad.

To be absorbed soon are:
Amos Lee- Last Days at the Lodge
Portishead- Third
My Bloody Valentine- Isn't Anything

Good stuff is happening with the band (Carts Before Horses). We started working on our demos again and have them almost finished, not to mention that we've been trying out a singer that we're pretty excited about. More on that as we figure stuff out.

Hope your 4th was good! We'll be having everyone over sometime soon for a hang out at the new place... we're almost unpacked, yay!

J

Reading material 7/7/08

2008-07-07T22:14:00.001-07:00

In between reading Harry Potter sometimes I read up some political stuff on the internet. Like this stuff:

Energy Myths from Investor's Business Daily. Please, please, please read this. They take the main 3 or 4 oil myths and explain why they're crap. It's quick and easily understandable. Also see Obama's Dry Hole from the Wall Street Journal and An America First Energy Plan from RealClearPolitics.com.

The true test of Obama's Iraq shift from the Politico.com. Has a couple quotes from Obama earlier this year talking about Iraq. On the same topic, also see Daily Blog Buzz: Obama's "Refined" Positions.

Obama Ignorance Watch: What Do the Joint Chiefs Really Do? from The Weekly Standard. I'll give you a hint: he doesn't know what they do.

Obama's Abortion Obfuscations from the Weekly Standard.

The Democrats' foreign-policy game from the Christian Science Monitor. A lot of the Senate Dem's ideas and recent rhetoric is stupid and dangerous.

OBAMA STRIKES FIRST from DickMorris.com. The general election season has begun with Obama starting his first national ad. McCain could jump all over this ad if he had half a brain, since it has at least 1 blatent lie in it, but he probably won't because he sucks almost as much as Obama.

New and Not Improved from the New York Times. Some crazy liberals are pretty pissed about Obama's center field pandering. This guy's one of them.

5 myths about presidential campaign cash from Politico.com. Very informative. Goes through a few myths that both sides have been playing up a lot lately.

Focus on Economy Poses Problems for Candidates from the New York Times. Again, they both suck, so it's not surprising.

Obama's third response

2008-07-04T16:49:00.001-07:00

Well, not really, but this parody of what he was trying to say is pretty funny.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

2008-07-03T23:19:00.001-07:00

Why am I laughing? Honestly, I am. Out loud. You could even say LOL if you were so inclinded. To answer that I'll cut and paste some select quotes from this article, just posted from the AP on yahoo.com: Obama wades into controversy with Iraq comments.

Obama was forced to call reporters back for a second news conference in Fargo, North Dakota, after he initially left open the possibility of revising his 16-month timetable for pulling U.S. combat forces from Iraq.

"Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the joint chiefs of staff in and I will give them a new mission and that is to end this war," Obama told reporters in his second news conference.

But he added: "I would be a poor commander in chief if I didn't take facts on the ground into account."

At an earlier news conference, the Illinois senator had said he could "refine" his stance after he visits Iraq.

Obama, an early opponent of the war who made his stance a centerpiece of his Democratic presidential campaign, said he would not support a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq but wanted to ensure any troop withdrawal was orderly and safe.

"I've always said I would listen to commanders on the ground. I've always said the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability," he told reporters on arrival in North Dakota.

"That assessment has not changed, and when I have a chance to meet with some of the commanders on the ground I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

You've got to be kidding me. Someone please please please explain to me why you/anyone is still taking this guy seriously? Does his entire 19 year old college student fan base just ignore 100% of what he says? What a freaking joke! He's been parading around since day one about how he was going to pull everyone out of Iraq the second he got into office. And now he's going to sit and think about it for a while first? He's so scared of pissing off his kook base (ie Moveon.org people) that he has to go back and make a second news conference to "clarify" what he meant the first time. But I thought he was the most amazing speaker this world had ever seen? How could he not be clear enough the first time?

What an complete embarrassment. Glad to know he's still that "new kind of politician" guy. Speaking of embarrassing, check out this article on the same topic from Obama's campaign headquarters, The New York Times, and marvel at the amount of spin they're able to put on a clearly ridiculous set of statements. They take the same comments, which any normal person would say "wow, that sounds pretty inconsistent," and are able to make it sound like it's all one straight and narrow line of thinking that he's been planning from the beginning. Yay for ridiculous, obvious bias!

And then, and then, and then... oh my gosh

2008-06-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

So I was just looking at the CDs that out tomorrow, mostly thinking about the new Sigur Ros (which I am very excited about). And then I remembered that there are 2 My Bloody Valentine re-issues also coming out tomorrow, which is awesome since I've never gotten a hold of Isn't Anything. And then, and most importantly, after seeing a review of their first night of their reunion show, I realized that they are playing 2 nights in LA in October. And there are still tickets available. Holy freaking crap. Now I know I'm super cool elitist hipster or whatever, but come on, I can't be the only person with taste around here. Anyone want to drive up to that show and see them with me? I really really really want to go. It's not even that much- 50 bucks. I'll drive. I just don't want to go by myself.

It's brewing

2008-06-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Holy monkey do I have a rant brewing in my head over gas/oil stuff. The last week or two's crap bills that have come up in the Senate and House have put me over the edge. Stay tuned true believers.

-J

One year ago!

2008-06-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

June 2nd, 2007

Colbert is a genius.

2008-05-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most amazing Colbert Report moments ever. Watch Stephen Colbert absolutely own this guy.

Probably going to make someone mad... sorry!

2008-05-19T00:37:00.001-07:00

Someone told me this weekend to stop talking about TV shows and put some political stuff up. So here are a few good articles that I have read recently...

Global Warming stuff

Dr. Arthur Robinson (OISM) to Release Names of over 30,000 Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Hypothesis Wait a second, I thought every scientist in the world was completely sold on man-made global warming. Where did these guys come from? This is definitely something you would never see on a major news station. Especially NBC, which, if you have forgotten, is owned by GE. Think GE has a vested (read: financial) interested in the global warming? I would say so. Which is espcially humorous given a gigantic article that was in Time last year about how well funded and organized global warming dissenters are, considering that GE, one of the biggest corporations in the world is pushing global warming in the first place. Good ol' fashioned hypocrisy at work there. Don't forget also, despite taking a full page ad out in the NY Times a month or two ago, an entire convention of scientists that don't buy global warming met in NY, and it was largely ignored. Sounds like political posturing more that care for the environment to me.

This puts your commute to shame One of the biggest Global Warming advocates in the world (The Governator) does as much damage to the environment in one hour on his private jet that your car does in a year. And he does 3 hours of flying, every day. Reminds me of Al Gore and his $30,000 Utility Bill.

NASA Chief: Global Warming Treated Like a Religion

Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler?

Doubt is cast over global warming

Is Global Warming A Sin? Interesting article from a ridiculously liberal news source.

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Don't Believe the Hype: Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming.

Obama stuff

Jimmy Carter’s Second Term This is a great, great article about how many "new" policies Obama is pushing are re-packaged Hoover and Carter. It's funny how things look when you actually look at history. Something Obama is counting on most people not doing, and he's right.

How Obama Fell to Earth

Talking Versus Doing Some good points made about Obama and the compeletley idiotic Farm Bill that's getting pushed through right now, though I liked this article more before there were some errors fixed. Who would have thought, someone who actually looks at Obama objectively from the NY Times? Crazy! I thought he was the messiah for all people?

Playlist:
Pinback- Pinback
Death Cab For Cutie- Narrow Stairs
Cricket Engine- Cricket Engine
Erhman Hall- State of Iowa

Current Addictions

2008-05-18T01:00:00.001-07:00

"Current Addictions" is the name of a playlist on my Itunes. And let me tell you, there are some serious guilty pleasures on there right now. I mean, we're talking OJ level guilt. Barry Bonds guilty. Not all of them are really bad, some are cool of course. All are good, in some way, and all are clearly "catchy" in some way. Anyway, the ones that I think are worth mentioning right now are as follows:

Owen- Never Meant. Pretty bad/cheesy lyrics ("...the last thing I want to be is overly dramatic, but I just think it's best, cause you can't miss what you forget"... Yeah, barf, I know) but beautiful arrangement of the best song by his previous band (American Football).

Chris Cornell- Billy Jean. Totally checked this one out after that miserable excuse for a singer David Cool butchered it on American Idol. This version is awesome.

Sia- Breathe Me. Song from the end of the finale of Six Feet Under. Still makes me all weepy.

Leona Lewis- Bleeding Love. Really I think I mostly just like the programmed drums on it, but the chorus is weirdly catchy. I can't really decide if I like her voice of not.

The Whigs- Right Hand On My Heart. Unabashed radio rock, and I like it.

Monarch- Talk is Cheap/The Undefeated. I don't even know where I heard about this band. I'm not super crazy about the CD overall, and I don't even like the music on this song all that much, but his voice is really really good.

Carrie Underwood- Flat On the Floor. Holy crap. Super guilty on this one. But she is a singing machine, and her band is pretty rad on this song.

First Wave Hello- I don't want to be down. So sad they broke up, this is hands down my favorite song I've ever heard from them. The chorus is perfect.

Life and Times- Catching Crumbs. This is from a benefit CD for J. Robbin's baby. Nice to see they didn't put some random b-side on the CD, this song rules.

I don't even know why I wrote this. But I did. So for all of you who care, here's some weird insight into my musical mind.

Bro!

2008-05-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

A friend showed me this article from the Onion a while ago, and I was reminded of it this weekend while talking with another friend about what a plague upon this earth bros are. Check it out. You'll thank me later.

Bro, You're A God Among Bros

The Office

2008-05-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

My friends, it is time. I have spent the last few days reminding myself of the genius that is The Office (BBC) and I cannot contain my jubilation. I realize most of you that I see on a regular basis are well acquainted with my love of this show and my clear disdain for its supremely inferior American counterpart, and to you I say "stop reading." Because that's what I'm going to talk about.

I know I'm speaking blasphemy to most of you out there, but I speak the truth: The BBC version is better in nearly every possible way. Firstly, when it was originally aired it was shown opposite other actual documentaries, making people think it could be an actual documentary. To further this idea they used all unknown, normal looking actors. The American version could never accomplish this (not that it ever intended to, I know) as it features numerous familiar faces, including of course, Steve Carrell, a huge movie star. And to be honest, I really find it relatable and endearing to have Tim and Dawn (Jim and Pam to you US people) look like normal people. I mean come on, Jenna Fischer works at an office and doesn't have 50 slobs drooling over her every 2 seconds? Please. Secondly, because it was supposed to be sort of like an actual documentary, it only had 2 seasons of 6 episodes, plus the Special. There are no bad episodes. Every one is pure gold, and it allows for a very specific story to be told. They didn't have to drag out any story lines, which is especially good since the Tim/Dawn sort-of romance is basically the backbone to the entire show. I'm not going to ruin the end for anyone, but by keeping it short they were able to tell that story, from start to finish, and do it brilliantly. It's one of the best conclusions to a TV show I have ever seen. The BBC version has serious heart to it. It's not just a ridiculous, awkward comedy. It mostly is, but there are some pretty serious, heartbreaking moments in it too, especially in the last couple episodes. Examples? Take the boss. David Brent is a genius, extremely not flat character. Which leads me to my third point: I hate the way Steve Carrell portrays the David Brent/Michael Scott character. Cannot stand it. Ricky Gervais played him as hugely egotistical and deeply insecure, someone who would do anything to be liked. As the show goes on you really see become more and more obvious: he flies past insecurity to full-on jealousy, struggling to undermine Neal's authority and popularity after Neal gets promoted above him. Sadly, but in no way suprising, his attitude is his ultimate undoing. You actually see that there are consequences for his actions, since the show is short and doesn't have to carry on for season after season, based on it's own popularity. On the other hand, Michael Scott is just an idiot and nothing more. All the jokes revolve around how dumb he is and how stupid the things he says are. I find him really boring, flat, and frankly, unrealistic character. I'm constantly asking myself, "if he really is that dumb, how did he get to be the manager in the first place?" David Brent, while many things, is clearly not dumb. He may do ridiculous things, and due to his need for attention constantly gets himself into bad/awkward situations, but it's not out of a lack of intelligence. Deep down he seems to be a pretty sad man who finds his only value in being funny and cool. And since it is a "documentary," I feel as though I can believe it. I just can't ever believe that Michael Scott could get any where in life, and because of it I can't find it funny. I'm painfully aware that I'm watching a TV show the whole time, like when someone uses a 555 number. Any sense I have of being lost and "believing" something is real, (especially as a fake documentary which 99% of the humor is based off of,) is lost.

Really, I want to like it! I've tried. I've watched somewhere around 10-15 episodes. I just don't think it's funny, at all. Oh well. Maybe someday.

Playlist:
NIN- The Slip
American Football- American Football
Monarch- The Grandeur That Was Rome
Acceptance- Phantoms
Sayvinyl- God Forbid
The Gloria Record- Start Here
Nickel Creek- Why Should The Fire Die?

You should spend some time... love... you should spend some time... writing better songs

2008-04-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah, not a fan of the new Death Cab For Cutie song. It's not horrible or anything, just boring. Really boring. And the words are pretty dumb too, a trend that has been seeping into their music pretty much ever since The Photo Album, (which was one record after their best one, We have the facts and we're voting yes). Transatlantiscim had a few ok songs, Plans had a few more. I'm still going to get the new cd, but I'm pretty skeptical. Maybe the song will grown on me? Plans did... I hated it at first, but I mostly like it now.

Speaking of bad singles, I do not get at all the big stink being made over Vampire Weekend. Seriously, nothing gets me to turn off the radio right now more than that song. It sounds almost like ska with no horns. It even has the obligatory "huh! huh! huh! huh!" moment in it. Ska fans, you know what I'm talking about. Bad bad bad bad! I think some radio stations just load up Pitchfork and play whatever crap they deem as the next big thing. I freaking hope they're not, I can't take much more of that poo.

I do have some good things to say about music. Gnarls Barkley on SNL this week was fan-friggin-tastic. I loved that song (Run) in the first place, but boy oh boy did it sound awesome and rockin' live. They are too much fun. I'm also really, really excited about the new Thrice cd coming out tomorrow. So much so that I'm planning on getting up early for work, downloading it on Itunes, and burning it so I can listen to it at work. They posted the whole thing on Myspace this weekend, and it sounded amazing. In case you're not cool and in the know, they made a 4 part record based on the 4 elements, (Fire, Water, Earth, Air), each a 6 song EP. Each part corresponds the the element both lyrically and sonicly (did I just make up a word? Yep. Take that). So Fire is the heavier, angrier one, Water is all pretty and kind of dark, Earth is all acoustic, and Air is more electronic and almost poppy. Fire and Water were one of my favorite records of last year, and it'll be really cool to finish it off with the other half tomorrow.

You should go listen to Sayvinyl's new songs on their myspace.

We are about half way through watching the older TV show Twin Peaks. It started off a little slow for me, but after about 3 or 4 episodes it started to really hook me. I can see it's influence on so so many shows that I love- Lost, X-Files, Nip/Tuck, Six Feet Under... among many others I'm sure. It's pretty creepy, and often fun. I'm really curious to see where it's going.

By the way, I am currently writing this on my new computer that my cousin and I built last week. It's awesome. It's probably going to start learning some new tricks pretty soon and kill me and run off with my wife, but at least I'll know that I made it. Dual Core, 4 Gigs of RAM, 64 bit Vista... yes, yes, I'm a geek. It's just nice having a computer that works.

Here's some of the usual political articles (with a comment by me after it):

Obama wasn't just insulting Pennsylvanians- So wait... people are surprised when a pompus elitist politician is patronizing and demeaning to normal people? Sounds pretty standard to me. This is a great article about how Obama has no idea who or what normal America is about, and we're seeing that more and more.

Ethenol is creating a food crisis- I could write for hours about Climate Change. But all that I'll say for now is that it's awesome that in our effort to rid the world of evil cars we are now creating a food crisis. Sweet.

Speaking of climate change, anyone surprised that Al Gore is finally on record as saying he has a vested interest in the green companies he promotes? Wait, wait, wait... Jason... are you saying that Al Gore's intentions are not just to turn the world into a beautiful environmentally friendly utopia, but are to make money? You didn't hear that here folks. I think Al Gore's intentions are pure as virgin snow. This article doesn't think so though.

Speaking of making money, Obama's trying to push some legislation through that would limit the amount of money a CEO can make. That's awesome. I guess since he has never run a business before he's never thought about the fact that if people don't like how much money a CEO makes than can either choose to not buy their product, or the stockholders/board members could vote him out... etc. Guess he's not too concerned with how much money sports people, movie stars, politicians, guys who write books about hope, guys' wives who are heads of big hospitals... they can make as much as they want. Just not CEOs. And certainly not oil company CEOs. Speaking of, do you know how much profit oil companies on average make? I just heard this on the radio last week. 10%. You know how much Microsoft makes? 20+%. You know much Google makes? 25%. I'll leave it at that.

I'm going to go watch some more Twin Peaks. And go listen to the song clips my band posted, if you are so inclined.

Playlist-
Minus the Bear- Planet of Ice
Jawbox- Jawbox
Thrice- Come All You Weary EP
Queens of the Stone Age- Era Vulgaris

Two times in a one day? Oh yes.

2008-04-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

I finally posted a few short clips of some of the demos we've been working on. You can check them out if you want at www.myspace.com/cartsbeforehorses

All Kinds Of Fun

2008-04-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

So finally the craziness of this winter season seams to be nearing an end. And not a moment too soon. For anyone that doesn't know, I work for my family's small business and we have been so inundated with new customers that we've practically been having to turn people away just so we can keep up with the ones that we have. Not necessarily a bad problem to have, but not an easy one to deal with at the same time. We've been working 50-60 hours a week pretty much since December with only an occasional break in the chaos, mostly due to having two trucks but only one Class B license between the two of us. But last week I successfully passed the commercial class B driving test and now we can divide and conquer. Yay for us! Anyways, I haven't written for a while, so here's an assortment of things I've been thinking about...

I am really into U2's The Joshua Tree right now for some reason. I say "for some reason" mostnly because I have never really been that into U2 as a whole, but I have found myself more and more drawn to this record over the last year or two. His lyrics on it and the way that he sings them resonates so profoundly with me right now. Don't get me wrong, the music is good too- it's absolutely positively a classic in every sense of the word. It sounds as good today as it did then, and I'd imagine it'll be just as relevant in 20 years. But I think I totally identify so much with the place he was in when he was writing it. Or at least the place I think he was in. Not only that, but I have so many associations with songs all over the place on it. I remember the exact moment in 8th grade that I first heard "In God's Country" for the first time. "With or Without You" has been in my top 3 favorite songs of all time for years and years. I can remember being in early college and hearing "Bullet the Blue Sky" for the first time, after I heard POD's cover of it and thought, "the original has to be better". It is. And of course "I Still haven't found what I'm looking for". Holy crap. That song ruins me nearly every time I hear it. Who can't relate to that one. My favorite lines are at the end: "I believe in the kingdom come, then all the colors will bleed into one. And yes, I'm still running." I say again, who can't relate to that? We see what we want, what we think/believe to be true... and yet we still run.

I just watched a pretty cool documentary about the music industry called Before The Music Dies.
It was really interesting. The basic premise is that the music industry has split itself into two sections, one that only cares about making as much money as fast as possible and one that cares about making music, and how we can respond to the both of them. Cool interviews with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Rait, Dave Matthews, lots of critics and some former/current music execs. I have American Hardcore next on my Tivo queue , which also looks cool.

I'm really ready for summer movies, there is nothing coming out lately that looks good. Definitely looking forward to Dark Knight, X-Files 2, Step Brothers, and a few others that look cool that I can't think of.

My most depressing realization of the month/year/my life/whatever, is that since we switched to Direct TV a few months ago I no longer get the Padres, since they're only on Cox. Which doesn't come to our apartment complex. What the crap. I am so pissed.

Speaking of sports, go UCLA! I'm hoping for a UNC/UCLA match up, with a victorious UCLA afterwards. We'll see. Tomorrow should be fun.

My dad found a turtle in the middle of the road last week which we have adopted, much to Allison's excitement. She is convinced it's a person, and has had some heated discussions with it on politics and the possible effects of a one world government. She's a remarkably perceptive turtle. She looks like this:
Speaking of politics... it's been a fairly slow couple of weeks for that sort of thing. The only thing I can think of that has happened recently is still fairly outdated, and that would be Obama's big speech on "race" a few weeks ago. I'm sure the majority of America either said "boring!" or "this sure sound like unity and happiness to me" as soon as it came on, given the state of American attention spans. Personally I was a bit offended that he would completely throw his grandmother under the bus in such a public way. I don't think there is much of a comparison to his grandmother commenting in private about being made uncomfortable by someone on a bus and Rev. Wright going on countless racist tirades in public, in a gigantic church. Not quite the same thing. In a similar fashion I thought his comparisons between Rev. Wright's statements and white guys being mad about affirmative action to be equally offensive. They're not the same thing, and it's ridiculous that he would even insinuate it, let alone flat out say it. It's just as ridiculous that he would sit in the pew week after week and not find Wright's statements out of line.

Chris Matthews on Hardball the next day was absolutely hilarious. Uh... bias anyone? I honestly think he has never actually read a history book in his life. I won't even spoil it for you if you haven't seen it before, you'll laugh out loud.

Seriously, if I didn't know he was serious I would absolutely think it's a joke. Over the top much? Also, this is a pretty good article on Obama's attitude towards black people vs Martin Luther King Jr's.

Take care kids. Peace out.

Playlist:
U2- The Joshua Tree
Jawbox- Jawbox and For Your Own Special Sweetheart (J. Robbins, in case you didn't know, is a freaking genius)
Far- The Listening Game
Queens of the Stone Age- Era Vulgaris

Sports, band, TV shows (no spoilers), Obama

2008-03-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

So following one of the most boring months in sports (Mid-Feb to Mid-March) comes one of the best times of the year... the NCAA Tournament. Oh yes. It's awesome, and you know it. Who am I picking this year? You shall soon know, but lest my foes glean some of my knowledge, I will wait to show any picks until after it starts. Why am I writing like a weirdo right now? I don't know. But for reals, this is a great time of year. This is the best tournament in all of sports- it's everything good about the NBA (the name of the sport) and none of the things I despise (egos, complete absence of team play/ball hogs, etc). Anyone can win at any time. It's awesome. Not to mention that baseball is starting soon. We'll see how the Padres are going to be... so far they're looking like... a team in pre-season. So I can't really say. The pitching might be pretty awesome if some of their newly healed up acquisitions pan out.

Good stuff is going on in band land... we are working on some demos to put on myspace. Finished all the drums this weekend, and so far it's all sounding pretty good for a relatively quickly/cheaply done demo.

If you have never watched Dexter, it's pretty interesting. Allison and I just finished Season 1 tonight. I wouldn't watch the version of it they're putting on TV (not Showtime TV that is) right now... I'm sure they cut a lot out of it. Although it's not especially graphic at all. The subject matter (a sympathetic serial killer dealing with his own lack of humanity) lends itself to some dark subject matter, it really doesn't show a lot in the way of violence, and only has a little sex and language, especially for a cable show.

Lost last week made me mad. I called all the twists from the very beginning, and that made it not very fun. Usually the twists are so crazy that I can never guess them, but for some reason this week they were really obvious. Oh well. Maybe this week will be better.

On the Politics end, McCain chewing out some a-hole reporter on an airplane was awesome. These reporters have such a sense of entitlement, and (if you've heard the audio) you can totally hear how surprised she is that he wouldn't just bow to her every gesture. "If I told you about a private conversation it wouldn't be private any more would it?" Classic! I almost don't hate that guy.

Speaking of people I can't stand, Obama's having a great time himself these days with the Jeremiah Wright business. A friend of a friend told my wife this weekend that the reason he supported Obama was because Obama will surround himself with a a whole new group of people, unlike Bush and Clinton who would "re-use the same people over and over again" (paraphrase). Which I think is a good example of why this Wright stuff is important. Obama has claimed this guy to be a mentor (even as close as an uncle), he married the Obamas, Barack has gone to his church for 20 years... and he can tolerate the stuff this guy says? He sat in the pew for 20 years, and he claims to have never heard this stuff? Barack named his book after a quote from Wright (The Audacity of Hope) and was even going to have him speak at a big rally of his. A guy who claims that HIV was created by the American Government to keep the black man down, that we deserved 9/11 because of dropping the bombs in WWII, and all kinds of other lunacy. So here's why this is important. I've heard lots of commentators with the "Barack's going to surround himself with good/smart people" comments. But Wright is his mentor. Hmmm.... doesn't seem like Obama's a real good judge of character in this case. Hope he fixes that before the White House.

At least we can finally understand where Michelle Obama gets her crazy-talk. Oh but wait, Barack "categorically denounce[s] any statement that disparages our great country"... except for when your wife says them? Sounds good! Here's a story on it all. (Thanks for the link Kerr!)

Here's some other good articles:

Obama walks arrogance line

What earmarks has Senator Obama requested for fiscal years 2006 and 2007?

Obama and commie posters

I really want to go to SXSW next year. Anyone want to go? Speaking of music stuff, what is with the Coachella line up? Jack Johnson headlining? Someone kill me. Guess I won't be sweating out in the sun with a thousand smelly scene kids-turned hippies once again this year.

Playlist
Portishead- Dummy
Megadeath- Countdown to Extinction
Kelly Clarkson- My December
Beck- Midnite Vultures
Thrice- Come All Your Weary EP

SNL, fun/nerd stuff (don't worry, no spoilers!)

2008-03-06T22:34:00.000-08:00

I've been hearing about this SNL skit for the past week or two and how upset it made Obama. It's fairly ironic that the first time SNL is funny in years is when they are making fun of an idea they are horribly guilty of themselves. Guess it takes one to know one, right? If you haven't seen it, they're making fun of the media and how ridiculously in love with Obama they are, even as they claim to be unbiased and just reporting the facts. Obama should be upset- he's definitly not used to having a single moment of his day where everyone isn't falling over themselves because of him, and it's an even greater sting coming from the huge steaming pile of liberal bias that generally is SNL. I would imagine Hillary was able to handle it a little better, everyone already knows and accepts that she's nuts and has been mocking her for forever. Anyways, if you haven't seen it, here's the only streaming version I could find.

Lost (no spoilers, don't worry) was awesome once again. Probably more of a setting up type episode, but still brought up some interesting things. Definitely looking forward to next week.

Smash Bros. Brawl comes out for the Wii (finally this weekend). It's about freaking time, the stupid thing has been delayed enough. Now something can distract me from the new Zelda game, which, if you didn't know, is amazing.

If you didn't know already, LaLa.com is the greatest thing ever. You list all your CDs you don't want, people list all their CDs they don't want, LaLa sends you envelopes and cases (with postage paid), and you trade for $1. So, so easy. I've gotten rid of like 30 or 40 CDs (that a used store would have given me like $2 each for) and gotten good ones I want in return. Try it.

It's almost the weekend! I can't wait to sleep in.

Playlist:
Telefon Tel Aviv- Fahrenheit Fair Enough
American Football
Dinosaur Jr.- Without a Sound

Foo Fighters, TV, Political News, etc.

2008-03-05T23:10:00.000-08:00

Allison and I saw the Foo Fighters at Cox Arena on Monday, March 3rd. Great, great show. We sat outside until Serj was done, since he's weird and lame. Please please please get back together System of a Down! I really can't handle his solo stuff. Not to mention he's even more annoyingly political than he was before. Bleh. We had pretty decent seats, pretty much dead center. The sound was so-so, not terrible for being a big arena type place, but no where near as good as the Tool show I saw there last year. More muddy than anything else. Great light show- they had some pretty cool see-through TV screens up behind them the showed the band playing and played some cool videos. They sounded basically like, well, a band that's been playing together for a long time. Like they are one giant machine with Dave Grohl as the head. Probably 3/4's of the old songs had extended bridges/jams that were always entertaining and fun. "Stacked Actors" even saw the band leave the stage for a sweet drum solo. Dave must spend a lot of time running off tour, because he spent the entire night sprinting back and forth on the stage and out onto the giant runner that projected out across the entire floor. He is one of the most entertaining showmen I have ever seen, bar none. Absolutely hilarious guy. And seems pretty genuine/down to earth as well. Probably the best part of the show was the acoustic set about midway through. A circle shaped stage lowered from the ceiling that connected with the end of the runner, putting a stage right in the middle of the small arena. It was really cool, all the sudden we had awesome seats. Definitely a great show. I would have liked to have heard a few more non-single songs, but it was still fun.

Here's the set list (for those of you that care)
Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn To Fly
Cheer Up Boys, Your Make Up Is Running
This Is A Call
Stacked Actors

(acoustic set)
Skin And Bones
Marigold
My Hero
Cold Day In The Sun
But, Honestly

(back to not acoustic)
Everlong
Monkey Wrench
All My Life

(Encore)
Big Me
Long Road To Ruin
Best Of You

In case you didn't know, I'm a big American Idol fan. It's fun and I like music. Plus it genuinely produces stars. At least it used to anyway. I find my interest waning every year since Carrie Underwood (who rules). I can't really find anyone I love so far, sadly. Maybe once it gets down to the finals next week I'll have a horse in the race, but not yet. I may not love anyone but that doesn't mean that there can't be people I want off the show now (besides Paula, the most worthless person in entertainment, which is saying a lot):- Dreadlocks (who murdered a Jeff Buckley classic), Elvira Queen of the Night girl, Over the top flamboyant boy, Boy band guy (Luke?). My prediction for tomorrow night's vote off is: Elvira, Luke, Danny... and one other girl. Not sure who.

Lost is on tomorrow. I'll have an entire post dedicated to it's awesomeness in the near future.

On the news/politics front, some pretty interesting Obama stories came out this week. The entire press core (who are a bunch of worthless soulless jackals) all the sudden decided to stop giving Obama the gold paved free ride he's been enjoying for months. Guess they don't like being blatantly lied too. Who'd have thought? (If you didn't hear about it, here's what happened: he has been talking pretty negatively about NAFTA for a few weeks, especially in Ohio. This weekend a memo was released that he had sent to the Canadian government that basically said that he loved NAFTA but he needed to pretend like he didn't in order to make good in Ohio). Hilarious! Here's some fun Obama links:

Angry Obama Bombarded By Media

Ask tough questions? Yes, they can!

Canadian NAFTA Memo

Does Obama Drive a gas guzzler?

You Want Change? Give me a break.

I'm going to bed so I'm not even going to proofread this. Take that!

Playlist:
NIN- The Fragile (I've been on a big NIN kick lately for some reason)
Acceptance- Phantoms
Protest the Hero- Fortress
Radiohead- Kid A and In Rainbows Disc 2
Norma Jean- Redeemer
Denali- Denali

Why I will not be voting for Barack Obama

2008-03-01T23:35:00.000-08:00

I’m going to start things off with a bang and talk some politics. This is way, way too long, so if you make it through the whole thing, you’re awesome. I’ve just been thinking about these few points for the last week or two, and I have to get them out of my head.

I will begin with a few disclaimers.

Firstly, I am not writing this with any specific support of alternatives in mind (ie, McCain, Clinton, George W. Bush, Kanye West, Jon Stewart, Chewbacca, whatever). I don’t give a crap about parties, Republican, Democrat, whatever. I’m a registered independent. I vote for people (as much as humanly possible) based on things are proven and recordable- ideas, voting records, etc.

Secondly, this as nothing to do with racism. I believe institutional racism is something that exists primarily in the minds of people who want it to be there for political purposes, and the rest in various Confederate flag waving backwood Southern towns. I always find it hilarious that the same people who instantly play the race card are never around when Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Colin Powell are being attacked. Or how about Alan Keyes? Where have all of you suddenly racially sensitive people been during his 10+ year run for office. Oh wait, I forgot, your heartfelt convictions stop at the door when it comes to people you disagree with. But for reals, I could care less what color Obama’s skin is. I care about the issues.

Which leads me to my third point:

I will not be discussing why I like or dislike Obama on the basis of the way that he talks, his age, his relation to young people, or how good looking he may or may not be. Sorry college students of America, I believe that there should be actual relevant reasons why someone should be voted into office of the most powerful nation in the world beyond what’s on their Ipod. This is one of the things that infuriates me most about Obama, and to be fair, it isn’t his fault. He’s an incredibly gifted speaker. He really is. But I just can’t stand it that whenever I ask someone why they want to vote for him, they tell me all about how much he wants to change and how young he is. And I say, “yes, but what does he stand for?” And they say, “he has deep rooted convictions!” And I say, “like what? What does he actually want to do?” And they don’t know, because for the most part, no one knows. It’s true. I mean, his economic plan wasn’t even released until this last week. So everyone’s freaking out about this guy, and they don’t even know why. We’re off to a great start.

Lastly, if you’re an Obama super fan, please don’t be offended or take anything personal. For reals, I’m just talking about his ideas here. I know lots and lots and lots of people who are big Obama fans, and this isn’t directed at anyone specifically, in any way shape or form, only him. Ok, maybe a few shots at his army of annoying 19 year olds across the country. I’m not making anything up, and not saying to piss people off, it’s all documented. If you don’t like it, respond and tell me why. Just please, please, please… don’t take it personal. I beg you. I have tons of friends whom I disagree with politically, religiously, whatever… and it really doesn’t matter. It’s just fun to talk about. I don’t mean to make a big deal out of it, you just never know how people are going to react when it comes to this sort of thing. And I’ll probably be blogging about this type of thing a lot.

That being said…

Economic Policies
This is probably the issue that gets me most mad about Obama. We’re talking throwing pillows at the TV mad. Screaming like the Chargers just did something stupid mad. I guess I just take a lot of his constant rhetoric really personally. I’ll explain. In a speech I watched him give a few weeks ago to a big room full of college students he stated that it is “wrong that a CEO can make more money in 10 minutes than you can make in a week.” That is almost a direct quote. So here’s what I would like to know: I have a very close family member who is a CEO at a big company. Is it wrong, Barack, that after working 2 jobs to put himself through college, after working his way up the ladder of many different companies, that he is in such high demand that companies seek him out and offer him a good amount of money to work for them? I’d really like to know. What insight into morality has Obama been given that defines that as “wrong?” Just yesterday Michelle Obama (his wife) gave a speech where she told a bunch of college students that it is more noble and moral to work as teachers and social workers than in any type of corporate setting. I’m not saying it’s not noble to be a teacher. I’m saying that they are morally neutral as jobs, and it’s ridiculous that the Obamas feel the need to get up on their high horses and make such sweeping judgments on other people’s vocational choices. Especially when they themselves are the beneficiaries of the same system they are decrying.

Why does that make me so mad? What do I mean by that? Stay with me, I’ll get there. It’s my favorite part.

Naturally one of Obama’s primary points he harps on over and over again is how much Bush has cut taxes for the rich and blah blah blah. This is ridiculous and I think demonstrates a pretty scary state of mind for his listening audience. Soft bigotry of low expectations anyone? He just expects them to nod their heads and say, “yeah, that sounds good! Screw rich people!” without actually thinking about what he’s saying.

So here’s what he’s saying. In my references is a small chart that gives a basic tax breakdown. In it, you will find that the top 1% of tax payers pay 33% of the income tax that the government receives. That’s right, 1% pays a THIRD. So the reality is that the people who receive the biggest tax cuts… wait for it… are the main people who are actually paying taxes! Why is this important? Because Barack (and to be fair, pretty much every Democrat for the last 20 years) doesn’t care about the reality of taxes, he cares about inciting and perpetuating class warfare. He must be. There is not other way to explain his way of thinking. The mentality he is propagating is that somehow these people don’t deserve the money they have earned, and everyone else is entitled to a piece of it. Sound like communist/socialist redistribution of wealth? That’s because it is. There is no other way to look at that. And it is blatantly anti- American Founding Fathers. Remember the Boston Tea Party? One of the foundational elements of why this country was created was because the government was reaching too far into people’s pockets. Period.

The way it stands now if you make over $150,000 you pay nearly 40% of every dollar you make in taxes. Any way you slice it that is ridiculous. And according to Obama’s plan, he’s going to make it higher. Not only on regular tax payers, but on small business, corporations, etc. Like the company my family owns. Like most of America, an economy based on 70% small businesses. You know one of the big reasons the economy is so bad? Because we have the 2^nd highest corporate tax rate in the world and foreign and domestic investors would rather take their money to other more business friendly countries. Again, Barack wants to make that tax higher too. Why? Because apparently our government doesn’t have enough money as it is so rather than cut spending on pork barrel bs they raise taxes on easy targets like big business and smokers. Mainly because it sounds nice to say you’re going to go after all the big evil businesses in America by taxing them more (never mind that it will hurt all of us in the end by making businesses services cost more). And because it sounds really good to some people to take money from people who have earned it and give it to other people who haven’t, in the form of government programs. Yay Socialism!

A big point on his webpage is that in order to fight poverty he will promptly raise minimum wage. If this isn’t a blatant grab for votes I don’t know what is. How is raising minimum wage going to do anything about fighting poverty? If it is, why don’t we just make minimum wage $100 an hour! No more poverty! Everyone’s happy! We’ll build chocolate waterfalls on every corner and plant money trees at every household! Oh wait, you can’t do that, you say. And why not? Because minimum wage is not the monetary ideal. It exists for the most bottom level, high schooler type jobs. Of course you can’t support a family on minimum wage, and you’re not supposed to. But when you constantly raise the minimum raise, we all lose. What do you think is going to happen at companies who employ lots of people on minimum wage when they all of the sudden have to start paying them more for no reason? People are going to get laid off. And inflation goes up. So the end result is that people will get poorer. But it makes an awesome sound bite, so people keep pushing the idea over and over again.

Oh yeah, and my favorite part of all of this? The Obama household makes a lot of money. In 2005 they made $1.7 Million. (see reference). So this same person who talks about how “wrong” it is for someone to make more money in 10 minutes than you can make in a week… is one of those people. Except he forgot to mention that part in his speech. Anyone have the word “hypocrite” flash through their mind just now? Yeah, me too. It would be one thing if this was just some passing comment, but it’s not. Again, this is a foundational point of his candidacy. So what’s the point? The point is not their money- I don’t care how much money he makes. He made that much money because he wrote a book that a lot of people liked and he got paid a lot for it. His wife is the president of a hospital (I think) which means she makes a lot too. Good! They should! The point is that they’re entire well being is an example of freaking capitalism working!

I’ll come back to Socialism and how horrible an idea it is in a later blog.

Foreign Policy
I’ll keep this one short. Firstly, for everyone who is super anti-war (aren’t we all?) and such, can you explain to me why after being confronted by various people about how soft all his foreign policy ideas are, Barack responded with “Let’s attack Pakistan!” You know, Pakistan, one of the few actual allies we have in the middle east, a country who has been cooperative with us in the past few years, and who is on the brink of craziness themselves right now (since the assassination of one of the key leaders a few months ago). That sounds like an awesome idea! First, he’s going to pull us straight out of Iraq, and then he’s going to attack areas in another country, when every single expert in America says to let them first take care of themselves, then get our help. Also, I hate to break it to all of you who believe this, but he’s not going to pull us out of Iraq. He’s really not. You think he is going to tie the Democratic party to a loss in Iraq for all of time? No freaking way. I know, this is an overly simplistic answer… maybe I’ll write an Iraq blog later too… but I just don’t buy it for one second. He’s not going to get into office, look at every report from every guy on the ground, hear about how well things are going (which is what you will hear from anyone who is actually there or has been there, besides CNN and the New York Times), and then pull us out. Whether you like it or not, the surge is working. And as a side note, he may want to try to talk away some of these JFK comparisons when it comes to Foreign Policy… people like to forget that JFK was responsible for getting us into Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of Pigs.

Experience/Accomplishments (or a complete lack thereof)
In my opinion, Obama has never accomplished a noteworthy thing in his life that should lead anyone to believe he is worthy of leading America. For reals, name one. He has almost no existing voting record, firstly because he has a ridiculously high Senate absence rate (missed 39.8% of votes. Let’s compare that with a few others… Boxer 5.7%, Kerry 5%, Hatch 1.5%, Byrd, 2.9%), and secondly because he voted “present” a ton in the Illinois State Senate. For someone with such deep convictions he sure refused to take a stand on a lot of things- which is the point of voting “present.” It is voting “no” in effect, since it is not voting for, but is generally used as a way to be able to play both sides later down the road. You can say, “see, I didn’t vote for that bill” or “see, I didn’t vote against that bill.” Proof of its effectiveness? Just google “Obama” and “abortion” and you’ll find some articles about how pissed NOW got at him for voting present on a big abortion bill in the Illinois State Senate. They feel that he was doing exactly that- talking big on an issue but refusing to put his money where his mouth is. That bill, in case you didn’t know, was to define a fetus that survived an abortion as a person, which would then make it illegal for a doctor to terminate it. According to a story I watched on CNN a few weeks ago about this topic, the same bill came through on a federal level and passed unanimously. Even Barbara Boxer, the biggest abortion rights advocate in the world voted yes on it. But Obama, dug down deep into his well of character, and voted… present. Too bad the hope he carries for America doesn’t carry over to those babies. And we can say that they are babies, since the law passed.

In fact, for someone who is so big on hope and change, he sure hasn’t done a lot with the time he’s been in the Senate. There is not one single noteworthy bill that he put through with his name on it. Again, I don’t mean to call people names here, but that sounds a bit hypocritical to me. We all remember his big “Just Words” speech (which I don’t think counts as plagiarism, for the record), and yet no one can really find much more than words for his entire time in the Senate. I just want to know how I am supposed to believe someone who is all about “change” and yet has never used the time/position they have been given to actually do any change. Or do much of anything besides prepare for running for office. He’s never run a business, a state, a city, anything. He was asked on TV a few weeks ago how he would respond to the question of experience, and his response was “I’ve run my office and I’ve run my campaign.” Awesome. I’m supposed to trust someone with the helm of the biggest world superpower based on the fact that he can tell a few secretaries and interns what to do every day. I can’t believe he actually said that with a straight face.

So there’s a few of my thoughts after watching a bunch of his speeches and some of the debates. I guess on the upside, if he wins for some reason, I’ll have a lot of things to be pissed about for a long time. Yay!

Here are some references:

Obama’s Household Income

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=22202

Obama’s voting record

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/

Obama on attacking Pakistan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-obama2aug02,1,7725440.story

Obama and voting present

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20obama.html

Obama’s record

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/17/politics/main2369157.shtml

Tax breakdown

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/341.html

The Beginning

2008-03-01T11:22:00.001-08:00

Hi kids.

I really need an outlet, and I'm not a big fan of the myspace blog thing, so here I go. I'm sure I won't be nearly as regular as I'd like, but I'll try.

Expect various rantings about music, movies, TV, politics, books, video games, etc.

Love,
J