Singing Loudly

The Republican National Committee has rented Moody Coliseum on Monday evening for a campaign rally featuring President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush, in addition to several local candidates and statewide officials. There are a limited number of tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets can be obtained at campaign headquarters at 9667 North Central Expressway, near the intersection with Walnut Hill. The hours for distribution of SMU tickets are Saturday and Sunday, 1-6 p.m. An SMU ID will be required, only one ticket will be given to each person, and tickets are not transferable. Tickets will be distributed at the discretion of the Dallas County Republican Party. Tentative plans are for the doors to Moody to open at 7 p.m. for security screening; however, this is subject to change. Updated information will be provided, as necessary.

Mary Alice had a baby and he looked just like I did
We got married on a Monday and I been working ever since
Every week down at the Ford Plant but now they say they're shutting down
Goddamned Reagan in the White House and no one there gives a damn

Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon

So I took to runnin' numbers for this man I used to know
And I sell a few narcotics and I sell a little blow
I ain't getting rich now but I'm gettin' more than by
It's really tough to make a living but a man just got to try

If I died in Colbert County, Would it make the evening news?
They too busy blowin' rockets, Puttin' people on the moon

Mary Alice quit askin' why I do the things I do
I ain't sayin' that she likes it, but what else I'm gonna do?
If I could solve the world's problems I'd probably start with hers and mine
But they can put a man on the moon
And I'm stuck in Muscle Shoals just barely scraping by

Mary Alice got cancer just like everybody here
Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year
And we can't afford no insurance, I been 10 years unemployed
So she didn't get no chemo so our lives was destroyed
And nothin' ever changes, the cemetery gets more full
And now over there in Huntsville, even NASA's shut down too

Another Joker in the White House, said a change was comin' round
But I'm still workin' at The Wal Mart and Mary Alice, in the ground
And all them politicians, they all lyin' sacks of shit
They say better days upon us but I'm sucking left hind tit
And the preacher on the TV says it ain't too late for me
But I bet he drives a Cadillac and I'm broke with some hungry mouths to feed

I wish I'z still an outlaw, was a better way of life
I could clothe and feed my family still have time to love my pretty wife
And if you say I'm being punished. Ain't he got better things to do?
Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon

Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon

Madonna, best fucking live act? Fuck off. Since when has lip-synching been live? That's me off her fucking Christmas card list but do I give a toss? No.

You know what? There are a lot of people out there today, who have become stars or famous musicians -- I wouldn't really define them as a star -- with a record only because they have connections and only because they have money and for the wrong reasons

Over And Over, Nelly Featuring Tim McGraw.

The disputed election that matched George W. Bush against then VP Al Gore found Nsync - It's Gonna Be Me as the top song. At the end of the election week both candidates were telling America that it is gonna be me when the election dispute was settled. Ultimately, of course, Bush won the electoral college vote.

Was a fairly unremarkable election contest between Senator Bob Dole and the incumbent President Clinton. Ironically, it was the Alanis Morisette - You Learn that plagued the airwaves that election week. Perhaps the Republican Party learned not to put such an uncharismatic candidate up against the likes of Clinton. Maybe Bob Dole learned that he should relax and be himself instead of falling off stages.

Governor Bill Clinton decided to take on President Bush in this election. The charts were filled with prophesy with Boys II Men - End of the Road signaling just that for Bush. Unfortunately, it was not the last we saw of independent candidate Ross Perot, who took awhile to realize that he had no road.

Vice President George Bush took to the campaign trail against Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts. The hit song that week was Steve Winwood - Roll with It. Following in the footsteps of President Reagan, Bush had no problem just rolling with it against a rather weak opponent.

The typical causes of the parties were swapped in this election as Senator Mondale accused incumbent President Reagan of horrendous budget deficits. The radio was flooded with the gentle sounds of Stevie Wonder - I Just Called to Say I Love You, which was the American public. The voters showed up to the election and gave President Reagan an 18 point margin win.

Incumbent President Carter was matched up against Governor Reagan from California in this election. Supertramp - Dreamer was the song flooding the airwaves. I think that the whole idea of a "misery index" was a bit of dreaming from the Republican party, however, Carter and the Democrats weren't savvy enough to defeat that and the Iran Hostage Crisis. Of course, there are also dreams of some massive conspiracy surrounding the hostage situation as they were released when Reagan took office. Could it have been planned that way or are people merely dreaming?

Incumbent President Ford (never elected President or Vice President, correct?) faced opposition by both Governor Carter of Georgia, and, in the primaries, from Governor Reagan. It came down to Ford and Carter at the elections while Chicago - If You Leave Me Now was ruling the radiowaves. Of course, as Reagan suspected, Ford did leave us after asserting the false claim that Eastern Europe was free from Soviet control. It was a narrow victory but Carter won.

Nixon went against the non-opponent of George McGovern. McGovern was soon depicted as a radical leftist and had no chance. Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now came true when Nixon had to step down from office.

This strikes me as more significant than most endorsements, both because they endorsed Bush in 2000 (and endorsed Dole in 1996) and because they are very smart small-government types. And it is particularly striking because they supported the decision to invade Iraq.

just after Bush’s inauguration, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published its budget outlook for the coming decade. It showed a cumulative surplus of more than five trillion dollars. At the time, there was a lot of talk about what to do with the anticipated bounty, a discussion that now seems antique. Last year’s federal deficit was three hundred and seventy-five billion dollars; this year’s will top four hundred billion. According to the C.B.O., which came out with its latest projection in September, the period from 2005 to 2014 will see a cumulative shortfall of $2.3 trillion.

President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labeled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief."

Like nearly all of Smith's records, From a Basement covers his despair in sweet, perky, folk-pop kisses; and yet the album is still the saddest thing you'll hear all year. Smith's gloom may be romanticized into gold, but what's ultimately most harrowing about his unhappiness is its nastiness-- and that same gritty, uncompromising accuracy is also what makes his records so impossibly urgent, so uncomfortable and desperate. Reality is splattered all over From a Basement on the Hill

From Lucky Magazine interview:

LM: What are your takes on lip-synching?

AS: I'm totally against it and offended by it. I'm going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I'd never lip-synch. It's just not me.

I don't get many things right the first time,
in fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns the stumbles,
and falls brought me here
And where was I before the day
that I first saw your lovely face,
now I see it every day
And I know

That I am, I am, I am, the luckiest

What if I had been born fifty years before you
in a house on the street
where you lived
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike. Would I know?
And in a wide sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize

And I know
That I am, I am, I am, the luckiest

I love you more then have
ever found the way to say
to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties and one day
passed away in his sleep,
and his wife, she stayed for a couple of days, and passed away

I'm sorry I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong,

That I know
That I am, I am, I am, the luckiest

"People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling."
-Dr. Cox, Scrubs

"It's filled with characters who, desperate to feel deep, want answers to life's big questions. And watching it, you, also desperate to feel deep, will want answers to big questions like, 'What's this all about?'" -- Allison Benedikt, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"An impenetrable human parable and a hallucinogenic animated cartoon." -Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

"As this soulful and reflective film, as gentle as it is potent, ably demonstrates, transformation is no less convincing for being a gradual process that comes on its subjects all unawares." -- Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Class-A eye candy." -- Paul Clinton, CNN

"If the zombie genre steadfastly refuses to die, we can be grateful to Shaun of the Dead for breathing fresh, diverting life into the form, with subtle visual humor and a smart, impish sense of fun." -- Ann Hornaday, WASHINGTON POST

"This excellent adventure affords a hilarious and excruciating bout of bachelor bonding." -- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of allied ground forces, quickly objected. To avoid being perceived as an occupying army, American forces had been instructed not to brandish the flag. The idea was dropped, but the CIA's optimism remained.

Based on the Merriam-Webster's The Official SCRABBLE® Player's Dictionary, 3rd edition, this helpful handheld device will be invaluable to players at all levels, who want to master the SCRABBLE® game. It can solve disputes by instantly validating over 100,000 words and providing brief definitions.

What, then, is the difference between a liberal and a conservative? My educated guess is that one main difference is sympathy or lack of sympathy for people who are not close to them in some way. Thus, a liberal feels compassion for the poor, the underprivileged, the oppressed, whereas the conservative feels compassion primarily for those people like him or her, or close to him or her in some way.
This idea is supported with neurological evidence:

In his splendid book Descartes’ Error, the neurologist Antonio Damasio (1994) shows that it is impossible to make a rational decision unless you have some emotional involvement...Damasio showed what he calls “disturbing” photographs to patients who had sustained damage to certain parts of their brains, and also to normal controls. The controls showed a “skin response,” or increased electrical conductivity in their skins, when viewing the disturbing photographs, whereas the patients showed none...In further experiments and in real life, Damasio found that the brain-damaged patients were unable to make what the rest of us would call “rational” decisions. Since the patients were otherwise normal, Damasio attributed this inability to their lack of emotions.

E. J. Dionne wrote a syndicated article entitled “Heart Trumps Ideology”...[that argued]...the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has adopted a live-and-let-live attitude to homosexuals and homosexual marriage. Cheney’s allies on the far right were outraged, and it is puzzling why Cheney, the quintessential right-wing hard-liner, would adopt such an, um, liberal position.

Why indeed? Because his daughter is a lesbian...Cheney has sympathy for his daughter, so he adopted a view that is wholly inconsistent with his overall message and with the views of his political allies.

Deck's attorney said the high court has set those two standards for use of restraints during the part of the trial to determine guilt or innocence, but has yet to address whether they also applied to the penalty phase in a capital case.

Shackles and other restraints tacitly communicate to the jury that the court believes the defendant is still so dangerous that he must be restrained even in the confines of the courtroom

a trial judge has discretion to impose security measures, including the use of restraints, necessary to maintain courtroom order and security...[snip]...The state high court ruled that sufficient evidence in the record supported the use of restraints, such as the assumption that Deck, a repeat offender, was at risk to flee.

In vote-pairing, swing-state progressives whose first instinct might have been to vote for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik are paired with Democrats (and others whose first choice for President is Kerry) in 'safe' states where either Bush or Kerry has a decisive lead. Paired voters can communicate with each other and decide to vote strategically: swing-state participants for Kerry and safe-state participants for Nader, Cobb or Badnarik. As a result, the paired voters' support for progressive third parties is recorded in the popular vote and their preference for Kerry over Bush finds voice in the Electoral College.

"But Giblets why would so many sucky Yankees be beloved by so many New Yorkers?" says me. "An why would so many sucky Yankees be rewarded with so many pennants?"
"There is no such thing as suckical subjectivity!" says Giblets. "The Yankees suck no matter how much society has approved of and rewarded their sucking!"
"Maybe objective sucking does not really exist," says me. "An we are makin false statements when we say that a team sucks or rules."
"How can you say sucking doesn't exist!" says Giblets. "That would mean George Steinbrenner could not suck!"
"It's true that we want to say that George Steinbrenner sucks," says me. "But maybe when we say he sucks we're just expressin our very strong emotional dislike of George Steinbrenner for bein a bastard an firin Billy Martin five times."
"Well Giblets does not want to live in a world without laws of objective truth!" says Giblets. "A world where the Yankees don't suck is a world of celestial anarchy!"

Yesterday, Jon Stewart went on Crossfire, and told the hosts they were partisan hacks (and that's just the beginning). The video is here. This is really funny, and it's really illustrative of why The Daily Show is good and CNN is bad. If you watch only one 13-minute video clip today, this should be the one you watch. Really, this is worth watching. Go watch it.

Or, if you don't do video, the Washington Post has an article about it. But the video is better.

Immigrant workers, even if they are undocumented, should be given all the fair-labor standards and all the rights and benefits of American workers. In addition they should be be allowed to get a drivers license in order to reduce hazards on the highway and allow them to function in our culture, e.g. get to work, get their children to school. If this country doesn't like that, maybe it will do something about the immigration laws. But we cannot treat undocumented immigrants as subjects for inhumanity.

U.S. health officials Monday denied reports that they knew before last week that there were major production problems with a key American manufacturer's flu vaccine, which caused British authorities to suspend the company's license.

Certainly, conduct or action is not traditional verbal speech. The Supreme Court has, however, stated that conduct can fall within the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

Conduct, however, has always received First Amendment protection. Such as a sit-in to protest against segregation, wearing arm-bands to protest the war, marching in a parade, not saluting the flag in class, and more. The Court has even said that nude dancing is expressive conduct that is "marginally" within the "outer perimeters of the First Amendment." Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560, 566 (1991). The Court has to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether the conduct at issue is "sufficiently imbued with elements of communication" (Spence v. Washington) and the effectiveness of those communicative elements.

If Elvis' gyrating hips can fairly be understood to constitute a 'simulated sex act,' one can fully appreciate the potential scope of the restrictions placed on erotic dancers in Maricopa County.

1.)He's just not that into you if he's not asking you out. Because if he likes you, he will ask you out. Men, for the most part, like to pursue women. We like not knowing if we can catch you. If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will.

2.) He's just not that into you if he's not calling you. Men know how to use the phone. If he's not calling you, it's because you are not on his mind.

3.) He's just not that into you if he's not dating you. "Hanging out" is not dating. There's a guy out there who will want to tell everyone that he's your boyfriend. Quit goofing around and go find him.

4.) He's just not that into you if he's not having sex with you. When men like you, they want to touch you always.

5.) He's just not that into you if he's having sex with someone else. There's never going to be a good excuse for cheating.

6.)He's just not that into you if he only wants to see you when he's drunk. If he likes you, he'll want to see you when his judgment isn't impaired.

7.) He's just not that into you if he doesn't want to marry you. Love cures commitment-phobia.

8) He's just not that into you if he's breaking up with you. "I don't want to go out with you" means just that.

9) He's just not that into you if he's disappeared on you. Sometimes you have to get closure all by yourself.

10.) He's just not that into you if he's married (and other insane variations of being unavailable.) If you're not able to love freely, it's not really love.

11.) He's just not that into you if he's a selfish jerk, a bully, or a really big freak. If you really love someone, you want to do things to make that person happy.

1. Death Cab for a Cutie - Blacking Out the Friction


2. White Strips - Fell In Love with a Girl


3. Low - Kind of Girl


4. Elliot Smith - Needle in the Hay


5. Jump Little Children - Midnight


6. Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting


7. Calexico - Stray


8. Polyphonic Spree - Middle of the Day


9. Beulah - Gravity's Bringing Us Down


10. U2 - Vertigo

1. Chipotle


2. Potbellys


3. Taco Cabana


4. Dairy Queen


5. Wendy's

1. Dark green


2. Cobalt Blue

The researchers studied 170,000 patients suffering from cancers of the gullet, stomach and intestine, bowel, pancreas and liver and found that consumption of supplements of beta-carotene, Vitamins A, C and E, and selenium, alone or in combination had no protective effect on them.

In fact the risk of death was found to be 30 percent higher in people taking beta-carotene and vitamin A than for those not taking the combination.

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
but the Vehicle Code does not divorce
its application from, perforce,
a steed as my colleagues said.
"'It's not vague,' I'll say until I'm hoarse,
and whether a car, a truck or horse
this law applies with equal force,
and I'd reverse instead."

Riders Keith Travis, 41, and Richard Noel, 49, were charged with drunken driving along with a man driving a pickup who allegedly rear-ended the horse Travis was riding away from a bar on a dark country road.