Memorial Day Special with Vyz on Think Or Be Eaten

Friday I recorded a special two-part Memorial Day program with my friend Keith Hansen (aka Vyzygoth) for Think Or Be Eaten. It's a different kind of observance in which we discuss and demonstrate how music was used in preparing people for both World Wars. Download the show here: PART 1 and PART 2.

The latest edition (Issue 7) of Inside The Grassy Knoll can be found HERE. Many thanks to Ang Riedel who designs this beautiful publication.

Jonathan Swift: The Day of Judgment (1731)

I just had to move this to the top of the page, for obvious reasons. By the way, "bit" means "bamboozled."

With a whirl of thought oppressed,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seized my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, armed with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hangs his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
'Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepped aside;
And you who never fell through pride:
You who in different sects have shammed,
And come to see each other damned;
(So some folks told you, but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you)
The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools! Go, go, you're bit!'

Human Ipecac

Rep. Ron Paul tap dances and sings the official line on OBL and 9/11 on The Diane Rehm Show.



In listening to the whole program, one has to come to the conclusion that Ron Paul is one of the dumbest men ever to run for president. He makes Shrub look like a rocket scientist and Palin sound like a Rhodes scholar. There's much in the libertarian view that I endorse, but Paul pushes it to its most absurd extreme. He's "pro-life" but offering relief to disaster victims is a "moral danger?" He babbles stuff cribbed from Ayn Rand and tries to make it all fit into reality. (Ayn Rand, after whom Paul named his son, was not only a prat but a hypocrite.)

The more extreme one's position, the harder it is to maintain consistency. In the program with Diane Rehm, Rep. Paul contradicts himself constantly--bashing government but maintaining the necessity of his own job. Most people want to be let alone in their own homes, vehicles, and persons--which is the valid basis of libertarianism. Going beyond that, they have to be inconsistent if they want things like police and fire departments, public libraries, and the potholes filled on the streets they travel. (To say nothing of being rescued if the river flows over its banks or if a tornado uproots their homes.)

Ron Paul says that the proper business of government is a strong national defense but if you're treading water where your home used to be you should have lived somewhere else and better luck next time.

All this bears more consideration than his slipperiness on the issue of 9/11 as he "celebrates" the death (or thawing out) of Osama bin Laden. If you can listen to Ron Paul weave, babble, and prevaricate on this program and still vote for him, you're an idiot.

UPDATE: Speaking of Ayn Rand, she was worse than a prat. What matters more than what you believe is where it comes from. Yecch.

Horse Hockey

Just what it says on the box. The new National Pastime.

So who lasts ten freaking years on dialysis?

The burial at sea was just so people wouldn't see the freezer burn.