Thursday, November 30

Must empty more links from Bloglines!

I got my saved Lifehacker links down under 130, so I'm happy about that :-(

+ Names I like from Hype Machine:
  • DeVotchka
  • Nation of Ulysses
  • the Wondertwins
  • Killing Joke (Batman reference, at least to me)
  • Oliver North Boy Choir
  • The Rural Alberta Advantage (reminiscent of Iowa Beef Experience)
  • How I Became the Bomb (Someone set us up the bomb...)
  • And last, but certainly not least, Carpal Tunnel of Love (which, unrelatedly, evokes 'Cradle of Love' by Billy Idol for me)
+ Internet videos enjoyed tonight:
Good night!

Let's do a Wii post

I've been saving some stuff up. I'm a closet Wii fan. That is, we don't have one yet. Maybe Xmas next year...

+ In praise of third place - It works for Nintendo. (via kottke) Sony and MS are selling their boxes at a loss, locked in mortal combat, and there's still no way I'd way that kind of money for those machines. I don't forsee us having HD anytime soon.

+ Matt Haughey's controller took flight when he was 'bowling' . That straps on there for a reason...

+ kottke doesn"t have one, but he liked the one he played.

Hmm. Thought I had more links than that saved up. Oh well. I even did some googling, but nothing struck my fancy. So that's all you get! ;-)

Wednesday, November 29

Idea re: leaked memo

Here's an idea for you. It's so obvious to folks like me who lean left (right of wrong), that I'm sure someone's already done it:

Analyze President Bush according to the criteria applied to Iraqi President Maliki in the leaked Hadley memo.

Like I said - obvious.


Monday, November 27

The Wired post

Man, there's a lot to like in this latest edition of Wired. Of course, with Shopping Season (America's greatest Holy-days) upon us, the features don't start until page 200.

The cover topic is YouTube, and I really like that coverage. The main article name checks a lot of the videos I have enjoyed on YouTube including The Evolution of Dance and those guys on treadmills.

A lot of the article is about how old media doesn't get it and can YouTube monetize the right amount to be significant in business but not lose its indie soul?

I say yes. They can hit enough of a happy medium (get it? 'medium'? ;-) to make money and still get a lot of participation. Plus, they're now owned by Google, who are the masters of unobtrusive monetization. Sure, plenty of the purists cry foul on Google and YouTube. These are the same kinds of people who can't listen to Ben Gibbard anymore since he's on a major label. Let them slink back to more obscure server farms and continue to fight the cultural power. They talk about maybe attaching advertising videos, but, heck, I don't see why they can't just do text ads on most of the free, personally uploaded content and make their money back that way.

Old media doesn't get it? Who cares? Let them extinct themselves, and good riddance.

The next article's about a Tahoe ad campaign that let people mix their own. [Not available yet.] Many were critical and subversive. It's an interesting experiment, but I don't think this is going to be the next-gen advertising model. For one thing, aren't we more post-major-brand-loyalty than that? What hipster loves her Chevy?

Here's an idea: monitor the major new media streams for brand mentions. Plenty of them are majorly commercial. When Kevin Kelly or Matt Haughey or Jason Kottke or Mighy Girl say they like something, leverage it. Make a special offer through their site. Ask them to indie-produce something for you own back-channel, low-level, weblog or YouTube campaign.

Ohmigosh. I could be a New Marketeer. What should the name of my firm be? seanmeade.net? ;-)

I liked the article on lonelygirl , too. Now those people know what they're doing. One of them (who is a woman to give the right tone) answers 500 email a day. More evidence that old media is dead. If these guys had hit it big on TV they'd have a street named lonelygirl in Burbank. But they don't have an major old media deal to bankroll them to keep doing what they're doing. {Ring Ring} Cluephone. It's for you...

Interesting article called Edifice, Complex [Not available yet]on the engineering of Gehry-esque buildings. Cool stuff.

Saturday, November 25

December Wired

Man, there's a lot to like in this latest edition of Wired. Of course, with Shopping Season (America's greatest Holy-days) upon us, the features don't start until page 200.

The cover topic is YouTube, and I really like that coverage. The main article name checks a lot of the videos I have enjoyed on YouTube including The Evolution of Dance and those guys on treadmills.

A lot of the article is about how old media doesn't get it and can YouTube monetize the right amount to be significant in business but not lose its indie soul.

I say yes. They can hit enough of a happy medium (get it? 'medium'? ;-) to make money and still get a lot of participation. Plus, they're now owned by Google, who are the masters of unobtrusive monetization. Sure, plenty of the purists cry foul on Google and YouTube. These are the same kinds of people who can't listen to Ben Gibbard anymore since he's on a major label. Let them slink back to more obscure server farms and continue to fight the cultural power. They talk about maybe attaching advertising videos, but, heck, I don't see why they can't just do text ads on most of the free, personally uploaded content and make their money back that way.

Old media doesn't get it? Who cares? Let them extinct themselves, and good riddance.

The next article's about a Tahoe ad campaign that let people mix their own. Many were critical and subversive. It's an interesting experiment, but I don't think this is going to be the next-gen advertising model. For one thing, aren't we more post-major-brand-loyalty than that? What hipster loves her Chevy?

Here's an idea: monitor the major new media streams for brand mentions. Plenty of them are majorly commercial. When Kevin Kelly or Matt Haughey or Jason Kottke or Mighy Girl say they like something, leverage it. Make a special offer through their site. Ask them to indie-produce something for you own back-channel, low-level, weblog or YouTube campaign.

Ohmigosh. I could be a New Marketeer. What should the name of my firm be? seanmeade.net? ;-)

I liked the article on lonelygirl, too. Now those people know what they're doing. One of them (who is a woman to give the right tone) answers 500 email a day. More evidence that old media is dead. If these guys had hit it big on TV they'd have a street named lonelygirl in Burbank. But they don't have an major old media deal to bankroll them to keep doing what they're doing. {Ring Ring} Cluephone. It's for you...

Interesting article called Edifice, Complex on the engineering of Gehry-esque buildings. Cool stuff.

Wednesday, November 22

Ooh, forgot one

A couple of my favorite Clash songs (Rock the Casbah and Should I Stay...) linked in this post with the great title By order of the prophet, we ban that boogie sound!

Peace!

Indie is the new pop

Had a big argument with Terry back in 1998-ish about whether Pearl Jam was pop or not. His brother settled it with the question 'Do they play it on the radio every day?' ;-)

+ A few more names I like from the Hype Machine:
  • Arcwelder (since I currently sell welding supplies ;-)
  • Garmisch Partenkirchen - I don't know what this means, but IIRC, Garmisch is a German city/area in Bavaria. 'Kirchen' is churches. And I think 'Parten' should be 'parties'. Thus, I read it as 'Garmisch Partychurches' ;-) Google translates it as ' Mix part churches'. Turns out rather boringly that the whole name is a city and a region in Bavaria.
  • The Shackletons - you know, Endurance and all that
  • The Maccabees
  • Misty Mountain Hop
+ David Brooks of the NYT had an interesting column Saturday about Borat and how he basically does the standard lampoons of the 'educated bourgeoisie'. I'd be interested in commentary from Dan who recently wrote about Borat.

+ Matt Haughey got a Wii and wrote a review. Short version: he loves it. Xmas 2007, here we come ;-)

+ defective yeti's last Bad Review Revue was pretty funny. (I also liked his [Political] Silver Linings, but that's REALLY old news now.)

+ I liked Defense Tech's recent post [historical] Lessons of the Dreadnought.

+ Ken [Can I call you Ken? ;-)] had a punctuation post where he referenced 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' with pretty much the same reaction I had to it.

+ Dan links to The Nietzsche Family Circus: 'which is a random Nietzsche quotation combined with a random Family Circus drawing'. Can't not link it.

There you are: You are the beneficiary of Wil waking me up before 6 ;-)

Cleaning out Bloglines

Here's an old post that got lost in my Drafts folder. None of it is now news.

+ Story of a guy who got addicted to World of Warcraft and then quit. Cautionary tale or cultural data. (via Matt)

+ Funny/sad Onion headline: N Korea Detonates 40 years of GDP (via Defense Tech)

+ Jaq's got a post on the NFL that's similar to my recent ramblings.

+ Interesting Wired article Attack of the bots: bots, botnets, DDOS, DNS attacks, and how some rogue took down Blue Security, an anti-spam company from Israel.




Saturday, November 18

Cherry picking

Let's pick a few things to post on saturday morning:

+ No longer news but still good: NASA's fixing Hubble. I kept hoping this would happen, especially since Hubble's undoubtedly the best thing they've got.

+ Aaron sounds like he could about go pro in poker.

+ defective yeti: Better PR for grilled cheese in the morning and Job (double meaning) quarterly report.

+ Morbid but funny: Suicide Letter Wizard for Microsoft Word.

+ Funny Dilbert about loss of personal meaning.

+ Interesting names from The Hype Machine
  • Handsome Boy Modeling School
  • The Metric Mile
  • Zelienople (hail the Pittsburgh MSA!)
+ Ken Jennings' life is very interesting now. His bishop called him about his bad language and he told an unwitting lady at church that he was being Ken Jennings for Halloween.

+ John Hardy has had some interesting Laptan posts on The Evolution of Numbers, Counting by hand around the world, and The Floating Islands of Zacatón.

+ This post is brought to you by old-school Vigilantes of Love: Earth Has No Sorrow, Goes Without Saying, and Resplendent.

Friday, November 17

MyFM this morning

Well, I don't know if anyone cares but me, but I thought I'd write some more about music this morning.

First off, Jason picked up on my Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs post and picked 50 . Go read it!

Second, saw the Lyrics Born/U2 mashup Callin' on Sunday linked on the Hype Machine this morning. I really like this mashup. You should check it out.

I talk big, but I'm not ready to take on the RIAA yet, so I won't be posting any mp3s myself. I guess I could do something anonymously. Then I could be like 'Wow! That Guy In Columbia links such great music! Listen to everything he posts! ;-)

I have in mind to do more with a ranked list of my favorite mashups, but I'm not promising that's going to happen.

Last, my playlist from the commute this morning. Shorter because the bus had already cleared out.

Don't You Want Me Baby?
Jesus Walks (Know what the Midwest is? Young and restless...)
Living in Oblivion
Love Walks In
Mad About You

Next: Gonna Make You Sweat

Turn on some music. Rock out a little bit. Celebrate Christine's birthday. Peace!

Thursday, November 16

More on music: commuting

Why am I posting so much about music these days? It's not like I'm listening to lots more than normal. Some of it is the continuing dividend of copying all of my mp3s from the desktop to the laptop.

Anyway, I got to thinking this morning, if everyone listened during their commute to the music I listen toduting my commute, everyone would be happy. We'd be looking at each other, bobbing our heads, smiling, pointing at the radio.

Maybe I should invest in one of those little devices that broadcasts your music from your mp3 player to your radio. Get the strongest one, then print a bumper sticker that says:

Listen to MyFM:
Tune to XX.X
seanmeade.net

I'd be gettin cards and letters from people I don't even know ;-)

Anyway, this morning's playlist:

Baba O'Riley - The Who
Breathless - The Corrs
I Ran - Flock of Seagulls
Come on Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Don't Go Breakin My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee

(As you can tell, my commute's not very long, and that was even behind the school bus this morning.)

Who wouldn't love it? At least until you get to work ;-)

Wednesday, November 15

99 of my favorite songs

This is a not-much-ordered list developed from my Last.fm top tracks page. (I did try to put the very favorite favorites at the top.)
  1. R.E.M.Gardening at Night
  2. a-haTake on Me
  3. Vigilantes of Love Resplendent
  4. Pierce PettisGod Believes in You
  5. R.E.M.Fall on Me
  6. New Order Bizarre Love Triangle
  7. The Dream AcademyLife in a Northern
  8. Dexy's Midnight RunnersCome On Eileen
  9. Toad the Wet SprocketAll I Want
  10. The Postal ServiceSuch Great Heights
  11. Modest Mouse Float On
  12. R.E.M.Shaking Through
  13. Vigilantes of LoveSkin
  14. Alison Krauss & Union Station Down to the River to Pray
  15. The ClashRock the Casbah
  16. Death Cab for Cutie Soul Meets Body
  17. U2Beautiful Day
  18. R.E.M.Near Wild Heaven
  19. The Smiths Girlfriend in a Coma
  20. Vigilantes of LoveOffer
  21. FischerspoonerNever Win
  22. Cutting Crew One for the Mockingbird
  23. blink-182I Miss You
  24. The CranberriesLinger
  25. The Sundays Here's Where The Story Ends
  26. RadioheadAirbag
  27. The Flaming LipsYoshimi Battles the Pink
  28. New Order Regret
  29. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones The Impression that I Get
  30. The White StripesSeven Nation Army
  31. ErasureA Little Respect
  32. Counting CrowsA Murder of One
  33. The Corrs Breathless
  34. Matthew SweetSick of Myself
  35. 'Til TuesdayVoices Carry
  36. Kirsty MacColl You and Me Baby
  37. The Go-Go'sHead Over Heels
  38. The SmithsThere Is a Light That Never
  39. Sister HazelChange Your Mind
  40. Death Cab for Cutie The New Year
  41. The B-52'sRoam
  42. RadioheadLet Down
  43. 10,000 Maniacs Verdi Cries
  44. R.E.M.Nightswimming
  45. Beastie BoysSabotage
  46. Underworld Born Slippy
  47. EvanescenceBring Me to Life
  48. Linkin ParkSomewhere I Belong
  49. Death Cab for Cutie Underwater
  50. Beastie BoysIntergalactic
  51. Rage Against the MachineSleep Now in the Fire
  52. Liz PhairExtraordinary
  53. The Smiths Death of a Disco Dancer
  54. R.E.M.Losing My Religion
  55. The Human LeagueDon't You Want Me
  56. The Police Every Breath You Take
  57. Greg and Rebecca SparksDay Like Today
  58. R.E.M.Leave
  59. R.E.M. Begin the Begin
  60. R.E.M.It's the End of the World as We Know
  61. The Smashing PumpkinsDisarm
  62. R.E.M.Sweetness Follows
  63. Rich Mullins Sometimes by Step
  64. Indigo GirlsCloser to Fine
  65. R.E.M.Superman
  66. Rich Mullins Calling Out Your Name
  67. ElectronicGetting Away With It
  68. The BugglesVideo Killed the Radio Star
  69. The Alan Parsons ProjectDon't Answer Me
  70. R.E.M. I Believe
  71. The VerveBittersweet Symphony
  72. Joy DivisionLove will Tear Us Apart Again
  73. The Postal Service Nothing Better
  74. Anything Box Living in Oblivion - Original
  75. Soft CellTainted Love
  76. The Smashing PumpkinsTonight, Tonight
  77. Vigilantes of LoveParting Shot
  78. R.E.M. King of Birds
  79. The SmithsI Started Something I Couldn't
  80. The CranberriesZombie
  81. The Smashing PumpkinsToday
  82. Trip Shakespeare Pearle
  83. R.E.M.Time After Time (Annelise)
  84. The Postal ServiceBrand New Colony
  85. Vigilantes of Love Glory and the Dream
  86. PixiesWave of Mutilation
  87. The Smashing Pumpkins1979
  88. R.E.M. Exhuming McCarthy
  89. Rich MullinsIf I Stand
  90. Modern EnglishI Melt With You
  91. The Postal Service We Will Become
  92. Snap!The Power
  93. Elton John and Kiki DeeDon't Go Breakin My Heart
  94. Radiohead Karma Police
  95. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
  96. R.E.M.Feeling Gravitys Pull
  97. The Scorpions Rock You Like A Hurricane
  98. The Smashing PumpkinsPerfect
  99. The CranberriesDreams
Incidentally, I did not set out to come up with 99 tracks (Jay-Z's misogyny keeps running through my head, unfortunately. Or Nena). That's just how it worked out.

How about you. Wanna list some of your favorites? Any on this list?
This is a not-much-ordered list developed from my Last.fm top tracks page.

  1. R.E.M.Gardening at Night
  2. a-haTake on Me
  3. Vigilantes of LoveResplendent
  4. Pierce PettisGod Believes in You
  5. R.E.M.Fall on Me
  6. New OrderBizarre Love Triangle
  7. The Dream AcademyLife in a Northern
  8. Dexy's Midnight RunnersCome On Eileen
  9. Toad the Wet SprocketAll I Want
  10. The Postal ServiceSuch Great Heights
  11. Modest MouseFloat On
  12. R.E.M.Shaking Through
  13. Vigilantes of LoveSkin
  14. Alison Krauss & Union StationDown to the River to Pray
  15. The ClashRock the Casbah
  16. Death Cab for CutieSoul Meets Body
  17. U2Beautiful Day
  18. R.E.M.Near Wild Heaven
  19. The SmithsGirlfriend in a Coma
  20. Vigilantes of LoveOffer
  21. FischerspoonerNever Win
  22. Cutting CrewOne for the Mockingbird
  23. blink-182I Miss You
  24. The CranberriesLinger
  25. The SundaysHere's Where The Story Ends
  26. RadioheadAirbag
  27. The Flaming LipsYoshimi Battles the Pink
  28. New OrderRegret
  29. The Mighty Mighty BosstonesThe Impression that I Get
  30. The White StripesSeven Nation Army
  31. ErasureA Little Respect
  32. Counting CrowsA Murder of One
  33. The CorrsBreathless
  34. Matthew SweetSick of Myself
  35. 'Til TuesdayVoices Carry
  36. Kirsty MacCollYou and Me Baby
  37. The Go-Go'sHead Over Heels
  38. The SmithsThere Is a Light That Never
  39. Sister HazelChange Your Mind
  40. Death Cab for CutieThe New Year
  41. The B-52'sRoam
  42. RadioheadLet Down
  43. 10,000 ManiacsVerdi Cries
  44. R.E.M.Nightswimming
  45. Beastie BoysSabotage
  46. UnderworldBorn Slippy
  47. EvanescenceBring Me to Life
  48. Linkin ParkSomewhere I Belong
  49. Death Cab for CutieUnderwater
  50. Beastie BoysIntergalactic
  51. Rage Against the MachineSleep Now in the Fire
  52. Liz PhairExtraordinary
  53. The SmithsDeath of a Disco Dancer
  54. R.E.M.Losing My Religion
  55. The Human LeagueDon't You Want Me
  56. The PoliceEvery Breath You Take
  57. Greg and Rebecca SparksDay Like Today
  58. R.E.M.Leave
  59. R.E.M.Begin the Begin
  60. R.E.M.It's the End of the World as We Know
  61. The Smashing PumpkinsDisarm
  62. R.E.M.Sweetness Follows
  63. Rich MullinsSometimes by Step
  64. Indigo GirlsCloser to Fine
  65. R.E.M.Superman
  66. Rich MullinsCalling Out Your Name
  67. ElectronicGetting Away With It
  68. The BugglesVideo Killed the Radio Star
  69. The Alan Parsons ProjectDon't Answer Me
  70. R.E.M.I Believe
  71. The VerveBittersweet Symphony
  72. Joy DivisionLove will Tear Us Apart Again
  73. The Postal ServiceNothing Better
  74. Anything BoxLiving in Oblivion - Original
  75. Soft CellTainted Love
  76. The Smashing PumpkinsTonight, Tonight
  77. Vigilantes of LoveParting Shot
  78. R.E.M.King of Birds
  79. The SmithsI Started Something I Couldn't
  80. The CranberriesZombie
  81. The Smashing PumpkinsToday
  82. Trip ShakespearePearle
  83. R.E.M.Time After Time (Annelise)
  84. The Postal ServiceBrand New Colony
  85. Vigilantes of LoveGlory and the Dream
  86. PixiesWave of Mutilation
  87. The Smashing Pumpkins1979
  88. R.E.M.Exhuming McCarthy
  89. Rich MullinsIf I Stand
  90. Modern EnglishI Melt With You
  91. The Postal ServiceWe Will Become
  92. Snap!The Power
  93. Elton John and Kiki DeeDon't Go Breakin My Heart
  94. RadioheadKarma Police
  95. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
  96. R.E.M.Feeling Gravitys Pull
  97. The ScorpionsRock You Like A Hurricane
  98. The Smashing PumpkinsPerfect
  99. The CranberriesDreams

Incidentally, I did not set out to come up with 99 tracks (Jay-Z's misogyny keeps running through my head, unfortunately). That's just how it worked out.

How about you. Wanna list some of your favorites? Any on this list?

Yikes!

Lying in bed last night, wondering where some of my email had gone, when it finally dawned on my: my Spam folder. Since there are, as of this writing, 7445 messages from the last month in that folder, I try not to go in there.

But, sure enough, I found 72 false positives so far, mostly free but ad-supported service email that I do want to get.

Time to make sure they're added to my address book and keep a close eye on it for the next couple of days.

How about you? Getting any false positives on spam?

Tuesday, November 14

More on atheism and modernism

I've gotten two comments, one here and one from Jaq on his weblog asking what I meant by 'Modernism is dead'.

Philosophically speaking, Modernism includes the belief that we can know many important things. It was part of the whole Enlightenment project.

Think about Descartes: Cogito ergo sum. 'I think, therefore I am.' He was trying to establish a foundation of knowledge. But many people have said he should have said Dubito ergo sum. 'I doubt, therefore I am.' I think that's a pretty convincing criticism. Sure, Descartes has a good point about knowledge. And I would accept it as something along the lines of 'We can't help but think that we know.'

That's what Hume said: 'There's no guarantee when I get up from this desk and go into the next room that the billiard table will still be there. But I can't help but believe that it will.'

Kant, to name one other Enlightenment epistemologist, wrote much that was useful. I'd phrase one part as 'Our minds are prewired (categories, types, etc.) to give us knowledge from sensory data.' You can't 'prove' it, but it's interesting.

See, as far as I'm concerned, it all ends up being basically an academic exercise within the parameters set by Modernism, and they're probably not even the right parameters. Modernism probably asks the wrong questions and goes about asking them the wrong way, and then answering them the wrong way.

And one of the big things to come out of Modernism is Science and the Scientific Method and (what I would call) Scientism. Science is good. The Scientific Method is great. But if you get sucked in to thinking Science is the only way to determine 'Knowledge', I call that Scientism, and it's already been eviscerated. In fact, the death of Modernism is sowed in the seeds of Modernism itself. The Subject is important. That's where Descartes started. And when you get started with subjectivism the logical result is solipsism and complete relativism. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard knew this before the modern prophets of PostModernism, like Sartre and Camus and later Foucault and Derrida.

Everybody in the Liberal Arts and the Humanities knows that Modernism is dead. They know that we need to talk about 'knowledge', if we're going to talk about it at all, in different terms.

But somehow some of these Scientism-ists, like the New Atheists, never got the memo. They keep pushing their knowledge agenda evangelistically. In many ways we'd really get the best outcome if we'd just ignore them. Unfortunately, the world is not populated with Philosopher Kings like me and you, fair reader ;-) So people get sucked into this debate.

Now fair is fair. I can critique the church on Modernism all day long. Happy to do it. Did you know that the conservative (Fundamentalist and Evangelical) and liberal wings of the Church in the 20th Century in America were both Modernist? They had the same goal: knowledge - justified true belief. For the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, they needed to base it on the Bible. Liberals went the Scientism route and carved out much of orthodoxy. Much of it was a stupid (not to mention non-Biblical) debate the whole time.

So what do we get today? Vestigial Modernists of the Scientism-ist and Fundamentalist variety arguing a last century debate about evolution and creation, and the public getting sucked in. Yuck.

What do I want? Not that everyone should be conversant in philosophy. Just a little respect (me, Aretha, and Erasure ;-). There are lots of Xians who dis science and scientists and I'm sorry. It stinks. And, obviously, there are many atheists who dis Xians. It's these fundamentalists, of the Xian and Scientism-ist variety who we need to ignore. Let them stay in their weltschmerz ghettos. We need civility on both sides. We believe differently. You can't prove your beliefs to me. I can't prove my beliefs to you. Let's tolerate each other a little bit.

(I hope it doesn't derail you when I say this entails at least presenting some of the criticisms of evolutionary thought in public schools.)

(This is not a systematic or comprehensive treatment. I'm not doing much more than dashing this thing off at this point. If you want to debate it, great. Chances are I'll accept your queries or suggestions. No need to gird your loins for battle.)

So, what do you say? Can we respect each other, at a minimum? Can we stop the stupid, old debate and reframe a different discussion?

For further reading, check the Wikipedia articles on Modernism and Postmodernism.

(And, say, glancing over them, I'd say I did pretty well off of the top of my head ;-)

You know what the problem is...

with getting caught up with your email?

It begets more email.

Not that I regret getting caught up with some of you and with my posting and comments. It's just that it can easily overwhelm you again. You know what I mean?

Monday, November 13

Greatest songs fantasy playlist

Uh-oh. I see there's also a list of 500 greatest songs of all time. Let's do Songs from that list I'd like to hear right now:

5. Respect, Aretha Franklin
7. Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry
9. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
16. I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Beatles
17. Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
18. Maybellene, Chuck Berry
19. Hound Dog, Elvis Presley

[what's up with all the mellow Beatles songs?]

22. Be My Baby, The Ronettes
27. Layla, Derek and the Dominos
36. One, U2
48. All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix
65. Sunshine of Your Love, Cream
71. California Girls, The Beach Boys
78. I Got You (I Feel Good), James Brown
82. You Really Got Me, The Kinks
83. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), The Beatles
84. Every Breath You Take, The Police
85. Crazy, Patsy Cline
87. Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash
109. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
113. Up on the Roof, The Drifters
118. Shout (Parts 1 and 2), The Isley Brothers
125. Will You Love Me Tomorrow, The Shirelles
127. Changes, David Bowie
140. Kashmir, Led Zeppelin
169. Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
179. Love Will Tear Us Apart, Joy Division
180. Hey Ya!, Outkast
196. Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses
200. Loser, Beck
201. Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order
228. Should I Stay or Should I Go, The Clash
242. Rocket Man, Elton John
243. Love Shack, The B-52's
244. Gimme Some Lovin', The Spencer Davis Group
246. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, Jackie Wilson
255. Heart of Glass, Blondie
278. Pictures of You, The Cure
283. Call Me, Blondie
287. Walk This Way, Run-DMC
298. One Way or Another, Blondie
314. Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd
316. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
368. Personal Jesus, Depeche Mode
375. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, Pink Floyd
376. Fake Plastic Trees, Radiohead
379. Radio Free Europe, R.E.M.
380. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
382. Bitter Sweet Symphony, The Verve
388. Roxanne, The Police
397. (Don't Fear) the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
399. Enter Sandman, Metallica
425. William, It Was Really Nothing, The Smiths
429. Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, Solomon Burke
453. Paradise City, Guns n' Roses
458. Soul Man, Sam and Dave

[I really like everything from the Blues Brothers soundtrack, don't I?]

466. Runaway, Del Shannon
467. Welcome to the Jungle, Guns n' Roses
475. Sabotage, Beastie Boys
479. Lady Marmalade, Labelle
483. Just Like Heaven, The Cure
486. How Soon Is Now?, The Smiths
492. Running on Empty, Jackson Browne

How about you? Wanna' play? Just a few?

Are you experienced (great album-wise)?

Had this in Bloglines for a long time: Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time . Let's chart the occurrences in the top 100

1. The Beatles - 8
2. Bob Dylan - 5
3. Led Zeppelin - 4
3. The Rolling Stones - 4
5. Jimi Hendrix - 3
5. Stevie Wonder - 3

and a bunch I don't feel like recording with 2.

What do you think? Does that sound about right?

+ Oh how the mighty have fallen. Remember how RS once named 'Murmur' the best album of the 80s? Now there's, like, about a hundred 80s albums in front of it.

Some albums that can't possibly be better than Murmur:

- Dookie
- Abba - the definitive collection
- Rod Stewart - Every picture tells a story
- Kiss - Alive
- Straight outta Compton
- The Chronic
- Run DMC - Raising Hell

And that's not even to mention those that are arguable!

In the vein of this conversation (diatribe), Jason sent me a link to this Slate article on REM v U2 that I haven't read yet but will soon. RS obviously thinks it's U2.

+ It's pretty interesting how many collections they have on this list...

+ BTW, I stipulate at the start of this discussion that all lists like this are arbitrary and not to be paid too much attention to. I'm just sayin'...

Football thoughts

Best thing I did yesterday was NOT watch football. Got A LOT more done, and my favorite teams and my fantasy team lost anyway, so...

I read the news today (oh, boy), tough, and I have at least one thought.

Jim Litke of AP says:

But [the Colts'] record accurately reflects how much better they are than the rest of the AFC, which by extension, puts them even further ahead of anybody the much-weaker NFC offers. That much was clear watching Chicago improve to 8-1 by beating the injury-riddled Giants in a mistake-packed game that was billed as "the two best teams in the NFC."

If that turns out to be true, give the points and take whichever team the AFC sends to the Super Bowl, then call the dealer and schedule delivery of your new, paid-up car for the first Monday in February.

I wouldn't have come up with something that colorful, and I don't plan on betting on the Super Bowl, but I certainly agree with the underlying proposition.
 
My basic rankings:

1. Colts (who still have to prove themselves in the playoffs)
2. Patriots, Broncos, Chargers, Ravens
3. Bears
4. Saints, Seahawks, Giants

Sunday, November 12

Rejecting the New Atheists

Gary Wolf wrote about the New Atheists in the latest issue of Wired. He concludes:

Myself, I've decided to refuse the call. The irony of the New Atheism -- this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism -- is too much for me.

I have another prominent objection (among many): Atheism is, finally, rooted in Modernism. Knowledge = justified true belief.

Someone needs to tell the New Atheists that Modernism is dead.

Who is Nancy Pelosi?

No conclusions yet. Just a very little research:

Nancy Pelosi - Wikipedia

Future Speaker? Who is Nancy Pelosi?

Thursday, November 9

Election: which point?

This post started out as thoughts on Mark 'ZenPundit' Safranski's election analysis, A tipping point or a turning point?. Then it turned into mostly just copying the whole thing and inserting a few of my comments.

Scathing rebuke:

President George W. Bush has to face the fact that he has not only been sharply reprimanded by the voters, as often happens to the Chief Executive in midterm elections, but he has squandered the lease on power the GOP had in controlling all three branches of government. Never has a party worked so long for such power, used it for so little lasting effect and lost it as quickly as have the Republicans.

Change:

[Rumsfeld's] departure - and the Democrats' own weak position despite being flushed with victory - buys the administration a breathing space to reconsider their political strategies and style from top to bottom.

This dovetails with Tom's assessment today that James Baker is now de facto SECSTATE and SECDEF .

On the opposite side, the Democrats are to be congratulated for running a smart race in a technical sense and for avoiding their usual ideological self-destruction.

TM Lutas, over on Tom's weblog, said recently that the Dems can't usually put away their scary people long enough to win. Pretty funny. But they did this time.

The Democratic leadership talked moderate, walked moderate and ran moderates in GOP-leaning states instead of sacrificial lambs hailing from the lunatic fringe of liberalism. James Webb is literally a very conservative" Reagan Democrat" who, frankly, I am more comfortable with politically than his socially conservative Republican opponent. Two years ago, if somebody told us that Democrats would elect a James Webb , Rush Limbaugh would have been doing backflips.

Now, will they act moderate, or try to act liberal?

If Pelosi and the Democrats listen to folks like Rahm Emanuel for the next two years and formulate a coherent and honest strategy on Islamist terrorism that actually involves fighting Islamist terrorists rather than patting down Scandinavian grandmothers at airports, they will be well-positioned for 2008. If the elderly liberal bulls, like Waxman, Kennedy, Leahy, Dingell and Conyers, who soon will be easing themselves into chairmanships, drive the agenda and wave " bloody shirt" leftist issues to the ecstatic ululations of the Moveon.org/DailyKos wingnut base, then 2009 will see the inauguration of President McCain.

Wednesday, November 8

Meet the new boss...

Same as the old boss.

This is a Special Edition Report from the Cynical Center (TM)(R)(C).

OK, We're getting a change. And I think it's a good thing. The Repubs needed more accountability.

But I don't think there's going to be a big difference. Even less will probably get done. I don't think the Dems are going to be effective in crossing the aisle since they've run against corruption and incompetence. President Bush has shown himself to be a divider and not a uniter. I don't see him playing ball nicely with the new Dems.

We'll see investigations of the Iraq War and Rumsfeld.

This was a referendum on Bush and the War and Bush lost.

Basically what we're getting is a check on the Repubs. They swept into Congress with their Contract for America and proceeded to spend a lot of money, mishandle the war in Iraq, and brew up their own corruption and ethics scandals. I have a rabid Democrat friend who thinks the Dems are going to be better and that makes one of us. I find it difficult to imagine the positions that don't think it's better to have at least one chamber of the Congress, if not both, be different from the Party that holds the Presidency. Isn't it pretty well proven by now?

For myself, I predict that, as I said above, not much will get done and the Dems will have some success in pinning it on the President. That should give them a head start on 2008 if they pick an electable candidate like, say, Obama.

Pelosi vowed to restore integrity, civility and honesty to Capitol Hill

I will be pleasantly surprised if that really happens.

The unsung winners here are the moderates. Lieberman won despite supporting an unpopular war. Moderation is the way to go people. The high profile, more left Dems say they will welcome their more centrist freshmen. Let's hope so.

Several traditionally hard-fought demographic groups were choosing Democrats, including independents, moderates, and suburban women.

Centrist is the way to go.

Stuff I hope doesn't happen:

- An abrupt pull out from Iraq (though my buddy, Dan tdaxp, argues that this would be good and he could very well be right).

- Overly protectionist, anti-globalization economics.

- Anti-immigration policies, especially with respect to our southern border. I'm open to reforms here along the lines ZenPundit has argued. The American public has a problem with the current lawlessness and the at least perceived wage deflation and burden on public services.

Here is South Carolina, we still continued to vote overwhelmingly Repub, for whatever that's worth. Our governor, who won again, gets accused on being a Libertarian, and, basically, if you promise to lower taxes and then do it and don't do anything really stupid, you're in.

This has been a Special Edition Report from the Cynical Center (TM)(R)(C)

Tuesday, November 7

Head. Might. Explode.

Johnny Marr, a Modest Mouse all right

(BTW, I finally copied all of my music from the old desktop to new laptop. Head. Might. Explode. Again. ;-) WinAmp says I'm up to 6 days and 23 hours, but I'm not sure that's right. Might be some duplicates in there. More later.)

Sunday, November 5

Football today

Eric predicts a Steelers victory today. My comments:

i wish your Steelers well and sort of hope they win (only 'sort of' because i've got the Broncos' D in fantasy fb ;-), but i don't think they're going to win today. i predict they'll lose today (sorry), and then we'll see about next week.

is the Hawk's season officially lost? :-(

the Vikings better punish SF.

and i'm looking forward to watching the NE-Indy game tonight. might have to take a nap though ;-)


This morning

+ Shaken Saddam is sentenced to hang. Good. And the Sunnis complained. I'm past ready to put a fence around the Sunnis and let them fend for themselves. We'll see if they can get any help from Saudi and Osama.

+ Nice article about Lovie Smith.

+ Finally for this post, Tom has a column in the Knoxville News Sentinel today (free registration required), where he argues that everyone should vote Democrat Tuesday because a Democratic Congress balancing President Bush would be better for our foreign policy.

I agree with his reasoning throughout the column, but with the caveat I keep harping on. Here I'm reposting my latest articulation:

my 2 cents: i want to vote for the Democrats. i really do.

if only they could pretend, like the Repubs, that they wanted my vote. like TM said a couple of days ago: put away their scary people until after the election (not even including Kerry's foot-in-mouth).

partisan balance would be a major improvement. if only the Dems could improve their connection with Middle America (Midwestern and Southern, middle income, some traditional values).

a stronger Democratic party would improve current politics for all of us immediately.

but i hate to vote for them just because the Repubs stink so bad, just because balance would be better.

i wish i kinda wanted to vote for them. voting Dem is in my background. i usually do. but they're struggling to connect with me, not to mention those Middle Americans...