GIGO – Trying to Make Digital Music… Sound Like Music.

Interesting article in Popsci – a Tube amp for your IPOD…

Trying to fix the truly crappy sound coming from digital devices with an analog band aid.

Garbage in… Garbage Out.

May be why the fastest growing segment of the Music sale industry is again…

Vinyl.

Popsci's IPOD Tube Amp

How to Build a Sweet-Sounding Tube-Amp iPod Dock

Half a century ago, vacuum tubes were very common in audio amplifiers. A small voltage applied to the grid of a vacuum tube controls a relatively large current that drives the electromagnet in a speaker, creating movement and thereby sound. Modern solid-state amps are superior in cost, size and reliability, but many people still prefer the warm sound and mesmerizing orange-yellow glow of a tube amp.
Fortunately, there’s a way to combine the distinct sound and look of tubes with the utility of an iPod dock. I’ve seen a few commercial and DIY tube-amp docks, but they’re expensive, uninspired or both. So I’ve come up with a version that anyone can build for about $400.
It uses a number of off-the-shelf components, including the dock itself and an easy-to-assemble tube-amp kit for the heart of the system. I used the 16LS kit from s5electronics.com, but there are many options depending on how much money you want to spend and how loud you want the amp to be. I built my dock into an aluminum enclosure from Hammond Manufacturing. You can replicate mine or design your own.
Once you’ve made those choices, the most time-consuming part of the project is putting holes in the enclosure and mounting the components. Add a set of speakers, and you’ll have a functional and cool-looking amp you can control with a remote. It isn’t outrageously loud, but it will easily fill a living room with fantastic sound.

Anybody know where I can get the license to the defunct Heathkit or Dynaco products and name for a new retail store line?

The Grandaddy of Home Built, a Dynaco ST-70 Amp

Yeah… You don’t want that Pumpkin again…

 

14th Amendment to The Rescue? Debt Ceiling…

Sweet Justice that the Amendment to the Constitution granting full citizenship rights to former slaves, which yesteryear’s Republicans passed, and is stoutly opposed by todays perverted version of Republicans who wish they could repeal it.

May again save the Union…

Digging Out of the Mess Republican Conservatism Created

This time from modern day Republicans bent on destroying the country.

14th Amendment: Democratic Senators See Debt Ceiling As Unconstitutional

Growing increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for a deal that would raise the debt ceiling, Democratic senators are revisiting a solution to the crisis that rests on a simple proposition: The debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional.

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law… shall not be questioned,” reads the 14th Amendment.

“This is an issue that’s been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an attorney, told The Huffington Post Tuesday. “I don’t think, as of a couple weeks ago, when this was first raised, it was seen as a pressing option. But I’ll tell you that it’s going to get a pretty strong second look as a way of saying, ‘Is there some way to save us from ourselves?'”

By declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional, the White House could continue to meet its financial obligations, leaving Tea Party-backed Republicans in the difficult position of arguing against the plain wording of the Constitution. Bipartisan negotiators are debating the size of the cuts, now in the trillions, that will come along with raising the debt ceiling.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that the constitutional solution puts the question in its proper context — that the debate is over paying past debts, not over future spending.

“The way everybody talks about this is that we need to raise the debt ceiling. What we’re really saying is, ‘We have to pay our bills,'” Murray said. The 14th Amendment approach is “fascinating,” she added.

The White House referred questions on the constitutionality of the debt ceiling to the Treasury Department. Treasury declined to comment…

The 14th Amendment became law in the wake of the Civil War, pushed by a Republican Congress eager to extend citizenship rights to freed slaves. But it also included a section dealing with federal debt: The government wanted to make clear to the market that even though loans to the Confederacy would not be paid back, any loans made to the U.S. government were still good.

In 1935, the Supreme Court held that despite the Civil War context, the amendment clearly referred to all federal debt.

“While [the 14th Amendment] was undoubtedly inspired by the desire to put beyond question the obligations of the government issued during the Civil War, its language indicates a broader connotation,” the majority wrote in Perry v. U.S. “We regard it as confirmatory of a fundamental principle which applies as well to the government bonds in question, and to others duly authorized by the Congress as to those issued before the amendment was adopted. Nor can we perceive any reason for not considering the expression ‘the validity of the public debt’ as embracing whatever concerns the integrity of the public obligations.”

The law at issue, which tried to override the validity of a bond offering, “went beyond the congressional power,” the Court ruled, setting a precedent that has not been overturned.

Because the government borrows based on its full faith, Congress doesn’t have the authority to undermine that confidence by reneging on its obligation to its lenders, the ruling declared.

“To say that the Congress may withdraw or ignore that pledge is to assume that the Constitution contemplates a vain promise; a pledge having no other sanction than the pleasure and convenience of the pledgor,” reads the opinion, delivered by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. “This Court has given no sanction to such a conception of the obligations of our government.”

President Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law, hasn’t been afraid to assert executive authority. Most recently, he issued what amounted to a legal analysis defending the White House position that the military’s operations in Libya were not in violation of the War Powers Act…

 

Supreme Slave – Clarence Thomas… Justice For Sale

Turns out Tommie Clarence’s vote on the Supreme Court can not only be bought by financial consideration through his wife…

I do a fair amount of work in third world countries where corruption is often an issue. Thanks to conservatives I now live in one.

Clarence Thomas Decided Three Cases Where AEI Filed a Brief After AEI Gave Him a $15,000 Gift

In 2001, a conservative, corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) gave Justice Clarence Thomas the gift of a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. At the ceremony presenting Thomas with this very expensive gift, AEI president Christopher DeMuth explained that the bust was “cast in 1914 by the great neo-classical sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman.”

AEI, however, is not simply in the business of giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices — it is also in the business of litigating before the United States Supreme Court. ThinkProgress uncovered three briefs that AEI filed in Thomas’ Court after Thomas received their $15,000 gift. Thomas recused from none of these three cases, and he either voted in favor of the result AEI favored or took a stance that was even further to the right in each case:

• Riley v. Kennedy: AEI filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision preventing a change in Alabama’s voting law from going into effect. Justice Thomas did not recuse, and he joined the Supreme Court’s decision reversing the lower court.

• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1: AEI filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decisionupholding a local school district’s desegregation plan. Thomas joined the majority opinion reversing the lower court’s decision, and he filed a lengthy concurrence defending that result.

• Whitman v. American Trucking Association: AEI joined a brief asking the Supreme Court to allow the EPA to consider the costs of implementing new air quality standards before it issued them. Thomas’ concurring opinion went much further than AEI asked him to go, suggesting that the law authorizing EPA to issue these standards is unconstitutional.

Although there is no evidence that AEI gave Thomas the $15,000 gift specifically to buy his vote in a particular case, Thomas’ decision to sit on cases where his benefactor has a demonstrated interest creates a very serious appearance of impropriety. No one would trust a judge to hear their case if they learned that someone on the other side of the case had given that judge a rare and expensive gift.

 

Brown Crier Boehner’s Boner?

First they came for the Weiners…

Now it’s  Boehner’s turn?

BOEHNER Affair to be focus of NYTimes Expose

House Minority Leader John Boehner was asked by a liberal blogger Thursday to answer questions about an affair with a lobbyist, an allegation that will reportedly be the focus of an upcoming New York Times expose. Boehner ignored the question outright. Mike Stark, an activist and blogger, intercepted Leader Boehner after his highly publicized “Pledge to America” unveiling to ask him about the accusation: “Speaker Boehner, have you been cheating with Lisbeth Lyons, the lobbyist for the American Printing Association?” Stark asks. Boehner did not respond.

Now that the press has whacked Wiener – On to the next victim!

Turnabout… Indeed.

I bet the Republicans don’t get all weak in the knees and call for his resignation!

Think I will co-file this one under “Domestic Terrorism”.

 

Van Jones Challenges Glenn Beck

Uhhhhhhh… Van – Been meaning to talk to you about that “timing” thing…

You are about a year late on this one.

Glenn Beck has already self-destructed.

What exactly do you hope to gain by debating a corpse?

Van Jones Considers Legal Action Against Fox News, Demands Glenn Beck Retraction

After challenging Glenn Beck to a debate over the weekend at Netroots Nation and in a MoveOn.org-sponsored ad Monday, Van Jones may have taken his beef with Beck a step further.

Jones, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who resigned from his job as White House “green jobs” czar following the conservative host’s repeated claims that he was a subversive and a Communist, is considering legal action against Beck-employer Fox News.

Jones’ attorney sent a cease and desist letter Monday to Dianne Brandi, the network’s executive vice president for legal & business affairs, claiming that “a series of sensational and inflammatory charges” have been made against Jones on Fox News shows. The statements, his attorney Joseph Sandler argues, are “demonstrably, unequivocally and absolutely false.”

In a six-page letter, the letter says that Jones has been called “radical revolutionary” (Beck), “an avowed Communist and 9/11 truther” (Sean Hannity), and a “far left kook, Communist guy” (Bill O’Reilly), to name just a few of the disputed allegations.

“Mr. Jones is not a member of any Communist Party or Marxist organization whatsoever, and has not expressed any support for any form of Communist or Marxist ideology for many years,” Sandler wrote. He added that such statements are “demonstrably and unequivocally false” and were made to “injure Mr. Jones in his professional and community standing.”

“They are actionable as a matter of law,” Sandler writes. (more)

 

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) Tells Congress to STFU on Libya

Damn – Nice to see there is still ONE sane Republican left in the Party! Graham understands what is at stake, and why the US is peripherally involved.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Sen Graham Say Congress Should STFU on Libya, posted with vodpod

 

Obama Impersonator Tossed After Telling Jokes About Republicans at RLC

What started as an excellent performance by Reggie Brown doing jokes about President Obama as an impersonator rapidly devolved yesterday into disaster. Repubs were fine even as Reggie Brown went from good comedy taking shots at President Obama’s perceived poitical failures into a Minstrel Act…

Then he wandered off script and made fun of the foibles of Republicans.

Bye, Bye Reggie.

 

McCain Blames “Illegal Immigrants” For Arizona Fires

Hate to say it, but somehow I haven’t felt one hell of a lot of sympathy for Arizona lately…

Not cheering the disaster which has befallen the state…

But I just find it real hard to work up much sympathy for a bunch of Republicans who have made racism and intolerance the key to their actions. I mean – if Jan Brewer and her merry bunch of bigots and racist burns in the Arizona hellfire…

I really can’t say the country is worse off.

Probably should have listened to the preacher this AM a bit more on that forgiveness and tolerance part.

McCain blames some Arizona wildfires on illegal immigrants

U.S. Sen. John McCain is blaming illegal immigrants for starting some of the wildfires that have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in Arizona.
“There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally,” McCain, R-Arizona, said Saturday at a press conference. “The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border.”
The Arizona senator, however, did not say what the evidence is, prompting a swift rebuke from Latino civil rights advocates.
“It’s easier to fan the flames of intolerance, especially in Arizona,” said Randy Parraz, a civil rights advocate who ran unsuccessfully against McCain as a Democratic candidate in 2010.
Parraz called McCain’s remarks “careless and reckless” but not entirely surprising given the political climate in Arizona. The Latino advocate is co-founder of Citizens for a Better Arizona, a group trying the recall the legislator who authored the state’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law.
Parraz said McCain “should know better” than to make such an accusation without presenting any facts.
McCain said that illegal immigrants set such fires either to send signals, keep warm or distract law enforcement agents. But he did not specify which fires allegedly had been started by illegal immigrants, nor did he identify his sources or provide details of the “substantial” evidence he cited.
Firefighters are currently battling five wildfires that have burned a combined 732,427 acres in Arizona, according to InciWeb, an online interagency database that tracks fires, floods and other disasters. The fires are under investigation and suspects have not been named. However, local media outlets have reported anecdotal cases of fires breaking out in areas where illegal immigrants have been known to cross the border.
Parraz said it is particularly distressing that immigrants are being blamed for destructive fires at a time when many are also being targeted given the state’s unemployment, foreclosure and other economic issues.
“People are looking for someone to blame,” he said, claiming it is too easy and convenient to target what he called one of Arizona’s “most vulnerable populations.”
Angelo Falcon, the president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, criticized McCain for what he called “increasingly blatant” political opportunism.

That’s not “political opportunism” Mr Falcon… That’s just plain old conservative lynch mob racism.

Burn Baby, Burn… Indeed.

 

Jon Stewart in the Belly of the Faux News Beast

Jon Stewart takes on Chris Wallace and Faux News…

 

Talk About Distracted Driving!

You can see some strange sites on the Washington Beltway. Not only folks driving at 75 trying to simultaneously read their email and text but…

On the Beltway, a claim of drunken sex at 85 mph

…in the Fairfax County courthouse, a lawsuit about a crash on the Beltway last year is dropping a few jaws as it makes the rounds and heads toward trial next week. Among the latest allegations in the lawsuit pending in Fairfax County Circuit Court:

Paragraph 10. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was going 85 miles per hour.”

Paragraph 12. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was having sex with a female.”

Paragraph13. “At the time of the collision, Defendant was driving admittedly drunk.”

Paragraph 14. “At the time of the accident, Defendant was partially or totally in the backseat of the car.”

Wait, WHA? 85 miles per hour? The backseat? And what happened to paragraph 11?

Records show the defendant, from Woodbridge, was convicted in Fairfax district court of drunken driving near Telegraph Road in May 2010. But now he denies he was driving. (What?) He was coming from his 21st birthday party in Baltimore, court records state. The woman involved has been dismissed from the case. There was someone ELSE in the car too, and HE denies driving as well.

The defendant’s lawyer, Frank Prior, said there was “no statement by anyone that they were driving on the Beltway having sex” and “no facts on it.” The plaintiff, a 28-year-old cab driver, is seeking $75,000 in damages and is represented by Douglas R. Stevens, who declined to comment beyond his court filings.

But Stevens sought punitive damages against the defendant and the friend, arguing in a pleading that “having sex at 85 miles per hour while drunk on a freeway is willful and wanton negligence.” A Fairfax judge threw out the punitive damages claim.

The case is set for trial next week.

“You see, Your Honor – the reason we had the accident is that I wasn’t really driving…”

 

 

Democrats Wuss Out… Again

I don’t recall that Whorehouse Vitter resigned…

And I don’t recall anyone prosecuting a Supreme Court Judge, Clarence Thomas for taking bribes and lying on his disclosure forms.

What Weiner did is in god-awful taste, and morally bankrupt…

But hardly illegal.

If there is to be law, and the rule of law in this country for much longer – the rule of law has to apply to everybody.

Yellow striped Dems sure aren’t helping solve that crisis.

To President Obama, Nancy Pelosi et al…

The Yellowback Donkey award.

 

Man Claims He Shot Tupac

Years after the fact a man has stepped forward to claim that he shot Tupac Shakur as part of a murder for hire plot. No big surprises here…

Just business as usual.

Man Claims Responsibility for 1994 Tupac Shooting

A man named Dexter Isaac has claimed responsibility for shooting Tupac Shakur in Manhattan’s Quad Studios in November 1994, setting off a chain reaction of violent reprisals that resulted in the eventual murder of both Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., who was originally blamed for the assault.

Isaac, who is currently serving a life prison sentence plus 30 years for murder and robbery, released a statement to AllHipHop.com, explaining that he was paid $2,500 for the shooting by James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond, a music industry figure who is now the CEO of Czar Entertainment and the manager of the Game.

In the statement, Isaac apologized to Tupac and Biggie’s families and said that he kept quiet until now because the statute of limitations for an assault charge has expired and he cannot be charged for the attack. Isaac also expressed regret for getting involved with Rosemond, whom he refers to as a “sucker.” Rosemond is currently a fugitive wanted by the DEA and federal marshals for his involvement with a cocaine trafficking operation.

 

Conservatives and Radicalization

Hitler had the Jews to blame…

Lenin had the bourgeois…

Seems that every totalitarianism movement has one… Somebody to blame.

To be honest, right about now if I were President Obama – I would be bringing the full power of the Federal Law enforcement apparatus…

Against the radical right.

Biggest threat to this country isn’t “radical Islam”… It’s American born right wing whackjobs out of control.

 

That Right Wing Racism Thing… Again

This is a political ad produced by an outfit called “Turn Right USA” for a Los Angeles Congressional Race –

Is This Most Racist, Sexist Political Ad Ever?

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is blasting what could be the most stunningly racist, sexist campaign ad in history. The web ad, produced by the ultra conservative Turn Right USA PAC, features machine-gun toting black ganstas ordering “bitch” and “ho” Democratic candidate for Congress Janice Hahn to give them money to fund their crime sprees. The Los Angeles candidate is represented by a stripper at a stripper pole who gets money stuck into her waistband as she grinds, and who gives oral sex to one of the gangstas. The ad is aimed at a program supported by Hahn as a City Council member to pay reformed former gang members in her Los Angeles district to act as “gang intervention specialists.”

“Give me your cash, bitch, so we can shoot up the streets,” chant the black actors as they wave guns. The ad is so over-the-top it appears more like an Onion spoof than anything resembling a legitimate political presentation. The GOP candidate in the special election, Craig Huey, has also condemned the spot. “The Internet video is inappropriate, highly offensive, and has no connection whatsoever to the Huey campaign,” said a spokesman, calling Turn Right “very fringe.” A Turn Right spokesman refused to discuss the ad with the Huffington Post, saying: “You’re a bunch of liberal idiots.”

Set out a cooler full of water bottles and Gatorade for the Lawn Jockey black conservative types who will be spinning and buckdancing over this one overtime!

 

Last of the Original Coasters – Carl Gardner

Carl Gardner, lead singer and last surviving member of the 50’s Do Wop group, the Coasters has passed…

This is the only original 50’s video I could find of the Groups hit – “Charlie Brown”

And one more classic from the 50’s – “Searchin'”

As a little tyke, I used to b\”borrow” my much older brothers record collection and listen to the Rock and Roll they preferred. Carl had an incredible voice, and the Coasters songs were pure fun.

Rest in Peace, Carl.