So says Netflix’s John Ciancutti, VP of personalization technology both on stage at WWDC and on the blog linked to here. Things look good.

I was at the local Goodwill looking for I don’t even remember what. I saw two of these majestic cups sitting on the shelf and purchased the bejesus out of them. I sent one to a friend and kept the other. You know that line about looking at the same stars in the night sky even though you’re miles apart? Like that. Only it backfired, and he doesn’t like me any more. Read further to understand why.

First, and most noticeable, the logo is falling off. I feel this might be allegorical for Microsoft as a company.

Logo aside, they totally screwed the pooch on this one. What’s a coffee cup supposed to do? It’s supposed to hold coffee without leaking; keep the coffee hot for as long as possible; the cup itself must be held in the hand and lifted to one’s lips for drinking; it must be able to sit on a flat, level surface without falling over.

The cup is a pretty big disappointment for a lot of reasons, but to be fair, it does hold coffee without leaking.

The second you pick the cup up, though, you notice something’s wrong. The handle is the wrong shape and size, and is uncomfortable to hold. My wife, who’s got hands significantly smaller than my own also finds it awkward and wrong. Even my dad, who will play devil’s advocate for just about anything, was forced to agree the cup is singularly uncomfortable in the hand.

When the cup gets too uncomfortable to hold, it’s comically uncomfortable to set down. You see, it’s got this rubberized no-slip bottom. Sadly, it’s worn away in a weird pattern, making the cup slightly tippy. Further, one corner of the steel bottom sort of slides on whatever table or counter you set it on, causing the coffee to slosh. It’s not quite the same as leaking, but it’s danged close.

Odd, how it’s only semantics which keep this cup from failing at it’s most basic task.

The following is a photo of the bottom of the cup. In the photo, the corner on the very right is the one with the weird wearing that bangs on the table.

The steel bottom, as long as we’re on the subject, makes the cup microwave unfriendly. Thus, if your coffee does cool off too much, you’re stuck either adding more hot coffee and drinking quick, or dumping the cup and starting over. Figures the Microsoft cup would encourage waste.

Oh, and that rubber no-skid bottom means you can’t even use a cup heater to keep your coffee hot for fear of melting the rubber and making your cubicle stink like melted Microsoft rubber.

I don’t know why anybody at Microsoft would want to send the message, “even our promo products are ineffective and irritating!” On the other hand, they did release Windows Vista, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised.

Overall rating: The bottom should be recyclable, only I can’t pry it off.

Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath (as per normal, ignore Ozzy).

There are too many extra awesome mustaches to mention by name here, but one stand-out is John Waters.

Even The Super Mario Bros. can’t save the Gulf.
 

Ken Layne for Wonkette:

An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face from the mural, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students pictured on the school wall to be repainted as light-skinned children.

Weird: I thought one of the things Tea Baggers were against was terrorism. Seriously, who does this to grade-schoolers?

Leroy Stick:

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand?  Have a respectable brand.  Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions.  Lead the pack!  Evolve!  Don’t send hundreds of temp workers to the gulf to put on a show for the President.  Hire those workers to actually work!  Don’t dump toxic dispersant into the ocean just so the surface looks better.  Collect the oil and get it out of the water!  Don’t tell your employees that they can’t wear respirators while they work because it makes for a bad picture.  Take a picture of those employees working safely to fix the problem.  Lastly, don’t keep the press and the people trying to help you away from the disaster, open it up so people can see it and help fix it.  This isn’t just your disaster, this is a human tragedy.  Allow us to mourn so that we can stop being angry.

Everyone involved with BP is going to Hell.

A bunch of photos that look like Tetris. It’s surprisingly artsy and cool. Inspiring, even. (Via Kottke.)

It’s this huge, deep sinkhole, and it it were in a Batman movie, I wouldn’t believe it.

UPDATE: Changed link to National Geographic’s site, as the photos everybody’s publishing are theirs.

Sarah Palin:

Extreme Greenies:see now why we push”drill,baby,drill”of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?

Seems a lot like breaking the dishes so you wont have to do the dishes any more to me. People vote for her.

A short while ago, at about 11pm, I went for a bike ride to the golf course, where I went for a walk. The ride from the house to the golf course was harrowing because my eyes were not dark-adjusted, and it’s a pretty dark night. I had to pay a lot of attention to the edges of the road and to the sky to keep from crashing into crashable things. Once on the golf course, I walked my normal walk, and all was well. I arrived back at my bike, my eyes all dark-adjusted, and was able to ride home crazy-fast since it’s generally downhill and the trees were dark but the sky was lightish. Overall, it was a very satisfying ride.

Once home, I decided to drink beer and play Hedgewars. My dad visited me, asked what I’d done, and I told him about my night ride. I mentioned it was how I dealt with Sammi, our first dog, dying: going for about four consecutive nighttime rides. He told me about when his cat Irving died.

My dad:

I was in high school when I got home and found Irving dead. I’d had Irving since junior high. I went for a bike ride. This was back in the late ’60s, in the time of full-service gas stations. I was thirsty, and stopped at a full-serve gas station just in time to hear the attendant say, “I don’t know how to tell you this, ma’am, but you’ve got a dead cat on your engine.”

He assures me he has no recollection of his reaction of his reaction to that, but that it’s true and actually happened. Any other unbelievable dead pet stories?

Tweetie, one of the better Mac Twitter clients, has a little checkbox in the preferences that expands shortened URLs, allowing the user to make a more informed choice: open the link in a browser, or don’t. How cool.

Snappy Angel, a friend I’m honored to know, does what is probably her most interesting work to date. I’d love her to make me really uncomfortable for a couple hours if the results looked like this.

Amature video isn’t great, but the sound quality is surprisingly good. Keep your eyes on the drummer, he’s a show all by himself!

I really hope some big time band picks him up and pays him a lot of money. (Via Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy.)

This is part three of a three-part interview. (Part one is here, part two is here.) About 90 seconds in, he gives the best advice ever, along with a quick personal story. If he read this site, Jim Culbreath would agree with it.

This is a bitchin’ product. Customizing it costs an extra couple of bucks, but how very very cool. Wide variety of colors and styles, including grips for use with grip-shifters. Rad!

A very clever video about the Walmart mentality I hate so much. You know, that mentality where you own a cheap crappy plastic gadget. It breaks, so you go buy a new cheap crappy plastic gadget, use it a couple times till it breaks, then go buy another cheap crappy plastic gadget…. Yeah, like that. Only the video’s cooler and more comprehensive.

Jeanna Bryner reporting for LiveScience:

Compared with college students of the late 1970s, current students are less likely to agree with statements such as “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective,” and “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

It’s nice to have empirical data to back up the nagging feeling I’ve been having the last few years.

BP, Arco, ampm, Aral, Castrol, Wild Bean Cafe.

Just because the hole seems plugged does not let BP off the hook. We still hate them.

Speaking of BP and Twitter:

Sadly, not everyone appreciated the humor. “so you F*** up MY state and its’ ecosystem, it’s prime money maker and natural barrier from storms, and you make JOKES about it?” wrote an ardent Arden Ballard.

But the alert, public-spirited writers behind this slick Twitter page replied: “I’m sorry you’re upset, DM me your address and I’ll send you a free “BP Cares” T-shirt. Shipping not included.”

This is what Twitter’s for. ☺

As of the time of this post, Fake BP (BPGlobalPR) has 51,794 followers. Real BP (BP_America) has 6,510. Fake BP is much better: they only spread black humor.

Addendum to Asker’s original question:

Ok, some people get it, some don’t. I didn’t say country sucks, period; some of you need generous improvements in reading comprehension. No wonder no one takes the US seriously, most of us can’t read our own language.

Funny because it’s true. And the comments are amazing.

An interview with “outspoken mom” Lenore Skenazy by TodayMoms:

As for the issue of safety, Skenazy says we’re “way more scared than our own parents,” thanks to a 24/7 media culture that overemphasizes child abduction and murders. “Our crime rate is lower than when we were kids, playing outside!” she wrote. “And yet, as a Gallup poll found, 73 percent of Americans think we are less safe than ever.”

And check out this gem:

Skenazy’s no stranger to stirring controversy. In 2008, she left her 9-year-old son in midtown Manhattan with a Metrocard for the subway, a subway map, $20, and told him she’d see him when he got back home.

Beautiful. We need more of this. We also need less of the stupidest parents being the loudest ones.

They’re bar-ends, but instead of heading up and around like on most mountain bikes, they drop down like a road bike. It’s Amazon, and they only have pictures of the product itself, but no pictures on a bike. Too bad.

Not safe for work. Awesome, though. (Via Violet Blue.)

1. Time-lapse photography is awesome.
2. So many plastic bags! Any guess how many will end up in the street?

Wikipedia:

BP was named by Mother Jones Magazine as one of the “ten worst corporations” in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records.

[...]

According to PIRG research, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills.

Way to go, President Obama. Open drilling to these particular clowns in an effort to make the Republicans like you, thus resulting in what might be the worst enviornmental catastrophe ever.

My disappointment in Obama is huge. My dread for the future is huger.

Perfect. Can also follow fake BP PR on Twitter.

Paul Rand, libertarian and tea-klan favorite:

“What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, ‘I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,’” Paul said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.”

I don’t get it. When a company screws up horribly, it’s un-American to say, “hey, dude, you screwed up horribly”? I thought we valued honesty in this country. When did that change?

Jeffrey Zeldman:

Every day, even a sad day blurred by headaches and filled with business meetings, is magical and infinite. This dance, this particular proton dance, will never come again.

Click through and read it. It’ll take you three minutes, and it’s wonderful.

My dad’s been getting into the Stones lately. ¹  To help out, I picked up their 2002 best of album, Forty Licks. It’s unbelievable how, not even knowing who was playing, this music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Interestingly, the record almost sounds generic because I’m so used to hearing the songs on the radio. There are loads of songs I know the lyrics to, but never knew who the song was by. There are yet more songs I’ve heard other bands cover and had never knowingly heard the original. It’s weird. I had to keep reminding myself that these guys did it first. They’re like the Beatles, only still alive and more obviously on drugs.

I think the point here is probably this: the Rolling Stones have forty years of music under their belts. They were around when rock music finally started getting good, and they deserve a lot of the credit for that. An unfortunate by-product of that type of long term, landscape-changing success is their songs, especially the more popular ones, are sort of commoditized.

On the other hand, these guys rock, plain and simple. They rock hard, and if this career-spanning best of is any indication, they’ve rocked really consistently for over forty years. That’s a lot of rocking, both in terms of of quantity (twenty-two studio albums) and longevity.

I am thirty years old. I’ve been able to appreciate the Beatles only since March of 2009. Here it is May 2010, and I’m discovering The Rolling Stones, and finding I already knew them and already liked them. For my next trick, I will begin enjoying the music of Rod Stewart. ² 

John Bush:

It’s been twenty years since Belladonna did a record with the band. For me, it’s only been seven so it hasn’t been that long. I think a lot of people are interested in hearing what it sounds like and I think this is the perfect time to do that. It all makes sense to me.

[...]

Hopefully they’ll start playing some of the songs I sang on. I think it’s time for Joey to step up and play some songs from my era. I played songs from the whole catalog, including Neil Turbin’s stuff. I think fans should still get to hear songs like “Inside Out”, “Room For One More” or “Only”. There are lots of amazing songs and they should play them. It would be weird if they didn’t, quite frankly.

A fascinating, candid, and excellent interview with John Bush by Blabbermouth’s Ryan Ogle. It covers why John didn’t rejoin Anthrax, his views on Joey in Anthrax, Armored Saint, and even a little bit of family life.

Black Sabbath had three singers. Other people sang on Black Sabbath albums here and there, but the three were Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, and Tony Martin.

Previous to The Devil You Know, Black Sabbath’s most recent album was 1995′s Forbidden, which featured Tony Martin on vocals. After a miserable little tour, the band just sort of went inactive. Nobody was kicked out as far as I can tell, but nothing was going on. Then there was the big announcement that The Original Black Sabbath were to play live again. And they did!  They played the same ten songs over and over again. ¹   I saw them play three times during the mid-2000′s, and by that third time, I was actually bored watching the mighty Black Sabbath performing on stage. Friggin’ Ozzy. ² 

Also presumably bored by the same ten songs were the rest of the band. And so, out with Ozzy, and back in with Dio. A box set of Dio-era Sabbath was released, and so was best-of with three new songs, a new live album, a live album from back in the day, a new studio album, and then Ronnie James Dio dies of cancer, and that sucks.

Here’s what I get out of all of this: Tony Martin has said he wont work with Black Sabbath any more.  ³ 

Furthermore, Ozzy sued Tony Iommi over the use of the name Black Sabbath, which I suspect has put a damper on their working relationship. ⁴ 

The only Black Sabbath singer willing to work with Black Sabbath is now dead.

I think the best we can hope for is more Tony Iommi solo work. Maybe tour with Geezer and some guest singers with a solo set and a Sabbath set. That’d be pretty cool, but it’s hard to predict exactly what we can expect from Tony and Geezer. ⁵  The only thing I believe is certain is that Black Sabbath died on 16 May along with Ronnie James Dio.

Absolutely tragic. At least we still have Judas Priest and Motörhead. ⁶ 

What a voice this guy has. Beautiful.

Lots and lots of people my age grew up playing Worms. It’s a fun game, made funner by sheer force of personality: cute little worms with a huge arsenal of insanely destructive weapons utop bizarre landscapes exploding each other. One could play against computer enemies, friends on the same computer or, haltingly due to the infancy of the technology, against friends via the internet.

You’d create your team, name them something offensive, include cuss words in the names of all the individual worms, and play. The weapons would make adorable little noises, the worms themselves would say cute little things, and after a while, everybody would be dead.

Fast forward eleven years. The Worms franchise is fragmented and confusing. There were about a zillion editions of the game made available for Windows, but Team 17, the developers behind the game, pretty much focused only on consoles like PlayStation, Wii, and Nintendo DS for ten years. The only Mac version of the game was a hack and would only run on PowerPC Macs, and then only in OS 9. Ok, there was Worms 3D, but that sucked to the point of why bother. Oh, and there’s an iPhone version. It’s pretty good, but the small screen just isn’t the venue for this game. A lot of what made the game great simply gets lost when it’s that small.

A few weeks ago, I dusted off  my ancient copy of Worms Armageddon: New Edition, installed Windows XP in a BootCamp partition on my Mac, and installed VM Ware Fusion so I could play Worms in OS X without rebooting. Sadly, the game was unplayable due to some graphic hiccup involved in the age of the game, newness of the computer, and weird translating layer in between. Rebooting my computer to an otherwise useless Windows install was stupid and irritating. According to the Wikipedia, “On their official website, Hyperion Entertainment, known for their AmigaOS, Mac OS X, and Linux game ports, claimed to have acquired the license to port Worms Armageddon, but it was never released by Hyperion as of yet.” Fortunately for me, the Wikipedia has a whole section about Worms clones. I tried all that would work natively on my Mac, but settled on Hedgewars.

Hedgewars gets a lot of stuff right. First, it works on Macs, Windows, and Linux, so anybody who wants to can play. Second, presumably to avoid being sued, the game doesn’t have worms, but awesome little hedgehogs. The weapons aren’t simple clones. Well, most of them are clones, but there’s some innovation going on, too. And, yes, some stuff’s less good.

Innovations include the Melon Bomb (kinda like a huge cluster bomb), Birthday Cake (walks around and under land masses and explodes near your enemy), and Desert Eagle (pistol will shoot through the landscape, but doesn’t do huge damage). Things that are less good include Worms’ Ninja Rope simply being Rope, and the Homing Missile is now a Homing Bee, and the Homing Bee is much shorter range and kinda sucks. Hedgewars wins in the weapons category, if only because new weapons are being developed. As of the time of this writing, the main developer is playing with a new weapon called Deadly Sonata, where a hedgehog playing a piano wreaks havoc. There’s a trailer, but the weapon’s not available in the game just yet.

There are tons of voices available in Hedgewars, but they seem to have a smaller vocabulary. The smaller vocabulary kinda kills it for me. It’s too repetitious, so I keep the sound off. Worms wins here.

You can also put masks and hats on your hedgehogs. My team, The Lemmy’s, have a little skull mask. A computer team I made, The Pirates, have a pirate hat. I also made a Star Wars team who all have Darth Vader masks on. Loads of choices here. It’s one of those thoughtful, silly little things that make the game so much fun. Hats don’t actually improve the game play, but add to the overall fun vibe.

The maps are great and easily match those of Worms. The landscapes are both very high quality and of huge variety, and I think they trounce what was available in Worms.

About the only complaint I have is the admin screens don’t make too much sense. I spent a week not understanding that I could play as my custom team if I wanted to, and didn’t have to play the quick game  mode with generic teams. Once I figured it out, it was a piece of cake to create custom computer teams of sufficiently small brains as to make it fun to play against.

I’ll make it simple for you: if you like video games, any kind of video game, get Hedgewars. It’s free and will work on your computer. It’s every bit as fun as Worms was, you don’t have to pirate it or install Windows on your computer. And if you don’t, at least check out the trailers. The first one has a chipmunks-sounding version of Bohemian Rhapsody playing while the hedgehogs blow each other up. Cute!

Wendy Dio, Ronnie’s Wife:

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.

Dammit. Cancer is terrible.

On the bright side, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater has a pretty good observation.

From the inside of the Iggy Pop Anthology I borrowed from the library:

This recording and artwork are protected by copyright law. Using Internet services to distribute copyrighted music, giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for themto copy is illegal and does not support those involved in making this piece of music – especially the artist. By carrying out any of these actions it has the same effect as stealing music. Applicable laws provide severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. Many examples of where to buy legal downloads can be found at www.musicfromemi.com

“By carrying out any of these actions it has the same effect as stealing music.” Really? Somebody wrote that, and somebody else said ok to publishing it. Also, that text is in an about 4 point font in yellow on top of a super close up of Iggy’s face in red. What a mess.

Sounds right on par to me.

The last time I used the AT&T “your service sucks on my iPhone” app was months ago. Today, I got the following text message:

AT&T Free Msg: AT&T appreciates your Mark the Spot feedback from San Luis Obispo CA on 12/9/2009. We are pleased to inform you that we have a new cell site planned near your submission in the next 60-90 days. If you have any further comments or feedback, you may reply to this msg for free. Thank you, AT&T.

As reviewed by Trader Joe’s Fans:

At first glance, the Preserve is quite plain. The no-frills plastic handle is a solid color of smooth plastic with an odd curve. There are no racing stripes and multi-colored bristles like the better-known brands. A photo of a fern with dew drops on it serves as the package insert. It seemed to me a casual attempt for some company to sell recycled or recyclable toothbrushes to the environmental crowd. Not so. This is one well thought-out product.

I bought one yesterday and love it. Highly recommended.

Says Ian:

We had a meeting with John [Bush, the Armored Saint frontman who has been singing with Anthrax], at which he was honest enough to tell us that he really couldn’t make the commitment to the band that he knew we needed. It was all very friendly, but ended with us feeling we had to find someone else.

Nobody wanted to go down the route of finding an unknown. So, it left one option: calling Joey. He was really into the idea of coming back.

What’s got Bush so busy he can’t be in Anthrax? Bush himself says it’s not Armored Saint:

We’re not, like, a real band. [laughs] This isn’t some working unit, maybe to the dismay of some [fans], but it just isn’t.

Big disappointment for me. Anthrax with John Bush is one of my favorite bands. Anthrax with Belladonna makes me wonder how they ever made it at all.
 

Yep. Put yourself in the shoes of the people putting on this performance, and your smile will be large.

Think Geek has a cool little device; one one end of the box is two sets of RCA inputs, and at the other end is a USB plug. Use this to import anything with RCA outputs. Be great for importing cassette audiobooks or that old Stooges vinyl in the back of the closet. And it says it works on Macs or Windows computers. I think one of these is probably in my future.

Short App Reviews:

All in All, I highly recommend picking up Reel Director as it works great, has the ability to upload music and most of all, the final product looks great.  I’ll be keeping my eye on 1stVideo and hope they improve the quality of the outputted video.  There is a ton of potential in 1st video and with better compression, higher quality output and a few updates, it could be a superior app.  In fact I know it would be.

Lots of very good points and excellent comparisons. What I find fascinating is that in an iPhone 3GS, you’ve essentially got a G3 iMac in your pocket; arguably the computer that brought video editing to the common man. That we’ve got enough video editing apps to perform a comparative analysis at allreally shows me that The Future Is Now.

Short App Reviews:

All in All, I highly recommend picking up Reel Director as it works great, has the ability to upload music and most of all, the final product looks great.  I’ll be keeping my eye on 1stVideo and hope they improve the quality of the outputted video.  There is a ton of potential in 1st video and with better compression, higher quality output and a few updates, it could be a superior app.  In fact I know it would be.

Lots of very good points and excellent comparisons. What I find fascinating is that in an iPhone 3GS, you’ve essentially got a G3 iMac in your pocket; arguably the computer that brought video editing to the common man. That we’ve got enough video editing apps to perform a comparative analysis at all really shows me that The Future Is Now.

“Henry & Glenn”, the new fictional minicomic [...] stars super-notorious musclebound punk/metaldudes Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins (neither one of whom is gay in real life) in a loving, committed relationship. The premise of the fantasy, unauthorized comic is explained at the front of the ‘zine: “Henry and Glenn are very good ‘friends.’ They are also ‘roommates.’

Be sure to check out the cover. Punk hilarity at it’s best.

I remember maybe ten years ago, a girl I worked with got pregnant. She was surprised because she didn’t know that’s what sex was for. Thank goodness her parents protected her from all that evil carnal knowledge.

Brush Fires of the Mind is a political side/solo project by Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer. It’s no secret I love that band, and another Schaffer project, Demons & Wizards, got me into Blind Guardian.

Sons of Liberty has that standard (read: excellent) Schaffer sound, and while there are no musical surprises, there are certainly no disappointments. Actually, there may be one surprise: Schaffer himself performs lead vocals throughout the record’s nine songs. He’s sung on the very occasional Iced Earth song, and performs back-up vocals while playing live. You know, his singing isn’t bad! It’s in sort of that James Hetfield vein, and he really does sound pretty good. He’s got less range than most of the singers he’s worked with, but he uses what he has very well.

Where things get weird is with content. This is a very politically oriented record. Even the name of the group, “Sons of Liberty,” is taken from, “a political group made up of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies.” (Wikipedia) In addition, Schaffer himself is a pretty right-wing kind of guy, though you wouldn’t know it by the lyrics he writes for Iced Earth.

From False Flag by Sons of Liberty:

You like to think it can’t happen here
Open your eyes and see
Hijacked by a group of thugs
And criminals in D.C.

Don’t let them intimidate you
Fear is how they feed
No mater what they throw our way
We must defend liberty

Beware
False Flag

The only thing I’ve ever read about schaffer’s education is that he dropped out of high school at sixteen. When I look at both his arch-conservative political views and his generally pretty liberal political lyrics, I conclude he should probably take a community-college political science class. Why? Because Schaffer is obviously a very smart guy, but he also very obviously believes the Republican, “only Republicans are patriots,” line.

The thing is, to a left-winger like myself, the lyrics on Brush Fires of the Mind all sound very leftist; even right-bashing. Tree of Liberty is maybe a little more aggressive than I feel, though:

Every now and then we see
The tree of liberty must be refreshed
With the blood of patriots and tyrants
The time has come again
The clash of free and tyranny will soak the Earth
With the blood of patriots and tyrants

I just don’t feel like we need to kill anybody. Except maybe Bush and Cheney. I’d be ok with a public execution. We could bring the kids and rotten fruit.

Never mind.

Overall, it’s a good, solid record. The end result and the motivation are a little confused, but it’s a good listen. I suspect no matter what your political sympathies, you’ll identify with what Schaffer has to say here. I can’t help but pass favorable judgement and recommend the album to the type of people who would like it. And it’s cheap. The low-quality version of the album is free; the high-quality version is only $8, and I think it’s worth it.

Google’s got some big fat information, including horrible satellite photos, of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Political aside: Republicans are such no-mongers anyway, I don’t know what Obama hoped to win by capitulating to their wanting to drill here. And now the very worst has happened. The result, as far as I can tell, is that the no-mongers still don’t like him, and the people who did are now horribly disappointed. It’s hard to imagine a worse outcome.