A word of warning: This is not a top songs of the year list for us. Rather, these are five good songs from 2000 that are worth your time. And yes, we plan on doing this with every year of the decade over the next few months. Agree with these choices? Disagree? Debate here.
1. Elliott Smith’s later period is one highly debated by fans. He went big around the time of “XO” and went even bigger around the time of 2000’s “Figure 8.” For some fans, this made the album a bit of a wash, but the single, “Son of Sam,” still holds strong nearly a decade later. 2. It’s easy to forget, but The Mars Volta started from the split of the At the Drive-In, a band which did more to justify Thursday’s existence than it did The Mars Volta. A precursor to screamo, “One-Armed Scissor” is far less embarrassing than that descripiton sounds. 3. What a shame. Grandaddy’s “The Sophtware Slump” is a great album best known as the answer to a trivia question. The question: “What album was Jason Lee’s son, Pilot Inspektor, named for?” A damn shame for a great album. “Jed the Humanoid” is a definite highlight for sure. 4. Yo La Tengo will likely never break out of its cult audience, but they make great musical arguments why they should. “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out” is one of the band’s peaks, and “You Can Have it All” is a quiet triumph. 5. For us, hearing Radiohead’s “Nude” on 2007’s “In Rainbows” gave “Motion Picture Soundtrack” context. Many superfans were spoiled by a spare acoustic version of the song that made the “Kid A” version seem overly grand. But in the context of “Nude,” you see exactly what the band was going for. Worth revisiting for sure.
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Detectives were unable to use dental records or fingerprints, as her teeth and fingers had been removed. But they tracked the number of her implants.
A description from a BBC article • On the death of model Jasmine Fiore, who VH1 reality show contestant Ryan Jenkins is accused of murdering. They had to figure out her identity based on her breast implants! Yuck! The nature of this murder sounds brutal and awful in just about every way. • source
The decision Yesterday, leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted in favor of letting gay members of the church in same-sex relationships become leaders – a decision likely to cause division among members.
The reason The decision appears to emphasize a change in the cultural tide. The Rev. Stanley Olson, an ECLA leader, explained that the church is “committed to having the kind of leaders who will serve the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Factions buildNot every congregation is happy with this decision, and some of those conservative churches have created an organization called Lutheran CORE, which threatens to take financial support away from the denomination. source
Because waiting until the last second always works out. After the announcement of the end of the Cash for Clunkers program on Monday, this weekend was destined to be a busy weekend for dealers, both from a purchasing and paperwork angle. While the program doesn’t end until Monday, many dealers were ending the program today to deal with the continued paperwork bottleneck the program itself is facing. “It’s the paperwork that’s the biggest pain in the neck,” said Neil Krieger, a Jim Ellis auto salesman based in the Atlanta area. source
Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III • In a letter to Scottish Minister Kenny MacAskill, who allowed the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. In the letter, Mueller mocks the reason given, “compassion,” and notes that many victims were still angry in the wake of the attack. While Megrhai had an appeal going proclaiming his innocence, the appeal was dropped in a desire to let him free. • source
Good Magazine crunched up some numbers and compared different states’ voter turnout to see whether the groups Obama appealed to the most – black voters and young voters – really had an effect on voter turnout. From the looks of things, it may have been an election lost by McCain rather than the other way around. The biggest decrease in votes from 2004 to 2008 was in McCain’s home state. Thanks to Good Magazine for the tip.
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Today, I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the Internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country.
President Barack Obama • In his weekly radio/Interweb address. In the address he tackled whether illegal immigrants would get health care (no way, Jose), whether abortions would be covered (nope) and those so called “death panels” (lies, lies, and more lies). It’s good to see Obama taking these attacks head on, but where was he when the attacks were actually being made? Now he’s just late to the party. • source
Chad Ochocinco is pretty much the biggest showoff ever, but in this video he kind of outdoes all those usual showoff tendencies by doing something genuinely awesome. The wide receiver kicked an extra point in a preseason game. Awesome, bro!
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A lot of people have been paying a premium for the Whole Foods brand for years. A lot of people are sad to look at this corporation and see that it is just like any other, if not worse.
“Boycott Whole Foods” group founder Mark Rosenthal • Discussing the brand that set off a healthy round of Internet rage over the last week and a half. Since it launched, the group has gotten thousands of granola-eating hippie types in its grasp, angry that John Mackey, the guy who founded the company which they rely on for organic food, is actually a libertarian who doesn’t support universal health care. Personally, we feel like, while both sides have a point and Mackey should’ve kept his mouth shut, this debate is just getting more play now because the debate over universal health care has gotten so out of hand. Sigh. • source
