Foot Vigorously Defends Chick Band

In typical KAR fashion, LearnedFoot responds to my entirely reasonable criticism of his greatest heavy metal song poll by skirting the issue and coming completely unglued. Rather than presenting a justifiable argument why Van Bertinelli should be considered heavy metal - when it is clearly not! - he instead prefers to denigrate, name-call, and play the marginally humorous yet tired "FAIL" card.

Yawn.

About the closest he ever comes to a real argument is in asking, "If Van Halen isn't metal, then [sic] what the hell is the Scorpions?"

Of course, he's just being obtuse because he got nailed trying to include a chick band in a metal poll. But in case he's not, I'll make it plain.

It's a matter of "chunk." While Eddie Van Boozehound was busy making his annoying little sound effects and using two hands to play things metal guitarists play with one, the Scorpions were devoting themselves to bringing bone rattling, open-string drones, as later perfected in triplet form by Iron Maiden, and sped up to a thousand miles an hour by Metallica. At any speed, it's metal.

Oh sure, Van Clarinet would toss you some chunk once in a while, but it doesn't make them metal, anymore than occasionally proving you are more intelligent than Nick Coleman makes you actually smart.

Responding to the factual assertion that Alice Cooper sucks, Foot writes:

And that's why to this day every single student in grades 6 through 12 sings Napalm Death when the final bell of the school year rings.

As I alluded to in my original post, indeed, School's Out is much beloved by gawky, zit covered losers exactly one day a year. I concede the point. But 12th grade? Come on. While I have no doubt Foot did indeed partake at that late age, by then just about everyone else had figured out only dorks with "chick magnet" t-shirts think that's cool.

Even so, it's a long way to "greatest ever" contender, which is perhaps a distinction best left to someone who didn't actually did walk down a high school hallway in parachute pants, fist in the air, singing "Schooooool....sout...for...summa!"

Context is everything. In this case, once it's added it has to be asked if, despite an admirable devotion to Iron Maiden, Foot is really qualified to conduct such a poll.

Put another way, it's kind of like having a shut-in conduct a poll on the hottest place to meet girls.

UPDATE: Reader Boz agrees. He e-mails:

Hey at least hes got a few really good ones there....Hallowed be thy name.....great tune!

As they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

Metal Spin

What a great idea: a poll seeking the greatest metal song ever (right sidebar).

Then I noticed the poll includes Runnin' With the Devil by Van Halen, and Schools Out by Alice Cooper.

First, Van Halen is not a metal band. It is a hard rock band. Hence, Runnin' With the Devil cannot be a metal song. Check out the weak justification, which boils down to:

Van Halen did some metal-like songs. Runnin' With the Devil isn't one of them, but I put it there anyway because nobody's ever heard of those other ones.

That he saw fit to include it just to placate Mith Berg is also problematic. Pandering is not allowed by metal code.

Second, Alice Cooper sucks. Period.

Thus two spots, which could have been used for deserving choices like The Zoo by the Scorpions or Balls to the Wall by Accept were used up on a KQ recycle and a song beloved only by 12-year-olds in early June.

That's just wrong.

The Murder Trial Page

Chisago County's long-awaited first degree murder trial looks, at long last, like it is ready to go. The paper is trying something new, using Web capabilities to become a daily of sorts, at least for the trial, for the duration.

A page has been created on which all the updates - I'm hoping for two a day, but planning for one - will appear.

So, if following a first degree murder trial from day to day sounds like an interesting way to spend some cyber-time, check it out.

St. Croix Falls to Become Commune

The St. Croix Falls Mayor, last seen leaving county employ with a spanking new tax-payer funded Masters degree, is now laying the groundwork for a sustainable community based on the religious theories of "peak oil" and "climate change."

According to the Polk County Ledger (not available online!), the mayor "started his speech out by pointing out that the human race is a visitor to the planet and 'we are entitled to nothing.'" The city, however, is entitled to "leverage up" when "big box" retailers come to town. In other words, squeeze every last dime out of them, and dictate to the largest degree possible business practices (wages, number of employees, purchasing, etc.) and hope like crazy they don't decide to simply go elsewhere.

Citizens are encouraged to prepare for peak oil and climate change by "switching to LED lighting, eating local produced food, drinking from the tap, installing renewable energy systems, walk, bike, carp0ol, live closer to town, use non-motorized boats, etc."

Interestingly enough, the last person to try putting up a renewable energy system (wind turbine) was practically run out of town by many of the very same people promoting the mayor's new growth plan.

Given the attention being paid to the sustainable growth issue, one might think the citizens were clamoring for it. Not according to a city poll, which asked what respondents would change about the the city if they could:

•Make it affordable to live here. Property taxes are too high!!
•Sell city owned lands to help taxes.
•Property taxes are way too high out here! I appreciate the mill rate going down, but the bill is outrageous!
•Decrease taxes they are outrageous and I don’t see the benefit of paying them.
•Implement tax breaks for energy efficient homeowners.

So, when is the symposium on how the city can cut taxes?

Another response tends to speak to the takeover of St. Croix Falls by hippies; suggested improvements for government officials:

•Less politics and self interest groups.
•All the ---holes who think that they have a right to enforce their poorly conceived ideas.

As a Minnesota resident, it is my sincerest hope St. Croix Falls continues to pursue a "commune by the river." As taxes, the cost of food, goods, and services, increase, and growth is chased away for lack of strict adherence to city "green" doctrine, perhaps it will come over here and lower our tax burden.

Now He Tells Us

Bill Gates from Davos:

Mr. Gates says he’s grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism.

What is it about making a butt-load of money under capitalism that makes people want to denounce capitalism?

Great Moments in Bacon History

In honor of Blog for Bacon 2008, we'll look back at some of the signature moments in bacon history.

On film:

Something About Bacon: Here you've been in therapy, you know, thinking you blew it with the greatest girl ever, and really it turns out that getting your bacon stuck in your zipper was the best thing that ever happened to you.

Baconator: At my signal, unleash bacon.

The Bacon Strikes Back: Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want that bacon, not excuses.

Field of Bacon: The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been bacon. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But bacon has marked the time. This field, this meat: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.

In music:

Baconica:
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the bacon to set me free

Iron Bacon:
In a time when dinosaurs walked the earth
When the land was swamp and caves were home
In an age when prize possession was bacon
To search for landscapes men would roam.

Barry Baconlow:
Tony always tended bar
Across the crowded floor, they worked from 8 til 4
They were young and they had bacon
Who could ask for more?

Baconic Figures:

Abraham Bacoln: Those who deny bacon to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

Winston Baconhill: All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: bacon.

Karl Porx: Bacon heals doubts as well as diseases.

George W. Bacon: After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies bacon.

Jesus of Baconeth: What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his bacon.

Leonardo da Bacon: I have offended God and mankind because my bacon didn't reach the quality it should have.

Bacon E. Lee: Bacon - I like it, I always did, and that is the reason I never use it.

Chinks in the Armor

Barack Obama's handlers' decision to keep him away from any hard hitting interviews, opting instead for shows like the Tyra Banks Show, makes a lot more sense now that debates have heated up. The New York Observer sums up last night's debate performance nicely:

...then there’s Debate Obama, a hesitant, stuttering, easily rattled and mostly unsmiling public performer who litters his platitudes and “uh’s” and misses countless opportunities to throw his opponents’ taunts back in their faces. Debate Obama unwittingly affirms Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that he lacks the seasoning to withstand the scrutiny of a fall campaign and leaves those who have only seen Big Speech Obama wondering, “Is this really the same guy?”

No. It's the real guy, live, and in person, as opposed to the carefully cultivated image constructed through 2007. If he is prone to falter in the face of the mild criticism of his own party faithful, imagine how much more difficult it will be in the general election.

Sure to Help

In addition to announcing a new series of propaganda comics, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has named George Clooney an official "Messenger of Peace." Claudia Rossett has a better idea:

Maybe Ban should appoint some Messengers of Transparency and Accountability.

I wonder if Charles Bronson is still around.

The More Things Change

Driven primarily by dissatisfaction with the war, the Democratic Party picked up 31 seats in the House of Representatives in the off-year election of 1862. In response to the shift, the Salem Advocate wrote:

"We saw the President of the United States stretching forth his hand and seizing the reins of government with almost absolute power, and yet the people submitted. On the 4th day of November, 1862, the people arose in their might, they uttered their voice, like the sound of many waters, and tyranny, corruption, and maladministration trembled."

Sound familiar? A simple date change and this paragraph would have worked just as nicely in the last off-year election.

Also similar to the modern day, Lincoln responded to the result by revamping his strategy, firing generals, and rededicated himself to victory. Although he was not lucky enough to have a Petraeus - it would be another year, almost, before the right formula emerged - ultimately Lincoln's one-mindedness did pay off.

One big difference between then and now: Lincoln's war got bloodier, not less so.

Now, Lincoln is universally regarded as one of the greatest presidents in our history. The point is not to compare Bush to Lincoln. Please. The point is that it's nothing new for a war-time leader to face just as much opposition on the home front than from the enemy. The other point, I suppose, is that history may judge Bush far differently than present day editorial pages.

Fiction Becomes Reality

I wish I'd have thought of this. Hillary Clinton is perfectly cast as a real life Tracy Flick, the victory obsessed candidate for student council in "Election," one of my all-time favorite movies.

A high point in the movie was from anti-establishment candidate Tammy Metzler's campaign speech:

TM: ...The same pathetic charade happens every year, and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their transcripts to get into college. So vote for me, because I don't even want to go to college, and I don't care, and as president I won't do anything. The only promise I will make is that if elected I will immediately dismantle the student government, so that none of us will ever have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again!

[Student body erupts in huge cheers]

TM: Or don't vote for me... who cares? Don't vote at all!

Awesome.

Via Power Line

Not What Some Were Hoping For

Thoughts on the NTSB's report on the I-35W bridge collapse at the UpsiderBlog. Feel free to chime in.

UPDATE: It's a conspiracy!

What a Crappy Day

Tim Blair has cancer.

It's weird, really. What a commentary on the incredible times we live in. I've never had the pleasure of meeting him, although he would certainly crack the top ten people I'd like to meet. I know him only through his daily additions to the Great Debate. He's a pioneer, the greatest blogger of our time; the first site I check in the morning and the last I check at the end of the day.

And so it is that, from rural Minnesota, I am somehow personally invested in the life of Tim Blair, who lives in Australia, and who I've never met or had a single conversation. Yet, reading his bad news today bore no real difference to hearing it from a friend. It sucked just as much.

Now, certainly he will beat this thing. But, as I've learned from previous experiences with this horrible affliction, love helps. So, I'm tossing a little love (purely platonic of course) his way.

This tiny corner of the world will be thinking about you daily TB, hoping and praying for the best. I think this will turn out to be yet another way you prove an inspiration.

A MOST EXCELLENT UPDATE: Results of Monday’s CAT scan are in. There is no spread of the malignancy; zip, zero, zilch. It’s entirely localised. Medical science may disagree, but I think credit should go to readers and fellow bloggers. Your thoughts and prayers have eerie powers.

Upset Sunday

If anything, Sunday's NFL upsets - San Diego over Indy and New York over Dallas - bolsters my original Super Bowl prediction. In fact, despite my less than stellar .500 performance pick-wise thus far, I'm more confident than ever that my ultimate result will indeed come to fruition.

On a related note: Despite the greatness, despite the record, and despite the talent, not even a Super Bowl win could affect my view that the New England Patriots are the most boring football team to watch, ever. Excitement is generated by humanity and the Patriots simply aren't human.

To the Rescue

The U.N. has come up with an ingenious way of resurrecting its image:

In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the World War II, the U.N. is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The Bush administration should try this. I'm sure no one would mind.

Bumper sticker

For a "change" candidate, Hillary's slogans sound an awful like the "same-old, same-old" age-old platitudes we have come to expect from aging hippies:

"I feel so strongly that if we don't take care of our children, we don't take care of our future."

Does she mean "The children are our future?"

Some future slogans Hillary might find useful:

"If we don't pay the bill, we won't have electricity"

"If we don't flush the toilet, the bowl will start to smell"

"If we don't gas up the car, the car will run out of gas"

By all means, put additional suggestions in comments. Hillary can use all the help she can get.

Wisconsin anti-smoking hypocrits

We've been buying cigarettes in Wisconsin since the last round of Minnesota tax increases went into effect because they were a few cents cheaper there. Not anymore.

I went to Wal-Mart in St. Croix Falls today for smokes and they were $6.28 a pack! It's the first time I can ever recall going to the customer service counter to return cigarettes.

According to the receipt, at $6.28 I was actually saving 45 cents a pack from retail. I saved a lot more than that by buying in Minnesota, where I can now get almost three packs for the price of two in Wisconsin. I still don't know how a one dollar tax hike resulted in an almost two dollar price increase, but I don't care. It's the beauty of living on a border. Wisconsin can shove it.

I learned when I was working for a Wisconsin paper there is no bigger whore to the "stop smoking" lobby than Wisconsin. In Polk County, they had a tax-payer funded smoking cessation officer. In fact, TOBIS isn't even shy about it, they are in it for the social engineering and, of course, the money:

On January 1, 2008 Wisconsin's cigarette tax will increase $1.00 to become $1.77. The $1.00 increase will mean:

65,800 fewer future youth smokers
An overall reduction in youth smoking of 16.4%
33,300 current adult smokers will quit
9,100 fewer smoking-affected births
Overall long-term health savings of approximately $1.4 billion
Additional state cigarette tax revenue of $227.5 million a year

Always lead with "The Children," that's their motto. Beyond that, apparently the $306 million in excise taxes (2006), and the almost a billion in settlement dollars the state received (up to 2006) isn't enough. The state needs another $227 million annually, the majority of which will come from its poorer citizens.

Thinking about crossing the river to buy smokes in Minnesota? The fascists even thought of you:

...crossing the border or buying online doesn't mean you can avoid paying the higher tax. Meredith Helgerson with the state Department of Revenue says any tobacco product bought across state lines and brought into Wisconsin must have any tax difference paid on it. Residents are responsible for paying the tax difference on products bought in states with a lower tax. In the case of online sales where no taxes paid at the time of purchase, the buyer is responsible for paying the taxes to the state.

Unfairly taxing the poor is just fine in Wisconsin, as long as it's "for their own good." Why don't they just raise the price to $50 a pack and get 100 percent of people to quit smoking? That, at least would be honest.

Because, as much as they despise smoking, they despise going without money more, and Wisconsin is the single largest cigarette profiteer in the state. They need enough people to keep smoking to keep the bucks rolling in.

Wisconsin wants you to know it despises smoking, and will continue to do so, even as it rolls around naked in the profits.

Press Shunned, Left Celebrates

To steal a phrase from Glenn Reynolds: They said if Bush were re-elected there would be intimidation of the press, and they were right!

Unfortunately, that intimidation came from a Barack Obama staffer, who tried to take away Bill O'Reilly's constitutional right to cover a public campaign event. Here's the video.

When an Obama staffer intentionally stepped in front of O'Reilly's camera, Bill got testy. He did instruct the staffer, Marvin Nicholson, to get out of the shot multiple times before attempting to physically remove him from the shot. At one point in the video, O'Reilly called the staffer "low class" and an S.O.B.

Naturally, for all their whining about freedom of the press, intimidation, access, yada-yada-yada, when a full blown incident occurs where a reporter is prevented from exercising his right to cover a public event, the left celebrates:

"Cuff him," says DuH, where commenters are only bummed the Secret Service didn't physically assault O'Reilly. At DailyKos, 60 percent of readers wish the Secret Service would have "tazed" him. At HuffPo, the headline reads, "Secret Service Restrains Out-Of-Control O'Reilly."

The NY Daily News found no shortage of Obama supporters who were traumatized by the sight of a reporter refusing to be bullied:

"[O'Reilly] was just a crazy person," a photographer who witnessed the altercation told The Daily News. "He throws a complete fit, and then the Secret Service came in."

***
A woman in the crowd, who witnessed who witnessed the incident, exclaimed, "I'm never going to watch that man again. I don't believe this!"

Ya, I'm sure she was a devoted fan before.

I've been in situations where doing your job means waiting on the sidelines for that 10 to 15 second window in which to get your story. I must say I too would have pitched a fit if an employee of a public official intentionally, and illegally, tried to prevent me from doing my job. And I don't think there can be any doubt Nicholson was doing it intentionally, unless he's hearing impaired.

In any case, it certainly isn't a good thing for Obama to have a staffer trying to suppress a guy who is consistently in first place for the most coveted prime time slot in cable news.

Personally, I salute O'Reilly's determination to fulfill his constitutionally protected duties. The left would feel the same way too, if they stopped long enough to see beyond their shallow ideology.

Some Minor Adjustments

As per my NFL playoff predictions, interestingly enough I went 2-0 in the AFC, but a dismal 0-2 in the NFC. That will force a couple of new predictions. My week two in the AFC stays the same:

Week two
Indianapolis over San Diego
New England over Jacksonville

But here are new predictions for the NFC:

Green Bay over Seattle
Dallas over New York

Green Bay will still beat Dallas before getting trounced by the Patriots on their way to a 19-0 season. Sucks to be the 1972 Dolphins.

IPCC Un-Spun

From the Canada Free Press:

It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over – ‘2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis’. But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper.

One might even go so far as to call it a whopper with cheese.