Sadly, No!

Because we’re like the annoying guys in the next apartment who keep cranking the stereo:

[Note: Splashcast player recycled. You only get three of ’em, alas.]

It doesn’t show the full playlist all at once, but I think you can advance the songs with the arrow-thing that appears at the top right.

Update: Aha, try it now.

Bonus in-passing update: Among other things, there’s a version of Television’s Marquee Moon in there that has outtake guitar tracks. Do most fans have this bootleg? I was thrilled to find it.

This is the coolest thing: You can hear how the big, famous Tom Verlaine solo on the album version was pieced together from several different tracks. They ran the tape, having Verlaine play straight through a number of times, and mixed the best parts into a single performance.

This version has stuff that didn’t make the final mix. It’s sometimes more interesting to hear a soloist’s second-rate playing and mistakes than to hear a polished performance: You can really tell what his instincts and limitations are when you hear him make wrong turns and try to recover, when you can see the familiar territory he’ll retreat to when he gets in trouble.

Other update: Frah! Songs missing in action include: Wire’s Map Ref., Swervedriver’s Rave Down, and Tenpole Tudor’s Swords of a Thousand Men. So much for a devastating display of middlebrow taste.

Because, like, everybody has Gang of Four records now, and all that, but what fool is batty enough to collect Tenpole Tudor singles? What fool indeed.

Conservapedia: Enjoy it now before it becomes a wholly-infiltrated parody site!

This entry is real:

Unicorn

The existence of unicorns is controversial. Secular opinion is that they are mythical. However, they are referred to in the Bible nine times,[1] which provides an unimpeachable de facto argument for their once having been in existence.

In the original texts, unicorns go by the Hebrew name Re-em whereas the Greek Septuagint used the name Monokeros.[2] Unicorn itself is Latin. All three names mean “one horn”.

Above: “Remains of a Re-em that perished in the Great Flood.”

While popularly characterized as a horned member of the horse baramin, it is likely that the unicorn was actually quite unhorselike. One recognized theory is that the unicorn was actually the rhinoceros,[1] however a growing number of Creation researchers are theorizing that the unicorn was actually a member of the ceratopsian baramin.[2]

Post-Noachian references[1] to unicorns have led some researchers to argue that unicorns are still alive today. At the very least, it is likely that they were taken aboard the Ark prior to the Great Flood.

Usually when Pam Atlas is involved, no one wins.

So it is with double-super pleasure that we can announce that a prize-winner has been selected in teh Pam Atlas Photoshop Contest!1!!numberbetweentenandtwelve!!!11

Above: Unfortunately, our favorite entry (not by us) came too late to be
included in the voting.

Brad should be up again soon. We found him on the floor wearing a 12-box of Harpoon IPA with eyeholes poked into it. The Jay-Z CD had probably been skipping for hours. Hip-hop — art or poison, bitchuzz?

Really, I do. Tonight, I’m drinking Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. It goes down very smooth for an IPA and doesn’t have the nasty aftertaste that many IPAs mistake for “flavor.”

Other recent favourites of mine include Rogue Chocolate Stout, Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale and Ellie’s Brown Ale. I tried Allagash White recently as well, though I wasn’t too into it, even though I normally like wheat beers.

Consider this an open beer thread. List your favorite craft brews in the comments.

David Ignatius, whom I recently savaged here, has a pretty good column today. Let’s take a look:

We are in the ditch in the Middle East. As bad as you think it is watching TV, it’s worse. It’s not just Iraq but the whole pattern of America’s dealings with the Arab world. People aren’t just angry at America — they’ve been that way to varying degrees since I first came here 27 years ago. What’s worse is that they’re giving up on us — on our ability to make good decisions, to solve problems, to play the role of honest broker.

I’ve pretty much given up on that too, if it’s any consolation.

Let’s start with some poll numbers presented at the Doha conference by Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor and a fellow of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, which co-sponsored the conference with the Qatari foreign ministry. The polling was done last year by Zogby International in six countries that are usually regarded as pro-American: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In these six “friendly” countries, only 12 percent of those surveyed expressed favorable attitudes toward the United States. America’s leaders have surpassed Israel’s as objects of anger. Asked which foreign leader they disliked most, 38 percent named George Bush; Ariel Sharon was a distant second at 11 percent; and Ehud Olmert was third with 7 percent.

Eep.

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Theodore V. Wells Jr., Libby’s attorney, didn’t use the Chewbacca defense, but maybe that would have been a better choice:

“This is a man with a wife and two children; he is a good person,” Mr. Wells told the jury in his final words. “He’s been under my protection for the last month. I give him to you. Give him back to me.”

With that, Mr. Wells teared up, sobbed audibly and sat down.

S,N! is the new Steyn Watch!

Above: Steyn always lands butter side up. [Hanx! Marq]

Let’s start with this conversation between Steyn and Hugh Hewitt where they discuss that big fat meany General Odom, who does not appreciate the perils of the Vast Muslim Conspiracy like he ought. General Odom, you see, “just hasn’t done his homework” on Teh Enemy, as evidenced by his breezy humiliation of Hugh a bit prior; Steyn and Hugh have done their homework, however, and proceed, expertly, to cut the ignoramous general down to size:

HH: One other surprising thing, and again, I want people to be fair to the general and listen to the whole interview. But I asked him if he’d read The Looming Tower, and he hadn’t, and if he knew who Sayed Qutub was, and he didn’t. And I really wonder, Mark Steyn, how many people have done their homework about this enemy.

MS: Well, you know, I’m always astonished by this, Hugh. I don’t expect you very kindly always recommending my book to people, and I’m very grateful to that, but you know, certainly, you don’t have to read my book. There are an awful lot of books out there, and what always surprises me is that the President, who is regarded as a moron by, you know, “thinking� people everywhere, apparently, has actually read a lot of these books, and a lot of his critics haven’t.

HH: Yup.

MS: And I’m astonished at the level of understanding of what it is that’s going on in the world. I mean, I think the General’s point is actually very foolish, that if you’re going…for a start, temperamentally, you have to be the kind of society that can lose a war, if you’re going to decide to lose a war, lose it easily. And I don’t think America is. I think inevitably, if there was a tattered and shabby retreat from Iraq, that it would be, in a sense, Vietnam squared. In other words, it would be a traumatizing event for generations.

Above, Steyn: ‘Hugh, das ist nicht einen boobie?!’*

A Vietnam reference — so you know what’s coming next. That’s right, ‘dolchstoss, dolchstoss’:

HH: […] Let’s turn to the debate in Congress. […]

MS: Well you know, this is the stuff that matters [..]. And what we see, what astonishes me, I mean, I had a kind of out of body experience reading the Washington Post today, because it was like going through some sort of hallucination. I’ve never seen war coverage like it, where one party has in fact decided to take what it calls the slow bleed strategy, it’s quite openly telling people it doesn’t want to have the courage of its convictions and defund the war, it wants to deny the President the possibility of victory, while ensuring that it doesn’t get stuck with any blame for defeat, and this is completely contemptible.

HH: It is, and unfortunately, 13 Republicans at last count have joined these Democrats. I’m calling them white flag Republicans. They’re listed at www.victorycaucus.com. I think this is a Thelma and Louise moment for the Republicans, Mark Steyn. They are not whipping this vote, and let me play for you a little bit of Rick Keller, Orlando Republican, from his speech on the floor yesterday:

RK: Three years ago, we didn’t know whether surging more American troops into Baghdad would give us a long lasting impact. Now we know the answer, because we tried the same thing last summer. The benefits were temporary. The body bags were permanent.

HH: I think that may be the most contemptible thing I’ve ever heard a Republican say, Mark Steyn.

MS: Yes, and I agree with you that this man should be put under pressure in a competitive primary in his home district. You know, I think this is…as I’ve said, I’ve never felt more foreign in the last couple of days, and you know, I’m not…again, I feel very awkward in a way commenting about this, but I think this is simply a contemptibly immature way to discuss a war. And I think the abandonment by the Republicans of the real national security interests of this country is pathetic.

Gahhh! Hugh and Steyn are accustomed to perceiving a backstab from the left hand, but never before from the right, too!

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Medved: “It’s not bigotry, it’s common sense!”

‘Where Tim Hardaway Was Right’

• Requiring robust, heterosexual men to share a locker room with a flaming gaywad is just like asking them to share one with a naked fat chick: a prescription for normal people to be victimized by the sexual advances of a shrill and disgusting minority.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

Googling around for the last post, I found something that ties it in to Bradrocket’s last couple.

Check out this bit of soggy biscuitry. The wanker recounts the story of when Mark Twain met Winston Churchill. Twain, a good anti-Imperialist, opposed the Boer war and let Churchill know it. Churchill, for his part, and whose politics were jingoist even considering the standards of the time, took Twain’s admonishments in good cheer, just happy to have met the author (ahh, the days when cultivated reactionaries could still appreciate art and artists without resorting to charges of treason). Then the punchline:

And there you have it: Twain on Churchill, and Churchill on Twain. We celebrated both their birthdays yesterday. But more celebrating needs to be done. Tomorrow night, almost exactly 105 years later, in a hotel’s grand ballroom, at a dinner convened on Winston Churchill’s account, another Mark–like Twain, a renowned and witty man of letters, and, like Churchill, a man who has sounded the alarm against our age’s totalitarian aggressors–is to speak. This is Mark Steyn. And his introducer? The parallels amaze: a fellow dedicated to preserving the memory and legacy of both great men: Bruce Sanborn.

“The parallels amaze”!!! Bwahahaha.

Context. Then some depraved quotations of wicked peoples’ proffered historical analogies, followed by one not so immoral but very spooky in its accuracy:

Max Boot:

WHILE politicians debate whether more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq, just as important is how those troops will be utilized. In the Boer War, a “surge” of soldiers helped. In the Vietnam War, it didn’t. The difference is that the British had a sounder strategy.

and again:

I realize that more troops do not necessarily guarantee more success (as Vietnam proved), but a sound counterinsurgency strategy is manpower-intensive. The Boer War and other successful counterinsurgencies have shown that victory is more likely if more troops are sent and employed intelligently.

My fear is that, even at this late date, all we’re willing to do is just enough to stave off defeat for the time being—not enough to win. I hope I’m wrong.

and another:

Many supporters of the wars in question are happy to see as few convictions as possible. They worry that prosecutions will poison public sentiment. This concern is overblown. What matters most to most folks back home is whether their “boys� are fighting for a just cause and whether they are winning. If the answer to both questions is yes, the public will forgive a great deal of misconduct. Thus, celebrated war-crimes cases did not prevent American victory in the Philippines or British victory in South Africa. Nor was the My Lai massacre a turning point in the Vietnam War. By the time it was exposed in late 1969, support for the war was already in freefall because victory did not appear to be in sight.

[…]
Victory diminishes the significance of war crimes; defeat magnifies them into defining events.

cf Kim DuToit, who is sandpaper to Boot’s silk on basically the same point.

Perfesser Corncob:

It is certainly possible to conquer Afghanistan. We simply kill everyone we see (without being too fussy about how), except those who go in “protected zones” (sounds better than Concentration Camps) where we strip everyone of arms and kill anyone who looks like Taliban. Eventually, we turn the country over to the people we like. They won’t have any trouble holding it, since we will have killed most of the people who disagree with them. This is the Boer War with better sanitation and a worse climate, and this technique always works if you don’t mind being fairly murderous. It would be a massive undertaking, though I imagine the Russians would be more than happy to help. And certainly it’s within our abilities if we care enough. But, again, what exactly do we get out of this?

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