From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #58 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, February 25 2004 Volume 13 : Number 058 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: reap [Capuchin ] Re: CD MAP: the rest of the story? [Capuchin ] Re: reap [Capuchin ] Re: reap ["Fortissimo" ] Re: reap [] Re: CD MAP: the rest of the story? ["Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." ] Re: reap (how to count) [Miles Goosens ] Re: reap (how to count) [Capuchin ] Re: reap (how to count) ["Jason R. Thornton" ] On Spaceland patrol [Eb ] Re: reap (how to count) [steve ] Scrubs (no Ralph Nader content) [Jeff Dwarf ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:01:36 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: reap On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:20:05 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" > said: > > And that all ignores the basic premise that it doesn't fucking matter > > which head of the hydra won the election, the impact on our lives is > > exactly the same. Nobody's taken any more substantial a step than simply > > saying so. Well, saying it don't make it so. > > Actually, I'd argue the burden of proof's on your end: what evidence do > you have to support your position that any of the main Dems would be > nearly as bad as Bush? Bush, after all, has a record as > president...which none of the Democratic contenders do. It would be > impossible to "prove" that Gore wouldn't have done what Bush did, or > that Kerry, Edwards, or for that matter Nader wouldn't have done what > Bush has done. All we have to go on is their records. OK, how about the fact that the Clinton administration (of which Al Gore was a high-ranking member) proposed legislation nearly identical to the USA Patriot Act? How about the fact that Al Gore voted down funding of medical programs that included abortion counselling 8 times while in Congress? What do you want? You can cite Gore's stated objectives all you like, his actual record paints a very different picture. But there's no real "burden of proof", since it's all just hypothetical. What I want to know is WHY you believe that he would have done things differently. His RECORD certainly doesn't indicate otherwise. > And in that area, I'd suggest some clear differences exist between the > main Dem. contenders and Bush; specifically: abortion rights and court > appointments. There's that lovely little gem that that the fear-mongers drag out every single election. They shouted it from the hilltops in 2000... how many Justices retired in the last four years? Oh, right. None. > Or are you going to argue those don't "fucking matter"? and that they're > "exactly the same" regardless? In those areas, at least, there are clear > differences, however so corporate the Dems are. I will argue that being pro-choice out the mouth is nothing like being pro-choice in policy. See Clinton's record in that regard. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:02:12 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: CD MAP: the rest of the story? On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:32:34 -0500, "Roberta Cowan" > said: > > Hey, does anyone remember the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price > > Antitrust Litigation settlement issue that was posted on the web a > > year or so ago? You could go online and assert that you were cheated > > by the music industry and deserved a part of the settlement. I > > received a check in the mail today for $13.86! > > Here's the site w/info on this: > My roommate got his check this morning. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:09:10 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: reap On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, FSThomas wrote: > Capuchin wrote: > > Uh, no. The fix was in. Florida was rigged and if Nader had a poorer > > showing and Gore more actual votes, they would have been lost or > > miscounted or something else. Florida doesn't count. That's why I > > wrote that you have to find enough states to COUNTER Florida. > > The black helicopters will forever circle Jeme's domicile. > > "The fix was in" sounds as though it had been a planned battlefront six > months prior to the election, for Christ's sake. No idea how much planning went into it. But you're one of those last few hold-outs in the world that doesn't recognize that the Florida election in 2000 was rigged by the election officials. [Interesting anecdote I heard just today while discussing this with an old friend: Apparently his girlfriend's grandmother is in a retirement community in Florida. She said that on election day, they had a charter bus lined up to take them all down to vote. They were, most of them, Democrats in a traditional Democratic precinct. About the time they were scheduled to get on the bus, a bunch of young men in suits showed up and told them some confusing stories that added up to "you don't have to go vote today... it doesn't matter." Their bus was held until after the polls closed. That was a new one on me. No idea who those guys were, but they're total bastards.] > While I haven't the numbers in front of me, every major initiative, be > it weapons systems or intelligence funding and/or initiatives has been > shot down by him. Well, maybe there's something good about Kerry after all. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 07:12:03 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: reap On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:01:36 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" said: > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > > And in that area, I'd suggest some clear differences exist between the > > main Dem. contenders and Bush; specifically: abortion rights and court > > appointments. > > There's that lovely little gem that that the fear-mongers drag out every > single election. They shouted it from the hilltops in 2000... how many > Justices retired in the last four years? Oh, right. None. The Supremes are not the only court. THere's circuit court appointments, which in many ways are more important, since few cases make it to the Supreme Court. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb :: --Batman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:00:17 -0500 From: Subject: Re: reap [demime could not interpret encoding binary - treating as plain text] On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:09 , Capuchin sent: >[Interesting anecdote I heard just today while discussing this with an old >friend: Apparently his girlfriend's grandmother is in a retirement >community in Florida. She said that on election day, they had a charter >bus lined up to take them all down to vote. They were, most of them, >Democrats in a traditional Democratic precinct. About the time they were >scheduled to get on the bus, a bunch of young men in suits showed up and >told them some confusing stories that added up to "you don't have to go >vote today... it doesn't matter." Their bus was held until after the >polls closed. That was a new one on me. No idea who those guys were, but >they're total bastards.] All agents of the FBI or CIA maybe, working to keep this entire bus load from making it to the polls? It sounds like maybe it was the organizers who were behind the whole thing since the group managers, organizers, bus drivers etc.. would have all needed to be involved. Yeah it must have been a bus full of democrats and the idea there was to send federal agents behind the chartered bus to all the important pickup points an then to confuse a huge number of elderly voting democrats into not voting. Fucking Brilliant! How many agents do you think it took just in Dade county? Is this part of the on going conspiracy? And since this was this first time you heard this shocking revelation could you tell us how you think it could have been kept a secret for so long? Was this an isolated event or has it become pandemic? If so, what is anyone doing to prevent such a thing from happening again? You should send this info to the drudge site. They often run single threaded shit. gSs - ---- Msg sent via WebMail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:53:21 -0600 From: "Eugene Hopstetter, Jr." Subject: Re: CD MAP: the rest of the story? > From: "Roberta Cowan" > > I received a check in the mail today for $13.86! Justice is served!! > Well, maybe...;-) Think I'll use it to buy me a > CD.. I received mine yesterday. I'll probably spend mine on used albums. $13.86 would cover only half the price of a new SACD or DVD-A, or the full price of nine or ten used albums. Now that's good bang for the recording industry's buck. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:24:06 -0800 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: reap (how to count) At 03:52 AM 2/24/2004 -0800, Capuchin wrote: > > Bush received 271 electoral votes in 2000, and Gore 266. If Gore had > > won New Hampshire, he would have had 270, and Bush only 267 (because > > Bush would have then lost New Hampshire). Thus, Gore would have won the > > election, had Nader not taken votes away from him in New Hampshire. > >My info said Bush received 278 and Gore 260. I was counting this year's >numbers on 2000's states. We're talking about the 2000 election, not the 2004 one. The electoral count I gave above is the correct one. New Hampshire had 4 electoral votes at the time and a Gore victory in that state would have made him president. The 2004 electoral college numbers are irrelevant to whether or not Nader had an effect on the 2000 election. And he's not going to have any real effect on this election, I gather, because only a tiny handful of out-of-touch radicals will vote for him in comparison to 2000 - I'm betting that the ~50% that would have voted for Gore in 2000 had Nader not been in the race will vote for the Democratic candidate whether or not Nader is on the ballot or not. Plus, I seriously doubt he'll have the support this year to make the waves he did four years ago and attract many people away from other candidates or even to the polls. Even a good majority die-hard Greens will be voting for their own candidate. His announcement was a flash-in-the-pan event, and after awhile, I'm sure most everyone will just ignore him. But in any state were the vote is very close, he and every other independent and third-party candidate, could have an effect on the outcome. Then again, every voting system has some small margin of error, and in extremely close elections, you're never going to be totally sure what the electorate truly intended. We likely don't even honestly know really whether or not Gore did or did not win the popular vote. We have the "official" numbers to go by, but I suspect the percentages are probably far too close to say with absolute certainty. That's a good argument for run-off elections rather than subjective recounts and legal maneuvering in very, very close cases like Florida. >So IF you can show that a third of New Hampshire Nader voters would have >otherwise voted for Gore, you might be able to argue some kind of upset. http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/11/11082000/ap_nader_39967.asp "Exit polls in states including Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin suggested that at least half the Nader voters would have voted for Gore if it had been a two-way race." >But I don't think there's anything to it. Of course not. They way you want to view the world is much more important than cold hard facts. I'd like to see you come up with evidence suggesting that all the "around half of Nader voters would have voted for Gore" polls are incorrect. Nader wasn't the only reason Gore lost, however. I mean, if Gore had been able to take good ol' Tennessee, we wouldn't be sitting knee-deep in the Bush Jr. presidency right now either. The Florida debacle and the non-strategic voting practices among a large enough fraction of New Hampshire liberals were straws, but there were a lot of things loaded up on the camel's back. One cannot point to any one thing and say "that's THE reason" Gore lost (or was declared the loser), but quite certainly Nader's campaign pulling votes away from Gore was A reason - no matter how any of us personally feel about Gore, Bush or Nader. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 17:15:13 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: reap (how to count) At 02:24 PM 2/24/2004 -0800, Jason R. Thornton wrote: >Nader wasn't the only reason Gore lost, however. I mean, if Gore had been >able to take good ol' Tennessee, we wouldn't be sitting knee-deep in the >Bush Jr. presidency right now either. >...One cannot point to any one thing and say "that's THE >reason" Gore lost (or was declared the loser), but quite certainly Nader's >campaign pulling votes away from Gore was A reason Here's THE reason: Gore lost Tennessee. And he lost it because, when he was vice-president, he flew in and out of the Nashville airport smack dab in the middle of rush hour every damn time he went between here and DC. For "security purposes," this meant that long stretches of I-40 and crucial junctures with I-24 and I-65 were shut down for long periods at the most inconvenient times possible. After eight years of this, Tennesseans weren't going to stand for four to eight years more of it! That's my pet theory, anyway. :-) My other theory is that if Rebecca Lieberman and Kristin Gore had french-kissed each on national television the night before the election, the horny young male demographic would have gone Democratic in such numbers that no force could have stood before them. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:19:57 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: reap (how to count) On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > At 03:52 AM 2/24/2004 -0800, Capuchin wrote: > >My info said Bush received 278 and Gore 260. I was counting this > >year's numbers on 2000's states. > > We're talking about the 2000 election, not the 2004 one. Understood. > The electoral count I gave above is the correct one. Yeah, and I went so far as to explain how I made the error. Done. > Even a good majority die-hard Greens will be voting for their own > candidate. Yeah, the Greens are fairly pissed at Nader for several good reasons. > But in any state were the vote is very close, he and every other > independent and third-party candidate, could have an effect on the > outcome. Well, that's kind of an obvious thing to say. In any state where the election is close, even a small percentage of the votes mattered. Duh. > Then again, every voting system has some small margin of error, and in > extremely close elections, you're never going to be totally sure what > the electorate truly intended. We likely don't even honestly know > really whether or not Gore did or did not win the popular vote. We have > the "official" numbers to go by, but I suspect the percentages are > probably far too close to say with absolute certainty. That's all true. > That's a good argument for run-off elections rather than subjective > recounts and legal maneuvering in very, very close cases like Florida. Here in Oregon, we have a constitutional provision for Instant Run-Off voting that has simply never been implemented by elections officials. I find the Instant Run-Off to be a very good plan. > >So IF you can show that a third of New Hampshire Nader voters would have > >otherwise voted for Gore, you might be able to argue some kind of upset. > > http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/11/11082000/ap_nader_39967.asp > > "Exit polls in states including Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New > Hampshire, Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin suggested that at > least half the Nader voters would have voted for Gore if it had been a > two-way race." Well, that's certainly a different question than the one I thought Chris was posing (namely, "Would you vote for Gore if you thought Bush was more likely to win?"). This question DOES effectively lead it down to a "lesser of two evils" argument and totally ignores the OPTION of voting for somebody decent. For example, I'm personally only likely to leave a race blank (not vote on that race) if I am totally uninformed about the candidates. If it had been a two-way race, hell, I don't know what I'd've done. I can't say for certain that I wouldn't have voted for Gore, either. But I'd vote for Buchanan first because at least he was opposed to NAFTA. > I'd like to see you come up with evidence suggesting that all the > "around half of Nader voters would have voted for Gore" polls are > incorrect. They're not incorrect, they're just not asking a meaningful question. Sure, HALF those people would have voted for Gore if they had absolutely no other choice but Gore or Bush... that's just an absurd situation, though. It's not about strategic voting, it's about physically limited options. If you want to pose THAT question, you have to also pose to all the other third party candidates what THEY would have done had it been a two-way race. In many states, that could have been a deciding factor, too, considering the narrow margins all around. It's just too loaded to drape that on any one candidate. > Nader wasn't the only reason Gore lost, however. I mean, if Gore had > been able to take good ol' Tennessee, we wouldn't be sitting knee-deep > in the Bush Jr. presidency right now either. We wouldn't be in a Bush Jr. presidency, but that's just a name on a door. We'd still be knee-deep in the WTO, NAFTA, the FTAA, WIPO, DMCA, billions of dollars in foreign military operations, the drug war, sealed executive records, etc. etc. etc. > The Florida debacle and the non-strategic voting practices among a large > enough fraction of New Hampshire liberals were straws, but there were a > lot of things loaded up on the camel's back. Are you counting the Supreme Court fiasco as part of the "Florida debacle"? > One cannot point to any one thing and say "that's THE reason" Gore lost > (or was declared the loser), but quite certainly Nader's campaign > pulling votes away from Gore was A reason - no matter how any of us > personally feel about Gore, Bush or Nader. I wonder what Bush voters would have said if you'd ask them how they'd vote in a two-way Nader-Gore race. Gee... in that case, I bet you'd find that Gore lost because Bush took away his votes! J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:23:59 -0800 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: reap (how to count) At 05:15 PM 2/24/2004 -0600, you wrote: >My other theory is that if Rebecca Lieberman and Kristin Gore had >french-kissed each on national television the night before the election, >the horny young male demographic would have gone Democratic in such >numbers that no force could have stood before them. Jeez. Imagine what the Bush twins campaigning for their father this election could accomplish. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:11:20 -0800 From: Eb Subject: On Spaceland patrol Back to Spaceland, yet again.... Mondays are always free at Spaceland, though I don't believe I've ever been to one of these shows before. I regret missing last year's American Music Club's monthlong residency, however. In any case...last night, I drove up there to see Snow Patrol [336/766], whom I had just about given up on seeing live. The first two albums yielded no local dates. Background: http://www.snowpatrol.net/flash/flash.html I arrived with about 15 minutes to spare before the belated entrance of the first band, the 88. At first, I thought I might enjoy them, but they quickly wore out their welcome. Are there any good bands left who wear *suits* onstage? OK, Interpol. Another? So, the group's a five-piece in dark suits and shirts. Naturally, as the name suggests, there's a keyboardist (seated). The music wasn't that bad -- tight, punchy pop which, for once, *wasn't* transparently derivative of the British Invasion -- but I was hoping Python's 16-ton weight would fall on the lead singer. Nerd glasses, dorky smile and a horribly grating (if tuneful) voice which sounded like a cross between Leonard Graves Phillips and that quavery flit from the Lemon Pipers. I mentally bailed out of this set, within two or three songs. Everything seemed to go slowly tonight. The first band went on too late, the gaps between bands were too long...methinks the good Spaceland folks wished for more time to sell drinks, since this was the night's primary income source. While I'm on the topic of freebies and chemical vices, I'll mention that there was a pretty young thing spending the whole night giving out free Zigzag cigarettes. Talk about a burn-in-hell job. I was mildly intrigued by her apparatus, though (no, I'm not talking about her chest). She had this high-tech, computerized "clipboard" which gorgeously scanned the recipient's driver's license, presumably so she could add the folks to some awful junkmail list for future product pitches. The people even had to sign their names, with a light pen -- heaven knows what intrusive activities *that* enabled. Anyway, Snow Patrol finally came onstage at 10:35pm. I wasn't sure what to expect, because I haven't heard their upcoming album and their previous two discs are quite different from each other. I was the only person I knew who had any interest in the debut -- it was a dreamy-but-propulsive bit of Britrock which fit nicely with my Swervedriver discs. A satisfying chunk of bonus tracks on the American pressing, too. But I didn't like the second album nearly as well. This was the one where the band went more minimal, downbeat and lo-fi, and suddenly started sounding waaaaay too much like Sebadoh. OK, it's partly the genetic similarity of the singer's creamy, forlorn voice. But otherwise? A bit offensive. Few Barlowisms tonight, however. Not a lot of "introspection," either. This 40-minute set was about ramrod pop-rock in 4/4. Most songs had an equal-emphasis-on-every-beat feel, with a bassist who played little beyond timekeeping tonic notes. (But never mind, because I don't want to draw Matthew Seligman's ire again. ;)) You probably wouldn't guess the band was British, until you heard the singer thanking everyone for being "fukkin luvleh" between songs. The singer (Gary Lightbody, also of the Reindeer Section) and the primary guitarist both had great stage moves. Lightbody is a lanky, athletic guy with long arms and huge hands, and has a nifty, loose-limbed way of power-strumming his guitar. He also has a rapturous way of singing with his eyes rolled up into his head, which initially annoyed me but grew on me as the set's sweaty momentum built. I also enjoyed the drummer, whose powerful, inventive playing on the debut album stood out for me -- and I'm not often consciously appreciative of drummers. I felt the same about him onstage. Rock solid, with lots of clever little fills. The strangest aspect of the band was its fifth member, a keyboardist. He was so incredibly out-of-place that I didn't even *notice* him until the fifth or sixth song! Everyone else had dark T-shirts on, but this guy had a white T-shirt, no The house was close to full, which testifies to the allure of a free show more than to the strength of Snow Patrol's following. :) There were two bands left on the bill, but my investigative research didn't encourage me to stay. The final band was called "Evil Beaver," and was selling a slew of merchandise including Evil Beaver underwear (both male briefs and female thongs) and a CD not-so-wittily titled "Pleased to Eat You." The publicity photo was of two ratty-haired, goth-meets-metal women. I chose to pass. Despite a warning from a friend, I did stay for a bit of the following band, the Vacation. It's a bad name, because it really doesn't fit the group's sound. Well, it certainly wasn't a dull performance, though I only stayed for about six songs. Basically, this was nostalgic moron-rock, mixing '70s metal and punk in a hamfisted way. The band's image was dirty jeans and faded T-shirts. The singer looked like George Harrison, as seen on the Let It Be cover. When the band entered by shaking a beer and squirting it into the crowd (wooooooooooooo!), I knew this would not be my favorite concert ever. The lead singer's grimyness made me want to take a bath, but he did have an interesting presence -- I've rarely seen a singer onstage who so constantly looked like he was trying to *pick a fight* with audience members. He roamed all around the edge of the stage, always looking for a face to stare down as he bellered his dopey hard-rock anthems. This strategy backfired a bit. Early in the set, he was being taunted by a vaguely Jack Osbourne-esque fan at far stage-right. The fan was wearing big mirrored sunglasses. This guy kept yelling things at the singer and making hostile gestures, and I was having a hard time telling if he was protesting or just trying to fuel the show's "spirit." The singer took off the fan's glasses, and sang for a bit while wearing them. Then the singer and fan were pushing back and forth at each other, and the singer ended up falling backward into the rhythm guitarist's mic stand. The singer, mic *and* guitarist all fell backward. I didn't think much of it until a few minutes later, when I suddenly realized the guitarist had a wide swath of blood on his left cheek. Yikes! When the song ended, he wiped off his face and it became clear that he had a big abrasion on his chin and some small puncture wound below the eye. Maybe his guitar's tuning machine hit him there. Bloody drama! The singer said it "looked kinda cool." A song later, the fan ended up climbing onstage and "conferencing" with the singer. Here's where it became clear that he *was* a fan. The singer seemed to be trying to get the guy to sing a song with the group, but the treetrunk stage bouncer wasn't about to let that happen. The fan retreated. I left and went home, not long afterwards. I'll say this much: The band definitely had a strong following. The audience's character was much different from the Snow Patrol throng's, and I saw several yahoos upfront mouthing all the lyrics. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:05:20 -0600 From: steve Subject: Re: reap (how to count) On Feb 24, 2004, at 5:23 PM, Jason R. Thornton wrote: > Jeez. Imagine what the Bush twins campaigning for their father this > election could accomplish. I think somewhere in the above mess is a bit about the twins not really liking Republicans (maybe because they only get to see the social conservative ones close up). > Nader's dishonesty stems in part from his dogged unwillingness to > admit any fact that complicates the rationale for his candidacy. He > begins with the unshakable premise that the electorate is a vast > left-wing majority waiting to be awakened from its apathy. Sound familiar? - - Steve __________ When I watch the Fox News channel, I can't believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume that people are just going to swallow that shit. - Thom Yorke ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:23:42 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Scrubs (no Ralph Nader content) Was Brendan Fraser on Scrubs before last night's episode? I assume so, but it must have been before I watched it? Besides being Dr. Cox's brother-in-law and I presume having cancer, was there anything else particularly notable about his previous appearance? I'm trying to avoid spoilers, so I'm sorry if this all sounds vague. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #58 *******************************