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""We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans." - Former President Jimmy Carter.

Coretta Scott King was laid to rest Tuesday after a six-hour service attended by four presidents and 10,000 ordinary people who came to pay tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement - and one of its last icons. But at an event designed to remember the lady who was as memorable as her late husband in fighting for civil rights, politics entered the fray with both former President Jimmy Carter and Rev Joseph Lowery taking swipes at the Bush Administration. They say that there's a time and a place, and while this was clearly not the place, with thousands of Katrina victims (mostly African-American) about to be evicted because of budget cuts by the Bush administration, was it the time?
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It was that inevitable stomach-churning phone call in the middle of the night. The one we all had been dreading for years. The caller was choked with emotion. His words fell like bricks:

" You heard about Jaco?"

Jaco Pastorius bass virtuoso rediscovered. Photos and sounds and perspectives.
comment posted at 4:00 PM on Feb-8-06

Sweden to break oil addiction? (BBC article): Released in a in a public statement the Swedish Minister for Sustainable Development (!), Mona Sahlin, sets forth the goal of a Sweden free from the dependence of oil by 2020. As this Altnews article says, this is essentially just a reaffirmation of a stated goal. Still 2020, is not far off.
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Recent surveys show that fast-food packaging makes up about 20 percent of all litter, with snack foods comprising another 20 percent. Oakland, CA is the first city to tax companies who create "Fast-Food Trash".
comment posted at 11:20 AM on Feb-8-06

All Your Oil Are Belong To Us. Coming off of a recordbreaking profitable quarter, the good chaps at ExxonMobil laugh at your puny attempts to get off of oil.
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Science is better: An enormous scientific study has conclusively demonstrated that "diet had no effect" on rates of women getting cancer or heart disease. Because the study investigated the efficacy of overall low fat diets, rather than the more recently developed hypothesis that saturated fats are the only pernicious kind, some leading medical researchers accept these findings but still think there MAY be a direct link between certain diets and major health problems in women, but (and here's the money shot) "if they did a study like that and it was negative, then I'd have to give up my cherished hypotheses for data." Now that, my friends, is a heartwarming example of one of the pinnacles of human creativity, the scientific method, which is under so much attack these days. . .
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The Oyez Project has placed online mp3s for all of the arguments from the 2004 term of the United States Supreme Court. The 2004 terms spans all cases argued between October 4, 2004, and April 27, 2005, including United States v. Booker and United States v. FanFan, Roper v. Simmons , Raich v. Gonzales, Kelo v. City of New London, McCreary County v. ACLU, and Van Orden v. Perry. [slightly more inside]
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He wasn't asked. He didn't tell. Now he's out — and discharged. Eye-opening tale of Jeff Howe, courtesy of Raw Story. After 9/11, feeling personally unfulfilled and wanting to serve his country, Howe enlisted at the age of 29. Knowing he was gay but realizing that Army guidelines forbade his kind, he re-entered the closet, underwent basic training, and was shipped to Iraq. After a two-year stint on the front lines, with five commendations, he returned stateside. Then he was stop-lossed, shipped back to Iraq, and started writing a blog. That began a chain of events that, through no apparent fault of his own — or loose lip-flapping — led to Jeff Howe and the Army parting company.
comment posted at 10:13 AM on Feb-7-06

Motown history traded for Super Bowl parking. (mostly audio) The Motown Center in Detroit was torn down a few weeks ago and turned into Super Bowl parking. Although not the main recording studios, and long abandoned, it still contained many Motown documents and memorabilia, most of which were lost in the razing. Covered by local bloggers: dETROITfUNK (1, 2) , Detroit Blog (1, 2, 3, 4), and Kempa, plus local tv.
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MusicFilter: Rosanne Cash has in many ways followed in her father, Johnny Cash's footsteps as an independent artist critical of the industry and radio marketing. Black Cadillac, her first album since the death of her mother, father, and step-mother in 2003 was released in the shadow of the better known biopic Walk the Line. Reviews that are not obsessed with the movie tie-in appear to be generally positive: Canoe (orig Winnepeg Sun), Rolling Stone, and Metacritic.
comment posted at 1:43 PM on Feb-6-06

Apparently Gus & Pam enjoy the Star Wars films.
comment posted at 8:43 PM on Feb-6-06

Jerome Bettis is a hometown hero. After "leading" (OK, he doesn't play much anymore) his Pittsburgh Steelers to Super Bowl XL in his native Detroit, the locals came out to celebrate the future Hall of Famer. Last week was declared "Jerome Bettis Week" in Detroit and Bettis was awarded the key to the city. The last person to receive such an honor from the city? Saddam Hussein in 1980.
comment posted at 9:23 AM on Feb-6-06

Brokeback To The Future.
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Feb-4-06

The Six String Sonics are about reinventing the guitar. The conventional guitar has many limitations. For example, it binds the player to chords that one can hold with one hand, or melodies that can easily be reached with one hand. As a result, guitar compositions have come to sound very similar to each other. We created Six String Sonics to rid the guitar of these limitations, and make room for more possibilities in composition. A video of their debut perfomance. [embedded MOV file]
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The Day the Music Died. Everyone knows 47 years ago Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper were all killed in a plane crash after thier last concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. But it seems as if not everybody agrees about the date of rock-and-roll's demise.
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Feb-3-06

Rumsfeld likens Chavez to Hitler - expels diplomat in tit for tat
meanwhile the American Family Association calls for a boycott of Venezuelan owned Citgo (obviously encouraging more support for gulf arab regimes). The Venezuelan grandmother I recently spent a Sunday with was very happy with Chavez - and proud of him despite his faults and corruption in the country. What's with Rummy and friends?
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Is Google the new Netscape? With GOOG having taken a tumble Wednesday and falling more than $12 so far today, it's not unreasonable to ask... also why is Gmail still in beta when I've been using it for over a year now?
comment posted at 1:31 PM on Feb-3-06

Let's Play Genocide MTV's Darfur Digital Activist online game contest has posted the four finalist teams' prototypes for voting. In Fetching Water, "you are a Darfurian trying to to make it the well to get water without becoming a victim of the Janjaweed." When do social impact games cross the line from raising awareness into trivializing?
comment posted at 11:24 AM on Feb-3-06

Then: Q - Mr. Secretary, on Iraq, how much money do you think the Department of Defense would need to pay for a war with Iraq? Rumsfeld - Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question. And now: The estimated cost to US taxpayers of the Iraq war to date is $250 billion and rising, or $100,000 per minute. Total cost of the Bush doctrine of spreading "democracy" since September 11th -- half a trillion dollars, or nearly the cost of the 13 years of the Vietnam War, adjusted for inflation. What else could we have done with that kind of money? Also see here.
comment posted at 10:36 AM on Feb-3-06

Marine's One Finger Salute becomes an iconic image in the Iraqi War. Analysis and politics aside, this guy is one tough mother.
comment posted at 9:29 PM on Feb-1-06

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
comment posted at 7:20 PM on Feb-1-06

So, most people know that Friday was the 250th birthday of some musical dude you might've heard of. But! Did you realise that this year also marks the 100th birthday of Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich? Debate over whether Shostakovich was a tortured artist, rebelling against Stalinist Russia, or a Soviet Sympathiser continues, but the fact remains he was a brilliant composer who left a lasting impression on film music, and composed complex works from 2 cello concertos, 15 string quartets, 15 symphonies Warning!: Last four links are direct to the BBC "Discovering Music" Real player streams.
comment posted at 3:15 PM on Feb-1-06

The State of the Union Address was tonight. C-Span not only has the video, but transcripts of every State of the Union address starting from 1945. Howard Dean responded.
comment posted at 11:25 PM on Jan-31-06

Cindy Sheehan arrested for wearing anti-war T-shirt at State of the Union Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.

"She was asked to cover it up. She did not," said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman, adding that Sheehan was arrested for unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor.

Remind me not to wear my "Impeach Bush" button on my next trip to D.C.
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