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TMP, (Talking Points Memo) documented yesterday the second occurrence of Mitt Romney stating that he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, should he win the presidency.  Second and third hand accounts of him using "they’re radical" phraseology.

The ignorance of that statement aside, if that’s what Mitt thinks, he’s free to do so.  However, on numerous occasions he’s postured himself as NOT running as a "Mormon candidate", but simply as a "candidate"… the RIGHT candidate for President.  His religion dictates his core values, but that it shouldn’t determine efficacy in a Presidential role.

"He’s running for president. He’s not running for theologian-in-chief," said Craig Stevens, spokesman for the Romney New Hampshire campaign.

So multiple-choice-Mitt can’t have it both ways… either religion plays a part, or it doesn’t.  Either his religion is enough criteria to vote him in office or nowhere near office.  Either being Muslim is all you need to know if you want to be considered a cabinet member or it’s not.  By making biased/bigoted statements based on a religion that you either don’t understand or share common beliefs with, he should expect full scrutiny (in a public forum) of his own.

Short lived band from Seattle, WA.  They broke up in the summer of 2006.  They released their only LP, “Phantoms” in early 2005.  They had previously released a couple EP’s.  There’s a few of the tracks on this album that are good; Take Cover, Different, Permanent.

Acceptance | Phantoms | Different

In the very first worldwide database of pollution, "Southern Company" of Julietta, Georgia emits more CO2 annually than the entirety of Brazil.  This single company has not surprisingly contributed more than $6.2 million dollars to Republican campaigns since 1990.  George Bush got $217,047 of it in his last campaign. 

From The Independent;

The link between massive cash contributions by America’s power companies and political arm-twisting in Washington has rarely been put into such sharp relief. Environmentalists have long suspected that President Bush’s dogged refusal to sign up to international agreements to control global warming was linked to campaign contributions.

Who are the top idiots who continue to say global warming is still just "speculation"?  One guess, or one political party… you choose which is more applicable.  Veeeeeeeeery interesting.

See how you and the world stacks up here…

Hopefully not just because it’s the law.  I’m sure some don’t believe in Pro Choice even though that’s a law.  So why do you?  One argument is that having such a punishment, saves lives and provides a deterrent to crimes which end in the death of the perpetrator.

The New York Times published an article which speaks to recent studies that show that for every person put to death, it prevents 3 to 18 murders.

Criticism is a plenty with the release of these arguments as John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale stated that;

The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,”

The Supreme Court has in effect put a moratorium on executions across the entirety of the country as it evaluates the humanity of lethal injection.  They just blocked the execution of a man in Florida

The NYT points out that in 2003, there were more than 16,000 homicides but only 153 death sentences and 65 executions.  What exactly are we curbing by the death penalty?  Here’s how the world stacks up on capital punishment.  We need to abolish it…

• Blue: Abolished for all crimes
• Green: Abolished for crimes not committed in exceptional circumstances (such as crimes committed in time of war)
• Orange: Abolished in practice
• Red: Legal form of punishment for certain offenses

I have enough music to not repeat an artist on here for like… I dunno… a year?  BUT, I really like this band lately.  I went to see their show last week.  Well, it wasn’t their show, they opened for Say Anything and Hellogoodbye but I was there to pretty much see Young Love.  Crappy cam phone pictures to prove it.

Anyhow, Young Love wasn’t the greatest band to see live (on this night maybe), but well worth it.  What was interesting was that at the end of their set, the lead singer, Dan Keyes walked right off the stage and along-side the crowd, not ONE person stopped him… well, a 12 year old girl did actually, but that was it.  There were like 300-400 people there I think.  I guess they were all fans of the headlining act.  Maybe Young Love hasn’t picked up steam yet.  I saw The Killers before they hit it big and their reception was kinda like that as well.

Anyhow… I wanted to say hello, but felt like a tool, so I didn’t… Before we left I did tell the keyboardist hanging out at the merch booth that I thought they did great, he was nice and said thanks, he appreciated it.

The following song is on heavy rotation, it’s good… and atypical from the rest of the album.

Young Love | Too Young To Fight It | Close Your Eyes

Also, check out Angels & Airwaves latest album, I-Empire, songs Call to Arms, Everything’s Magic and Breathe (personal fav) are fantastic.

Doh!  Senator Senator Senator… have a little decorum, a little respect and correct (not encourage by jokes) your supporters language.

“How do we beat the bitch?” McCain’s supporter asked him. And as you can see, it appears that after McCain joked about offering a “translation” of his supporter’s query, he said:

“That’s an excellent question.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the President will NOT get his money unless he agrees to troop withdrawal.  He’s made statements along these lines before but hopefully he’ll stick to his guns on this one.  Both the House & Senate are supposed to vote on a $50 billion funding increase for Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Reid said that if Bush vetoes the bill, "then the president won’t get his $50 billion".  The bill will expect full withdrawal by December 2008.

Democratic House leader Steny Hoyer stated recently that we must pay (whatever) the cost is to protect the American people "but tragically, unfortunately, incredibly, the war is not making us safer."

Pompous leader of the free world, George W Bush said in a speech in Indiana that Congress should not leave for Christmas recess without passing a clean war spending bill.  Why can’t President Bush not leave his desk until he answers what the hell we’re doing in Iraq and how he’s spending our money in his war? 

Supernova, Demonid, ISOHunt, Torrentspy… all shut down for fear of liability over copyright infringement…  Prince is taking on the last big’n The Pirate Bay.  I wish we could send a "take down" notice to Prince… just send him a notice that he’s been taken off the Internet entirely… nobody wants to see nor hear from him.  I’m over Purple Rain.  I’m done.