Another Top 20

Since my interest in music has been rekindled recently I am now going to do a top 20 musicians and singers of all time. This will be my personal, subjective ranking.

So what will it include? Lots of rockers. A few country-western artists. One each from the genres of R&B, Jazz/BigBand, and Blues, and one from Electropop (I think you can guess who that will be).

What will it not include? Classical musicians. Even though I had a fair amount of classical training in my early years, I have not kept up with classical musicians enough since then to rank them fairly. I considered including Van Cliburn, but have not listened to him very much either.

Except for the one Jazz/Big Band singer, there will not be any mention of jazz musicians. Jazz can be excellent but I have not listened to enough of it to even know who the best singers and musicians are in that genre.

Another group you won't se are rap/hip hop. I like a lot of rap: Public Enemy, 2 Live Crew, Ludacris, Jay Z, and many others. But they really belong in a different category of art altogether.

So here we go....

#20 Paul Simon




With or without Garfunkel, he was and still is an excellent singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Lady Gaga Goes Six for Six

This week, Gaga's hit Telephone will go to #1 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart. The Goddess of Music continues her campaign to turn the world upside down.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Sugar Prices and the Price of Protectionism

Those who advocate government intervention in the economy oftten try to claim it will help the many at the expense of the few. The reality is that the opposite is often true. Government intervention usually helps a few at the expense of the many. This problem can be seen at its worst in the case of sugar import quotas.

Due to severe quotas on the amount of sugar that may be imported from foreign countries to the USA, our domestic wholesale price of sugar is 35 cents per pound, versus only 20 cents in other countries. The result is that American consumers are paying 15 cents per pound more to American sugar growers than they should be.

Most of the sugar in the USA is grown in western Palm Beach county, in south Florida. This is land that was once the northern part of the everglades, a unique ecosystem that exists nowhere else in the world. The conversion of the land to sugar cane fields has disrupted the natural flow of water from lake Okeechobee to what is left of the everglades to the south in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. What is worse, the sugar growers release fertilizers into the water that pollute the southern everglades.

The purpose of the sugar import quotas are allegedly to protect American jobs. However, from what I have seen, most of the workers in the sugar fields are illegal immigrants and are paid abysmally low wages.

You Like Fat Chicks?

Donna Simpson already looks like a ball of blubber. Not content at a mere 600 pounds, she's aiming for 1,000.

An obese mother in the US is trying to put on weight in order to become the world's fattest woman.
Donna Simpson, from New Jersey, weighs 273kg but told the Daily Mail newspaper she had her heart set on reaching her goal weight of 1000lb (450kg) in two years.
The 42-year-old already holds the title of the world's fattest mother after giving birth to her daughter in 2007 when she weighed 241kg.
"I'd love to be 1000lb ... it might be hard though, running after my daughter keeps my weight down," Ms Simpson told the Daily Mail.
Ms Simpson, who needs a mobility scooter to go shopping, eats huge amounts of junk food each week and tries to move as little as possible so she doesn't burn off as many calories.

So what does the man in her life think of this?

Her 49-year-old partner Philippe — who she met on a dating site for plus-size people — was encouraging her to reach her goal, she said.
"I think he'd like it if I was bigger ... he's a real belly man and completely supports me," she said.

To each his own. I prefer my women Gaga-sized.

Hot Air: The Movie

Jungle Jim sez check it out: http://www.failedsenator.com/

I can only look at Howell for so long...

Why Does Howell Appear so Unhappy?

If I looked like him, I wouldn't be very happy either.

Howell Raines: Socialist Moonbat of the Week

We are well acquainted with Howell from his days as executive editor of the New York Times. He took a leftwing rag and turned it into the US version of Pravda.

Now we get to read Howell's opinion of Fox News' role in the debate over the Democrats' attempts at nationalizing the health care industry:

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

You gotta love the sheer chutzpah of this guy. Fox News' propaganda campaign against the 0bama administration is 'without precedent in our modern political history'? And what of the propaganda campaigns that the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and NBC conducted atgainst the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II administrations?

Howell claims Ailes has 'overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II'. This has got me howling with laughter. Is there anything whatsoever fair or objective about the way the aforementioned 'mainstream' media have been reporting the news over the last several decades? The likes of Howell have reported nothing but news tinted by leftist bias. Virtually every one of their reporters and editors are Democrats.

'This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue.' That's exactly what it is Howell. Your group have maintained a virtual monopoly over the news for years. But now, because of Fox News, talk radio, and the internet, that monopoly is rapidly dwindling. That's what you're so angry about. You and other members of the left CAN'T STAND IT when someone voices an opinion that disagrees with your own.

Some more gems from Howell:

It is true that, after 14 months of Fox's relentless pounding of President Obama's idea of sweeping reform, the latest Gallup poll shows opinion running 48 to 45 percent against the current legislation.

Howell, I must say you have quite a huge respect for Fox's powers of persuasion. If only it were that simple. But if it's true then how come you poor bastards at the New York Times, WaPo, NBC, CBS, et al, who far outnumber Fox, are unable to persuade people in the other direction? You must be really lame.

I suspect the true reason that most people don't want this 'sweeping reform' is because they realize that government control over any sector of the economy is likely to result in disaster. Our federal government has proven itself many times to be incompetent at virtually everything it does.

For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party.

Howell, please spare us. Even if it is true that Fox is biased in favor of the Republicans, it is a small thing compared with the massive bias in favor of the Democrats on the part of the New York Times and your fellow 'mainstreamers'. No one is stupid enough to believe the utter crap you are spewing.

Like something from a dream

Like something from a horror movie

So Where's MTV?

You would think MTV would be involved in a big way with the premier of Lady Gaga's epic new video. Instead they were totally absent. What was once the pioneer of music videos is almost completely removed from them. They have turned into a reality show channel.

Its amazing that there are many people alive who are not old enough to remember when MTV and VH1 played videos 24/7.

T - Minus Six Hours and Counting

Until the Telephone video premiers on the E! channel at 10:30 pm CST.

0bama Administration to Meddle in Foreign Trade

Not content to have ruined the financial, insurance, and auto industries, the marxist 0bama administration have now pledged to double exports in five years!
As if anything they do will automatically help the economy

Calling on the United States to "up our game," President Obama today pledged again to double America's exports over the next five years, as first called for in his State of the Union address.
“We shouldn’t assume our leadership is guaranteed,” Obama said in front of the Export-Import Bank’s conference, “When other markets are growing, and other nations are competing, we need to get even better. We need to secure our companies a level playing field. We need to guarantee American workers a fair shake. In other words, we need to up our game.”
The president addressed the group’s annual conference in Washington, DC to outline initial steps his administration is taking to achieve that goal within what the administration is dubbing the “National Export Initiative.”
This morning the president signed an Executive Order creating an Export Promotion Cabinet – made up of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, the U.S. Trade Representative, Small Business Administrator, the Export-Import Bank President, and other senior U.S. officials – to support the effort. That cabinet will convene its first meeting next month and will make recommendations to the president going forward.

Hey 0-bomb, do us all a favor and stay out of trade and out of the economy in general, You've 'helped' it enough already.

Is Winter Finally Over?

No thanks to Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Mann, Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, et al. They want us to freeze in the dark.

Breach of National Security

I'm a big fan of Jay Z and Beyonce. But that doesn't mean they should be invited into the white house situation room:

Rapper Jay-Z’s apparent visit to the White House Situation Room reveals a radical departure from the last eight years of security policy, according to a senior Bush administration official.
“During the Clinton administration, tours were permitted of the Situation Room, people who could get a West Wing tour could also see the Sit Room. Soon after the Bush 43 inauguration and after we found out about it, we stopped the practice and I believe the only exceptions had to be okay’d by either the chief of staff, national security adviser or the deputy chief of staff,” the official wrote in an e-mail.
A twitter user named Linda posted pictures online of Jay-Z in the Situation Room along with his entourage and wife Beyonce during a White House visit. An e-mail to White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton asking if the pictures do in fact show Jay-Z in the Situation Room has not been returned.
According to the Bush official, who was present for a remodeling of the Situation Room in 2006, “We made very few exceptions to the rule, usually a visiting foreign dignitary attending a meeting there or someone without a clearance who needed to be briefed in that facility for some reason.”

Institute of Physics Questions Integrity of Climate Science

For many years, the left have used the excuse that there was a 'scientific consensus' and that the science behind climate change was 'indisputable'. Most people left it at that because most know little or nothing about science. However, now scientists in fields other than climatology are weighing in on the subject:

The Institute of Physics, which represents 36,000 physicists across Britain and the world, has told a Commons inquiry into Climategate that the controversial emails at the centre of the storm represent "prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions".
In short, the IoP has called into question the integrity of the entire field of climate change.
The Commons science and technology committee is interviewing key climate scientists and global warming sceptics. The standard of the interrogation on the first day was tame and the protagonists merely restated their arguments.
The star witness, Professor Phil Jones - the CRU's head and the sender of most of the hacked emails - was let off particularly lightly, his most damning admission probably being: "I have obviously written some really awful emails."
Far more interesting are the written submissions to the inquiry, including that from the Institute of Physics.
Although it has been made abundantly clear that the inquiry is not about whether global warming is actually happening, the IoP criticises one of the fundamental slices of evidence behind the assertion that we are currently experiencing a period of unprecedented global warming.
In the absence of actual recorded temperatures, scientists have used 'proxy data' – for example, tree rings – to determine average global temperatures over the past 1,000 years. However, in the final few decades of the 20th century, the proxy data has been jettisoned in favour of temperatures recorded on modern instruments. The IoP is critical of this method:
"The [Climategate] emails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions," the IoP states. "For example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC [the United Nations climate panel], of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements."
The IoP also suggests the scope of the Common inquiry should be broadened to include not only the CRU, but also the entire field of climate science.
"Most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change," the submission reads. "In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is [a] need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field."

"One fine day in August 2008 I was shooting street style for style.com in the Meatpacking District. My editor and I were trolling for stylish folks when we happened upon the young woman posing above. When we approached her she was shopping with her mom but took a moment to pose for a photo. After taking three frames I asked for her info and in a very serious tone she responded, I am Lady Gaga - a singer/songwriter. It took all my energy to not break into hysterics, needless to say I let out a laugh later that day."