All the times I waited patiently for you...

Big thanks and kudos go out to reader Kathleen for sending me the video for Alone Again Or, a great tune covered by the Damned in the late 80s.



Back in my heady band days, my friend Jon the drummer and I would listen to this on his tape copy of The Light at the End of the Tunnel, the Damned's greatest hits double album. Until then, I wouldn't have thought that Flamenco and punk rock would go together so well, admitting that to classify this band as "punk" one has to stretch the definition to allow musical over-achievers. I have to say that the surrealism of the video is perfect, it was like hearing it for the first time again. Or.

Yeah, the title always bothered me a little. Or what? Why the dangling disjunctive? "Or" can also refer to gold, as in ore or d'or, etc. I also found out from cursory research that or is the word for dog in the Basque language. But none of this helps. The lyrics are hauntingly mysterious as well, so it all somehow works.

Here's a link to the original recording by the 60's psychedelic band, Love.

Update: Wow, here's a recent live performance by Love featuring Arthur Lee the original singer/songwriter for the band, although the tune was written by Bryan MacLean.

Also -- at Glastonbury. Strings way up in the mix and I love it. They give the song that glittering, Ellie Rigby feel.

Here's your Friday L-O-L

Kitchen vandalism and roommate violence have never been this much fun.

Mixed nuts and metaphors

One thing that is funny to me about Reverend Jackson's remarks is... huh, huh... he said "nuts", huh, huh.

The other main thing that I'm laughing about is that if you take another slang meaning of the word nuts, i.e., crazy people with whom the Chicago politician has been associated, Obama could say, "Hey, leave me alone, I'm trying to cut my nuts out, too." Nuts like Reverend Wright, his wife who seems to be on heavy tranquilizers, and all those peace nuts who are going nuts about Obama change of policy regarding Iraq to... something different, no one is really sure now... but it's obviously not a Change They Can Believe In. These are the kind of nuts that no one wants in a general election. They don't give a candidate any potency like the other kind of nuts.

Of course, it would have been much nastier if Rev. Jackson had said he wanted to unplug Obama's teleprompter. Now that would be political castration whether he ever makes it to the center this year or not.

More evidence that Obama is wet behind them ears

This piece from the American Thinker reminds me of a line from Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts: "'Give me that!' said the big-guy general as he took the microphone away." It's simply becoming too comical watching Barack Obama do the quick-step over Iraq and seeing the leftists that thought they brought him to the dance get all mad as he moves toward the middle for electoral purposes.

Anyway, here's an excerpt:

When Obama held his second press conference late last week to address his ever more slippery position on withdrawing troops from Iraq, he stated:

"I am absolutely committed to ending the war," the longtime community organizer declared. "I will call my Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war."

Barnett explains well the role of Joint Chefs as a staff unit, which provides advice to the commander-in-chief. In order to avoid conflicts within their respective services and provide clear advice, the joint chiefs are by law excluded from the command structure. The command structure (what is called the "line" part of the organization in corporate organizations) consists of people like General Petraeus, who actually run the military organization through its structure of commands. Barnett comments sarcastically:

Surely Obama knows this. Obviously he wouldn't be seeking the role of Commander-in-Chief without knowing how the job is done.

Obama has such a naive view of running organizations that he doesn't appreciate way they actually work. Just call in the guys with braids on their uniforms and give orders.

Cute. Well, what can be done? Obama's background was in being a "community organizer" which probably means he was a T-ball coach or something. I guess if he gets in he'll just have to learn on the job, or maybe call Hillary to help him out with all the complicated military stuff.

The New "Catholics for McCain" Brochure

You can download it here (WARNING: large file, 2.6 megabytes). Sure, it's propaganda, what'd you expect?

"Hold the Frankfurter"

Donohue is not impressed with Obama's secularization of the "faith-based initiative".

Catholic League president Bill Donohue urged Catholics to reject Sen. Barack Obama’s faith-based initiative:

“If a customer walked into a New York deli and said, ‘Let me have a hot dog on a roll—hold the frankfurter’—he’d likely be thrown out. That’s what the public should do to Obama’s faith-based initiative: since he wants to gut the faith from his faith-based programs, he should be told to junk it.

“Any church or religious agency that agrees to take federal money on the condition that it must operate in a secular fashion—in hiring and in disseminating its values—is selling out. If Orthodox Jews running a day care center are not allowed to exclusively hire Orthodox Jews, there is nothing kosher about it. If a Catholic foster care program cannot place Catholic children with Catholic parents, it is doing a disservice to the children. If an evangelical drug rehab program can’t deliver a Christian message to its clients, it may as well close up shop. But that’s what Obama wants—he wants to secularize the religious workplace.

“No wonder Obama said yesterday that ‘I’m not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits, and I’m not saying that they’re somehow better at lifting people up.’ Indeed, if he really believes this then he might as well withdraw his initiative.

“The whole purpose behind funding faith-based programs is that they are, in fact, superior to secular programs. And the reason they are has everything to do with the inculcation of religious values disseminated by people of faith. No matter, Obama wants to gut the religious values and bar religious agencies from hiring people who share their religion. Hence, his initiative is a fraud.”

Supreme Court affirms right to "Cling to guns"

I suppose that novena I prayed to Charlton Heston paid off.



Here's the article.

Here's an piece showcasing Obama's wussiness on the issue. Excerpt:

Campaigning in Cincinnati, McCain claimed Obama has reversed course on the issue. Obama told FOX Business Network he's been consistent.

The Democrat's campaign said a spokesman made an "inartful" statement when he said in November that Obama believed the D.C. law was constitutional. But Obama himself did not correct a debate moderator who repeated the position in February.

"You said in Idaho recently, I'm quoting here, 'I have no intention of taking away folks' guns.' But you support the D.C. handgun ban and you've said that it's constitutional," said the moderator, Leon Harris of Washington television station WJLA. Obama nodded as Harris spoke and said: "Right, right."

"How can you reconcile those two different positions?" Harris asked.

Obama answered that the United States has conflicting traditions of gun ownership and street violence that results from illegal handgun use. "So, there is nothing wrong, I think, with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets," Obama said.

The Obama campaign argued that Obama was simply acknowledging the question by saying "right."

In other instances, Obama refused to articulate a position when asked whether he thought the D.C. ban was constitutional.

The campaign would not answer directly Thursday when asked whether the candidate agreed with the court that the D.C. ban was unconstitutional, simply pointing back to his statement.

Gays Defend Marriage

This new blog created by David Benkof is interesting and worth reading on the gay marriage debate. He describes himself as "openly bisexual", but he is against sodomy based on his Jewish faith. He also appears to understand and appreciate how all this focus on the "right" for gays to "marriage equlaity" hurts religious freedom—he has a whole category devoted to it.

While I can't say I agree with everything he writes he sure is bold to go against the tide of what he terms "GayThink". He is articulate in explaining, for example, why gay issues aren't the same as civil rights issues and he does so without becoming as snarky as I get on that false comparison.

Like I said, can't agree with everything the man writes, but it's truly a site which challenges the prevailing mindless gay-euphoria.