general

Some four years back I attempted a discography of Stefan Schwander, AKA Antonelli Electr (and Repeat Orchestra and other aliases), a mellifluous minimal electro-house producer from Dusseldorf. I'd lost track of his releases after 2004 or so but was pleased to discover that they're on Beatport, a paid-download site catering to DJs. It's been a pleasure catching up. I was sorry, though, to see that Beatport thought it necessary to add (nay, insist that you install on your computer) a "download manager"--more Flash crap to junk up your hard drive and registry when Firefox does a perfectly fine job of moving files onto your machine. You have to download an Adobe installer just to download the downloader--more crap. This is like a sickness, this desire of every small business to colonize your computer with some branded .exe file that services only their product. At least the mp3s and wavs you get from Beatport are DRM-free--or so they say.

Just a little reminder about Rudy Giuliani in 2006, from Newsday:

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.

On one day the panel gathered in Washington -- May 18, 2006 -- Giuliani delivered a $100,000 speech on leadership at an Atlanta business awards breakfast. Later that day, he attended a $100-a-ticket Atlanta political fundraiser for conservative ally Ralph Reed, whom Giuliani hoped would provide a major boost to his presidential campaign.

The month before, Giuliani skipped the session to give the April 12 keynote speech at an economic conference in South Korea for $200,000, his financial disclosure shows.

Rudy Giuliani avoids talking about Iraq on the campaign trail, as well, changing the subject to the general "war on terror" crapola. He knows the war is wrong but trashes its critics as anti-American. Also, firefighters dislike this fake hero.

Hat tip to Joe McKay for alerting me to this utility.

Really like these GIFs by Thomas at Loshadka:
enter tha pizza palace (2.9 MB)
tribute to the chicago bulls (1.3 MB)

Comment to be inserted near the end of Paddy's Sleepover thread:

I didn't grow up with the Internet but when I saw the words "Per the comment regarding 'remedial' postcolonial critiques I found this lecture on youtube very instructive" with a hyperlink I knew I was about to get punk'd. The RickRoll was kinda sorta funny (for something that originated on 4Chan--duckrolling that is) but too much has been made of it in the aftermath. Let's face it, the source of the humor was "Hey professor what da ya mean with all them big words" and all the subsequent high-fiving derailed a legit discussion about an NN post. Back to that subject, I believe "Native" could be evaluated also in light of some work shown at the gallery of the individual who posted it (right hand column). It suggests at least a more nuanced view of the representation of native peoples than "deprecation." I know b. backed off that argument--would that the "critics of the critic" could give his thoughts the props of actually responding to them. It might mean using the Firefox toolbar and some research sources. I'm not embarrassed to admit I had to remind myself that subaltern meant subordinate.