I usually don’t like mashups. I find them a little too dense. (as implied by the name of the genre itself) I’m making an exception for this one. Killing In A Gay Bar, by English Pete is a cute mashup of two great songs that made me EL OH EL.

Is it homophobic? Eh. I don’t think so. The original Gay Bar song talks about starting a nuclear war in a gay bar and no one seems to mind that one. I think it refers more to blowing everyone’s mind with your fabulous dance moves!

[via Hipster Please Episode 73: Eat, Drink, and Be Scary]

Comme en ce moment je “mène une vie dissolue” (dixit Môman) je n’ai pas trop le temps d’entretenir ce blog qui part en friches. J’y pense hein, mais quand les neurones ont à peine le temps de se reconnecter entre deux jours de travail et/ou deux soirées dantesques, difficile de fournir de la matière ici. Alors aujourd’hui je fais ma flemmarde et vous fais partager trois morceaux que j’adore :

Killing in the name of!

Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Huh!

Killing in the name of
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
But now you do what they told ya
Well now you do what they told ya

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites

Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Uggh!

Killing in the name of!
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control (7 times)
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya!

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Come on!

Yeah! Come on!

Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!
Uggh!

Things I don’t want to see when I’m feeling a bit peaky at eleven o’ clock at night: a gone off oyster, Jo Brand attempting stand up comedy, and especially a mock up of Carrie Bradshaw nude, walking down a street in New York. Obviously she wasn’t literally walking, this wasn’t a Harry Potter picture frame, although Carrie does go spectacularly well with a broomstick.

Quick question for everyone to consider, if you were reading a column called ‘Sex And The City’, would you infer that the column was about sex? Of course you would, but not Carrie. Writers are notorious for thinking that everything they write is either a) a self reflective yarn, or b) a post modern classic, when in reality 99% of the stuff that anyone writes is monotonous bullshit that sends most folk to sleep. Just to confirm, the column is called ‘Sex And The City’, it’s about sex, not relationships. God knows we’d all like to read ‘kisses and cuddles on a soft winters day….in the city’, but those damn newspaper editors haven’t commissioned it yet.

Samantha decided to do the PR for Carrie and to sort out a decent cover photo. Seemed like a bad idea from the start – trying to convince the general public that someone like Carrie deserves any sort of attention is similar to the sort of spin that Alastair Campbell spun out on a seemingly daily basis in the nineties that everything was rosy, and that New Labour was the way forward. And look where that fucking got us. Carrie and Samantha fell out over the latter sucking a delivery boy off in her office, which to me was a little bit odd.

The two of them arguing was like two Jewish lads arguing over who has the best penis – it doesn’t matter, they’re both deformed. Why should Carrie feel so put out, it wasn’t like Samantha was blowing the guy off in the middle of the street – an office is a sanctuary, a saucy, sexy sanctuary in this case. Saying that, it can be annoying when you see people you know doing things they really shouldn’t. I’ll never forget the day I saw my mate Vikram strap on a bulky oversized vest before jetting off to Israel for some explosion and buses get together he was attending. We used to call him ‘mad Vikram’, a nickname which seems a touch cruel looking back, but I’m sure he couldn’t give a shit seeing as he’s now presumably in heaven, getting attended to by one of the young lithe virgins he was promised by Allah.

I also like how a so called confident and streetwise girl like Carrie can get offended by a blowjob… it’s almost like she’s not how she seems. Hmmmm.

Miranda spent this episode fretting about her weight, which shows that the ‘fat ass’ insult she received in Atlantic City really got to her. So much for girl power. She met a fellow weight struggler in one of the meetings, and they got on so well that they shared a glazed doughnut before sharing a special kind of moment. All was well until, after quite literally eating her out, he kissed her with a face full of her particular brand of ‘woman’. At least he was dripping with cum rather than shame, although I bet that shame lies deep inside of him, along with the doughnuts and cakes.

As if those two having sex wasn’t bad enough, Gay Stanford made another appearance, trying to help Carrie out with her front cover. Even he is happy, having met a dancer called Marcus, who I’m still unsure of as to whether he’s human, or dancer. I’m pleased he’s found love, but that’s still no excuse for the garish and hideous green shirt. He looked like an emaciated, bald croissant. And a ’sun’ yellow tie? Get to fuck.

Just to include Charlotte, I’m going to talk at length about her. I think I was taken in too much by her initial beauty. The admiration was short lives however, as it was revealed just how much of a boring drone she is. She’s turned out to be just the same as everybody else, if not worse. Marry someone for cash and prestige, constantly feeling threatened and fretting about how she’s perceived by everyone else, in many ways she is the actual representation of women in real life. Thinking about it, if you combined her entire personality with Samantha’s sluttiness, Carrie’s greed and ignorance, and of course Miranda’s ginger hair then you have the sort of person who actually enjoys Sex And The City. Isn’t that a depressing thought?

As is usual with this shit excuse for entertainment, the ending was as gluttonous and sickening as usual. Carrie and Samantha made up, and all was well because they both admitted that they ‘judged’ each other occasionally. Is that all it takes these days to solve a dispute? Admit what you did was wrong but don’t actually apologise for it?Maybe it’s all okay if you appear on the front of a book wearing what appears to be the puffy shirt from Seinfeld, teamed with an eighties council estate perm and an empty, haunted look in your eyes that says ‘no matter what I do in my life I’ll never, ever be loved by anyone’.

A veces es imposible desvincularse, desde aquí en Venezuela, de la situación del pueblo de Honduras. Es verdaderamente una herida en lo más profundo de mi humanidad, ver con estupor, rabia e indignación las brutales actuaciones del ejército de ese país. Como sea, esa rabia se presenta en cada momento de mi vida, en lo que me rodea. Una rabia mezclada con una gran impotencia.

He querido dejarles este testimonio a los militares que me leen. Por sus comentarios, quizás la confusión empiece a dejar sus almas. Nada mejor que un trozo de música cruda y contestataria para acelerar ese proceso reflexivo, y de una vez, exorcisar el demonio de la represión de sus espíritu y alegrar su existencia con la identificación y apoyo a un pueblo valiente. Para ellos, les presento a Rage against the machine en la Batalla de México:

Luiz Zimmermann Aka LUFRKKK est un Dj et producer du Brésil qui commence a produire. Il s’est fait connaitre surtout grace à son remix de la bonne vielle track de Benny Benassi, Satisfaction que j’ai particulierement aimé! Voici quelque tracks et un minimix qu’il nous a fait parvenir!

• Lufrkkk – Feel The Noise Minimix

++tracks

• Rage Against The Machine – Killing in the name of (Lufrkkk Rmx)
• Lufrkkk – Trash Disastr

++ déjà posté auparavant

• Benny Benassi – Satisfaction (lufrkkk Ravemix)

Während ich mir meine Freizeit mit meiner Gitarre zu

und

vertreibe, hier die drei Top-Links des Tages:

- warum mir mein Gewissen verbietet GEZ zu zahlen

- das Sterben der Musik als .. mehr als Musik

- Der Meister der schwachsinnigen Tags über eine “Kurierfahrerin ohne Führerschein (”Mach ich, wenn ich den Job hab!”)”

Yogzatot Studio presents follow up to our first major video
“Letter From God” – SebastiAn’s interpretation of “Killing In The Name
Of” from Rage Against The Machine.

Mountain Dew commercials rarely make me sit up and pay attention – I simply don’t like their product or most of their commercials. But, towards the end of this ad, which begins with the familiar trope of extreme people drink Mountain Dew, I practically jumped out of my seat:

What is Jack Hanna, the mild-mannered animal lover who populated the TV on the lazy Sunday mornings of my youth, doing in a Mountain Dew commercial? I don’t know. Do I like it? I still don’t know. But, it did do the job that TV ads are supposed to, and that was make me pay attention. And they did it by subverting their normal routine for commercials (although it still was the central theme).

Jack Hanna

The oddity that is Jack Hanna in a Mountain Dew ad reminded me of another reoccurring TV presence; Fall Out Boy carrying the logo for Circuit City. I guess it isn’t odd that Fall Out Boy would do advertisements – they’re extremely popular and in a place to do so. It’s just odd that they chose to flog products for Circuit City, a corporate entity that doesn’t exactly scream “teenage rebellion.” Again, it isn’t making me run to my nearest branch (I don’t even know if there is a Circuit City near me), but it made me wake up from my natural commercial break stupor. Here it is, in its full, grainy, bootlegged YouTube nature:

In The (Music-Related) News:

*Rage Against The Machine made quite a scene out in St. Paul last week for the Republican National Convention. Here they are performing a couple of a cappella renditions of “Bulls On Parade” and “Killing In The Name Of”:

Punk percussion protest it ain’t, and positive it ain’t either. There’s a reason they brought Wayne Kramer of the MC5 out on stage during one of their numerous shows to perform “Kick Out The Jams” – Rage is trying to incite the same “revolutionary” attitude that made a mockery of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Frankly, nothing really came out of that episode except for some broken bones and a tired-old tale for old-hippies to remind our generation of our inability to challenge authority. Sure, there was a challenge, but out of the hostility came no change. And the only thing that will come of Rage’s “protest” are the same old thoughts that people hold towards young anarchists and vice versa. Until Rage drops the tired-out diatribe meant to incite police violence, they’ll be unable to achieve much of anything outside of some press clips.
*The New York Times has a great article on how Western entertainment is providing an escape and challenge to the hierarchy of power in the Gaza strip. Gotta wonder if anyone in Gaza is rocking out to the new Panic! At The Disco album…

*More news about TV on the Radio’s Dear Science, is getting me more and more excited about the album’s release. Good thing September 23rd is right around the corner. Again, the New York Times hops in with an excellent article on the group. It’s a quick narrative that briefly mentions how the new album and the band are strikingly anomalous in the Williamsburg of their past, present, and nearly-gentrified future. Sections discussing the group’s “allusive” sound and a quote where Kyp Malone mentions that, “I’ve been done with cool for years,” reminds me of my own interpretation of emo. And the critique connecting “Golden Age” to Michael Jackson is reminiscent of something I wrote a little while ago.

And now, a (fake) word to wrap everything up:

1. Bombtrack
2. Killing in the Name
3. Take the Power Back
4. Settle For Nothing
5. Bullet in the Head
6. Know Your Enemy
7. Wake Up
8. Fistful of Steel
9. Township Rebellion
10. Freedom

[mp3] [192kbps]

DOWNLOAD

Doc: Posting this classic debut from Rage in light of the recent event that happened in front of the Republican National Convention. My respect for Zack De La Rocha skyrocketed.

If you missed it(heres a video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYwzW2QFnwo

To read the story of what happened, check here: http://www.infowars.net/articles/September2008/040908Morello.htm

That we (the presumptive Left) “love” the fact that a man entered a place of worship and gunned down two innocent people, wounded several more, and perhaps permanently traumatized dozens of children.

You are sorely mistaken if that is what you believe.

Update: Could it be, we’ve started a bit of dialog? I hope so.

This is an excerpt from an article by Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer, served as a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author, most recently, of “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change” ::

“…So here is the quiz: Explain the relationship between the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad as they impact the coexistence of Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni populations.

Most respondents who have a basic understanding of Iraq will answer that Karbala is a city of significance to Iraq’s Shiite population. Baghdad is Iraq’s capital, with a mixed Sunni and Shiite population. If that is your answer, you fail.

Karbala is a holy city for the Shiites. Its status as such is based on the fact that Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and son of Ali, the fourth caliph, was killed outside Karbala in a battle between Hussein’s followers and forces loyal to Yazid, son of Muawiyah, the fifth caliph. The two sides were fighting over the line of succession when it came to leading the Muslim faithful after the death of Muhammad in the year 632. Abu Bakr, a close colleague of Muhammad but not a member of Muhammad’s biological family, was elected as the first caliph after the prophet’s death, an act that many Muslims believed broke faith with a necessity for the successor of Muhammad to be from his family. Abu Bakr’s death brought about a quick succession of caliphs, all of whom met untimely deaths and none of whom were from the family line of Muhammad.

When Ali was elected as the fourth caliph, many Muslims believed that for the first time since the death of Muhammad the caliphate had been restored to one properly authorized in the eyes of God to lead the Muslim faith. In fact, upon Ali’s accession as caliph, one of his first acts was to seek to restore the Muslim faith to its puritanical origins, which Ali believed had been departed from by the merchant families closely allied with the third caliph, Othman. Ali’s efforts were bitterly resisted by merchant families in Damascus, which refused to recognize Ali as the caliph. The head of the Damascus rebels, Muawiyah, fought a bitter conflict with Ali, which weakened the caliphate and paved the way for Ali’s assassination.

Upon Ali’s death, the caliphate was transferred to his elder son, Hassan, but when this succession was challenged by Muawiyah, Hassan relented, transferring the caliphate to Muawiyah with the caveat that once Muawiyah died, the caliphate would be returned to the lineage of the prophet Muhammad. When Muawiyah died, the caliphate passed to his son, Yazid. This succession was challenged by Hussein, Hassan’s brother and Ali’s younger son, who believed that the succession, as dictated by Hassan when he abdicated, should have gone to someone within the direct line of the prophet Muhammad, namely Hussein. Yazid’s treacherous attack on Hussein and his followers, occurring as it did during prayer time, set the stage for the split in the Muslim faith between the Shiat Ali (Shia, or followers of Ali) and the Ahl-i Sunnah (Sunni, or the people who follow in the custom of the prophet Muhammad). Both Shiite and Sunni view one another as deviants from the pure form of Islam as taught by Muhammad, and as such functioning as apostates deserving death.

If you answered the quiz on Karbala in the above fashion, you would still be wrong. The split between Sunni and Shiite goes beyond simple hatred for one another. Not only did the religion split, but so too did the methodology of governance as well as the interrelationship between religion and politics.

There was a final chance at achieving unity within the Muslim world. In the year 750, at the battle of Zab in Egypt, nearly the entire aristocracy formed from the lineage of Muawiyah was annihilated when the Damascus-based caliphate clashed with predominantly Shiite rebels. Jaffar, a Shiite spiritual leader and the great-grandson of Hussein, was supposed to be elevated to the caliphate, thereby uniting the Muslim world, but was instead murdered by Al-Mansur, who established the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. This final treachery created a permanent split between the Shiites and those who became known as Sunnis.

The Shiite faithful embraced rule by imams, infallible leaders who provide guidance over spiritual and political affairs. According to the majority of Shiites, there are 12 imams, originating with Ali. The 12th imam, also named Muhammad, is believed by many Shiites to be the Mahdi, or savior, who went into hiding at God’s command and will return at the end of days to bring salvation to the faithful. With the passing of the 12th imam, matters of spiritual and political concerns were dealt with by religious scholars, or the ulema. These scholars are products of religious academies, known as “hawza.” In Iraq, the city of Najaf is home to the most important hawza, the Hawza Ilmiya. Each hawza produces religious scholars, or “marjas,” who interpret religion and provide guidance over social matters to those who rally around their particular teachings.

The Najaf Hawza currently has four marjas, or grand ayatollahs, each of whom reigns supreme when it comes to matters of religion or state. The faithful look to their hawza for guidance in all they do, and the sermons given by the various marjas take on a significance little understood by those who aren’t born and bred into that society. To speak of creating a unified Iraqi state without factoring in the reality of the hawza and its competing marjas is tantamount to claiming one will seek to fly without factoring in the realities of lift and gravity.

So if you answered the question concerning the city of Karbala with anything remotely resembling an insight into not only the schism that exists between the Sunni and the Shiite but also how the development of the practice of the Shiite faith has led to an absolute insinuation of religious dogma into every aspect of social and political life in a manner that operates independently of any so-called central state authority, you would get a passing grade, enabling you to move on to the next city covered by the pop quiz: Baghdad….

It is not only the Shiites who are bound by religious ties seemingly indecipherable to the West. From the chaos that was created with the Islamic schism came a very fluid situation in the development of Sunni Islamic dogma, with the Sunnis embracing a notion of consensus among the historical Muslim community, a line of thinking that led to the creation of four so-called legal schools of Islamic thought (the Maliki, the Hannafi, the Hanbali and the Shafi’i). These schools produced Islamic scholars who in turn competed for a constituency of followers. While in theory Sunni scholars preached adherence to the customs of the prophet Muhammad, in practice the Sunni schools became intertwined in the affairs of state and business. This deviation from the pure practice of faith led to the growth of “mystic societies” known as Sufism. Sufi brotherhoods sprang up throughout the Muslim world, each preaching its own mystical path toward achieving personal growth through the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.

The Abbasid caliphate, which oversaw this period of religious “softening,” in which the pure practice of Islam gave way to a more secular tolerance of the baser concerns of man, was centered in Baghdad. It was the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 that signaled not only the end of the Abbasid caliph’s rule but the certification in the eyes of some Sunni faithful that Abbasid’s ruin was brought about by the lack of pure faith in Islam by those professing to be Muslim. One of the basic tenants of the Sunni faith was the notion of community consensus, or “taqlid.” Taqlid was actively practiced by three of the four “legal” schools of Sunni thought. The sole exception was the school of the Hanbali, which followed a stricter interpretation of the faith. A Hanbali religious jurist, Ibn Taymiya, rose to prominence in the aftermath of the Mongol invasion. He held not only that the Mongols were an enemy of Islam but that the Shiite Islamic state that emerged in Persia after the Mongol conquest was likewise anathema.

More important, Ibn Taymiya broke ranks with the rest of the Sunni community, especially those who practiced Sufism, declaring all to be an affront to God. Ibn Taymiya rejected the notion of community consensus represented in the taqlid and instead professed that a true Muslim state could exist only where the political leader governed as a partner with the religious leader, and was subordinated to the religious through strict adherence to the “sharia,” or religious law. The Muslim jurists, or “ulema,” held total sway over society, to the extent that even matters pertaining to war were reserved for the religious leader, or imam, who was the only person authorized to declare a jihad.

During the Abbysid caliph, the term jihad had taken on the connotation of inner struggle. This interpretation gained wide acceptance with the spread of the Sufi brotherhoods, which were all about inner discovery. Ibn Taymiya rejected this notion of jihad, instead proclaiming that true jihad involved a relentless struggle against the enemies of Islam. For a while his teachings were popular, especially when they were being used to encourage the forces of Sunni Islam confronting the infidel Mongol invaders. However, his strict interpretation of Hanbali tenets were rejected even by other Hanbali religious scholars, and Ibn Taymiya himself was branded a heretic.

The teachings of Ibn Taymiya continued to be taught in certain Hanbali circles, including those operating in the holy city of Medina. It was here, in the 18th century, that a Arab Bedouin from the Nejd desert, in what is today Saudi Arabia, named Muhammed al-Wahhab emerged to create a movement that not only embraced the teachings of Ibn Taymiya but took them even further, preaching a virulent form of Islam that claimed to seek to bring the faithful back to the religion as practiced by the prophet Muhammad himself. Wahhab’s movement, known as the Call to Unity, reflected his strict interpretation of Islam as set forth in his book Kitab al-Tawhid, or the Book of Unity.

At first Wahhab was rejected by the Sunni scholars, and he was hounded and finally forced to take refuge in the tiny village of Dariya. There Wahhab befriended the local governor, Muhammed Ibn Saud, initiating what was to become a partnership in which the Saud family took on the role of emir, or political leader, while Wahhab became imam, or religious leader. The team of Bedouin warrior and Islamic fanatic soon led to what would become known as the Wahhabi conquest, bringing much of what is now present-day Saudi Arabia under their strict religious rule. In 1802 a Wahhabi army attacked Karbala and sacked the sacred Shiite shrine to Hussein. In 1803 the Wahhabis sacked Mecca, laying waste to the most holy sites in the Islamic world, including the Great Mosque. In 1804 the Wahhabis captured Medina, looted the tomb of the prophet Muhammad and shut off the hajj, or pilgrimage, to all non-Wahhabis. The rise of the Wahhabi empire was seen as a threat to all Islam, and soon a massive counterattack was mounted by the caliphate in Egypt. By 1818 the Wahhabis had been destroyed in battle, and everyone professing Wahhabism was treated as an apostate and butchered. The head of the Saud tribe was captured and beheaded, along with many of his fellow tribesmen.

Deep in the Arab deserts, a small number of Saudi tribesmen, strict adherents to Wahhabism, survived the Egyptian onslaught and began the struggle to regain their lost power. By 1924 the Wahhabis once again controlled Mecca and Medina, and by 1932 a new nation, Saudi Arabia, emerged from the Arabian deserts, governed by the house of Saud and with religious affairs totally in the hands of the Wahhabis.

To the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia there were two great sources of religious heretics: the Shiites, who ruled in Iran and represented a majority population in several Arab nations, including Iraq, and worse still, the Sunni Arabs, who rejected the true path as represented by the teachings of Wahhab. The puritanical form of Islam pushed by the Wahhabis was difficult to export, however, until the oil crisis of 1973, after which the Saudi government was able to fund the printing of Wahhabi literature and training of Wahhabi missionaries. In Iraq, there was some attraction to the puritanical teachings of Wahhabism among the Bedouin of the western deserts. However, with the rise to power of Saddam Hussein, Wahhabism and those who proselytized in its name were treated as enemies of the state. Wahhabism was still practiced in the shadows of Sunni mosques throughout Iraq, but anyone caught doing so was immediately arrested and put to death.

Wahhabi concerns over the weakening of the Muslim world by those who practiced anything other than pure Islam were certified in the minds of the faithful when, in April 2003, American soldiers captured Baghdad in what many Wahhabis viewed as a repeat of the sack of the city at the hands of the Mongols in 1258. Adding insult to injury, the role of Iraq’s Shiites in aiding and abetting the American conquest was seen as proof positive that the only salvation for the faithful could come at the hands of a pure form of the Islamic faith, that of Wahhabism. As the American liberation dragged on into the American occupation, and the level of violence between the Shiites and Sunnis grew, the call of jihad as promulgated by the Wahhabis gained increasing credence among the tribes of western Iraq.

The longer the Americans remain in Iraq, the more violence the Americans bring down on Iraq, and the more the Americans are seen as facilitating the persecution of the Sunnis by the Shiites, the more legitimate the call of the Wahhabi fanatics become. While American strategists may speak of the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, this is misrecognition of what is really happening. Rather than foreigners arriving and spreading Wahhabism in Iraq, the virulent sect of Islamic fundamentalism is spreading on its own volition, assisted by the incompetence and brutality of an American occupation completely ignorant of the reality of the land and people it occupies. This is the true significance of Baghdad, and any answer not reflecting this will be graded as failing.

A pop quiz, consisting of one question in two parts. Most readers might complain that it is not realistic to expect mainstream America to possess the knowledge necessary to achieve the level of comprehension required to pass this quiz. I agree. However, since the mission of the United States in Iraq has shifted from disarming Saddam to installing democracy to creating stability, I think it only fair that the American people be asked about those elements that are most relevant to the issue, namely the Shiite and Sunni faithful and how they interact with one another.

It is sadly misguided to believe that surging an additional 20,000 U.S. troops into Baghdad and western Iraq will even come close to redressing the issues raised in this article. And if you concur that the reality of Iraq is far too complicated to be understood by the average American, yet alone cured by the dispatch of additional troops, then we have a collective responsibility to ask what the hell we are doing in that country to begin with. If this doesn’t represent a clarion call for bringing our men and women home, nothing does.

Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including “Iraq Confidential” (Nation Books, 2005) and “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2006).

So, I wrote a mini post for Zero’s story.

Shiva wept. I really think I’m going to move that blog to this server, too.

For ease of posting and such. Anyway, here’s a blurb from the story that I didn’t post.

She made it snow. Great swirling flakes that pinwheeled from the sky like angel feathers. I bowed my head and watched them kiss the scalded earth and melt, leaving barely a trace of moisture behind. What fools these mortals be… they shouted and rejoiced, cavorting at the foot of the walls outside of the ravaged castle As if she made every snowflake for them. Every cloud was a blessing, every breeze a benediction. I knew better. I’ve looked into those smoke and hemitite eyes and I saw what happens to a woman who becomes a goddess. There’s nothing there outside of the cold. Nothing new outside of the cruelty. She crouches like a spider on a web of ice and sleet and snow and waits. She hungers but never feeds, letting her prey grow fat and somambulant. And when she reaches out even her slaughter will look like salvation. I looked up when hailed, snapped out of my thoughts by a cry. For a moment there was a girl with blond hair, stiff with ice, staring at me. Her expression was fixated and everything else seemed to fall away. The crowd, the snow, the taunting wind. Everything fell away from the power of those leaf green eyes. I didn’t realize that I’d moved until I was forcing my way through the press of bodies towards her. She spun and almost dissapeared, I’d see her here… there… just close enough to touch but too far away to halt. Then the crowd thinned and we faced each other. But those eyes weren’t the shock of green they were a moment ago, they were muddy and almost brown. “What…who are you?” I asked, wetting my lips and wishing for a gun in my hand. I didn’t like things I couldn’t explain. I didn’t like a world of fairies and gods. She smiled and tilted her head, those eyes flashed green again like sunlight off of pond water and something looked out at me through her. For the span of a heartbeat the girl infront of me was like a shop window, while prisoner behind the glass was a fierce, intelligent and absolutely alien force. I recoiled and backed away. I’ve had enough of being the pawn of eldricht things. She frowned and reached out to me, “Don’t you want to know?” she asked, her voice overlaiden with mystery. I shook my head and curled my hands into fists. “Fuck you.” I ground out. She flaired. For a moment brighter than the muted sun, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. “I am a-” she began but I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “A what? A goddess? I’ve heard enough of that from her.” I flung a gesture at the castle walls. “And I’m sick of you all. You want me, you come to me.” I turned away then back again, shivering in my rage. But there was nothing to say, no way to express the depth of my hatred. It didn’t matter, the girl was gone. Of course.

A fines de 1992 Rage Against the Machine edita su álbum debut homónimo, que contaría con clásicos como “Killing in the name of“, “Bombtrack” y “Bullet in the head“. El primer esfuerzo de Rage era una combo de punk, metal a la zeppelín y puro hip-hop callejero, todo esto nutrido por fuertes convicciones políticas, que denunciaban al imperialismo , a los mass media y al gobierno norteamericano.

El sonido del grupo hereda las guitarras salvajes de Led Zeppelín y las combina con altas dosis de funk metalizado más el rapeo crudo y agresivo del cantante Zack De La Rocha, quien rima acerca de Martin Luther King, Malcom X y la CIA. Es Tom Morello quien otorga al grupo un sonido personal y único; y gracias a este primer trabajo logra el reconocimiento de sus pares como uno de los músicos más originales y creativos de los 90.

LMC

The HR Capitalist tagged me with the following challenge:

List the Top 3 songs that you would want blasted over the intercom as you are entering the conference room, getting ready to do a disciplinary action or simply walking down the hallway. Bonus points – if your arch rival was walking into the same conference room after your entrance and you wanted to deflate them, what would you play? Pictures of your favorite group are optional…. Especially if it’s a hair band from the 80’s….

Could you think of a better challenge for someone like me? I decided to stick with the 90s because it offers such wonderful & crappy bands such as C+C Music Factory and Quad City DJs.

Here we go.

***

#1 must be The Rockafeller Skank. This is for my grand entrance into the lobby of my former headquarters building in Manhattan.

#2 might have to be Groove is in the Heart. I can see myself walking down the hallway at a manufacturing plant or an IT office environment wearing something totally fabulous. And big-ass platform shoes, yo.

#3 is a tough one. I’m all about Rage Against the Machine for both the deep beat and the message, but I think we need something a little lighter in this space — sticking in the 90s, of course. We could do any number of fluffy dance tunes, jock jams, or Chicago house music. Let’s go random, why don’t we? How about Cake? Okay, fine. Too stupid? Too obvious? Let’s do Rage, too.

If I had to pick one 90s song to play for my nemesis, it might be Aqua.

***

I’m going to tag a few people who aren’t necessarily in the field of Human Resources but would have absolutely awesome choices. How about Col, The Boss of One, and Gemellen?

Frankly, I would love to see your Top 3 songs in my comments — even if you don’t have a blog. How about it, former colleagues who are reading this at work???

So, this Zero story is taking longer than I thought. Apparently (once I figured out what in the hell he was trying to say) he has alot to tell me.

So, check check check it out. “…killing…”

Also (though I haven’t asked Jax if I could post this here) we started a new RP blog thing that promises to take forever (I don’t have the inters-nets @ the house so…yeah, you know…).

It’s here… no, not here… here.

Also, more pictures of the rugrats coming soon to a photoblog near you!

Keegan is coming alone nicely, he’s all starting to grin and laugh when he recognises people, Breanna thinks he’s her own personal dollbaby, Bryce is doing HELLA FUCKING GOOD in class now that we changed teachers.

Now all I have to do is beat his old teacher to a pulp and buy her lunch. I wonder if she’s allergic to peanut butter.

I miss Chasm, dude, it’s like you moved or something. I seriously need an internet injection.

Which makes me think of dirty things one can possibly do with a USB cable.

2-06-07
Mommy’s alright, Daddy’s alright
they just seem a little wierd
Surrender, surrender
but don’t give yourself away.

Yar, life on the internetless seas are rough indeed.
I swear to you, I’m going to die from lack of flash videos. However, Paul won’t show me silly videos about crack spiders.
Plus side?
Of course.

Ever look at someone, really look at them and realise that you’ll love them no matter who they become? “…because of or inspite of…”It scares me to think that no matter who the MDKs become, no matter who the evolve into I will still love them. Not because I have to, not that it’s a duty… no my duty is to care for them, not to love them.
I love them and will love them because I am in love with them. With thier fingers and toes, their smiles and their tears, with the laps of illogical logic, with sick smiles and snotty sneezes, stupid questions and smart mouths. I’m in love with all of it. The sort of single minded love that makes me impossible and hopeless and amazed and desolate all at once.
it’s the sort of love that leaves me cold and hot and grumpy and amused and laughing but so close to tears.
It’s a love that’s close to drowning.
I sometimes feel like it’s too much, then they call to me and I realise that it’s not enough, it’s never going to be enough. I’ll fight for them, I’ll end up fighting with them I’ll pull down heaven and dig up hell for them and it’s just not enough.
I don’t want them to ever feel as adrift and lost as I did growing up. I know it’s inevitable. Kids grow up and away and no one understands the uniqe pain that each one of them feels.

On a diffrent note “Murder by numbers 1,2,3 easy to learn as your A, B, Cs.” I love that damn song, it’s somewhat bouncy but there’s no way you can’t hear the words, unfortunitly the singer (in this case, I think it’s rod steward, or paul simon who ever sings for the police I get them confused) sounds kinda tired and just not connected to the freakin’ song at all.

Okay, I also feel this strange love for Paul.
I abuse him, I know, I’m so mean sometimes. I laugh and tease but there’s so much of myself that I hold back from him.
But there are times when it’s close and dark and I can smell him on the sheets or on my clothes and there’s almost nothing more comforting.
There are times when I watch his profile and feel nothing at all just a distracted sort of wonder that people seem to reserve for interesting bugs and science projects.
THEN there are times when I want to eat him from the mouth down, something more violent and consuming that lust, something that catches my breath in my throat and makes me dizzy something more and less than obsession. I just want to slide inside his skin and feel what it’s like to be him.
Patient and understanding, freckled and kind, amused and amusing.
I want to know what it’s like to be someone who can actually love me.
What depths of energy must it take to do something as foolish as want to come home to my demanding idiocy night after night?

Anyway, I’m off to roam around the house again.
Yeah, as boring as it sounds.

2-19-07
Vinnie Phish 2.0

Please welcome the newest member of the elite MY DAMN KIDS club… Keegan Vincent Parten. Born February 15th weighing in at a grand total of 6 lbs and 4 ozs and measuring a whopping 19 inches long.
I really don’t have much to say on him other than he’s beautiful (of course) and amazing and wonderful and I am totally smitten, kitten.
I wasn’t in labor or anything when I went into the ER on thursday, but I’d been having some bleeding for three days, nothing major (said everyone) but it was getting to the point where it was starting to scare me. Also the baby hadn’t been moving as much as usual. Kinda sluggish, really.

So I went to the ER and waited for a while, I ended up sending Paul and the kids home when it looked like I would be celebrating my 30th birthday in the damn waiting room.
I finally was seen, YAY! I was pretty dissapointed, though, I thought I would end up going home. According to the nurse and the tests I was only 1 cm dialated and there didn’t seem to be any contractions. So she left the room for a minute to do nursish things.
I was left there listening to Keegan’s heart on the machine, thinking it sounded like the paddles to one of those big boats that float down the Mississippi (wooshwooshwooshwoosh) when it suddenly stopped doing that and started sounding like my own heart beat.  I had like a nanominute to go…
“holy shit sould I call the nurse” when WHAM! Super mister Nurse Guy came into the room. He was all calm and nice and smiling with a slight accent and looking at my chart and the baby monitor. I didn’t even know he’d come into the room because of a dire emergency.
I told him that I’d heard the heart rate change and he seemed impressed enough to let me know that THAT WAS EXACTLY the reason he was in the room. Hurray!!
So then Dr. James came in, Dr. James wasn’t supposed to deliver me of child… Dr. Freeman was. However it seems that Dr Freeman was fucking AWOL on this day.
So she’s telling me that they’re gonna keep me because of the baby’s heart rate dropping, that I’m gonna have to have a C-section.
Boo.
So while she’s telling me this I’m all freaked out and small. Dude, I didn’t sign up for this. All I could think of was “they’re gonna cut me to ribbons!! TO RIBBONS!!”
So I called Paul and let him know and plan Baby Alpha Delta Storm went into effect (mainly him calling my aunt to come get the kids and junk and stuff). So after I call him all hell breaks loose. I end up having an actual contraction and Keegan’s heart stopped.

They wheeled me OUT of that damn room and had me under the knife in like 10 minutes.
I had enough time to sign some papers and get gassed.
And then I woke up on the table.
Apparently I was fighting them (shit, it HURT) but that’s all I remember. Then I think I remember getting wheeled out of the room… from there fuzziness and static. I remember calling for Paul and crying because they didn’t go get him. Then Paul was there and I was asking him if he’d make everything alright, then more tears and the shakes as my body went SHIT THIS SHIT HURTS!!!
and then I didn’t go to sleep AGAIN!!
Actually I passed out at like 6am the next morning. I did a whole lotta talking but I don’t remember what I said. I might have offered marraige to the IV drip or something.
I did a LOT of saying I’m sorry and thank you, too.
The rest of it is all boring but I got to see Keegan for the first time on Friday.
Wow. he looked like something out of a scary movie all wired up to flashing beeping things. but he was so fucking CUTE all wrinkled up and pink. He gave me big eyes with raised eyebrows when I first picked him up and held him.

and then he farted.
…it’s love alright.

03-18-07

What you fell in love with
was someone who would kiss you and kick you

“She lived a life where every other memory was a lie… and then she wrote this story.”

I hate when music and lyrics and stories and plots get all tangled up in my head. I hate when for so long there isn’t a “voice” wailing for me to tell it’s tale then suddenly there it is. A whisper in the dark. Cunning and calculating and all too familure.

I have a new voice. It’s quiet and slightly confused and it tastes like tears on the back of the tongue.
It’s simple and complex and it makes me get all choked up. It’s like music in a dark room where the singers voice is shocking in it’s beauty and you wish every song were about you.
I have an old voice.
one that’s told this story before, one that’s gone over the facts and remastered them with devious intentions. One that’s malicious and kind, wicked and good.

I’m going to tell this story to the best of my ability, I’m going to leave off facts and add in fiction… or should I say that I’m going to finally tell the truth?
The devil may be in the details, but god resides in the margins… it’s going to be a race to see who drives me crazy first.

3-20-2007

Lover, rebel and a fighter

So, I believe the reason people have babies is so that one parent can kill off the other parent and still have the genes pass along to the next generation.
This is legal, right?
Okay, so it’s not as bad as all that but still, I’m sure I’m not the only woman to look at the father of her child and wish for insta-kill contact lenses.
Which in my case would probably cause me severe brain damage.
Don’t mind me, it’s just the lack of sleep talking… again.

anyway…

“So, what you’re telling me is,” she said as beside her the sun ricoheted like bullets off the dull brown Galveston waves. “I pay you to hide …here… and in exchange I don’t have to have sex with anyone that I don’t want to?” Her voice had taken
on that laughing tinge it got when she wanted to believe in something but was too wary to try.
“Yeah,” said the man across from her, watching her reactions with eyes that had been screwed into a premature squint by the Texas sun. “You’re not gonna find a better deal for a girl in  your…” he smirked “delicate situation.”
They were sitting on beach chairs on the back patio of a local bar. It was still early in the day and music poured out the rear exit from the radio the cooks and prepboys had turned to some station that poured Tejano music out into the blistering hot and cruel day lending it an exotic almost foreign flair.
She fought the urge to bite her lower lip, instead she stared him in his pale colorless eyes. The harsh Texas sun had leeched whatever color had been there out leaving him with eyes that were both beautifully eerie and inhumanly cold.
If she’d've been more alert, not taken the small round white pill so trustingly she would have listened to the alarm bells going off in her head. As it was
though those alarms were far off an hazy, tinkling in some other realm where her fear and uncertanty were residing.
She looked down at her thick brown fingers and could see the last of the trembles as they faded away.
“Yeah,” she said softly and the man smiled, he was watching her with a preditors fixation. An expression that would have had her on her feet and leaving if she had’ve caught it
but when she looked up his smile was some sort of genuine.
She looked at his teeth, so white in skin that was the color of good walnuts. He might have started off life paler than herself but again the Texas sun had
reformed and modified him, layering him in color until he could have passed for a black man if he had a hat to cover all that white-blonde, sun stricken hair
“Alright.” she told him, screwing her soft face into some form of defiance. “For a while, until I get my head on straght.”
He laughed and nodded, refilling her tall shotglass with another generous slug of whiskey. When she picked it up he hooted “hell yeah! That’s all you need, right? Time?”
She nodded and tipped up the glass, shuddering when the burning whiskey slammed into the back of her throat.
“Yeah, just some time… till I get my head on straight,” she muttered in a voice already gone hazy.
He watched her, chubby cheeks wobbling as she tried not to cry. She was impossibly young, too young to be taken in at his compound but the promise of so much easy money was impossible to just let pass by.
He sipped his own whiskey, narrowing his eyes in calculation. She was a runaway, a rich one at that, and she’d been here in Galveston hanging around the frindges of his crowd for a month. She spent money like water, living in a hotel that looked over the ocean and buying almost every drug and trinket that her heart desired. She’d been
brought to his attention by one of his submissives who both knew and pandered to his love of lost little girls.
She looked up again, her brown eyes troubled but even those troubles were sliding away as the pills took hold of her. She opened her mouth to speak and he watched her lips
small and pliant, soft and fresh. He grinned, wicked and feral. She might have agreed to come to the compound on the basis that she wouldn’t be forced into sex… he looked
into her eyes again and smirked, but there were drugs that would ease her along.
“Martin,” she began, voice low and something like a whisper. He held up a finger and stood, offering her a hand.
“Master,” he said as she took his hand, incomprehension was written all over her face. He squeezed her hand a little too tight. “Master.” he repeated, voice losing
it’s jovial hail-fellow-well-met tones.
She winced and tried to pull her hand back. “Yeah, I don’t know…” she bit her lower lip and things low in him tightened.
He frowned then smiled again, wide and sure. “You want this to work right? Well, you’re gonna have to pretend at least.”
It took her a moment. Drug addled and mentally stumbling she finally nodded and stood with him. She swayed and he put his other hand to the small of her back and
gently pressed her body to his. “Yeah.” she said again, nodding before she smiled up at him excited by the prospect of playacting.
“Master…”
He nodded, encouragingly. “Exactly, girl. Exactly.”

It’s that time of year again where schools try to suck all the money they can out of parents, family and friends.

So this year, my son’s school is doing this nifty online ordering thing.

The site is http://kathrynbeich.com/ and there’s this registration number thing you’ll need to order from the boy himself.

Though, you’ll have to email me to get the registration number, m’kay?

FilthyRottenAngel AT gmail DOT com

Also, I’ve written another tale over @ …Killing… check it out, lemme know what you think.