[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjKBjM1ngw[/youtube]
Border fences are monuments to human failure.
Category: Personal Page 7 of 59
Funny, I was holding this in pocket for today, and a friend posted it as her year end video yesterday. Gogol Bordello‘s Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher):
Taken, in ascending order, from my iTunes play counts, limited to tracks I picked up in 2010. Â This means things I picked up early in the year have weight over more recent tracks (the only late addition to really make it in comes from the Roots). Â And the whole thing is a bit tilted toward things I enjoy while running, it seems, and excludes lots of older music that was still in heavy rotation. Â But enough with that, here’s the music:
10. DJ Fox’s Club Can’t Use Somebody (An *excellent* running track.)
here (MP3)
9. Metrics’ Combat Baby (2003 release, but just introduced to me this year)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rMfPvv3BMs[/youtube]
8. The Hood Internet’s Ignition (Which, despite my deep dislike for all things R. Kelly, is another favorite track for running.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG_LM3RSowI[/youtube]
7. DJs from Mars’ California Jump (A Katy Perry/Van Halen mashup.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF8B8aO2A6c[/youtube]
6. Dan Black’s Get into Cloudbusting (Perhaps my second favorite track of the year, subjectively)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMb00qtChg[/youtube]
5. DJs from Mars’ Teenage Gay (Katy Perry & OMD mashup)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaAdolUvVV4[/youtube]
4. The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind (Bassnectar Remix) (You need real speakers for most music, but especially for this)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXlRhkegkM0[/youtube]
3. The Roots’ How I Got Over (If I can’t convince you to buy the album, at least get this track.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nDKTxjKK9k[/youtube]
2. Â DJs from Mars absolute masterpiece of a mashup – Love the Way You Lie in Paradise City (mixing – not just in audio – Eminem/Rihanna & Guns ‘n Roses)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIFMwi0bD0[/youtube]
1. DJ Clive$ter’s Heartbreaking Maps (Mashup of Metronomy & the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s (also my subjective top pick of the year). Video not related.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iniNaQYZX-c[/youtube]
DADT repealed. Â Closure of a dark chapter in American history. Â Thank you to everyone that helped, but particular thanks to those serving who put their careers on the line – and sometimes lost them – to make this happen.
Update:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGxhphlJN-I[/youtube]
Powerful.
It’s been incredibly windy and bone-chillingly cold in DC for the past week. Â The warm and rainy place I’d rather be, at the moment:
Restaurant in Chihshang, Taiwan
Ten years ago, I was sitting in the Worldport Terminal at JFK, on my way home. Â I’d just picked up some Burger King french fries, waiting for a connecting flight back to DCA, while I watched the news. Â And it was there that I heard the result of Bush v. Gore. Â I can still tell you exactly where I was sitting. Â And then I saw the opinion read out on the television. Â And I was shocked.
Stupified. Â Confounded. Â Stunned.
The five justices in the majority helped complete my legal education in a way that I – at the time – truly didn’t think was possible.
The idealism of youth, I suppose. Â Or something like that.
To review, the majority applied a principle that they’d never cared about in a way that they’d never done before to a specific set of circumstances they said should never be considered in the future.
~
I have very little interest in talking about Bush v. Gore. Â There’s nothing to say about it, from a legal standpoint. Â Sure, it’s a little useful as a basic honesty test, but those that defend it almost always reveal themselves as charlatans well before you ever get to the case itself. Â But I do hope that it’s taken as a lesson by new generations.
So long as the Republican party that produced the 5-4 result exists, it’s important that everyone involved in politics understands what happened.
To hell with them (and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin).
If you think I can get a bit over the top on the TSA or ridiculously overreaching IP laws, just wait until I get rolling on US/Soviet/Russian nuclear proliferation. Â That we ever got to where we are today is testament to both the giant failures and achievements of humanity that we even *have* a today. Â And now we’re here, with the GOP preferring to spend its time saving us from Texas Representative/Village Idiot Louis Gohmert’s “terror babies” instead of, well, I’ll let Josh from TPM sketch it out:
Russia still has a massive strategic nuclear arsenal with pretty much the exclusive goal of being able to devastate the United States and kill pretty much all of us. For 15 years we had pretty robust right to inspect their arsenal many times a year, make sure they only had as many as they were allowed under our treaties and actually get up on the delivery missiles themselves and look at the payloads? Now we don’t. In fact, we haven’t since December 5th of last year. At first that wasn’t that big a deal. Not much can happen in a few weeks or few months. But now it’s been almost a year. So all that trust but verify stuff Ronald Reagan was so into? Well, now we can’t verify. And for as much as you’re worried about some Muslim guy blowing up a plane and killing a few hundred people, these are weapons designed to kill hundreds of millions of people. Do you feel more secure knowing we’re just taking everything on faith from the Russians? Or that our intelligence on their missile designs and practices is growing older by the day?
And do we hear the White House pointing this out? Â Anyone? Â Hello?
When people (of a certain age) tell you that they “wore that tape out”, it’s almost always metaphorical. A-ha’s Hunting High and Low? I wore it out.  Everyone knows Take On Me. And, like everyone else, I love it.  How can you not?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EXxMlIExpo[/youtube]
Speaking of worn out – don’t you love the tape-warble of the opening of this? Â Lots of 80s hits exhibited the same. Â But there’s so much more. Here I Stand and Face the Rain:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHp47UCSPI0[/youtube]
Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjoEoYzzLQ[/youtube]
That is pure 80s West Germany for me. Â Nothing but good.