- Hard to see how this could be construed as anything other than a red, white and blue, flag-loving, red-blooded American patriot doing everything he possibly can to keep his country safe. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-New York, holding a hearing Thursday to hear testimony from proponents of stronger action to limit the threat of homegrown terrorism as part of its effort to examine the radicalization of Muslim Americans couldn’t be construed as perpetuating those very stereotypes it is supposedly looking to call into question with this hearing, right? Either that or it could lead to outrage from Muslim Americans and accusations of a McCarthyist revival, but one or the other. King remained defiant in the face of that criticism, defending the controversial hearing as neither "radical or un-American." He pointed to the alleged trend of recruiting young American Muslims by al Qaeda as evidence that the terrorist group is still intent on attacking the United States. "Let me make it clear today that I remain convinced that these hearings must go forward -- and they will," King said. "To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee to protect America from a terrorist attack.” Groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent Muslim American advocacy group in the United States, have angrily criticized King’s plan to hold the hearings even with his oh, so convincing evidence of a Pew research poll which said 15 percent of Muslim American men between the ages of 18 and 29 could support suicide bombings. "This is the segment of the community al Qaeda is attempting to recruit," King said. King also faces opponents from within, as Rep. Keith Ellison, the first elected Muslim member of Congress, has also spoken out against the hearing. He called blaming the entire Muslim community for the evil acts of a few individuals "the very heart of stereotyping and scapegoating." There is no question that King and fellow Republicans are leading the charge and responsible for the charges of bigotry and comparisons to hearings held to explore Sen. Joseph McCarthy's allegations of Communist sympathizers in the early years of the Cold War. In anticipation of the controversy the hearing would likely cause, King’s personal security was beefed up. Even though he admitted that some of the criticism over the hearing had been thoughtful, he painted much of it as allegations from "both from special interest groups and the media have ranged from disbelief to paroxysms of rage and hysteria." Gotta say, that should definitely calm everyone down and convince all of the haters that King is not condemning Islam as a religion or American Muslims as a group. No matter what results from the hearing, it seems safe in saying that King has at least manage to stimulate discussion……that he’s a racist, backwards-thinking relic from the Cold War era……….
- Liverpool, we are DONE. You may have given the world the Beatles and for that we are forever grateful, but a small group of pre-teen and teenage girls have ruined your credibility, both musically and otherwise, by gathering outside the Liverpool hotel room of Canadian teen bubble gum popster Justin Bieber and creating a near-riot on the streets. Local police have reportedly warned Bieber that it could turn in to a "possible riot situation" and have threatened to arrest him for inciting a riot if he or his team go anywhere near the balcony outside his room. Why the cops can't simply tell the hundreds of screaming girls on the sidewalk below to disperse and stop loitering, I don’t know. But Bieber’s team has been following police orders and hotel employees have claimed that 25 guards have taken up position outside to handle the unruly crowd, believed to number near 500. The situation has grown so dire that surrounding roads have also been shut down. Worse still, Bieber was supposed to take a giant piss on the Beatles’ legacy by going on a historic "Beatles" tour around Liverpool Thursday, but he had to cancel those plans because of the sheer and utter chaos on the streets of Liverpool. All told, it’s an ugly scene that basically places a giant black mark over Liverpool’s place in music history and makes “Let It Be” and “Come Together” sound like a steel knife being run across a giant cheese grater to the ears of even the most diehard Beatles fan. Turning out en masse to waste hours on the sidewalk on the slim chance that you might catch a fleeting glimpse of some flavor-of-the-week, 15-minutes-of-fame, 8-year-old, pop-singing chick whose entire catalogue consists of him singing songs with the lyrics, “Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,” makes you a punchline and an abomination, not a city worthy of respect for producing one of the most iconic bands ever. Whether Bieber pays $1,200 a night for a hotel room or sleeps on a park bench downtown, not one person should give a damn whether he’s in town or not…………
- After introducing the iPad 2 to the world, Apple is looking to make its market-leading tablet that much more attractive by turning it into a mobile music maker. Steve Jobs and Co. have released GarageBand, a music mixing program that can be used to record vocal and instrumental tracks, for the iPad. It’s a new iOS app that is largely similar to its sister version that is part of Apple’s iLife suite for the Mac. The iOS version of the app is slightly upgraded and redesigned, so as to allow Apple to claim that it’s newer and better than ever to sell as many copies as possible for $5 a pop. GarageBand for iPad is equipped with a full set of tools to create, record, and edit music. GarageBand can record sounds directly from an iPad’s built-in microphone (not if you want great sound quality), or users will be able to plug in real instruments with the help of dock adapters. Oh, and crappy pop artists will love this setup because they can further turn their music into a bunch of overproduced crap by adding beats from a drum machine or dropping in more than 250 music samples Apple has included. Then there’s the option of virtual Touch Instruments like a keyboard, a drum set, and a synthesizer to top off the crappy pop artist’s dream app. The fake instruments are fairly similar to the real thing, playing louder or softer sounds depending on how hard you tap, thanks to the iPad’s built-in accelerometer. Users who are musically inept but still like to create (wait, didn’t I just cover them when I wrote about pop artists?) will also be able to lean on GarageBand for iPad’s Smart Instruments, which simplify matters for the musically moronic. If you’ve ever wanted to play the guitar but have no skill to do so, the Smart Guitar will allow you to strum or fingerpick guitar chords with a tap or two and follow along with chord progressions for simplified virtual strumming and picking. Should you have no friends with whom to start your tablet computer band, you can also use Smart Keyboard, Smart Bass, and Smart Drums to round out your fake sound. But wait……there’s more. GarageBand for iPad also has an eight-track mixer for recording with which you can arrange and edit each of your instruments with an interface that is the most similar feature in this version of GarageBand when compared to GarageBand for the Mac. When finished with your crappy pop, tablet-produced track, you will then be able to do the same things the big brother version of the program can do, namely email a copy of the song, export it to iTunes or transfer the project to your Mac to finish with GarageBand ’11. And all of this can be yours for the low, low price of $5….assuming you have a first- or second-generation iPad with iOS 4.2 on which to use it…………
- Say it ain’t so, Dalai Lama. Tell the world that you didn’t really meant it when you announced your plan to retire as political head of the Tibetan exile movement and tell me that you did NOT just make that announcement on your website. "Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," the exiled leader said in a statement. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect." No, no they do not. They need to no longer be oppressed, but you’re not the one doing the oppressing. The Dalai Lama is the cool, movie-loving kid in Seven Years in Tibet who marvels over Brad Pitt’s yellow hair and asks Pitt to build him a movie theater in his remote village, not an exiled political leader meekly surrendering power. Fact is, the Dalai Lama remains the head of state for now and that means there is still time to talk him out of this, even if Tempa Tshering, his representative in India, seems to believe otherwise. "On March 14, (the) parliament will meet in Dharamsala (India) and decide whether to approve his request," Tshering said. "He wants to make a change. He has always believed in democracy and he wasn't elected as head of state." That doesn’t matter. How a person came to power isn't relevant when they have been there for years and no one is objecting to their continued leadership of a group or people. If the parliament does meet and make the requested changes, leadership of the group would be passed onto an elected leader. "Since I made my intention clear, I have received repeated and earnest requests both from within Tibet and outside, to continue to provide political leadership," the DalaiLama proclaimed in his statement. "My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility. It is to benefit Tibetans in the long run. It is not because I feel disheartened. Tibetans have placed such faith and trust in me that as one among them I am committed to playing my part in the just cause of Tibet. I trust that gradually people will come to understand my intention, will support my decision and accordingly let it take effect." No, they will not. Don’t cave in to the ass hats in the the Chinese Foreign Ministry, who openly mocked the announcement, calling the Dalai Lama a "religious crook," who is seeking to fracture Chinese solidarity. "He is the mastermind of political activism," said Jiang Yu, ministry spokeswoman. "He has said many times he is leaving but this seems to be one of his tricks to deceive the international community." Shut it China, you’re not helping. If the Dalai Lama relinquishes his political power, will those who are fighting for Tibet’s freedom keep up the fight. Will individuals like the 11 who were arrested Thursday in Nepal for displaying "Free Tibet" banners and shouting anti-Chinese slogans keep battling? This fight has been raging ever since the Dalai Lama fled China 52 years ago on March 10, 1959, after the failed uprising and his desire to retire at some point will just have to remain a pipe dream for now, as far as I’m concerned. “I'm also a human being. ... Retirement is also my right," he said during a recent speaking tour of North America. “Sooner or later, I have to go. I'm over 75, so next 10 years, next 20 years, one day I will go." Don’t talk like that, D. Lama. Tibet needs you and right now, you are letting them down big time…………
- At least he didn’t rat some of his players out for crying in the locker room after a bad loss and then try to insist that the entire story was a media creation. Other than that, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle seems to have sparked a fire in his players after calling them “soft” following a disappointing 93-92 loss to the New Orleans Hornets in which the Mavs lost despite holding a 10-point advantage heading into the fourth quarter and a seven-point lead with 1:13 to go. A frustrated Carlisle laid into his team for a series of errors and did not hold back. "Soft," Carlisle said of his team. "Yeah, soft." Oddly enough, those comments did not play well in his own locker room, which had a definite melancholy hanging over it after the game. "I wouldn't go that far," said center Tyson Chandler when asked about his coach’s comments. "Who said that?" Jason Terry replied to the same question. "I'm not soft, not me. I don't know where that comes from, but we ain't soft. We have to see how he meant soft in that aspect, but I know he wasn't talking to me personally or any of my teammates because I don't think none of these guys are soft." Of course, the cynic might argue that Carlisle knew exactly what he was doing in saying exactly what he said. That cynic could argue that after a second loss in three games in which Dallas blew double-digit, second-half leads and saw its lead over the Los Angeles Lakers for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference dwindle to a half-game, a savvy coach could do something like call his team soft in order to motivate them. Sure, Carlisle had plenty of reason to be irritated after the Hornets clubbed his team 44-31 in rebounding and a crippling 24-11 deficit in the second half that included no offensive boards, so he could easily argue that his criticism were well-founded and not in any way intended as reverse psychology. "I think we've just got to be tougher," Carlisle said later in the same interview. "Got to be tougher. When you have a seven-point lead with 1:13 to go, you've got to finish it off by making the plays. Credit them for making plays, and we did not." Maybe after Carlisle’s clever psychological ploy, his team will make more of them in the future……….
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