Skeewiff

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 12/15/2017 - 14:50

Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland, better known as Skeewiff are right at the top of my favorite artists of the last 20 years.

Producers, remixers and label owners, they're really isn't anybody quite like them. 

It's easy to kill a cold winter afternoon cruising their YouTube site which is an activity, I both endorse and partake in myself at least once a year.

From their 2012 Album, Electro Swing and Gospel Breaks, here is the video for their remix of The Golden Gate Quartet's accapella classic, Gospel Train.

A click on the image to the right will take you to Skeewiff's YouTube page.

 

To quote Oscar Wilde over and over ... and over

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 12/12/2017 - 06:38
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
 
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
 
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
 
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
 
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
 
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
 
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
 
  A true friend stabs you in the front.
 
All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That's his.
 
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
 
Biography lends to death a new terror.
 
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
 
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
 
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
 
 Bigamy is having one wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.
 
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
 
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
 
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
 
I am not young enough to know everything.
 
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
 
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
 
I dislike arguments of any kind.  They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
 
I have the simplest of tastes.  I am always satisfied with the best.
 
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time.  That would be hypocrisy.
 
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
 
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
 
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
 
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
 
Who, being loved, is poor?
 
 Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
 
I put all my genius into my life;  I put only my talent into my works.
 
Of course America  had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up. 
 
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
 
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
 
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
 
It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.
 
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
 
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
 
Only the shallow know themselves.
 
No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
 
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
 
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation.
 
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
 
Moderation is a fatal thing.  Nothing succeeds like excess.
 
One should always be in love.  That is the reason one should never marry.
 
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
 
One's past is what one is.  It is the only way by which people should be judged.
 
The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
 
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on.  It is never of any use to oneself.
 
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
 
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
 
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman.  It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
 
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
 
Those whom the gods love grow young.
 
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
 
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know it is.
 
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
 
Women are made to be loved, not understood. 

 

To quote Glenn Greenwald

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 12/11/2017 - 06:50

 From his piece titled,

The U.S. Media Suffered It's Most Humiliating Debacle In Ages: 

Now refuses All Transparency Over What Happened

Glenn Greenwald has the following to say.

As always, click just about anywhere for a trip to the original piece.

" ... It’s a well established principle of journalism — one that is rarely followed when it comes to powerful people in D.C. — that journalists should expose, rather than protect and conceal, sources who purposely feed them false information to be disseminated to the public.

Is that what happened here? Did these “multiple sources” who fed not just CNN but also MSNBC and CBS completely false information do so deliberately and in bad faith? Until these news outlets provide an accounting of what happened — what one might call “minimal journalistic transparency” — it’s impossible to say for certain. But right now, it’s very difficult to imagine a scenario where multiple sources all fed the wrong date to multiple media outlets innocently and in good faith.

If this were, in fact, a deliberate attempt to cause a false and highly inflammatory story to be reported, then these media outlets have an obligation to expose who the culprits are — just as the Washington Post did last week to the woman making false claims about Roy Moore (it was much easier in that case because the source they exposed was a nobody in D.C., rather than someone on whom they rely for a steady stream of stories, the way CNN and MSNBC rely on Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee). By contrast, if this were just an innocent mistake, then these media outlets should explain how such an implausible sequence of events could possibly have happened."

Makes you wonder just a little whose side they're really on.

Jonathan Richman

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 12/09/2017 - 13:16

I never got Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

And it isn't because I didn't try.

I know about how they influenced so many bands that became popular and how the "classic line up" split up and into Talking Heads and all kinds of succesful projects. And how so many groups have covered Road Runner and Pablo Picasso and whatever.

Then finally my friend Cassandra dragged me to a Jonathan Richman show, and it all became perfectly clear. 

Jonathan Richman is the single most adorable and vulnerable performer I have ever seen, and maybe that has ever been.

Every woman in the place wanted to take him home, spoon feed him some milk and cereal and then do him right there on the kitchen table.

This might also be true of about a full third of the guys.

So, here is Jonathon Richman and probably the third version of the Modern Lovers.

Affection.

Pearl Harbor Day

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 12/07/2017 - 06:59

 

At 7:48 AM Hawaii time, December 7, 1941, began the events of that day which according to Franklin Roosevelt, would live in infamy, as Japan excecuted a suprise attack, that maybe wasn't, on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

One hundred eighty-eight U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded.

Eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged. Four were sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised. Six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer. 

Was Japan deliberately provoked into their attack that FDR knew was coming? Click on this little gear right here. 

Was FDR as suprised as anybody? Click on this little gear right here. 

Wanna read one of the most famous speeches in the history of American rhetoric? 

Care to hear it? 

 

Two words of the day

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 12/05/2017 - 06:45

 

Xenophobia:

From the Greek words ξένος (xénos, foreign) + φόβος (phobos, fear) + -ia.

An exaggerated or abnormal fear of strangers or foreigners.

A strong antipathy or aversion to strangers or foreigners.
 

Oikophobia:

From the Greek words oikos meaning a “house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation” and phobos.

An abnormal fear of the home, or of a house.

Recently expanded to mean an extreme or irrational fear or dislike for one's own people, home, nation and culture.

 

So you know; there is a strong liklihood that anyone you encounter making accusations of Xenophobia is simply suffering from Oikophobia.

 

The Flat Tax is Progressive

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 11/30/2017 - 19:14

 

Since we are rife with discussion lately about the nature of the Republican tax plan, I thought I'd break out an old post.

So, as I continue my rant on "How They Keep Us Apart" I'm going to use simple numbers.

Consider a system of taxation wherein:

Everybody files as an individual (no joint filing)

The first $20,000 of income is exempted from taxation.

All payroll taxes are abolished (FICA et. al.).

All deductions from taxable income are abolished.

All of em ......... quit your whining ......... no exceptions!

The one and only, universal rate is 20%.

God himself only asked for 10%.

 

So, if you make $20,001.00, you pay 20 cents in taxes, or 0.001% of your total income in taxes.

That's affordable.

If you are a couple, regardless of your status and each of you are making $20,001.00 a year, your total taxes will be 40 cents and your rate will still be 0.001%.

Still affordable. 

If you make $25,000, you pay $1000.00 in taxes or 4% of your total income in taxes.

Notice here that $1000,00 is more than 20 cents.

And .......

4% is more than 0.001%.

Let's say you make $50,000.00, you pay $6000.00 in taxes, or 12% of your total income.

$6000.00 is more than $1000.00 and way more that 20 cents.

And ...

12% is more than 4% and much, much higher than 0.001%.

Let's say you attain that magical number of $250,000 and are now "Rich".

You pay $46,000 in federal income taxes, or 18.4% of your total income.

Which is, I am sure you know by now, more than .......... etc.

How bout a cool million?

You pay $196,000 in federal income taxes, which represents 19.6% of your total income.

What if you are Tiger Woods and you used to make $80,000,000 a year?

Under this system you would have paid $15,996,000.00 in federal taxes or 19.9955% of you total income in taxes.

What I've described here is what is typically described as "The Flat Tax".

But, as far as I'm concerned, it ain't flat at all.

The more you make, the more you pay in taxes, which is as it should be if you're gonna tax income.

And ..... the more you make, the higher your tax rate.

Although, not by much and it does flatten out at the very top.

Still, it is "progressive".

The gravy here is that you can now fire your accountant.

(Sorry Doug, Willy, Loris. This isn't personal, and I still love you all very much) and most of the IRS.

 

And here is the most elegant part, regardless if you make $20,001.00 ... $25,000 ... $50,000 ... $250,000 ... a cool million ... or $80,000,000, you are secure in the knowledge that every single American anywhere in this glorious land who made the identical amount of income, paid the identical amount in federal income taxes, regardless of place of residence, fertility, charitable and religious proclivities or anything at all.

Now, wouldn't that be a nice feeling?

 

"This isn't enough income to fund the government." You might say.

The system we have now doesn't provide sufficient income to fund the government, nobody seems overly concerned about that.

 

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