Some T-Shirt Ideas For Women with a Different Sense of Humor

See the rest here.

Senator Ben Nelson Has To Go

Quick thought:Is Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) a Democrat because he doesn't get along with Republicans at the state level? I mean, he votes with the Republicans, talks like a Republican, was Bush's "favorite Democrat," and is currently the main obstacle to health care reform in this country.

He has stated his opposition to the "public option" (then sort of recanted, but not really), and is now refusing to agree to block Republicans from filibustering health care. The Senate leadership is not asking all Democrats to vote for the bill, they are simply asking them to vote, procedurally, to allow the bill to come to the Senate floor -- avoiding a GOP filibuster.

However, Nelson will not commit to this simple task. As a Nebraskan and a Democrat (for now anyway), I will not be able to support Nelson in any way, if he allows for a GOP filibuster on this important national priority. It is time for Nelson to put up or shut up. He has three choices: Be a Democrat and do what he was elected to do, resign from the Senate and allow someone else a chance, or switch parties.

Nationwide, Democrats raise money for other Dems, and it is simply wasteful to support Ben Nelson in this way if he gives the finger to the party's priorities. At the state level, valuable party resources are wasted on the DINO. I hear so many people saying that they have voted for Nelson because he's "better than a Republican." I don't think so. He is worse. He takes our money, he takes our support, he uses our volunteers, and then he votes with the other party. He is not better than a Republican.

Senator Nelson, this is your last chance. Do the right thing, or get out of the way. If Nelson blocks health care, no Democrat should give a nickel to his campaign. For that matter, don't give to the Nebraska Democratic Party or the DSCC unless it is expressly stated that Nelson gets none of the money. Senator Nelson's constituents are his boss, not the insurance and pharma lobbies. He needs to understand this a little bit better.

Slayer On the Verge of Releasing New Album

(antimusic) For nearly three decades, bassist/vocalist Tom Araya, guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, and drummer Dave Lombardo have proven over and over, whether in the studio or on the concert stage, that there is Slayer and then there's everyone else. And they're about to do it again, first with the band's co-headline spot on this summer's Mayhem Festival, and then with the late summer release of their ninth studio album, World Painted Blood (American Recordings/Columbia Records).

Some dozen new songs comprise World Painted Blood which was recorded in Los Angeles over two time periods, during October 2008 and then between late January and March 2009. World Painted Blood was produced by Greg Fidelman, who's spent time in the studio with Metallica, the Gossip, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Slipknot and others, and executive produced by long-time Slayer colleague, Rick Rubin, who suggested Fidelman for the project.

Recording World Painted Blood was a unique experience for Slayer who has historically begun the recording process with all songs written and fully rehearsed. This time, in part to make sure they could work with Fidelman, they had ideas, but did the bulk of writing and song development while in the studio. "Writing in the studio was a new idea for Slayer," said Fidelman. "I think the fact that the songs were still new and fresh to them, and they hadn't been playing them for six months in rehearsal, kept the vibe and excitement in the studio very high."

"There are two principal music writers in this band, so you're going to get a combination of speed and heaviness," said Araya. "Kerry's writing is really aggressive and fast, while Jeff likes things to be fast, but with melodies and grooves. In making this album, we seemed to share the same vision from song ideas to titles; when we get together as Slayer, it just happens, nothing is contrived, it's not thought out, we just do it, and we did that with this new album."

The band members agree that Hanneman set a tone for the album early on. "Jeff's coming in so early with three new songs really added an energy that got us all going," said Lombardo, "and combined with what Greg brought to the equation, everything just fell into place and moved quickly. We had a great chemistry.

"On this album," continued Lombardo, "Jeff's gone back to this great punk energy, especially with 'Psychopathy Red.'"

The track "Psychopathy Red" was inspired by the heinous Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, aka the Rostov Ripper, who confessed to brutally murdering 56 children. "Psychopathy Red" had leaked onto the Internet well before November 2008 and has been streamed more than a half-million times since; it was released as a limited edition, blood-red vinyl 7-inch in April for Record Store Day.

"The new music has an '80s vibe to it, and I think that's because of the way we wrote it," said King. We were together during the writing process more than we had been before, and while my name will be on the songs I wrote, and Jeff's will be on the ones he wrote, there was a lot of interaction between us while the songs were taking shape."

Adds Lombardo, "On this record, we worked a lot more collectively, we were more attentive to each other's ideas and willing to try them, which only benefited the album. I'm really excited about the new album because of its diversity, the different elements that all of us contributed to it. And that includes Greg Fidelman who brought the band out of its normalcy, he got a lot out of us. We tapped into some new drum rhythms and new guitar riffs, and some really exciting music developed in the Slayer camp."

King, a close friend of the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, had the guitarist's guitar in the studio during some of the recording (although he didn't use it it during the sessions), still with the same strings that were on it the last time Dimebag played it. "The one thing that made me look at my lead playing a little differently was when Dimebag passed away," revealed King. "Not that I'm going to fill Dime's shoes because nobody can do that, but I paid more attention to my leads while recording this album. I wanted to make them more memorable in memory of Dime."

As World Painted Blood is a Slayer album, it deals with topics such as death and destruction, war, serial killers, and the Apocalypse. In addition to "Psychopathy Red," other tracks on World Painted Blood include "Beauty Through Order" (King: "one of Jeff's songs, it has a very heavy 'do me' intro to it then explodes with a really cool vibe,") "Unit 731," "Playing With Dolls" (Dave: an awesome track, great song structure, great vibe"), "Public Display of Dismemberment," and "Americon," a King composition. King explains, "It's about what I think the rest of the world thinks of America. We may not be big on a lot of people's lists, but I don't care what you think of my government, of my economy, or whatever. I live here and this is one of the best places that I've ever found to live. So f*#k you if you don't like it."

This summer's Mayhem Festival will mark the second time that Slayer and Marilyn Manson have co-headlined a tour together. "I had fun when we toured with Manson two years ago," said King. "Manson's a friend of mine and Twiggy's [Ramirez] back in the band, so it can only be that much better. We'll probably play two new songs, 'Psychopathy Red' being one of them - not sure what the other one will be. And, I'm curious to see Manson's set, I love watching him play because there's always something going on. It's going to be a great summer tour, a lot of fun for everyone."

Six Gold albums, three Grammy nominations and two wins, and countless other awards including being named "Best Live Band" in Revolver, SPIN, and Metal Hammer...after nearly 30 years, what is it about Slayer that continues to connect them with consecutive generations? Fidelman explains it this way: "Each guy has to be here for this to be Slayer. Individually, they are all really good at what they do, but when you put them in a room together, it creates something really unique - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. What those parts are, I'm still not sure, but when when you hear it, you know it."

Porn Actresses Lament Lack of Dialogue These Days

(New York Times)The actress known as Savanna Samson once relished preparing for a role. “I couldn’t wait to get my next script,” she said.

There’s no reason to look at them anymore, she said, because her movies now call almost exclusively for action. Specifically, sex.

The pornographic movie industry has long had only a casual interest in plot and dialogue. But moviemakers are focusing even less on narrative arcs these days. Instead, they are filming more short scenes that can be easily uploaded to Web sites and sold in several-minute chunks.

“On the Internet, the average attention span is three to five minutes,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment. “We have to cater to that.”

Vivid, one of the most prominent pornography studios, makes 60 films a year. Three years ago, almost all of them were feature-length films with story lines. Today, more than half are a series of sex scenes, loosely connected by some thread — “vignettes” in the industry vernacular — that can be presented separately online. Other major studios are making similar shifts.

The industry’s interest in scripted scenes has waxed and waned in recent decades because of changes in technology. In the early 1970s, movies with loose story lines, like “Deep Throat” and “Behind the Green Door,” won a mainstream audience, and others tried to copy their success, selling plot-centric movies to couples watching at home with the VCR technology introduced in 1975.

The falling cost of hand-held video cameras gave birth to a generation of pornographers with little interest in drama beyond a clichéd plot involving a pizza delivery boy, said Paul Fishbein, president of the AVN Media Network, an industry trade publication.

Mr. Fishbein said plot came into vogue again in the late ’90s with the boom of the DVD. Big studios, he said, figured plots would make their films more appealing to women and encourage couples to bring them into their homes — whether on disc or pay-per-view.

Plot-centrism was in full bloom in 2005 with the release of “Pirates,” about a ragtag group of sailors who go after a band of evil pirates.

That movie, with a budget of more than $1 million, had special effects (pirates materializing from the mist), and, yes, lots of sex. Two years later, the movie’s studio, Digital Playground, spent $8 million on a sequel — a remarkable sum in an industry where the average movie costs $25,000, according to the director of the two movies, Ali Joone.

But interest in DVDs has fallen sharply, Mr. Fishbein said, because the Internet has made it easy to watch snippets of video.

Mr. Fishbein estimated that pornographic DVD sales and rentals in the United States generated $3.62 billion in 2006 but had fallen as much as 50 percent since then. He says the slump has made some companies reluctant to share sales figures, so his estimates are getting rougher.

The big studios, like Vivid and Digital Playground, have turned to a subscription model, charging monthly fees for access to their Web sites and advertising the frequency with which they add new clips.

Mr. Joone said that of Digital Playground’s 60 productions this year, roughly 30 had little or no plot, up from about 10 two years ago. At Wicked Pictures, which averages one production a week, one-third are essentially just sex, twice as many as a few years ago, said the company’s president, Steve Orenstein.

“The feature is not as big a part of the industry today,” Mr. Orenstein said. But he says he still plans two to three bigger-budget releases each year, including the recently shot “2040,” which is about the pornography business of the future. Mr. Orenstein described the movie as “an almost Romeo-and-Juliet story between an aging porn star and a cyborg.”

In lieu of plot, there are themes. Among the new releases from New Sensations, a studio that makes 24 movies a month, is “Girls ’n Glasses,” made up of scenes of women having sex while wearing glasses.

“It’s almost like we’re back to the late ’70s or early ’80s when the average movie was eight minutes and just a sex scene,” Mr. Hirsch said, sounding wistful.

Some in the industry would prefer their sex with a little more character development.

Ms. Samson, for example, said she took her acting seriously and used to prepare studiously for her roles, like the character she played in the 2006 movie “Flasher.”

She said she played a psychotic who, because of the way her mother treated her, “had an obsession with flashing and doing things in public.”

“I used to have dialogue,” said Ms. Samson, whose given name is Natalie Oliveros, and who is one of the industry’s biggest stars.

“Getting it on in one hardcore scene after another just isn’t as much fun,” she added.

When The Going Gets Tough, Palin Gets Going

Quitting seems to be a pattern for Mrs. Palin. She has a lengthy history of bailing.

And what would Sarah Palin insanity be without her #1 defender, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, chiming in about Sarah being omnipotent or something; and claiming those who disagree with Palin about anything are not "real Americans." If Brzezinski isn't the dumbest person on TV, then she is in the Top 3.

It's interesting to note, then, that according to Mika Brzezinski, President Obama was elected without any "real American" votes, since Palin and her "crowds" represent the "real" Americans. Huh. Interesting concept. Great journalism indeed.

Gotta love that internet, Think Progress dug up this quote from Palin about female politicians complaining about excessive criticism: "When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, “Man that doesn’t do us any good — women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.”

Alec Baldwin vs. Joe Lieberman? I'll Take Baldwin, Please!

30 Rock star Alec Baldwin was recently interviewed in Playboy (the same issue with the Olivia Munn pictures) and was asked (again) if he'd consider running for political office. I wish he was serious about taking on Joe Lieberman.

Playboy: Will you run for office?

Baldwin: I'll put it this way. The desire is there; that's one component. The other component is opportunity. A law firm in a liberal Democratic bastion in Ohio state politics sent me a binder with a cover letter that read, "Mr. Baldwin, here's who we represent, the kinds of cases we handle, our credentials in Ohio state politics. We want you to move to Ohio and run for governor. We will launch your career."

Playboy: Could you live in Ohio?

Baldwin: I have sometimes thought I could move to New Jersey or Connecticut and run. I'd love to run against Joe Lieberman. I have no use for him. But it's all fantasy. I'm a carry-me-out-in-a-box New Yorker. Here, anything can happen. Who thought Eliot Spitzer would go down the way he did? Senator Hillary Clinton left to serve as secretary of state. Two of the biggest forces gone. Maybe Andrew Cuomo will run for one of their old seats. How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then?

Do I run for Congress on Long Island? What's Tim Bishop going to do? He represents my district. People get sick, die. They're offered lucrative deals and want to cash in and make money for their retirement. People misstep. Unfortunately, an opportunity for me may mean bad things for someone else. I don't wish that.

Catch My Show - "New Day Rising" TONIGHT

Make sure to tune in for tonight's "New Day Rising." The show is on live from 9-11 pm (Central) and is streaming at 897theriver.com.

Tonight, you can expect to hear music from: Wilco, Son Volt, Grizzly Bear, Oneida, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Howling Bells, The Dandy Warhols, Dinosaur Jr., Dirty Projectors, and much more. I hope you can make it.

Cool St. Vincent Video - Just Felt Like Sharing

Girl in a Coma TONIGHT at Waiting Room

Sorta new-ish rock trio from Texas, Girl in a Coma, is playing tonight at Waiting Room. GIAC is a cool band, and I've been playing them a little bit on my show. They are signed to Joan Jett's Blackheart Records. Nice.

Loved This Pic

Found at bgalrstate.blogspot.com

(Huffington Post) South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has backed out of a promise to release personal financial records proving he did not use state money for trips to see his mistress.

Why Do The Republicans Hate This Guy So Much?

Note: The following was written by Benjamin Sarlin in January, after Al Franken was initially certified the winner of the Minnesota senate race. All interviews were conducted at the time.

(The Daily Beast) With Tuesday's Minnesota Supreme Court decision, Al Franken's long journey to the Senate may be coming to an end. But his unique role as the Democrat the right loves to hate the most will continue no matter what.

Though legal wrangling may prevent him from being immediately seated, comedian Al Franken was certified the winner in Minnesota's Senate race today with a lead of 225 votes, putting an end to a weeks-long recount battle. With the usual hapless Democrats failing to generate much outrage, Franken is in line for an even more prestigious honor: the right wing's favorite punching bag.

"Al Franken is a very tempting target because he is so outrageous," said Republican strategist Brad Blakeman. "It's similar to Joe Biden—we hope that Al Franken is the gift that keeps on giving."

Bill O'Reilly called Franken "a smear merchant and a rank liar unqualified for any elected office," and "a far left extremist" who "traffics in hate."

Franken's prominence comes at a time in which Republicans have struggled to find an easy Democratic bogeyman. Barack Obama is still overwhelmingly popular. Hillary Clinton, formerly the party's nemesis, earned a newfound respect among conservatives as the voice of moderation on withdrawal from Iraq. Rod Blagojevich is too local. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are a particular favorite of Matt Drudge, but relentless attacks on them failed to prevent heavy losses in 2006 and 2008. Ted Kennedy, suffering from brain cancer, is off limits.

So Franken provides an inviting target. His style of politics runs directly counter to the civility preached by the incoming president. Franken is author of the bestsellers Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, which trashed conservative talk hosts like Bill O’Reilly and baited some to respond with their own heated attacks.

Even while on the campaign trail, where Franken tried to project a senatorial gravitas, he found time to hit the right where it hurt. Politico reported that he was behind one of the most brutal Saturday Night Live sketches of the election, in which John McCain approves a series of increasingly horrifying attack ads against Obama ("Barack Obama has fathered two black children...in wedlock").

If Obama's strategy is to dial back the blue/red civil war to a detente, Franken's is to escalate it to World War III. Now Franken is poised to become that rare politician whose very existence is a wedge issue to be exploited.

For GOP talkers and apparatchiks, Franken's resume is almost too good to be true. He pushes such time-honored Republican buttons as hatred of Hollywood entertainers (in addition to Franken's own celebrity, many top stars have donated to his campaign), anti-elitism (he’s a Harvard graduate), and prudishness (his dirty jokes were a constant source of attacks during the Senate campaign). As if that weren't enough, commentators like Sean Hannity have suggested that the complicated recount process has been less than aboveboard, raising the specter that a Franken win will be illegitimate.

FOX News commentator Bernard Goldberg, who has been criticized in Franken's books, believes Franken is a natural target for conservatives, given his high profile and combative style.

"I think what irks conservatives more about Franken than other liberal Democrats is that a lot of liberal Democrats are nice guys," Goldberg said. "Franken is seen as a mean-spirited, nasty guy—a smart ass."

Goldberg added that it's "sort of fun to take shots at him," but if Franken adopts a "grown-up" attitude in the Senate, he might spare himself becoming the right's favorite nemesis.

"It's going to be a two-way street," he said.

One Republican political consultant, Stephen Marks, warned that GOP officials should lay off Franken unless he provides clear justification for their wrath, as pre-emptive attacks could come off as “desperate” and work to the Democrats' advantage.

Marks added that Franken will likely be on his best behavior after he takes office.

“Don’t expect anything crazy out of him,” Marks said. “The last thing he needs to do is reinforce the image of a comedian who got elected. He has to get the respect of his peers in the Senate.”

Even before his Senate run, however, Republicans experimented with using Franken as a proxy attack on other politicians. In 2006, the Ohio GOP issued a news release attacking Senate candidate Sherrod Brown for associating with Franken that included a Photoshopped picture of the comedian in a diaper. During this year’s campaign, Michelle Malkin described him as "an angry, unstable man." And Bill O'Reilly called him "a smear merchant and a rank liar unqualified for any elected office," and "a far left extremist" who "traffics in hate."

After the recount started and the race became the only electoral game in town, conservative pundits piled on, too. "The reason he won't quit is he doesn't know how to get a real job," Rush Limbaugh told his listeners. "The idea that this country is now a sitcom is exemplified by how close that stupid election was in the first place."

Whether Obama will succeed in installing a new civility is anyone's guess, but if there's anything Franken's victory makes clear it's that the president-elect's plan for reconciliation is not the only game in town. Look for the Al Franken show to be the tonal opposite of change we can believe in.

That's Hebrew For DAYOM!

I'm Sold

Another one of those finds that make me so thankful to Al Gore for inventing the internet.

FINALLY!! Senator Al Franken!

Catch My Show - "New Day Rising" TONIGHT

Make sure to tune in for tonight's "New Day Rising." The show is on live from 9-11 pm (Central) and is streaming at 897theriver.com.

Tonight, you can expect to hear music from: Film School, Amazing Baby, UUVVWWZ, New York Dolls, Girl in a Coma, Mos Def, Silversun Pickups, Little Brazil, and much more. I hope you can make it.