Taken to not sucking

Belle and Sebastian were really great for a few albums. Then, recently, they got really bad. People who know more than me suggest it's because they became more egalitarian with their songwriting. Stuart Murdoch, architect of the early brilliance, began handing the songsmithery over to his bandmates. The result, as evidenced by their most recent LP Dear Catastrophe Waitres, is utter cacophony with the only really good songs being those written by Murdoch. But even those aren't much fun to listen to because they're surrounded on all sides by dissonance and disco-throb.

Point being: Belle and Sebastian have re-released all their non-album EPs in one place, covering the years 1997-2001, when they were great, good, then at least listenable. Here, in one place, are all the songs I found on Limewire but never saw in stores.

Rejoice.

Action: unspecified

Look here--and I'm serious about this--if you keep down the path you're on, there's going to be trouble. I mean it. You better back off, because if you don't--and I promise you this--our actions will be unspecified. The consequences of which have yet to be determined.

And don't expect us to back down either.

A missing theistic link

William Saletan spins a hell of a fossil record metaphor in his description of the evolution of Intelligent Design theory:

Like its creationist forebears, ID is theistic. But unlike them, it abandons Biblical literalism, embraces open-minded inquiry, and accepts falsification, not authority, as the ultimate test. These concessions, sincere or not, define a new species of creationism—Homo sapiens—that fatally undermines its ancestors. Creationists aren't threatening us. They're becoming us.

I wish I'd written that.

No abstinence, no aid

Brazil is now the first country to decline a US grant for AIDS relieve because US money requires that the recieving country not use the funds on any real programs. The money has to go toward promoting abstinence. Quoth FMF:

Brazilian officials feel that condemning prostitution will damage efforts to protect sex workers from contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS, a group that has the highest risk of contracting AIDS.

According to the Associated Press, because Brazil’s prevention and treatment model includes working with sex workers, gay men, and injection-drug users, top Brazilian AIDS officials believe that signing the pledge would only hurt their AIDS efforts.

Hopefully this is a sign that the Bush doctrine of throwing money at poor countries to force them into way-right morality is losing steam.

All the money in the world, applied to a bogus remedy, is no kind of cure.

Now if only that would translate to all of our nation's public schools, we might be getting somewhere.

Microsoft changes stance again

They will now once again support gay rights initiatives before the Washington State legislature.

CEO Steve Ballmer said: "if legislation similar to HB 1515 is introduced in future sessions, we will support it."

Probably had something to do with disproving the argument God plus Hutch is enough.

Cowards. Since not wanting to seem too gay backfired, Microsoft is now trying to not seem too anti-gay.

This is why big companies eventually will stagnate and fail. They stop innovating and become reactionaries.

Probably to be continued later . . .

Holy of downloadable holies

Pitchfork, this very day--Just now, a second ago--began offering downloads of the singles they review daily.

The whole song. Right now.

Sufjan Stevens and The New Pornographers inaugurate the revamp. Both have LPs I'm looking forward to enormously. And now you don't have to take my stupid words for it. Not that I suspect any of you ever did. Except Mike. He'll buy anything.

Since it takes roughly two days after a Pitchfork album review for the various internets to become flooded with whatever obscure band they're calling the next Arcade Fire--from nothing to 12,000 hits on Limewire--this is a nice headstart.

Going vegan

Scientists have discovered a massive cache of dinosaur fossils in Utah that seem to be evolving into herbivores from the line of carnivores that includes Velociraptors.

Over millions of years these beasts went from long-legged, hook-toed Jeff Goldblum harrassers to squat, long-necked grass-gnawers with smaller claws and bigger hips [to accommodate the larger bowel systems needed by herbivores].

Discoveries of such an evolutionary path are fairly rare and are awesome.

Here's a picture of the little dickins. What remains unclear, though, is why every artists rendition of a dinosaur depicts the animal freaking the hell out, tail lashing, screeching, choking on it's own tongue. Falcarius utahensis needs to take a chill pill.

Civilization's death knell

When IGN.com and the new KFC Snacker team up, weeping follows.

The fan-selected IGN/Snacker 100 greatest videogames of all time, it appears, was voted on by a disproportionate number of 5 year olds and blunt-trauma victims with no long term memory.

From a set consisting of all videogames ever created, John Madden Football 2005 is number 22. Meaning that, in the opinion of these mouth-breathers, an updated roster and minor gameplay changes make Madden 2k5 so much better than 2K4 as to essentially render the previous 30 years of videogame history a mere footnote toward the glorious genesis of this lumbering corporate regurgitate.

Everything up to now has been useless, with the exception of the latest Ratchet and Clank.

IGN is a sociological experiment masquerading as a videogame website. Their studious chronicling of America's videogame tastes has changed my opinion of eugenics.

The insinuation of spin

Crap, Britain, you're begining to look like America. Before you respond with, "Fuckin a, 'bout time," note that I mean in terms of the marketting of policy.