My Favorite Albums of 2007

The National Lights
The Dead Will Walk, Dear (Bloodshake Records)

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Okkervill River
The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)

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King Khan & The Shrines
What Is?! (Hazelwood)

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Sir Richard Bishop
While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust Music)

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The Twilight Sad
Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (FatCat Records)

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The Besnard Lakes
Are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)

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Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum)

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Peel
Peel (Peek-a-boo)

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Battles
Mirrored (Warp)

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The Deep Dark Woods
Hang Me, Oh Hang Me (Black Hen)

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Frog Eyes
Tears of the Valedictorian (Absolutely Kosher)

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Other releases that I enjoyed listening to this year:

Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior
Black Diamond Heavies - Every Damn Time
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
The National - Boxer
David Kilgour - The Far Now
Arbouretum - Rites of Uncovering
Thrushes - Sun Come Undone
Cue - Wedding Song
My Teenage Stride - Ears Like Golden Bats
Wooden Stars - People Are Different
Howe Gelb - Upside Down Home 2007: Return to San Pedro
Emma Pollock - Watch the Fireworks
Atlantic Drone - Atlantic Drone
Deer Tick - War Elephant
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - In Glorious Times
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments
Caribou - Andorra
Kristin Hersh - Learn to Sing Like a Star
The Ponys - Turn the Lights Out
Black Lips - Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo
My Little Airport - We Can't Stop Smoking in the Vicious and Blue Summer
Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions
Red Crayola with Art & Language - Sighs Trapped By Liars
Greyhound Soul - Tonight and Every Night

saturday reads

White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

The chief of the agency’s clandestine service nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.

Kevin Drum: What the tapes Would Have Shown
Glenn Greenwald: "Missing" evidence is familiar Bush pattern
Scott Horton: Obstruction of Justice at the CIA


List of 'Willing' U.S. Allies Shrinks Steadily in Iraq


Kucinich’s (non)Battle with the Press


House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday.


Paul Krugman: Darth Vader blogging


Sean Penn - Piano Wire Puppeteers: The Constitution, Media, & Dennis Kucinich

Paco De Lucia shreds

fuckers

City ordered to put booted APD officer back on force

Beating a man found sleeping at an East Austin bus stop last year cost APD officer Gary Griffin his job.

A police dash cam video of the July 2006 incident is what then-acting Austin Police Chief Cathy Ellison used to make her decision to kick Griffin off the force nearly six months later for using excessive force.

Griffin appealed that decision. It has taken about a year for the arbitration process, but he won.

friday random ten

TBogg Memorial Edition




#1 "Barmy" - The Fall [This Nation's Saving Grace]


#2 "I'd Like To Make a Complaint" - The Arm [Call You Out]


#3 "Say It Isn't True" - Agent Orange [Real Live Sound]


#4 "Isn't It a Pity" - Galaxie 500 [On Fire]


#5 "To Walk Away From" - Smoosh [She Like Electric]


#6 "All This Useless Beauty" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions [All This Useless Beauty]


#7 "Stay Don't Go" - Spoon [Live at the Greek 8-12-2006)]


#8 "Oh Well" - Fleetwood Mac [Live]


#9 "Fare Thee Well" - Shoulders [Trashman Shoes]


#10 "Oh, Goddamnit" - Hot Hot Heat [Make Up the Breakdown]

Video Bonus #11: Nirvana - "Lake of Fire" (Meat Puppets cover)

Where do bad folks go when they die
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
see them again 'till the Fourth of July

I knew a lady who came from Duluth
Bitten by a dog with a rabid tooth
She went to her grave just a little too soon
Threw a late howl at the yellow moon

Where do bad folks go when they die
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
see them again 'till the Fourth of July

People cry and people moan
Look for a dry place to call their home
Try to find some place to rest their bones
While the angels and the devils try to make 'em their own

Where do bad folks go when they die
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
see them again 'till the Fourth of July

friday reads

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.


$1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq


Dave Neiwert on the Dems capitulating yet again. This time on the Hate Crimes Bill.


Juan Cole - Some Beliefs are More Equal than Others


The Golden Compass: The Making of Philip Pullman's Epic Fantasy


War on Greed (A video by Robert Greenwald)

Henry Kravis is a billionaire, the 57th richest person in America. He acquired this wealth by purchasing public companies with borrowed money. To pay off the debt, he cuts benefits at the company, sells its assets, and lays off employees.

This get-rich-quick scheme made him $450 million last year. Meanwhile, his tax rate is lower than teachers, firemen, nurses, even his own cleaning staff!

Sibel Edmonds Update

Let Sibel Edmonds Speak

thursday reads

Dan Froomkin takes a look at Preznit bu$h's pattern of deception on Iran.


Scott Horton takes a look at Fritz Stern's Imperial Hubris: A German Tale


Former bu$h counselor Dan Bartlett on the usefulness of right wing blogs:

That’s what I mean by influential. I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

Martha Rosenberg: The Many Faces of Big Pharma’s Disease Mongering

Jesus' General: The Electric Kool-Aid PhRMA Quest


Bipartisan PRO IP Bill Turns White House Into Hollywood's Private Enforcemet Agency


About one in every 31 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail or on supervised release at the end of last year, the Department of Justice reported yesterday.

wednesday reads

The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers.


Barbara Ehrenreich: McMansions Meet the Morgage Crisis


According to internal State Department cables obtained by TPMmuckraker, the State Department has slated two Diplomatic Security officials who oversee private-security contractors guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan for salary bonuses. The optional bonuses, called Senior Foreign Service Performance Pay Awards, come months after administrative investigations have raised questions about the propriety of State's relationship with security contractors like Blackwater.


Pentagon Appears Poised to Resume Open-Air Testing of Biological Weapons


Passport Canada says that a security breach in its passport application website that allowed easy access to the personal information of applicants has been repaired.


Young Professor Makes Lab-on-a-Chip with Shrinky Dink and Toaster Oven

tuesday reads

How America Lost the War on Drugs


With 19,000 deaths attributed to staph infections annually, there's cause for serious alarm. So why aren't we talking about our nightmarish prison system, the biggest incubator of them all?


The Taliban today carried out a suicide attack on a Nato convoy that injured at least 22 Afghan civilians to "welcome" the US defence secretary to Kabul.


The MPAA's "University Toolkit" (a piece of monitoring software that universities are being asked to install on their networks to spy on students' communications) has been taken down, due to copyright violations.


Sloppy Police Lab Work Leads to Retesting in Houston New York City

monday reads

Tomgram: Iraq as a Pentagon Construction Site


Chavez's proposed changes to the Venesuelan Constitution is defeated 51% to 49%.


Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day — or nearly $1 million a minute.


As the Supreme Court prepares to hear the next major challenge to Bush's imperial power grab, AlterNet talks with Michael Ratner, who has been at the center of the battle over the administration's human rights assault.


The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak


Paul Krugman: Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis


Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of what appears to be the world's most intact dinosaur mummy: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue, and possibly muscle and organs.