Alasdair Watson

Here’s a link that deserves to do the rounds. Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone, on the 109th Congress of the United States:

These past six years were more than just the most shameful,corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

To be sure, Congress has always been a kind of muddy ideological cemetery, a place where good ideas go to die in a maelstrom of bureaucratic hedging and rank favor-trading. Its whole history isone long love letter to sleaze, idiocy and pigheaded, glacial conservatism. That Congress exists mainly to misspend our money and snore its way through even the direst political crises is something we Americans understand instinctively. “There is no native criminal class except Congress,” Mark Twain said — a joke that still provokes a laugh of recognition a hundred years later.

But the 109th Congress is no mild departure from the norm, no slight deviation in an already-underwhelming history. No, this is nothing less than a historic shift in how our democracy is run. the republicans who control this Congress are revolutionaries, and they have brought their revolutionary vision for the House and Senate quite unpleasantly to fruition. In the past six years they have castrated the political minority, abdicated their oversight responsibilities mandated by the Constitution, enacted a conscious policy of massive borrowing and unrestrained spending, and installed a host of semi-permanent mechanisms for transferring legislative power to commercial interests. They aimed far lower than any other Congress has ever aimed, and they nailed their target.

And it goes on. This is some very fine writing indeed, I I heartily recommended taking the time to read the whole thing.

Somehow, iTunes is currently playing two songs at the same time.

It’s not the worst mashup I’ve ever head – “Star of the Country Down” by The Pogues and “Donnegal Danny” by the Tossers, but it is a bit unexpected…

Here’s a horrifying account of the religious beliefs of children in inner-London schools, which looks to me like an object lesson in how being brought up religious can damage a child’s ability to think.

I find this horrifying, because I honestly don’t know what can be done. I don’t believe that anything is lasting can be achieved by hard-line action, but short of making it illegal to pass on one’s religious beliefs to children, I’m not sure what can be done.

Pop Comedy: Mr Fab’s endearingly daft “Cannibal Zombie Mom“. The rest of the album Bride of Monster Mashup is a mixed bag, but worth a look. “Satan.Omen.Death” is something quite special, as well, in fact. Someone has managed to make Diamanda Galas work in a mashup with Manowar, something I would not have thought possible…

Drum ‘n’ Bass : Dead Silence.

Retro Radio: From BoingBoing, 31 Old Radio Show Horror Stories.

When I realised that it’s been a long while I listened to Lush. Used to have them on cassette, never got around to getting CDs. All Emusic’ve got is the 2001 “Best Of” album, but it’ll do for right now…

And I’m parked at my desk, bored out of my mind fighting with yet another bloody spreadsheet. Trapped in a fucking New Town on the river between Chelsea and Wandsworth. Autumn has muscled its damp and miserable way in, seemingly overnight. The sky out the window behind me is a dishwater grey, throwing insipid spatters of dirty rain down, the Thames is reflecting it all back like a ribbon of apathy, and all buildings around here are the identikit modern flats they’re throwing up along the riverside.

And yet:

“Let’s run away and be so alive
Escape the drudgery of this nine to five
Shake, baby, shake, you know I can fit you in my arms”