Friday, January 18, 2008

Crinch Pin's Late Night Music Club with Voivod

I started listening to this Montreal band when I was about 13. And man, these guys stand the test of time. This is the old school Voivod, not the new "Jason Newsted from Metallica" version.
Voivod covers Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine in this one.
Check it out...and remember, this is from 1989.

Mainstream Media Acknowledges The National ID Card

Papers Please!

MSNBC Hack David Shuster Calls Ron Paul "The Al Qaeda Wing of the Republican Party"

David Shuster, appearing on Morning Joe on MSNBC, decided to continue on with Chris Matthews insane diatribe from his visit to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Matthews was comparing different GOP presidential candidates to rivaling tribal factions in Iraq. He said that Huckabee and Thompson are like "the fanatics, the Shia wing", while Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are "the more moderate Sunnis", with Romney as "the Kurd". Ridiculous on its own already, especially the "moderate" McCain and (huge laugh) Rudy Guiliani part, Shuster decides to go one better. He blurts out, "I think it's a great analogy, I mean Ron Paul is the Al Qaeda wing of the Republican party". This smug asshole just grins while saying this and you can see a very uneasy Joe Scarborough immediately after the comment. Check it out.




If this kind of shit pisses you off as much as me, regardless of which candidate it is, then email MSNBC. I did. Here's what I sent em'.


I am completely sickened by the comments of David Shuster on your show about Ron Paul being the "Al Qaeda wing of the Republican Party". This is beyond low and completely uncalled for. This is the kind of crap that gets people canceled. You not only need to apologize to Ron Paul but to all of America for cheapening the politics even more than some of these horrible candidates already do by themselves. This is why people are leaving television "news" for the internet. I liked a lot of what you had to say, Joe, but now just can't even stomach to watch even a clip of your show on You Tube. Sad, really.

Ron Paul is a class act,and that's pretty obvious. Its funny how he chose to compare the peace candidate to a terrorist organization. I guess "War IS Peace", "Freedom IS Slavery", "up IS down" and "Black IS White". Matthews, by the way, sounds like he needs a vacation. He's completely lost it. First, the whole "Life is a campaign" thing, and now this? Whether you like Paul's positions or not, he does not deserve this kind of treatment.

...and you guys know it.

If there's any of the "good" Joe Scarborough left in you, then I'd hope you'd get mad about this too and do something about it. I know I'd be ticked off is somebody tried to soil my show and my name with this kind of obvious transparent hackery.

(fade in thrash metal riff)

Bobby Fischer: 1943 - 2008 - RIP



Bobby Fischer was a divisive figure in American culture. With an IQ believed to be above 185, he was considered a "high genius", and there is little doubt that his superior intelligence was both his greatest asset and his mortal enemy.

Fischer was known first as the greatest American chess player, becoming the youngest player ever to achieve the status of International Grandmaster at age 15. Renown for showing his opponents no quarter, he would literally crush them on the chess board with his devastating style and utterly original strategies. He eventually ascended to World Champion after several hard fought defeats, yet Fischer's national fame came during the height of the Cold War while defending his crown against the Soviet champion Borris Spassky in 1972. The press and the public saw this chess match as a proxy for the international political issues of the time, and Fischer's decisive victory rocketed him and the game of chess to stardom in the US.

In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his championship against Anatoly Karpov because they could not agree on the logistics of the match, about which Fischer had many bizarre requests. He lost his crown by default, and basically disappeared from competitive chess for the next 20 years.
He would only emerge to make incongruous and racist public remarks, and in 1992, to play a rematch against Spassky in the former Yugoslavia. The US Department of Treasury warned Fischer his participation in the event (namely the collection of the winnings) would put him in contention with a UN Embargo against sporting events in that country. Fischer won the match, and then promptly disappeared again to avoid prosecution. Since then he accepted political asylum in Iceland, renouncing his US citizenship.

Throughout his life, people close to Fischer witnessed a man slowly devouring himself. His public life and behavior became more and more bizarre culminating in a lashing out at Jews and comments that America "got what they deserved" after 9/11. His anger, paranoia, and vitriol for his fans, opponents, and his country never ceased. I hope in death, he finally finds peace. RIP.