Need any more proof that Ahmaninejad has designs on Iraq, and the Middle East at large? Due to the vacuum we've created, guess who's stepping in?

I am beginning to think that, maybe, the Youtube phenomenon has the potential to morph into a kind of Orwellian nightmare, fueled by a sort of mob mentality akin to the Salem witch hunts. Watch what you say and do, big brother might be recording .mpeg video on a cellphone to post online for all the world to see.

Youtube certainly has value, as evidenced when George Allen reared his ugly, racist head with his "macaca" remarks. But I see the potential for a kind of repression in it, too. I think Michael Richards should be, and has been, condemned for his racist comments at a nightclub recently. But should he be tarred and feathered for them? Burned at the stake?

Ah yes, the new Gays in the Military style controversy, so the GOP can paint the Dems before they leave the gates. I really wish Charley Rangel would give his "reinstate the draft to prove a point" thing a rest. I mean, really.

I have been wildly overdue in mentioning the latest release from a mentor of mine, Jeff Jagielo, formerly of the underappreciated Madison, WI band Ivory Library. His new project, called Sqarewave, can be found here.

Jeff and Derrick Mcbride (who now plays in a band called Ultraset) took me under their wing somewhat in the early 90s when I had a band while at school in Madison called Strange Bedfellows. I cut my studio teeth with Jeff up at his home studio in Plover, WI, then promptly moved away to SF in 1993. We kept in touch for a while, then I moved so many different times, got all wrapped up in beulah, that I lost touch.

Last summer K & I had dinner with Jeff in Oshkosh and he handed me the above gem, along with an old recording that we did back in '92 called les plymouths, on DAT. I've been putting off mastering that old plymouths' record which, besides Beulah's body of work, is the one I'm most proud of making. I'll save les plymouths for another post, but Jeff's done a fine job with the Squarewave release.

I believe! I believe! Yes, I believe!

And I have a long memory.

One Sunday morning, in Sunday school at the Berlin United Methodist Church, the associate pastor, whose name I forget, said "Beware of Jesus freaks. They're usually hiding something." All the way back in 8th grade I was being taught, in a small town I might add, that there is such a thing as being over-religious. Here lies another case study for that argument.

Kudos to the Rude Pundit. However, we know that there is no such thing as the liberal media. It's the conservative media now. Kerry should know that, too. If I were in a tight race, I'd come out and say that what John Kerry said yesterday was just fucking stupid. The conservative media doesn't give a damn about the blogger who was roughed up by Allen's thugs. He's a blogger. What does old media care about bloggers, unless he's one of their own? Well, at least the National Media won't care as long as they will about JK's crap.