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A Must-Do List for the Democratic Congress

Dear Democratic Congress:

If you're not going to impeach the motherfuckers in the White House, can you at least stand up and put legislation in place to undo a few of the horrific things they've done to the United States since taking power? It's not that hard, and you've got the fracking majority! What more do you need?  Can you finally grow some spines and stand up to Mr. 23% approval rating? The country is behind you!

This list is far from exhaustive, but it's a good starting point:

  • Restore Habeas Corpus
  • Stop Illegal Spying
  • Ban Torture, Really
  • Close the C.I.A. Prisons
  • Account for "Ghost" Prisoners
  • Ban Extraordinary Rendition
  • Tighten the Definition of Combatant
  • Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively
  • Ban Tainted Evidence
  • Ban Secret Evidence
  • Better Define "Classified" Evidence
  • Respect the Right to Counsel

These are no-brainers, for Chrissake! Would you please step up and use the power that we gave you in November? Stop trying to make nice with the other side of the aisle. God knows they never tried during the last six years!

Sincerely,

The People Who Elected You

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Pentagon to Walter Reed Vets: Shut Up.

Another day, another reason to pray for a meteor to take out the White House, Cheney's "undisclosed location" and half of Congress:

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

"Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media," one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters. (Source)
How incredibly typical of the Bush administration: Don't solve the problem, silence the critics.

If you need any more proof this country is sliding irrevocably into a full-blown fascist dictatorship, look no further.

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Time Flies

An anniversary of sorts passed without a notice last week.  I've been back in Phoenix five years now.

I realized this while searching through old offline journals this evening.  I had been thinking about pulling something from 1997 and posting it under the heading, "Ten Years Ago Today…" but once I actually started reading those old entries, it was very clear there was no way it was going to happen. I am not the same person I was ten years ago; too much has happened in the intervening decade and the things I considered important enough to commit to posterity in 1997 are simply embarrassing now.

It was when I fast-forwarded to 2002 and opened up the February 15th entry that I made the realization that I've been back here a full five years.  Half a decade since I even set foot in San Francisco, and despite the seemingly neverending dreams to the contrary, I still have no real desire to.

Life in Phoenix—while not perfect—is still quite good these days. And after everything that's transpired since my return, it's about time.

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Bridge to Tarabithia

Marc and I saw Bridge to Terabithia today. Not at all what I was expecting, but a very heartwarming story nonetheless. Despite the fact that children's television is a vast desolate wasteland, it's nice to see that there is some real intelligence and imagination going into children's film.

The flick also has a pretty strong (at least to us 'mos) growing-up-gay subtext that takes a few well-deserved swipes at Christianity along the way. (Marc commented afterward that he wondered why there hasn't been a huge, organized backlash.) Before I saw it, I worried it would be a CGI-heavy mess (à la Pan's Labyrinth), but it turned out that the CGI was used sparingly, and then only to augment the story, not be the story. (George Lucas, are you listening?)

And all I can say about the lead, 15-year old Josh Hutcherson—other than his demonstrated acting ability—is that he is going to be an absolute heart-breaker in about ten years. (Watch out Jake, there's a whole new generation coming up that'll be snapping at your heels in short order.)

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More Hypocrisy from the Bible Thumpers

"Pastoring to Police." Oh that's what you call it now.

Rev. Lonnie Latham, a notoriously anti-gay Southern Baptist Convention heavyweight who resigned his post after being arrested for "offering to engage in an act of lewdness" (read: seeking meat whistle lessons from an undercover cop posing as a male prostitute), has now asserted his right to solicit sex from that cop. And he's enlisted the anti-Christian commie pinkos at the ACLU to help him.

Sometimes you have no choice but to just laugh at these nutjobs.

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Analog Archaeology

Lately I've been rediscovering early electronic music. Long before we had techno, trance and ambient, there was a group of hearty pioneers laying the groundwork of today's modern compositions using the most archaic of equipment. One of my long-time favorite—and definitely one of the more "out there" works of the period (discovered at a trip to the library one summer afternoon when I was in high school)—is Morton Subotnick's Sidewinder.

Not really what I would call "music" per se, Sidewinder sometimes evokes the "electronic tonalities" of the Forbidden Planet soundtrack, other times a circling helicopter (especially dramatic in headphones), and other times like nothing as much as a cat's tail being pulled, this is one disk that squarely falls into the "experimental" category.

Another artist I have an incredible fondness for is Larry Fast of Synergy fame. At one time I had all his records from the 70s (many of them on clear vinyl), but so far I've only reacquired two: Sequencer and Cords. When I first heard these records again after nearly 30 years, it was like meeting old friends. Finding Electronic Realizations and Games is going to be my next project.

Much more musical than Subotnick's work, Synergy has a definite techno feel, although nothing to compare to contemporary examples of the genre. My favorite track on Cords is Phobos and Deimos Go To Mars, a very bouncy, upbeat piece that pulses with energy.

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Mark Your Calendars!

Though the wonderful arrangement of tubes and cylinders that is our fabulous internets, the exact date of my death has been determined!

Friday, 10 March 2045

Isn't that amazing? Thousands of years of prognostications by the best seers in the history of humanity could not accurately foretell the date of anyone's death, but thanks to this website, it's all there for you. Interestingly enough, if I should happen to lose those 40 lbs. that I've put on over the last two decades, it will only extend my life by two years. Two years?  I mean, if I'm going to go to all the trouble of dropping those pounds, I want an extra 5 years at least. And all this is assuming of course that I'm not hit by a bus or that we're not wiped off the face of the earth by the actions of Preznit McFuckwit beforehand.