I’m an Outside The Beltway Caption Contest Winner?

After a year of trying, I finally hit the bigtime; I won the Outside The Beltway Caption Contest .

I’d like to thank everyone I’ve ever met;

Ron.
Steve.
John.
Suzy.
Mark.
Cheryl….
My dog Cubby….

Wal…..(Gack!)

Outside The Beltway says Mike Tyson Loses in Sixth; Career May Be Over

Forgive me if I don’t lose any sleep over this one.

This missing girl in Aruba… I’ve avoided commenting on it, and will continue to do so until something solid comes up.

But I do have to say; How many releases from the MSM are we going to see where ‘blood has been found’, and the girl’s “death has been confirmed” all of which we’ve seen both released and withdrawn, before the MSM gets it right?

This case for all the other things it is, seems to me a microcosm of the errors the press has been making for years… they’re running with a story without doing the homework. Wasn’t this the complaint about Matt Drudge, and other bloggers?

Billy:

But I still don't get it. In my little band, I'm playing with three guys who can play just about anything (I'm not kidding: I'm the weakest link in the deal), and they light up like little kids when one of 'em suggests an AC/DC song. Me? I stand there and toss original rhythm bits into something I'm hearing in real-time because I've never studied a single AC/DC song. I just never played 'em, but I have to try to fake something with three guys who just wail through it like I'm not even there. (I put up with it with a smile, and they put up with me, with rolling-eyes, wondering why I don't get it.)

An understandable reaction. I even agree to a large degree; I’ve never quite fully understood the devotion to the band exhibited by a lot of people. Not that I’ve not enjoyed what the band has turned out over the years, on an “I can take it or leave it” basis.

But think on it this way, Billy;

They are, if nothing else, fundamentalists.

Their arrangements tend to be stripped- to- the- walls bare, so that the focus can be not on flash, but the real root of the band, which is to my mind, raw power. The other rock songs and acts as you mention in your write-up are great bands, and draw on other infleunces… Jazz and blues, for their flourishes, and touches. AC/DC has no such influences in their recorded work, and so is perhaps definitionally, elemental rock and roll.

This is something that took Mutt Lange quite a while to understand… And, it’s why the band’s sound never changed substantially, in spite of the change of producers, after BIB was released. The message here is…”This is who we are, on an elemental basis and forget you, if you don’t like it.”

This is going to seem a strange comparison, but I’m going to offer it anyway; Don Williams, one of my favorite artists over the years, has tended to go with the absolute minimalist approach in most of his work, too, so that the focus of the sound can be on the real root of Williams work… His voice, and the tunes themselves.

Granted their work is VERY different, but their approach, each in their own context, is much the same in that they tend to take the minimalist approach in their respective arrangements. In both cases, there’s a lot of places where the arrangements could be dressed up quite a bit to good effect and to display the ability of the people involved. But the conscious choice was made not to do that, because of the understanding that in the doing, it would alter the central focus. The result is work that in both cases, can be called rather dull if you don’t understand that central focus.

Is Angus Young the “most electric”?
(shrug)
I guess that could be called a mindset thing. IMO, likely not, at least by what we hear in the recordings. Then again, I tend to measure such by the diffuculty of what’s being played and how well that effort is placed in the context of the tune being played. By that same standard he’s also not likley the most capable with his axe, either. Any player of reasonable skill can bang power chords without muffing it too badly, after all.

But in each case, thier own ability to play ‘tasty’, as the Good Rats once put it, is not the message they’re sending. Respect comes once you understand THAT basic.

Update: Nice to know Colby Cosh is reading. A welcome to his readers. Follow the link below to the main page, and have a look around.

New York Times is wailing this morning about proposed cuts to the CPB funding…

"It is clear the G.O.P. agenda is to control public broadcasting or to defund it," said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. "House Republicans have gutted funding for public broadcasting stations across the country."

And since the Democrats have controlled these for so many years, you can understand why they’d not want to do without the electoral advantage for them that PBS represents. Thus their cries about “Clifford’ and “Seasame Street” It’s all “For the Children” of course. Does anyone think that the miriad of channels wouldn’t find space for such programming oin a commercial environment?

Personally, and speaking as a broadcaster, I find the cuts don’t go far enough.

Congress should do two things;

Now.

The Democrats are now engaged in an astounding attempt at misdirection.

They’re trying to convince us that Howard Dean is not giving us the real picture of the positions of the Democratic Party. 

In today’s Bit’sBit, I examine the situation and suggest that Howard Dean is in fact the perfect represetitive of the Democratic Party and it’s positions.

Funny how they only started being concerned about this when their fundraising numbers tanked.

Rich Galen, this morning, makes a rather obvious point:

“Let’s make one thing clear about who is complaining about the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean. Democrats are complaining. Republicans are ecstatic.”

Well, I’m not so sure.

OK… Yes, I think it perfectly clear that Dean is a bust with the American people, and clearly, he represents a major roadblock to the Democrats ever getting anywhere with the voters. This is shown clearly by the numbers as Galen quotes them:

Fundraising in the first quarter of 2005: DNC under How-Wierd - about $18 million; RNC fundraising under Ken Mehlman: about $42 million

Cash on Hand: DNC about $7 million; RNC about $26 million

New Donors: DNC about 20,000; RNC about 68,000

Business Week magazine reported last week that a fundraiser featuring Dean in New York City had to be moved from the cavernous Javits Center to the far more modest Essex House because the crowd was so small. If you can't turn out a crowd for a DNC fundraiser in NYC you are in trouble.

On the other hand, how different from DeanÂ?s foul balls are the remainder of the Democratic Party? Not all that far, as it turns out.

I mean, look, as rancid as Dean is, heÂ?s just the guy standing in front. And as we all know, if you’re seeing cockroaches on the outer wall, thereÂ?s a lot more going on underneath, that’s even worse.

LetÂ?s consider Harry Reid, in the words of CK Rairden:

--Interviewed on CNN, Reid called Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, "one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."
-- In 2003, he spoke on the Senate floor for 8 1/2 hours straight, upset that Republicans were planning to spend 30 consecutive hours talking about four judgeships Democrats had blocked. "Amateur leadership," Reid said, assessing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
--"Last week, I met with the president and was encouraged when he told me he would not become involved in Republican efforts to break the Senate rules," Reid said two weeks ago. "Now, it appears he was not being honest.

So there it is, Gang, in living color: By Harry Reid’s own published statements, the president is a liar and a loser, Senate majority leader Bill Frist is an amateur and Alan Greenspan is a political hack. Sounds like Howard Dean, to meÂ? and I suspect to you, too. And Reid, as the saying goes, is not alone.

Consider the words of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party Presidential Ticket nominee:

"What I see happening in Washington is a concerted effort by the Administration and the leadership in Congress to really create absolute power."

Ah, yes, the “Bush ismenetler” mem, wrapped in Clintonese.
And of course you KNOW sheÂ?s gone round the bend when she starts to complain that the press has been shielding the Republicans:

"The press is missing in action, with all due respect," she said. "Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart. I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine."

You mean, like the Democratic Party Fundraisers they didn’t investigate, Hillary?

She’s also on record as complaining about the Senate leadership, describing Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even destroy the Senate to gain political advantage over the Democratic minority.

Gee; Sounds like she might be taking her cues from Howard Dean, huh?

She also on record as having labeled the House as a “dictatorship of the Republican leadership, where individual members are all but required to vote in lock-step with the majority’s agenda.”

She’s obviously got a great imagination and a fairly short memory. I remember what both houses were like when the Democrats dominated them. Those days certainly would have met her description better than what we have now. Face it, gang, if what she said were true, John Bolton would have been mopping up Turtle Bay before the snow melted. But, what can you expect from someone so detached from reality that she will with a straight face claim the Republicans are being sheilded by a willing press?

The examples of this kind of nonsense from Nancy Pelosi are too numerous to go into, but I think the point made; The Democrats are making exactly the same noises as Howard Dean is. And have you looked at the Democratic Undergound of late? Some advice: Go there BEFORE eating, particularly if you’re trying to lose weight. It amazes me that such idiots are given the right to drive… and to vote.

With all of this, I’m convinced that the less than obvious is truer than Galen’s quip, here. I think it to be an open question as to which is more damaging to the Democrats… admitting that Dean as DNC leader is a bust, or admitting that he perfectly represents his party.

And no, I don’t see those two as mutually exclusive.

That is precisely why the Democrats are in trouble just now; They lack a public position on the issues of the day. Well, they HAD a public position, but of late they’ve begun to understand that the position they’ve been touting, isn’t selling. The public reaction to their positions has been violently negative… not that you’d ever hear them admit it.  But at the least, they’re beginning to understand that the positions they hold are not popular with the American people…. That their positions on the issues are damaging their chances of gaining power again. Thus, they’ve had to back away from it. Oh, they still actually hold these unpopular positions, (thus these other comments leaking out every other day from the Demo leaders) they have just figured out telling the voter the truth of their positions is political suicide.

Leaving aside the question of the Democrats and their utter lack of intellectual honesty in trying to back away from their actual position on the issues, (which dare I say it, is hardly a new thing) this leaves us where we are today… with a Democratic party devoid of a public position on the issues, and apparently split over the actions of it’s own leadership.

What we have been seeing over the last several weeks, and what we WILL see, is the Democrats trying to deny this, and reinvent their public image.

But, mark this well; In Howard Dean the Democrats have a perfect representative.  The sewer sludge that Howard Dean has been pushing is the actual positions on the issues of the day of the Democratic Party. 

And that fact not likely to change nearly as fast as the leadership would like us to think it changed.

TOKYO(Reuters) - Two kittens picked the wrong place to relieve themselves when they urinated on a fax machine, sparking a fire that extensively damaged their Japanese owner's house. Investigators in the western city of Kobe have concluded that the fire in January was caused by a spark generated when the urine soaked the machine's electrical printing mechanism.

Ummm…. Yeah.

Ewwwww.

Now I have reasonably good cats, plus a dog… which I will be looking at in new light tonight, I think… particularly given the several computers routers and a big server I have running all the time.

You KNOW ist’s a slow news day when I the first post of the day on this blog is at noon, and I start the day by linking stories about SETI. Slashdot says SETI won’t be able to cope with cell phones on airplanes. The technical point they raise seems plausable to me… and I’m a radio guy, remember. It’ll be interesting to see how seriously the FCC takes SETI, then.

Guy, over at Snugg Harbor..(Whose link I really need to update)…. has pikcked up The Music Meme and tagged me with it.

Me? The guy with, literally, 20,000 LP’s in his basement, and a similar number of CD’s?  Music?

Well, let’s see.

1. What’s the last popular tune that got stuck in your head?

Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time”

2. What popular tunes do you most dread to hear, because they get stuck in your head?

Any Jimmy Webb tune.

3. When last you were in a commercial establishment, and their “courtesy” music caused a tune to get stuck in your head:
a. Where were you?
b. What was the tune?
c. Did you complete the transaction you’d gone there for, or did you flee screaming and vowing never to return?

Wegmans… a grocery store
Bruce Hornsby’s “Walk in the sun” off of “Hot House”
I rather enjoyed it, actually… it’s one of the better tunes on that disc. Ticked me off no end when they interupted the tune to call for a price check…

4. When last a television commercial caused a tune to get stuck in your head:
a. What was the commercial for?
b. What was the tune?
c. Did you shrug it off, or vow never again to patronize the establishment?

Alka Seltzer
“The shape of things to come”
I bought the record. Irony abounds… it was years before I bought the product.

5. What is your usual recourse when a tune gets irritatingly, stubbornly, maddeningly stuck in your head?

Play something form the opposite end of the spectrum. Example; If the stuck song is Bach’s Brandenburg, play something a bit chaotic, such as Pat Metheney’s “Quartet” disk.

6. What five bloggers would you like to afflict, ah, infect with this meme?
Play something from the opposite end of the spectrum.

That’s a bit harder.

Tom Galvin,Dodd Harris, Ace, Chuck Simmins, and Perry, I guess.

Contact Music runs a story today that’s making me chuckle into my coffee:

"Legendary movie maker STEVEN SPIELBERG has hit out at Hollywood for not rallying round for Democrat JOHN KERRY's election campaign last year (NOV04)."

You’ve got one of two problems, Steve, Baby…

Likely, we’re dealing with a combo of the two.

I find it interesting that Speilberg hasn’t figured things out that far, yet.

I’m at work so I’m having some problems picking this one up… but the word is that Judge Janice Rodgers Brown has been confirmed.

Update: Confirmed.

Some of you will recognize this classic bit:

Watkins I’d like to leave the army please, sir.

Colonel Good heavens man, why? 

Watkins It’s dangerous. 

Colonel What? 

Watkins There are people with guns out there, sir. 

Colonel What? 

Watkins Real guns, sir. Not toy ones, sir. Proper ones, sir. They’ve all got ’em. All of ’em, sir. And some of ’em have got tanks. 

Colonel Watkins, they are on our side. 

Watkins And grenades, sir. And machine guns, sir. So I’d like to leave, sir, before I get killed, please. 

Colonel Watkins, you’ve only been in the army a day. 

Watkins I know sir but people get killed, properly dead, sir, no barley cross fingers, sir. A bloke was telling me, if you’re in the army and there’s a war you have to go and fight. 

Colonel That’s true. 

Watkins Well I mean, blimey, I mean if it was a big war somebody could be hurt. 

Colonel Watkins why did you join the army? 

Watkins For the water-skiing and for the travel, sir. And not for the killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir – no killing. 

Colonel Watkins are you a pacifist? 

Watkins No sir, I’m not a pacifist, sir. I’m a coward. 

This was the first thing I thought of when I noted in the NYT today, a story about the reaction of Lindsey Lohan, Cameron Diaz and a few other Hollywood numbskulls regarding Paparazzi.

LOS ANGELES, June 8 - Lindsay Lohan once called the attentions of picture-hungry paparazzi "a blessing." But the 18-year-old film star adjusted her view of aggressive photographers last week after the police say one of them rammed his minivan into her Mercedes on a crowded street here, and at least three others somehow arrived within seconds to shoot her distraught reaction.

"A line needs to be drawn in terms of getting violent," she said in an interview on Wednesday. "It was a very frightening experience."

Hoping to draw that line, Ms. Lohan is joining with Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake and an A-list of Hollywood actors who are trying to turn the tables on the paparazzi. Spurred by the stars and their representatives, the Los Angeles police and prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into what they describe as a new breed of photojournalists willing to flout the law, drive recklessly and even slam into celebrities' cars. "The concern is that because of these hyper-aggressive tactics on the part of the paparazzi, someone is going to get hurt or killed," said William W. Hodgman, head of the district attorney's target crimes division.

Routinely now, law enforcement officials said, paparazzi use several vehicles to "box in" a celebrity's car; try to force stars off the road; chase them at high speed as they do nothing more than run errands, often with their children in tow; and recklessly put pedestrians, other drivers and even themselves at risk.

You wanted to be in Hollywood, you wanted to be a star, and all the trappings that go with being a star.  Now suddenly you have a problem. Yes, the Paparazzi can be a pain in the ass, and downright dangerous at times. But this is a monster of your own making, gang.

Since I’m a nice guy, I offer the following advice: There is a solution to your problem. Just STFU and disappear. Trust me, few people will miss actually you, and you’ll not be in the spotlight all the time, anymore. Just think; No more Paparazzi

Of course there’s a motivation here for us; We won’t have your preaching at the rest of us from the back of your limo, while eating tofu, about how stupid we all are for eating at McDonald’s and driving our SUV’s.

Ace wins this week’s BIT’S POST OF THE WEEK. Ace notes a stry moving on the AFP saying essentially, that Male Heterosexuality is Dead.

Says Ace:

Don't sweat it, though. Twits, especially of the French variety, are perpetually declaring this and that dead -- cinema, theater, the novel, God. Everything except the EU Treaty, really.

In the report, on AFP, the speaker suggests

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

Quips Ace:

Here's why: I've seen HBO's Real Sex. I've seen these partner-swapping clubs. And let me just say, I can see why everyone there wants to swap partners.

The very reason Ace’s comments are funny is because, like all good humor, there’s truth at the center of it.

I think the larger question, though, and it’s one Ace doesn’t address, is why the Socialist mindset that France has, alas, become, is so interested in promoting the destruction of traditional roles.

You know the answer, really, don’t you? Destroy the traditions, destroy the roles, destroy the values, destroy the culture, destroy the country.
Not so hard to figure out.

Ace wins this week’s BIT’S POST OF THE WEEK. Ace notes a stry moving on the AFP saying essentially, that Male Heterosexuality is Dead.

Says Ace:

Don't sweat it, though. Twits, especially of the French variety, are perpetually declaring this and that dead -- cinema, theater, the novel, God. Everything except the EU Treaty, really.

In the report, on AFP, the speaker suggests

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

Quips Ace:

Here's why: I've seen HBO's Real Sex. I've seen these partner-swapping clubs. And let me just say, I can see why everyone there wants to swap partners.

The very reason Ace’s comments are funny is because, like all good humor, there’s truth at the center of it.

I think the larger question, though, and it’s one Ace doesn’t address, is why the Socialist mindset that France has, alas, become, is so interested in promoting the destruction of traditional roles.

You know the answer, really, don’t you? Destroy the traditions, destroy the roles, destroy the values, destroy the culture, destroy the country.
Not so hard to figure out.