Free to be you and me

The National Review has put out its list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs. But they forgot a few:

• "Kill The Poor," The Dead Kennedys. Clear-cut support for welfare reform. "The sun beams down on a brand new day / No more welfare tax to pay."


• "Whip It," Devo. Corporal punishment should be restored to America's public schools to cure homosexuality and latent Communist leanings. "Try to detect it / It's not too late / To whip it / Whip it good."


• "Tramp The Dirt Down," Elvis Costello and "Stand Down Margaret," the English Beat. Both songs mention Margaret Thatcher, so they must be good. "Stand down" must be a British idiom, like "buck up" only more conservative.


• "West Germany," the Minutemen. With that song title and the band's name, how can it not be a sweeping ode to anti-Communism? At least that's what I assume -- I couldn't find a copy at Sam Goody. Why, it's probably even more patriotic than "Born in the USA!"


• "This Land Is Your Land," Woody Guthrie. A fervent tribute to property rights and creationism ("This land was made for you and me"). Also, Guthrie's guitar supported capital punishment and anti-Fascism.

(Kidding, of course....)

Senior Ball

Kevin, Me, Joe, Alisha, Amanda, Jason, Dana, and Ryan

Liberty through obscurity

Rep. Hinchey is pushing for answers as to why the Justice Department stopped investigating its role in signing off on the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

In a semi-related note, General Hayden's nomination is toast, isn't it? I have to think that today's reports about the NSA's domestic telephone logging is the intelligence community's way of expressing its disapproval of the nomination.

Student Films

We recently had a showing of some films students had done throughout the semester here. This one was my favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bHmLM6Klzig&search=derek%20van%20gorder

Economic dark matter

This article describes an interesting theory regarding the US trade deficit and why it should not be a major concern. While the theory makes a certain amount of sense, I'm not sure I buy it.

Writing . .

A wonderful lesson on grammar . . .
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=14

Infuriating game . .

Here's the link again, as I'm not certain how this works . . .

http://www.yarukinoki.net/flash/pendulumeca/

Porter Goss Resigned

"I don't suppose it has anything to do with the fact that Goss is neck deep in the Wilkes-Corruption-and-Hookers story that's been burbling in the background all week. We don't know definitely why Goss pulled the plug yet. But the CIA Director doesn't march over to the White House and resign, effective immediately, unless something very big is up."

Course, the President always saw him as an interim kind of guy, cause that's what the CIA needs after the major intelligence failures of past 5 years . . .

Prom Dresses

Took the 4 dresses to Back On The Rack. Thought they should have had sign indicating they have prom dresses when I drove by last Thursday. Saw all 4 in window when Dad and I drove by Sunday, with big signs saying "PROM DRESSES"; Dad tried to break my neck by doing an unexpected U turn in the Jeep to go back and admire them. Just drove by, and Mac's prom dress and Lucy's rose red gown were gone.

And that's the truth.

Truthiness

"I mean, it's like the movie 'Rocky.' All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, 'Cut me, Dick, cut me!,' and every time he falls everyone says, 'Stay down! Stay down!' Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie."