Tag: culture

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Coldplay = Bad

Okay, seriously…Coldplay sucks…they really do…they are absolutely no good and their “music” is heavily overplayed. It makes me not want to listen to radio ever (not that I do often…but since there weren’t any good stations in Kirksville for my five years there, I’ve been trying to listen in St. Louis…).

I don’t really know why I bring this up, honestly…I guess I’m just wondering why people like them? They aren’t original, the guy sings way too high pitched for comprehension…there are various blog postings from people who hate them…some more amusing than others… Here’s even a review by the New York Times (June 5, 2005) that just trashes the album and the band…

The band plays and writes songs for the high school crowd, just like the boy bands did…songs made to make money…to make little high school girls fawn over them with their sappy, uncreative lyrics, most of which have been ripped off other, better songs… Frequently, Coldplay is considered to be a lesser, sappier, Radiohead imitator… They haven’t been innovating like the Smashing Pumpkins, Dave Matthews Band (and the other “jam bands,” like OAR, or even the Grateful Dead), or even U2…so what gives?! Coldplay is just a lighter version of Nickelback…seriously…same music, but slower and more depressing…

So…why the hell do people like them so much? Please. Answer me that. I don’t understand. I mean, I guess I don’t understand why the “boy bands” were so successful a few years back…but I can go with hearing the “Macarena” again rather than another Coldplay song…

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Well played…

step up on soap box

From an article at ABC News regarding the most recent “Intelligent Design” trials in Dover, TN (which you all should be paying attention to…since the U.S. Constitution itself is being undermined and trivialized…), the following was quoted. “Miller” refers to Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University; “the statement” refers to a reading that the faculty at Dover’s public schools have to read prior to discussions on evolution in science classes, also offering an “alternative” textbook that was referred to by me in a previous posting…:

The statement read to Dover students states in part, “Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered.” Miller said the words are “tremendously damaging,” falsely undermining the scientific status of evolution.

“What that tells students is that science can’t be relied upon and certainly is not the kind of profession you want to go into,” he said. “There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory,” he added. On the other hand, Miller said, “intelligent design is not a testable theory in any sense and as such it is not accepted by the scientific community.”

During his cross-examination of Miller, Robert Muise, another attorney for the law center, repeatedly asked whether he questioned the completeness of Darwin’s theory.

“Would you agree that Darwin’s theory is not the absolute truth?” Muise said.

“We don’t regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth,” Miller responded.

Well played, Miller…well played… Indeed, the beauty of science is that things can be proven and disproven, including Newton’s Laws (and in some instances, they’ve been proven wrong…quantum physics, for example…). Intelligent design advocates, however, are unwilling to allow for proof/disproof (because what they advocate cannot be proven or disproven). Therefore, by definition, what they advocate is not science at all and has no place within the science classroom (except for mention that theories alternative to evolution exist…I have no problem with that…it’s just treating theories other than evolution as “just as plausible”…’cause there aren’t any…).

…I just love how the Constitution is being tossed around like it’s nothing by folks…it was written for a reason, protecting civil liberties and separating church and state. It was done for a reason. That’s the way it should stay, or we may as well rename our country as “Saddam’s Iraq: where you have to believe what I tell you or I kill you.”

step down from soap box

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Oh, arrogance…

You know, I’m sure I’ve had some arrogant moments in my lifetime…but seriously… I was watching “The Daily Show” tonight and Stephen Colbert did his usual “This Week in God” bit, generally talking about Hurricane Katrina and how multiple conservative Christian groups were trying to give evidence that it was a sign from God… During the clip, he showed a few clips from our good friend Pat Robertson…

…who apparently…now has his own diet shake…I kid you not…

Have you been by Pat Robertson.com lately? I certainly have… It’s kinda funny just to read the links off the main page, where multiple links are directed at clarifying statements that the idiot has made (…about Hugo Chavez, during an interview with George Stephanopolis, another regarding Liberia, etc.). The man really is full of himself, and certainly has a lot of people believing him… I really wish I could say that he has his heart in the right place, but I can’t…I just think he’s insane…

I guess when I open up the newspaper next week and see that good ‘ol Pat took some people on a “religious outing” to Waco, TX. with the FBI in tow, I won’t be too terribly surprised…

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The Music Industry

So the new Switchfoot album came out on Tuesday and Brooke and I decided to buy it. Well, I was looking it up online to see how much it cost at various places and I noticed that the CD is copy-protected. This means that Windows users can find it difficult to copy the music on the CD to their computer, let alone to another CD. After discovering this, we decided that it’d be cheaper to just buy the CD through Wal-Mart’s music download service (Brooke had done it before…), getting the CD (plus an extra “promotional song”) for $9.44. This way, it’d not only be cheaper to buy the CD, but it’s also already be in a digital format, making it easy to burn the CD (as we would have done anyway).

…well…we downloaded the album and got all the tracks. Brooke listened to the first one to make sure it worked, and it did. Then she tried to burn them. Wouldn’t work. Kept popping up various copy-protection error messages. Not. Pleased.

I ended up having to call Wal-Mart’s music service to ask what was up. Apparently, to burn the files, you have to download them to your computer, then open up each one in Windows Media Player, thereby prompting the download of a license for EACH SONG. So I had to sit there and open up each song manually in WMP…and then could only burn it using WMP (not Nero, or some other CD burning software). Not. Pleased.

So we jumped through the hoops and got it burned. Now, I’m ripping the album into .mp3 format using a program called CDex, which is a). completely free and b). can get around copy-protected CDs. In order to get around it, you need to make sure that you put the CD in your computer and DON’T run the “autoplay” software…’cause when you do that, it installs some license crap on your system, preventing you from copying or ripping the album. Just open up CDex and rip it into your preferred format…

This crap also comes up at the same time that the music industry is trying to get Steve Jobs to raise the prices of music downloads at iTunes. There’s a full article, but to quote a key part:

“To have only one price point is not fair to our artists, and I dare say not appropriate to consumers. The market should decide, not a single retailer … Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past … We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don’t have a share of iPod’s revenue … We want to share in those revenue streams. We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only.” — Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music Group CEO

So, Steve Jobs said last week that the music industry is greedy for trying to raise prices on iTunes downloads…and Bronfman gave the reply seen above. I think Jobs was proved right, eh?

Mr. Bronfman, the minute you stop paying talent-less “musicians” millions of dollars a year just so that they can continue living extravagantly, then I’ll consider listening to your comments… The music industry apparently has plenty of money, otherwise “artists” like Britney Spears, P. Diddy, Jennifer Lopez, and Jessica Simpson wouldn’t be raking it in every year. How about you drop their salaries to something reasonable (like…hell…$200,000 in a year…sound good enough?) and use the extra revenue to a). stop complaining so much, and b). find some good artists to promote… Otherwise, you and your company don’t need that kind of cash…it could be better spent feeding a third-world country…or hell…this country…

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Of Paltering and People

So, a “palter” is a lie, for the record… Secondly, I refer to a book that is being pushed in Kansas and other states/communities that masquerades as a science “textbook” known as Of Pandas and People.

I only bring this up because I’ve been watching “The Daily Show” this week while they’ve been doing their “Evolution shmevolution” series, looking at the “evidence” for or against evolution, intelligent design, etc. Overall, there’s been something of a liberal bias (…not unexpected…), visiting sites like Dover, TN (the side of the Scope’s Monkey Trial) and talking to the conservatives there (they’re like those crazy townies that live in the trailer park on the other side of town…freaky, yo…).

Anyway, last night, Lewis Black brought up this book…and actually showed it to the audience. He showed the cover…and then slid it around to its side… The stupid thing is only 170 pages long!!! How much “science” can you learn anything from a book like that? There are some classes in college where you read that much in a night! I also found this website (web hosted by the Kansas Citizens for Science) by a professor at Brown University and he points out some serious flaws, places in this book that the author (Percival Davis) refuses to acknowledge (like extinction…something we know to be fact, but it isn’t mentioned in the book). An excerpt:

“When I first opened the pages of Pandas and read the fine words presented by its authors in the name of free and open inquiry, I expected a text that might genuinely challenge students to examine the assumptions of what they had learned and evaluate scientific theory in an objective manner. To say that I was disappointed is to put it mildly. What I found instead was a document that contrived not to teach, but to mislead. The many errors and misrepresentations that inhabit the pages in Of Pandas and People will, quite honestly, serve to hinder teachers as they attempt to cover the stunning range and diversity of contemporary biology.”

So yeah, let me line this out… Scientists and most teachers don’t agree with the book. The politicians are pushing it on teachers. Can’t we trust the teachers and scientists to know what to teach in their classes? Do we want politicians coming into our classrooms and teaching? Do they even have a right to dictate what teachers are supposed to teach their students? It’s bad enough that teachers are having to teach their classes based on standardized tests and can’t teach what’s really important…

…important like…oh…I don’t know…real scientific studies and evidence rather than dogma? 😛

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…relatively amusing…

In an article posted on Yahoo! News about how poorly the box office did this summer…the following was mentioned:

“A documentary about a bunch of birds, March of the Penguins (15th place, $63.6 million), outgrossed the Ridley Scott epic Kingdom of Heaven (21st place, $47.4 million).

To this, I simply smiled… 😀

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Isn't it ironic…

…dontcha think?

“Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” — Cardinal Christoph Schanborn

That quote comes from an article posted at New Scientist, submitted by Steve Hosack.

I’m not even going to comment on this except to say that the irony of the statement is staggering and ignorant. I’m very glad I’m not Catholic… 😛

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Isn’t it ironic…

…dontcha think?

“Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” — Cardinal Christoph Schanborn

That quote comes from an article posted at New Scientist, submitted by Steve Hosack.

I’m not even going to comment on this except to say that the irony of the statement is staggering and ignorant. I’m very glad I’m not Catholic… 😛

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Stoopid the Pat Robertson…

“Brooke…well, I checked the news tonight…Pat Robertson wasn’t killed…”
— Andy Linsenbardt

So yeah, this guy has been pissing me off lately… First of all, John Stewart (“The Daily Show”) did a little news bit (click on the “Prayback Time” link on this page) showing Robertson on “The 700 Club” praying that more Supreme Court justices are “removed” from office so that more conservative forces can take over…saying that the Supreme Court justices as they stand today are the “number one threat to America today.” Secondly, I was watching “Today” on NBC this morning and they mention that Robertson yesterday called for the assassination of the Venezuelan president because he’s looking to allow Communism into his country.

The actual quote:

“You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Robertson said. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

Seriously…what the heck… The man was praying for the deaths, ailment or retirement of Supreme Court justices on national television. This doesn’t really send a good message about prayer, no? …and suggesting that we knock off someone in another country that is (currently) not even threatening ours? Is he going to call for the assassinations of the leaders in India and China because they are Hindu/Buddhist instead of Christian? Obviously they’re terrible people because they don’t believe the same things we do, I guess… Good thing Pat Robertson is around to make these suggestions. I don’t know what we’d do without him around.

Here’s a great site about him… 😉

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A link, poker table, and AoE II

So yeah, in the same vein as all the evolution posts from the past week or so, Andy S. sent me this link…which is rather amusing… 😛 It’s an open letter to the Kansas state school board…and is very, very sarcastic…

I approve whole-heartedly… 😉

In other news, I think I’m going to wait to build my poker table until I’ve paid some more bills and get my paycheck next week… I haven’t quite decided whether to build a table-top (i.e. fit it on top of our card table) or build an actual table (you can buy folding legs at Home Depot for, like, $20…). I think I’d be happier with a separate table, but we’ll see…

…in other news, I am getting in practice for our AoE II playing this weekend…I can take on a single “hard”-rated computer character and win…sometimes it takes me awhile, though… Back in my prime, I would take on 2 “hardest”-rated computers…but that was Sophomore year…been awhile……