Signal fading, listen to what I’m saying.
Testing, testing,
this better be worth all of the breath I’m wasting.
Maintaining radio silence from now on.
From a distance it’s hard to tell the difference
Between a king and a jack
Between a poet and a hack
Maintaining radio silence from now on.
Don’t believe me. Believe Gary Kleck, one of the nation’s leading gun scholars: legal gun ownership lowers the homicide rate.
Bill Haley and The Rockets’ classic "Rock Around The Clock" topped the charts this day in 1955. The song is credited as the first rock song to do so, and the flood they could not stop started right after with Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbinson, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Ricky Nelson, Smokey Robinson, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Eric Clapton, The Band, Otis Redding, Van Morrison, Jefferson Airplane, The Dead, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Who, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zepplin, Frank Zappa, Allman Brothers, Neil Young, ABBA, Van Morrison Tin Lizzy, David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Blondie, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Neville Brothers, DEVO, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, AC/DC, REM, The Pogues, U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nirvana, The Killers, White Stripes, and Pat Boone just to name a few.
Rock n’ Roll has been the soundtrack of many of our lives. It is somewhat disconcerting to watch bands I recall starting out have their 20th reunion tour, and the Woodstock audience went grey (if they kept their hair) some time ago. I often stare in horror at young co-workers who have never heard "Lola", who think Sherryl Crowe wrote "The First Cut is The Deepest" and who call 80′s music oldies. Rock is a form of popular music that has abandoned the notion "I Hope I Die Before I Get Old" some time ago. Or at least those of us north of forty have rejected that line, although I am sure there are some twenty-somethings who have at least embraced the idea "Hope You Die Before I Get Old." Bill Haley may look to some teenagers now as somebody’s old Uncle who lingered too long at the buffet table before grabbing a microphone at a cousin’s wedding in black and white prehistoric times. But count it out for me Bill "One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock ROCK!!" Hit that guitar riff, and with the aid of a few cocktails and lax nursing home security I’ll be out on the dance floor. If we can no longer use rock to rebel asagainst our parents, let us use it to rebel against our kids!!!
I am a vegan – have been for six months now and can honestly say I do not miss eating meat. My decision to go meat-free was taken for health reasons, it’s my way of coping with my Diabetes and it works for me. But I have NOT TIME for wackos like PETA. I see that they have launched a series of angry campaigns against A-list carnivores. They are shifting their focus from celebrities who wear fur to others who encourage the "exploitation" of animals by eating them. In its latest campaign, Peta – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which became infamous for dousing fur-wearers in red paint – has launched an attack on the singer Jessica Simpson. Ms Simpson was singled out for ridicule after she was spotted wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Real Girls Eat Meat", believed to be a light-hearted dig at her boyfriend Tony Romo’s vegetarian ex-girlfriend, Carrie Underwood. Alistair Currie, a spokesman for Peta, said:
"Jessica Simpson might have a right to wear what she wants, but she doesn’t have a right to eat what she wants – eating meat is about suffering and death."
Sorry Pal but she has EVERY right to eat whatever the heck that she wants. PETA is about intolerance and should be ignored for the rabble they so transparently are.
Just watched IRA terrorist godfather Martin McGuinness being interviewed on TV about the recent murder of a young man in Londonderry by dissident Republican terrorists. Martin the Statesman intoned that there was no popular support for this type of killing and he urged people to turn away from violence. I suppose when Martin and the gang were ensuring blood ran down the same streets of Londonderry and elsewhere the "popular support" they enjoyed made all those murders different to the one he condemns. I also suppose the murders of Robert McCartney and Paul Quinn – carried out by IRA terrorists – have no causal link to the savagery of the IRA. Listening to scum like McGuinness talk about the futility of terrorism when carried out by anybody but the IRA is akin to listening to Robert Mugabe hail the virtues of democracy. It sickens me to hear this goon talk and to see the lickspittle media treat him with honour.
I read that Trade Unions are to demand new rights to strike as the price for keeping the cash-strapped Labour Party afloat.
Repealing the ban on secondary industrial action is among a swath of left-wing policies that unions want to see in the Labour manifesto. The pressure on Gordon Brown comes as he is relying on the unions to help to avert Labour’s cash crisis, when they are in increasingly militant mood. Refuse collectors, librarians, teaching assistants and dinner ladies announced yesterday that they would strike for two days on July 16 and 17 after rejecting a 2.45 per cent pay offer, potentially closing thousands of schools in the last week of term.
The Unions fund the Labour Party. The Labour Party is financially bust. Go figure what happens next…
It is my belief that Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus are musical composers par excellence. I have always loved the music of Abba and although it is many years since the band broke up, I can still find lots to admire in the melodies and lyrics. Some of it is corny but plenty of it is elegant. Take this song "Our Last Summer" – it has a cheesy lyric (Rhyming Restaurants and Croissants – genius ormadness?) but a delightful melody – the chorus has poignancy in the lyric echoed in the musical score. Oh, and yes, I did like Anna – the blonde!
The Environmental Wackos always provide us with good entertainment. As they have successfully stopped all oil production in the U.S., they are now blocking Solar Power. You just have to love this crowd 
Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects
DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.
The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”
The manager of the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact study, Linda Resseguie, said that many factors must be considered when deciding whether to allow solar projects on the scale being proposed, among them the impact of construction and transmission lines on native vegetation and wildlife. In California, for example, solar developers often hire environmental experts to assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel.
Water use can be a factor as well, especially in the parched areas where virtually all of the proposed plants would be built. Concentrating solar plants may require water to condense the steam used to power the turbine.
“Reclamation is another big issue,” Ms. Resseguie said. “These plants potentially have a 20- to 30-year life span. How to restore that land is a big question for us.”
Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.
I just had to post this song in response to the Nanny & The Snakes and Ladder Posts
Wonder what you make of the news that in Sweden a child does NOT have the right to invite just his friends to his birthday party? This is where socialism leads….
"it was supposed to be a party with balloons and a birthday cake but the eight-year-old Swedish boy had not reckoned on his country’s obsession with equality and inclusiveness. Two of his classmates were left off the invitation list – and that, deemed his school – was forbidden and a violation of their rights. The case has been sent to the Swedish parliament and has sparked a national debate about individual liberty. Does a child have the right to invite anyone he wants to a party, even if he risks hurting the feelings ..sob sob…of those who were left out? These issues are taken seriously in a society that has a very active Children’s Ombudsman and which encourages children to voice their complaints about school and society."
Britain also has this plague of "Children’s Ombudsmen" and I look upon them as a form of activist cancer, out to destroy freedom and liberty. Save the Children say that Sweden is the BEST place in the world to grow up. I don’t think so. It seems to be a State where liberty is crushed, freedom restricted and a child cannot even hold a Birthday Party without the State deciding who will attend it. Shocking stuff. They may have given us Abba and Volvo – but Sweden stands as a warning to us all – the Nanny State exemplar.
