The Victorious Opposition

Report card time, time to grade the president

Now hit submit and check out how he is doing so far…............holy cow!!!

Ya know, I could see a foxnews poll with these kind of results, but CBS? They are right up there with CNN, NBC, and the NY Times as the preeminent water carriers for the Obama Administration, how could this happen?

I gave Obama a passing grade for both Afghanistan and Iraq (not great, but passing) and also for social issues (he is a socialist after all), these issues should be front and center with him. And if enthusiasm was a criterion, I would of passed him on health care as well (since this is all he talks about) but direction matters and the people have finally figured out that when he talks about government run health care, it has nothing to do with health care and everything do to with government power and influence.

No one considers polls like these scientific, or even reflective of voters as a whole, but you have to admit, a MSM poll that drastically tilts this unfavorably could be more revealing than we had imagined, and could go a long way in defining the real push behind reconciliation.

Tea Partiers!  Planes crashing into the IRS!  Dog owners forced to pay fees!  That’s just the US.  Meanwhile, there’s rioting in Greece and massive unrest in Iran.

Anti-government sentiment is on the rise everywhere and it’s time for the VO to catch anarchy fevah!  Give me your best music for rebellion, civil unrest, disobedience, and antidisestablishmentarianism.

Up with the barricades!

One upside of being unemployed and having a dual-tuner TiVo is that I’m going to get to watch a crapton of Olympics this time around.

We’ll start off with the obligatory Bugler’s Theme by Leo Arnaud:

Looking forward to ski-jumping and quad jumps:

Not sure how much Winter Olympics-theme music we can find, so as a fallback, we can do Canadian bands:

Some enterprising folks have set up the DC Snowmageddon website to counterbalance our latest display of global warming this weekend. Here’s some tunes:

Holy crap. Talk about flying pop-tarts. She’s absolutely lip-synching this, but wow:

(YouTube keeps taking down the clips; here’s a link to the official video)

Given how horribly bad the Taylor Swift/Stevie Nicks “Rhiannon” duet was, this was a breath of fresh air. Taylor Swift needs to think about lip-synching, because well, she sucks…

I still have no grand theme idea, but we haven’t had a DJ thread in a few weeks, so here’s one just because:

Because Mrs. dwex has a job:

oh, that ‘80s hair…

Because I’m going to Law School:

Because Law School probably means the end of my World of Warcraft addiction (at least, it’s going into remission):

Have at it

This one’s easy.  Best music of the last decade.

Let it fly.

My favorite song of the past decade:

A great one from the past year.  Santino and kevinmkr should like this:

From 2001:

Please, please, please: tell me what did NOT suck about this decade.  Show me that it wasn’t just terrorism, compassionate conservatism, and Obamanomics. 

A cover:

Please Let Me Get What I Want by Muse.

Best band to come out of this decade.  Why not play two?

UPDATE: I didn’t notice at the time, but MW wanted to see the worst music of the past decade.  If you have anything, throw it in there too.  Let’s do songs, albums, and even performances.

Things like this:

I’m traveling up to Philly bright & early next Friday AM, so I’m doing this now. Feel free to do another one next week.

And feel free to celebrate whatever winter holiday you feel appropriate.

First, Mannheim Steamroller’s rendition of “Carol of the Bells”, set to lights (from the description: “There are 42,000 lights on 320 Light-O-Rama light channels.”):

Greg Lake (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and King Crimson) did this song in the mid-70s, in protest of the over-commercialization of Christmas:

(Interestingly, he “borrowed” the main theme from Prokofiev’s Lt. Kije Suite (the “Troika” section)).

In keeping with Rich’s thread from earlier this week, the lyrics to this Kinks classic are apropos:

Your turn.

I heard a great old track on Sirius/XM’s “Deep Tracks” station while out running errands yesterday and I thought this would be a great idea for a Friday theme.

When you think of Dire Straits, you usually think of “Money for Nothing” or “Sultans of Swing”, but I think this is one of their greatest tracks. Back in their heyday you’d hear this on the radio, but not much any more.

Foreigner was one of the prototypical “arena rock” bands, but one track from their first album is really pretty different. This is the only (I believe) Foreigner track without Lou Gramm singing lead; it’s Mick Jones, the lead guitarist:

The Moody Blues are known as one of the original progressive rock bands with works like “Nights in White Satin”, morphing into an arena rock band in the early 1980s. But their first big hit was very, very different from their later work:

I remember when I had the opportunity to meet rich in person, he told me that his premonition was that I would probably do well where I am at right now. He wasn’t wrong, I have been very fortunate in my new environment. I have a promotion, I’m taking control of my business, and I am learning. Key point. I am learning something new everyday. A new business, more about our process, and yet more with my continuing education. I have to say, I’m “fuller than a tick” and “happier than a bed bug in a rug”, and asking for more. I’m doing my best to take the bull by the horns, and willing to acknowledge that where I am it will take some careful planning and extra time to get to even the next level. In honor of this, I propose a toast to success:

Love that Canadian. But there’s more jovial music to entertain us:
The Good Life-Kanye West
My focus has really shifted to this new page in my life that has been turned after taking time to lick my finger. I know things aren’t great out there, but I have been reading a lot about how to make myself happy, and I really am fortunate after getting myself tuned into the frame of mind. Things really aren’t so bad, if you just think about it. So, it’s a festive day at the VO, if you want it.

It’s late in the day, admittedly, so I won’t spend a lot of time on the description.

Anybody have songs about giving thanks?

Or just some music they’re grateful for?

Thank you, Elastica.

Facebook is great for finding people you haven’t spoken with in forever. In the last couple of months, I reconnected with my very best friend from my high school days; we lost touch shortly after college as our lives moved in radically different directions. Just a couple of weeks ago, I connected with another high school friend, someone who helped me through a transitional phase when I was straightening out my life after the major part of my rebel phase; I finally got to thank her, which I’d regretted never doing for 25 years. I’ve reconnected with my good friend from college, the one who started me down my path to the marriage equality fight, and got to show him this essay I wrote in which he was a key protagonist. And I reconnected with another close college friend who I lost touch with close to 20 years ago when she moved to Israel.

This is the original version of Michael W. Smith’s “Friends”, which was a duet with Amy Grant on his first album. There are better videos of the new version he did a few years ago, but I still prefer the original:

We’re not quite old enough to be the people in this song, but I’ve loved this song for a long, long time:

And a classic rock track:

I saw this the other day and thought ,“Oh brother, here we go again”. Yet another parent deciding that his dismal life needs some excitement ,“And since I am such a loser, with absolutely no chance whatsoever of performing a totally singular act myself, I will drag my son into controversy, showing the world that I (we) are special after all”.

First things first, it is not news that some snot nosed 10 year old does not want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. This putz is still fresh in people’s memories. And it is not news for parents to place their children in positions of controversy. We ran a few posts last year concerning children getting suspended for having the temerity to sport a “McCain for president” t shirt. Many parents can’t get passed the notion that their kid is not special, he is but one of thirty other kids in the classroom, and not deserving special treatment. So why is Will and Jay making the news? Silly, isn’t it obvious? Because his cause is so politically correct, just flesh out “Liberty and Justice For All” by invoking gay marriage, now why didn’t we think of that?

It should be pointed out that he did not get in trouble for refusing to pledge, this happens all the time, no, it was that snitty high fallutin’ response of ,“Mam, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge”. Nice, not satisfied with making a statement, or standing up (sitting down) for a cause, nope, he has to get sassy about it.

The kid says that he has many good friends that are gay, really? It wasn’t so long ago when my son was 10 and it seems very odd to me that sexuality would manifest itself at such a young age. And giving him the benefit of the doubt that some 10 year olds might feel “different”, peer pressure is a bitch and kids can be cruel, and it would be job number one for any kind in that position to act as normal and “same” as every other kid. Personally, I think this is BS.

His pain in being called a “gaywad” is a perfect example. Kids immediately target “difference”, its been that way like forever. The school should nip this in the bud and most of them do. We have all read stories of kids that were picked on or singled out in school, and the trauma that was caused.

And isn’t it interesting that the parent immediately thought of CNN, and the chance to talk to a local newspaper? Here is his chance to get some attention (which he wouldn’t of gotten on his own) by coaching his son to use code phrases like “media awareness” and “discrimination against homosexuals”.

I am glad that the reporter informed the both of them that the democratic process has played out in every state that it has been tried. But instead of launching into a discussion about the evils of a mob or the Republican nature of our system, he fell back on that which was drummed into him ,“For their truly to be liberty and justice for all, gays must be allowed to marry”.

Somebody should also clue the both of them in the fact that liberty and justice for all is a pledge we as Americans make to each other, it is a never ending battle to provide these to everyone, an absolute right granted to us as citizens. Equally, there will always be racism, sexism, ageism, bigotry, and unfairness to some degree, that is what the “Pledge” is for.

Now shut up and go do your homework.

Even those fun kids over at Huffington can’t reconcile the simple fact that the “We distort, you decide” network is eating everybody’s lunch when it come to ratings.

Fox News has pulled off another dominant quarter, claiming the top 10 cable news programs in 3Q 2009 and growing against 3Q 2008, while CNN and MSNBC lost substantial portions of their election-boom audience.

Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter, up 2% over the previous year. That’s more than CNN (946,000, down 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined.

Top 10 news shows, top 13 out of 15, yep, anyway you slice it, the once great and powerful CNN has capitulated.  Axing Lou Dobbs (27 years with the network) has salvaged little of their dignity. Larry King is even considering boiling a frog in hot water, it couldn’t hurt his ratings. One has to wonder how a network that was America’s first stop for news for so many years, has fallen so far, so fast. Wonder no longer:

CNN is just now finding out that Sarah is hot!!!

Yes, you guys look like grade school hacks when an SNL skit draws scrutiny. How embarrassing.

Most people discovered long ago that the MSM with CNN leading the way promotes an agenda that betrays their mission statement. They stopped reporting the news years ago, they now provide analysis and commentary, and free fact checking whenever their guy gets lampooned.

Maybe it was a good idea for the Obama attack dogs to declare war on Foxnews. If exposure and scrutiny is unwanted, then surely that news organization that is not in your pocket has to be marginalized on all fronts.

The good news is that information abhors a vacuum, so other outlets for news dissemination have appeared. But those organizations will get equally short shrifted if it makes the same mistakes CNN has made, and sell their souls for an ideology.

I remember those tumultuous times of the 80s. Any of you young bucks trading in your diapers for training pants don’t even know the stress that America was under when we had an actual Super power enemy to deal with. I sure do remember those days, and the fall of the Berlin Wall was something that I can’t forget (since you’ll never forget where you were on 9/11 like I won’t). What was going on back then? A lot, any of our European members will have some very candid memories to share about what it might be like to live in a world where Germany was separated in two, western Europe was the only Europe, and the “Iron Curtain” left a bad taste in the mouth of the entire free world. What did the music reflect in those day, you ask? Some things come to mind:

Maybe it all rings hollow in retrospect, but damn…At the time, this created children. Speaking of east end and west end, Berlin wasn’t the only place of turmoil. The English were steady fighting a war of terror against some who were seemingly their own.

Granted, it was the seventies they were singing about, but those Irish boys wasted windpipes on political emotion. There’s plenty to emote these days, our world is seemingly in no better place, except for the fact that I can’t find an artist who doesn’t talk about 20” rims instead of the impact of political events on our lives.

A tribute to those in the backyard of the conflict, and any of those who risked the top 40 to talk about what was prescient:

The Berlin wall, I don’t think i could imagine a concept like it in today’s world. It was tantamount to slavery, worse than terror, and has made my mind reel more than anything other. Having lived on both sides of the pond, a VO salute to one of the successes Europe and America can both hang our hat on, and really, did we ever get along so well as those times?