Top 50 Pop Albums, 2004

As collated by pitchforkmedia.com. If pop makes good ideas stick, then this pop will make them stick good.

Nevermind the absurdity and apparent subjectivity of a list that purports to accurately rank Loretta Lynn on a continuum that includes Madvillain, Scissor Sisters and Brian Wilson, such meta questions miss the point. This is all good music, and a lot of it you've probably never heard before, so read the blurbs and buy something.

Then burn it and send it to me, I'm poor.

If a mere fifty albums isn't enough for you, or perhaps you want to make a database and do some cross-referencing, The 25 reviewers who contributed to the big list have top 50 lists of their own. My calculator says that's 1250 separate musical opinions in one place.

Gregoire Wins?

All that money-spending seems to have paid off for the Democrats and the horse they backed for Governor of Washington. Concluding the hand recount, Gregoire won by 8 votes initially and now leads by around 130 votes.

I don't know what this means, do the Republicans have any recourse? Rossi thinks so, but the Democrats say no--obviously.

In a new wrinkle, Rossi might get some help from Alaska. Quoth the Times:

Washington, with one of the country's most liberal provisional-ballot laws, sends ballots to the voter's home state in hopes they can be counted in the presidential election, said Washington's director of elections, Nick Handy.

Apparently at least one of the ballots that ended up in Alaska had a Tacoma address, which would mean the person who cast the vote might be eligible to vote in Washington.

The Times says Rossi's working on getting ahold of the ballots that made their was to Alaska certainly, but also to find ballots sent to the other 48 states. Handy says it's too late to count them. I wonder if his position is a partisan one.

Shit gets weirder.

Vagrant lives better than me

"Dorsay had tapped into the bridge's electricity to power a television, microwave, space heater and PlayStation video game system. There he could relax and, on occasions, turn on a Chicago Bears game, invite friends over and pop open some beers."

Courtesy of minusworld.

No more late fees in 2005

Says Blockbuster. Spokespeople promise selection will remain crappy until forever.

Making your baby less dead

This site retouches pictures of your stillborn babies. The site is pretty lo-tech, so let's hope this person is not getting much business.

You have a loss, a loss that no pregnant couple even wants to think about. When it happens to you, there is shock and indescribable sorrow. . . It has been my experience that often these cherished photos are all too graphic, showing a damaged baby, not the beautiful child you remember giving birth to. [my emphasis]

Feeding on your stress-triggered delusions, he'll touch up your photos to better help you repress and seal away your trauma, letting you get on with your unhealthy and destructive cycle of anger and denial.

Further highlighting this man's deep evil, he has a gallery of before and after pictures.
Perhaps his worst crime, in the end, is being really bad at Photoshop.

Do you like it?

Did that myself.

Are the unadorned images more evocative? Discuss please, I've done something on a lark and I don't know if I've been bad.

Number 2 cause of cell phone death

Is the desire to look better than you actually do. 300 Swedish retailers said the biggest cell phone killer was droppage, but a close second was tight ass pants.

"To put it in perspective, tight pants break more phones than dogs, children, rain, snow, acts of forgetfulness and throwing phones to the ground in a rage."

Full list

Poor nations now poor economic bloc

Cuzco, Peru -- the twelve South American nations that aren't French Guiana entered into a political and economic pact that "would give them a stronger voice in dealing with the United States, Europe and Asia."

The South American Community of Nations is essentially a merger of two existing free trade entities, Murcosur and the Andean Community of Nations, along with the inclusion of Chile, Guyana and Surinam. Former Argentine president Eduardo Dualde said the integration process should take about two years.

Thank God the CIA has been balls deep in South America low these many decades, murdering reformers and bringing dictators to power, or we might have had another (See: SE Asia, See also: EU) threat to our global economic hegemony.

As it stands now, hope of a "stronger voice" is more a long-term projection than an immediate benefit.

These twelve countries, when formed like Voltron, will almost--almost--scrape together a Gross Domestic Product to rival India. Though, to their credit, they kick the hell out of the African Union.

The SACN will also have a higher per capita income than the former Communist Bloc countries, the Commonwealth of Independent States, none of which knew what money was until like 10 years ago.

Also:
Wikipedia: South American Community of Nations

Old, blind invalids find new votes

Washington State's hand recount is underway. Here's a great page courtesy of the Seattle Times showing the current numbers on a county by county basis. This is getting fun.

Although the more densely populated areas, Seattle's King, Tacoma's Pierce, Spokane and Yakima counties, haven't begun to count yet, so far a total of 244 newish votes have been found. Gregoire has picked up an extra 108 and Rossi now has 136 more than previously thought.

The county with the most intrepid senior citizens and or worst mechanical counting procedures is Kitsap, which accounts for 154 of the 244 new votes.

Let them eat tax breaks

Canadian provinces get to keep their gay marriage.

Cleared in the courts, Paul Martin is expected to introduce legislation to allow same sex marriage nationwide, which would bring more parity to same-sex couples in the provinces of Alberta, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Northwest and Nunavut Territories.

Prohibiting same-sex marriage has already been declared unconstitutional in Ontario, BC, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory.

Alberta's Justice Minister, without saying how, has vowed to fight nationwide legislation. Good effort, but people seem to agree it's a losing battle.

Elsewhere, the Edmonton Sun was quick to declare: Albertains not the most intolerant.