And now, that insightful commentary my discerning readers have come to expect from yours truly. Today's topic: Bush's latest poll numbers.

No fucking shit. He sucks.

My name is Nevsky, and I will be your guide on this musical journey...

Nothing better to do, so why not just comment on the songs as they play on my personal Launchcast Plus (tm) radio station? In their "tell us what you like and we'll play you what you think you like" system, only a zero removes a song from a playlist completely. Fifty means the song's in medium rotation, and anything over 80 is probably going to get played as soon as you turn the damn thing on again (unrated songs have either shown up for the first time or I was too lazy to rate 'em).

Here we go...

Oasis - "All Around the World" (rating: 90 out of 100)

Aaaaah, a nice one. And one of the only two songs that are worth a damn on their album-length tribute to cocaine, Be Here Now ("Don't Go Away" is the other one, but anyone who's listened to the album more than twice could have told you that). That album killed their career, but this song was a good coda. I wonder what happened to Bonehead...

Smashing Pumpkins - "Ava Adore" (unrated)

This album was a career-killer too IIRC, but I also liked this song a lot more than anything from the last album. I've got a soft spot in my heart for people who lack a sense of self-consciousness, and Billy C.'s incredibly pretentious songs and videos could either be home runs or cringeworthy failures, but we're all better off that people like him exist. Well, as long as you don't have to personally interact with him...

Interpol - "Evil" (rating: 54 out of 100)

This brings me back to DC last year, when I saw them at the 9:30 Club along w/my sis, and then later at the HFStival in Baltimore. One of the few bands I listen to incessantly that didn't get their start in the mid-80s to early 90s. And don't you just love the end of the first chorus, where they build up and build up and then cut out, leaving that super-cool bass lick?

Bronski Beat - "Smalltown Boy" (unrated)

Ooooh, that song. I've heard it before but never knew what it was, thought it was Erasure... Lessee, apparently Cure fans recommend this song. Not feeling it, let's skip...

R.E.M. - "Everybody Hurts" (rating: 60)

I've absolutely ruined this song for anyone else that has had the misfortune to listen to it in the same room as me by singing along to it.

Later...

It's time for Ceeeeeeeeeeee-lebrity Ceeeeeeeeeeeeeee-...Corner.

Spanning what I bother to look up within 5 minutes in the entertainment world...

* In the grand tradition of LL Cool J vs. Kool Moe Dee, Ice Cube vs. NWA, and Jay-Z vs. Nas, here comes...K-Fed vs. Thomas Dolby.

C'mon, Tommy Boy! Blind him w/science! Call in the Pirate Twins, and Howard the Duck! What're ya pavarottis gonna do now, MIS-ter Spears?

* Congrats to Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris "head-so-weirdly-shaped- Dave-Matthews-does-a-doubletake" Martin on the birth of their second child. Moses. Which is a relief, I was afraid they were going to go with Banana Martin.

* I guess Prince has enough money. Too bad, I would have loved to watch him try to choke down the bile. And each AI contestant should have been forced to come up with their own unpronounceable symbol...here's mine: Җ (I could spell it out for you, but actually pronouncing it would cause the world to cease to exist in a white light of philosophical recursion, and besides, I always forget to include the silent q.)

Christ, what an idiot. (Non-George W. Bush-edition)

Perhaps my frustrations stem from the fact that from the President on down my federal representatives are vacuous dimbulbs who have coasted on the accomplishments of their far superior fathers to build themselves a nice cozy political career for which they are certainly not qualified and even their party allies are finding increasingly hard to defend.

Dubya? Need I say more (yes, but I won't today). George Allen, with his well-deserved reputation for idiocy in the Senate and his recent comments that he is running for President out of boredom, is one of the few people that can look at GWB and say "yep, I can do worse".

And then there's Virgil Goode. Who? You may have heard of him recently, as he has ties to the recent scandal that took out Duke Cunningham. But his most recent appearance, alongside bibble-bibble-oatbran Tom Tancredo, sets a new low for political discourse, with a repulsive race-baiting strawman statement that he'll probably use in his upcoming election campaign (and one, sadly, he'll probably win). But let's dissect the statement; I'm not sure how he knew the demonstrators waving the Mexican flag were illegal immigrants, since the last time he visited the border was '97, and I must have missed his rabid protest against flag-waving at the St. Patrick's Day parade (why not? He had as much knowledge of the legal status of the flag-wavers at that rally).

Of course, a nice xenophobic statement like that can make people forget current events, a tactic used by such successful politicos as Diamond Joe Quimby.

Well, his statement, and the ultra-right-wing's attitude toward immigration in general, have been noted and criticized by such pinko commie liberals as Bill Kristol, but I fear that we will once again turn our focus towards the new crisis destroying our country (now that we've taken care of that gay marriage, WHEW!, that was a close one!)

Meanwhile, thank you, Congressman Goode, for taking an incredibly complex social concern and reducing it to the most provocative and least helpful level you possibly could. I'd like to think you're ashamed, but you're probably not that self-aware.