2011 Album of the year: Cavalera Conspiracy - Blunt Force Trauma

I have to say, it's been a pretty shitty last decade in music and we're well into a new decade that doesn't seem any more promising. The amount of shitty albums you have to go through to find a gem takes so much effort that most give up in the process and just stick to the old stuff. 2011 did bring us one great album and it comes from Sepultura brothers Max & Igor Cavalera's new band "Cavalera Conspiracy". This is actually their second offering since the reunion, the first being "Inflikted", released in 2008.

Most metal bands from the 80s that are still releasing material have watered themselves down and are a parody of what they used to be. They're middle aged, raising kids, and just aren't as pissed off at the world as they used to be. But Cavalera Conspiracy's Blunt Force Tauma sounds very fresh, energetic and angry. The whole album is solid from start to finish and includes a cool cover of Black Sabbath's "Electric Funeral". Cavalera Conspiracy definitely delivers the goods here: there's no stupid parts that make you cringe, there's no filler and it just kicks your ass all the way through.

Max Cavalera has never been the most technical rhythm guitarist, and that doesn't really change much here. Usually in other bands I favor more sophisticated guitar work but Max just makes it work because his riffs are solid and he knows how to put together a good song. Plus he's got his Soulfly bandmate Marc Rizzo on lead guitar and he can really tear it up. Now during my first couple listens of the album I was kind of disappointed with some of the leads. They had the technicality to them, nice sweep picking shred stuff going on, but it didn't really seem to go anywhere. It was a bit too mindless for what I was hoping he'd play. But after several listens it's grown on me and it does go with the music pretty well. You can tell some solos are a lot more thought-out than others. Sometimes you just want to rock out for a moment, not every solo has to be a masterpiece.



Track Listing:

01. Warlord
02. Torture
03. Lynch Mob
04. Killing Inside
05. Thrasher
06. I Speak Hate
07. Target
08. Genghis Khan
09. Burn Waco
10. Rasputin
11. Blunt Force Trauma
12. Psychosomatic
13. Jihad Joe
14. Electric Funeral

Every metal fan should get themselves a copy of Blunt Force Trauma, you won't be disappointed.

High Tech Lynching?

High tech lynching: it's a phrase we've been hearing a lot lately in reference to the media's treatment of Herman Cain and a possible scandal involving sexual harassment allegations. It all started Sunday night with Politico reporting that 2 women had accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment back in the 1990s when Mr. Cain was head of the National Restaurant Association. This is the first time Herman Cain has faced such intense media scrutiny since he started leading the polls and many on the right are calling this a smear effort by the "liberal leftwing media".

Now call it what you want to, but if you're running for President of the United States and you have a sexual harassment claim in your past, especially a situation where multiple accusers were actually paid off, are you really going to be surprised if that comes out at some point during the campaign? Do you really think any media organization worth their salt is going to ignore it if they run across that story? Of course that is going to come out. There's no way it couldn't. It's too juicy, it's too scandalous, and it's the perfect counter-story to the candidate that seemed perfect.

Right now we don't have all the details of the allegations, or if there's any merit to them at all. We're giving Herman Cain the benefit of the doubt that he didn't sexually harass these women. But the Cain camp has made a lot of terrible mistakes in dealing with this campaign crisis. Cain started out as a second-tier candidate, seemingly having not a chance of hell at winning. Right now he's leading the polls but it looks like his campaign is still staffed by second rate people and is still being run as a second rate campaign.

They didn't have a plan to deal with this, demonstrated by the fact that their response to it changed many times within the same day. First he refused to comment on it at all, evidently expecting the whole thing to just blow over. He was forced to address it when pressure started mounting but it was handled very poorly.

From Politico.com:

In an appearance on Fox News — his first of the day — Cain said that he had been “falsely accused” of sexual harassment and was unaware of financial settlements with any accusers.
..
But by the end of the day, Cain had reversed himself on many of the essential facts of the case, telling both PBS’s Judy Woodruff and Fox’s Greta Van Susteren that there had been cash payouts to a woman who accused him “falsely” of harassment.
..
Cain’s confirmation of a settlement clashed with his earlier comments denying any awareness of a financial agreement with one or more accusers.

Now we're seeing conservatives quickly coming to Cain's defense - and he certainly could use support from his base in this difficult time in his campaign. The narrative from the right is that Cain is being targeted by the left because they hate seeing a black man succeed; they can't stand black Republicans and will do everything they can to stop them "just like they did with Clarence Thomas". To some extent that could very well be true (we did see some of this earlier by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell). Most blacks in America vote Democratic and the black Republicans could be seen as somewhat of an outcast or someone confused and not in touch with the rest of the group. But in this instance what we're seeing is pretty par for the course for political coverage. When you run for president you get highly scrutinized by the media. And if you have something like a sexual harassment allegation and payoff in your past you better believe that's going to come out and be reported. And you are going to be questioned about it, and no, it's not going to just go away in one day.

We get the support of Cain and those that are defending him, but it's getting a little ridiculous when people start calling this a high tech lynching. It's not any better than when people use Hitler comparisons. We've heard the phrase being tossed around by several prominent right wingers from Rush Limbaugh to Michael Savage to Herman Cain's Super PAC.

There has been one refreshing voice of reason in all this and it comes from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. From cbsnews.com:

"I actually am someone who-- doesn't believe in playing the race card on either side. I've seen it played, by the way, on the other side quite a lot too. And it's not good for the country," Rice told CBS' Norah O'Donnell in an interview that aired on CBS' "The Early Show" on Wednesday.

It's make it or break it time and whining around about the other side high tech lynching you or about some leftist conspiracy just isn't going to cut it.

Update: Now the Herman Cain camp is saying that Rick Perry is behind the surfacing of the sexual harassment allegations. So much for the liberal high tech lynching idea..

Update 2: John Dickerson at CBS News has written a great article, Why Cain's story isn't like Clarence Thomas'

Hill's story appeared in the paper, catching Thomas off guard. Cain was given 10 days to respond to questions about the matter before it was made public. Politico wasn't fishing--tell us anything wrong you've ever done--it was asking questions about a specific legal matter.

Beginner Guitar: the only 3 scale positions you'll ever need to know

So you've recently picked up playing the guitar and are ready to take it to the next level and begin soloing like Randy Rhoads. We've been there and we know how much of a headache it can be to figure out what scales you need to know, what's important and what's not. You'll find weird names for them and each source you look to for info has a different take on it. It's actually very simple and we hope to make it very easy for you. My philosophy? Forget all the names and mumbo jumbo, all you need to know is where to put your fingers on the fretboard.

Position 1: the primary position of the minor scale.


Notice how I didn't label the notes? That's because it's all relative and doesn't really matter. No matter what key you're in, you're going to use this same position and move it up or down to the right key. The darkened circle is the root note, that's the starting point so to speak. But you can play any of these notes in any order over the root key and it'll sound great. This is the position that blues players play in most often, though they usually omit a couple notes from the minor scale and keep it to 5 or 6 notes. If you were playing in the scale of E minor, the darkened dot would be on the 12th fret.

Position 2: an alternate position.


The shape of this position is similar to the first one. It starts on the A string as opposed to the E string. There are of course notes within the scale on the E string but you'll find those later. The darkened dot is the root note or starting point, but you can play these notes in any order. If you're playing in the scale of E minor, then the darkened dot is going to be on the 7th fret.

Position 3 of the minor scale: the fun one, when you're ready to really rock out.


There's often a part during the guitar solo, usually in the middle or towards the end where you really want to kick some ass and show them you mean it. It starts off in the lower notes but quickly builds up and goes up the scale and eventually climaxes with some wild bend. This is a position you're going to want to get used to and have fun with using. If you were in the key of E minor for example, the darkened dot is E and would be the root note, and is on the 7th fret. So find that part on the fretboard and work your way backwards if you're wanting to do a run up. You'll see that in this scenario the scale starts on the 3rd fret. It goes 3 5 7, 3 5 7, 4 5 7, 4 5 7, 5 7 8, 5 7 8. Start at the bottom with your pointer finger, middle finger and pinky for the 3 5 7 and work your way up the strings. Pick all the notes, or hammer-on and pull-off, do a combination the 2, it's all up to you.

Practice these scales over and over, start at the bottom and work your way up, then go back down the scale. Once you get these down, over time you will build an understanding of where all the scale notes are on the fretboard and how they relate to each other. You may even discover some new positions of your own.

And all those weird names for the different scales? For the most part they're the same scale, the difference only has to do with what key you're in. Playing the E minor scale over E minor, you know what that sounds like. How about playing the E minor scale over A minor? Give it a try. E minor scale over C minor? Give that a try. Give all possibilities a try and you'll find what sounds good to your ears and what doesn't. Always remember: there are no rules in music. Anyone who tells you there's a right or wrong way has missed the point.

One last thing, here are all 3 positions laid out on the fretboard for the E minor scale so you can see how it all works out and where they are in relation to each other. (Click on the image if it's not displaying properly)



The blue dots are the 3rd position I spoke of, the red dots are in position 2 and the yellow dots are in position 1, the main position. As you can see there is some overlap with these positions and you can go from one position into the other very quickly. There scale notes are in more places than I selected here, but I wanted to just focus on these areas. From this image you should be able to guess where the scale notes are on the rest of the fretboard that I didn't cover. As you know, the notes repeat themselves every 12 frets ( a different octave of course).

New govt report on painkillers: 15,000 deaths in 2008

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta just issued a report on what it calls an "epidemic", the abuse of opiate narcotic pain medications and the overdoses that contributed to 15,000 deaths in 2008.

from nydailynews.com:

Prescription painkillers such as OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone led to the deaths of almost 15,000 people in 2008, including actor Heath Ledger. That's more than three times the 4,000 deaths from narcotics in 1999.

Such painkillers "are meant to help people who have severe pain," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which issued the report. "They are, however, highly addictive."

Wow, including Heath Ledger? I mean 15,000 deaths that's terrible but when they mention Heath Ledger that really lets you know the gravity of the situation here. But seriously, it seems every couple months or so we're hearing about how terrible these pain meds are and how they need to be more tightly controlled. New reports are coming out all the time about the abuse potential and how terrible they are.

I propose that nothing be done about it at all. There's millions of people who genuinely do need these pain medications to cope with their severe pain. Any further tightening of access to these medications only harm those who need them the most. About those overdoses? Each and every one of those people knew the addictive nature of the drugs and made a decision to take a lot more than necessary. Nobody abuses drugs on accident. How many people do you think overdosed on these meds who were taking it the way it was prescribed? None of them. I don't mean to be harsh but once someone decides to take something in excess to get high to the point where it's a lethal dose, the consequences fall on them, not society. And why treat legitimately suffering patients like criminals? Because that's really what more regulation and tightening will do.

We've always had drug abuse and we've always had drug overdoses. And for comparison sake, the CDC reports that from 2001-2005 there were 79,000 deaths a year due to alcohol abuse. Where's all the talk about the alcohol abuse epidemic like we hear with pain medications? After all, the death toll is over 5 times that of pain meds.

People are going to choose the types of lives they want to live. Some people have a strong desire to succeed, others have given up and want to get high. It's not our role to tell people how to live their lives. At the end of the day we're all going to the same place anyway. I argue that anyone who overdoses and dies from taking too many pain pills was likely bound to kill themselves in one way or another. If it wasn't oxycodone it would have been heroin or alcohol. You're never going to stop drug abuse; any efforts to do so only wastes taxpayer money and inconveniences those who really do need the medication for health reasons.

FBI leaks documents, pictures, and videos of Russian spies

Well this is kinda cool. The FBI has just released documents, photos, and video footage of the failed Russian spies that were in the U.S. for years trying to blend in and rub shoulders with influential/powerful people. These people led fairly normal lives while they were here - they raised families, worked 9-5 jobs and tended to their gardens. You know, I wonder if some of them went into the gig with the mission of spying, but once they got here and away from Russia they said fuck it let's make a life for ourselves here and we'll pretend to spy every once in a while so our handlers back home think we're actually doing something spy-like. I mean let's face it, living in Russia probably sucks donkey balls. You can't help but wonder if the spies might have wished they were the real life citizens they were pretending to portray.

Click here to go to the FBI's Vault portal, you can find the documents here, pictures here, and videos here. Today I learned that the FBI actually has their own Youtube channel, how fucking cool is that?




A dead drop or dead letter box is a method of espionage tradecraft used to pass items between two individuals by using a secret location and thus does not require them to meet directly. Using a dead drop permits a Case Officer and his Agent to exchange objects and information while maintaining operational security.

This has gotta be pretty embarrassing for the Russians. They thought they were being so sneaky and we were on to them the whole time, quietly monitoring and filming their every move. We should have fed them some ridiculous misinformation to troll the hell out of them.

You have to wonder why the FBI is releasing these pictures and videos now. I'm glad they are, but is this some kind of subtle power move in the game of chess with Russia? To rub it in a little how badly they fucked up?

Anyways...Russia needs to know their role. They seem to think they're like another United States in the world, the second super power. Reality check: you guys are just another third world country and are not relevant at all. Try focusing on building greatness within instead of sending out spies to see what everyone else is doing and you might actually get somewhere.

How Russia sees themselves:



The Reality:

Album Review: Alanis by Alanis Morissette 1991

Alanis Morissette...bad ass rocker grunge chick with a chip on her shoulder right? Well things weren't always that way, she actually started out as a Paula Abdul wanna-be Britney Spears type pop singer. Fortunately for her, back then her music and image was mostly contained in Canada. When she made the transition to rocker and entered the US/World market, people took her new image and style at face value, not knowing what a poser she really was. Not that we're knocking her style change, but it's fun to get a glimpse of the before and after in the midst of someone trying to find an identity that works.

This is Alanis's debut. You can tell by her voice it's still her but it's almost 180 degrees from what she eventually settled on.

Track Listing:

1. "Feel Your Love"
2. "Too Hot"
3. "Plastic"
4. "Walk Away"
5. "On My Own"
6. "Superman"
7. "Jealous"
8. "Human Touch"
9. "Oh Yeah!"
10. "Party Boy"

Most of the tracks sound like knockoffs of other songs that were hits just a couple years earlier. Probably the best song on the album is "Too Hot" and if you listen carefully you'll notice that most of the drum sounds and the guitar samples are the same ones used in Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" which came out 3 years earlier in 1988.

As a pop album of the early 90s we give it 3/5 stars. It's pretty much what you would expect from the genre. Nothing too amazing here. It's almost like whoever produced the music is using hand-me-down samples and keyboards that the major pop artists like Paula Abdul and Madonna were using a few years earlier. Who knows, maybe they sold the songs or sounds to them - which probably goes on a lot more than people realize. What makes it a really fun listen though is just knowing it's Alanis Morissette.




Wow, who knew Alanis had such a nice thick body back in the day?

One fun fact not related to this album, you know that hit rock song "You Oughta Know" from her Jagged Little Pill album (1995), the one where she's all going on about this asshole dickhead guy who left this big mess in her life?



Turns out she wrote it about her relationship with actor/comedian Dave Coulier, the guy who played Joey Gladstone on Full House. I don't know about you but knowing that takes the coolness factor of that song down a couple notches. When I used to hear that song I'd think she must have been with this big badass drunk all the time greaser wife beater type that fucked up the whole family and everyone's life and now she's mad as hell as isn't going to take it anymore. To find out it was that fucking dork Uncle Joey from Full House? Kind of takes the whole bite away from the song.

From the Gag me with a spoon files: Woman offers undercover cop sex for $17

From nwfdailynews.com:

A woman who flagged down an undercover officer and then offered oral sex was arrested.

The officer was driving down Lovejoy Road around 8 p.m. when the 45-year-old woman motioned for the officer to stop, according to the Fort Walton Beach Police Department arrest report.

Could you imagine this going down, a police officer driving home after a long day at work, sees an old raggedy woman flagging him down "hmm what's going on here, I better pull over...maybe she needs help...

WHAT? Sex? with you?? For $17?? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Good God woman.

How come these prostitutes are always so damn ugly? I mean most guys can usually find a way to get sex for free, you'd think if you're paying for it you had better be getting some sort of extra quality to make it worth the money but somehow it ends up bassackwards. It's like trying to compete with the grocery store by selling spoiled meat for double the price.