iclysdale

OK Cupid, the source of all knowledge, tells me that these three questions are the most likely to predict successful relationships. So, INTERNETS, REVEAL ALL TO ME:



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Everyone's already done their lists, but here's my albums that came out in 2010 that if you haven't listened to, you should. It's kind of deeply indie-tastic. If two years ago was the list of new folk, and last year was the list of pop punk, this is definitely the year of indie rock.

41st and Home: Left In Places. This is the album that I really hoped that High Violet would be. It's lush, dark, and beautiful. It has big guitars and big strings, and songs about lost love and worlds that should have been.

Shearwater: The Golden Archipelago. Yeah. It's a pretentious prog rock concept album about Bikini Atoll. But Jonathan Meiburg could sing the phone book with that kind of instrumental structure, and I'd listen to it. I saw them play live at Sala Rossa in Montreal earlier this year, and it was just spellbinding.

The Gaslight Anthem: American Slang. I'd liked The 59 Sound, but this is the album where I fell in love with Gaslight Anthem. Cat had picked it up, and had it in random shuffle on her ipod. The three of us were working in the kitchen upstairs when When We Were Young came on, and thirty seconds in to the track we all just stopped and listened, blown away. Then we started it again.

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs. This is probably the most coherent album that Arcade Fire has done. I didn't love Neon Bible at all, and was sort of ready to categorize Arcade Fire as a band that had one amazing track (Rebellion) and a great live show. And then they released The Suburbs, which wasn't just one track but a whole album that fit together and kept it going.

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks. This is my album of the year, hands down. It's not necessarily a cheery album - it's about the seductive nature of despair and nihilism - but somewhere deep down there's just this kernel of hope for redemption that makes it brilliant.

Outstanding concerts for the year were Jack's Mannequin, Shearwater, Arcade Fire, Great Big Sea, Josh Ritter, and Steel Train.

What else should I be listening to?
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Is this the coolest thing ever?

Well, probably not.

But really. Google Russia has (what looks it clearly started as somebody's 10%-er project) integrated video of the entire length of the Trans-Siberian railroad with Google Maps geolocation - you can follow the route of the entire railroad, click anywhere on the route, and start watching the train move from there.

OK, maybe it's only me that thinks that's really freaking cool.

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Pissed off about Kenney's use of ministerial authority to remove information about queer rights from Canada's citizenship guide?

Send him a letter using CUPE's handy action centre.

Also, please feel free to pass the link on.

Courtesy of pecunium, I can't decide if this is more hilarious or depressing - it's kind of both.

I think that If yes, please outline the fundamental beliefs. If applicable, attach a copy of the bylaws or minutes of meetings from the last year. is quite possibly the funniest part of the form.

Apparently, penalties for failing to register your "subversive group" in South Carolina are a fine of up to 25,000 dollars, and as much as ten years in prison. I'm trying to figure out just how many Facebook groups I belong to that would qualify as subversive groups by their definition - that is groups that "directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof."

Cause for me? Democratic government is all about controlling, and if necessary overthrowing, a government that fails to listen to the voice of its voters.

Edit: The actual text of the law that led to the creation of the form is at least a little less vague, if no less ridiculous. Highlights follow:

Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him.

[...]

The terms of this chapter do not apply to any labor union or religious, fraternal or patriotic organization, society or association, or their members, whose objectives and aims do not contemplate the overthrow of the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means.

Yeah. I'm sure that's going to work so well, folks.

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Signal boosting for the United Farm Workers, who have an online form where you can e-mail the chair of the Texas Board of Education.

The TX State Board of Education is currently preparing to adopt new social studies curriculum standards. These standards have major national implications as Texas is such a major purchaser of textbooks and their state’s required curriculum drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.

[...]

The TX State Board of Education has hired 6 "experts" to determine what will be in the books their schools use. Some of these "experts" are arguing that the state’s social studies and history textbooks are giving "too much attention" to some of the most prominent civil rights leaders in US History, namely Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall. [...] Another of these "experts" evangelical minister Peter Marshall said, "To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin"--as in the current standards--"is ludicrous." He went on to say Chávez is not a role model who "ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation."

[...]

Board members and their appointees have complained about an "over representation of minorities" in the current social studies standards.


This make you cranky too? E-mail, or better yet, call Gail Lowe, the chair of the Board of Education in Texas. Especially if you're an American - mention that it concerns you deeply, as school publishers tend to only put together one national edition. Especially, especially, if you're a Texan, and vote there.

I actually have some fairly crunchy thoughts about proposition 8 in the context of anarcho-socialist philosophy and various models of direct democracy that I'll write about, if I actually find time. (In the next two weeks, though, that looks decidedly unlikely, and the short version is "California, I still think your referendum system is deeply fucked up.")

In the meantime, though, I present YouTube videos.

Sublime:

The Courage Campaign for marriage equality is running these one-minute ads in California, now. I saw it via writer_grrrrl over Twitter, and have probably watched it five or ten times now. It still makes me cry.





Ridiculous:

Garfunkel & Oates, on the other hand, have responded to Pat Robertson's infamous comment that gay marriage would lead to sex with ducks with a nice little pop song about their unnatural lusts for waterfowl.

My spleen, it continues to need to vent:

The Foreign Affairs committee had called for Mr. Abdelrazik to appear before it next month as a witness and hoped to enforce that demand by getting a Speaker's warrant if the government continued to block his return to Canada.
[...]
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has already told the committee that he has no intention of bowing to its demand that he provide Mr. Abdelrazik with a one-way, emergency travel document so he can return to his family in Canada.
[...]
NDP MP Paul Dewar, who led the effort in the Foreign Affairs committee to have Mr. Abdelrazik called as a witness, accuses Mr. Cannon of insulting the committee and Parliament.

“We not asking him to do anything outside of the realm of international law or national security,” Mr. Dewar said Thursday. The travel ban imposed by the UN blacklist allows for citizens to return home.

Mr. Walsh acknowledged that the government could, if it chooses, repatriate a citizen, although he declined to address Mr. Abdelrazik's case because it is currently before a federal court.

Mr. Dewar still he hopes that Mr. Abdelrazik will make the June 15 date set for his appearance before the committee. A group of supporters has announced it will purchase another airline ticket to fly Mr. Abdelrazik, who has been living in “temporary safe haven” in the Canadian embassy for more than a year, to Montreal from Khartoum on June 12.

And I'm not even discussing my crankitude about the new allegations around the Abu Ghraib photos that the Obama government is refusing to release. I'll leave that for pecunium.

ETA: In the top twenty reasons I should never read the Globe & Mail comment thread, "It would be nice of the media would differentiate in their headlines between a real Canadian citizen and a "citizen of convenience"." may be a winner.

ETA2: Especially since I very much doubt that commenter would consider my hopefully-soon-to-be-a-Canadian-immigrant (white) partner to be a "citizen of convenience." Despite the fact that I, for one, happen to think it would be much more convenient, aside from all else.

"Imagine, whispered Koring to me, a lawyer standing up in an American court to argue that the US has no obligation to free its citizens from Somali pirates."

For those following the continuing national disgrace that is the refusal of the Canadian government to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home, the arguments of the Canadian government continue to get more and more ridiculous.