Knock, knock, it's the thought police

Stanislav Shmulevich is a name that everyone in this country should know, not because he is a brilliant, or heroic, or really unique or notable in anyway at all, except that he might go to prison for four years. Why you ask? For throwing a paperback book down the toilet. The problem is that the paperback book wasn't his and it happened to be a Koran.

Have a looksy for yourself.

While groups like FIRE seem overly concerned with whether or not Pace university is being unfair in their treatment and possibly anti-semitic, it would seem that the greater concern is in the ability for activist groups to leverage state's coercive power to assault anyone that holds objectionable views.

I find myself increasingly sympathetic to the tin-foil hat brigade.

Geen schoner vermaak dan leedvermaak

While the dutch proverb above isn't likely to be familiar to most, any observer of modern American politics should be right at home with the sentiment.

Here's a quote from the DailyKos:

"But rarely has the sense of schadenfreude been more poignant to me than when reading the latest Economist article today about the woes of the Republican Party and American conservative movement in general."

And there's plenty of similar from it's Redstate counterpart.


While it was once noted that the pleasure derived from else's misery was solely the bastion of Germans and sociopaths, it has become eerily commonplace amongst the voice of political bloggers. While I am not hostile to all German influence, this is one that I find particlarly worrisome as it is utterly without constructiveness.

Education isn't dead yet

Lisa Van Damme has reminded me that there is hope for this country yet so long as innovators are free to pursue their ambition. She has a school in Southern California where good theory leads to one hell of a school.

"Education, in our view, is the systematic training of the minds of children. This requires the right presentation of the right material over a period of many years. A proper curriculum supplies each student with the essential content of knowledge, and teaches him to be a logical thinker. The result is a mature adult who knows what he thinks and can think on his own."

Just reading that makes me want to return to pursuing a career in education - not yet though.

Companies that have pissed me off

As of the ripe old age of twenty-eight there are only three companies that will not only never receive another penny from me directly but about whom I will constantly complain about, and here they are:

NorthWest Airlines is the most recent addition due to their annoying habit of lying to me, avoiding me, and stranding me in midwest cities.

Verizon landline services only. While their wireless services are top-notch, their landline services leave a little to be desired. Mostly not trying to charge me $90 for something that they should have done in the first place such as turning my phone service on.

Best Buy, the company that started it all. Flat out stealing money from me is not what I consider good service but when coupled with making me wait an hour for the privilege, know-nothing sales clerks, their perverse new philosophy, and not even having the lowest prices makes this one of my least favorite companies.

The earth is flat

I stumbled across this article on Myspace of all places and thought it worthwhile:

Early Humans Came from Asia Too

To me, the most compelling questions here concern parallel evolution and human development but the most interesting thing that I derive from this article is really just how little we know about early human development. It's shocking to me to be confronted with the hard truth that when it comes to concepts as important as human evolution, we are still in the very early stages and our hard truths are often just our best guess.

Worthwhile on 8/11/07

This is a section where I like to reference anything that I deem worthwhile in the blogosphere whether art, politics, or inspired lunacy. My first entry?

TheAgitator.com

This is the site of Radley Balko who writes a lot about police misconduct (to name one thing) and should rapidly familiarize you with the tragic name of Corey Maye. Well worth your time and a regular for me.

The music post

I have learned not to be as judgemental about music because we all have at least a little bit of crappy music that we are ashamed of, or should be, and to be perfectly honest I like what I like and I have no interest in anyone's esoteric collection of indie bands and rare recordings. I don't listen to "vinyl" or go to concerts, I like my music clean and polished not "raw" and "authentic."

That being said, I have a nice collection of classical music that I am very fond of, especially Dvorak. There are a handful of songs by Nina Simone which more than make up for all of the crap that Billie Holiday sang. I'm particularly partial to PULP and actually think that "This is Hardcore" is their best album. I give props to the Pixies, 12 Rounds, and Eleanor McCevoy. Queen is amazing, the 60's suck harder than any decade not starting with a 7, and I like a little Guns N' Roses with my Gypsy Kings. Three times did Kate Bush do something right, the Killers haven't done anything wrong, and the Strokes had a brief, but pleasant, moment on center stage.

I was a late comer to U2 and yes they are great, but the song "beautiful day" sucks and I don't want to hear any argument about that from anyone - not interested.

Paul Simon's Graceland is one the great albums of all time. That and Bridge over Troubled water with Arty, make for two diamonds in a lot of strange rough.

I love one and only one musical and it might technically be an opera - Les Miserables.

I like Maroon 5 (or at least that one album) and actually saw them in concert at the Whiskey when they were still named Kara's Flowers and I actually enjoyed it which is odd seeing as how I normally despise concerts. I have to give thanks to Nicole for that one, thanks doll.

Interestingly enough (Mark, you get props for finding this in th 90's and turning me on to it), Milla Jovovich has an album, and it's good. Really, really good.

Sheryl Crow had one good album, The Sundays had two, Smashing Pumpkins had one good song, while T-rex had two. Sinead O'Connor has one good album but too bad it's her best of. . . and David Bowie could do it right, and oh so wrong.

Laugh all you want but Roxette had four songs that I am more than happy to own. Tom Waits sounds like a chain smoking, alcoholic, drug addled nut job but he has produced a handful of amazing music. I say go Ramones, go.

Sarah Mclachlan's all right - ah hell, estrogen rock is in. Except Tori Amos, about whom I can honestly say that I would rather listen to Dan Fogleberg sing a trio with Ashlee Simpson and the lead singer from Shriekback doing ABBA gold covers for all of eternity than one second of her shrill, self-indulgent public therapy session. Never in all of human history has more misery been caused by one rape. Whatever asshole violated her should be. . . shit, I can't even think of something horrible enough for whatever son of a bitch unleashed her psychological trauma on the world in the form of "music." She is actually so terrible that she makes me glib about a sexual assualt. I would be ashamed of myself if I wasn't so pissed off.

As an aside, I stumbled across a bossa-nova inspired cover of Bill Idol's "dancing with myself" that is pure freaking genius. The artist is Nouvelle Vague and it is a jaunty delight