loosen up my buttons

very surprised to have discovered she's got a new album coming out especially from the likes of perezhilton.com but that's where i found it! it's sia with a crazy ass brilliant new video for her new awesome song 'buttons'. it looks insane! and the song is hot too...can't wait to grab it and hear some remixes..she usually gets some great people to tweak her stuff although her first album is probably one of my favourites of all time. i guess creating the closing song 'breathe me' for hbo's six feet under got her a lot of attention...

sssscheck it out!

crazy for pinoy

well at least i think he looks filipino...but that's the least important part of the post...this guy does a splendid acoustic reworking of madonna's 'crazy for you'

and yes it's all a wonderful aspect of the youtube generation but it's almost as if you are peeping in on one of his private guitar tinkerings...makes it all the more special

enjoy!

because of reba!

one of my myspace friends posted this in a bulletin and i was so amazed! it's reba mcintyre doing a duet with none other than kelly clarkson with her big tearjerker 'because of you' and they sound fantastic together...the acting is powerful and it looks like it's just a snippet of an entire mom and daughter chick flick supreme! watch and enjoy! i wonder if its from an upcoming duets album for reba or maybe kelly...i'll do some research

pinoy thriller

alright...i can't even explain this or deal with this...i came home fucked up from a night out and i signed onto myspace and someone posted this as a bulletin....i had no freakin choice but to blog it...

it's a bunch of prisoners from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu, Philippines practicing Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Definitely pay attention to the filipino tranny playing michael's love interest...she is priceless



apparently they also do a song from sister act which in my current lucidity could not deal with...

chauncey treat

this is a new song i've found by newfound love 'l.a. riots' that is absolutely mindblowing...it's desperation and longing is superimposed with its dark, brooding beat and chords...it is a song that screams out the epitome of chauncey style and when i played it for the first time last tuesday at nowhere bar in the east village tons of people came up to me and asked 'what is this song?'...i'm sure you'll love it too

l.a. riots featuring jadis - if i could

ray of librarian!

gotta give credit where credit's due...a fellow madonnanation forum member brought this to my attention...it is a fantastically edited video featuring madonna's ray of light through the eyes of a librarian from someone called st. joseph county! it's brilliant! take a look!

chauncey treat

enough about politics for a bit....here's a dirty, disgusting, sexy track i just discovered by a group called rework called 'love love love yeah'...it's almost trancey only because it takes you somewhere you might be ashamed to visit....enjoy you little whores!

rework - love love love yeah

god bless america

so i spent the fourth of july alone
comically contemplating the country i live in
simultaneously watching the fireworks
from my bedroom window
and the television too
while politcally correct song choices
soundtracked the festivities
and politically correct singers
went through their patriotic motions
harmonizing about oceans white with foam
and pleading for god to bless america

it all never seemed so staged
as it did this year
but maybe i haven't watched the live broadcast
since i was a kid
since i was naive
not one mention of the idiotic war we're in
or all the soldiers that have died for halliburton
just a couple of miss americas
and their mesmerizing smiles
while red white and blue umbrellas
protected everyone from the raindrops
i found it wonderful and fitting
that the celebration in the capital
was cancelled due to tornado warnings
so much for god and his blessings

the perfect independance day

"beneath this mask there is more than just flesh...beneath this mask there is an idea....and an idea is bulletproof"
so for a number of reasons i ended up staying in for the fabulous festivities of the 4th of july this year....had two barbecues to go to but i ended up taking a nap that took too long.....i am broke....i still haven't managed to learn how to manage my moolah since i get paid every two weeks and i really wanted to be on fire island for the invasion...oh well....but i did manage to celebrate in my own way....posting blog entries about how fucked up this country is and watching one of my newest favourite films of all time "v for vendetta"!

what a brilliantly executed and inspiring piece of art....and so reflective of the current state of the world. it reminds me that although i am politically minded and make a few statements here and there ...there is an incredible amount more that i can do to make a difference. i'm not gonna go blow up things but a goal of mine now is to become even more politically charged not just within the realm of gay rights but in human rights altogether...if you h aven't seen the film yet i strongly suggest it!

now to watch the fireworks from the comfort of my air conditioned room....alone...hehe

fed up with war

funny enough i just started paying taxes this year as i was off the books for four full years working in a bar...

Jul 4, 3:18 PM (ET)

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - When the United States invaded Iraq more than four years ago, war opponent David Gross asked his bosses for a radical pay cut, enough so he wouldn't have to pay taxes to support the war.

"I was having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror," Gross said. "I knew the bombs falling were in part paid with my tax dollars. I had to actually do something concrete to remove my complicity."

The San Francisco technical writer was making close to $100,000 a year. He didn't know exactly how big of a pay cut he would need to fall below the federal tax threshold, but later figured out he would have to make less than minimum wage.

In any event, his employer turned him down and he quit. Gross, 38, now works on a contract basis, and last year he refused to pay self-employment taxes.

War tax resistance, popularized by Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century and by singer Joan Baez and others during the Vietnam War, is gaining renewed interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.

"Clearly this year we definitely had more people calling, sending e-mails about how they decided to start resisting," said Ruth Benn, coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York.

Based on the committee's mailing list and reports from numerous groups it works with around the country, Benn estimates 8,000 to 10,000 Americans refuse to pay some or all of their federal taxes over war objections. Internal Revenue Service officials say they don't have figures for that specific category, but earlier this year reported an overall noncompliance rate of 16.3 percent and estimated the annual tax gap at about $345 billion.

Peace activists are considering a mass tax resistance campaign next April to step up pressure to end the war in Iraq, Benn said.

Many tax protesters say they redirect the money they withhold to charities. Some, like Joanne Sheehan of Norwich, keep their income below taxable levels.

"I don't see the point of working for peace and paying for war," Sheehan said.

Gross said he now manages to live on about $15,000 per year by carefully tracking his spending.

He acknowledged the tax resistance movement is too small to stop the war.

"But I think what we're doing is showing the way for people in the anti-war movement," Gross said. "I can look myself in the mirror and say at least I'm not supporting it, at least I'm not part of the machine."

The IRS said that while taxpayers have a right to express their opinions, they still have an obligation to pay their taxes. Tax resisters place an undue burden on taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes, IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder said.

John Ubaldi, spokesman for Move America Forward, which supports the military and the war on terror, said the government would not be able to function if everyone opposed to a program stopped paying taxes.

"They're showing the terrorists that America is not committed," Ubaldi said.

The IRS considers it a frivolous argument when a taxpayer cites disagreement with the government's use of tax money as the reason for not paying taxes.

A new federal law increases the penalty for frivolous tax returns from $500 to $5,000. The IRS says it investigates promoters of frivolous arguments and refers cases to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.

Unlike the days when Thoreau was sent to prison in a tax protest against the Mexican-American War, modern war tax protesters rarely go to prison, according to tax resisters. The IRS may take their money from wages and bank accounts - with penalties and interest - after sending a series of letters.

"They're very polite, which makes it a little boring," said Rosa Packard of Greenwich, a longtime anti-war tax protester.

But Randy Kehler, who has refused to pay federal income taxes since 1976 to protest U.S. military policy, was evicted with his wife from their home in Colrain, Mass., in 1989 for nonpayment of more than $45,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. Kehler was also jailed for nearly three months for contempt of court.

Their tax fight was the subject of a 1997 documentary called "An Act of Conscience," narrated by actor Martin Sheen.

War protesters have been pushing for a law called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund that would allow designated conscientious objectors to have their income, estate, or gift taxes used for nonmilitary purposes. After years of efforts, they hope a Congressional hearing will be held on the proposal next year.

"People fear the IRS more than they fear God," said Alan Gamble, executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. "They're paying under a tremendous burden."

rethinking patriotism

Rethinking patriotism this Fourth of July
By Camilo Mejía
The Progressive

This Independence Day, we should rethink our concept of patriotism.

Is it patriotic to support a war that our president launched on false premises and that has turned into a disaster?

Or is it patriotic to oppose that war?

I had to face this question while in uniform.

Back in 2003, when I fought in Iraq, my infantry unit was going out on combat missions without bulletproof vests and without basic radio equipment. For a while, we even had to suspend patrols because we didn’t have enough water to hydrate ourselves.

After 10 months of deployment and five months of combat without a purpose, I made the agonizing decision not to return to the war. A few months later, I publicly denounced the war and vowed that I would no longer fight in it.

That got me a 12-month sentence in a U.S. Army jail, demotion to the lowest rank and a bad-conduct discharge from the service.

I have no regrets.

Today, our young men and women in the military still find themselves in the role of occupiers, in a war that to this very day remains unjustified, a war that seems to be helping only U.S. companies like Halliburton that have profited from it.

The red glare and the bombs bursting in air that we salute in song this July 4 may have an entirely different meaning to our soldiers in Iraq who see the explosions all around them.

Some Americans back home believe they are being patriotic, believe they are supporting the troops, when they back President Bush and his conduct of this war.

But patriotism must mean something loftier than just assenting to the occupant of the Oval Office.

And supporting the troops must mean something other than turning them into sitting ducks, with no prospect of success at the end.

I submit that being patriotic means opposing this war.

I submit that supporting the troops means urging Congress to cut off any funds for this war that are not earmarked for bringing those troops home -- starting now.

Let us show our independence, this July 4, from narrow-minded interpretations of patriotism.

Camilo Mejía was the first combat veteran of the Iraq war to publicly denounce the war as illegal and refuse further participation in it. He is the author of “Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejía” (The New Press, 2007). He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

unhappy 4th of july

"you look just like the Fourth of July....makes me wanna have a hot dog real bad!"



(got this from fellow madonnanation forum member ulizos)

Howard Zinn
PUT AWAY THE FLAGS
The Progressive

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours — huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction — what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to
war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, is the author of the best-selling "A People's History of the United States" (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project.

hang me out to dry

here's a dirty remix of an already dirty song by cold war kids called "hang me out to dry" from their album 'robbers & cowards' which is fantastic! the remix is by hostage and i'm definitely interested in finding other songs that they have remixed because i like their sensibility. i found it on discobelle's blog...you can visit it here at www.discobelle.blogspot.com

check it out!
cold war kids - hang me out to dry (hostage remix)