The Return

If Star and Bucwild can return to the NYC radiowaves and give me a reason to dust off my FM tuner then goddamnit, I can return to blogging.

Q4 has been busy but for those who emailed me, StartSnitching.com is still alive.

American Gangster: Choose Your Theater Wisely

Because please believe a nigga will got shot watching this in a theater this weekend.
Sad, but true.

If no one gets shot, it's because the whole hood already copped the leaked version.

And Jay's soundtrack to match is hot.

Watch out now...

Snitch of the Week: 10/21 - 10/27 (Genarlow Wilson, Shoulda Been White)

The Georgia Supreme Court finally overturned Genarlow Wilson's child molestation sentence for getting head from a 15 yr old white girl at age 17.

I couldn't help juxtaposing Wilson's release with the story of this batshit insane suicidal white chick who killed 3 people while trying to kill herself.

Worst
Suicide.
Attempt
Ever.

Let's reiterate, he got 10 years for getting consensual head,

• The 21-year-old, who served two years of a 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation, said the prospect of being labeled a sex offender drove him to turn down the deal.

Compared to what Amber Elizabeth Kathy Worthington got for killing 3 innocent people.

• Howard ruled Jeanette Sliwinski was guilty of three counts of reckless homicide and one count of aggravated battery. She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Who decides the sentencing guidelines for crimes in this country?

How about the death penalty for CEOs who wipe out millions of dollars of retirement funds with shady accounting and community service for shoplifters?

Can I get that in the books?

Only in a country where getting brain is equal to 3 lives, can a president who has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians never face prosecution while another president who got his overweight secretary to suck his dick nearly gets thrown out of office.

Genarlow, I know you are probably going to be on Oprah by the end of the month and have your book out by next year so stay media savvy and don't let me down like that coon in the Sean Bell case.

American "Justice" system, for pointing out your own incompetency and contradictions, you are the Snitch of the Week.

UPDATE:

I've been reading conflicting reports of who is white and who is black in this situation because of some sloppy reporting I read on ABC but after following up I see that both girls were black.
Wilson's lucky none of them were white...

Point remains,

White woman:10 years for killing 3 people.
Black man: 10 years for a teenage hookup.

Oink Oink Bitches

(Boo hoo)

Like every breathing 20-year old in America I have used P2P and I fully advocate a recreation of the music industry and I am against DRM, so I am not declaring any moral high ground here, but I am pretty glad that Oink, a super-duper illegal and private file sharing network for indie rock and hipsters got raided by anti-piracy agencies.

Oink web site
Oink Wikipedia page
Peep the story here.

• Jeremy Banks, Head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, said in a response to the news: “OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online.”

I hate the RIAA and the music industry's approach to the internet, it's suicidal and short-sighted, however exchanging money for leaked pre-release albums is stealing no matter what hipsters tell themselves.

Besides being illegal, Oink was the most annoyingly pretentious site ever.

When I first checked out the site, I saw a request for an essay as to why rock is the greatest musical genre in order to get an invite.

Are you fucking serious?

I used to buy CD's often and I lived in the used CD stores around Ann Arbor, but the size of my wallet could never watch my curiosity. And then when the CDs I paid for and burnt to my PC got wiped out it P2P came to the rescue.
I've been using a music subscription service which I sold my remaining CDs to pay for, for over a year and it's pretty great.

It's like Netflix for music.
Unlimited music for a fee, recommendations, radio stations and all that.

The upcoming revision of the Microsoft Zune music store looks pretty good as well.

If people are willing to buy DVD's, go the movies and/or pay for Netflix, then what is the objection to a subscription service?

Do people not love music enough to pay for it?
Or do they just not like the purchasing options?

Jay-Z: American Gangster and Other Hip-Hop Thoughts

(Never underestimate the importance of good album art.)

I have no logical reason to be excited about this album based on Jay-Z's recent track record (Kingdom Come, R. Kelly and Linkin Park collabo albums) yet I am. Probably because I've been ping-ponging between Reasonable Doubt and Blueprint.

Although what I am about to say is clear hyperbole, the concept album (in theory) is hip-hop's savior.

Let's be clear, concept albums are incredibly pretentious and notoriously difficult to pull off
but when done right

Deltron 3030



Kool Keith with Dr. Octagon



They can circumvent the main problem that makes rap music the incredible bore it is today; the inability to detach an entertainment persona from reality.

Much of rap's allure was built on the danger the artists presented to white suburban boys who ate it up, but it seems that shtick is wearing thin.

Where is the growth?
Where is the sense of perspective and grasp on reality?

People don't expect James Gandolfini to choke out or shotgun blast his cousins in real life even though it was amazing when he did it in the Sopranos.

Yet T.I. felt the need to attempt to acquire a machine gun at the peak of his career despite the fact that he is an ex-felon.

If these charges are true, what a dumb nigger T.I. is. And I don't mean that in a friendly kinship slang way.

On top of T.I.'s colossal boner, Wycelf calls T.I. a prophet and compares him to Malcolm X. Um, ok Wyclef.

That Malcolm X poster with the machine gun is cool on your college dorm wall, but less so in reality.

Other evidence of rap's waning grasp on reality and it's own devolution.

• Ja Rule is still beefing with 50 Cent even though both of their career's are jokes.
  
  • "I have conversations with myself," he told MTV News late last week about The Mirror, which is set to arrive in stores November 13. "I talk to the guy in the mirror. He never answers back; it's always the same guy that asks the questions and answers the questions.
    
    
    Ok...
    
    
    "[50] was no different," he continued. "He wanted to be where I was at. He wanted to be me. He just didn't know how to go about it. He didn't know how to go about and say, 'Yo, Ja, I want to do a record with you.' So his thing to get in the game was to insult everyone in the business.
    
    Yawn...
    
    
• Puffy is still attacking people at nightclubs.
  But as he said in his own words, more or less,
  
  "Diddy did it, but Diddy's lawyer is so with it that Diddy got acquited."
  
  
• Prodigy just got pinched for 3.5 years on a gun charge after dropping "Return of the Mac" a fairly solid semi-concept album about gully ass pre-Guiliani NY.
  Guess he missed the concept part.

Hopefully Jay-Z's American Gangster lives up to internal hype level I've set and it doesn't inspire Jay to try to buy an AK-47 from an Arab arms dealer working for the FBI in the back of Newark Airport or some shit.

Stay on your corporate game Jay.

________________________________________


Other shit:

• Why is Ghostface is crying like a bitch over the fact that Wu-Tang wants to drop an album on a day that impedes with his 34th album in two months. Fall back for the fucking group.
  
  There's this thing called supply and demand that Ghost isn't grasping. Stop dropping albums faster than my birthdays.
  
  
  
• Nas in a desperate attempt for attention, names his next album "Nigger."
  
  ...Sigh...
  
  Naming his last album "Hip-Hop is Dead" started an interesting convo and it sold about 700,000, but it didn't obscure the fact that the beats were embarrassingly minor league and the tone of the album was confused at best.
  
  Nas is a pseudo-intellectual of the worst sort who gets a pass from everyone because of his casual mix of Islamo-Christian iconography, old school nostalgia and because they want him to be something he is not.
  Smart.
  In terms of singles he has a solid back catalog, but if you drill deep into the content of his "political/conscious" songs or his interviews he is usually just spitting bullshit.
  
  Take his explanation of using "Nigger" as his album title.
  
  
  • "I wanna make the word easy on mutha----as' ears," he explained. "You see how white boys ain't mad at 'cracker' 'cause it don't have the same [sting] as 'nigger'? I want 'nigger' to have less meaning [than] 'cracker."
  
  Nas, you dumb nigger, your shitty album will not lessen the sting of racial epithets.
  
  "Yo I just copped "Nigger" at Best Buy. Racism is over son!!!
  
  No.
  
  White people don't care if you call them cracker because they still decide whether to sign your check or hire your ass.
  
  Nigger will always be nigger and nigga will never be acceptable other than something for black people to say to each other.
  
  For a man that hates Bill O' Reilly as much as Nas does, they sure play from the same PR handbook.
  What's Nas' next album going to be called?
  
  "I Miss Slavery?"
  
  Method Man sums it up best,
  
  
  • "Nas knows what he's doing. He's a smart brother. He keeps his name in the game," Tical offered. "Last year, when he put out Hip Hop Is Dead, I was being interviewed, everybody was asking me what I thought about his album. ... I think it's too much emphasis on just the word. I know a word worse than 'nigger': Darfur. Real talk. I'd like to see Reverend Al take a walk out there. Let's stop focusing on the wrong sh--."
    
    
  
  By the way, the tracklist for his greatest hits album is horrible. Did Jay-Z ask Rihanna to pick that shit out? Oh wait, it comes out on Columbia, not Def Jam. There goes that excuse.
  
  
  
• I am growing really weary of this whole white hipster music critic movement. You know, Tom Breihan, Kelefa Sanneh, Sasha Frere Jones (SFJ) etc, legitimizing god awful music and writing lazy criticism with lengthy graduate thesis apologias.
  

Generally they write well, although SFJ uses the term "musical miscegenation" four times in his last piece, but the conclusions they reach are usually complete bullshit.

SFJ newest thesis is that indie rock isn't black enough (Warning: long article full of bullshit and dubious conclusions.)

• "How did rhythm come to be discounted in an art form that was born as a celebration of rhythm’s possibilities? Where is the impulse to reach out to an audience—to entertain? I can imagine James Brown writing dull material. I can even imagine the Meters wearing out their fans by playing a little too long. But I can’t imagine any of these musicians retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity and significance."

He reaches this conclusion because it was hard for him to add authentic Nigra vocals to his own band's funk soul-dub music. And because Sufjan Stevens doesn't lean or rock with it.

I guess that means that Soulja Boy isn't white enough?
What about completely amelodic rap like Anticon and Def Jux?
Give me a fucking break.

Slate tears SFJ apart while calling out his own contradictions and recognizing that the problem with Indie rock is a class issue.

• While it's possible to cherry-pick exceptions ever since, Frere-Jones does so selectively, overlooking the likes of Royal Trux or the Afghan Whigs in the 1990s, or more recently, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon, Battles and the dance-punks LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and Junior Senior, almost all of whom appear on his own best-of-the-year list in progress. Last March, in direct contradiction to what he says in this week's New Yorker essay, Frere-Jones wrote in an LCD Soundsystem review: "About five years ago, indie rockers began to rediscover the pleasures of rhythm." Where are those indie rockers now? Vanished, because they would mess with his thesis. He isn't really talking about all of indie rock, but a folkier subset that's hardly trying to be rock at all. But to say so would be less dramatic.

And...

• Ultimately, though, the "trouble with indie rock" may have far more to do with another post-Reagan social shift, one with even less upside than the black-white story, and that's the widening gap between rich and poor. There is no question on which side most indie rock falls. It's a cliche to picture indie musicians and fans as well-off "hipsters" busily gentrifying neighborhoods, but compared to previous post-punk generations, the particular kind of indie rock Frere-Jones complains about is more blatantly upper-middle class and liberal-arts-college-based, and less self-aware or politicized about it."
  
  

Ouch. SFJ needs to ask the internets to recall that piece. It's really indefensible.

• Big Q4 coming up for rap.
  
  We have new
  
  
  • Jay
  • Nas
  • Wu
  • Foxy (holy shit, it's 1997)
    
  • Lupe
    
    Also for industry purposes only
    
    
  • Three 6 Mafia
  • Cassidy
  • Lil Mama (who will outsell Foxy)
  • Rick Ross
  • Ja Rule
  • Saigon
  • Wyclef
  • G-Unit (Six weeks and Curtis still isn't platinum yet...)
    

• Looking at that list of releases I feel like we need new RIAA certifications. People just ain't going gold (500K units) or platinum (1 million units) anymore.
  
  I propose
  
  White gold: If you are stuck in that 650K - 800K range, which is a bitch to get out of. (Nas)
  
  Silver: If you cross 250K units but can't hit 500K. (Lupe)
  
  Bronze: If you cross 100K and stop, check the Soundscan, a lot of people are missing that barrier. (Foxy)
  
  Wood: Anything under 50K. (Ja Rule, I hope.)
  

Snitch of the Week: 10/14 - 10/20 (Bill Maher)

It's no secret that left-wingers nut jobs are as high on the shit list as their right-wing counterparts but watching them embarrass themselves on the most recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher put them in the spotlight.

The 9/11 Truth movement is the most pathetic and misguided political group to emerge for the debris of the Twin Towers.

These are the people who insist that this administration, who has not kept ONE THING SECRET

Not Valerie Plame
Not Abu Gharib
Not Gitmo Bay
Not Extraordinary Rendition
Not Illegal Wiretapping
Not Cheney "Secret" Energy Meetings
Not the "Downing Street Memo"
Not Alberto Gonzales Attorney General Scandal
Not the 2000 Election voter irregularities

(And that's just off the top of my head)

Somehow managed a multinational conspiracy of unprecedented proportions to destroy American landmarks and alter the course of modern history.

I've read the 9/11 Commission Report (still here for free) and I've seen Loose Change and some of the other crackpot 9/11 theories.

It's clear that there are some serious unanswered questions about 9/11 and Bush uses the fear and terror alerts to placate the masses.
All the secrecy has gotten to their head and Bush definitely fuels this insanity with his cloak and dagger behavior.

But here's the real talk about the "9/11 Truthers."
They're bitter and racist.

It's goes against America's psyche of superiority to admit that the U.S., in all its Red White and Blue, Uncle Sam and apple pie greatness could be overtaken by some rocking throwing Arabs.

I've read this in the discussion on the 9/11 websites.
"How can the most advanced defense system in the world be overtaken by untrained terrorists."
"How could they have accurately hit the buildings?"
Etc.

What I don't understand is who is committing all the global terrorist attacks if 9/11 was an "inside job?"

Bombings in Bali, Spain, London, Islamic terrorist groups from Trinidad plotting on JFK and attacks on LAX and on and on.

Bill Maher, for breaking your foot off in the ass of the "Truthers" you are the Snitch of the Week.

Binge and Purge

(Tell 'Em Why You Mad Son!)

I'm still recovering from all the jazz y'all flooded me with but I gotta some shit off my chest.


- Start Snitching is in the NY Times... sort of. I posted this question to Alex Klein, a Washington Post reporter who has a book coming out about my nerdy ass HS, Stuyvesant.

Peep link and the comments that follow.

• As a 2000 graduate of West Indian descent, I wonder how minority students fit into Stuyvesant’s current landscape. How have minority (Hispanic/Black) students percentages held up as New York’s demographic shifts?

  HR

  The percentages, as you put it, have not held up. Issues of diversity continue to plague Stuyvesant. About 2 percent of the student body is black, a significant drop in recent years. The number of Hispanics also has been in decline — standing now at about 3 percent. Meanwhile, the Asian population has grown to about 55 percent of the school, while the percentage of whites has held steady at about 40 percent. The trends trouble educators at Stuyvesant and elsewhere. After all, how can the school system justify a public school, backed by taxpayers, with one of the most expensive school buildings ever built, at $150 million, that provides an elite education to only a small number of blacks and Hispanics? The question, and the issue, is addressed at length in the book. In the past, the school tried to bring about better representation by admitting some students who narrowly missed the entrance exam cutoff. That program has been suspended. Several years ago, the school also introduced a months-long program to help students prepare for the entrance exam. Still, though, the numbers of blacks and Hispanics continue to dwindle. And when asked about it, educators say they are not sure how to fix the problem. From my reporting, I would venture to say that the problem begins far before the students take the test, that, for instance, the middle schools could do a better job of preparing students—all students—for the kind of math and English questions found on the test.

- My little question above becomes a lot more relevant when you have the father of DNA and Nobel Prize Winner, Jim Watson admitting that he believes black people are genetically inferior.

• Watson said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

  Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."
  
  

Um, wow.


- And the racism continues. Obama said the head of the Justice Department's voting rights division should be fired for saying voter ID laws hurt the elderly but aren't a problem for minorities because they often die before old age.

• "That's a shame, you know, creating problems for elderly persons just is not good under any circumstance," Tanner said, according to video posted on YouTube. "Of course, that also ties into the racial aspect because our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."

Let's not forget the Social Security privatization push the Republicans went for in 2005 when Bush claimed blacks die early so they need early Social Security.

So much reprehensible shit gets brushed away because the old stories aren't linked to the new ones to establish patterns and shit gets brushed off as a one time event.

Moving on...


- David Chase pretty much lays out the fact that Tony Soprano was killed in that final scene. The intense backlash that ending received was a testament to the fact that the Sopranos' had tons of fans that didn't really get the show. I still miss that shit.


- The New Yorker has a god-body interview with "The Wire" creator David Simon that has taken my excitement for Season 5 of The Wire to obscene levels. The piece is long and great, kind of like the narrative arc of The Wire.


- Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling outs Albus Dumbledore as a homosex. Start Snitching is a proud Harry Potter nerd who is looking forward to the newest overreaction by the Christian right to this bit of news. Who cares about real issues when a beloved children's character is gay and there is a black chocolate Jesus! Let the book burning commence!


- America kicks the immigrants out and then sneaks them back. America's schizophrenic foreign policy is beyond words. What comes after anger, shame and sadness?


- Blackwater disarms America troops at gunpoint.
How can read that article and not have your blood boil. Republicans talk a lot of shit about "supporting the troops" but they have all types of connections to Blackwater who destroy the image of U.S. soldiers by their indiscriminate murder of civilians as well as their morale by getting by incredible amounts of money while doing whatever they want. "Apocalypse Now" ain't just a movie.


- The Republicans gave Bush blank check after blank for the Iraq War and then have the nerve to uphold Bush's veto on the SCHIP bill for children's health care (as covered before) because of Bush's strict budget guidelines. How do the words Bush and strict budget even appear in the same paragraph.

While we're on the subject, here's some visual perspective on the cost of the Iraq war.

But it's all gravy, none of these problems matter because Bush will laugh us into WWIII and end all our problems.



Ha ha ha.

UPDATE:

The Christians already got out the torches and pitchforks against Harry Potter.

• One major anti-Potter crusader is Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia, who made headlines earlier this month when she told the Gwinnett County Board of Education that the series was trying to indoctrinate children into the Wicca religion. In response to Dumbledore's outing, Mallory told ABC News that the Potter series has "an anti-Christian agenda," and, "this only further supports that."

  "My prayer is that parents would wake up, that the subtle way this is presented as harmless fantasy would be exposed for what it really is -- a subtle indoctrination into anti-Christian values," said Mallory. "The kids are being introduced to a cult and witchcraft practices.

  "A homosexual lifestyle is a harmful one," she added. "That's proven, medically."

  Not surprisingly, conservatives at Saturday's Values Voters' summit in Washington also had some thoughts on the now controversial wizard.

  "I feel like children's books shouldn't be political -- they shouldn't have political ties, they're entertainment," attendee Katie Beach said. "I think it's pretty ridiculous for her to say that or to do that."

Because we all know that gays aren't real people so they should never be represented among other social groups in a fictional story. Granted J.K. Rowling wrote 7 books and never made ONE specific or tangible reference to Dumbledore's gayness but now it's an issue.

Yawn...
Wake me up when Harry Potter 6 hits theaters.

Start Snitching Needs Jazz

What's good party people?

After numerous Windows failures and hard-drive crashes I am finally making a proper attempt to rebuild my jaw-dropping, awe-inpsiring jazz collection. Ahem...

Since I know the Start Snitching crowd fucks with cabernet sauvignon and turtlenecks, I'm sure y'all can recommend the quality albums that deserves to be in any real jazz collection.

I do it all.

Fusion.
Bossa Nova.
Latin Jazz.
Vocal Jazz.
Bebop.
Modal.

Just list the album names, I can acquire the actual files myself.

Any Kenny G recs and I will block your IP address.

Update:
If you name a big name like Miles, Coltrane, Monk, etc. then you need to name a specific album or three.

Obscure jems are appreciated.

Snitch of the Week: 10/7 - 10/13 (School Shooter Snitch)

School shootings have become a virtual way of life in this country. Gun proliferation and poor social skills keep these stories in the news.

So it's always good when the police can get the one-up on these kids. Another one of these stories popped up in Pennsylvania and it turns out the would-be shooter asked the wrong kid to join him on his Columbine quest.

• The boy, whose name was withheld because he is a minor, attended the middle school associated with Plymouth Whitemarsh until 18 months ago, when his parents began schooling him at home because he was being bullied by other students, the police said. He tried to recruit another onetime student at the school to join him in the attack, they said, and that former student alerted the police.

The real kicker of this story is that the boy's mom bought him an assault rifle.

• The genuine assault rifle, for which no ammunition was found in the home, was bought legally at a gun show by the boy’s mother, the police said. But she bought it for her son, Mr. Castor said, adding that as a result his office was still deciding what charges to file against her, if any.

Let's do the math on that one:

1. Son is a bully victim + 2. Needs to be home schooled + 3. Assault Rifle = ??

Um, yea...

The mom need to take a serious hit on this one.
For dropping the dime on the potential shooter, the other kid is the Snitch of the Week.

Free Graeme Frost!

I'm reprinting Paul Krugman's column about Graeme Frost in full because it deserves to be read and it perfectly encapsulates the viciousness and inhumanity of today's Republican Party.

Peep the background of this column here.

• Sliming Graeme Frost

  By PAUL KRUGMAN
  Published: October 12, 2007

  Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.

  What followed should serve as a teaching moment.

  First, some background. The Frosts and their four children are exactly the kind of people S-chip was intended to help: working Americans who can’t afford private health insurance.

  The parents have a combined income of about $45,000, and don’t receive health insurance from employers. When they looked into buying insurance on their own before the accident, they found that it would cost $1,200 a month — a prohibitive sum given their income. After the accident, when their children needed expensive care, they couldn’t get insurance at any price.

  Fortunately, they received help from Maryland’s S-chip program. The state has relatively restrictive rules for eligibility: children must come from a family with an income under 200 percent of the poverty line. For families with four children that’s $55,220, so the Frosts clearly qualified.

  Graeme Frost, then, is exactly the kind of child the program is intended to help. But that didn’t stop the right from mounting an all-out smear campaign against him and his family.

  Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).

  You might be tempted to say that bloggers make unfounded accusations all the time. But we’re not talking about some obscure fringe. The charge was led by Michelle Malkin, who according to Technorati has the most-trafficked right-wing blog on the Internet, and in addition to blogging has a nationally syndicated column, writes for National Review and is a frequent guest on Fox News.

  The attack on Graeme’s family was also quickly picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who is so important a player in the right-wing universe that he has had multiple exclusive interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney.

  And G.O.P. politicians were eager to join in the smear. The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress “were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance” but had “backed off” as the case fell apart.

  In fact, however, Republicans had already made their first move: an e-mail message from the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, sent to reporters and obtained by the Web site Think Progress, repeated the smears against the Frosts and asked: “Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?”

  And the attempt to spin the media worked, to some extent: despite reporting that has thoroughly debunked the smears, a CNN report yesterday suggested that the Democrats had made “a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child,” and closely echoed the language of the e-mail from Mr. McConnell’s office.

  All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.

  Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

  Politics aside, the Graeme Frost case demonstrates the true depth of the health care crisis: every other advanced country has universal health insurance, but in America, insurance is now out of reach for many hard-working families, even if they have incomes some might call middle-class.

  And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.

  I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.

  
  

Attacking a sick 12-year old.
How Republican.

• Confront a complex and emotional issue
• Smear and lie to create distraction and discord.
  
• Wait until the ADD infected American public moves on to the next picture of Britney Spears' exposed vagina.
  

I guess if Dick Cheney can bust a gat in his best friend's face then what the fuck chance does a poor 12-year old have?

Even if Frost's family made a few thousand dollars more, that doesn't change the point. Health care is expensive and the even decently stable middle-class people get the rug pulled on them when they discover they aren't covered by their shady insurance company.


Watch the video of Frost's radio address:





I'm sure the Republicans are glad that they stuck it to him...
Take that Frost!

Craigslist is the Greatest

Thing have gotten too damn political on this site. Time to switch it up.

I got this through an email forward from my cuz and now it's in the NY Times.

It's pretty great. I had to share for those who haven't seen it yet.


Gold Digger:

• What am I doing wrong?

  Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy.
  I’m not from New York . I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

  Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

  Here are my questions specifically:

  - Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

  -What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings

  -Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?

  - Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story there?

  - Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

  - How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

  Please hold your insults - I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

  it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
  PostingID: 432279810
  
  

Rich Wall Street Dude:

• THE ANSWER
  Dear Pers-431649184:

  I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.
  Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

  Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

  So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

  So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

  Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as “articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful”
  as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn’t found you, if not only for a tryout.

  By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.

  With all that said, I must say you’re going about it the right way.
  Classic “pump and dump.”
  I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

Can you say owned?
Geez, is there anything sadder than the Craigslist dating page?


Bonus Clip from the Onion:


Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

Snitch of the Week: 9/30 - 10/6 (Anita Hill)

(Damn, Anita...)

Uncle Tom emiritus Clarence Thomas was in the news hard this week, slandering Anita Hill, revising history and trying to sell some copies of his new book.

In it he tries to blame the evil liberals for his contentious nomination process. Let's not mind the fact that he sexually harassed Anita Hill.

Pseudo news outlets like 60 Minutes gave him free reign to slander her without any chance for reply.

That's why I'm shining some light on her NY Times dissection of Clarence Thomas' little fantasy book tour.

• Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

  But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

  In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights.” A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

  Justice Thomas’s characterization of me is also hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a job in the federal government only because he had “given it” to me. He ignores the reality: I was fully qualified to work in the government, having graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, which he calls one of the finest in the country), and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one of the toughest in the nation.

Anita, preach on sista!, you are the Snitch of the Week.

After Anucha Browne's $11.6 million victory post Isiah Thomas' sex harassment suit (can someone please sexually harass me), I'm riding with my soul sister Anita on this one. Just please don't Marion Jones/Duke LaCross rape whore/Tawana Brawley me after I publicly ride with you.

It's getting hard out there.

Can't Stop Won't Stop: The Rise of Tony Romo

How many quarterbacks could pull that shit off?!
And that's not the first time he's done that either.

I was kind of bummed that Vick had screwed himself out of an NFL season but then I realized that Romo is the white Michael Vick without the animal murdering and with the passing accuracy.

Before the 2007 season kicked off I predicted a 10-6 record for the Cowboys. Then I saw them play.

I still have questions about their secondary and the fact that they tend to sleep through the entire first half of every game but their offense is a god body machine.

I knew Bill Parcells had turned into the Lloyd Carr of the NFL (underutilized offense, playing to not lose, annoying post-game persona and obstinance in the face of change) and was holding the Cowboys back but damn Parcells.

I'm going to up my predication to 13-3.

Jerry Jones, give Tony Romo his goddamn money.