South DaCola music club w/ G & R

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I wish I would have gotten this album (Lies) before Appetite for Destruction. It has a much rawer sound and you can tell Axl is actually trying.

Review by Ensio N. Mikkola

I am a huge fan of Guns N’Roses (see my slobbering review of “Appetite for Destruction”) and I regret the fact that they imploded just as they had reached their creative peak. Here’s a nice little snapshop of an L.A. hair metal band (with a ‘tude) coming up through the ranks, kicking butt and taking names as they went along.

“Reckless Life”, like the entire A side (I still think of this as a cassette tape) was first released on the unattainable “Live! Like a Suicide EP”. The song just tears your nuts out. There’s some classic Axl wailing and a classic Slash guitar solo. “Nice Boys” is a Rose Tattoo cover and it’s not bad. Kind of rough around the edges. “Move to the City” is another cover but I can’t remember who wrote the original. “Mama Kin” is also a decent cover of an Aerosmith classic. This is pretty standard stuff – one original song and 3 covers. But then we get to the B side. There’s some budding song-writing talent here with the gentle “Patience”, with it’s whistling intro and acoustic guitars. “Used to Love Her” is a hilarious country-ish song about killing and burying your girlfriend in the backyard. “You’re Crazy” would end up on the “Appetite for Destruction” album, amped and speeded up. But this version is superior. “One in a Million” is a controversial song but perhaps one of the Gunners best slow songs. In my opinion, these are the only Guns albums you need to own.

Pinocchio Palin

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The Associated Press closely watched Governor Sarah Palin, the GOP’s VP pick, at last night’s RNC convention and has outlined the many ways she exaggerated and lied.

Right or Left, a lie is a lie. It doesn’t matter where on the political spectrum you are, right?
These are not ‘personal’ digs, mind you.
She’s lying on the ‘professional’ stage, y’all.
Check out Pinocchio Palin’s

claims and the truth:

PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

The AP report also showed how Palin’s champions have exaggerated the Alaskan governor’s ‘acheivements’:

MCCAIN: “She’s been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America’s energy supply … She’s responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. I’m entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain’s phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she’s no more “responsible” for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: “She’s the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under “federal status,” which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska’s national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.”
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor’s election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: “We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

 

 

We say if the ‘means’ are shady then it must mean the ‘end’ is shady.
No more shade!

 

AND MORE FROM Moveon.org

Did you watch Sarah Palin’s speech? The speech told us a lot about her.

It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she’d be a great pick.

It told us that she can be condescending and dismissive of the real work Barack Obama did helping real people on the South Side of Chicago. It told us that she can uphold the long Republican tradition of lying about Democratic tax cuts—even though Obama’s plan would give Americans a bigger break than McCain’s.

But the speech—written by one of President Bush’s speechwriters—didn’t tell us the truth about Sarah Palin’s extremist positions. And the more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. (There’s a partial list below.)

Palin’s speech and the reaction to it also made clear why McCain picked her. It wasn’t a decision about who’s most qualified to serve a heart-beat away from the presidency—it was a political decision about pleasing the far-right base of the Republican party.

Here are a bunch of points you might want to include in your letter:

  • Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is “God’s task.” She’s even admitted she hasn’t thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, “I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” 1, 2
  • Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to “keep up the good work” and “wished the party luck on what she called its ‘inspiring convention.'” 3
  • Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn’t made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.4
  • Palin doesn’t believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being manmade.” 5
  • Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. 6
  • Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn’t even support abortion in the case of rape or incest. 7
  • Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She’s said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. 8
  • As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, “news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.” 9
  • She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said “thanks, but no thanks” to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks “while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.” 10

The plain fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin did a bang-up job delivering a Karl Rove-style political attack speech last night. That makes her a skilled politician but it doesn’t make her views any more palatable for voters. Americans don’t really want another far-right, anti-science ideologue in the White House.

P.S. If you haven’t seen it, check out the Daily Show clip on Palin. It’s worth a watch 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24753&id=13709-4107648-NnsO7Sx&t=5

Sources 
1. “Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’,” Associated Press, September 3, 2008 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24701&id=13709-4107648-NnsO7Sx&t=6

2. “Palin wasn’t ‘really focused much’ on the Iraq war,” ThinkProgress, August 30, 2008 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24702&id=13709-4107648-NnsO7Sx&t=7

3. “The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008 
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

4. “McCain and Palin differ on issues,” Associated Press, September 3, 2008 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24703&id=13709-4107648-NnsO7Sx&t=8

5. Ibid

6. The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008 
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

7. Ibid

8. Ibid.

9. “Mayor Palin: A Rough Record,” Time, September 2, 2008 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24704&id=13709-4107648-NnsO7Sx&t=9

10. The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008 
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/