Part II

Just in case there are individuals out there who liked a few of the songs I mentioned in my last post, and are wondering where my taste is coming from, I've decided to post a few examples of (what I think are) good songs.

These aren't necessarily, however, examples of songs I would put on a mix-tape- because when you give someone a mix-tape, you are trying to, uh, impress them, so it depends on the person and stuff. These are just songs I like.


(since these are good songs I included links to a version)
1. Come Go With Me - The Del Vikings
2. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James and the Shondells
3. White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
4. For Whom The Bell Tolls - Metallica
5. Runaway - Del Shannon
6. Under Pressure - Queen
7. Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
8. Radio Ga-ga - Queen
9. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor
10. With Or Without You - U2
11. Tarzan Boy - Baltimora
12. Blackbird - The Beatles
13. Norwegian Wood - The Beatles
14. All Madonna songs
15. Red Red Wine - UB40
16. Rockin' In The Free World - Neil Young
17. Proud Mary - Creedence Clearwater Revival
18. D'yer Mak'er - Led Zeppelin

Great Ideas Happen Every Day

UPDATE: Added some new songs here, Aug. 18.

Pay someone a backhanded favor: give them a mix-tape of the worst songs you can think of. In our modern world of politeness and law, it can be hard to take revenge on someone who really deserves it, or waiting for an opportunity to "get back" in a way that's appropriate can take forever. So get them by giving them insufficient courtesy. It won't reflect poorly on your taste, because your friends will find out what you're up to, and enjoy the joke.

Here are some suggestions to get you going:

1. Stay - Lisa Loeb
2. Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet
3. Just Go Ahead Now - Spin Doctors
4. Little Miss Can't Be Wrong - Spin Doctors
5. Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes
6. Mr. Jones - Counting Crows (note: if you want women to like you, you can't let it be known that you don't like this one)
7. Take A Letter, Maria - R.B. Greaves
8. Me And Julio Down By The School Yard - Paul Simon (this one is annoying because, while it could be good in theory, as executed by Paul Simon in actual practice, it comes off as patronizing, white-boy-wanna-be-Latino (I think Simon even fakes a Latino accent) and makes him look like a weiner)
9. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
10. Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
11. Bad Day - Daniel Powter
12. Story Of A Girl - 3 Doors Down
13. Mm-bop - Hanson
14. All of the Creed songs.
15. All star - Smashmouth
16. Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
17. Crocodile Rock - Elton John
18. Jessie Paints A Picture - John Denver
19. Rat In A Cage - Smashing Pumpkins (say what you want about how talented Smashing Pumpkins are- Billy Corrigan wrote this song so he could sing, in his whiny nasal voice, the lyric "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage," over and over and over again, and there's nothing especially redeeming about the music. James Iha and good old what's-her-name would have been much better off ditching this egomaniac before recording this song and starting a side-project with that dude from Tool (the one who's supposed to be a real good guitarist and everything). Despite some other alright songs, this song is annoying.)
20. She's Always A Woman To Me - Billy Joel (this song shows how misogynistic Billy Joel is, and it's also musically annoying)
21. Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms
22. Hotel California - The Eagles

I like a lot of songs, and it's hard to think of more than these I truly don't like. If you any suggestions, please e-mail.

Plame scandal

I'll do a little follow up post to my July 4 "Plame scandal" post sometime soon, incorporating a few comments I wrote on the Washington Monthly blog recently. Then, maybe sometime after that (in a few days or so) I'll rehash both the posts together so they're very clear and concise and I've made sure of thought of everything.

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann and 60 Minutes should both be looking into getting him a place on the show when his contract runs up. They're a really good place for a guy like him- either he can be groomed to be a journalist by the old ones there before they all retire (it's got to be coming soon) or he can be an Andy Rooney there (seems they'd have to give him a little more space than Rooney gets, though, since he already gets to be in front of the camera so much on his show, and do his own "editorials" already. But then, probably a lot more people watch 60 Minutes...) The real heroes on 60 Minutes are getting old, and that's just a fact of life, and they need someone they can count on to fill their shoes before it's time to pass the torch. I never watched the show that much, but it's nonetheless a really great American institution and it would be sad to see it fade away or turn into something else.

Plame scandal

I wrote some comments on the Plame scandal last night. Here they are, in slightly-edited form. A commenter on the Carpetbagger Report wrote:

And while I do not condone renegade actions by our own CIA, I would be highly intrigued if a member of our intelligence community would drop off some files of dirt about Scooter and his cohorts to a credible reporter like Sy Hersch to show that the CIA doesn’t approve of politicians f*cking with the secret covers of its operatives.

And I responded:

How do we know the CIA wasn’t cool with the Plame leak? How do we know they didn’t consider blowing Plame’s cover a good way to get at Wilson, and an acceptable sacrifice to advance Bush’s agenda in the context of whatever she was doing operationally? For all we know, Plame was even complicit in it, and for all we know, Plame isn’t even really a liberal (if that’s what she holds herself out as). Whatever really went on in this case, there’s a lot more to it- a bunch of cloak-and-dagger stuff- than just Bush, whose dad was a CIA agent, taking revenge on Wilson by outing Wilson's wife through White House minions and foolish journalists. Bush and Cheney have a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with the CIA, they’re not going to just say ‘Fuck you’ to the CIA lightly. I think that was something in this case that was totally missed by the media and public, but that's perhaps to be expected-- it’s natural for people not to want to speculate about the doings of the CIA at length in these times, since they’re involved in national security. Also, perhaps it's natural in such times to want to believe the fantasy, that the CIA are a bunch of super-heroes who are out to save us- rather than that sometimes the people you are counting on to protect you are victimizing you, too.

Also, if Cheney and Bush (a couple of assholes) want to use the CIA (also possibly a bunch of assholes) to do things the CIA is not supposed to do and that would really revolt people, then the whole scandal serves the purpose of making it look like Bush and the CIA are at odds, so that people won’t be too alarmed at the risks of an autocrat that historically come with an executive who assumes a lot of power. However, this explanation seems a little too far-flung and Machiavellian to me- 1) first of all, it seems too clever for Bush and his type, and 2) it flies in the face of the facts we know about the case- it seems like the details of this thing (that is, that the White House at the highest level of command was behind it) is something that was really sought to be kept in the dark. But it’s just a possibility. At least, if the CIA is going to engage in things they shouldn't do- whether or not Bush orders it- and if Bush is their favorite politicians because he's wielding the power of the President, and he's a conservative, neocon yes-man, then they wouldn't want people to connect Bush with them if it ever happened to come to light what they were doing- they wouldn't want the public to see the Republican President as running a Gestapo. But as regards the chance that the Plame scandal specifically was used up to achieve these ends- to me it’s a more likely explanation that Bush (or Rove) just wanted to show a bunch of people that a lot of dirty tricks could still happen to you if you were going to try to criticize the White House / conservative war policy- they tried to nip the criticism in the bud- but, attacking people comes with the risks of attacking people. How to attack people (and thereby terrorize their peers against opposing you) but not risk drawing harm to yourself? Create a fake attack on one of them. The CIA says, ‘You could out one of our guys that’s married to a critic of yours, it’s perfect.’ And either more or less people are actually in on it. If less people are in on it, maybe they don’t really care so much because they figure she’s a woman and therefore not a ‘real’ CIA agent, and plus she’s married to a liberal. If more people are in on it, then maybe Plame herself doesn’t even care about what happened.

Giuliani

Fox News

This is so awesome, and this is just the kind of thing I was suggesting- long time readers may recall posts or videos I've subsequently taken down that really tried to draw attention to the Fox News problem, and to thinking of ways of solving it, as one of the major goals of liberalism today. Remember, what Fox News does is too damaging for us not to try to think up countermeasures. This is the egregious example, latterly, of what Fox does- look how they try to shame you into eating a poison pill.

While the PBS show is a step in the right direction, it isn't enough.

For anyone who wants to see the show or send a link to a friend it's here.