Elegantly Injured

The flat track Minnesota Rollergirls will skate their second bout of the season this Friday, October 14^th.

The Atomic Bombshells will take on the Rockits in the first match.

The second match feaures the Dagger Dolls skating against the Garda Belts.

Friday, October 14.

Roy Wilkins Auditoium

Tickets:
Trackside seating: $12 advance / $14 game day
General admission: $10 advance / $12 game day
Ages 9 and under are always FREE with an adult!

Doors open at 6:30pm, bout at 7:30pm

Please visit the Minnesota Rollergirls website for more info.

tags: roller derby, rollergirls, Minnesota Rollergirls, Rockits, Dagger Dolls, Garda Belts, Atomic Bombshells

angelheaded hipsters

October 7, 1955

Photo by Ryan McManus

Friday Random Ten: It's Finally Fall Edition

Top of the World - 2 Nice Girls
Milkshake N' Honey - Sleater-Kinney
Gimmie Everything - the Shemps
Fuck Me Around - the Winks
Acute Denial - Go Like Hell
Nowhere to Go - the Prickies
Obvious - the Aplicators
Coke Party - Yuppie Pricks
Brickwall - the Big Boys
Henry Lee - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

fun, fun, fun

falling awol (use mouse to control the shrub)

hat tip to Susie Bright

So Happy It's Thursday

G.O.P.S. by Mark Fiore

Al Gore on the Threat to American Democracy.

Indictments in Plame Case Could Come Any Time.

Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history.

A top Pentagon analyst with expertise in the Middle East pleaded guilty Wednesday to giving classified information to an Israeli embassy official and members of a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Climate change and pollution are killing millions, says study.

Lonestar Rollergirls Expo Bout

The banked track Lonestar Rollergirls will skate an exhibition bout this Sunday, October 9^th.

The Polish Milkmaids will face off against the Double-Oh-Eights.

Sunday, October 9.

At the Thunderdome.

Tickets are $10.

Doors open at 6pm.

The Polish Milkmaids Roster:>
Captain: Cheapskate (Hellcats)
Co-captain: Scarlett O'Terror (Rhinestone Cowgirls)
Betty TaRoll (Rhinestone Cowgirls)
Motley Sue (Rhinestone Cowgirls)
Chingona (Putas Del Fuego)
Mz. Behavin' (Holy Rollers)
Catalac (Rhinestone Cowgirls)
Peachy Mean (Rhinestone Cowgirls)
Scorned Fury (Hellcats)
Jenacide (Putas Del Fuego)

The 008's International Spies Roster:
Captain: Ruby Sioux (Hellcats)
Co-Captain: Honey Homicide (Hellcats)
Annie Afterparty (Hellcats)
Bones (Putas Del Fuego)
Wham Bam (Holy Rollers)
Evilynn Carnit (Cherry Bombs)
Lucia Furr (Hellcats)
Venis Envy (Putas Del Fuego)
Lotta Dinero (Putas Del Fuego)
Helena Handbasket (Holy Rollers)
Stoli Rocks (Cherry Bombs)
Clownsnack (Hellcats)

Visit the Lonestar Rollergirls website for more info.

tags: roller derby, rollergirls, Lonestar Rollergirls

US poverty: chronic ill, little hope for cure

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

Four decades after a U.S. president declared war on poverty, more than 37 million people in the world's richest country are officially classified as poor and their number has been on the rise for years.

Last year, according to government statistics, 1.1 million Americans fell below the poverty line. That equals the entire population of a major city like Dallas or Prague.

Since 2000, the ranks of the poor have increased year by year by almost 5.5 million in total. Even optimists see little prospect that the number will shrink soon despite a renewed debate on poverty prompted by searing television images which laid bare a fact of American life rarely exposed to global view.

[snip]

"Every August, we Americans tell ourselves a lie," said David Brady, a Duke University professor who studies poverty.

"The poverty rate was designed to undercount because the government wanted to show progress in the war on poverty.

"Taking everything into account, the real rate is around 18 percent, or 48 million people. Poverty in the United States is more widespread, by far, than in any other industrialized country."

Poverty is a universal problem, as is inequality. The world's 500 richest people, according to U.N. statistics, have as much income as the world's poorest 416 million.

The post-hurricane poverty scenes were so remarkable for most of the world because of the perception of the United States as the rich land of unlimited opportunity.

No other country spends so much money -- billions of dollars -- to keep job-hungry foreigners out; no other country has an annual lottery in which millions of people play for 50,000 permanent resident "green cards," no other country has as many legal and illegal immigrants, all drawn by dreams of prosperity.

For many Americans they remain just that: dreams. While there are arguments over how poverty is measured -- conservatives say the census overstates it because it does not take into account food stamps and other subsidies -- there is consensus on one thing.

The minimum wage, which rose by 15 cents to $6.35 an hour on October 1, is not enough to keep you above the poverty line. Yet minimum wage jobs, without health insurance or vacations, are the only jobs available to millions of people with only basic education.

The well-paid unskilled jobs in heavy industry which once lifted working-class Americans into the middle class are largely gone and the decline continues. Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 2.7 million manufacturing jobs. Low-paid clerical work is being outsourced to developing countries.

Kappa Sigma Die

Texas Rollergirls Bettie Rage, Crazy Duke, and Trouble have entered the Bloodshots: A 48 Hour Horror Filmaking Challenge.

Their assignment was to make a short horror film in 48 hours using these guidelines:

Subgenre - Vampire
Prop - Pancake
Line of Dialogue - "What's Chicken Got to Do With it"
Weapon -Fingernails

They came up with "Kappa Sigma Die". Hot rollergirl vampires kill frat boys. (I would love to see a feature length version of this.)

Screenings for Group A are tonight at 7pm and Saturday, October 8^th at 9:45pm. Location: downtown Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

tags: Bloodshots, horror, movies, film, Alamo Drafthouse, Austin

Experts Agree:

Barbie is a slut.

Pearls Before Swine

heh heh

Indictable Boy

2005 Nobel Literature Prize

The 2005 Nobel Literature Prize will be announced sometime this week. Current odds:

Adonis (2/1)
Ko Un (6/1)
Tomas Tranströmer (6/1)
Joyce Carol Oates (7/1)
Hugo Claus (9/1)
Claudio Magris (11/1)
Antonio Tabucchi (12/1)
Milan Kundera (12/1)
Pramoedya Ananta Toer (14/1)
Vizma Belševica (14/1)
Cees Nooteboom (16/1)
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (25/1)
Philip Roth (25/1)
Don DeLillo (33/1)
Eeva Kilpi (33/1)
Inger Christensen (40/1)

Windy City Rollers Playoff Bout

The flat track Windy City Rollers will skate a playoff bout this Sunday, October 9^th.

Because the Hell's Belles are 3-0, and The Fury, Double Crossers, and Manic Attackers are all tied with one win, a three-way tie-breaker is needed between those teams.

Therefore, three 8-minute jams will be held before the start of the Playoff game, the results of which determine 2nd, 3rd and fourth place.

After the points are determined, the teams in 1st (Hell's Belles) and 4th place will play each other, and the teams in 2nd and 3rd place will play each other. The winners of each of those two games will play for the championship title in November.

Sunday, October 9.

Congress Theatre, 2135 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Doors open at 5pm, bout at 6pm.

Visit the Windy City Rollers website for more info.

tags: roller derby, rollergirls, Windy City

heh heh

The First Annual AGITPROP "Fox News Alert" Challenge.

two fronts

Iraq war delayed Katrina relief effort, inquiry finds

Relief efforts to combat Hurricane Katrina suffered near catastrophic failures due to endemic corruption, divisions within the military and troop shortages caused by the Iraq war, an official American inquiry into the disaster has revealed.

The confidential report, which has been seen by The Independent, details how funds for flood control were diverted to other projects, desperately needed National Guards were stuck in Iraq and how military personnel had to "sneak off post" to help with relief efforts because their commander had refused permission.

[snip]

The report concludes: "The one thing this disaster has demonstrated [is] the lack of coordinated, in-depth planning and training on all levels of Government, for any/all types of emergency contingencies. 9/11 was an exception because the geographical area was small and contained, but these two hurricanes have clearly demonstrated a national response weakness ... Failure to plan, and train properly has plagued US efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and now that failure has come home to roost in the United States."

Bu$hCo.

WaPo

Preznit bush has named White House Counsel Harriet Miers, 60, to be associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Miers, who was Bush's personal attorney in Texas, was the first woman elected president of the Texas Bar Association and was a partner at the Texas law firm of Locke Liddell & Sapp before coming to Washington.

If confirmed, she would be a rare appointee with no experience as a judge at any level. Among the non-judges appointed in modern history are the late William H. Rehnquist, who was a top justice department official in the Nixon administration, and Abe Fortas, an influential Washington attorney and close adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson, who nominated Fortas to the court in 1965.