Random Thoughts

Finally: A Glimmer of Real Hope

2009-11-04T17:51:37Z

Change you can believe in.

Election Day Results

New Jersey

Virginia

NY-23

Chris Christie (R): 48%

Jon Corzine (D): 44%

Chris Dagget (I): 5.0%

Robert McDonnell (R): 53%

R. Creigh Deeds (D): 41%

Doug Hoffman (C): 46%

Bill Owens (D): 49%

Dede Scozzafava (R): 6.0%

The really crucial race here was New Jersey. This is the one where the candidate chose to embrace the president and his policies, where Obama invested most of his efforts campaigning on behalf of Corzine, and where the Dems outspent the Republicans by a 3 : 1 margin. This race was also expected to be the closest, and indeed, last night the pundits were predicting that the race would be too close to call that evening. By 11:00PM, it was all over: both FOX and CNN called for Christie. It turned out not to be so close after all. If any one of these elections was a de facto referendum on Obama and the Dem's policies, this was it. After all, Deeds of Virginia made an effort to distance himself from Obama and his policies. Had the results gone the other way: Corzine winning while Deeds went down to defeat, that would have sent all the wrong signals.

The results of last night represent a ray of hope: a heavily backed Dem incumbent from a heavily Dem state went down in flames while embracing the policies and president of his party. This can't help but send a signal to both Republicans and Blue Dogs in Congress: "We the People" don't want this train wreck of Obamacare™ They had best remember that for 2010.

NY-23: Lessons for the GOP

This race was a repudiation of the neo-"cons". The GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafava, was a huge RINO. Let us not forget that this candidate endorsed the Democrat after dropping out. Had the GOP nominated somelike Hoffman from the get-go, they would have won. If Scozzafava had not betrayed the party, had she stayed in, Hoffman would likely have won too. As for Scozzafava, time to drop kick her ass right out of the GOP. This female Arlen Spectre might as well have been a Dem anyway. The neo-"cons" "thought" they could run one of their own, and win in a traditionally Republican district. Well, it doesn't work that way. This is a lesson for 2010: don't whimp out -- stick to conservative principles and win. Stick with neo-"cons" and lose. Why would anyone want to vote for "Democrat Lite" when you can have the real thing?

"This race turned out to be the worst of all possible worlds for Republicans as not only did the Democrat, Bill Owens, win a seat that Democrats have not held in more than 100 years, but what occurred in New York has exposed a war within the Republican Party that will not soon end," said Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

-- Democrat Bill Owens wins hard-fought race for 23rd congressional seat

No, you dipshit, it shows no such thing. What we've seen here is absolutely nothing new. We've been seeing this since the end of WW II: when Republicans run on conservative principles, they win. This is how the GOP racked up its biggest landslides in 1980 and 1984 (too bad Ronnie Reagan was a faux conservative). This is how they won so big in 1994. When they present themselves as the Party of Me Too, Democrat-Lite, and socialism on the cheap, they lose like they lost in 2006. At best, they eek out slim margins (Bush I & II, the 2002 and 2004 mid-terms). It's as simple as that.

Now onto stopping Obama's Reign of Error, and kicking ass in 2010 and 2012. :-)

Of course, we're gonna be hearing torrents of bullshit from the libbies and their MsM boot-licks about how this doesn't "mean anything". When you hear that, ask yourself if they would be saying it doesn't mean anything had this election been a trifecta for the Democrats?

Another Concern Troll Pops Off

2009-10-29T00:05:25Z

I found this earlier this afternoon while doing some random 'net surfing: Republican Gomorrah by Max Blumenthal. So who is this asshole?

Max Blumenthal

Not exactly a flattering piccie, now is it? Yet, don't write him off as a complete moron just yet. Looks can be deceiving -- as can liberals.

Max Blumenthal is one of the most constantly cited young liberal journalists in America and is regularly featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, Democracy Now!, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. His articles and video documentaries have appeared in The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English, and many other publications. He is a correspondent for The Daily Beast, a research fellow for Media Matters for America, and a Journalism Writing Fellow for The Nation Institute. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

-- About the Author

Video Promo

Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidness from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans,like John McCain, have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement's leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics.

-- About...

Since Blumenthal is neither a Republican nor a conservative, then what the hell does he care? By all rights, he should not have a pony in this race. This is classic concern trolling in book form. This leads us to wonder just who he is serving here, because it damn sure isn't the GOP rank and file.

"It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats." This statement is a lie. The "Christian Right", not even during its heyday 30 years ago (Remember: Jerry Falwell so panicked the liberals that Norman Lear founded People for the American Way because they feared that Ronald Reagan would be taking his marching orders straight from Lynchburg, VA) controlled the GOP. If you think they did, then ask yourself:

Where is that Human Life Amendment (part of the GOP platform in every election since 1980)?

Are your kids subjected to teacher-led, school endorsed, daily prayer?

Why is abortion still legal?

GWB and the GOP controlled Congress for six years running. How come there was not one attempt to overturn Rowe v. Wade during all that time?

Why is Larry Flynt, that bete noir of the "right" of yesteryear still in business (and doing better than ever) and how is it that porn is more widely available now than it ever was then?

What happened to that concern over porn, and the "community standards" activists?

How is it that the CDs you buy aren't censored?

Show me even one tiny bit of the Christian Right agenda that ever got enacted into law.

The Christian Right tail does not now wag the GOP dog and it never did. As for Sarah Palin, she was never a theocrat. Though she certainly has Fundievangelical™ beliefs, she never used her office as Alaska's governor to impose such beliefs. Indeed, one of her first acts was to veto legislation that would have limited gays' abilities to use contract law to gain most of the advantages of marriage. Sarah Palin is also something else: a principled conservative, not a neo-"con". This is the reason behind all the vilification of Palin ever since she came into public prominence with the VP nomination. Don't forget: this vilification has been coming from both sides of the aisle. If the neo-"cons" are to consolidate their grip on the GOP, they need Palin gone.

This brings us to the likely explanation for why Blumenthal wrote Republican Gomorrah: distract and deflect. He wants to convince you that it's the religious right which is tearing the GOP apart. This is utter nonsense, since they have never been a power within the GOP elite. Mr. Blumenthal does have common cause with the neo-"cons" -- they find the religious right an embarrassment; neo-"cons" are tired of pretending to endorse Creationism™, Intelligent Design™, or to cry crocodile tears over ZEFs. These neo-"cons" have been playing the Fundievangelicals™ like a whore house piano for 30 years now. They're sick and tired of it, and they suspect that this strategy has played its course: not even a Fundievangelical™ will remain stupid forever.

As for Blumenthal, he certainly has common cause with neo-"cons", as these "new conservatives" look a helluvalot like old liberals. After all, setting aside all the blather about Obama, how does the Obama I administration differ in any meaningful way from a hypothetical Bush III administration? What was there, really, for a liberal to have not liked about Bush I and Bush II? Never forget that the "stimulus" got its start on Mr. Bush's watch. As for the rest of it, none of the GWB initiatives have been repealed: PATRIOT I & PATRIOT II, FISA, the Military Commissions Act (which had Mr. Olberman of MSNBC beside himself in paroxysms of apoplexy) that greatly weakened both Posse Comitatus, and Habeas Corpus: still in force. Iraq? Still there, and likely to be there for 100 years (and wasn't the left horrified when McCain said that?) Afghanistan? Still there. Despite all the campaign rhetoric, Bush's "Third Term" began on 20 January, 2009. Same neo-"con" policies; different face, different personalities, but the same old shit.

The neo-"cons" were counting on this very thing, they expected it, and everyone who was actually paying attention could see just how top-heavy Obama's campaign, transition team, and administration is in neo-"cons". These neo-"cons" needed a Democratic interlude in order to let us forget all about GWB. This is why they tried foisting onto the GOP the unelectable Rudy "The Grim Reaper" Giuliani, and when they didn't get him, sabotaged the McCain campaign. Neo-"cons" such as Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker sure showed their true colors.

Liberal Democrats and neo-"con" Republicans want you to forget this. Republican Gomorrah is just another attempt to reinforce a meme created by neo-"cons", and parroted constantly on the left. Contrary to the leftists' wet dreams of the imminent demise of the GOP, they really don't want the GOP going away any time soon.

Look! Over there! Theocons' fracturing the GOP!

Don't be fooled by this. It's the neo-"cons" and left Democrats you can't tell apart with an electron microscope. 99% of all that sound and fury being directed at Obama and the Dems is a dog and pony show put on for our benefit to convince us that our votes still matter. It's the same old game they played for the eight years that GWB was in office. Neo-"con" is as neo-"con" does, and Obama is pure neo-"con".

Barney Frank Spills the Beans

2009-10-28T09:24:45Z

Finally, a Democrat tells the truth. This, however, was purely accidental. Barney Frank got flustered, and simply forgot to lie. That happens when you can't keep your story straight.

Barney Committing the Truth

Here, we see him admit that the Dems want to increase government interferance, and, by extension, state power. Guess at whose expense that will be. It is rare indeed to see one of these assholes actually admitting this in public. We have Ralph Nader to thank for that, since he was the one who rattled Frank. Oooooooooopsie!

Frank and the Dems created the mess in the first place. What they didn't tell you is that this is the same asshole that was pouring forth an Amazon of bullshit about how financially sound Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were, right up until the end. They don't tell you that it was Dems, led by Frank, that forced Fannie and Freddy to fill their expansive portfolios with "subprime" (Translation: junk) mortgages. Nor do they tell you that it was the Dems that resisted efforts to try to fix this fucked up mess while there was still time to contain the damage.

Now, we see Dems doing the same old shit: piling regulations on top of regulations to fix what their regulations broke in the first damn place. They had no business ordering banks to make these mortgage loans that they knew were bad. Too bad they didn't have the balls to take Carter's Community Reinvestment Act to the Supreme Court. Instead, they rolled over, and tried to defend their position via these Credit Default Swaps, essentially an insurance policy against default. This, in turn, created a whole new class of risky derivatives. They would rather play politics instead of taking care of business, the damn fools.

Obstructionism

Of course, their gold stars are a bit tarnished. What the Republicans and George W. Bush failed to consider is that the government has no business being involved in this in the first place. Nowhere in the Constitution is the Federal Gov't authorized to create and operate these "Government Sponsored Enterprises". Nowhere. They didn't go far enough: Fannie and Freddy should have been dissolved, and their assets auctioned off. It was improper from the get-go.

Furthermore, this outrage should likewise have never happened: American Dream Act -- that was the Bushster's doing.

This is why we so desperately need a viable third party.

President Obama's Extraordinary Achievement

2009-10-24T11:19:06Z

This president's latest accomplishment is truly historical. We haven't seen anything like this in over a half-century.

What is it? The sharpest end of the "honey moon".

Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April.

His current approval rating -- hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle -- is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.

-- Barack Obama sees worst poll rating drop in 50 years

This result is paralleled by those from Rasmussen: Trends.

Headed For Bushesque Approval

It took Mr Bush two terms, and eight years to hit 30%. This guy looks like he's going to do it much sooner. I'm sure that this result is making George W. Bush a very happy man. I know that Dick Cheney is pleased as punch. I hope they remember to send Mr. Obama a nice thank you card.

It's getting worse too:

The bad polling news came as Mr Obama returned to the campaign trail to prevent his Democratic party losing two governorships next month in states in which he defeated Senator John McCain in last November's election.

[...]

Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is in severe danger of defeat while Democrats are fast losing hope that Creigh Deeds can beat his Republican opponent in Virginia. Twin Democratic losses would be a major blow to Mr Obama's prestige.

Campaigning for Mr Corzine in Hackensack on Wednesday night, Mr Obama delivered a plea that almost seemed as much for himself as the local candidate: "I'm here today to urge you to cast aside the cynics and the sceptics, and prove to all Americans that leaders who do what's right and who do what's hard will be rewarded and not rejected."

(Note: Emphasis Mine)

The "Coat Tail Effect" has dissipated as well.

Take a look at what I emphasized. Here's the source of the problem from the get-go: it's all about Obama, all the time. It's high time that you sheeple out there that let the MsM do all your thinking for you realized that. You should have thought about that last November. If you had been paying attention instead of doing whatever the fuck you were doing, we wouldn't have this mess.

All I can say is that I am pleased for America that we won't have to wait for 2010 to lame-duck this hideous mistake of an administration. There is no way that Congressional Dems are going down with the USS Obama. They'll be abandoning ship pretty soon since the mid-terms aren't that far off. They'll need lead time to convince the voters back home that they weren't "supporters" of The Fantastic Mr. Fail.

Unforch, this is the very thing the neo-"cons" were hoping for when they betrayed John McCain and Sarah Palin to throw the election to Obama.

O how far the mighty have fallen!

Bad News for the GOP

Of course, all is not rosy. These neo-"cons" just might fuck this up.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party's representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 73% think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters from throughout the nation. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.
These numbers are basically unchanged from a survey in late April.

-- 73% of GOP Voters Say Congressional Republicans Have Lost Touch With Their Base

When you have damn near three-out-of-four Republicans not believing in their party, this could set the stage for a disaster. You could have a situation where a highly unpopular president actually manages to prevail because the opposition isn't opposing and energizing its base. Well, they had damned well figure this out and do it damn quick. If anyone could fuck this up, it's the neo-"cons". They've already proven what their track record is like, nor do they care if they win or not. After all, what have they not received that a hypothetical Bush III administration would have given them? I can't think of a damn thing.

The Beginning of the End

2009-10-22T18:02:26Z

It's begun: Pres. Obama is alienating the press, and they are turning on him, just like I predicted.

Hey, dipshit, here's a bit of advice for you. When you were a community organizer, nobody gave a shit. They didn't care much more when you were an Illinois state senator. Well, dude, you are now a national figure, no a world figure. Every word that drips from your lips is now major news. Every word will be parsed and analysed, your every move put under a microscope. Goes with the territory. It's part of the job, and you forfeited any sort of "privacy" when you took that oath -- both times.

Secondly, reporters report. That's what they do, and they are always looking for that scoop, to beat the competition to the punch. So, of course, they are going to ask you questions. There is no such thing as merely palling around like one of the guys, which you are not any longer.

DO NOT PISS OFF THE PRESS! The MsM made you, and the MsM can break you.

You're welcome, Barack.

Look at this whiny little pussy.

Note the prevarications:

"Since you're in the news business, this is something you're very interested in." -- calls into question her motives even before he attempts an answer.

"The American people are more interested..." -- this was a put-down. Furthermore, how the hell would he know? Who's Obama's Czar of Divination? Does he use a crystal ball, read tea leaves, or just depend on that old stand-by: the Ouija board? Don't forget: he's not on FOX here, nor is he facing a tough challenger. This is NBC, and he's treating her as though she were the "bad guy". Stupidity to the n^th degree here.

"Your advisers raised the issue... Well, no..."

We can't get a straight answer to the question: either they did, or they did not. Don't change the damn subject simply because you don't like the question.

"It's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over" -- Yeah, we can see just how unconcerned you are. If there's one thing this guy excels at it's packing the maximum amount of bullshit into the minimum amount of minutes.

Let's compare, shall we? Remember the mountains of shit the left wing press, the late night comics, and blogosphere heaped on George W. Bush for eight fucking years? Where do you see a comparable performance from GWB? This shrinking violet is wilting, and it hasn't even been a year yet. How is he going to manage to get through the next three years? The frequency of the appearance of terms like "childish" and "cry baby" to describe this latest mess Obama has stepped in is stunning. Of all the nasty names, of all the nasty accusations, leveled at Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, I can't recall even one case in eight years where those terms were applied to either one. Not. Once.

If Mr. Obama can't stand up to FOX, then how can we expect him to stand up to Messers. Ahdamnaminuts, Medvedev, &c. I'm sure I'm not the only one asking that question.

You know you're headed for deep shit when the comics come after you. They're a little (well, actaully a lot) late to the party.

... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama"

-- Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire.
January 7, 2008.

This statement, alone, should have sent his entire candidacy crashing and burning. This should have launched 1000 late night and stand-up comedy routines. There should have been at least one SNL skit about this. Any one saying something so utterly ridiculous should have automatically excused himself from ever being taken seriously again. Remember, then Gov. Edmund Brown said something vaguely science-fictiony and got himself tagged with the moniker he wears to this very day: Governor Moonbeam. The bloom is definitely off this rose. No more will Obama be treated as though he were the Kwisatz Haderach, Luke Skywalker, and Indiana Jones all rolled into one neat package of sheer awesomeness. No, they've discovered that he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us mere mortals. Once this realization has been made, there's no turning back.

Another fatal error was going after FOX, this business of asking Dems not to appear on FOX, the pronouncements that FOX isn't "real news", the attempt to tell the press how to report. Like I said back in January, you don't want to piss off the press. Trying to tell these people how to do their jobs is a sure-fire guarantee that you will alienate them. These media types are loyal, first and foremost, to themselves. Like it or not, FOX is part of that fraternity. Like it or not, it isn't ideology which drives the press: it's ratings and ad revenues. If they believe that trashing Mr. Obama will get them those rating points, then trashed he shall be. Given the free fall of the approval numbers, I'd say that's inevitable.

Barack Obama has forgotten, if he ever learned this lesson in the first place, that the MsM made him, and the MsM can, and -- it's looking more and more like it -- will, break him. His fatal mistake was buying into his own bullshit.

Come next year, we will see just how fast the "permanently marginalized", "moribund", "headed for extinction" GOP can spring back to life. GOP majorities in both houses will make the second half of the Obama (mis)administration the lamest of lame ducks. Already, with a year left until the mid-terms, the (Demo)rats are beginning to scamper to the lifeboats.

Quite frankly, I will be surprised if Obama even manages to finish out one term. A successful impeachment and Senate conviction that strips away his office, a forced resignation over some plausible pretext to save face, the "miraculous" discovery by some MsM "investigative" journalist of the Kenyan birth certificate, a Federal indictment for left over Chicago political corruption, another "9-11" -- and he's history. You can bet on this: the DNC will not allow Barack Obama to take the Democratic party down with him.

Got A Package Today

2009-10-14T02:02:52Z

These Folks are having what they call an "over stock sale" on vacuum tubes. They're offering package deals that are pretty damn good. So I took the opportunity to stock up. Unforch, they didn't have the 6BQ6GTBs that I've been using. They did, however have 6BQ6GAs instead.

Big Box o' 6BQ6GAs

Most of these were Raytheons with a few GEs. Compare to 6BQ6GTBs

These 'GAs are built like a brick shithouse. Bigger, more impressive envelope that makes the 'GTBs look downright wimpy in comparison. This is how a power final should look. They also include control grid radiator "wings" (not that it matters since these are operating in Class AB₁). Not only that, but the cathodes seem a bit larger too. Usually, increasing the letter at the end means some sort of improvement, but these 'GAs look more like the new and improved version. Not only that, but these were cheaper than the 6BQ6GTBs that I didn't get. (Sure like to know who got there first on that deal, I guess someone must've been listening when I was talking 'em up.)

I was a bit hesitant to pop for these since I tried 6BQ6GTAs, and those really suck. They went red plate almost at once. That's not the way to run 'em, so you'd have to either bias cold and take the sonic penalty, or just go ahead and burn 'em up.

Trying these out in the "Le Renard" amp, they bias almost the same, just a skosch hotter, so I had to turn the bias current down about 5.0 mA. No red plates. No glowing screens. As for how they sound, maybe just a touch better (it's hard telling with fine distinctions). More importantly, they certainly don't sound any worse.

I have some 6BQ6GTBs. If nothing bad crops up over the week of running the GAs, I guess I'll Fraud Bay 'em (or may be Craig's List 'em if Fraud Bay hasn't changed their ways lately). May be even get this new batch paid for. :-)

Something That Pisses Me Off

2009-10-05T04:12:34Z

I was taking a look at the RCA spec sheet for the 807. They somehow got the specs all wrong.

Here's what it looks like:

Look at what that goddamn thing says: I_p= 100mA, according to that, since it says all values are for both tubes. Well, a peak current of 100mA is 70.71mA_rms. Given a 6K9 load, that gives:

P_o= (70.71E-3)^2 X (6900 / 4)= 8.63W

They're off by damn near an order in magnitude! If you consider that it's 200mA per plate (it doesn't say that) then

P_o= 34.5W Still not even close.

Next, take a look at the static Q-Point: 24mA per plate comes to: 14.4W, and the 807 is rated for at least 20W of P_D. That's biasing way too cold. So I ran my own loadline:

This looks more like it, though the bias point is a good deal hotter, and the R_L comes in lower at 6K5 (P-2-P). Still, this is deep into Class AB territory. It does, however, agree with the spec for THD.

I don't see how they managed to get that so fucked up, but they found a way to do it.

SiC JFET Amp

2009-10-01T08:54:18Z

These SiC JFETs are definitely high voltage devices, and require considerably more voltage than any pure Si transistors.

Capacitance Chart

Given the extremely nonlinear nature of the capacitances at low voltages, it's obvious that these can not be used at the voltages that would be commonly used for silicon devices. Operating at 300V is just about what you need in order to keep those capacitances reasonable. Given the voltages, there is no question but that you need to transformer couple to isolate that voltage in a reliable manner that will also sound good. High voltage, high capacitance electrolytics won't cut it here.

Fortunately, it is still a high current device, and can operate into loads that are a good deal lower than what you'd need for any hollow state final.

Final (Preliminary)

V_DD= 300Vdc
I_DQ= 0.367A
D_d= 110W / phase
R_L= 450R / phase
V_o= 300V_P
I_p= 0.33Ap
P_o= 50W

Even though these currents are huge in VT terms, they're quite low for transistors. This is also helpful in that these SiC JFETs draw some significant gate currents at high gate voltages. It seems that there is a parasitic diode in the design that causes this. The device itself remains voltage controlled, like any FET, and unlike BJTs. Still, you don't want to have to design this added complication into your driver. Keeping the current under an amp will keep the gate voltage just slightly over the V_Gth, and so you won't see that parasitic current.

The final will also include a DC servo to regulate the Q-Point current, since the bias will be operating very close to the gate threshold voltage.

It is a good deal easier to wind an OPT that'll match an 8R load to 900R_CT than it is to match to the much higher impedances that VTs require. This design is also Class A, as these SiC "JFETs" operate like power MOSFETs -- as enhancement devices. This makes for some really nasty x-over behaviour. Given that V_Gth is ~1.0V, you have a big gap right there at the x-over, since neither device is really conducting at that point if they actually cutoff. This behaviour accounts for why so many commercial MOSFET amps sound like .

Of course, you've made a room heater, but that's true of just about any Class A amp, regardless of implementation. It's much easier to do that with VTs, since VTs like heat. SS devices don't like it at all, so you'll be needing some generous heatsinks.

As for the front end, this'll be hollow state. VTs are a good deal more linear than any solid state device, and won't require the usual solution: enormous gNFB to linear it up. Since the prime virtue of SiC JFETs is that they make much better audio finals, a hybrid design looks to be the best to take advantage of that. The 6BX7 dual triode has some excellent linearity as a voltage amp, can pull enough Q-Point current to satisfy the "Rule of Five", as these JFETs have a rather large input capacitance, even as followers. They also offer a very low r_p to help swamp out that varying C_rt (which becomes your C_i) in follower operation.

6BX7 Loadline

This can be set up as a differential stage. Even though the THD estimate isn't all that swell, you will lose most of it since even order harmonics are nulled in balanced topologies. Still, considering the voltage swing required, it ain't all that bad. The front end amp is also an LTP that could use 6SL7s. Here, I'm leaning towards using the 6GK5 UHF triode for that. It has enough gain, and has a much lower C_rt than the 6SL7, and so less C_Miller. That'll help since that capacitance won't interact as badly with a volume control. This is definitely a problem when putting high gain triodes "up front".

Fundie Follies: Origin of Species -- Fundie Version

2009-09-27T09:31:25Z

In case you didn't know, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. You didn't think the Fundievangelicals™ wouldn't notice? Mr. Ray "Banana Man" Comfort and his faithful sidekick, Kirk cameron, have something special planned for you: a Fundie whacko version of Darwin's publication. Here's a You Tube promo:

Not even a minute into this bullshit, and there's already a problem: Cameron is complaining that there are no alternatives to Evil-u-shun presented in school. Well, that's for the same reason that modern day chemistry students aren't hearing all about Phlogiston Theory: it's been discredited. It's pretty damned closed-minded of those chemists, not allowing their students to decide for themselves whether to believe phlogiston theory, or the oxygen theory of combustion and oxidization, if you ask me.

Over there at You Tube, both ratings and comments for this vid have been disabled. Colour me surprised!

At 1:38, we're informed that Hitler seemed to like the Theory of Evil-u-shun, that Darwin was a racist and misogynist. This has absolutely zero bearing on the question of the validity of evolution. Hitler borrowed ideas from a lot of people and writings; Darwin may have been an asshole, but, that, too, means nothing. This is a pure ad hominem, nothing more.

1:53 -- Drags the Big Bang into this for some reason. This has nothing to do with Evolution. After all, the book in question is "Origin of Species" -- not the "Origin of Life" or the "Origin of the Universe". This is cosmology, not biology.

2:02 -- No transitional fossils discovered. This is bullshit.

2:16 -- Claims endorsements of God-belief to

Albert Einstein

Isaac Newton

Copernicus

Bacon

Faraday

Pasteur

Kepler

Of those seven names, four of them were dead, sometimes for a century or more, before Darwin published Origin of Species. What would Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, or Kepler have thought of it? We'll never know.

As for the others, Faraday was an investigator into electromagnetic theory. He was no more qualified to share an opinion concerning biology than any random Joe. As for Einstein, he was, at best, a pantheist. Read what he wrote, and it becomes clear that any time he was writing about "God" it was metaphorically. Einstein was not a biologist, so his opinion doesn't count.

That leaves Louis Pasteur. He had completed his education before Origin of Species, and his specialization was bacteriology. He may very well have just been not interested. Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether any one particular scientist believes in any god(s). Max Planc was a fanatical Roman Catholic. It didn't matter since he kept his science and religion separate. Unlike Ray Comfort and the rest of the Fundievangelicals™, Planc didn't need any external validation for his faith.

3:16 -- That "both sides of the arguement" nonsense again.

4:40 -- Comfort and Cameron beg for money (WHUDDA SURPRISE!)

These two yutzes actually "think" that this nonsense will outweigh Darwin among our future doctors, politicians, and college graduates. What the hell, it's a free copy, and you can ignore Comfort's 50 pages of bullshit. If they want to waste their time and money on this, who am I to disagree?

Political Music & G-20 Bullshit

2009-09-26T20:27:39Z

Way back in 2004, or so, someone calling himself "Rx" did a bunch of these songs mocking George W. Bush. You can find a sample here: The PartyParty (It's the one on the left side (appropriately enough) Sunday Bloody Sunday). He was giving away a whole CD's worth of these at the time.

Now we hear from the other side: Lance Morrison. Here, too, you can download freebies and hear some examples of Morrison's work. Pretty good stuff, even if you don't agree with the content. Once again, demonstrating that the RIAA doesn't have a monopoly on talent.

Morrison is offering two CDs (Blaming America First and Socialist Dance) for the price of one RIAA-approved CD at places like Wherehouse, and so forth. (Or at least they were last time I actually paid for an RIAA CD, which I haven't done in years. You can do better from independents like Morrison, even if you do pay for them -- much cheaper, and you actually get a whole CD's worth of good stuff, not just that one or two songs you heard on the radio and ten filler tracks.) Mine arrived yesterday, and I am definitely pleased. Morrison hasn't missed a thing here. I think he's better than Rx.

An "Oldie" or Just Ahead of its Time?

Rush's Red Barchetta is considerably before the time of a lot of my f-listers; you'd need to be a graymuzzle to actually remember this.

Lyrics: Clicky

This was way back in 1981. However, these days, I find myself thinking about this particular ditty more frequently. It is becoming frightenly apropos, reading more like today's headlines than just another "oldie" for the Classic Rock stations.

"My uncle has a country place / That no one knows about / He says it used to be a farm / Before the Motor Law"

Ruined farms and Motor Laws: It's happening right now: there will be a lot of "country places" that "used to be farms" in the San Joaquin Valley. The Obamannation and Piglosi have turned off the water. Now, this once-fertile valley that provided the US of A with its fruits and veggies looks like something right out of The Grapes of Wrath. "Motor Laws": you can bet that Algore is spooging himself just thinking about it.

"My uncle preserved for me an old machine / For fifty odd years / I strip away the old debris / That hides a shining car / A brilliant red Barchetta / From a better vanished time"

Is this how people 50 years from now will be referring to our times: "better" and "vanished"? It looks more and more like Rush was 28 years ahead of their time, as it looks more and more like we're building the dystopia described here.

"I fire up the willing engine / Responding with a roar / Tires spitting gravel / I commit my weekly crime"

Is this what awaits us? Having to commit "crimes" in order to get at least some enjoyment out of life? With the insane taxation that's likely headed our way, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Leftoids Behaving Badly

We've been subjected to an endless line of bullshit all summer long about how those "Teaparty" protesters were "potentially violent rednecks and 'racists'", just waiting to go off like a time bomb. Well, folks, here's what happens when leftoids act up:

Protesters split into smaller groups. Some rolled large metal trash bins toward police, and a man in a black hooded sweat shirt threw rocks at a police car, breaking the front windshield. Protesters broke 10 windows in a few businesses, including a bank branch, a Boston Market restaurant and a BMW dealership, police said.

G20 Protesters Ordered To Stop March By Pittsburgh Police

How many windows did those "teabaggers" break? How many businesses attacked? did the cities hosting teaparties feel the need to call out thousands of extra cops and the Nat'l Guard?

LIEberal == Flaming Hypocrite. Period. End of story.

Ridiculous, Shallow Article

2009-09-21T19:18:21Z

Here is something I found yesterday from the Telegraph (named after an appropriately obsolete piece of information technology) Barack Obama confronts America over the racial divide. This is some of the most vapid BS I've ever seen in print.

Former president Jimmy Carter blamed the anger of Mr Obama's critics on racism. "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man," he told NBC News.

What was the "intensely demonstrated animosity" toward George W. Bush based on? You can't count all the web sites devoted to GWB that go way beyond snark into pure viciousness. How many nasty piccies were GIMPed up of GWB? The 'Nets were full of them for eight years.

While the White House rejected Mr Carter's position, some leading commentators in the media did not. Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist in the Washington Post, said Mr Carter was essentially right. "Of course it's possible to reject Obama's policies and philosophy without being racist. But there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president," he wrote. "I can't find any explanation for it other than race."

Here's another dipshit popping off. Let's talk about rejection of legitimacy: hanging chads, butterfly ballots, Al Gore's concession, then his un-concession, followed by lawsuits. How many times did they count those ballots, trying to find some way to put Gore over the top, and thereby reject the legitimacy of GWB's presidency? Then there was the 2004 vote, and more conspiracy theories about alleged vote fraud in Ohio. More complaints about how Kerry should have fought harder to overturn the Ohio vote. Again, to reject the legitimacy of that win. Talk about "nasty edges", what could possibly be nastier than claiming that GWB was behind 9 - 11? How many web sites proposed that very thing with varying degrees of credibility? Was "race" involved in that too?

Protestors on the National Mall in Washington held pictures of the President dressed as an African witch doctor, complete with traditional headdress. Underneath the photo was a hammer and sickle. Other opponents held photos of Mr Obama as Hitler, making him the first black Nazi with both Stalinist tendencies and a love of herbal remedies.

How many times was GWB compared to Hitler? That has become a cliche, not a protest statement.

The more I look at shit like this, the more I am convinced that it is nothing more than a dog and pony show to make us believe that there is a real difference. When you consider what GWB actually did, what is there for a liberal to not like? Bush spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Remember: the Clinton "surplus" (if it ever really was a surplus) was gone before 9-11. He expanded entitlements ("compassionate conservativism") he lied us into the wrong fight at the wrong time in an unConstitutional war which most Democrats went along with (just like LBJ and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, there was no declaration of war in either case) he added to the bureaucratic bloat (Dept. of Homeland Security) he rammed through legislation that increased the intrusiveness of Big Gov't. Remember: these alleged representatives of "We the People" didn't bother to read the PATRIOT Act. Sound familiar? This RINO neo-"con" did absolutely nothing that a liberal Dem would not have done.

Other than the attempt to revive "HillaryCare" -- which is looking more and more like it's DOA -- how does the Obama I (mis)administration differ from a hypothetical Bush III (mis)administration? Again, I can't think of a damn thing.

You have all this nastiness that makes personalities, not policies, the main issue since there simply is so little difference between the two major parties that you need an electron microscope to spot the differences. Neo-"cons" -- "new conservatives" -- old liberals: there simply is no fucking difference. You can go to FOX, CNN, MSNBC, you can listen to Rush: you will not hear Constitution, you will not hear Jefferson or Madison. You won't hear any principled disagreement over core political philosophies. You won't hear it because they don't want you thinking along these lines. The media, the entire media, serve their corporate masters, and the party elites period. We keep hearing about "fairness doctrines", and how "they" are going to silence Beck/O'Reilly/Limbaugh/&c. So how come this hasn't happened yet? It won't because these guys are all part of the scam. The elites of both parties know one another quite well, are on the friendliest of terms, and have no disagreements between them. They really don't care which party wins which election.

So, of course, they make it all about personalities. If things get too hot, you can be sure that Mr. Obama will go away. He can be impeached, or more likely, resign while giving a nice, "heart-felt" speech, complete with his wife and daughters, citing "health reasons" and familial responsibilities. Mr. O's opponents will congratulate themselves on their "victory" for saving the Republic from the "leftist" who would "fundamentally change America", and everyone can go back to sleep while Joe Biden goes ahead with the same old shit.

Or we'll dispose of him in 2012, congratulate ourselves on dodging the bullet, and in 2013 the neo-"con" that replaced Obama will pick up right where Obama left off.

These people cited above can't possibly be as fucking stupid as they seem. We're being played.

Still Stepping in It

2009-09-08T22:27:51Z

Today is the Big Day:

The U.S. Department of Education invites students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate in this mostest historicestest moment in all of fucking history (Never mind that Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush also gave speeches to school kids. And George W. Bush actually visited an elementary school classroom.) by watching the president deliver the address, which will be broadcast live on the White House Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/) and on C-SPAN at 12:00 p.m., ET.

--President Barack Obama to Make Historic Speech to America's Students

Normally, something like this would fall into the "who gives a shit?" category. Kids being preached at by the POTUS? Boooooooring! Most parents would, perhaps, appreciate a little support, or recognize this sort of thing for what it is: another photo-op. They, too, wouldn't care much one way or the other. But not Barack, no, he just had to fuck this up too.

There is a big difference between Reagan's speech to school kids in 1988, George "Education President" H. W. Bush's in 1991, George W. Bush's school visit in 2001: none of these previous speeches/visits were accompanied by their respective Dept of Education's distributing directly to school principles "lesson plans". That, right there, was an end run around the local school boards, and by extension, the parents.

The Lesson Plan

President Obama\u2019s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 -

Teachers should encourage students to participate in the US Department of Education's "I Am What I Learn" video contest. On September 8, the Department of Education will invite students age 13 and older to submit a video... explaining why education is important and how education will help them achieve their dreams.

--Classroom Activities (7 -- 12)

Speaking of video contests, did you have something like this in mind?

Or may be this?

Between the creepy vids, the attempt to cut parents out of having a say in their kids' education, the back pedaling, is it any wonder why parents all across the nation do not trust this guy with their kids? Is it any wonder why a routine, "back to school", pep talk would set off yet another drama storm?

This whole thing was quite unnecessary, it could have easily been avoided. This speech could have been prepared well in advance, released to the public, and all this bullshit with "lesson plans" could have been avoided. The inexperience of this President is showing once again. The over reach, the belief in his own bullshit, the campaign that never ended: he never learns.

Oh well, keep it up Barack: you're just making our jobs of opposing your agenda that much easier.

New Solid State Device

2009-08-29T08:59:36Z

The latest development in solid state devices is the SiC (silicon carbide) JFET. Silicon carbide is just what it sounds like: a crystalline compound of silicon and carbon. It's not new, dating back to the 1890s. It has a variety of appearances, depending on what impurities are present, though the purest form is clear, extremely hard, and quite diamond-like in appearance. Indeed, one experiment to make synthetic diamonds that looked successful actually made silicon carbide. It has long been used to make fake diamonds that look more real than the usual substitute: cubic zerconia. And, of course, there's the very common applications: sand paper, cutting wheels, grind stones, brake pads.

Being a compound of semiconductors, it is itself quite a capable semiconductor, and that pedigree goes back to 1907, when first used to make point contact ("cat whisker") detectors. Soon thereafter, it was used to make the first LEDs before WW I broke out. SiC has the advantage of having a large "forbidden band" that makes for high voltage devices. It has already been used for that very purpose: high voltage diodes. Unlike pure silicon, SiC also is a much better conductor, electrically and thermally. Being a refractory material, heat doesn't bother it so much as silicon. Of course, being a refractory material makes it extraordinarily difficult to process. You can run the die of a SiC JFET up to orange heat, and it will still work just fine and dandy. Heatsinks are required to protect the case, not the die. If there is a down side (and it ain't much) it's that these JFETs come in N-Channel versions only. Not a prob, given the suck-ass nature of "complimentary" N-Channel / P-Channel silicon power MOSFETs. The other major difference is that these SiC JFETs aren't like the common small signal JFET: it's an enhancement (like BJTs and power MOSFETs) device, not a depletion device.

Even though these SiC transistors are being touted as fast switching devices they also have the best linearity of any solid state device yet developed. This has definite applications for audio power finals. Since these come in N-Channel only, that precludes the use of complementary finals. These should have never been used in the first place, as it's fundamentally a BJT topology and works much better with BJTs (NPN / PNP complimentary pairs are a good deal more complimentary). So that leaves the same topologies you would use with hollow state: use a phase splitter, and match your load with an OPT. It also makes possible a Circlotron OTL that's a helluvalot easier to implement than it is with VTs, since you don't have to parallel up so damn many units to get the current handling capability you need to drive 8R speeks directly.

These SiC JFETs are exactly what I've been looking for. Since (like VTs) these don't get all hot and bothered when you warm 'em up, you don't need gigundous heat sinks when you run 'em in Class A. Given the inherent linearity, you also won't be needing shit loads of open loop gain for error correction and linearization. If I can get my paws on these, it looks like a good candidate for a kick-ass amp: hollow state frond end, driving an SiC JFET Circlotron on the back end.

Some Spec Sheets

10A JFET

17A JFET

30A JFET

White Papers

Comparing wide bandgap materials

Enhancing Power Electronic Devices...

More white papers: TMI category

The A Number One problem here is a lack of availability. They also ain't exactly cheap ($60.00 a pop) but certainly better than the usual audiophool pricing. If these actually live up to the hype (been there; done that -- that's what they were claiming about MOSFETs when they first came out) all that will be missing is the glowey bottle coolness.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

2009-08-25T23:10:22Z

While looking up something on the Intrarwebs, I came across this Slate article: Teen Spirit. Just look at this bullshit:

A slew of clueless scholars and columnists have mused, over the decades, that the Beatles caused such a sensation because they snapped us out of the gloom brought on by the Kennedy assassination, which had taken place the previous November. This is silly sociology. Look at these DVDs or at any footage of a Beatles concert or a Beatles mob. It's extremely doubtful that any of these teenage girls were cheering, screaming, palpitating, even crying with joy as some sort of catharsis to their anguish over Lee Harvey Oswald's deed in Dallas. Meanwhile, their parents, who were the ones more likely traumatized by the death of the president, remained tellingly immune to Beatlemania.

So who were these "teenaged girls" doing all that cheering, screaming, palpitating, and crying with joy? They were paid shills, every last one of them. See for yourself:

Now ask yourself this question: does this behaviour look normal to you? I've been to lots of different rock concerts, covering a variety of genres, and I have yet to see anything like that. The only place I ever saw anything remotely similar was at an "Ozz Fest". Now, Paul McCartney ain't no Ozzy Osbourne, who is known to hold up a set to cheer lead his audience. Ozzy would not have worked well with the Ed Sullivan Show, since everything's timed down to the second. Holding up the next song to remind his audience that they're not loud enough, not crazy enough, not wild enough, would not be appreciated. Neither would the extra improvs that added unpredictable numbers of minutes to each song.

While watching this vid, pay extra careful attention to the rest of the audience which accidentally slipped into the scenes 2:16 (those girls behind that one aren't carrying on like that) 2:45, 5:13 (Can we say, "Trying too damn hard here?") 6:35, 7:18, 9:00 (Notice that geeky-looking girl, you'll be seeing her again, also, contrast with kids sitting behind her) 9:21 (old guy sitting behind her looks like he's on the verge of grabbing her, and telling her to sit down and STFU, young guy next to him agrees). It's also instructive to notice that wider audience shots are all the same. It was a total set-up. Indeed, part of the deal that got the Beatles on Ed Sullivan included $50,000 for publicity, including arranging for "hysterical" teenaged girls to be carrying on like idiots.

Even more instructive are the scenes beginning at 10:59, taken at a night club apparently called the "Peppermint". Notice who the Beatles, including John "SORRY GIRLS, HE'S MARRIED" Lennon, are dancing with: those same girls from Ed Sullivan's audience! More than mere groupies, not only paid shills, but part of the entourage itself.

Talk about your clueless scholars and columnists, this Fred Kaplan takes the cake. It gets worse (WHUDDA SURPRISE!).

The Beatles took hold of our country and shook it to a different place because they were young, because their music had a young, fresh feel, and because -- this is the crucial thing -- our parents didn't get it.

Ed Sullivan didn't entirely get it, either -- and why should he have? He was even older than our parents. Legend has it that, on a trip to England a few months earlier, Ed saw the commotion the Beatles were causing and thought he'd book the lads on his show as a novelty act -- until their manager, Brian Epstein, insisted on top billing. You can imagine Ed thinking: Top billing for these kids? Above Frank Gorshin, Myron Cohen, Gordon and Sheila McRae? Above Hollywood's delightful Mitzi Gaynor?!

The day after that Sullivan show, every boy came to school with his hair combed down as far as he could manage (which, in most cases, wasn't very far). Some went out and bought Beatle wigs. Or saved up to buy a guitar and then got together with friends to form a band. And this was OK, as long as you didn't play too loud. The Beatles' rebelliousness was playful, not menacing. (Ed frequently praised them, in his introductions, as "fine youngsters.") Their sexuality had an androgynous element -- that long hair and such pretty faces (except Ringo, the funny mascot of the group). They were a palatable transition to the truly menacing figures to come -- the Rolling Stones (who weren't booked by Sullivan till 1967 and, even then, were forced to change the lyrics of "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's spend some time together"), later punk rock, and beyond.

Still more bullshit. So what kind of group were they? They had a few memorable ditties (Eight Days a Week, Michelle, Yellow Submarine come to mind). I don't instinctively reach for the tune button whenever I hear them come on the radio; neither do I think: "I was sure waiting for that one". We're talking about routine competence here. Nothing more.

What the Beatles Really Contributed

When Rock got started, this was a daring new art form. Suddenly, you had a handful of Southern white boys playing "race music". It was OK for niggers and white trash hillbillies to listen to that stuff, but God forbid that white, Middle Class, suburban youths should pollute their ears with that "darkie music". You had Elvis Presley wiggling his ass in a most suggestive manner. Even back in the mid-1950s (when a character named Theodore Cleaver once told his teacher to use as his nick-name a slang term for female genitalia; seeing the very words "Leave it to Beaver" should have produced gales of laughter) they recognized dry humping for what it was. It was dangerous, it was intimidating, and it scared the living hell out of Mom and Dad.

Then, along came the RIAA, and Rock was subjugated to the corporations in record time. Elvis Presley was thoroughly emasculated, and his career would have been DOA were it not for a series of utterly silly movies, and that dead end of all dead ends: Las Vegas. Rock became Mom and Dad safe. The listening audience was assaulted by "music" written to formula. There were all those depressing, "dead kid" songs (Tell Laura I Love Her, Teen Angel, Last Kiss, Patches, Leader of the Pack, &c, ad infinitum, ad nauseum And to think that some assholes call Black Metal "death obsessed"!) The whole point being who could come up with the most senseless, most bloody and brutal means of demise. Who in the hell got the bright idea that listening to morose shit like this was a good idea? I haven't a clue, but that's the RIAA for you. By 1964, the RIAA had damn near succeeded in killing off Rock for good. God knows most of it wasn't worth listening to.

This is where the Beatles made their biggest contribution: they broke the corporate monopoly on music. The subject matter may have been largely the same (boy/girl songs) the tunes unremarkable even by the standards of the day (compare to She's Not There / Zombies, Live for Today / Grassroots -- keep telling yourself these songs were done in 1964) but it was different enough to be clearly recognizable that this wasn't more of the same old shit from the same old assholes. The listening public demanded more and better. The "British Invasion" took off; American bands played catch-up with their counterparts across the Pond. The Beatles were in the right place at the right time in order to bring a moribund art form back to life.

The Beatles: The Real Talent

Not to say that the Beatles weren't astonishingly talented: they were. However, that talent was for self-promotion. No group in history could ever hope to match them. They were a big deal in 1964: "Beatlemania" was everywhere. In less than two years, they were headed into that good night of utter obscurity that is the fate of all popular cultural trends. They fell way short of filling the seats at Shea Stadium, whereas the supply couldn't meet the demand for tickets just a year before.

That's when John Lennon said:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity.

John Lennon Quotes

Of course, what happened next was predictable. The Fundievangelicals™ threw a hissy, and a huge shitstorm struck. You had Fundies picketing the Beatles, record stores, holding rallies where Beatles records were burned (which also helped record sales as they then needed to replace the albums they burned for the cameras). They could not have afforded that kind of publicity, and they got it free. This was 1966 -- the same year that Revolver was due for release. Lennon understood America better than anyone could have figured. He certainly knew what buttons to push.

Other self-promotions included spreading a false rumour that McCartney had died and was disposed of in secret. The clues as to his demise being encoded within various Beatles songs. This sent buyers to the record stores in droves, to buy albums to seek the clues for themselves.

Then there was the John Lennon/Yoko Ono bareassed album and the "Bed In" peace campaign. All bullshit. Lennon's closest associates said that he could not have cared less about the Vietnam War, and that he was pretty much apolitical. More publicity seeking.

Let's not forget the cartoon series that ran for four years and 39 episodes (1965 -- 69). With the Beatles, self-promotion, not the music, was the whole point. It kept them going strong for four more years beyond what should have been their demise as a pop culture phenomenon. No one has yet come close, and other attempts mere echos (e.g. Madonna). Of course, Kaplan missed all of that.

The Situation Today

It would take the RIAA another decade to re-group and launch their next assault on Rock: the syntho-star, beginning with those four talentless assholes that couldn't even play their own instruments: The Monkees (the Archies, Partridge Family, DeFranco Family, the Osmonds, New Kids on the Block, Milli-Vanilli, Spice Girls, J-Lo, Briteny and others would follow in quick succession) and ending with today's total shit that's driving even the youngest pre-teens back to Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, KISS, Eagles, Dooby Bros., Steve Miller and other 1970s bands with which their parents grew up. Today's music? Don't bother. We have this "local" radio station (they pretend to be local, but it's a franchise) that advertises itself as "The Home of New Rock". Hardly a day goes by that I'm not hearing something off Bush's 16een Stone album -- released in 1995! By any sane standard, Everything Zen and Little Things (That Kill) would be oldies. There just isn't enough "new rock" to fill out a daily rotation. It is the same situation that was made for the Beatles.

These days, we have the Internet, file sharing, and independent acts that are not beholden in any way, shape, or form to the RIAA. These days, we have the Furry Music Foundation, AzOz, and many other just a Google search away. Everything for any taste, and proof positive that the RIAA does not now, and never did, have a monopoly on talent. These days, the up and coming musician has something even the Beatles could not have imagined in their wildest dreams: an instant world-wide audience only a mouse-click away.

Another Retired Politician, Another Kiss 'n' Tell

2009-08-15T20:00:02Z

This time, it's from Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney. He already has a deal with Simon and Schuster for a "memoir", due in 2011. Here, Mr. Cheney reams his former boss: George W. Bush. Like every other asshole politician, he blames others for failings that were strictly his own.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," Gellman quoted a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming."

-- Cheney: Bush Quit Taking My Advice

"Bush was more malleable to that": was he really? 9-11, Jim Jeffords -- defected from the GOP, the Clinton surplus: gone, 9-11, the infamous "sixteen words" from the 2003 SOTUS, "Mission Accomplished" when it was anything but, Iraq: damn near lost, Osama Bin Laden: still at large, stock market: down, economy: down, unemployemnt: up, deficits: through the roof. Considering what a smashing "success" Mr. Bush's first term was, why would he ever question the brilliant advice from the MOSTEST INFLUENTIALEST VP IN ALLUV US HISTORY!!!!1111oneoneoneone™

"He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming."

A president who thinks for himself: can't have that. The great tragedy is that Mr. Bush waited until his second term before giving this thinking for himself stuff a go. He might've done better by the country, and by himself, had he realized Cheney was bullshitting him from the get-go.

I hope S & S lose their ass on this one.

More Audiodamnphoolery and Other Stuff

2009-08-10T21:55:13Z

Here is a totally ridiculous article from Wikipedia (WHUDDA SURPRISE!): Tube Sound.

Tube sound (or valve sound) is the characteristic sound associated with a (sic) vacuum tube-based audio amplifiers.

(Emphasis in original)

The only "characteristic sound" that I'm aware of that is associated with vacuum tubes occurs when you drop one on a concrete floor. It sounds something like: PAFF!!!!!!! With transistors, especially those TO-3 types, it's more like "clink". If you do the design right, there should not be any "characteristic sound". If there is, then you don't have an amp; you have an FX box. It's just that tubes allow one to come closer to the ideal since the devices are more inherently linear.

Total bullshit. Between this article, or the one about the furry fandom, I haven't decided which one is more fucked up.

Hollow State OTL Again

Here's a loadline:

The 6CD6GA is a big horizontal deflection type that can manage a peak cathode current of 0.7A, and can do it with a very low V_PK that is also within its very low screen voltage rating. Eight of those (four per phase) in a Circlotron will get you better than 30W into eight ohms. With eight of those fuckers pumping out 160W of pure dissipation, plus 126W for the heaters, and you probably got yourself a room heater.

You use eight 6CD6GAs in a PPP topology with an OPT, a reasonable loadline, and you could get a one helluvalot more than 30W out of them. And you wouldn't have to worry about poofed speeks from DC offset.

Better to stick with power MOSFETs for that OLT Circlotron. Given the very steep loadlines, solid state devices couldn't sound any worse, and probably sound better.

I think the time and effort would best be dedicated to making a MOSFET amp that doesn't sound like total:

I like an engineering challenge as much as the next guy, but I can't justify something like this. Yeah, Atma-sphere Music Systems specializes in hollow state Circlotrons (but basing their designs on the 6AS7 series pass regulator tube) but that's looking more like a gimmick for marketing purposes and hideous audiophool pricing. Fuck that. (I also suspect that they are asking way too much of the 6AS7. Their 30W amp has five sections / phase and my design needed eight / phase: the 6AS7 has a cathode current limit of 0.125A_DC and I wouldn't push that much past 0.375A on peak currents; they're going way higher than that.)

More Bullshit from Atma-sphere

We want a triode amp because triodes are more linear, i.e. better sounding. In addition, in an OTL a large amount of current-handling ability is required, so only tubes with relatively high current handling characteristics can be considered. Because of this current characteristic, tubes with low amount of current capacity would be impractical, as too many tubes would be required to create the output section of the amp.

The 6AS7G Power Triode

In the first place, with the extremely steep loadlines required, triode, pentode, what difference does it make? You're going to get gobs of distortion anyway, and you'll need NFB to linear them up.

So we chose the 6AS7G, which has had a traditional OTL history, as it was first used in OTLs as early as 1954. The 6AS7G is a dual-section power triode, meaning that two independent triodes are housed inside the glass envelope of the tube. The triode element itself is based on the 6B4 power triode, which was a single triode also in an octal base. The 6B4 itself is interesting, as it is the intermediate step between the 6AS7G and the original 2A3 power triode, which is a tube well-known to the single-ended triode community. The 6B4 was intended to be a 2A3 in a 'modern' tube base (octal), and employing the innovation/improvement of an indirectly heated cathode, making it more hum resistant. A variant of the 6B4, the 12B4, was also produced. The 12B4 was a miniaturized form of the 6B4, in a 9-pin miniature package with a smaller (lower power) structure. It was intended primarily for voltage regulator and television service , but was featured as a power output tube in an OTL construction article in the fifties, penned by Julius Futterman.

Of course, the 6B4 and the 2A3 don't look very similar; the tooling to make the 6B4 was redesigned. But on paper the two tubes have identical specs. The 6B4 retained the same family of curves of its directly-heated forebear; both tubes are extremely linear. This same linearity is a hallmark of all the tubes in this family including the 6AS7, which is one (but not the only) reason why the 6AS7G is a better sounding tube than the much-touted 300b. The sonic superiority of the 2A3 over the 300b is well-known in the single-ended world, it should come as no surprise that the 6AS7G follows the same path.

Who the hell cares? The 6AS7 is nothing like a 2A3. "The sonic superiority of the 2A3 over the 300b is well-known in the single-ended world, it should come as no surprise that the 6AS7G follows the same path". Well, not exactly. It's a matter of opinion, and in virtually every case where I see this claim, I also see a schemo for the 300B that shows inadequate grid drive. Driven properly, 300B's seem to be preferred over 2A3s. Still, these folks aren't operating them into nearly vertical loadlines either.

Of course, the 6AS7G was designed for more heavy duty service as a voltage regulator, although the first construction articles released by RCA (who developed the tube) in the late 1940s feature it as a power output tube.

Actually, RCA discourages such applications.

These characteristics have caused us to retain the tube as our main platform despite constantly having re-evaluated the tube many times over the last 23 years.

The only "characteristic" that caused you to use 6AS7s is that the Russians still make them. TV HD pents would work much better.

By creative combination of the above circuitry, we have created a tube circuit not used in tube amplifiers before: the differential cascode. This type of circuit has all the advantages of cascode and differential amplifiers, resulting in an amplifier that has fewer parts for the amount of gain available than is possible using conventional triode circuits, while at the same time having lower distortion and noise.

Pure bullshit. Differential cascodes have been used in instrumentation and o'scope amps for decades. Techtronix o'scopes used this very thing to make their wideband, vertical deflection amps. These had the best BW of any hollow state o'scopes ever made.

The result: an amplifier vastly superior to any 300b amplifier made. Bass, high-frequency extension, more detail and a vastly expanded soundstage are some of the immediate and obvious improvements over other 300b designs. Was it better than any of our existing amplifiers? No. What the 300b OTL demonstrates is exactly what we forecast: the 6AS7 is every bit the tube that the 300b is and more. Four 6AS7s in the same amplifier produce over twice as much power for a cost of less than a single 300b. So our 300b OTL remains as a demonstration and an example of our commitment to quality. Although state-of-the-art for 300b amplifiers, we have no plans of producing it since it offers no performance increase over our existing amps. See comments elsewhere on this website.

Still more bullshit. Given the steep loadlines, is it any wonder why there is no difference between 6AS7s and 300Bs? Use an OPT and shallower loadlines, and the 300B beats the living daylights out of the 6AS7 every time. Once more for clarity: nearly vertical loadlines lead directly to suck-ass sonics. That's no better than transistors.

If you're gonna do that, just solid state the fucker: no chassis holes to punch, no heater power to worry about, more efficient.

American Staatssicherheit?

2009-08-09T20:08:27Z

Way back in 2002, the Bush administration proposed Operation TIPS. The idea was basically to recruit folks who routinely had access to peoples' homes (postal workers, utility meter readers, delivery and service personnel of various sorts) as an army of spies to root out possible terrorist and other criminal activities. Needless to say, John Ashcroft (He was personally opposed to the idea, BTW.) and George Bush took a lot of heat and criticism over this proposal.

Well, folks, it's back.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

-- The Briefing Room

Note: I have taken a screenie of this in case it disappears from the 'Net, as most things that reflect poorly on the current POTUS have a nasty habit of doing these days.

What they are doing here is nothing less than asking you to report directly to a White House e-mail address any and all deviations from political orthodoxy. This is bullshit. What's next -- will you have to watch what you say in front of the children lest they report you to their teachers? Honest opinions expressed in furtive whispers and only after having a good look around, lest anyone overhear? Citizens spying and ratting out citizens is positively un-American, and more befitting to some Third World shithole. Regardless of how odious Operation TIPS was, at least it was about trying to ferret out those who would do us actual harm. This, OTOH, is all about ferreting out those who disagree with the POTUS and his policies.

What are they going to do with these e-mails which will inevitably include the names of the senders, and header information that will identify the source of the original e-mail? Create a Nixonian "enemies list"? A list of names to be targeted for IRS audits and/or closer scrutiny to cause as much problems for dissenters as possible? COINTELPRO Parte Deux? Your guess is as good as mine.

George W. Bush may have been an asshole, but he never sank this low. Is this the change we voted for last November?

They Have Something Else in Common

Obama and Bush the Lesser share something else in common. Obama lies just like Bush:

For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.

This is no different from Bush's State of the Union address:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

-- Bush's 2003 SOTU Address

This is lying by implication. It is no different than, let's say, these people I don't want for neighbors are looking to buy the house next door. They come to my door, asking about the house. I could say something like: "I don't know, but I sure wouldn't want to buy a house with a cracked foundation". Did I lie? Well, not exactly, I told the truth: I wouldn't want to buy a house with a cracked foundation. However, I didn't say that the foundation of the house next door is perfectly OK, and so didn't tell the truth either.

By saying that the British gov't learned something, Bush spoke the truth. He forgot to tell us that the British gov't was operating from forged and defective documents.

Obama is telling us the truth that we can keep our insurance plans and doctors. What he conveniently forgets to tell us is that those insurance plans won't be there for us. Your employer will be certain to opt to tell you to get your own insurance or go on the gov't's plan. Private insurance will be squeezed out since they will no longer be able to compete.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Change, my furry foxie ass!

The Left: Don't Know the Meaning of Irony

"I also have no doubt that there are groups that spread out people across the country to get people to go these things and to specifically generate videos that can be posted on the Internet so that people can watch".

-- Robert Gibbs

And what, exactly, does ACORN do? I'm sure you've heard of them, huh, Robert?

Keith, Where is the Outrage

How come Obama isn't your Worst Person in the World™ over this? IOKIYAAD?

Hypocrite much, Keith?

These Obamatons and the astonishing collection of dipshits and assholes that make up this new (mis)administration get stupider and goofier by the day. George Bush must be on his knees every single night thanking God for Obama. At least he won't be going down in history as the worst president of the last 100 years.

Made Up Controversy: Distract and Deflect

2009-08-01T21:04:14Z

It's the controversy that will not die. It is also a matter which could be cleared up with very little difficulty. All Obama needs to do is authorize the officials in Hawaii to show us the damn birth certificate. So what's the big deal about that? Yet, he has gone to considerable expense (nearly a million dollars) and bother to keep this thing hidden.

We've had the curious case of Army Reserve Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook who challenged orders to report for deployment to Afghanistan. He challenged the legality of the order, based on the possibility that Obama isn't legally qualified to be POTUS, and therefore, to issue deployment orders. The Army responded by immediately rescinding the deployment order. This looks decidedly like an admission of "guilt".

We've seen the unlikely Lou Dobbs, the CNN (hardly a conservative network) yakker, getting involved in this as well:

This makes him the unlikely ally of the folks over at the World Net Daily.

The ones that you would suspect to be a part of this include Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter (text and vid) and yet both have come out against the Birthers. Since when has Coulter passed up a chance to stir up controversy? It would seem that this Birther Controversy would be right up her alley.

We can be sure of two things here: there is something damned embarrassing in that long form birth certificate. Something worth nearly a cool million to keep under wraps. What that might be, who knows and who cares? The very fact that a long form birth certificate exists is all the proof one needs that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, and meets the requirement of being a natural born citizen. We can also be sure that this is a bullshit, manufactured controversy that's being used as a distraction. It didn't start out that way, but this is how it's being used today. Better that the sheeple worry over a non-issue than pay attention to the real dangers: Cap and Trade, and the nationalization of health care.

It also serves the purpose of making conservative opponents of these policies look like kooks. It also places Republicans in an untenable position. If enough of their constituents, egged on by Joseph Farrah and his WND, clamour for them to "do something", and they don't, they will be accused of "selling out" to Obama. If they do act, and join the chorus, they look like paranoid fools. There's a win-win if ever there was one. So why would the "Wingnut Daily" be pushing this for all it's worth? Never forget that this is a neo-"con" outfit that masquerades as "conservative". (Ever ask yourself where they get the money to fund this bill board campaign of theirs?) The neo-"cons" have long used the WND to send up "trial balloons" to gauge the effectiveness of media strategies, to engage in character assassinations of the opponents of the neo-"cons", and now to trick conservatives onto a counter productive -- if not self destructive -- path. Never forget that it was the WND which did character assassinations on Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, and John McCain. It was the WND which continuously urged the so-cons and theo-cons to not vote in the presidential election. It was in the interests of these neo-"cons" that Obama get elected in the first place. They needed a Democratic interlude to help us forget about their man: George W. Bush. They are not opposed to the Obama agenda since Obama's agenda is the neo-"con" agenda. Diluting focus on these policies is definitely in their interests.

We're being played here. It is to the credit of Coulter and O'Reilly that they aren't falling for it. Quite frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised that they proved to be this astute if not exactly honourable.

Questionable Judgment

2009-07-24T21:47:48Z

I've waited long enough to see where this is going. This whole thing began when a typically arrogant liberal "perfesser" at that hotbed of all things trendy-leftie and politically correct, Harvard, was arrested for "tumultuous behavior" in Cambridge, Mass. So this Henry Gates somehow couldn't get into his house after returning from a trip to China. A neighbour saw what looked a helluvalot like a break-in in progress, and did her civic duty and reported this to the police. (There had been a string of break-ins occurring on this very street.)

So the cops show up, led by Sgt. James Crowley. Naturally, the cops ask the good perfesser to show some ID to prove it was his house. Now, the normal thing to do here is to simply comply. Perfesser Gates didn't do that. He went into an insane tirade, demanding "Don't you know who I am?" and "You'll regret this", and some such bullshit, including what could be construed as a threat against Crowley's mother. Sgt, Crowley did what you'd expect: he slapped the cuffs on the disorderly citizen. Well, no, you self-important asshole, the police don't know who the hell you are. Failure to comply with a lawful order is a cause for arrest.

Here's where it gets interesting: our President just could not leave this local incident alone.

I don't know not having been there and not knowing all the facts what role race played in the incident," he added, but "race remains a factor in our society."

-- Obama says police acted 'stupidly' in arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

He admits that he wasn't there, and that he doesn't know any more about this than anyone else who found out about it in the usual manner. He will not let that ignorance prevent him from pontificating.

"There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."

This is irrelevant. Gates was not "stopped". He was arrested for disorderly behaviour after a neighbor reported a possible break-in.

"The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home," Obama said.

He leaps to a conclusion that is not warranted, by his own admission, due to a lack of information. Furthermore, the police did not arrest Gates for a lack of proof of residency, but for raving like an absolute lunatic after following the cops outside.

This piccie says it all. That guy looks like a raving mad man who needs a vacation in the looney bin.

But Obama also hedged a bit. "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here," he said.

Sure is nice to have friends in high places. To whom else, and over what, is he going to show favoritism in the future? Remember, Skip here beat the rap since the charges have been dropped. If this had been anyone else who doesn't count the POTUS as a personal friend, would the Cambridge police have dropped all charges?

These comments were made at a press conference. All these conferences are tightly managed, and so this is not something that just happened to come up. It was deliberate. This says a lot about our POTUS, none of it good.

1) He makes rash judgments on the basis of inadequate information. This is by his own admission. If he does this while dealing with foreign leaders, this habit could cause a nasty international incident. Isn't that how we got into that mess in Iraq: on the basis of faulty information, and a rash judgment? I thought Obama was supposed to have better judgment than George W. Bush? Been there; done that -- we don't need this again.

It also calls into question his judgment regarding the legislation that crosses his desk. Does he bother to concern himself with such crucial legislation as stimulus packages or health care reforms whose consequences, intended and unintended, will be reverberating through the economy for the better part of the century? Or is he as sloppy when he signs bills as he was with this Gates business?

Facts are such confusing things, aren't they?

2) We see that he has not completely shaken his hippy past: "Off the pigs!" Cops are the "enemy" of "the people", and other bullshit he learned at the knee of that hippy, Weather Underground alumnus, Bill Ayers mentor of his. He forgets that, as the President, he is the ultimate law enforcement officer. Yes, that's right: Barack Obama is the pig of pigs, the Porkus Maximus. (Ironic, ain't it?) He just made every cop's job all that much more difficult. Cops have to put up with so much shit from the very people they swear to serve and protect that it's a wonder why any of them even want the damn job. How many cops get cussed out by supposedly "respectable" citizens every day when they're pulled over for speeding, or some other traffic infraction? How many more "respectable" citizens will feel fully justified in doing so now that the POTUS himself just as good as said it's OK?

3) He plays favorites. If he is going to use the power of his office to insinuate himself into an otherwise mundane local affair, that really is none of his damn business, then what else is he capable of doing? How can we trust this guy?

You can see the police report Here (*.pdf file)

Bonus Lulz

While 'net surfing for material for this post, I got this pop-up.

I'm infected! Oh noes!

Here's the thing: I don't have a "Shared Documens" or a "My Documents" directory; I don't have a "C:" drive, and I don't have a "D:" drive. This thing could not have found any "potentially aggressive" items on my system. You see, Linux doesn't have a "C:" drive! I can't run any of that Microsoft software mentioned in that screenie.

You can hit the "cancel" button, however, that's ignored, and "install-92ef_02018-1.exe tried to install itself. I opened it with vi, and switched to hex mode. The very first thing you see is an entry: "This program must be run under Win32". Next come a whole shit-load of null bytes. This is a dead give away: this fucker is trying to whack the stack. Once it wipes out the return address, it simply executes the "do nothing" command when the return command executes. Then you have the actual machine code for whatever this thingy is supposed to do, then more null bytes.

There's some plain text that's obviously a table of pointers and variable references. These are fucking with something called "KERNEL32.DLL", doing a bunch of file editing. At the very end is some XML, so this damn thing is connecting to the 'net. It's an obvious Trojan Horse.

These Windows users are such friendly people, always trying to share their software with me. Too bad I run Linux here.

Writer's Block: Total Eclipse of the Sun

2009-07-23T21:58:15Z

Solar eclipses, like the one visible in India and across Southeast Asia today, have often inspired violence, fear, and superstition in the past. What do they signify to you?

Submitted By fixnwrtr

View 501 Answers

That the moon is now in between the Sun and Earth. Or this:

Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

-- You're so Vain / Carly Simon

Fundie Follies: Rock 'n' Roll is the Music of the Dibbil

2009-06-26T23:55:30Z

I discovered this ridiculous web site today: Good Fight Ministries. There's a companion You Tube channel Clicky. As with Hula Hoops, Poodle Skirts, Duck Tails, and "Davy Crocket" faux coonskin caps, this is a real blast from the past.

First up, we are told that the Beach Boys are "satanic". Yeah, that mid-1960s group that sang about nothing but cars, surfing and girls. This is the ultimate in mom and dad safe rock.

Brian Wilson hears voices. They talk to him. They distract him, frighten him, confuse him. Right now, the creative genius behind the Beach Boys classic surf sound...

Warner Bros. records president Larry Waroneker claims to have encountered at least five different entities that use Brian Wilson's body as their home...

So what have we learned here? Drugs are bad for you, and Brian Wilson needs a stay in a psychiatric institution, not an exorcist. If any of this is true, then Wilson is psychotic and/or has multiple personality disorder.

Of course, this Fundievangelical™ dipshit takes this as evidence of Wilson's being in league with the devil. Finest 16^th century thinking there, when crazy old women were burned at the stake as "witches".

How about Marilyn Manson?

Even though Manson had attended Heritage Christian School in Canton, Ohio, it did him little good as he saw in many of the students the same hypocrisy that was his own. Manson’s parents moved near Fort Lauderdale, Florida where Warner ended up in public school. It was there that the worldly enticements that he said he was protected from in a conservative Christian School met him head on:

“Christian school…defined the taboos, then held them away at arms length, leaving me reaching for them in vain. As soon as I switched schools, it was all there for the taking - sex, drugs, rock, the occult. I didn't even have to look for them: They found me.”

-- Marilyn Manson

This is all you need to know. It's a pattern that's repeated constantly. The kids of Fundievangelicals™, raised in the protective bubble of the community, go positively nuts when exposed to all the "forbidden fruits" for the first time. You can find them on just about any college campus. So it's no wonder that the former Fundie kid turned into the shock rocker. It's just one big adolescent rebellion against a constricted up-bringing. The main difference is that most would have out grown it by now. Don't take everything he says at his word. It's all part of the schtick.

This is the most common mistake religious whackos of all types make.

They even slander Elvis with this bullshit: Clicky. About all we learn here is that Elvis' version of Xianity was rather ideosyncratic. That's OK: American Xianity itself is ideosyncratic. That's why so many people came here in the first place: to escape the orthodoxy of the official state churches of Europe.

And let's not forget Ozzy:

Sadly, while Bush has spent millions of the taxpayer's money fighting against international terrorism he has given moral support and public honor to one of the most accomplished spiritual terrorists and corrupters of youth the world has ever known. For Bush to Support one who unabashedly glorifies evil and praises Satan is unconscionable. Nationally syndicated columnist Joseph Farah stated poignantly of Bush's praise of Ozzy:

“Satanic lyrics, evil worldview, disgusting mouth, no musical ability, drug abuse. This is Osbourne. He is a depraved moral terrorist, seducing young kids who don't know any better into deadly lifestyles. President Bush knew all this, but still felt it was appropriate to acknowledge him for special attention at the dinner last week.” –Joseph Farah, The Ozzy and Dubya show, 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

(Note: Emphasis in original)

Let us not forget that this, too, is Ozzy:

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is He a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath
Or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope
Do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light
And I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared
At the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it is true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear?
Yes! I think it's too late.

-- After Forever

Satanic lyrics, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKAY! The Jesus Freakery doesn't get a helluvalot smarmier than this.

Dipshits.

United We Serf

2009-06-23T07:02:36Z

Today marks the Grand Opening of United We Serf.

This summer, I'm calling on all of you to make volunteerism and community service part of your daily life and the life of this nation. And when I say "all", I mean everyone -- young and old, from every background, all across this country. We need individuals, community organizations, corporations, foundations, and our government to be part of this effort.

So, if you were looking forward to lazy summer days at the beach or lake, going fishing, roller blading, golfing, taking family vacations, or whatever, don't you feel all guilty to hell and back! Your president has decided that he knows how you should be spending your time this summer better than you do for yourself. Young and old, from every background, all across this country, he knows better than you do what's best for you. Typical liberal arrogance.

You can get started right now by helping us provide those opportunities for people to serve.
If you're involved in a service project in your community, go to Serve.gov and register it on this website, so that other people can sign up to join you. If you have an idea for a project -- like getting a group together to volunteer each week at a homeless shelter, or read to kids at your local library, or pick up trash in a local park -- you can go online and register that too. The website has everything you need to get started. And if you're someone who's interested in volunteering, you can go to Serve.gov to find opportunities in your community.

Translation: This web site has everything the gov't needs to co-opt every local initiative.

"And I hope you will continue the service-work you begin this summer for the rest of your life. Because America's new foundation will be built one community at a time -- and it starts with you."

Yes, it does start with me, as in me opposing you. I've already signed on with the local Republican Party as a volunteer, but I suppose that's not quite what you had in mind, was it?

Michelle Obama also has a statement that matches this one in sheer arrogance. There is, however, no transcript of that particular speech.

Earlier in my career, I helped start a wonderful service organization in Chicago that helped young people pursue careers in public service. I was never happier in my life than when I was working to build that organization. (Even happier than when your daughters, you remember, Malia and Sasha, were born?)

--Michelle Obama

How come she never names this "wonderful organization"? Isn't that curious?

Economic recovery is as much about what you're doing in your communities as what we're doing in Washington -- and it's going to take all of us, working together.

That is why today, I'm announcing my summer service initiative: United We Serve.

Economic recovery is about doing business. By repairing amps and other VT-based electronics, I am doing one helluvalot more to further that end than by volunteering for these bullshit, trendy-leftie pet projects of the current POTUS and FLOTUS. That's a fact. Sorry, but I have neither the time nor inclination for this bullshit.

Michelle and Barack, here's my answer to your call to service:

Buyer's Remorse

2009-06-17T01:14:02Z

The buyer's remorse is setting in amoung the LGBT community.

It's a pretty good statement, other than the inexplicable fact that they didn't mention Obama comparing gay marriage to incest and pederasty, which is arguably the most offensive part of the entire brief.

-- Gay groups decry Obama defense of DOMA

Well, no, it isn't inexplicable. These folks are still blinded by all that hopie-changie, heal the planet, gumdrops and lollypops and unicorn farts for all rhetoric we got for a year from The One. It's that they haven't completely assimilated the lesson they've just been taught. Others already have.

This discussion has come up before, but it's hitting the news wires again as longtime LGBT rights activist Cleve Jones announced again that there are plans for a march on October 11 to demand that Congress address equal rights for LGBTs.

-- Does A March on Washington Make Sense Now? (Pam's House Blend)

Tell you what Pam: may be join forces with conservatives and have a combined LGBT march and "tea party"? Wouldn't that be awesome?

I told you so. I told you over a year ago. That Pres. Oasshole would come to the defense of the DOMA comes as ZERO surprise to me.

And there's another one just waiting in the wings: The Rev. James Meeks. This one ought to prove real popular with the LGBT community. They're just about the only ones left that Mr. Hopechange hasn't pissed off yet ("yet" being the operative word here). When is this shoe going to drop as well? What is it with these assholes anyway? Are they trying to ruin "their" candidate's chances?

--x_eleven LJ Post

It's not like you couldn't see this one coming from a dozen parsecs away. Didn't he deliberately snub a gay pride celebration in his hometown of Chicago? Didn't he claim as a "spiritual mentor" (the only one he didn't throw under the bus) a raging homophobe?

Yet, all over the leftie blogosphere that's now seething with righteous anger and lots of talk of "betrayal" they do seem surprised. You would have gotten a better deal from Ron Paul. Too bad you didn't think of that last March when your vote for Paul in the GOP primaries might have made a difference. Too bad you didn't think of that last November when you could have voted McCain, and still have gotten a better deal, or, at worst, been no worse off.

First he, a black man just one goddamned generation removed from Brown v. The Board of Education daring to use the phrase "separate but equal" in reference to gay marriage, then his pussying out on clapping Bush in irons and pillorying him in front of the White House, and now this.

-- What the FUCK, Obama

If you had been paying attention, you would know that Barack Obama is a black man for whom Brown v. Board of Education would have made no difference whatsoever. His upbringing was one of privilege, private academies, and international jet-setting. Even during the darkest days of Jim Crow, the colour green outweighed the colour black. He was not one of the "little guys", not then, not now. He doesn't give a rat's ass about you, me, the LGBT community, or any one else who is not paying the bills.

And I have to turn to DICK FUCKING CHENEY for some governmental recognition, as unofficial and possibly coerced as it was, that the love I practice isn't a great sin against The United States of Jesus. Dick Cheney makes Richard Nixon look like Rob Blagojevich in comparison and I hear more affirming things out of him, the goddamned devil himself, perpetually snarling like the Beast that Revelation's Whore rides, war profiteer and waster of men's lives, than a goddamned black president.

-- What the FUCK, Obama

And now you know why we haven't heard so much as a peep from George W. Bush in six months. GWB knows that his star is rising without his having to do a thing when you have lefties saying things like this.

You do not get invited to Billionaire's Row, and pal around with George Soros (on the right, in bright blue shirt) unless you are connected.

Just One of the Guys

You do not get the Corporate MsM fawning all over you like a gaggle of silly school girls unless you are firmly in Corporate America's hip pocket.

The buyer's remorse is setting in big time within the LGBT community. Who's next?

I told you the "hope" was false.

I told you that the "change" was just more of the same old shit.

Oh well, at least I voted for McCain/Palin.

Another Wonderful Disney Movie

2009-06-10T20:37:11Z

The latest craptastic celluloid shitfest from Disney and Pixar is entitled UP! Here's the official website: Clicky (if you insist). If you see the website, you've seen enough. The asshole designers of that site sure could have taken a whole bunch of lessons from these folks: Web Pages That Suck. Enough with the goddamn flash!

One gets the idea that the whole point of this hideous movie is that it's in 3-D, viewed through these special glasses. Yeah, now there's a real blast from the past, as this was a BIG THING waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the 1950s. What's next: poodle skirts for the girls, duck tails for the guys, "Davy Crocket" faux coonskin caps on all the boys, Hula Hoops? Welcome to 2009.

The story begins back in the 1930s, as we are introduced to the young Carl Frederickson, who is obsessed with the exploits of an explorer named "Muntz". (This character seems to have been roughly based on Martin Johnson, a RL explorer who worked at that time.) As Carl is leaving the theatre after viewing a "short" about Muntz, and the latest disturbing news of his having faked the fossils he's been selling to museums, he's walking past an abandoned old house when he notices that the weather vane seems to have a mind of its own. So he enters the old house, and discovers this girl, Ellie, who has afrotech modded a contraption from rope and a coffee grinder to play "airship" like the fancy airship Muntz flew. They discover their mutual interest in this Muntz character, and Carl gets inducted into the Ellie Adventure Club as the first member, complete with a "badge" made from the cap of a bottle of grape soda and a safety pin. Then some shit happens, and Ellie shows Carl her "My Adventure Book" -- a photo album filled with news clippings about Muntz. It also includes a blank section under the heading of: "Stuff I Am Going to Do".

Ellie and Carl grow up, get married, yada, yada, yada. Their dreams of having kids and adventures in South America come to naught. Ellie croaks, more shit happens, and now Carl is an embittered, 78 y/o man with a thoroughly repugnant personality who's hopelessly stuck in the past. <sarcasm>Now here is a plot that's absolutely shocking in its sheer originality. I swear I never saw anything like this before.</sarcasm>

More shit happens, Carl attaches thousands of balloons to his house and flies the whole thing off to South America one step ahead of the guys who're going to take him to a nursing home after he's declared incompetent. Never mind that the jet stream doesn't blow in a southerly direction. If he already had all those balloons and all that helium, why didn't he think of this way before now? After lift-off, he finds that this annoying kid, Russell, has accidentally come along for the ride. They arrive in South America near his destination, "Paradise Falls", where he intended to plant the house. Now we see this 78 y/o man who couldn't even walk up and down his own stairs, hauling the floating house across the plains. They are obviously on top of an "autana" -- remnants of ancient limestone highlands. Yes, they really do exist in SA. Then, they descent all the way down into the rain forest for no apparent reason. Yeah, that makes a whole helluvalot of sense. If they really did that, they'd have a helluvalot more to worry about than Muntz. Those SA rain forests are lousy with FARC militants, Shining Path terrorists, and narco warlords of all sorts.

More shit happens, there's a big bird named "Kevin" and a talking dog named "Dug" involved, they find the long-lost Muntz, who turns out to be a bad guy. More original plot material here.

Finally, the old coot, having totally alienated Russell and Dug, settles down in peace without being bothered by the annoying Russell and Dug, to peruse Ellie's old "My Adventure Book", and turns to the "Stuff I Am Going to Do" section to find that she has filled it with pics of their life together. On the last page he reads: "Thanks for the adventure. Now go out there and have a new adventure" (or something like that). So Carl finally realizes, after all these wasted years, that he wasn't the failure he thought he was. Why didn't he look at the goddamn book before now? That would have prevented all the bullshit wouldn't it?

So he empties the flying house of all the crap he's been hoarding and guarding all these years to lighten the load so's the house will fly for one last time. Carl finally realizes that Russell, Dug and Kevin really need him, and that new friends are better than old memories. WOWSERS! Another original idea! More shit happens, the EEEEEEEEEEVIL Muntz is killed, Carl & Co. fly Muntz' airship back to the US of A, Russell gets his new merit badge as a "Wilderness Explorer", Carl becomes his surrogate dad, happy fucking ending.

136 minutes, millions of dollars, and not one original idea in the whole fucking mess. How do they do it?

Official x_eleven rating:

A Tidal Wave of Stupid Hits Sacramento

2009-06-05T00:55:32Z

Note: Gacked from virginia_fell's Ell-Jay: Clicky.

[Rob] Williams and [Arnie] States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as "idiots" and "freaks," who were just out "for attention" and had "a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them," either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.

"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," they said.

For his part, States bragged that if his own son were to ever dare put on a pair of high heels, States would beat his son with one of his own shoes. He urged parents whose own little boys expressed a desire to wear a dress to verbally abuse and degrade them as a viable response. "Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels.

"I'm going to go, 'You know what? You're a little idiot! You little dumbass!'" States sneered, adding later, "I look forward to when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy.

(Note: Emphasis in original)
KRXQ Sacramento Radio Hosts Encourage Violence Against Transgender Children

Here's Arnie's Bio

From the humble beginnings of a young, overweight boy in Garland Texas, I dreamed of being in the spotlight, something I am still looking for.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, George W. Bush, Arnie States: three reasons why letting Texas into the Union was a really bad idea.

"I'm not open-minded once I look into sumpin'" one of the two men grunted at the beginning of the segment, their voices interchangeable. "I have every right to call you a freak and judge you on that. It makes me sick. 'Mommy, I'm a girl trapped in a boy's body,'" he simpered, mimicking an effeminate little boy. "I want to wear a dwess."

They berated co-host Dawn Rossi, who seemed genuinely horrified by the rising crescendo of ugliness towards the children and their parents from States and Williams.

"You're actually defending allowing people to become freaks?" they seethed. "A boy who wants to wear a dress is a freak. A nut." Comparing transgender children to "fat bastard kids on Maury," States and Williams urged advocates of transgender children to "stop hiding behind research and laws,"

(Note:Emphasis Mine)

Yes, we absolutely can not let science get in the way. Gender dysphoria is a very real phenomenon. It has been induced in animals such as lab rats and rhesus monkeys. The cause is prenatal over exposure to the "wrong" hormones (estrogen for boys; testosterone for girls). Furthermore, a good many of the transgendered have chromosomal abnormalities. (The "Bond Girl" and 1980s supermodel Tula has the genetic sequence: XXXY -- and physically had a random mix of male and female traits.)

For all mammals, sexual differentiation occurs very late in development. Most of the parts are in common, and that includes mentally as well as physically. All mammals come with a complete set of male and female programming. Hormones can cause the brain's "dynamic loader" to load the "wrong shared libs". Less critical exposures can lead to some of the "wrong" method calls to be made, resulting in "tomboyish" girls or "sissy" boys. By the time your little boy is telling you he's really a girl, or you see that your little girl doesn't seem to like girlish things and would rather play with the boys, it's way too late. That die was already cast, the neuronal pathways fully formed, and no amount of "therapy" or brow-beating, or even abuse is going to change that. Human brains don't come with a reboot option.

Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the sponsors of this hideous show:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this since you are listed as a sponsor of the _Rob, Arnie, and Dawn in the Morning_ show broadcast on KRXQ of Sacramento, California.

On the morning of 28 May, 2009, Rob Williams and Arnie States spent 30 minutes advocating, not only the alienation of parental affection, but the actual physical abuse, of gender dysphoric children.

"If the kid ever gets to be eighteen," States snarled, "and says 'I still feel like a woman!' you say, 'Get out! Go be a freak! And understand, SON, that society will never accept you because we still have some moral judgment."

"If the kid ever gets to be 18...", gender dysphoria is not a "phase" to be "out grown". The kid will still feel that way at eight or eighty.

"...we still have some moral judgement": moral judgement has *nothing* to do with it.

During mammalian development, sex differentiation occurs very late. All mammals come with a complete set of male and female "programming". Prenatal over exposure to the "wrong" hormones (estrogen for males; testosterone for females) can cause the "wrong" program to load. This would be analogous to compiling a computer program while giving the wrong options, causing the dynamic loader to load the wrong shared libraries when the program is run. Less severe over exposure will lead to some "wrong method calls", resulting in "tomboyish" girls or "sissy" boys.

Gender dysphoria has been induced in the laboratory in species as diverse as your ordinary white lab rat to the rhesus monkey.

By the time your little boy is insisting he's really a girl, or you notice your little girl doesn't like girlish things, it's *way* too late. The die has been cast; the neuronal pathways already connected. No amount of therapy, parental rejection or correction, no amount of physical abuse, can alter that fact.

For these "shock jocks" to be making these sorts of statements is ignorant, unnecessarily hurtful to folks out there who may not know with what they are dealing.

"I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." -- Voltaire

They have the right to say whatever they want. However, that does not obligate me -- or anyone else -- to listen to their blather, or more importantly, pay for the soapbox from which they blather.

Don't continue to pay for the "soapbox", drop your advertising from KRXQ until they clean up their act.

Respectfully,

x_eleven

Here is a list of e-mail addresses:

heidi.barker@us.med.com

mchenry@barkleyus.com

info@lasikworld.com

procity@procitymortgage.com

corpefs@wellsfargo.com

KRXQ has already lost: Snapple, Chipotle, and Sonic. Let's make them lose more sponsors.