American Irony in the Arab World

LT has a great post on The west and our commitment to democracy or the lack there of.

Thing that keeps getting me is how ironic the American reaction to the wave of change in Arab World is. This is exactly the wave of popular upraising that the Bush Whitehouse was expecting from Iraq. Not just in Iraq but that Iraq would be come a Democratic Beacon and change would sweep the Arab world.

If course they were hoping it would be Iran not one of their long term ally. Still the Whitehouse should have had a plan for this, given the amount of money spent trying to engineer something like this.

- Peace

Ed Stelmach & Stéphane Dion, Together Again

Back in 2006 I noted that Ed Stelmach's & Stéphane Dion's rise to power looked similar. Of course Ed Stelmach went on to lead his party to new hights, and Stéphane Dion lead the Liberals to new lows. Stéphane Dion was soon forced out of leadership by his caucus. So much for the similarity. Oh well.

This week Ed Stelmach was forced out by his caucus before the end of his first term as premier. I might have been on to something. Nah.

- Peace

Q Interview With Screen Writter for the King's Speech

Interesting to hear how David Seidler's story and the story of the movie meshed. He was inspired by King George VI to over come his own stuttering. He waited years to write this movie because the Queen Mother asked him to. Listen to the Q Interview with David Seidler.

BTW: Three Generations of Kings saw the King's Speech over Christmas break. We all enjoyed it.

CHSR Turns 50 Today!

Student Radio at UNB turns 50 Today, congrats to the station. I did shows there in 87-88.

My favorite was doing all nighters with Steve. Midnight to 8 am. We'd pull random stuff from the huge record library. Next we'd head for breakfast at the Famrer's Market followed by video games at one of our places. Good times!

- Peace

Two Long Surrender Reviews with MP3s

Direct Current has an announcement/review of Over the Rhine's new album the Long Surrender with the King Knows How MP3 for download. They also have wonderful pictures of Linford and Karin. Would love to know who took the pictures.

The Ruckus has a review.  Took me moment to realize 2/8 was the official release date not their rating.  From the Ruckus you can download Oh Yeah By The Way. I just want to amen the conclusion of the review:

This is, for me, the kind of album that you'll want to just sit by yourself in a quiet room and listen to for the first time, no distractions, just absorbing the different layers of instruments and the supremely well-written lyrics. Or, you know, in a room full of people you love that love music even when it isn't coming from the newest musical act.

I fell in love with OtR after hearing Born on a Paste Sampler back in 2005. So grab the MP3s but be warned OtR is a band you can fall in love with.

- Peace

New Music from Over the Rhine.

The Long Surrender is Over the Rhine's latest effort. Official release date is Feb 8th, but if you order the CD from them you'd get a link to download the MP3s now. Listing to the first song, and it's beautiful.

If you don't know OtR then give their virtual record player a spin.

Fun Facts:
While they are from Ohio, Linford got his musical training here in Alberta.

The Long Surrender was crowd funded by fans. My name isn't on the list, I didn't donate in time. However I do know one Jeff Cebulski who's on the list. The last time I saw Jeff we were listing to OtR's Drunkard's Prayer at his place in Atlanta.

Mark Mayhle is on the list.

I'm quite sure that the Beth Maynard on the list is Beth from U2 Sermons.

- Peace

Swype Keyboard for Android

OK so I'm no where near as fast as this video - but the Swype keyboard for Android has made me faster. It's harder than you think to let go of the idea that you need to hit every key.

- Peace

New Look for the blog

Bloggers new template designer now allows you to use custom images for the background of your blog, so IdeaJoy is now using Vision on the Highway as it's background image.

- Peace

Enjoying Matthew Perryman Jones's Free Sampler Olio

Update:

You can could listen to the full Matthew Perryman Jones's sampler or download if you're were willing to give up your email and postal code. But the sampler is no longer available.

- Peace

My First "Interesting" Photo of 2011

Flickr calculates interestingness of pictures as some combo of comments, favorites, views, referring web sites etc. I have some code that let's me know when a picture breaks into the Top 200 of all my pictures on flickr. The first shot to do that for 2011 is my Calgary by Sunrise shot seen above. As more 2011 pics break into the top 200 I'll be adding them to my Most Interesting of 2011 set.

- Peace