The Soundboard: Multiplatform Edition

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Phil Kadath

#1

This is damn funny

And not just because I got a hankering for some Steinman and downloaded the original track while I was on vacation.

…..

#2
The new Them Crooked Vultures album arrived yesterday’s afternoon post.

Yeah, it’s pretty fucking awesome, in the truest sense of the word “awesome”. You need to buy it.

It sounds more than a bit like a Queens of the Stone Age album, in the vein of Lullabies to Paralyze. If you liked that album, you’ll love TCV. If you don’t fancy QotSA, you’ll still very likely enjoy this one because, as I said before, it’s pretty fucking awesome.

There is a very definite sense of a rare quality of musicianship on this disc that even most other “supergroup” albums lack.

It opens with a hard shot to the scrote, musically. Then it kneels down over you while you’re on the pavement and give you a knockout punch. Musically. The rest of the album is spent reviving you with slaps upside the head, buckets of water and smelling salts. Musically.

My favorite tracks so far are:

#11 – Caligulove. Iron Butterfly never sounded this good.

#12 – Gunman. If you can think of what it would sound like if Rob Zombie produced a Bauhaus album, you’ve got it.

A solid nominee for Album of the Year.

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

An answer to the mystery

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Phil Kadath

How do you turn leftist students into anti-tax activists?

Put a sales tax on their tuition.

Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, just seven years out of college, is igniting ire with his plan to levy a 1 percent tax on tuition collected by the city’s 10 nonprofit colleges and universities.

Introduced as part of Ravenstahl’s 2010 budget less than a week after he won reelection on Nov. 3, the so-called “Fair Share Tax” would raise $16.2 million in annual revenue for the city, his estimates claim. “We value Pittsburgh’s nonprofit community,” he said as he announced the tax. “They are our major employers, and a big part of why our economy continues to be strong. However, we can no longer afford to provide city services to those who are not paying their fair share.”

Students would have to pay between $27 and $409 annually, depending on tuition, to their colleges and universities, which would then remit the money to the city. Students at the Community College of Allegheny County would pay the least and students at Carnegie Mellon University would pay the most.

The irony is so solid you could set a cup of coffee on it.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 4 Comments

Once the government gives it to you

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Phil Kadath

They are able to take it away for as long as they want/have to.

Remind your leftist friends of the above truth. Over and over again.

The Federal Communications Commission began to lay the groundwork for a bigger federal role in the broadband business Wednesday, outlining the hurdles the U.S. needs to overcome to improve the availability of high-speed Internet access.

The FCC identified a number of issues the government should address, including the high cost of laying new broadband lines in rural areas, a lack of airwaves for wireless Web access and ill-informed consumers.

“This focus on broadband is a reflection of a recognition that the U.S. is lagging behind,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday at the agency’s monthly meeting.

The FCC is drafting a National Broadband Plan, which will lay out ways the government can improve broadband service in the U.S. The plan is scheduled to come out in February, and it’s uncertain how many of its suggestions will ultimately be adopted. Already, some big cable and telecommunications companies are concerned the agency wants to impose rules that could undermine their business strategies and profitability.

Just this week we found out that the Army Corps of Engineers can’t maintain a mud wall, the accounting office can’t count and the FAA can’t keep their computer up.

This will not end well.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | Leave a comment

Hey Fred

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Phil Kadath

STFU.

Say something that stupid again and you might as well GTFO too.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 8 Comments

Be Advised: Part 4

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Having successfully navigated an online ordeal to register for my classes, I needed to go to the campus and pay for them. I also needed to sign up for their payment contract system, buy the appropriate books, and get parking stickers for Bull and Buddy.

Not being wholly ready for public display/interaction, The Wife went with me to the campus (that and she’d never seen the place). I knew that on-campus parking would be an issue, so I went later in the morning hoping that some of the early class attendees would have left by then and given up a few spots.

It didn’t quite work out as well as I had planned, and we had to wind our way further and further back looking for a spot. I saw a number of “Well behaved women rarely make history” bumper stickers as I drove through the lots and made a rude comment on the topic in The Wife’s presence, right before eying an open spot in the next lot over.

I cut the wrong way through a one-way entrance to the lot and got a finger wagged at me by the parking lot attendant-chick in the booth. After we parked I noticed that we’d have to walk past her on our way to the Student Center. Feeling brave, I walked past and said “Well behaved men rarely get decent parking spots.” This got a sneer of a smile out of her and I think saved me from some draconian form of punishment/parking ticket.

Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense | 2 Comments

Thank you, NRA

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Phil Kadath

A couple weeks back I posted about the self-titled “vigilantes” patrolling outside the University of Washington campus after multiple students were attacked.

The “leader” of this group made a couple of very stupid statements that, thankfully, appear to have caught the eye of the National Rifle Association, who have stepped in to calm them down a bit.

When he created a group on Facebook earlier this month with the aim of quelling crime around campus, University of Washington student Stanley Luong talked of forming a “vigilante” group to patrol the area.

The idea quickly drew attention — and criticism. Facebook, a social-networking Web site, removed the group from its site.

A member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) stepped in to offer a free training class on the legal ramifications of using deadly force. And a gun range in Kent supplied a room for the meeting Sunday.

By the time of the gathering, Luong had changed his message, and realized his mistake. “We don’t have plans for patrols; this is looking like more of a self-defense education group,” he said.

Luong said he realizes now it was a bad idea to use the word “vigilante” or suggest volunteers could patrol campus. The group has formed a new Facebook page under a different name, University District Defenders.

“We’re in no way affiliated with vigilantes,” Luong said. “I didn’t think about the consequences when I used the word vigilante.”
Rick Walker, an Olympia-area NRA gun instructor, held a free training session to six members of the group on how to get out of a threatening situation without using a gun, and the legal ramifications of using a gun in self-defense.

I’m glad to read that one of the first statements out of Instructor Walker’s mouth was along the lines of “Don’t tell people you have a gun and are out hunting muggers, dipshit.”

Let us hope the UW doesn’t try to shut this down or ostracize students who decided to take this course or future courses on self defense. And I’m not just saying that because sooner than later I’ll be a UW student.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

Watch them call it a Jobs Program

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Phil Kadath

These will definitely be “created”. Out of thin air and paid with imaginary money.

The Obama administration will propose that the federal government take over safety regulation of the nation’s subway and light-rail systems, responding to what it says is haphazard and ineffective oversight by state agencies.

Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak: Set and enforce federal regulations to ensure that millions of passengers get to their destinations safely. Administration officials said the plan will be presented in coming weeks to Congress; changing the law is subject to its approval.

The proposal would affect every subway and light-rail system in the country, including large systems in Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Administration officials said they are responding to a growing number of collisions, derailments and worker deaths on subways, and in particular to a fatal June 22 crash in the District of Columbia and failures in oversight that have surfaced in its wake.

“After the train crash, we were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something about this,’ ” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “And we discovered that there’s not much we could do, because the law wouldn’t allow us to do it.”

Safety experts praised the initiative.

Let me translate that last line: “Concern trolls love to be concerned.”

Just like the Department of Homeland Security has not made us any more secure, a new layer of NTSB oversight will not make getting from Point A to Point B any more safe.

We’re doomed.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 3 Comments

You could already be infected

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Phil Kadath

With Haters Disease (aka: the H1FU virus)

Since the election of Barack Obama as president, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence.

What characterizes this anti-government hostility is a shared belief that Obama and his administration actually pose a threat to the future of the United States. Some accuse Obama of plotting to bring socialism to the United States, while others claim he will bring about Nazism or fascism. All believe that Obama and his administration will trample on individual freedoms and civil liberties, due to some sinister agenda, and they see his economic and social policies as manifestations of this agenda. In particular anti-government activists used the issue of health care reform as a rallying point, accusing Obama and his administration of dark designs ranging from “socialized medicine” to “death panels,” even when the Obama administration had not come out with a specific health care reform plan. Some even compared the Obama administration’s intentions to Nazi eugenics programs.

Some of these assertions are motivated by prejudice, but more common is an intense strain of anti-government distrust and anger, colored by a streak of paranoia and belief in conspiracies. These sentiments are present both in mainstream and “grass-roots” movements as well as in extreme anti-government movements such as a resurgent militia movement. Ultimately, this anti-government anger, if it continues to grow in intensity and scope, may result in an increase in anti-government extremists and the potential for a rise of violent anti-government acts.

Don’t you dare disagree with the Obama Administration or the Anti Defamation League will stereotype you.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

Be Advised: Part 3

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Phil Kadath

I have SOARed.

Or, more accurately, I have taken the Student Orientation, Advising and Registration test, and received my Personal Identification Number so that I could register for my classes.

But as with everything involved with this “schooling thing”, all did not go as planned.

As I posted in Part 2, Class Registration opened at 0600 on the 12th, but that the earliest time for first time students to go through the SOAR program was the 17th. I called the school, put on my best whine, and was able to get into the online course that opened on the 12th at 0800.

So at the appropriate time, I logged in with my school email addy as my login and my student ID as my password and got….nothing. I waited five minutes and tried again (in case they hadn’t turned it on yet), getting the same result. Another five and the same. I called the school only to find that enough people had also put on their best whine and gotten into the online course to crash it.

But not to worry, the IT folks would be on top of it when they got in at 0900 and to try to log on again at noon. I went to bed, woke up at 1300 and tried again. Nothing. Another phone call was made and I was told to try tomorrow at 0800. I then went back to bed for the day.

Meanwhile, returning students were already registering for classes.

Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day: 11/18/09

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Phil Kadath

I like the way this guy thinks

It’s not that looks matter per se. It’s just that beautiful women are always on the cutting edge of social trends.

Anonymous friend of P.J. O’Rourke’s

Context at the link

Speaking of which, if you’re looking for a date but don’t want to have to wade through the bleeding hearts whose minds are so open their brains have fallen out, try the Atlasphere!

Joshua Zader’s intellectual relationship with Ayn Rand began as it does for so many, during his college years.  He then blazed a trail uniquely his own among Rand admirers by creating The Atlasphere – an online networking and dating site for the fans of Rand’s novels with particular emphasis on The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  Zader found inspiration in Rand’s portrayals of independence and integrity, saying: “Rand’s ethical vision was really one where we want to create a win-win world for everybody, and that there shouldn’t be conflicts of interest among rational people if you’re using an ethical system where everybody is treated as an end in himself.”  Zader has seen the real life impact of Rand’s ideas through his work on The Atlasphere, which currently boasts over 19,000 members.

Video at the link.

Hopefully, the Atlasphere isn’t like the Gunosphere, where the male to female ratio has lots of zeros at the wrong end.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment