In this bloggy McBlog world of quick opinions from people of little consequence, I’ll be taking a break. Recooperation will begin early tomorrow morning as I fly up to Maine and retreat into my mind for some much needed relaxation and reflection.

In the meantime, I have updated a lot of sections and added a new one too – Blog Roundup. I’ll be in Maine, contemplating the finer things in life, and figuring out new and creative ways to stick a steak knife into Michelle Malkin’s throat, thus making everyone with a concious happy:

I knew I was doing it wrong.

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The unthinkable became the thinkable today: the Supreme Court rejected Guantanamo tribunals. This is a direct repudation of the Bush administration and their strategy against terror ‘combatants’ turned ‘detainees’. Next, the Supreme Court decides on whether the Bush administration has the power to shut down the New York Times.

We now know that the earth is melting (and that means plenty of free polar bear carcasses if you live in the Boston area). But how do we solve it? With crazy proposals from Ivy League institutions, of course:

Dr. Broecker of Columbia proposed doing so by lacing the stratosphere with tons of sulfur dioxide, as erupting volcanoes occasionally do. The injections, he calculated in the 80’s, would require a fleet of hundreds of jumbo jets and, as a byproduct, would increase acid rain.

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And you and your money grubbing, war mongering conservo-bot friends aren’t invited:

Date: June 27, 2006 5:06:22 PM EDT
Subject: News Release: A Prairie Home Companion

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COME SING ALONG WITH GARRISON KEILLOR, MERYL STREEP, LINDSAY LOHAN AND THE REST OF THE CAST OF ROBERT ALTMAN’S A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

NEW YORK, June 27, 2006 — Theater chains across the country are hosting “Sing Along” screenings of Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, where audience members receive a book containing lyrics from the songs in the film and are encouraged to sing along with the cast.

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It’s the first BLOG ROUNDUP, where I try to pull out the best entries from my favorite blogs across the ol’ internet. It will follow no distinct pattern but hopefully will pique your interests on several levels. If you’re interested in being considered or trading links, email me at alec@prosebeforehos.com

In the greatest GOP news of the day, the Supreme Court upheld most of the Texas redistricting plan which “As a result of the new boundaries, Republicans picked up five House seats in Texas, emerging with 21-11 majority” (where they had previously were in the slim majority, 15 to 17). This can also be remarked as ‘the great white hope for maintaining a hegemony over the guise of democracy’. The Washington Post details the biggest winners and losers who were, as always, people with souls or hope for future prosperity.

The BBC blog talks about the reporting on Gaza

Because people from Fox News should never, ever be taken seriously:

Take that, sheeple:

A Scientology video put on YouTube, view it while your soul is stll on Earth:

I had an intense week. It started with me trying to get a car and failing and then my wonderful plan for getting my grandma’s stuff was ruined. I ended up renting a U-Haul on Friday and barely making back in Bloomington to play a show, and then I had to unload the truck and I didn’t get to party as much as I could have. Saturday I tried to get a loan from the bank. They said they would get it done first thing Monday. It ended up being Wednesday. At least I got it, but I missed my brother’s graduation, which was the whole point of this trip.

Drove straight to NY, got lost, got a ticket in bumfuck, PA. Got in at 4am, slept at the hotel till 8am. Got together with Jeremy and Kristine and walked all around. Little Italy was nice, we went into a nice and cool bar that was having a $2 world cup special, and I watched Brazil pick apart Japan. That night we drove out to Long Island to go camping, but we got lost and ended up in East NYC for a while and then when we got to the campsite it was too late to check in, so we called up BJ’s aunt and crashed in her living room in Long Beach. The Taco Bell ran out of tortillas that night so I couldn’t get a quesadilla, and I was sad. Breakfast the next day was good and then we went wading in the Atlantic. It was too cold to swim, but it was fun anyways. Went to the Met, and then went to the MoMA. They were doing a dada exhibition, I like dada a lot. Afterwards we got dinner with Vanessa, an old friend from Paris. It was tasty and good to see her. We went to a bar with some of her friends, they are pretty cool. Talked world cup some. Tara got trashed. Then we drove home at 2am, it was a good drive. Got into my house around 7. I’m pretty tired. My car is doin pretty good though. I’ve put 1200 miles on it so far. Woo!

The national conscious of the Nazi atrocities in German memory has led to cautiousness towards conflict in the German public and government. While this position is a natural reaction and in many respects noble, it has unfortunately decreased Germany’s ability and consequent role to be an international peacekeeper and decision maker. Indeed, Germany’s relations with traditional powers such as the United States and Great Britain have undoubtedly been affected by the apprehension associated with German worldwide involvement. In order to sufficiently repair important diplomatic relationships and raise its role as a purveyor of social democracy, Germany must engage in a plan to increase militarization with the appropriate adjustment of political stance to encourage public opinion towards proactive international contributions.

In the wake of World War 2, West Germany was decidedly demilitarized in order to avert future German involvement in conflict and to spur economic growth by focusing funds on development and human capital. Though West Germany rearmament occurred in 1951 in reaction to the Korean War, West Germany’s military (and later reunified Germany’s) was willfully smaller in comparison to other NATO nations. This has continued to this day, where German spending on military as a percentage of GDP is significantly less than other industrialized nations (approximately 1.5% of GDP in 2003 compared to 4% in America, 2.4% in the UK). Further, “According to a Department of Defense report, Germany’s defense spending was 1.45% of GDP in 2003 and with $35 billion amounted to less than ten percent of US spending ($384 billion). The only US allies with a larger defense spending than Germany were France, the UK and Japan. As percentage of GDP, however, Germany’s defense spending is smaller than those of 21 US allies.” Politics and policy have been similarly affected: Germany participated in Operating Enduring Freedom because of NATO commitments, but was a staunch opponent of action against Iraq, leading to a freeze of relations between Germany and several countries.

Its easier not to be wise
And measure these things by your brains
I sank into eden with you
Alone in the church by and by

Ill read to you here, save your eyes
Youll need them, your boat is at sea

there is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is a rapture on the lonely shore.
there is a society where none intrudes,
by the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not the man less, but nature more,
from these our interviews, in which i steal,

Ever wondered what it would be like to take a mood enhancer for an extended period of time? Well according to a writer on Slate, you become a drunk (but hey, at least you’re popular!). This reminds me (and others) why it’s nice to be an introvert.

In the most sane news I’ve heard in a while, the
Pentagon has officially decided homosexuality is a mental defect. “It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a ‘mental disorder’ more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake”. Then again, most Pentagon officials are still battling hippies and communists (in their heads, at least).

Consider yourself Zinged to the Nth degree, Mr. Kaplan:

To be sure, there has been previous unrest in Kaplanistan. In 2000, the historian Robert Kagan noted Kaplan’s “cheap pessimism,” his indifference “as to whether societies are governed democratically or tyrannically,” and his “weak” grip on history: “Just about every historical event or political philosopher he discusses he gets at least half-wrong.” In 1993, the Balkans expert Noel Malcolm gutted Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts for its many errors of fact and judgment; Kaplan’s hapless response earned this rejoinder from Malcolm: “The basic problem, I think, is that Mr. Kaplan cannot read.” Kaplan’s new book, Imperial Grunts, in which one cannot be sure whether the latter word is a noun or a verb, has unleashed a new offensive. Writing in The New Republic, David Rieff takes Kaplan to task for his “boneheaded nonsense.” In the New York Times Book Review, David Lipsky laments that Kaplan “appears to have become someone who is too fond of war.” But these traits have been visible in Kaplan since his first book, as has his love of intellectual shortcuts and invincible humorlessness. Kaplan’s real and growingly evident problem is not his Parkinson’s grip on history, or that he is a bonehead or a warmonger, but rather that he is an incompetent thinker and a miserable writer.

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I may as well turn this into anti-Semitic, anti-Arab examinations blog, but DSF takes the cake about Linsday Lohan:

I have never really looked into Lohan’s genealogy, but I have a feeling she’s a Jew. The main reason is because she’s from Long Island and everyone in Long Island is Jew but she also works in entertainment and all people in entertainment are Jews, except for the black people but no one notices them because they make really bad/obnoxious movies. She’s also a bit of a whiner and she’s railin’ yay like it’s going out of style, something only rich jewish kids do and she’s also been hospitalized 10 times in the last year, something Jews do, because they go see specialists for every fucking everyday symptom of disease. The defining Jew moment was when I saw these pics where she’s rockin’ a Jew outfit. If you are a Jewish girl, you’ll know what I am talking about…..

air…air
hit me in the face
i run faster
faster into the air
(i say to myself)
what is happening to my skin?
where is that protection that i needed?

For at least a week, because everyone deserves to soak it in for what it’s worth:

that can tear steel as easily as I tear a croissant (it’s French, it’s crap):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UsEsYbaX7Y

a really good interview with BB King.

This video has been viewed over 1.1 million times. Does techno over Spongebob Squarepants segments deserve this much attention?

Once again, a government employee forgot his lines while trying to cover his bosses mistakes. What kind of sycophant can you be if you can’t even say ‘blown up by terrorists’? Clearly, Mr. Rumsfeld needs to be demoted to the State Department.

Mad Lit Professor Puts Finishing Touches On Bloomsday Device

Today is Bloomsday. Additionally it’s the day that BSB plays at Rhinos:

Who: Bitesized Buddha, Gone Plaid
Where: Rhino’s
When: 8ish
$5 All Ages fun! Yay!

Donald Duck just wants to fit (zeig heil?):

Newsflash: Bill O’Reilly fornicates with the koran after unsatisfying phone sex:

I really want to go to the touch and go block party fest on Sept. 8-10 in Chicago. It’s only $35 for a 3-day pass, and Man or Astroman? is playing, with the original lineup. Pinback and Calexico are playin too, I’d probably pay $35 just to see that show.

!!!
The Black Heart Procession
Calexico
CocoRosie

When August comes around, I suppose I’ll be leaving for Nicaragua. Due to massive deforestation I will be serving as an Environmental Education Promoter. I’ll do my best to let you all know what the deal is down there, but I’ll probably forget to post. Alec will be angry. Either way, please post questions as they come to you and I will do the same with answers as they come to me. Posting questions will help preserve my sanity since it would be interesting to discuss international environmental issues with someone, and thereby have something else to occupy my mind. Have a nice day.

Some useful background information:
Wikipedia – Nicaragua
CIA Factbook – Nicaragua

Guess what: your iPod is not made by a well-paid high school graduate in East Asia. Actually, it is made under the auspices of first-world companies that contract their work out to third world manufacturers. And you know what happens when the press gets a hold of this information? Outrage, outrage, outrage. And more outrage.

Listen, let’s not kid ourselves with our supposed ‘ignorance’ of how workers are treated in industries abroad. Diamonds, iPods, consumer electronics, and a wide array of other goods are provided by companies that utilize long work hours, poor working conditions, and low wages in underdeveloped nations. They employ the ‘but in x country, x dollars is worth really x to them’, thus alleviating their own culpability while multinational corporations enjoy XXX profits. It’s the worst element

If there’s one organization I love, it’s FEMA. If organizations got gold stars for fucking up, FEMA would be slathered like my third grade spelling tests.

http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/2971/

phear

These are pretty much all my totally emo feelings put into a totally non-emo sarcasm. My existence is not to be looked down upon, unless you are doing so in an ironic way to further fuel my love for EMOtions:

Breaking news from CNN: Iraq contractors make billions on the front line.

Private military contractors are earning billions of dollars in Iraq — much of it from U.S. taxpayers. Business is booming for those willing to tackle one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. Lucrative U.S. government contracts go to firms called on to provide security for projects and personnel — jobs that in previous conflicts have been done by the military.

Gee, REALLY? No one ever thought about this before. Ever.

In the world of corporate sponsored think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has taken the cake for capitalistic chivalry. A recent AEI event discussed the idea of utilizing free market forces for the national organ system.

Think about that again: they are suggesting that receiving and distributing ORGANS should be decided within a free market system. As AEI pragmatically states:

Although donor altruism is an inspiring virtue, generosity as public policy falls short. Panelists at this event will discuss incentives, including payment, as a viable remedy to enhance the supply of lifesaving organs.

In a nutshell: your liberal, wishy-washy ideals are nice and all, but us rich people deserve unhindered access to your delicious organs through the guise of free market access