Another one..... Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Old Crow Medicine Show live in London.
http://youtu.be/zXf-SuBbJa0
It
Doesn't
Get
Any
Better
Than
This.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Warren Haynes
Just heard an interview with Warren Haynes on NPR this morning, He is one of the best singers and guitar slingers I've ever heard and it was very cool to hear what he had to say and listen to some of his new music being broadcast to the world - a prime example of what National Public Radio is all about!
Here's a link to him with the Dave Matthews Band in Central Park doing Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" - made the hairs on my arms stand up, not too fucking often somebody can cover that one so well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCiLCo-LoUg
An Asheville, NC native - best of the best.
Here's a link to him with the Dave Matthews Band in Central Park doing Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" - made the hairs on my arms stand up, not too fucking often somebody can cover that one so well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCiLCo-LoUg
An Asheville, NC native - best of the best.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
He Sleeps With The Fishies
The Navy Seals came through; Pakistan apparently missed that one of the whole worlds most wanted humans was living right in the middle of the town that houses their own version of West Point. Makes me wonder about who we call "allies" in this woefully misbegotten war thing our government has been engaged in for a decade.
If you want some background on where this wretched mess bubbled up, read "Charlie Wilson's War" to gain some understanding on how the US set the stage for what is now a reality way back when the old Soviet Union tried to play the Afghan game and we pretty much created and armed their opposition and then (of course) abandoned them.
Osama Bin Laden sleeps with the fishies, hope the sharks don't suffer too much digestive upset.....
If you want some background on where this wretched mess bubbled up, read "Charlie Wilson's War" to gain some understanding on how the US set the stage for what is now a reality way back when the old Soviet Union tried to play the Afghan game and we pretty much created and armed their opposition and then (of course) abandoned them.
Osama Bin Laden sleeps with the fishies, hope the sharks don't suffer too much digestive upset.....
Monday, April 4, 2011
A Shitstain on the Underwear of the Universe
Hey, golly, another member of the Jesus Taliban has managed to foul the underwear of life out of all proportion to his actual importance....
If I could, I would happily show up in close proximity to Terry Jones's church with a grinning gang of my like-minded maniacs and conduct a "trial" of the King James Bible for its crimes against humanity and then commit said book to the same flames that he did for the Koran.
While I agree that (in my opinion) that worthless, useless, self-deluded, spawn of anal intercourse between the ghosts of Adolph Hitler and Caligula has every right to spew his vile, despicable, twisted and ugly worldview, that also gives me the right to call him, and everybody who agrees with him, a blot of monumental proportions on everything decent that the rest of humanity aspires to.
Maybe, someday, we can do better.
Until then, as Pat Buchanan once said (forgive me, Pat, if I've got it wrong), "Ride to the sound of the guns!" and lets take these fuckers on and let the world know that our tradition of free speech is still alive and well!
If I could, I would happily show up in close proximity to Terry Jones's church with a grinning gang of my like-minded maniacs and conduct a "trial" of the King James Bible for its crimes against humanity and then commit said book to the same flames that he did for the Koran.
While I agree that (in my opinion) that worthless, useless, self-deluded, spawn of anal intercourse between the ghosts of Adolph Hitler and Caligula has every right to spew his vile, despicable, twisted and ugly worldview, that also gives me the right to call him, and everybody who agrees with him, a blot of monumental proportions on everything decent that the rest of humanity aspires to.
Maybe, someday, we can do better.
Until then, as Pat Buchanan once said (forgive me, Pat, if I've got it wrong), "Ride to the sound of the guns!" and lets take these fuckers on and let the world know that our tradition of free speech is still alive and well!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
More Heinlein
The Jesus Taliban have been getting on my nerves again, these fuckers are seriously bent on destroying America.
With that, I bring you some thoughts by Robert Anson Heinlein.... these bits are taken from the postscript to "Revolt in 2100" copyright by him in 1953 (!!!). I sincerely hope that his estate will forgive me for not contacting them prior to posting here.
..........
As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country - Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not - but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears, Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the results might be something quite frightening - particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
..........
Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
..........
What he said back then remains true today and we must be on guard lest we fall victim to their depredations. Make no mistake, if the Jesus Taliban get their evil hands on the levers of power in totality, terror and death will follow and The United States of America will vanish from the face of the earth.
With that, I bring you some thoughts by Robert Anson Heinlein.... these bits are taken from the postscript to "Revolt in 2100" copyright by him in 1953 (!!!). I sincerely hope that his estate will forgive me for not contacting them prior to posting here.
..........
As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country - Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not - but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears, Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the results might be something quite frightening - particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
..........
Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
..........
What he said back then remains true today and we must be on guard lest we fall victim to their depredations. Make no mistake, if the Jesus Taliban get their evil hands on the levers of power in totality, terror and death will follow and The United States of America will vanish from the face of the earth.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Vox-Fucking-Who?
Website I randomly became aware of more than a year ago, Vox Popoli. And I quote:
"Featuring Vox Day, Internet Superintelligence, AWCA, WFM"
Wow. This is too good to pass up..... arrogance is bliss, eh? The guy is interesting to read but, upon investigation, his self-proclaimed status is less than all that. I'll go with something like "Internet Interestingintelligence" but can't go much beyond that.
I'm no slouch meself, put the blast to the Stanford-Binet tests as a child, numbers on the far side of genius and then rattled the US military when I took their tests near the end of the fun and games in Southeast Asia.
The Internet is an interesting place but, all things considered, I'll take Fred Reed over Vox Day.......
"Featuring Vox Day, Internet Superintelligence, AWCA, WFM"
Wow. This is too good to pass up..... arrogance is bliss, eh? The guy is interesting to read but, upon investigation, his self-proclaimed status is less than all that. I'll go with something like "Internet Interestingintelligence" but can't go much beyond that.
I'm no slouch meself, put the blast to the Stanford-Binet tests as a child, numbers on the far side of genius and then rattled the US military when I took their tests near the end of the fun and games in Southeast Asia.
The Internet is an interesting place but, all things considered, I'll take Fred Reed over Vox Day.......
Friday, February 4, 2011
Been a while, back again
From Robert Anson Heinlein's character, Lazarus Long:
The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.
And again:
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
Just a thought.....
The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.
And again:
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
Just a thought.....
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