Monday Book Pick: Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm by John Ringo
The latest by best selling author John Ringo. It’s the next book in his Legacy of the Aldenata series. “Iron Mike” O’Neil is back, and boy is he pissed!
A lost Stevie Ray Vaughn Gig?
According the the SRV Gig database, Stevie Ray Vaughn played only one show at the Chance theater in Poughkeepsie, on April 28, 1984.
Now, I had a very good time during the early 80s, but I did remember seeing SRV twice at the Chance. So I checked my scrapbook and I have a ticket stub for Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble at the Chance, on Tuesday, July 12. July 12 fell on a Tuesday in 1983.
I also saw SRV at the New Paltz College Springfest concert in 1984 and at the Orpheum Theater in Boston in 1986.
Friday B-Movie – Trekkies
A way funny documentary of rabid Star Trek fans. I’m talking serious fans. Worse than me, and I own a Bat’leth. Great movie if you are into Star Trek.
democrat Culture of Corruption marches on
Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, a democrat and wife of democrat congressman John Conyers (more on him later), has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery according the Justice Department.
Hard left democrat Monica Conyers “had been under investigation for allegedly accepting bribes from a consultant in connection with a City Council vote to approve a $1.2 billion sludge hauling contract”, according the to the Washington Times.
You may remember Ms. Conyers. She was involved in an “open discussion on race” a few months ago.
Speakers advocating for the deal were taunted by the crowd and cut short by Council President Monica Conyers [the wife of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers], who presided over the hearing like an angry bulldog; whites were advised by the citizens to, “Go home.”
Opponents were allowed to rant and ramble on uninterrupted about “those people” who want to steal Detroit’s assets and profit from the city’s labors.
A pitiful Teamster official who practically crawled to the table on his knees expressing profuse respect for this disrespectful body was battered by both the crowd and the council.
When he dared suggest that an improved Cobo Center would create more good-paying jobs for union workers, Conyers reminded him, “Those workers look like you; they don’t look like me.”
Desperate, he invoked President Barack Obama’s message of unity and was angrily warned, “Don’t you say his name here.”
So, not only is Monica Conyers a racist, she’s a corrupt racist. The very model of a modern democrat.
Cap & Tax update
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Environment, Politics
First off, the socialists over at Greenpeace (Hey! Don’t look at me. One of the founders quit after it was hijacked by socialists, that’s his story) oppose the democrat‘s Cap & Tax scheme. They claim it’s “not Science-Based; Benefits Polluters.” In this case, they are probably right.
Then there are 9 damned good reasons why some U.S. environmentalists should heartily oppose Waxman-Markey.
Next we have our Dear Leader‘s political appointees at the EPA suppressing real scientific research and studies that don’t agree with the left’s political agenda
The dems are trying to shove this through after blocking hundreds of Republican amendments and then adding a 300+ page amendment of their own under the cover of darkness last night. What are they hiding from the American people?
One Damn Fine Album
American IV: The Man Comes Around by The Man in Black, Johnny Cash.
Deeply moving, powerful music made by a man near the end of a long and rich musical career, staring his own mortality right in the face.
In the movie Walk the Line, Sam Phillips, the producer at Sun Records asks, ” If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing *one* song. Huh? One song that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up.”
Well, in this album J.R. Cash answered that question with every track. Especially touching are The Man Comes Around, Hurt, First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and Personal Jesus.
Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, who wrote Hurt, had the following to say after seeing Cash’s music video of Hurt:
I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn’t mine anymore… It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure.
Leasing ebooks from Amazon
I came to the conclusion a while ago that you don’t buy ebooks from Amazon, you are only leasing them.
First off, the highly restrictive Amazon DRM not only limits access to the ebook to their proprietary Kindle device, it restricts it to your specific device. Once you are done with the ebook, you can loan it to friend or sell it at used book store. If you want your friend to read the book, you have to give them your Kindle, because that is the only place that ebook will be displayed.
Second, Amazon doesn’t pay it’s associates a fee for any Kindle books “sold” through them. Why not? They pay the associates for just about everything else sold through their sites. Could it be that Kindle owners really are not “buying” the ebooks, but are just paying for a very restrictive lease in order to access the ebook?
Next, Megan McArdle just discovered a catch in the Amazon ebook fine print.
…there is always a limit to the number of times you can download a given book. Sometimes, he said, it’s five or six times but at other times it may only be once or twice. And, here’s the kicker folks, once you reach the cap you need to repurchase the book if you want to download it again.
I know people who buy paper books in both hardcover and paperback, but that is a different scenario. You have two separate versions of the book in different formats. One for the shelf and one to carry around and loan to friends. Amazon wants its customers to buy the exact same content, in the exact same format, multiple times, because their business model assumes that their paying customer are thieves.
That is not a consumer friendly business model.
Also posted at Urbin Technology.
Monday Book Pick: The Android’s Dream
The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi
A fun romp through Interstellar politics, romance, advenure and the Android’s Dream, an electric-blue breed of sheep. Yup, that’s a big tip of the hat to Philip K. Dick. There is also a big jab made a religion based on the rantings of a SF writer of “modest talents.”
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Wild Geese
Africa, the 1970s, a golden age for mercenaries. A great cast, with Richard Burton, Sir Roger Moore and Richard Harris leading the way. A solid adventure film with plenty of violence to go around.
The Friday B-Movie Pick Archive.
ACORN thugs attack members of the NY Senate
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Politics, When democrats attack
NewsDay reports that
Protesters closely aligned with Democrats nearly knocked a Republican senator to the floor and are accused of spitting in the face of his chief of staff.
Sen. James Alesi, of Monroe County, walked out of the chamber later Thursday, not seriously harmed. He said he was disturbed by the crowd of at least 150 people, including those from Citizen Action the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Keep in mind that violence from the left nothing new.