Jets Try to Murder Anquan Boldin...Literally.

If this hit by Eric Smith and the other Jet is not attempted murder, then I don't know what is.

And it's not a done deal yet, because Anquan is still in the hospital. We don't even know if he'll ever walk again, though thankfully, things are looking promising.

I'm not sure how the NFL could let Eric Smith ever play again. I'm not sure how the State of New Jersey cannot levy attempted murder charges against Eric Smith and the other Jet. At a minimum, it would have to be some sort of felony assault charge. I won't say it, but if things were bad, you could bet that charges would be filed. And they should be.

Things took a turn for the worse when the League did not do anything in response to the dirty play that put Tom Brady out for the year. The guy tried to end Brady's career. We'll see if he was successful or not.

This crime was just the logical next step.

Both Eric Smith and the other Jet that hit Boldin helmet-to-helmet deserve to go to jail for the rest of their lives.

Can Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson escape the curse of TVOTR and Grizzly Bear endorsements?

I really don't fuckin know. It seems every blogger, and newsperson, who writes about Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (MBAR) feels the need to attribute any appearance of MBAR's talent to the alleged talents of TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear - his producers, co-workers, friends, etc. Of course, that might be the case, but I don't buy it. You can produce the fuck out of something, but it's usually pretty easy to hear. And now that I've heard MBAR live, it's obvious - I was right - the dude is at least as good, at least as talented, as we suspected. And it has nothing at all to do with his producers or endorsements.

Even a recent Boston Globe article can't help but mention that it's OK to write about MBAR because, he's been endorsed, dontchaknow?

He's the 25-year-old kid endorsed by TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear - two of the biggest bands in the overheated indie troposphere.

Maybe I'm not awestruck by these endorsements because, until MBAR came along, I had never heard of TVOTR nor Grizzly Bear.

At least the Globe tries to recover a bit, and allows one of his endorsers to suggest that maybe, just maybe, this kid from Portland might actually not be a brain-dead hack -- that he might, in fact, have some talent of his very own:

"People like to feel that suffering is the only truth, and that's the only place where real beauty can come from," says Kyp Malone, the frontman of TV on the Radio. "That comes from rock 'n' roll and all the archetypes - the geniuses dead at 27, all strung out. Miles has a lot of that in him. He's also really, really smart. I feel like whatever he wants, he can have it. Or he can blow it. Either way, he's added something to my life already. My life has been enriched."

It's kind of odd to say it - I think it's probably just the nature of hack bloggers who can't think for themselves - but I wonder if racism has anything to do with this. I mean, is it possible that a black (mixed race?) kid could have talent? And could, like, write stuff down on paper that was, like, smart? I know white people tend to scoff at the idea that racism is deeply rooted in the American psyche - it's not something that is pleasant to talk about - but when someone with such magnificent talent rolls around, and every blogger everywhere is falling all over themselves to explain how something like this could possibly happen - and they all come to the same conclusion - it's not the black kid, it's someone else - how could it be anything but plain old racism? It's his producers. It's the weather. Who knows what the fuck. It's anything but the obvious. Why is this so difficult to come to terms with?

Note to all syncophantic MBAR bloggers everywhere -- stop being such whiny little incontinent spewers of your own subservience - it's boring. Grow some, and write something with confidence. If you love the dude, say it. If you hate the dude, say it. Go on the record. Don't hide behind this "well, so and so produced him" bullshit.

[Update:] Found some text that almost qualifies as genuine praise. It's still got the obligatory refs to producers, but we're getting closer:

9:10, Roseland
Portlanders, you need to know Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. The Portland native defected to New York after high school (he’s a Wilson HS grad) and became chummy with the bands Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio—who have since helped him scale the ranks of New York’s music scene. He broke a guitar string on the first song, and his voice was shot, but Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson was fuckin’ incredible. (WH)

Developing...

...still got the obligatory TVOTR ref, but some refs have dropped out. This is promising.

It's starting to look possible....Obama in the White House

Not that I expect anything of signficance to actually change, but even if this article on how McCain damned to die those POWs left behind doesn't gain much traction, it's looking like Obama could win this thing.

But, as we all know, it's not who casts the votes, it's who counts the votes. Ohio. Florida. I'm looking at you guys.

I wouldn't be surprised if people get a rude awakening at about 7am on Wednesday morning, November 5th, when the news stations start congratulating our new president and vice-president, John 'I-fucked-the-POWs' McCain and Sarah 'Even-my-own-party-hated-me' Palin.

It was Clinton's fault, too

The same as Clinton shares a great amount of blame for the Iraq Invasion, he shares blame for the current economic meltdown, too.

If you have my worldview, facts like this are not that surprising at all -- in fact, they're the only things that can make the world make any sense at all. The facts may not be morally right, but they're not confusing to me.

I don't run around saying things like, "Why don't the Democrats ever do anything??!!," like so many of my breathless brothers and sisters -- on both sides of the aisle. The answer is simple - they don't care, and even if a few actually did care, they're not in a position to do anything about it - they're just doing what they're told. Sure, they could throw themselves out of office if they wanted to, but expecting egomaniacs to stop being egomaniacs is not what I would consider a sane strategy.

Clinton's economic legacy goes far beyond the economic disasters that are NAFTA and Iraq:

The meltdown is a bipartisan affair. Presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama each have received millions of dollars from these very companies that are collapsing and are receiving the corporate welfare. President Clinton and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin (now an Obama economic adviser), presided over the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the 1929 start of the Great Depression to curb speculation that caused that calamity. The repeal was pushed through by former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, one of McCain’s former top advisers. Politicians are too dependent on Wall Street to do anything. The people who vote for them, and whose taxes are being handed over to these failed financiers, need to show their outrage and demand that their leaders truly put “country first” and bring about “change.”

Glass-Steagall Act.

Man, the dude is still wrecking shit 8 years after he's been out of office! Damn.

Are you willing to fight for it?

Voter suppression is going to be key this election, as with the previous two elections. Tens to hundreds of thousands of black votes will be rejected one way or another - probably, again, mostly through illegal cleansing of the voter rolls. The question is, how will disenfranchised voters react? And how will white Obama supporters react?

Will people organize massive civil disobedience campaigns across the nation, bringing the Battle in Seattle to all corners of the States?

Or will people just accept injustice again?

Should be an interesting 4th of November. Maybe we'll get lucky, and the party will stretch into the 5th of November.

Republicans: The Party that Wrecked America

I think it's good branding. Too bad the Dems suck.

Cop killer gets justice; Becomes hero

On July 1 of this year, just before the Olympics in China, a man went on a revenge rampage and killed six police officers and wounded four others - with a knife.

In the US, African Americans are the folks most likely to be harassed, arrested, detained, humiliated, beat, tortured, and murdered by police - so they're the ones who are usually not crying when a cop gets murdered. But in China, most people are victims of the police, so they're on the side of the cop-killer, Yang Jia.

I can't seem to find an explanation as to how a lone guy with a knife managed to murder six armed policemen and injure four others.

Police should be subject to the rule of law, and even moreso to the rule of justice, because laws are arbitrary, and stacked against regular citizens. If Chinese police continue to be above the law and reproach, then we can expect more mass murder revenge killings.

What did they do to him while he was in custody?

...i wasn't kidding.

MBAR

In case you haven't been following the Twitter feed, please think about giving some attention to 'the best artist that will probably play in your town this year'.

...um, yeah, great show. Way too short, though. MBAR opened for a couple of other bands. Kinda crazy. Some video goodness:

AIG part of the House of Cards

Man, read this WSJ article to get a feel for what a house of cards the entire U.S. financial system is. The shit that the state and federal governments are doing to keep this pyramid scheme afloat is hilarious.

Tellin ya - best get your money out, now. Buy gold. Stock up. Panic. Learn to do something useful. Be prepared to be good neighbors. Start a garden. Buy a bike. Sell your car while you still can. Your boss is about to come down on you for the best reason in the world - because in a down economy, workers become the assholes, and managers become true Gods. Don't like working 60 hours a week, Mr. Family Man with two kids, two car payments, and dog? Well 'Fuck you', Mr. Family, man - it's my way or the highway.

Happy end times in America.

Still not into that bridge barrier, huh?

Maybe something like this might help you think again:

Newsom doesn't 'get it'

My daughter, Casey, was a big fan of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's. He even gave the commencement speech this year at Redwood High where she would have graduated had she not ended her life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately, the mayor copped-out on the bridge suicide barrier issue.

I find it hard to believe that he "wrestled" with this issue. What is it about "impulse suicide" and "means restriction" that he doesn't understand? How can he not be utterly ashamed of himself that this bridge is in a class by itself as the overwhelming world leader in deaths.

The second deadliest bridge in the U.S. hosts one-tenth the suicides as his "iconic" bridge does, and it is getting a barrier!

Every other world-class city that has "wrestled" with this issue put saving lives first.

Why does everyone else get it but San Francisco's mayor?

John Brooks, Tiburon TWIN CITIES

I didn't know this until recently, but a bridge 'barrier' doesn't have to obstruct views of the bay - it can be set down below the railing, so that anyone who jumps gets caught by a big net-like thing.

I'm for the barrier/net.

Sports fans should not boo players

That's been my contention for years. It's just not right. And it doesn't matter whether a player is playing for the other team or not. The practice just seems anti-human to me. I could understand good-natured ribbing of opponents, but boo's? Definitely not feeling that.

Who knows if Vince Young getting boo'ed by his own crowd had anything to do with him going on a potential suicide run last night, but I'm guessing it could not have helped.

...back in April, Delgado reiterated that nobody likes getting boo'ed.

...first is boo's, then comes the racist taunts. And we know that boo's are not handed out equally.

Brady injured in dirty play

The Chief's Pollard saw the opportunity to injure Brady, and he took it. As a quarterback is about to release the ball, he's in his most vulnerable position - his front foot will be forward/extended, and very close to locked. If you get hit on the side of the knee at that point, it's a perfect injury. At a minimum, you'll sprain your medial collateral ligament (one of my old injuries). If the person who intends to injure you is lucky, you'll tear that ligament - which controls the left-right swing of your lower leg - hint: you're lower leg is not supposed to swing left or right from your knee.

Every pass rusher knows that they can shoot for a quaterback's knees to take him out of the game, or out of the season, and that's what Pollard did. He was on the ground, had no chance of tackling Brady, so Pollard lunged at Brady's knee and took him out. It was pretty straightforward. So far, there's no talk of a dirty play, but I have to call it like I see it. I hate the Patriots, but I don't want to see guys getting shredded by dirty players.

It was a dirty play. Pollard should be suspended for the rest of the season.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to be Nationalized

Nationalism is what socialist countries do. Errrr. [Can't believe that op-ed actually used the word 'nationalization'. Someone's gonna be in deep shit. There are some things that should just not be said, donchaknow.]

This, of course, this is not the first time that the U.S. government has nationalized major corporations so that rich folks could be rescued from losing some money.

When the U.S. does it == good.

When some country that is not the U.S. does it == bad.

Got it?

Rush Limbaugh *Hearts* PETA

There's this band called The Pretenders who sing some of the songs you know and love, even if you didn't know it was The Pretenders who sang those songs.

One song they sing, that you may not know all of, but probably recognize the riff/baseline of, is 'My City Was Gone' (video) (lyrics).

Thanks to Wikipedia and Rolling Stone magazine, we know that Rush Limbaugh is a huge animal rights supporter - as much as any Republican can be, I guess:

The standoff between CHRISSIE HYNDE and radio right-winger RUSH LIMBAUGH is finally over. Since 1984, Limbaugh had been using the "My City Was Gone," the Pretenders lament about the mall-ification of America, without Hynde's consent.| According to Hynde's manager, Limbaugh had not licensed the song for his nationally syndicated radio show, nor had he even asked for permission to use it -- something that didn't seem to bother Hynde all that much until Limbaugh told a pair of reporters in 1997 that "it was icing on the cake that it was [written by] an environmentalist, animal rights wacko and was an anti-conservative song. It is anti-development, anti-capitalist, and here I am going to take a liberal song and make fun of [liberals] at the same time." Last month, Hynde finally got Limbaugh to pull the song but then did an about face on Aug. 18, telling him that he could use the song if he donated all the royalties to the animal right's organization PETA, after PETA campaign manager Dan Mathews told her Limbaugh had a soft-spot for animals. She fired off the following missive to PETA to let them know of the recent developments. "In light of Rush Limbaugh's vocal support of PETA's campaign against the Environmental Protection Agency's foolish plan to test some 3,000 chemicals on animals, I have decided to allow him to keep my song, 'My City Was Gone,' as his signature tune and to donate all proceeds from the deal to further PETA's efforts in that regard" .

Rush, we hardly knew ye. Asshole.