"Mommy, Mommy, I wanna ride on Nevsky's Musical Journey!"

"No, sweetheart, you know after you ride on Nevsky's Musical Journey you puke your fucking guts up just like Daddy after one of his self-loathing benders..."

Strap 'em in, kids. Fasten your seat belts, too, and turn on my Launchcast station...

The Fall, "Jim's 'The Fall'", rating: 98

A ramshackle song from an incredibly shitty album (even the liner-note writer for the Greatest Hits album calls this one "difficult"). Recorded at the height of Mark E. Smith's "too drunk to give a shit" phase, this song's the only really good one. An incredibly fuzzy straight-out-of-Mel-Bay's-Guitar-Book lick and lyrics, when you can decipher them, devoted to the Spinal-Tap-esque recruitment of new band members.

By the way, those guys singing "We are the new Fall" in the background? They aren't.

Cocteau Twins, "Ella Megalast Burls Forever", unrated

I loved Blue Bell Knoll when I was a high school student; hell, I still love it now, but I don't have a cassette player. But how can you tell other people about how great the songs are when they're called "The Itchy Glowbo Blow" and "Suckling The Mender"? Frickin' precious bastards...

Ultra Vivid Scene, "Mercy Seat", rating: 70

I love how this song tricks you into thinking your earphones aren't working and then blows out your fucking eardrums. This song takes me back to a time when MTV would actually play a good song but you had to wake up at 3 in the morning to hear it...

Orgy, "Fiction (Dreams In Digital)", rating: 60

I like this song because it reminds of Rush. It's the perfect song to paint Warhammer miniatures to...

Ride, "Vapour Trail", rating: 100

If I like a song, I'll play it over and over and over again. And over. I'll stick the CD player on "repeat" and keep it going for about hour a day or so until I get sick of it. Usually that'll take three or four days; George Harrison's "What Is Life" lasted about three weeks. I don't know how many times I've heard this song in the last six months, but I'm not tired of it yet...

I'm guessing y'all are tired of riding NMJ, though...

My buddy Samuel L. Jackson just called me and said "Nev, forget motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane, this is something fucking unbelievable."

Jim Webb is beating George Allen. Click on the state of Virginia to see the poll.

Then contribute to Webb's campaign.

FUCKING SNAKE GET OFF MY DICK!

If you see one movie this year with snakes on a plane, make it Snakes on a Plane. It's THAT GOOD...

Now, was that so hard?

Since it took him two weeks to actually apologize, it must have been, but at least he did it...

Hey, it's a Virginia politician even more clueless than George Allen!

Jim Gilmore, the former governor who ran this state into the ground, was even less popular than poison ivy when he left office, and arguably single-handedly paved the way for two successive Virginia Democratic governors in a pretty red state, is thinking about running for president.

And I say fine. It's about time Dan Quayle got a good laugh...

Allen's in deep macaca...

...and he's got no one to blame but himself.

Webb never had anything but an outside chance before, and the way he was running his campaign, frankly, didn't make me optimistic about his chances, unless, of course, Allen did something really, really stupid.

And to make matters worse, Allen's own tracker doesn't seem to understand the difference between tracking and stalking.

I still think Allen's going to win, he's just got too much money. But the best thing about this whole sordid incident isn't that it's going to get people to change their minds, but it will make people take a look at Jim Webb for the first time.

And if people see the opportunity to replace a incompetent Bush parrot with a reasonable moderate, well, Allen's got no one to blame but himself.

Let's use Occam's Racist Razor here...

Senator Asshole first said it was because the young man had a mohawk (he didn't), then he gave the asshole apology ("I'm sorry if you were offended"), and now, of course, it's the media's fault.

Let's remember that he could have just kept his big mouth shut. When even the Washington Post is noticing this remark is somewhat suspect, it's hard to give Allen the benefit of the doubt...

...especially since when it comes to racism Allen doesn't really deserve it...

Update: Americablog's take on the asshole apology is so awesome I had to quote it:

No, Senator Allen. The proper response is "I'm sorry," period. Or even better, "I'm sorry I called you the French word for 'nigger.'"

Wow, what an asshole...

...but then again, I wouldn't expect anything better from George Allen...

Oh for heaven's sake...DON'T EAT THE BABY!

 


Captions, anyone?

Maybe it's a perfectly innocent editorial choice, but really, why not mention this?

In , this article detailing Virgil Goode, Jr.'s dealing with the defense contractor MZM, reference is made to the company's founder "plead[ing] guilty to making more than $1 million in bribes to a California congressman".

Really, why not mention that congressman is Randy "Duke" Cunningham, currently serving seven years in prison for accepting those bribes?

Granted, tying Goode to the larger Republican culture of corruption is a job for Weed's campaign, and editorials like this one illustrate the way some in the Senate are working to deal with the larger issue, but minimizing the relationship (one in which Katherine Harris is also involved) seems to be a non-neutral choice as well.