Because I can’t be bothered with this site lately, I’m glad Mat Marshall has stepped in to fill the void. Not much is going on in Delaware these days. Things seem to be focused on the trainwreck that is our national political scene. And who better to offer political commentary on the state of our nation than Canuck Neil Young? Well, this song isn’t much of a political diatribe by any means. It is a real barn-burner, though. A searing, 18-minute rocker complete with horns and raging guitar riffs, “Ordinary People” is the highlight of his latest studio release, Chrome Dreams II. I’m a huge fan of Neil Young’s. I can’t claim mega-fandom because I haven’t sought out the all of the many releases in his 40-year career. He puts out, like, an album a year. I’ve paid attention the last five or so years, but have failed to follow through and purchase everything from the 1970s through the early part of the new millennium. I do have Harvest, though. Every music nerd owns that classic.
Enjoy this song. I have at least a half-dozen times since Wednesday.
Sen. Larry Craig and his toe-tapping sexcapades are soooo three months ago. When I got this clip in my email, though, I just couldn’t resist!! Especially the first 30 seconds.
Posted by Mike Matthews in Dumb stuff at 9:03 PM PST
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Mat Marshall. I was over at The Soapbox for quite some time before being annexed by Mike. I’m a 16-year-old blogger who’s NOT writing about angst. Revel.
I just wrote a profile thing for myself, and rather than retype it, I’m just going to copy and paste (for everybody’s convenience).
“I’m just another elitist liberal waging war on Christmas.
I’m a (proud) blogger, alma mater Cab Calloway. Despite the inherent connotation that comes the fact that I’m a junior at a school of the arts, my passion is politics. I suppose it’s weird that I’m participating in a field that most adults don’t follow closely, let alone teenagers, but it is what it is. I am the ranking member in The Young Democrats Movement, and in my roles as both an activist and a quasi-journalist (pundit?), I lean hard to the left (to the point of falling from time to time).
Outside of politics, I love good food, good TV and sunflowers.
Don’t expect too much from me during the school year; when I’m not in class, I’m too busy avoiding homework to post nearly as much as I do in the summer.”
I’m really looking forward to this. Mike has pushed the bar far enough for me to justify blatant buttholery… it’s going to be fun.
While in London earlier this year, I enjoyed immensely riding on the city’s underground subway system. It’s called the Tube for those of you not up on your British slang. At every stop, before the doors would close, a calm, sexy, soothing voice would say “Mind the gap,” alerting passengers to the rather large space between the train and the station platform. All along, I’d wondered if this voice was computer-generated or actually human-based. Well, I got my answer this morning.
Seems the woman who recorded the alert, Emma Clarke, has lost her contract with the London Tube system after recording a parody of the announcements on her personal website.
Click here to read the article. Apparently, the dark and dry humor I’ve come to expect from the Brits is severely lacking.
Posted by Mike Matthews in Dumb stuff at 8:59 AM PST
Tommie Little appeared with Maria Evans on WGMD yesterday. Dana Garrett’s got the whole show, which you should certainly listen to in its entirety. However, the juiciest, most entertaining fluff has been extrapolated into its own “Greatest Hits” clip. Click below to listen. Now, I would go minute by minute to point out all of Little’s fallacious statements; however, I’m tired and my bed is calling. Your job is to listen to the clip and, in the comments section, give me a list of every outrageous statement Little makes. Remember, these are clips cobbled together and aren’t necessarily patched together in any cohesive manner. Not that Tommie Little is all that cohesive anyhow.
My favorite part? Dana Garrett calls into the show but doesn’t identify himself (this is actually quite a normal occurence on WGMD). He provokes the ire of Little as well as Coastal Conservative Network guru Judson Bennett. Several minutes later Dana, off the air, informs Maria Evans that the Independent Party of Delaware has voted to remove Frank Sims as party chair. When Maria announces this on air and cites Dana, Tommie Little says he’s a “good man”! Gotta love it!
Dana Garrett has the breaking news. Seems some funny business has taken over the Independent Party of Delaware. And, when I say Independent Party of Delaware, I’m talking about Frank Sims and nutty Tommie Little, the man who’s assumed he’ll be the party’s candidate for lieutenant governor since he defected from the GOP in June.
I’m expecting documents soon that will show someone forged a signature on a Department of Elections filing application for Little’s lt. gov. run.
Until I get a copy of the latest infamous pink postcard, this will have to do. As transcribed for me by an anonymous tipster and then confirmed with another email from an unmasked source. These things just get more and more entertaining:
Well, it must suck to be Terry Strine, the King of Decline, who lives over the PA Line and won’t resign so his leadership we must decline…He picks little Happy Harry to run and he gets his ass kicked in The News Journal poll, Levin finished 4 out of 4 - dead last…What a joke, wasn’t he the choice because everyone knows him?, so stay home Levin, we don’t want a Biden supporter…Strine screwed Feroce good, didn’t he??? The 14th SD race is typical GOP insider BS…a record landslide loss as bad as it gets…our soon to be former Sussex leader hatchet man dave Burris will take his giant butt home so his wife can earn the paycheck he couldn’t…good riddance!!! Atkins returns as a Democrat next year to win the 41st, trust me…still no US Senate candidate even though Strine says 2-3 in the wings??? no one for insurance commissioner or my old stomping ground New Castle County???…2008 will be a blowout thanks to you and Strine!!! The girl scouts have better leadership than the GOP…I am tired of Giuliani and Levin being forced upon us…Stop the malarkey now!!!
I’m told a new pink postcard is making the rounds. If so, someone please email me a copy or, at least transcribe for me what it says so that I may post it…! I love this shit.
I visited Delaware Online just now as I do every morning. I went to the local section and towards the bottom I saw in the list of articles the following headline: “Racism at core of DPC probe, legislator alleges.” What’s funny is before I clicked on the article, I was already saying: I bet it’s fucking Rep. Hazel Plant who’s stirring up that shit. Click on the link and, well, I was right. Damn…someone needs to tell Hazel to take the fucking marbles out of her mouth and to just shut the fuck up. Woman’s got a problem keeping her own damn house clean seeing as she’s all buddy-buddy with Norman Oliver and all…
A poorly thought-out post has accused anonymous bloggers of cowardice. This shallow, vapid reasoning therefore attributes cowardice to the authors of The Federalist Papers, two of whom became President of the United States and the third the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. And for those of you who steadfastly remain poorly read, The Federalist Papers formed the body of the United States Constitution, and was published anonymously.
I disdainfully discard the drivel that anonymity somehow, in and of itself, detracts from a thread or a response thereto. The theory that anonymity precludes value is a hope peculiar to those who are too dimwitted to argue ideas, which is the premise of this post.
Those of limited intelligence argue best using what is called the ad hominem attack. Instead of attacking the subject discussed, or adding valid ideas, it is easier to attack the author. Attacking the person instead of the idea doesn’t require any brains. Al Mascitti, on another blog, clearly illuminated this aspect of moronosity when he pointed out that the mismanagement of DelDot by Nathan Hayward might have continued had not certain DelDot employees whistle-blew the waste and vindictiveness of his regime. These concerned employees knew that criticism would result in immediate retribution instead of Hayward’s acknowledgement that there might be some truth to the criticism, therefore these employees criticized anonymously. The result was that an idiot was removed from DelDot leadership. Were these critical employees cowards? Who cares? The issue was Hayward, not the identity of those embarrassed by him.
Instead of striving to do better, or to learn a subject, or acquire an understanding of a foreign culture, or acknowledge good and bad government, the laziness of the ad hominem specialist forbids self-improvement, using the immediate and effortless self-gratification of attacking the source. However, anonymity makes it difficult for dummies to attack the source. Therefore, these dummies result to an ad hominem attack on anonymity by calling it cowardice, or ‘flaming’, or other pejorative terms.
The Federalist Papers was about ideas. Focus on the ideas, and you might learn something. Don’t worry about where the ideas come from. In closing, I’m reminded of a commercial years ago about a heart attack victim telling the doctor, “I don’t want a heart transplant from blacks, Jews, Asians, or Episcopals.” The doctor informed him his concern about where the heart came from instead of worrying about the heart itself was fatal.
The women are taking over Comcast with the help of a few good men. Local activist Liz Allen and Democrat Congressional Candidate Karen Hartley-Nagle will be co-hosting a new local-access television show on Comcast Channel 28 titled “In-Depth Delaware” from 3-4 pm tomorrow.
First guests will be Delaware bloggers Dana Garrett of Delaware Watch and Mat Marshall of The Soapbox. The topic will be bloggers and their influence on local, national, and global political issues.
Be sure to tune in. These two firecrackers (Allen and Hartley-Nagle, that is!) are looking forward to taking an informal phone poll of who the viewers are supporting for president. Yes, that’s right. The two ladies will be taking PHONE CALLS.
National Public Radio (“NPR”) recently aired an article about recent huge increase in dishonorable discharges in our military. According to the article, it is suspected that the military is saving our tax dollars by discharging soldiers with PTSD on disciplinary ground instead of giving them medical care. These damaged soldiers are discharged based on the reasoning that their personality problems associated with combat existed ‘before’ they enlisted, therefore they are not casualties of war, but instead are defective individuals with pre-existing problems, thus were unfit for service ab initio. This reasoning allows the military to withdraw benefits from those ‘used up’, thereby saving huge medical costs, thereby allowing this saved government money to flow to those who truly need it; such as Halliburton, or Black Hawk, or other incredibly highly paid mercenaries.
As usual, we have a government organization that has struck upon a good idea, but doesn’t go far enough. If the military branches enlisted truly crazy people in the first place, they wouldn’t have to make up brittle excuses for discharges based on ‘retroactive’ craziness. I suggest that the military round up the homeless of America, well-known for psychiatric problems, and send them to Iraq. While a group of homeless would be difficult to organize, they would be perfect for land-mine checking and other bomb-related exercises. I figure if the military doesn’t give a rat’s ass about our young men and women, they’ll have no problem sending crazy homeless people on suicide missions. The only drawback would be strained relations with the Iraqi populace suddenly confronted with a bunch of panhandlers voluntarily washing their car windows then demanding spare change.
And, any homeless that manage to live through their military tenure could be simply abandoned in the same way the military is abandoning our current service personnel. I mean, hey, they’re crazy, who are they going to complain to? In fact, the military could probably not even pay them. Are they really going to notice? Plus, its warm in Iraq, so there would be no competition for subway grates to keep from freezing at night.
