Jeff Beck and Tal Wilkenfeld at Clapton's Crossroads Fest

Yeah I know I once accused someone that claimed Beck was the best guitar player ever of leading a chemically altered existence, but the dude can play. Haven't seen this vid for a while figured I would share.




Tal is the bassist. She is damn good too, but her style is a bit too jazzy for me.

"Are you small?"

Well take a look at this and you may feel small.

For anyone that has never seen it, this is perhaps one of the most amazing images from outer space I have ever seen. I would have put the image on the page itself instead of linking it, but I don't think it does it justice.

Except for a few "field" stars, every smudge of light you see in this picture is a galaxy. And it is a picture of an incredibly small part of the sky.

If you are interested, go to the Hubble Site and download the larger, higher definition pics. These will really blow your mind.

In Defense of....

One of my friends and fellow bloggers wrote a piece a few weeks ago about one Michael Savage. Mr. Savage is pretty much an asshole. Yeah, I have listened to his show some, and there are things he says that I agree with. But on the whole, he's a tool.

Mr. Savage seems to think that not only do the Islamic radicals have a grudge with the U.S, but with him personally. He thinks that quite a bit of the liberals in the U.S. have been converted and are bending over backwards to turn this country into an Islamic state. While I agree that some of the measures, such as building private bathrooms for Muslims in schools because of religious reasons, cross the line, it's not a reason to see conspiracies around every corner.

Yes, some of the things he says are outlandish, devisive and hateful.

But.....

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

So to end the sentence I titled this post with ...... Free Speech. Mr. Savage has a platform to speak because there is money in it. If you don't like what he says, vote with your feet. Turn it off, listen to someone else, write to one of advertisers or a station he is on. But that is about your only real response. Hell, if it was possible to just yank people off the air because of what they say, I wouldn't have heard anything from Al Franken for years. And to me, he is as much of a wack job as Michael Savage.

The attack of the buzzword

Seems everyone running for president this time around has settled on the same buzzword.

Change.

No matter who is doing the spewing, that's what is coming out. No talk about issues, nothing.


Change for change's sake is bad, mmmkay? Tell me what you think, where you stand, what your experience is. Hell, if people only want change, maybe I should run. I will lay some change on them.

If you don't believe me, turn on your favorite national news show or google some of the candidates latest speeches.

This just in : I suck at blogging.

So it has been 10 months since my last post. You would think maybe I had nothing to say.....nah.


More incoming.

A Movie Review 55 years in the making!

AMC is running a John Wayne Marathon this weekend to commemorate the 100 anniversery of his birth and I just got to catch one of my favorites from him, The Quiet Man.

JW plays an ex boxer who "retires" to his family homestead in Ireland. There he meets and marries a local girl. And hilarity ensues.

I have seen this flick maybe 20 times and never get tired of it. Some great comical scenes in it as well as showing that even with a different culture and even in a different time people really aren't that different.

Maureen O' Hara(hubba, hubba) plays his wife. You can really believe she is a small town Irish woman.

I think what I like about this movie is it isn't your typical movie from the Duke. He doesn't shoot anyone!

So if you happen to see it in the movie rental shop or that it is on tv, I recommend it.

More Idiotic Statements in the Press!

USA Today is celebrating their 25th year by having top 25 lists of things that have occured in that time. You can see the current list here.

While I disagree on a lot of this list, number 22 really got me fired up.

"

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (1998)

No program better represents the emergence of "alternative news sources" than The Daily Show under Jon Stewart. Few comics have so firmly put their stamp on the news, and few shows have more adroitly addressed a skeptical audience"

Alternative news sources? Jon Stewart? The only way Jon Stewart is an alternative to the "mainstream" liberal left media is because he is also funny. If he had no sense of humor he would fit right in on the staff of the Clinton News Network.

Reading this you may think I am some kind of right wing whack job. I would define myself politically as more of a centrist than you would think. For one thing, what some people consider "right wing" I think is quite closer to the popular opinion in this country than to the right.

I tend to have my own outlook both politically and morally. I hold views that some would consider liberal, such as being pro-choice. But I also think abortion is a horrible thing that should be only used in the direst of circumstances, not for pregnancy free sex.

It just chaps my ass when outlets such as USA Today try to hide behind being an unbiased news source, then lean as far left as they do. What ever happened to reporting the facts, and leaving the editorial to the editorial pages?