So I’m finally bringing back a feature of the old (old!) d6 with the return of the MeroMusic Minute; some quick thoughts about what’s new in music
I’ve decided to focus the first MMM installment on Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple, the successor to 2006’s St. Elsewhere. The album’s first single, Run, is a fun and catchy tune with an even catchier video (with a fun Justin Timberlake cameo and the possibility of inducing an epeletic seizure). Sadly, it’s the only really great song on the album. Whereas St. Elsewhere shined with a number of memorable cuts, The Odd Couple flounders in places as Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo try some new musical terrain. The album feels a bit more down-tempo, and I think that might be where it flounders.
I won’t call it a sophomore slump, because the album was enjoyable overall, but it’s definately not St. Elsewhere 2.0.
I upgraded the blog to the newest version of WordPress, 2.5. While the experience for you, the reader, should be pretty seamless, this new version of WordPress is great on the back end. It’s a lot easier to do things now, and the WordPress interface is finally catching up to Movable Type in terms of being easy to use.
I’ve always stood strong behind the Democrats ever since I was 11 years old and I will continue to do so with pride. I’ve stood behind our candidates in two elections now, even if they weren’t the best candidates we could have, and I’m proud of that. But this man makes me believe, and speeches like this are why.
This has become a battle for the soul of the Democratic party, and it’s a battle that can easily be lost. I believe. Do you?
So a group of Democrats (in this case, the Democrats in the House) finally got the memo and decided to show that they actually have some stones on them and passed a FISA bill without retroactive immunity in it. This is huge, because everyone (myself included), expected the Democrats to just cave as always and we would be on our way to ensuring that no one would ever know just who got spied on, when, or where. Basically, for the first time in years, checks and balances actually worked and kept powers where they should be.
The thing that has bothered me about the FISA fight is why hasn’t anyone really talked about the potential abuse of these powers if Bush got his way and got retroactive immunity? Let’s not forget that the FISA law was passed in 1978 as a legislative check to executive power after it was brought to light by the Church Committee that Nixon was using the FBI and CIA to spy on Americans he didn’t particularly like (radical groups, Jane Fonda’s mail, etc.). Couple this with the Bush administration’s fervent belief in the Unitary Executive, and it’s not hard to imagine this thing jumping to depths far more unsavory than they already are. More bluntly, what’s to stop them from spying on Democrats, opposing candidates, party faithful who get out of hand, etc? Why stop there? Why not spy on all of us who have things to stay that aren’t flattering to the administration? Even if we managed to find out, what could we do about it since everyone involved has managed to say that they’re not liable under the FISA law. The whole point here is that by taking away our means of finding out about the wiretapping, they’re free to tap anyone they damn well please.
My other thing is this. Isn’t part of the whole “what makes America great” thing the fact that the government can’t just spy on us? The founding fathers were smart enough to know this was needed, which is why we have a Fourth Amendment that protects against exactly this kind of stuff. Once we make it basically impossible to find out if someone is getting tapped, are we still the greatest nation in the world with the most freedoms for its citizens? Are we really any better than all of those foreign countries that we look down upon for it? I think not, and it is on this reason that I applaud House Dems for having the courage to do what their Senate colleagues could not do and get this bill passed without immunity. The greatness that is America lives on for one more day.
Just as an aside, doesn’t it seem like people in this country don’t really care about what politicians do or don’t do in terms of scandals as long as it doesn’t involve sex? The other day a report came out that basically affirmed that Bush lied to get us into war in Iraq, because they’ve more or less definitively proven that there was no Saddam/al Qaida link. Just some food for thought.
Anyway, two quick things to check out from the other side of the Spitzer debacle:
The NY Times Freakanomics blog got a call girl who goes by the name of Allie to offer her insight on the whole thing. It’s quite an interesting read.
Also from the Times, we have a fairly detailed look into the girl that offered her services to Love Client #9. The moral of the story here, as far as I can see it? Be more careful about how much personal information you put on Myspace, because that’s where they found the dirt to out this girl. We (us twenty-something post Gen-X’ers) really are the naked generation, and I don’t think we’re all that better off for it. Now as a result, she’s known to the public for better or for worse, and she has to live with the public stigma of being the call girl for Client 9.
28. male. new jersey. technical support specialist. rutgers graduate. tried and true democrat. loyal yankee fan. geek. movie and music lover. opinionated. unique. mero.
