At the door to American democracy, God is the bouncer.

The New Republic celebrates Frist's support of stem-cell research. The editors are fully aware that Frist came out in support of stem-cell research to compensate for coming out in support of quackery back when Terry Schiavo was in the headlines. But they point out that pandering to reason is better than pandering to quackery any day, and we agree.

They also have some great insight into the Christian Wrong. The money quote:

Politically speaking, the Christian right is a kind of sacralized protection racket: nice little presidential campaign you have, pity if something should happen to it.

There's Someting in the Water

Dahlia Lithwick has some theories about what makes conservative Supreme Court Justices mellow into moderate- to liberal-minded jurists with age. (Your Honors O'Connor and Kennedy, we are looking at you.) Since some hardasses do not mellow or open their minds or outgrow their bigotry or become even a little tolerant (ahem, Your Honors Thomas and Scalia), we doubt that there is really a phenomenon of mellowing going on over at the Supreme Court, but this sounds about as good as any theory you're likely to come up with:

Scalia's "acerbic comments on his colleagues' work," and his general tendency to run with constitutional scissors, ultimately drove both O'Connor and Kennedy to form alliances with the court's liberals.

As we've said before, Scalia is our favorite judge, but we can see how his brute force could drive justices of lesser mettle into the awkward, dorky, but benign embraces of Souter and Breyer.

Al Gore Invents TV

Current TV goes live today. Has anyone seen it?

HotOrNot Meets GoogleMaps

We cannot tell you how many hours we wasted surfing HotOrNot back in the day. Hell, we still waste hours there. When we saw Google Maps, we immediately recognized the potential for wasted hours. So we are kicking ourselves for not thinking of this: HotOrNot entries plotted out by ZIP code on the Google Map. Note that all of the entries in the DC area are Not.

Rumored to be in the works: The ability to zoom in, Google Earth style, from a sat view of the world to a stalkers' eye view of hotties changing by open windows.

Please Hold

We thought this was pretty fkn great when we heard about it: The American Music Center, a foundation started by Aaron Copland to help starving composers make ends meet by linking them up with generous donors, recently commissioned music to replace the muzak callers hear while on hold. In other words, artsy-fartsy music to replace "on hold" muzak.

This is the perfect marriage. The only audience for modern classical is a captive audience. Nobody can stand a Philip Glass concert for more than about a minute, just like nobody can stand to be on hold for more than about a minute. Curt receptionists who say, "Please hold," and then play inane music piss us off. John Adams pisses us off, especially when playing his inane music. We could go on listing the reasons why this is so great...

Unfortunately, the irony seems lost on the American Music Center, which seems to think this is a great idea and hopes other, major companies will hire composers to write new music for their phone systems. Right.

The Biggest P2P Music Trafficers = The Biggest Music Spenders

It's been a busy one here at NO, but this bit of news rings true with us. From arstechnica:

A new study published today claims that users who share and download music files online also buy four and a half times more music online than your average music listener, at least in the UK. Instead of magically costing the industry money, these users are apparently interacting with more music, and as a result, buying more music from legitimate channels. The study stems from a survey conducted by The Leading Question, a digital music research company who surveyed 600 self-styled music fans.

In other words, people who are nuts about music, like us, both buy it and share it and listen to it and download it and... well, you see the point. We have piles and piles of CDs and a hard drive full of mp3s and we're always prowling for more. And so do most of you. Why? Because people who enjoy music enjoy sifting through the enormous library of mediocrity that the world's musicians have produced to find those few awe-inspiring, earth-shaking pieces of music that we never knew we wanted.

You didn't go looking for a guy with a thin voice and twangy guitar accompaniment singing about Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers--or at least we didn't--rather, you heard it out of some pile of old records somewhere and said, "Damn, this is good shit." And so you keep listening to piles and piles of as-yet-unheard records, CDs, mp3s, etc, compulsively, whether you bought, borrowed, or downloaded them, looking for more rewards like that one.

That is to say, all music is made for listeners, and while we don't have a problem with record companies making money in the process, we find their attempts to keep the music away from the listeners ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY INSANE.

Like Subservient Chicken?

Then try CoqRoq.

Global War On Terror: The Bottom Line.

What I’ve learned about the war on terror so far is that it doesn’t particularly matter which exact brown people we are fighting or why we are fighting them, and it especially doesn’t matter how we fight them, if we are making any progress toward any goal, or how many people on either side are killed and maimed in the process. Now, I admit that I don’t quite get why this is true, but I am lead [sic] to understand that the answer lies in making photo montages of terrorist attacks and saying that everyone who isn’t nodding in agreement after seeing your carnage collage must have amnesia. I understand, however, that while the exact whys and whos and hows and wheres and RIPs of the GWOT are irrelevent, it is extremely important that no one be allowed to say anything which might imply that the GWOT is anything but the most noble, successful, and self-evidently justified undertaking in human history, because then the terrorists win. I don’t know what they win, but, whatever it is, they cannot be allowed to win it.

(Via Tristram Shandy)

New Mag

Music Hurts. Yeah, don't it. Go with lots of time to kill--they have lots of (short) articles, complete with sound clips. Lots to explore.

The Trivial Pursuit dork in us especially loves the tidbits about Chinese Hip-hop, which is pro-communist and urges you to respect your elders, and Moracco's insistence that wearing black T shirts to concerts undermines public morality. And you thought Red State blue laws were annoying.

Viral Christianity

In-N-Out Burger: Billions-N-Billions Saved.

Quote of the Day

Poetry is like Celine Dion CDs and Thomas Kinkade paintings and white zinfandel. Lots of people love them. I do not. And never will.

It Ain't Everyday You Meet Someone Famous

In the course of our daily lives in DC, we bump into some famous-for-DC types--last fall we spotted Teresa Heinz Kerry at Mass--but who really cares?

Besides, our bosses, not unskilled in the art of name dropping, often bring up stories about talking with Reagan or, in the case of some of the truly gray-haired old-timers, Eisenhower, so modern day famous-for-DC is really nothing worth mentioning. Today, though, we met an artist, Gunther Gumpert, who has 1) a cool name 2) a stereotyped French accent and wild, uncontrolled white hair and 3) a real claim to fame outside of DC a la his painting career.

And we are very jealous of him for having groupies in NY, Paris, and Berlin in addition to his DC mistress.

Is it news?

Dog Bites Man--not news. Man Bites Dog--that's news. Or so we've been told.

So what if a man has sex with a horse and the horse literally fks his brains out?

Who's On First?

Although we'd love to take credit for this, it was sent to us by an anonymous source. Whoever he is, he deserves a Pulitzer for the best summary of the Rove-Plame mess we've read:

Karl Rove: I didn't have anything to do with the leak about Mr. Wilson's wife.

George Bush: I will fire anyone that contributed to the leak about Mr. Wilson's wife.

Karl Rove's Attorney: Karl Rove did not mention Mr. Wilson's wife by her name.

Karl Rove: I learned about Mr. Wilson's wife from the media.

Karl Rove's Attorney: Mr. Rove is not guilty of any crime. He did not know Mr. Wilson's wife. He did not know her name. Therefore, he could not have leaked her name.

Karl Rove: I have not been convicted of any crime. I don't know any crimes. Therefore, I can't committ any crimes. If I don't know any crimes, I can't be convicted of any crimes.

George Bush: I will fire anyone convicted of crime. Crime is a conviction that is required with a crime.

Karl Rove's Lawyer: Even if the grand jury brings an indictment against my honorable client, that is not the same as being convicted of a crime. It represents the finest example of the finest justise system in the world.

Karl Rove: I didn't know Mr. Wilson was living with his wife when I named her to the entire White House Press corps.

George Bush: I know Karl Rove. I have been knowing him for a long time. It's been a long time since he's been fired for leaking in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time, like a long time ago, when I knew Karl Rove, by his name, his leaking isn't a crime. It wasn't done in the public arena or outside the arena where leaking is done. But, if the grand jury does its patriotic duty the way grand juries do duties, well, I can't comment on their duties until they've done them.

Karl Rove's Attorney: This is a matter for a jury of his peers not for the Liberal biased media.

Karl Rove: I know all my peers but I can't name them right now because some of them have wives and girlfriends. But, I don't know their girlfriends' names.

George Bush: We haven't exhausted all appeals yet, and appeals are exhausting. Until we're exhausted, and even then, we won't be where we should be to talk about this.

Karl Rove's Attorney: No, I was not in the movie Legally Blonde.

George Bush: In the best interests of our country, which is a very interesting country, I signed a pardon today for Karl Rove and his attorney. I can't fire anyone with a pardon. Pardons do that you know. They stop things like going to jail.

How to Start Listening to LPs All Over Again

We are children of the CD generation. But our earliest memories of Dad's stereo involve him listening in the darkened living room, lit only by the glow of the vacuum tubes. Dad would lay himself down in the floor in front of the spinning turntable and the already-ancient stereo system in what was probably the most nearly religious moment the old man allowed himself.

Contrast that with this wonderful advice for starting a vinyl collection:

If you really want to get into analog, get Uncle Melvin to remember you in his will. Then replace his blood-pressure medication with a placebo. He was always a nasty old man anyway. The neighbors will be glad to see the last of his grey ponytail.

Read Shaded Dog Days.

Tags: Music

Blogging from India

Over the years, several Indian hotties have turned our world upside down. In the best possible way. So it is only natural that we introduce you to DesiPundit.

Immi

Not long ago we mentioned that the Garden State soundtrack ROCKS. Frou Frou's Let Go figures prominently there, which gave the group a huge boost in popularity.

Now, Frou Frou co-founder, singer, songwriter, etc, Imogen Heap will release her first CD in years. Singles have already shown up in The O.C. (which means we've been listening to her for a while thanx to bittorrent). Immi is the first vocalist to capture our attention like this since NoJo, but she is nothing like Norah.

If you don't get your hands on the whole album (we have no details on a US release), at least hit up iTunes for Hide and Seek.

Tags: Music

Catholics Deemed "Not Christian Enough" To Adopt

The Bethany Christian Services adoption network, which receives money collected by the sale of Choose Life license plates in several states, says that the Catholic Church conflicts with their "Statement of Faith" and therefore does not allow Catholic couples to adopt children through their network.

This came to light recently when a couple in Jackson, MS, (who knew there were Catholics in Mississippi?) applied to adopt a child after reading the Statement of Faith that all Bethany Christian parents must sign and reviewing it with their priest, who agreed that it does not conflict with Catholic dogma. The Bethany Christian Services director Karen Stewart however, continues to say, "It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith." (She clearly knows more about Catholicism than any priest.)

Now obviously, any donations to a group called Choose Life will be used to perpetuate narrow-mindedness and bigotry. And it is no real surprise that tax-deductible special license plate fees (ie, taxes by any other name) are being funneled to faith-based bigots in the current political climate. So the only question is, Will this lead to Holy War between Catholic pro-lifers and Protestant/Evangelical pro-lifers?

Tags: News, Religion