Colin McEnroe Binned By WTIC

Liberal gadfly, columnists and WTIC talk radio talking head Colin McEnroe was binned by WTIC. In somewhat related news WTIC center right talk show host Jim Vicevich had his show expanded by an hour.
I wonder if the rocket scientists over at the Hartford Courant can figure out why their ad revenues and circulation are so abysmal and do the same sort of thing?

Boxing Vs. MMA

I'm watching a re-run of the Calzaghe Vs. Jones fight on HBO, this was supposed to have been a good fight, but I can't watch it. Apparently I have been ruined by watching MMA.
Calzaghe keeps taunting Jones by dropping his hands and dancing in front of him. Try that with a light heavyweight in MMA with their minimal gloves and you will wake up in the dressing room or an ambulance, or you might get kicked in the face, taken down and mounted.
I wonder if boxing is loosing market share to the various MMA afficions? It should be. This is what happens in the UFC when you approach your oppenent with your hands down:

The Best Commercial Ever?

NOT SAFE FOR WORK. But absolutely much, much better than moldy old music videos. It's a shame Denmark has such horrible winters. Enjoy.
Shamelessly lifted from Insty.

Bleg

Please, no more questionable music for a few months, PLEASE!

Michael Roe & Mark Harmon - Don't, This Way

The guitar on this is so achingly beautiful.

Imagine
All those years together
As a blackbird with no song to sing
Imagine
Throwing it to the air
But it falls from broken wings

Don't leave this way, so many words unsaid
Don't lie this way, stretched straight from
Feet to head

Imagine
The sky is pouring down
On the back of all those years
Imagine
That bird helpless on the ground
Shot down by all those tears

Don't leave this way, so many words unsaid
Don't lie this way, stretched straight from
Feet to head
Don't look this way, closed eyes, unmoving lips
Don't feel this way, cold hands and fingertips

Mike Roe again (with Mark Harmon)

Michael Roe & Mark Harmon - Denomination Blues

Denomination Blues (That's All)

Some people preaching
They do very well
They take all your money
And you can go to hell
And that's all... that's all
When you could have Jesus
And that's all

You can go to your college
You can go to your school
If you ain't got Jesus
You're just an educated fool
And that's all... that's all
You gotta have Jesus now
And that's all

If you pardon me sir
You ain't doin' too well
You spend your whole life sinning
And you're going to hell
And that's all
But that ain't all
Cuz you could have Jesus now
And that's all

It's good to stand together
It's bad to stand apart
The only ones going to heaven
Are the pure in heart
And that's all... that's all
You better get Jesus now
And that's all

Jesus is coming back on the dividing day
Taking in the sheep
Turning the goats away
That'll be all now
That'll be all
You better take Jesus now
And that's all

Phil Keaggy with Glass Harp

Glass Harp JB's Kent, Ohio Jam


This guy can play with anybody.

Son House - John The Revelator

Larry Norman does a cover of this song but his voice isn't nearly as good as this.

another Christian singer songwriter

Bruce Cockburn live "The End Of All Rivers" (an instrumental)



A total freaking lefty but one of my all-time favorites.

same dude with a haircut

and without the band does a more traditional version with more of the lyrics from Zeppelin's version.

Mike Roe - Nobody's Fault but Mine

wish the sound was better on this video

Nobody's Fault But Mine - the 77's



The 77s do a LOT of Christian stuff. This song has been sung with different lyrics by different artists. This version is obviously a cover of Led Zeppelin's:

Nobody's fault but mine
It's nobody's fault but mine
Try to save my soul tonight
Oh, it's nobody's fault but mine

Devil he told me to roll
Devil he told me to roll roll roll roll
How to roll the log tonight
Nobody's fault but mine

Brother he showed me the gong
Brother he showed me the ding dong ding dong
How to kick that gong to life
Oh, it's nobody's fault but mine

Got a monkey on my back
M-M-Monkey on my back back back back
Gonna change my ways tonight
Nobody's fault but mine

I will get down rollin' tonight
N-N-N-Nobody's fault but mine.

Otis Redding and the Dead have also done covers.

Blind Willie Johnson is credited with writing it. Here are the lyrics from his 1927 recording:

Nobody's fault but mine
Nobody's fault but mine
If I don't read my soul be lost

I have a Bible in my home
I have a Bible in my home
If I don't read my soul be lost

My father taught me how to read
My father taught me how to read
If I don't read my soul be lost
Nobody's fault but mine

Lord, Lord
Nobody's fault but mine
If I don't read my soul be lost

I have a Bible in my house
I have a Bible in my house
If I don't read my soul be lost

Mother, she taught me how to read
Mother, she taught me how to read
If I don't read my soul be lost
Nobody's fault but mine

Lord, Lord
Nobody's fault but mine
If I don't read my soul be lost

My sister she taught me how to read
My sister she taught me how to read
If I don't read my soul be lost
Nobody's fault but mine

Lord, Lord
Nobody's fault but mine
If I don't read my soul be lost

My opinion: the 77s should have done Zeppelin's version with more of Blind Willie's lyrics. (They use some of his lyrics. I just would have liked it better if they had use more of them.)

(link)

re: Larry Norman

from Wikipedia:

Following tours by the first wave of punk musicians in the British Isles in the mid-1970s, the post-punk band U2 was formed in Dublin, Ireland. Active simultaneously in the local punk music scene and the "Shalom Fellowship," some members of U2 eventually became "fans" of Larry Norman's music.[15] Both artists performed, making unannounced appearances, at the U.K.'s Greenbelt Festival in 1981.[21]

Charles Thompson IV discovered Larry Norman's music at age 13 after moving to California and seeing him in concert. Thompson said of Norman during this period: "I don't think Larry Norman was necessarily respected by religious people... he had more of a rebellious rock'n'roll kind of an image." "I dressed like him, I looked like him, he was my total idol."[22] While at college in Massachusetts, Thompson adopted the stage name Black Francis, and formed The Pixies along with Joey Santiago, Kim Deal, and David Lovering. According to Kim Deal, the title of the Pixies' 1987 EP "Come On Pilgrim", as well as a similar line from the song "Levitate Me," derive from a Norman catchphrase used during live performances. In the 1987 recording and subsequent performances of the Pixies song "Levitate Me," lead singer Black Francis shouts "Come on Pilgrim, you know He loves you!" while imitating Larry Norman's accent. [23]

link

Larry Norman

On Zaphod's recommendation I youtubed Larry Norman, what do you think?
I probably won't run out and buy his Cd's anytime soon, but I kind of like it. Much, much more than Bebo Norman. Why?

Happy Kwanzaa!

Or not, whatever.

Baby Please Don't Go Muddy Waters Bottleneck Stella Guitar

more Bebo Norman...

Sometimes when I'm all alone
I don't know if I can
Take another breath
Some say home is where the heart is
Tell me where my home is
'Cause i'm scared to death

Falling from the rooftop
Crashing like a raindrop
Can you make my heart stop
Shaking like a leaf
Standing at the floodgate
Steady as an earthquake
Can you hear my heart break
Tearing at the seams

I am drifting in the deep end
Holding on to your hand
Is all that saves me now
Life can treat you like a beggar
You hold me together
But I don't know how

Falling from the rooftop
Crashing like a raindrop
Can you make my heart stop
Shaking like a leaf
Standing at the floodgate
Steady as an earthquake
Can you hear my heart break
Tearing at the seams

Some say home is where the heart is
And my heart is in your hands
You are all I need

Rising from the ashes
Lifting from the madness
Now you see my heart is
Deep enough to dream
Heal me from the deathblow
Lead and I will follow
Now you feel my heart glow
Mending at the seams

Bebo Norman: "I Will Lift My Eyes"

Not precisely a Christmas song but it still fits.

Utter Nonense

Learn from your green superiors:

39-year-old Chameides -- nicknamed "Sustainable Dave" -- recycles his garbage or else stores it in his basement. He says he wants to show that it is possible to dramatically reduce his family's consumption habits.
And he can show astounding results. Rather than the 1,600 pounds of trash the average American family produces each year, Chameides, his wife and two daughters have amassed
only 32 pounds over the last 12 months.

Great, what to do with all that garbage you have their in California?

Ironically, even Chameides's rubbish will not go to waste. In January, his refuse will be sent to the Trash Museum of Connecticut to be exhibited.

I see. Garbage makes a three thousand mile trip. Green weenies get all self congratulatory, everybody wins.

President Elect Obama To Use Lincoln's Bible at Inauguration

"President-elect Obama is deeply honored that the Library of Congress has made the Lincoln Bible available for use during his swearing-in," said Presidential Inaugural Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau. "The President-elect is committed to holding an Inauguration that celebrates America's unity, and the use of this historic Bible will provide a powerful
connection to our common past and common heritage."

I must admit I find this rather cool for at least two reasons. First, I bet Honest Abe is looking down and pleased that an African American has been elected President, which makes me wonder if he'd be surprised that it took this long or that it happened at all. Secondly, if President Elect Obama wants to emulate someone, he could do much worse than Lincoln. Let's hope he surprises us all.

O Magnum Mysterium!

One of my favorite Christmas hymns, which I was privileged to present publicly (as a poor tenor in a decent choir) several times, many years ago.

The text reads:

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

Here is the music (turn it up, as it begins softly):



Hat tip for link, N. Peters over at First Things.

Holy Moses, is this beautiful!!

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

(link)

Yet More Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Iran Visit

I was excited to see a visitor from Iran to WMTN the other day. I wondered what brought him or her to our site, wonder no more, it was a Google search: "black girls and white seeeeex". Hmmm. Which opened this page:
http://withmalicetowardnone.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
You can't make this stuff up.

Seperated at Birth: Snow Miser and Gary B. Smith

Steven Soderbergh's Che Big In Cuba

Reuters reports that "Cubans over the weekend applauded a U.S. director's new movie on Ernesto "Che" Guevara for its accurate portrayal of his fabled role in Cuba's revolution."

• Reuters would report that. I suppose if two Cubans liked the movie Reuters is technically accurate. I wonder how the families of Che's victims feel about it?
• No shock that Hollywood would glorify a leftist murderer. Again.
• No shock that "Havana festival organizers had said in July that "Che" would not be shown if it attacked Fidel Castro, the ailing 82-year-old who led Cuba for 49 years after taking power in the 1959 revolution." God forbid anything should question the party line. This from the people who purport to speak truth to power. Ass licking, useful idiot, commie stooges would be a more apt description.

What's next a glorious biopic of the much maligned Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, or is he the wrong type of murdering totalitarian thug?

Lifehouse's "Everything" like you've never heard before

"Find me here
And speak to me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you

You are the light
That's leading me
to the place
Where I find peace... again..."

God Help Us All

More here.

Will Joe Biden Be Right?

It looks like Joe Biden may be right about a major issue for the first time in his ever long career; President elect Obama could be tested by an international crises, namely an armed conflict between nuclear arch-enemies Pakistan and India. Great.
The main thing that makes a nuclear exchange between these two nations seem unthinkable, is that the repercussions are too ugly to contemplate. That doesn't mean it can't or won't happen. We live in interesting times.

Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

We took the children to see Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker at Central Connecticut State University, a grand time was had by all.
This wasn't the Kirov, Bolshoi or Royal Ballet as seen here. It was a local ballet company. I am far from an expert on ballet or anything else for that matter, but some of the dancing wasn't too different than Marty's dance quintet. Other dancing was quite impressive. It seems that as a culture we are, in some cases, far too well fed to be prancing around in leotards.
The music, performed live was outstanding as always. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort people make merely for the sake of aesthetics. Even in this local production, more or less designed for the consumption of bumpkins like me and their offspring who attend only one ballet a year, represented thousands of hours of study and hard work. Well done.

Courage

More stupidity here.

HRC Groped!

In effigy at least, can you think of a better way? I can't.

The Consumer Be Damned

Did you know that if an online retailer sells stuff below the minimum advertised price some pasty geek toiling away in some obscure veal fattening pen will drop a dime on them?

When NetEnforcers finds goods like cameras, handbags or ovens for sale at too-low prices, as it claims to do 5,000 to 10,000 times a day, it alerts its clients, including Sony Corp., Black & Decker Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., JVC Kenwood Holdings Inc. and Samsung Inc.

The manufacturer then notifies the retailer to raise their price or else. The retailer bound by their MAP agreement will normally comply within hours. If the retailer isn't a licensed retailer, the manufacturer will jam them up legally. How does this affect you? Higher prices from a less competitive market.

O.J. Simpson Sentenced to Prison

Cue the trombones!

LAS VEGAS – A broken O.J. Simpson was sentenced Friday to as many as 33 years in prison for a hotel armed robbery after a judge rejected his apology and said, "It was much more than stupidity." The 61-year-old football Hall of Famer stood shackled and stone-faced as Judge Jackie Glass rattled off the punishment. Moments before, Simpson made a rambling, five-minute plea for leniency, simultaneously apologizing for the holdup as a foolish mistake and trying to justify his actions.

He could get paroled in as little as nine years. Is it wrong to wish him a Yuletide shanking?

UPDATE:

And the drama may not be over. As AP pointed out, many attorneys who have watched this case from the beginning are still sorting out the complex series of consecutive and concurrent sentences to determine how much time Simpson got and how much he will actually serve. USA Today’s newsblog shows top newspapers from around the country are just as confused. None of them agree on how much time Simpson actually got. Is it 9 years like the New York Times reports? 15 according to the Washington Post? 16 as reported by the Los Angeles Times? Or is the Wall Street Journal the one to trust with a report of 33 years? In the end, it might not matter. O.J. Simpson’s lawyer plans to appeal by arguing that a fair trial was nearly impossible after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal.

Because O.J. is at best an acquitted accused multiple murderer if not a cold blooded murderer who got away with it, that creates grounds for an appeal? What a country.

Mourning For The Mother

"The above video is of a broadcast shown throughout Israel..it shows little two-year old Moshe Holtzberg, the sole survivor of the Muslim attack on the Mumbai Chabad House crying for his murdered parents at their funeral.

The video is in Hebrew, but you won't need a translation. The first part is at the funeral and shows little Moshe screaming for his mother ("eema" in Hebrew). The child obviously knows what has happened. The Rabbi with the white beard speaking is Rivka Holtzberg's father after he buried his daughter..."

(from JOSHUAPUNDIT via Roger L Simon)

link

Angelina Jolie In The Bible

Can the apocalypse be far away?

First, the flashy coffee-table Bible: Dag Soderberg, a secular Swedish advertising executive wondered why so few people actually read the "good book," so he set out to make it more appealing, with glossy photos and magazine packaging. The resulting publication is an illustrated version of the New
Testament called Bible Illuminated: The Book.
Inside, photos of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Bono and John Lennon are interspersed with pictures of heroic figures like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. A veil-covered African woman holding a young child illustrates the story of Mary and Jesus. Images taken from the news — both jarring and poignant — radiate a message of social justice.

Mom Your Date Is Here!

Michael Campbell, before and after. I guess if you are going to have one tattoo on your face you might as well do the whole thing. Note the oh so wholesome 88 on his left temple and inverted pentagram on his forehead. I was taught at UCONN not to judge people by their outward appearance, but I think Mike may be a bad boy and suffer from some antisocial tendencies.

Bratz Dolls Banned

I read this story with glee hoping that Americans had come to their senses and decided to ban the marketing of slutty toys to our kids, but no. It seems that there are two parties contesting the legal right to glorify dressing like a whore to our daughters. I am becoming a grumpy old man as I type this.

Also Born on This Day

Francisco Franco - Spanish Fascist Dictator

Wassily Kandinsky - Russian Abstract Painter

Wink Martindale - Game Show Host

Rainer Maria Rilke - German Transcendental Poet

Crazy Horse - Sioux Chief

Marisa Tomei - Worst Actress to ever win the Academy Award

Jeff Bridges - the original and still the best El Duderino

I do feel a certain similarity to some of these characters.

Happy B'day, Dude

update: here's another one

News You Can Use

News flash from Yahoo News:

The Republican National Committee will report Thursday that it spent about another $30,000 on clothes and accessories for Sarah Palin during her vice presidential bid, a GOP source tells Politico.

It must be great to be a liberal. You can spout off about women's rights and when a capable woman comes along who threatens your perceived position you can demean her in the most ridiculous terms possible to the applause of "women's rights groups". You can spend your entire career debasing women, motherhood and the rights of the unborn under the guise of "choice" while really what you are doing is ensuring that men can be as irresponsible as they want to be at the expense of women also to the applause of "women's rights groups". Nice work that.
Let's say, for example, that Palin wore her Alaskan clothing on the national stage. Every liberal wag would come mincing out of the woodwork to decry her as out of touch bumpkin, despite the fact that Alaska has some pretty specific clothing requirements. So the GOP aware of how catty the left can be spends some money on the governors wardrobe to forestall this sort of bitch fest. Dammed if you do, damned of you don't.
Hold on to something sturdy, I'm about to defend Hillary Clinton. They did the same thing to her. Granted it wasn't about the expense of HRC's wardrobe they mocked her yellow pants suit from hell. As mock worthy as that abominable outfit is, do you hear people question Biden's hair plugs as serious criticism of his political acceptability?

Prop 8 The Musical or How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

1. Not funny. Not even remotely.
2. Unfair. The hep progressive cats vs. the square intolerant religious folks. Very nuanced, very tolerant.
3. So we can make money of Gay marriages and divorces. Even Cultman will be swayed by this unalloyed public good. We can make money by opening abortion clinics too, is this the next video?
4. General rule, if Margaret Cho is for something chances are it's wrong.
5. If I feel this way, and I'm marginally sympathetic to their cause, how does this play to the middle right?

While Brian Cashman Napped

“I’ve been old-school. There’s been an understanding for years that the amateur market in Japan has really been off limits. We’ve not scouted Tazawa because we haven’t scouted the amateur market. I couldn’t tell you how good he is.”—Yankees GM Brian Cashman, discussing why his team didn’t scout or pursue RHP Junichi Tazawa, who is reportedly headed to the Red Sox.

Or, while Cashman was dozing genuine baseball professionals plucked some promising baseball talent from an unconventional yet obvious source. Sloth and/or ignorance posing as virtue is even less attractive than Cashman's creepy visage.

I bet before too long Cashman and the remnents of the Evil Empire will learn just how good the new Japanese kid is. I'm willing to wager that Tazawa will have more wins per dollar spent than Carl Pavano ($10 million per win) and Kevin Brown (a bargain at $3, 928,571.50 per win) combined. Those two along with Randy Johnson (attended high school with Mel Ott) were some old school signings, how'd they work out?

Rogue Waves

Imagine you're out at sea in a super tanker or stout cruise ship in heavy seas. Thirty foot swells come and go and other than praying to the porcelain idol from time to time you and your ship are no worse for wear. Then, ahead of you the sea rears up in a massive wall of water over a hundred and twenty feet tall - a rogue wave. What's worse, the trough before the wave accelerates your craft into it and lowers your bow so that all 120 feet of wave - creating over 100 tons of pressure per square meter, come crushing down on you like a fat man's sweet tooth on a crispy creme donut.

For years mariners have told of such waves- the ones lucky enough to survive them. In the past several years there have been a handful high profile losses to such waves which has piqued the curiosity of the scientific community.

The North Sea, off the coast of Norway, was angry that day, my friends. Hurricane-strong winds were blowing and twelve meter waves crashed on the Draupner oil rig. The rig’s workers were not worried, because the rig was designed to withstand hurricanes. At roughly 3 p.m. that afternoon, the order was given that all personnel must enter the rig’s structure- no one volunteered to stay outside and watch the ocean.
For this reason, no one saw the monstrous wave that hit the Draupner oil rig at 3:20 pm. The wave did not harm the rig itself (the platform was high above the water), but was recorded by a special laser-based wave-height detector. The rig’s engineers were shocked when they went over the detector's logs. The wave was almost 20 meters high. It was practically impossible- this kind of wave should only occur once every ten thousand years. Yet the laser detector was accurate to within an inch and worked
flawlessly. The wave’s existence was undeniable.

In 1899, a new lighthouse was built on a remote group of islands off the coast of Scotland, some 20 miles from the mainland. Three light house keepers were stationed at the lighthouse, and cared for the structure.
A year after the light house was erected, a supply ship came to the islands- as it did every week- to replenish the keepers' food supply. The ship's crew found the light house was empty. Its three keepers had vanished almost without a trace. Upon examining the scene, the ship's crew found that coats had been left behind, and a chair had fallen in the kitchen. These were considered as clues that hinted to a sudden catastrophe.
An examination of the lighthouse itself revealed damage to a metal box some thirty meters above the water's surface, a railing that was bent beyond repair, and a huge rock that was somehow moved from its place.
The official examiner speculated that a giant wave had hit the lighthouse- but since it was considered impossible that a wave this size might exist, alternative theories were invented to explain the men's sudden disappearance. Some speculated a fight had broken out between the keepers, others suggested murder, suicide, abduction by foreign agents, and even abduction by aliens- everything was possible.

Satellites using radar have spotted these gigantic rogue waves which occur much more frequently then anyone had imagined. The question remains what causes them?

Some distinct local weather patterns can cause inordinate swells along the coast of South Africa and in the deep water off of Norway, but what causes these waves in the open oceans? No one really knows for certain, but it appears that the monster waves siphon energy off the waves immediately adjacent to them, again why one wave does it and another does not is unclear.

Tina Fey's Scar

I don't think too much of Tina Fey's comedy, she's not quite Elayne Boosler bad but that's only because she's kinda of hot in that naughty librarian sort of way and no where near as annoying.
A few years ago, like everybody else, I noticed the scar on her face and wondered what the hell had happened to her - again like everybody else. Being the suspicious son of a cop, I assumed that she was slashed by some yahoo and it turns out I was right:

Tina Fey’s husband Jeff Richmond talks about Fey’s scar in the new Vanity Fair. Tina Fey’s scar has never been explained until now.Richmond tells the
publication of the event at age 5 that resulted in Fey’s facial scar: “It was
in, like, the front yard of her house, and some body just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen”

Jesus. What sort of freak show does that to a five year old girl or anybody else for that matter? I hope they caught the sick bastard and fed him to hamsters.

Smart Penguin

That's one smart bird. Being a mammal, I would have had to resist the urge to elbow the little bastard back into the water so our Orca cousins could eat him. That'd be cool, particularly if the Orca would somehow acknowledge the solid, say by a head toss or a flipper wave with a vocalization.

"I Do Not Like To Hear Good News"

Mary Katherine Ham does Dr. Suess: