you've heard it all before


three bathers among the stones, 1913, by ernst ludwig kirchner

* Top ten conservative idiots. excerpt:

3. George W. Bush

"We mentioned this item in passing last week but it's surely worth bringing up again -especially since most of the corporate media seem too scared to touch it. A secret British memo released last week reveals that George W. Bush was bending intelligence reports to fit his plan for invading Iraq, and also that the British and American leaders had already decided to invade, even while they were telling their governments and their public that they had not. Yes, according to Knight Ridder:

'A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.

'The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.

'The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.

'There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable,'the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. 'Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,' weapons of mass destruction.

'The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

So - lying to the American people? Lying to Congress? Sounds like an impeachable offense to me. Or maybe not - I mean, sure he lied to Congress, lied to the public, got us into a war which has killed almost 1600 American soldiers so far and countless thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, is bankrupting us with an unnecessary war and a military budget which will soon total more than the entire rest of the world combined, created thousands of new terrorists and turned Iraq into a breeding ground for more, and because of his lies and his policies, America is decidedly less safe...

...but hey - at least he didn't get a blowjob, right?"

* The New Yorker discusses the mountain goats. excerpt:

"According to themountaingoats.net, a long-running fan site, the band has recorded four hundred and fifteen songs. Most of these consist simply of Darnielle singing and playing his guitar. The grind of the boom box’s capstan is often audible, but it does not overwhelm Darnielle’s stentorian voice or his violent strumming; he may be the least self-conscious singer alive. His songs, insistent and stuffed with words, are like late-night pay-phone calls from a lover determined to complete a thought before the quarter runs out—even when the thought is about vegetables. (Darnielle is a vegetarian.)
...
"Darnielle does not resemble the underdogs he writes about. In concert, he smiles and talks easily to the crowd. When he performs, he hollers like a preacher, and some shows include an audience sing-along of a Gaelic drinking tune. I’ve seen him live seven times, and I’ve never brought a guest who wasn’t converted by the end of the night. The Mountain Goats are no longer the kind of band that you would find only in a mail-order catalogue. The group’s last three albums were recorded entirely in a studio, and the most recent, 'The Sunset Tree,' which was released this month, features a full band, including a drummer, a pianist, and a cellist.

"The album’s genteel sound would not be out of place on a Starbucks CD, yet the lyrics are anything but anodyne. The first track, 'You or Your Memory,' begins with what could be a reminiscence of high-school debauchery: 'St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin, Bartles and Jaymes and you, or your memory.' When the moon goes down, the narrator starts to wonder whether he’ll last the night, setting the tone for a series of increasingly grim songs. (The album is dedicated to 'young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them.') In 'Broom People,' Darnielle sings, 'I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral-ring notebook.' He perks up on 'This Year,' a defiant anthem to survival: 'I played video games in a drunken haze, I was seventeen years young. Hurt my knuckles punching the machines, the taste of Scotch rich on my tongue. And then Cathy showed up, and we hung out, trading swigs from a bottle, all bitter and clean, locking eyes, holding hands, twin high-maintenance machines. I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.'"

* "There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another." -- Frank Zappa

* More info on the cut ups' hearts kings lies tomorrow.