In Three's

Pour Three out, folks...

Ingmar Bergman, father of sublimely heavy.

Tom Snyder, master of the rock star interview.

Bill Walsh, shatterer of dreams.

Serious Men

Simone De Beauvoir, as I have often pointed out, defines seriousness thusly:

"But the serious man puts nothing into question. For the military man, the army is useful; for the colonial administrator, the highway; for the serious revolutionary, the revolution -- army, highway, revolution, productions becoming inhuman idols to which one will not hesitate to sacrifice man himself. Therefore, the serious man is dangerous. It is natural that he makes himself a tyrant. Dishonestly ignoring the subjectivity of his choice, he pretends that the unconditioned value of the object is being asserted through him; and by the same token he also ignores the value of the subjectivity and the freedom of others, to such an extent that, sacrificing them to the thing, he persuades himself that what he sacrifices is nothing...It is the political fanaticism which empties politics of all human content and imposes the State, not for individuals, but against them."

Which, of course, dovetails nicely with Glenn Greenwald's piece on "serious" Joe Lieberman:

"By contrast, the pundits of The New Republic and Time who cheered on George Bush's invasion of Iraq and who work for Marty Peretz and who defend George Bush's lawbreaking and who spent years treating Dick Cheney like royalty and who carefully ponder with Great Angst whether we should start a new war with Iran are the deeply serious, very sane, mainstream thinkers who can banish the nerdy anti-war outcasts to the 'lunatic fringes'.

Joe Lieberman is, of course, one of the very serious -- deeply, deeply serious -- sane and mainstream political figures. Agree or disagree, he is a real serious and thoughtful and mainstream political thinker.

Last week, as Philip Weiss noted yesterday, Lieberman was the honored guest of evangelical Minister John Hagee and the group he leads, Christians United for Israel. As the Press Release distributed by Very Serious Moderate Lieberman aide Marshall Whittman demonstrates, Lieberman gave a speech there which Weiss, with understatement, calls 'shocking'... "

Shocking...that Lieberman went from Gore's running mate to an apocalyptic whore-or not so shocking, given how serious (mercenary) he is.

Re: Minimum Wage...yeeeehaaa...

"What strikes me as interesting is the format: Questions from people all over this country, asked in a formal or informal manner, so tough, and, in John Edwards's case, his questioner on gay marriage showing up in the audience to push him on his gay marriage position further. Ostensibly, it all seems very egalitarian."

Ostensibly, it seems, is way too egalitarian for most of the G.O.P. field.

The Ghost of the Machine, part IV: George's Ghost

Finally, we left to consider the Machine, and elucidate the title of this series.

Typically, we think of the "ghost in the machine" much as we think of gremlins: an unexplained malfunction, or breakdown, of equipment.

This we can explain, because this we have brought on ourselves. At the end of the day, despite however painful the road, however much we regret being asleep, we got the government we deserve.

There are no ghosts in this machine of government. George Bush and his President, Dick Cheney, the Hamlet and his Ghost, are not infestations of a particular virulent ideology, and are likely not historical anomolies.

While Hamlet is driven mad to avenge the death of his father, no such motivation exists in this tragedy. Instead, George's ghost, in his spectral fourth branch, is the trace of what has always been, made material. This administration has manifested its extra-constitutional reach with a maliciousness that is shocking, and, in an inversion of the Shakespearean tragedy (or perhaps no inversion at all) is that ghost is more important than the protagonist. Or that the protagonist, acting in the stead of the ghost, becomes a kind of illusory overlay for the ghost, who, by will, becomes more material. Hamlet becomes a kind of ghost because he ceases to think critically, becoming only a vessel for the revenge of his father, who is materialized by Hamlet's actions. Hamlet becomes a kind of golem, with a singular purpose.

But the "ghostly" Cheney is not Ghost of the Machine, either, in the same way that Hamlet's father materialized through Hamlet's singular actions, though Cheney himself is constituted through ideology and materialized in its malicious praxis, in the activities of disinformation, propagation, and historical malfeasance. Cheney himself is another agent, the man behind the curtain, while the big green disembodied figure head blusters about being "The Decider".

The Ghost of the Machine is, simply, that a machine, as defined and programmed according to a Constitutional Schematic, exists at all. The Ghost of the Machine is the notion that the Machine is a ghost, an illusion to keep us satiated while we are "freely" choosing between coke and pepsi, the illusion that ideology plays no part in our lives, the illusion that we can learn nothing from Marx because of the Soviet Union, the illusion that our form of capitalism is the best thing since coke. Or pepsi.

What that ghost conceals is what all ghosts reveal: Foul play. It's not that the machine has been infested with ideological agents, it that the machine has been replaced by ideological agents, golems of capital: Corporate Personhood.

These "persons" are ideological agents, but not like the true believer or the bureau/technocrat made cynical as a jailers, but real golems, created for vicious accumulation capital by rich oligarchies. Their speech is freer than ours. They literally get away with murder. Their voices shout down ours.

Thus, behind that illusory ghost of democracy-machine is Fortress America, with its guard tower "manned" by these golems, consciousless monsters in the machine gun nests, guarding the wall.

This panopticon, which circumscribes every discourse, is not absolute, for the very illusion its walls and towers hide behind is the seed of its destruction: The "trace" of democracy only reminds the inmates of what they long for, the real, not ostensible, not surface, not coke vs. pepsi, not "less filling, tastes great" politicking, but REAL DEMOCRACY. The establishment is superficial expression of Fortress America, with all its prejudices, its death trip consumerism, "serious" people, preemptive wars, dreams of absolute market-empires, the homogeneity of going everywhere in the world, and finding a Big Mac: This is fascism in a clown suit. This is now.

Let us look to what can be, should be, must be:

"So when I speak of a 'democracy to come', I don't mean a future democracy, a new regime, a new organisation of nation-states (although this may be hoped for) but I mean this 'to come': the promise of an authentic democracy which is never embodied in what we call democracy. This is a way of going on criticising what is everywhere given today under the name of democracy in our societies. This doesn't mean that 'democracy to come' will be simply a future democracy correcting or improving the actual conditions of the so-called democracies, it means first of all that this democracy we dream of is linked in its concept to a promise. The idea of a promise is inscribed in the idea of a democracy: equality, freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press - all these things are inscribed as promises within democracy. Democracy is a promise. "

Keep the promise. Think through surfaces. Keep the promise.

Fredo Hangs Himself

Surprise! He's been lying. Under oath.

Universal Healthcare

John Edwards elucidates his health care plan.

This is interesting...

Americans know who's fault it is:

"On Political Affiliation:
When asked which political party most Americans believe to be responsible for many of the gravest problems facing the world:

* War: 62% blamed Republicans vs. 14% Democrats
* Global Warming: 56% blamed Republicans vs. 10% Democrats
* Prejudice: 52% blamed Republicans vs. 22% for Democrats
* Poverty: 49% held Republicans accountable; 29% Democrats
* Corruption: 47% blamed Republicans vs. 31% Democrats
* Crime: On this issue, respondents reversed the trend, with 42% blaming Democrats vs. 23% Republicans."

Riddle me this: How the fuck do Republicans get elected at all?

Minimum Wage...yeeeehaaa...

I am watching the debate live (well, live for me), drinking coffee, and watching the equivocation.

What strikes me as interesting is the format: Questions from people all over this country, asked in a formal or informal manner, so tough, and, in John Edwards's case, his questioner on gay marriage showing up in the audience to push him on his gay marriage position further. Ostensibly, it all seems very egalitarian.

It would be interesting to see what questions got rejected, and on what grounds. It seems to me that, on the net, Gravel and Kucinich, get a lot of play, yet they are not getting many questions. Would I be out of line if I said, out loud, that CNN et al. , in the annointment of Hillary Clinton, are actively working to make sure it comes to pass?

Bush will leave the mechanism that has created this disaster, and who can we trust to not only resist using this mechanism, but dismantle it completely. Nothing good can come of it, even if it is used for "good reasons".

So...six months out, I'm interested in hearing who you like and why.

Update: Bush don't like it.

Le Decider

You want Freedom Fries with that?

"'This is why I would like to tell you: Enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves'...[Finance Minister Christine Lagarde] said the French should work harder, earn more and be rewarded with lower taxes if they get rich..”

Bad habit, that thinking thing. Since we, as a nation, stopped thinking, and elected staunch anti intellectuals, look how great things have turned out.

Turns out that the French, being human, are perfectly capable of stupidity: They elected their own George Bush:

"Certainly, the new president himself has cultivated his image as a nonintellectual. 'I am not a theoretician', he told a television interviewer last month. 'I am not an ideologue. Oh, I am not an intellectual! I am someone concrete!'".

With the rocks in his head to prove it.

Ladies and Gentlemen...Macaca

I have but one question: Can Romney be any stupider?

Get the feeling that this isn't going to go over too well?

That leaves 80% who think you are full of shit

Charles the Teutonic Sledge begs us for more time.

Google

Google's hiring of Rob Shilkin doesn't necessarily mean that Google is becoming a Technofascist Monster...

What it does mean is that Shilkin is emblematic of NeoCons in general: They are cynical opportunists, with no core beliefs aside from increasing their own wealth and widening the corporate hegenomy.

In other words (to quote Zappa): The kind of "all American girls that will do anything, ANYTHING...for 50 bucks."

"Generation Chickenhawk"

Max Blumenthal's excellent piece at the Huffington Post.

Young Conservatives indeed.

Happy Birthday, Johnny...

You would've been 55.

Mark Yer Calendars...

Second Story Concerts Presents:
Will Hoge w/ The Lonely Hearts
Thur, 8/2 @ 9
Southgate House
$10 Advance/$12 DOS
www.willhoge.com
www.secondstoryconcerts.com

Bio:
"The tale is legendary: a young Jon Landau saw a young Bruce Springsteen perform live and proclaimed the future of rock and roll. Based on his performance this past Saturday in Boston, Will Hoge is staking his claim as the successor to the throne." - Twangville.

Will Hoge exemplifies the new model for rock musicians in the 21st century: free-spirited and individualistic, knowledgeable of the past but not obsessed with it, and imminently capable of bringing renewed creative energy and passion to an idiom that sometimes seems devoid of inventiveness and edge.

Hoge incorporates the best of both the singer/songwriter genre and vintage, surging rock 'n roll. Through sharp lyricisms and strong melodies, his songs tell stories that are delivered with a passion and desperation that demand attention. His trademark blend of classic and contemporary elements was decisively defined in his debut album Carousel, which set the tone for subsequent albums, including his follow-up major label release on Atlantic Records, Blackbird On A Lonely Wire.

Explosive live performances, non-stop touring and a commitment to songwriting have earned Hoge and his band a fanatical following as well as critical acclaim. His is a classic rock soul that includes the inspiration of early Springsteen, the swagger of The Stones and the heart of Otis Redding. With powerful songs about love, loss, longing and joy, thundering rhythms and howling guitars, audiences are instantly reminded as to why they fell in love with rock and roll in the first place.

Regards,

Jon Sheperd
Impressario

The Ghost of the Machine, part III: Fortress America

(Note: I think I only have one more left...)

Slight Return...

In the reduced binary that is life in the United States right now, an inversion that has taken place, with superstition being privileged over reason, with the only "reason" allowed being the fuzzy logic by which Thomas Aquinas "logically" proved the existence of God (or Santa Claus, for that matter) over a thousand years ago.

All other science is to be judged on its ability to turn a profit: The computers by which they tabulate and spy, the guns by which they bring forth "democracies", the bombs by which they threaten the mortal souls of the rest, all bring forth profit because the reinforce ideology, and the reinforced/coerced ideological subjecation is the proof of the ideology's righteousness, its natural facticity, and thus, its self generated reality; the gut feeling, if you will.

Returning to Government as the Machine, it must be completely understood that this machine is in no way automatic; it must have be given commands, it must be programmed to operate in a specific way. The Government-Machine is the same everywhere, because it is the circumscription of human beings confronting other human beings, while at the same time being reconcilliation of humans through morality. A machine that is both without us, and within us.

What is variable in the Government-Machine(hereafter GM) is its programming, how it is set up to circumscribe human beings, how it is commanded to intercede in human beings confronting each other. The GM is always the same in its purpose: What is variable is how it carries this out.

To quote Gilbert from The Revenge of the Nerds, "Only a human can be inhuman", and while, in the context of the complaint of the machine of government, what needs to be remembered is there is no automation here: This machine needs operators ensure that it functions as its programming dictates. These operators are the "human" face of the supposedly inhuman Government-Machine.

If only a human can be inhuman, and machines, particularly this one, seem inhuman, it is because, in fact, it is all too human, all too subjective. All governments are made of people, who are subjects, and ends, in and of themselves. This is a given.

What happens between the birth of a normal human being and the emergence of a "public servant", an operator of the GM?

Michel Foucault, who spent a great deal of his life thinking about power structures, would likely argue this emergence of the "public servant" is rooted in the operational binary of the panopticon, that those who would enter this machine do so because they find society to be corrupt, criminal, or just plain wrong. They become operators to correct this, believing that they are serving their fellow citizen in this way.

However, in becoming operators, the contradictions emerge: The Government-Machine is Human, and thus subjective, yet the GM is constantly threatened by that very subjectivity, because such a subjectivity is messy, unpredictable, and above all, not harmonious. In order to resolve this contradiction, the operator must rethink his/her relation to the machine: For the machine to work efficiently, then it becomes necessary to privilege Government-Machine over those who it circumscribes, because, after all, the GM is us, right? The justification for this must be an ideological one, because only in ideology is there the schematic for the more efficient machine, and a more harmonious society.

In this ideological turn, the operator, whose purpose had been the care and maintance of the machine, becomes an operative, an ideological agent if you like, whose world view becomes the transcendent schematic for the most efficient machine and the most harmonious society. As in always the problem with notions of transcendence, the question of subject is a question of convenience: Does the subject represent a threat or contradiction to this transcendent schematic? The possibility of this is a terrifying unknown, and, thus, as an unknown, a perpetual threat, that needs to be supressed or destroyed. If Foucault's Panopticon is to be extrapolated to society, then its towers are I.S.A's-the defining features of our society. That "public servant", doing the "public good" (with such a generalization uncovering the belief that the public is to be placed above the concerns of any one individual). These operatives defend the towers: Clergy, Pundits, Bureaucrats, Bankers, Deans, Lawyers...these are the guardians of the towers, each ostensibly defending their own interests while, in effect, defending the walls, defending the structure as a whole. The most efficient machine, the most harmonious society, demands all of these parts work for the good of the "public".

The notion of a transcendent schematic is in and of itself a right wing notion, because these questions of efficiency and harmony are only answerable with strict conformity, or rather, the subjegation of the subjects, and the obsession with preserving institutions which serve no purpose aside from an ideological one (the traditional ones; marriage, the flag, English only, etc.) while simulataneously dismantling those institutions whose purpose would be to protect the subjects from subjegation (Law, Finance, Media, Education).

The institutions may change, but their towers, their shells, remain, to be filled with collaborative ideological agents whose sole existence is predicated on installing the transcendent schematic, and by doing so, changing the programming of the GM. This is necessary because of unknown threats from enemies abroad (outside of the walls), but, most dangerously, inside the walls. Thus, those protections become weapons against us, ironic billy clubs swung at our skulls by the ideological agents like the fat racist prison guards they are.

This friends, as you know, has already happened, and how.

The Gravity of the Law

From today's New York Times:

"In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Mr. Bush’s counsel, Fred F. Fielding, declared that the legislative and executive branches of government were at an impasse. Mr. Fielding wrote that the president is directing the two aides — Sara M. Taylor, the former White House political director, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel — not to testify...

Mr. Fielding complained about the tone and language the Democrats used, telling them he wanted to convey 'a note of concern over your letter’s apparent direction in dealing with a situation of this gravity'.”

The gravity here, Fred is that our Democracy hangs in the balance. The gravity here is that you are telling the citizens of this Republic "to go fuck themselves", to quote Cheney, and with any luck, and if inertia is on our side, the gravity of this situation is that you are sliding down a very dark, very impeached, and very criminal hole.

BLAME PHIL COLLINS

I awoke, took my Chantix (trying to eradicate the cancer imprint on my lungs), drank 8 oz of water, and repaired to the couch, waiting for my 45 mins of nausea and general fatigue to come and go, so I could start my day.

I refilled my water, and flipped on my television, which I had left on Fox Movie Channel-I was watching Altman's M.A.S.H. last night-and flipped over to Sundance...

Lo and Behold, The Live Earth Extraveganza, and who turned up to save the planet?

Phil Collins and Genesis, phoning in "Land of Confusion"...

I have an irrational hatred of Phil Collins, I'll cop to that much. Aside from the fact that he makes music that, evidentally, makes babyboomers like himself want to fuck, and not Barry White/Marvin Gaye fuckin', not Prince fuckin', not even Roxy Music fuckin', but Phil Collins fuckin': Late 80's, "Honey, its Saturday Night...", Warm 98 "Pillow Talk" couple of Michelob fuckin'. A Duty Fuck, if you will...well, anyway, what was I talking about?

Phil Collins. It's hard to remember a time when he didn't suck big time. When I was in the faux patriotism wholesaling biz, the cat from the main office was a big time drunk and irrascible old bake-on this level, we got along fine-but he loved Genesis, old Genesis, with Peter Gabriel, which allegedly made a difference. Phil Collins was the drummer. They still sucked: They gave Progressive Rock the reputation from which it is only now recovering: twee, stupidly clever, self conscious virtuosity...Wake Rick, Man...good for headphones, bad for 'heads.

The chantix is now an all enveloping mind-gut discomfort, starting in my stomach, and you feel a little messed up-kind of like the first table spoon of raw nutmeg without the sand in your esophogus feeling-or is it Phil Collins and his merry band decrepit aristocratic British Rock Stars doing a piss take of their own insipid tune, notable only for the video? Then, like goddamned John The Baptist, Phil Collins, leans in, his oversized, hairless, Lollypop Guild head croaks out:

"I won't be coming home tonight/my generation will put it right/ we're not just making promises/ we know, we'll never keep..."

His generation will fix it? His generation? The people who brought us AIDS, the yuppie, soft rock, "New Wave", George Bush, and coked up self indulgence? You mean the people who lived through the Oil Embargo, the gas shortages, knew this was coming, and still bought the block sized Dodge Fuck You mobiles? Generationally speaking (with exceptions) your generation put it all wrong, and, as far as making promises that you'll never keep: Genesis are a rock band that doesn't rock. Phil Collins is soft rock-bot promising to be a human being. Promises?

I guess Phil and the boys think they are a rock band, and to a certain type of person, I guess they are-the cat from the main office certainly thought so, but then again, he also promised me that they wouldn't suck, either, as I sat in his car, stoned, listening to the live version of "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" at peak volume, as he writhed in some kind of Fosters/Pot and Crap ecstasy. Guess I never got it.

What I do know is this: I blame Phil Collins. For everything.

Feeling dirty, I took a shower. When I came out, Snow Patrol was on.

I blame Phil Collins. For everything.

Binaries

This convergence is just too weird:

Happy Birthday, you smug prick.

Happy Birthday, Your Holiness.

I'm pretty sure if they came in contact today, the universe would be destroyed.

I wonder which one will get drunker?

Ghost of the Machine, part II: Infection of the Machine/Dr. Zaius and the Cave

"Remember the words that we say tonight/But don't say a word once we're in the light" (Kelly Willis "Wait Until Dark").

What lies in the darkness; waiting, cloaked, hidden, is our fear, or rather, fear itself: The root of fear is uncertainty, a queasy feeling that something is going to come and upset our little patch of the world as constituted by its phenomenological experience, or, in other words, what we think we know about our reality based on our being part of it.

It is what we have gleaned from being an agent in phenomenological space that we create from our experience in order to understand the "world". However, there is another space enveloping this narrow, solipsistic space which transcends our experience, yet is very much present in it, something we know exists, could exist- a contingency, if you like, but we are either in denial of, or made ignorant of, by Ideological State Apparatuses, such as religion, government, and media.

Sartre would argue that we are unaware because we wish to be, and thus, his concept of Existential Angst is tantamount to denial of trancendent, yet very physical, reality. Gramsci and the Marxists would argue that it is by virtue of a metaphysical class consciousness, reinforced, and constructed by the Ideological State Appartuses, that we are made unaware by design. Both thinkers have commented at some length about problematic, if not impossible, escape from what Sartre referred to as "facticity", or the material conditions of existence, which, by extension, must include Ideological State Apparatus.

By ostensible contrast, the Right (capitalists, neoconservatives, the religious right, free marketers, economic libertarians and readers of Ayn Rand) put themselves, philosophically, in opposition to the above, asserting free will and free thought, the freedom which comes from an unrestricted, unregulated market, the transcendence of reality that stems from the accumulation of wealth, the trancendence of death that stems from believing the above. The Right would assert that Existential Angst is exclusively to atheists, and it is only in a Marxist-based society,that we find such a thing as an Ideological State Apparatuses, because, in a free country, no such thing can exist, because we are all masters of our own destiny, and our success, or failure, is contingent on faith and will; faith in the market, faith in a deity, and the will to pursue both at all costs.

This affirmation of Right world view is, of course, an affirmation of their ideological underpinning for this reality, and, by extension, an assent to the oppositional nature of their world view to that other, the left in total: afterall, it was Lucifier, the Son of the Morning Star, who sat at the left hand of God, and look how that turned out...

In affirming this opposition so totally, the right wing uncovers its own contradiction, and unwittingly shakes it for the world to see in a grotesque strip show: The farther right they go, the more they show. If, as they claim, we are a Judeo Christian Nation, and, as an extension of that faith, evolution is untrue, as at least three of the presidential candidates plus the sitting president claim, then how can this monolith be anything other than an ideological state apparatus posing as God's Law? Indeed, if we are masters of our own destiny in this Judeo Christian Nation, then why the rush to legislate morality if this is not the work of an ideological state apparatus?

Indeed, in the post industrial, informational late stage capitalism that is the United States in this first decade of the new millenium, the right wing has effectively spun a reality different from the one the rest of the world lives and loves and toils and suffers under everyday. But this isn't the Matrix: This is denial, a purposeful ignorance, and a negative assertion of will. The true believer denies evolution because it contradicts the ideological construction which gives them a sense of purpose, comfort, in a confusing world. Unable to negotiate the phenomenological space in which they are presented with choices, unable to reconcile their own impending death with the responsibility of actually doing something for themselves, asserting their will positively, they retreat into religion, into paranoia, into idealogy, becoming ministers, criminals, or radio talk show hosts, what ever dulls the pain.

There are, however, other types of agents and thus, agencies, which operate in the Ideological States of America, on the right wing, and these agents are, in fact, not true believers at all, though, like Dr. Zaius, they defend the faith at all costs, knowing the terrible secret in the cave, knowing the illumination reveals, hidden in shadows, the mechanations, the gears, the circuits, of the Ideological State Apparatus; a human doll that talks is equivalent to a myth of free will, for example, and without this myth, the claims of the Right as being the defender of liberty, of the real America, of free will, must be exposed as for the terrible fraud it is. The infection of the machine is not with religious zealots, but cynical opportunists, furiously pulling levers, pushing buttons, and desperately trying to seal the cave up: Afterall, "there is no contradiction between faith and science-true science".

Part III: The Ghost of the Machine.

I'm It...

Thanks Dave...

Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay...so here are my answers...

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam remains the best bill I have ever seen...plenty of bang for my 20 1991 dollars. We waited outside the Coliseum for an hour-me, Dan from Mallory, and this girl I had a desperate crush on, and had grown the balls to ask her to the show. Then I found out she was wearing a Dickie, but it didn't matter too much: It was doomed. Later, she became a jesus freak.
2. I used to manage the Phantom Fireworks in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. If I still did manage it, this would be my 17th straight 12+ hour day, and I'd probably be drunk already. That was a bad time in my life.
3. The first tattoo I got was a Picasso portrait ofRimbaud on my right arm sometime during the summer of 1993.
4. The Great Escape is on in my living room.
5. I love cheese-really. Alot. Gouda and Cave cheese (mmm like candy) being my favorites, though a sharp cheddar works just as well. With pretzels. Mmmm.
6. When I opened Media Player today, because I do all my great thinking with music, the first song that came on was LL Cool J's "Around the Way Girl". Bamboo earrings-at least two pair.
7. My favorite book is Ulysses-by far, the greatest story ever told.
8. One time, I took mushrooms in Donner Pass. It was September in the late afternoon, and the rock turned this brilliant red-orange-gold. In the car, Charles Wright and his Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band were playing, nay, testifying, "High Apple Pie in the Sky". I almost wept at the beauty of it all. For that moment, I experienced perfection...

Okay...I'm Tagging, but I don't have 8;

Katie G.

Wake Up, Trav!

Brian

Let's Go That Far!

At the very least:

"The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee signaled today that he would seek to hold White House officials in contempt of Congress if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas."

Fitting, since he's been in contempt of Congress his whole term.

After that, let's impeach 'em all for being in contempt of the Constitution and the people it protects.