Right-Wing Rant: Oil Prices

Howdy. I'm Joeverkill, and this is the Right-Wing Rant.

The issue of oil prices is on a lot of minds and tongues these days. It's starting to really piss people off, and so of course the fatcats in Washington want to step in an do something about it in order to appease their constituents. There are several proposed plans, the two front-runners being price controls and John McCain's plan to suspend the federal gas tax.

These are bad ideas.

Let me first address John McCain's thinly veiled bribe to short-sighted voters. McCain wants to suspend the federal gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Suspending the 18 cent per gallon federal tax would cost the government an estimated $10 billion. John McCain has admitted in the past that he's not an economic expert, and that is evident here. What could he be thinking? "Gee, I bet people would love it if I magically made gas cheaper when it's at its most expensive. Hey, it's a good idea to artificially and suddenly decrease the price of a limited commodity during a time of peak demand, right? Golly, the voters are gonna love this." Aaaaand cut to a Vietnam flashback. Suspending the federal gas tax for a few months is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. It's short-sighted and callous, and in my opinion it's an obvious attempt at bribing voters.

What about price controls? I'm pro free-market, but even I have to admit price controls are a useful and even necessary thing sometimes. However, like John McCain's proposed Summer of sex and taxless gas (minus the sex), price controls on gasoline are a bad idea. They're a short-term solution to a long-term problem. This country needs to come to terms with the fact that internal combustion engines are expensive to run. Serious changes need to be made if we're going to maintain our current standard of living after oil goes up to $200 per barrel. You may argue that price controls will prevent costs from going up that high. And if that's your argument, you're a fucking idiot and deserve to be run over by your own gas-powered riding lawnmower.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been a Right-Wing Rant.

kook predicts end of american suburbia, frightens other kooks

all this talk of climbing oil prices is starting to spook some people out about the very fabric of american society, including some people with enough prestige to write books about it. one said kook, james kunstler, is claiming that the age of american suburbia is over. from his interview in businessweek:

"The suburbs were largely products of industrialism. We had a huge supply of oil and cheap undeveloped land, and we decided to become a happy, motoring utopia. It had many practical benefits. The trouble is after a while it became a cartoon of country living."

hell, i believe it. i live in southern california, the world's capital of hastily constructed, not-quite-fire-retardant-enough mcmansions. about 5 years ago, when we were all living in era of false economic prosperity that i like to call the 'war bubble,' many of the people i knew who thought they knew a thing or two about money were buying up huge plots of land far from the city centers to build gigantic houses. the conventional wisdom at the time was that supply and demand would do their thing, people would keep pouring into these burbs, and these prices would continue to skyrocket. basically, if you sit on this land for a while, you'll be rich, right?

meanwhile, people who knew slightly less about money but still wanted them big purty houses were getting conned into shit loans whose interest rates climbed nearly immediately. you'll get that raise, and you'll be able to afford that interest, right?

WRONG. alla y'all fucked up!

turns out that housing bubble was completely unnatural, you took out a ton of loans on home equity that you no longer have, and gas prices are supremely fucked. i bet that commute from temecula is a bitch.

it's getting so bad that starbucks' earnings are starting to drop, since suburban moms can hardly afford their venti mocha crack macchiato after dropping $20 just to drive to the store (oh snap...did i mention food prices are getting fucked too?) and take little connor to soccer practice.

"Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we'll run into problems with spot shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer. Major instabilities in the system will present themselves much sooner than we are led to believe. And by that I mean the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around."

the fact of the matter is that gas being more expensive will make everything more expensive: transportation, pizza deliveries, nascar races, EVERYTHING. i believe this guy when he says it - the suburban way of life is probably fucked. im already planning to make my way into the city. what about you?

EDIT: yep. fucked.

The New York Injustice System.

Today the forum for the New York justice system to determine a racially driven -NYPD involved murder trial, was open yet again (see '99 shooting of Amadou Diallo). The trials circumstances were extensibly altered due to the parties involved..... the NYPD primarily; thus putting the determination of a verdict on the court justice rather than a grand jury, more-so due to a suspected public bias accumulated in the time between the incident and courtroom hearings.

The verdict delivered was that of great speculation. The three detectives, who expelled fifty .32 caliber pistol rounds towards Sean Bell and two of his companions outside of a gentlemen's club in Jamaica, Queens, were acquitted, of all accounts pending towards them.

Mayor Bloomberg commented accordingly:

"There are no winners in a trial like this. An innocent man lost is life , a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son." -culled directly from: NYTIMES.

And three NYPD officers preemptively profiled three African-American men at a night club -note: this night out was Bell's bachelor party.... seriously- as utter endangerment to the surrounding public even in the waking hours of the day; opened rapid fire, ended a mans life, and wounded two others' permanently, were acquitted. See there was no winner to be determined in this case what so ever; what mayor Bloomberg failed to recognize, was the fact that Justice, something the state of New York is clearly farce at determining, was needed to be instilled in order to rectify a seemingly heinous crime -despite those who committed it.

P.S. Bloomberg

The Real Betrayers? Well It Depends on the Holiday

Does anyone else remember that fateful day when a man thought to be a strong backer of the Clinton campaign for president severed the ties and instead endorsed the other guy…you know, Barack Obama? James Carville apparently does and he once again reiterated the element of betrayal imposed by Bill Richardson last night on Larry King Live to Larry and Governor Judas.. er.. Richardson himself. Only Carville clarified that he only referred to Richardson, who he accuses of betraying the great Clinton dynasty, as Judas because it coincidentally happened to be Holy Week. Carville was quoted on the program as saying, "It was an appropriate metaphor, if it been the Fourth of July instead of Good Friday, I would have called him Benedict Arnold.”

In case anyone missed the memo, as far as name calling goes we are now referencing the bad guy of the nearest holiday. So tomorrow is Arbor Day, for everyone who didn’t know that, I would imagine that would have been about 99.9 percent of you. Arbor Day is a day in which people are encouraged to plant and care for trees. And who is the greatest betrayer of trees? Well I would imagine the folks who cut them down, but since that isn’t nearly as threatening sounding as Judas, we’ll say that according to Carville, the governor might be best referred to as a Wooly Adelgid. I’m not making that up. It is an insect that cozies up to your unsuspecting towering old tree then slowly sucks the life out of it day by day, eventually leaving it to be just a pile of needles and leaves.

There are few lessons to be learned from this, Governor Richardson is apparently wrong for endorsing somebody that he believes in, you should never underestimate the power of a tiny little Wooly Adelgid, James Carville is about as crazy as he looks (which quite frankly is saying a lot) and that pile of needles and leaves that needs to be brushed aside in a couple weeks might just be in the form of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president.

florida considers christian license plates

"Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who 'believe in their college or university' or 'believe in their football team' already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said."

really? anything you believe in? i'm moving to florida to get my custom "grass on the infield? play ball!" license plate.

link.

Nonpolitical Interludes: Amazing Moments in Advertising

Ugh. I can't make this pic any bigger (stupid effing blogspot), but his sign reads as follows:

"Family killed by ninjas. Need money for karate lessons."

Best. Life Insurance. Ad. Ever.

why don't we give them funny-sounding racehorse names, too?

just when you thought this political election cycle couldn't get any more ridiculous, slate is now charting the chances of each candidates by monitoring political betting markets.

Even worse? These are actually MORE accurate than exit polls. "A single person's bet on an election outcome isn't very good, but thousands of bets, with real stakes, are more likely to predict the correct result than even the best pundit. The Iowa Electronic Markets, the big daddy of the political prediction markets, is consistently better at forecasting winners than pre-election polls." we could spend plenty of time wondering why these polls are more accurate. my guess is that being pc and lying about voting for the black guy won't help you make any money.

speaking of which, the obamskeets still has 4-to-5 odds to beat hillary in the donkey primaries, and 2-to-1 odds to win the whole thing. however, i'm pretty sure the entire betting system is a little out of whack, since they're not even considering the possibility of a bush/cheney coup d'etat, armageddon, or jesse 'the douchebag' ventura.

as for my bet, i've got a five-spot on 'hail to the queef' in the second race.

rupert murdoch developing super-laser, holding planet ransom for $900 trillion

ok, not really. but you gotta give the guy credit. he's the closest thing we have to a bond villain. i've seen enough stuff floating around the intertubes (not including myspace) today to start actually becoming scared of him.

four months after murdoch took over the wall street journal, the managing editor is resigning.

"Reporters and other editors say that while Mr. Brauchli agreed with some of the changes made in recent months, it was clear that many of them were dictated from above, and that he questioned the shift toward general-interest news."

this move, according to the article, is meant to position wsj as a direct competitor to the new york times. apparently he's not a fan of their librul bullshit - reports on wmd, torture in iraq, and other facets of reality aren't good for his infotainment empire's ratings. to top it off, just in case bastardizing the wsj is not enough to get his propagandist bullshit heard in every corner of the five boroughs, he's also looking to buy newsday (source: newsday. go fig.), and owns two local networks.

so that all sounds like some regular 21st-century evil consolidated media type stuff, right? well it gets slightly creepier. apparently the dude hires black hat hackers to hack the dish network (according to the dish network). the hacker says this was only to reverse engineer some hardware - still kinda fucked, but not bond-level creepy. tell me then, old man murdoch: why was his first payment "$20,000 in cash hidden in electronic devices mailed from Canada"?

you would have attracted much less attention paying him with a lifetime supply of mountain dew and 100 myspace whores of his choice. after all, you run that $600 million diarrhea puddle of a website. you could totally make them disappear, you evil fuck.

bush owns treehuggers

shocking news today out of washington: g-dub and his buddies are fucking with epa data.

889 scientists or 60 percent, said they had personally experienced at least one instance of political interference in the last five years; 394 said they experienced frequent or occasional "statements by EPA officials that misrepresent scientists' findings."

More than one-fifth, or 285, said they had experienced "selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome," the report said.

remember all those times in college when you wrote a paper and then just basically skimmed the book that you never read for quotes that may vaguely support your point? a lot of people still do it, especially when they want it to fit in with their ideology. while it's fairly acceptable from two bit bloggers, it seems a little wacky to deny empirical data because it doesn't fit in with your 4000-year-old book of jewish tribal mythology.

meanwhile, in bizarro world, president gore and the over-staffed and under-worked united states military (in conjunction with an international coalition) have just returned all greenhouse gases to their preindustrial levels.

Let's Play Global ThermoNuclear War

Hillary Clinton will nuke Iran if they nuke Israel.

Directly from MSNBC:

"In the interview [on Countdown with Keith Olberman] Monday, Clinton affirmed that she would warn Iran’s leaders that 'their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.'"

Hillary Clinton: A Vote for a More Aggressive America.

i haz a win!

hillary wins PA! poor white people celebrate defeat of muslim half-breed.

jesus. if persistence, phony gladhanding, and an annoying pta-mom-esque reprimanding style of rhetoric can end the war and fix the economy, maybe i've been completely wrong in supporting this dude obama.

most people knew she'd win. that wasn't the question. the question was whether or not she could even get enough votes to stick around, and she did.

from reuters:
"I think the numbers and margin -- combined with the spin -- will leave superdelegates wondering why can't this guy just beat her." he said. "As long as they are thinking that, she gets a little time."

the fucking spin? THE SPIN? has everybody running the show in the democrat party spent so much time being bombarded by advertisements and shitty corporate pr their entire lives that they're susceptible to SPIN? or are they just so cynical about this entire process that they'd rather send the media-declared winner than the better politician? this worries the hell out of me. the clintons are the masters of spin. they'll use it to their advantage, for sure, despite the fact that obama's eventual performance topped initial opinion polls. (citation needed. deal with it.)

if howard dean and his dnc buddies actually stumbled upon this blog, i'd like them to consder an idea i have. let's ignore the spin for ONE FUCKING SECOND, and acknowledge the plain and simple truth. hillary clinton's campaign is one based on negativity, and she's dragging obama down into it. her campaign is based predominantly on heavily embellished political experience and bush-esque fear tactics.

we've already had eight long, terrible years of a highly divisive, disingenuous political insider riding on a relative's coattails, falsely claiming folksy populism, and violently smearing anyone who crosses their path. the last thing we need is more.

Also Notable Today

Not only is it Earth Day, but it's also the end of the six weeks of hell we've all known as the Pennsylvania Primary.

Today, the good citizens of PA will vote, and no matter the outcome, we will all be able to at least thank them for bringing this sordid sham affair to an end. If I ever see two crusty intellectuals try to pretend they actually like being in Pittsburgh ever again, it will be too soon.

And, if you want election results, here's the official state results page.

I can't guarantee you it will have up-to-the-minute info like the news sites, but I can guarantee that it won't have any overbearing blowhards or underqualified blondes beating you over the head with their spins, flips and other dizzying ways of taking the news and turning it into "news."

EDIT: Speaking of "news," Drudge is (re: was) reporting that exit polls show Obama only losing by 4%. Take that for what it is. I'm not going to give political insight or comment until I see hard numbers, but the fact remains that Drudge is claiming the exit polls show a 4% win for Hillz in PA.

EDIT: This is why I don't take "news" seriously. Hillz won by 9%. Not 4 (and not 10 either).

o hai urth day

big ups to icanhascheezburger for the template used to make this lolpol.

"Lolpols"

President Robert Mugabe has long been at the reigns of administrative authority in Zimbabwe; not only leading the ruling ZANU-PF party, but manipulatively yielding partisan supporters positions, to further benefit his political standing. During the recent parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s ‘reign’ was seemingly thwarted, when MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai was ostensibly declared the winner of the elections, furthermore reforming Zimbabwe’s administration.

But bully-like authoritative demands from Mugabe have halted the proliferation of a possible MDC occupation of Zimbabwe’s government. A democratic related re-count has been called for, mainly by Mugabe and numerous ZANU-PF officials, and only chaos has in sewed within Zimbabwe’s public and the ongoing political limbo.

Quote culled directly from this article in The Economist:

“Human Rights Watch, an international group, says that ZANU-PF, the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe, has set up torture camps across the country as part of a systematic campaign to intimidate the opposition.”

Mugabe seems to be taking the most literal and obvious approach to the fact that he is ultimately ousted by an opposition –whose numbers are growing, given the treatment of the Zimbabwean people (“The MDC says that ten of its supporters have been killed, some shot dead. The opposition also says that some 3,000 families have had to flee their homes, 500 people have been put in hospital and over 400 opposition activists have been arrested.”) –and knows it.

It seems outlandish, a political figure who has already schemed a recount –presented and supported almost entirely by the ruling party– punishing those in support of an opposition who has seemingly already ousted his administration. The bitterness of Mugabe’s actions have been portrayed on a humanitarian level and although surrounding nations, mainly SADC, have not deemed Mugabe’s actions as ill-minded or out of mere anger towards election results, many African nations (Tanzania, Botswana, Kenya –who faced similar conflict) have pushed to address Mugabe’s actions. Single-dominant political factions, in power for a protracted amount of time, must be non-existent.

Political Smackdown

Last night, apparently the candidates appeared on WWE Raw. I only know about this because it was reported by the L.A. Times, and one of my poor friends who chose to sell his soul to Hollywood actually reads that trash and sent me the link.

However, to save you from having to read the actual article (it's quite pathetic), I'll just hit you with the video right here.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that fans of the WWE don't vote. To be honest, I was under the impression that fans of the WWE don't even properly wipe themselves, much less vote.

pennsylvania primaries and other things killing the planet

and away we go. all that booze-drinking with the unwashed masses, shit-talking the other candidates, and pretending to have blue-collar cred is about to pay off. they're gonna vote for the next prez-ee-dent! who's it gonna be?

let wolf blitzer cover that shit. i've got nothing more to add to the debate, and i'm officially sick enough of hillary that i can hardly consider her a real human being.

in other news, today is also earth day. this is one of those days where people make themselves feel better about our dying planet by planting a tree or two, then driving home in their ford excursions and eating all those animal meats that apparently take so much farmland to grow and feed. it's kind of like being a three-pack-a-day smoker and giving up one cigarette for lent. tell you what, hippies. i'll take you seriously about this earth day thing, if you take earth day seriously enough to back what you say.

here's some things you could do to make yourself more energy-efficient, in a way that actualy means jack or shit:
1. torch your car and never drive again.
2. move to a secluded area and start up a self-sustaining, carbon-neutral survivalist compound. Note: this is fully legal, but the government might get upset if you start marrying underaged girls.
3. Stop using antibiotics, cleaning agents, and pesticides, because who are you to say that cows and chimpanzees are more valued life forms than mosquitoes and bacteria?
4. Turn off your simultaneously-running computer, cable box, dvd player, and television, unless they're being powered by windmills, cold fusion, or magic.

at least the earth liberation front has the huevos to do the really hardcore shit. i'm not advocating what they do, but if you talk the talk you gotta walk the walk, right?

"talking to ourselves" and why this blog is the way it is

susan jacobs over at the times has written an interesting article about the decline of respectful disagreement in everyday american discourse, and its possible causes and effects. basically, the article suggests that the cacophony of voices we have in a digital-cable-and-rss-feed society is now allowing us to insulate ourselves around information that validates our own opinions. we're cutting ourselves off enough from objective information that we can write our own narratives about controversial cultural opinions, and then form clans around those opinions.

"When I recently spoke about the militant parochialism of American intellectual life on a radio talk show, a caller responded by telling me that there was nothing new about Americans preferring to bask in the reflected glow of their own opinions. Talk radio and political blogs, in his view, are merely the modern equivalent of friends -- and haven't we always chosen friends who agree with us?"

that's true, for sure. plenty of us spend our time knocking bill o'reilly and his clan. i for one rail on my parents for watching lou dobbs, who has stoked their fears about illegal immigration and the clearly hypothetical north american union.

however, that's not to say that televised media is the sole offender. anyone who has read digg or - even worse - reddit has probably been subjected to these memes from time to time. for nearly a year, i was a card-carrying member of the ron paul revolution. i even bit the "bush set up 9/11" line for a few months (incidentally, though i don't think he had an active hand in it, nobody can say there aren't a few interesting unanswered questions about that day). media is so plentiful that we are allowed to choose information that suits us, rather than information that is available to everyone. it also has created an oversimplified, quickly-digested media. jacobs continues:

"A vast public laziness feeds the media's predilection today to distill news through polemicists of one stripe or another and to condense complex information into meaningless sound bites. On April 8, for example, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, testified before the Senate in hearings that lasted into the early evening. Although the hearings were on cable during the day, the networks offered no special programming in the evening, and newscasts were content with sound bites of McCain, Obama and Hillary Clinton questioning the general. Dueling presidential candidates were the whole story."

a society based on cultures absorbed in their own separate worldview is unacceptable. this is not a society i want to live in, and i think quite a few people agree with me.

we can blame it all we want on the media or any number of other causes, but the plain and simple truth is that it is up to us. it is in this spirit that we have all joined and set up the blog. "i can has freedoms" means that free speech is top priority. people of any political stripe are welcome. we only ask a couple things: express your points intelligently, and don't be an asshole. sound good?

Nonpolitical Interludes: The Truth about Fat Fuck Diabetes

60 Minutes is running this "shocking report."

Culled directly from the site:

"Gastric bypass surgery has long been an effective weapon in the battle against obesity, but could it also force type 2 diabetes into almost instant remission? If so, why aren't more people eligible for the operation? Lesley Stahl went looking for answers."

Yo, Lesley, I got your answers right here. Gastric bypass surgery cures Type 2 Diabetes because you can only get Type 2 Diabetes by basically eating yourself into a coma, having no self-respect and turning into a massively fat piece of human trash.

Gastric bypass surgery eliminates one's ability to eat until one becomes similar in look, feel and smell to a hippopotamus's ass. Therefore, it precludes those who undergo the "treatment" from being able to get Fat Fuck Diabetes (FFD from here on).

The reason doctors won't just give this surgery to any Twinkie-lover off the street with FFD is that both hospitals and insurance companies take issue with having to perform invasive surgery to cure a disease that can also be thwarted by PUTTING DOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING TWO LITER OF COKE AND GETTING SOME GODDAMN EXERCISE.

Dammit fat lazy Americans piss me off.

Right-Wing Rant: Special Order 40 and Illegals

Greetings, all. I am Joeverkill, and this is my right-wing rant.

Here in Los Angeles, we have something called Special Order 40. Special Order 40 is a directive implemented by Los Angeles City Council with the support of Police Chief Daryl Gates and “Mayor” Antonio Villaraigosa which prohibits Los Angeles police officers from inquiring about immigration status from detained subjects or using immigration information databases to make arrests.

In summary, Special Order 40 is a local law that prevents the enforcement of federal law.

How the shit is that legal?

Suppose some random local government – let’s say Mississippi, for example, decided that they wanted to pass a local law that negated federal law. Perhaps it’s a law that deals with… oh, for the heck of it, let’s just say slavery. Mississippi passes a law that prohibits police from arresting slave owners or inquiring about the activities of slave owners or traders. Even worse, local police are not allowed to use available database information about slave owners in order to make arrests for other crimes, including drug dealing, murder, rape, etc. Wouldn’t the rest of the country be pissed about that? Shouldn’t non-slave-owning residents of Mississippi be pretty pissed about that?

Let’s look at another hypothetical example. Let’s say, just for kicks, that the city of Macon, Georgia decides to pass an order that prohibits police from arresting pedophiles. The mayor and the city council think pedophilia’s A-Okay; in fact, they’re pretty sure that the pedophile vote was the main factor in their victorious election campaigns. Pedophiles flock to Macon Georgia. Because police can’t use information of the pedophiles’ previous crimes, the pedophiles soon learn that they are extremely difficult to arrest. They start dealing drugs, refuse to pay state income and sales tax, and disregard all traffic laws. Soon Macon, Georgia is full of tax-dodging, drug-dealing pedophiliacs who drive recklessly and without insurance. Every young boy in town has a weiner up his butt. And the police can’t make arrests because these boylovers are protected by the city from state and federal law.

That’s the situation we have here in Los Angeles. Illegals are given special status, protected not only for the crime of being here illegally (and make no mistakes folks, it is a crime), they’re protected from virtually every other law as well.

America, look to Los Angeles and you will see a slippery, slippery slope – and I’m not just talking about mudslides in Malibu. If we continue to allow liberal local policymakers to defy federal law, we could very well soon see more pockets of lawlessness sprout up around the county.

I’m Joeverkill, and this has been the right-wing rant.

science finds new hydrocarbon to fuck up atmosphere

just when you thought that peak oil was going to be the final straw that kept us from burning ourselves alive inside a giant celestial ball of smog, all of our greatest scientific minds have assembled to find a new form of hydrocarbon to celebrate, exploit, and not realize its effects until we've already done a shitload of damage. Thankfully, these are all located in the ocean where it will be more difficult to notice: "A hydrate is created when a molecule of gas – in this case, methane or natural gas – is trapped by high pressures and low temperatures inside a cage of water molecules. The result is almost – but not quite – ice. It's more like a dry, white slush..."

"And gas hydrate fields are found in abundance under the coastal waters of every continent. Calculations suggest there's more energy in gas hydrates than in coal, oil and conventional gas combined." Dig it. we've found a new way to power all of our shit. It's natural gas, so presumably a little bit healthier for the atmosphere (i'm no chemist...could someone clarify that one for me?). Even better, it's not ethanol.

I'll take harvesting some slushy superefficient pseudo-ice out of the water over growing even more corn for my petrofix any day of the week. Just keep ExxonMobil's greedy little mitts off of it and we're golden.

mítines relámpagos! history continues to repeat...

Paraguay, unlike other countries facing political reform, is on the verge of altering the head of the governing body, for the first time in nearly twenty years –the longest a single political party has been instated. After Paraguay’s initial shift to presidential democratic rule (1989), there has been a seemingly everlasting stint of the Colorado party and its occupancy of the administrative governing body. But many are unaware of the Colorado party’s origins and ties with authoritarian leaders prior to the countries democratic shift. At one point in the party’s ruling history (1942-1967), the nation was declared a single-party state and no effort of opposition seemed to be exemplified –socially or politically. It wasn’t until the 1980’s where a politically driven opposition surfaced, known as PLRA, or, Authentic Radical Liberal Party. Directed by a man named Domingo Laino, the newly formed party was a focal point in thwarting the obvious lingering occupancy of the Colorado party, primarily during the last half of the eighties. But despite efforts for reform, the Colorado party’s flexed grip on the national media and governmental agencies allowed for an obviously tampered result of victory, during the free elections of 1989 –also the year of the countries reallocation to presidential democracy.

It seems as if even after the installation of western influenced political form, a predominant party can always, with no regard, regulate and determine policy along with social standards on a basis of partisan desire. But even now with underlying ‘liberation politics’ in effect, it seems as if the same efforts exemplified in the tail end of the 1980’s are existent presently within anti-Colorado effort –and in order to avoid pseudo-reform similar to the countries past, the ousted party and its influences, must be ultimately silenced.

It will take a newly elected political administration to ultimately earn the trust of its voting public and shift Paraguay away from a some what corrupt era of thought to be functioning democracy, and furthermore into an era of unbiased and untainted political and social relationship.

history repeats itself.

The recent Italian parliament election proved to halt any form of change in the current administrative occupancy. This jolly fellow, Silvio Berlusconi, has been the head of the Italian government dating back to the early nineties. It seems the only credibility in his victory in recent election is dealt to that of an unprepared left-middle side with hope for change, and an obvious grip on Italian media that Berlusconi uses to disenfranchise any opposition.

Instances of obvious protracted totalitarian-esque governments, mainly exhibited in parliamentary infrastructure, are too common in many EU nations and a number of African government bodies. It would be difficult to doubt much upheaval within citizens and a growing emergence of social unrest within any oppressive state around the world.

power to the people.

Fag Bashers at the Smell, - April 9th 2008

Seeing how far the posts on this blog have already strayed from Nineco Gunch's stated aim of intelligent (and angry) political discourse (treeman? really Rupert! not so subliminal dis yo!), I figured I' d take things out for a spin with my next post. This is a review of a show I saw at The Smell. A week ago, I was back in the crack mother city - LA, and decided that it was about time I went to check out The Smell. I had heard excellent things about the venue - all ages, serving only vegan food, with a community vibe about it that appeals to the old Fugazi fan in me. I was a little kid in India when those guys toured and helped open up the all ages scene, that Dischord kick-started in the early 80's. When I got older I used to read, with a wide eyed wonder, about their idealism and work ethic. The Smell continues things in the same spirit - the slogan and band name 'No Age' painted on the closed, steel front on Main Street comes from a SST comp from 87. They obviously take their cues from the hardcore community spirit and heritage. As evidenced from the organisers slightly stiff reaction to the Fag Bashers antics, one could also say that they share some of that scene's uptight self righteousness.

The show was advertised as The International Noise Conference - a reference perhaps to the famous 1991 International Pop Underground Convention organised by K records. The acts that went on before the Bashers, played short 5 - 10 minute sets with minimal set up and fuss. They, mostly, consisted of a single person with a deck, effects pedals and mic. The night was tight and the impact focused. Walls of squall, recoiling power noise and thrusting feedback, reached deep into my ears, and opened my tympanum to all audible frequencies - The effect of the sound on my ears was akin to a psychedelic, revealing its full possibility for hearing, like psylocibin devulges the subconsciousness to the brain. The short set times meant that no one got bored, or tired, of the aural assault we were subjected to. I felt, a sense of calm like I have seldom felt, at a concert.

Typically concerts tend to set me on edge - the palpable smells, of alcohol, weed and the hint of sex, all conspire to make me slightly uncomfortable, and I have to lubricate myself with a few beers to overcome my natural reserve. In keeping with the spirit of the venue I arrived with nothing more than Ramen and caffeine in my stomach (Little Tokyo is a few blocks away and just down Main street is a friendly coffee shop called Ground Works). The aural aussault had the paradoxical effect of calming me even further. In short I was ripe meat for the Fag Bashers set.

I was seated on the couch in the main room next to the bookshelf. I am hoping that they get around to posting the video of the night, so that everyone who reads this can get a clearer picture of the mayhem, the two members of the band staged, and see how incongruously they fit with the rest of the event. The video posted on their myspace site-



of an earlier show gives one a good idea of their get up and M.O. - two thoroughly skinny guys in football jerseys, with an amp, mic, boom box, busted looking drumkit and a stack of empty kegs. At first, I was not aware that they were part of the show, because they were the first band to play in that well lit corner of The Smell.

A Nickelback song started to play on the boom box. The reaction of the smattering of scenesters and noise freaks, me included, as the song started to play, was priceless. Everyone froze. Not a head bobbed. One enlightened hipster started to ironically shake his head to the song for a few seconds. Nothing could have caused more discomfort among the assembled noisea-rat-i, than the simple act of playing this thoroughly populist number, in the middle of such an elitist show. Now, I have seen groups of kids, at the bar down the street from where I live in PA, sing along to that same song, tons of times, their faces filled with joy, like the dancing and singing members of a black church. Their faces seemed to convey the feeling that, they were being understood by those rockstars, their workaday lives expressed, in the singer's nasal whine that dripped with overproduced compassion. I would bury my head in my beer and try not to meet any faces.

I would have given a lot of money, to see one of those guys squirm through some of the sets I saw that evening, and then, see a grin light up his face, when this song played. To see the reaction of the people around him, when he sang along enthusiastically, would have been precious. You want to talk about a red state blue state divide - there it is, in an oversimplified and somewhat disingenuous way.

Here I must digress and provide a link to a great article in the venerable Onion titled "Local Hipster Over-Explaining Why He Was At The Mall".

Everyone of us, has at some time in their life been guilty of a taste violation(if you believe in such things). All the cool music I listen to today, is, in some sense a cover job, to hide my history of pop indiscretions. Try as I might, I will never be able to erase the fact that I was into rap metal when it went around, or that, I listened to some really weak 70s MOR and prog from my dad's collection. I think it's stupid to pretend to be superior, because today you listen to better music than the next guy. You just got lucky that someone or something, tipped you off at the right time. And yes there is better music and worse music. I will defend that position, it isn't all subjective. Who gets to decide, that is up in the air, however, and it is a continuous process, like erosion or the formation of mountains.

I am very conflicted about cultural elitism, of any kind, and I am guilty of it in a lot of ways. It is easy to dismiss people for their lowbrow tastes, but also incredibly lazy to do so. My best buddy in PA. listens to, what I consider to be horrible music, but I don't give a shit. When sites like Facebook, ask you to list the music you like, all it does is make you more easily definable, and hence digestable, by people, culture and their salesmen. I am not going to let something, as inconsequential as taste, in pop culture, choose my friends for me. Friends over Trends anybody?

While I liked the music at The Smell, and felt comfortable with the people there, I still don't feel a part of them either. I didn't like, that all those drunk kids at the bar I frequented, felt some kind of bond over a cheesy pop song, that they identified with some syrupy, rhyming drivel. Occasionally I would make the mistake of disputing their tastes, and was sometimes dismissed or ignored because of that. On the other hand, I was delighted to see the hipsters and scene crawlers, at The Smell be confronted, with sounds they could not tolerate. Noise, Industrial, Grindcore, insert extreme music of your choice here - is supposed to be all about confrontation and subversion. What could be more discomfiting to the status quo of this crowd than Nickelback?

The squirming was great while it lasted. Comprehension eventually dawned on the audience, as the Bashers started to put on shoulder pads and one of the guys dropped to the ground to do pushups, and grunt. More people gathered around their little circle as I, foolishly remained seated right next to them. The two mischief makers started to thump chests, make grunting sounds, and yell at each other about the massive party they were going to have tonight. A few minutes earlier, I had noticed one of the guys, lets call him Mr.Yellow, for the color of his jersey, peel the labels off a 6'er of O'Doul's. The reason for this dawned on me now, when they popped one of the bottles and started to chug it. This could not have gone down well with The Smell Elders, The Smellders if you will; I saw a few frowns and folded arms go up in the audience, like a steel barrier would, in a larger show. What would the cops do to their "premit to operate", if they saw the bottles of fake beer, with no stickers on them to designate their innocent status. The twoBashers - Mr. Yellow and Mr.Blue, became more and more rowdy, tossing the empty kegs around, jumping on each other and spraying beer on the audience.

Mr. Yellow was pretty good about the beer spraying, limiting it mostly, inside the floor space around him, except with me. Seeing that I was a chump, sitting right next to them, and looked relatively harmless, and was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, he took the liberty of hosing my hair and glasses down. I did not mind it one whit. I only wished they had got more people, that they had a fireman's hose of beer, to wash the stiff bodied lack of enjoyment off the noise police. I understand their concern, for safety and respect, for the limitations of the spectacle, but I was ready for more, yet slightly scared of escalation. I was reading "Industrial Culture Handbook" on that couch before they started, and some of the shit those original freaks pulled was unbelievable. Compared to, say a Throbbing Gristle show, this show was relative tame, notwithstanding what happened towards the end. The interesting stuff at the Fag Bashers show was all cerebral, though they were a heck of a lot of fun.

Nickelback turned into Bawitabaa, turned into Korn. Their screams and jocky exortations bled into the songs and helped recontextualise the familiar, radio rock pap into more alien soundscapes. Formally speaking, they weren't that great. "Kevin Shields", who came later in the bill, was better. Not that 'Kevin Shields' people - it was a chick who has the admirable cheek to take on the name of the MBV mastermind, and the balls to play really fucking loud, louder than any of the men who played, and just loud enough to make you shit your ears a little. It was the unbalanced atmosphere the Bashers created that carried them head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. The same way the victorious football players they parody get carried away, at the end of a game. Eventually some of the fake beer bottles broke. Mr.Yellow, the skinnier of the two and a star showboat, made sure of this. He also made it a point to roll around a little in it and drew blood from his arm. Later, he pointed his bleeding arm into the camcorder recording the evening.

Make no mistake about it, it did not happen in the heat of the moment. It was more surgery than accident. There was the element of self consciousness to the whole performance, that did not in the least take away from their commitment to jolt the audience. If you think Jim Morrison, or any other infamous exhibitionist, did his thing without calculation, you are definitely fooling yourself. Maybe a completely shit faced Iggy came close; I believe my man, Lester Bangs, when he said something to that effect, about the electrifyingly spontaneous nature of Iggy's self mutilating act. However, as someone who has indulged in a considerable amount of intoxicated amateur surgery, I can testify that there is nothing more acutely conscious, and done for effect, than cutting or self injury. Even the old maxim states, that the best rock bands are ones that look like they are about to fall apart, but just manage to hold together.

The whole time they played I was sitting on the edge of my seat. I understood the meaning of that hoary cliche that day. I had something between a delighted grin and a clenched jaw, the whole time. To possess a sense of humor, to use it intelligently and unabashedly, is a rare thing in music. After the show, I went up to Mr. Yellow who was waiting for the bathroom to become free, so he could clean up his arm, and told him that they were great, and that it was the best show I had ever seen. Then I patted him on the shoulder, as he just grinned and nodded his head enthusiastically. Mr. Blue helped the tired looking Smellders clean up the floor. As I stepped around the room, emotionally exausted, but razor keen in the head, I felt shards of glass crack under my shoes.

Dude. Treeman.

This friggin guy is half-man/half-tree.

He's motherfucking Treeman. No bullshit.

Somebody check the bible to see if Treeman is one of the signs of the coming apocalypse and somebody else check Wikipedia and see if Treeman is some kind of comic book supervillain.

Get back to me with the results of your findings.

Also, I would just like to state that I would give my middle nut to see this dude fight the Swamp Thing in a boggy marsh.

We'll call it Rumble in the Jungle 2: The Freak of Nature vs. the Fictional Character.

And we'll get Chris Tucker to promote it. And then we will swim in money like Scrooge McDuck.