A Question For The Blog...

Does anyone remember Mr. Ralph Saylor? My niece and I were doing a bit of reminiscing, and she brought up his name. Can anybody help me with this one?

From the desk of the Plez

Just a few things:

Bobby: Thanks for your review of the New Year's Eve thing with Rob Russell and his band.

When we were doing "Whole Lotta Rosie," I of course had to do the Angus/Chuck Berry thing and run around. As soon as I jumped off the stage, I ran into a chair a woman was using for her black velvetty coat. I knocked it over into the wetness and mucky muck on the floor. Hey, I was rocking. I couldn't stop and pick it up, though I did try to prevent it from falling over. Anyway, after the second song, the show was over, and I walked by her table and noticed that she had just left the coat lying there in disgust. I turned the chair back upright and said I was sorry, but you could tell she wasn't too impressed by that.

The moral is: rock is like war. You have to expect some casualties.

Julie: Please don't worry about that job. Are you thinking that I'm mad about that? Not at all. That was just one of 30 or 40 jobs I applied to last year and didn't get. I knew it wasn't 'cause you had told 'em never to hire me.

Ok, that's it from here. And yes, Black Sabbath was a great band.

--Plez

Strange Days....

The A.C.L.U. has filed a motion in support of Rush Limbaugh's desire to protect his medical records in the ongoing Oxycontin investigation. In order for Limbaugh to not be a hypocrite and accept the assistance of this well know liberal organization, he should immediately release his medical records..... or recant everything he has ever said about the A.C.L.U...... this must surely be one of the signs of the apocalypse. And to think a few years ago we were told that irony is dead.

This just in from the Associated Press...

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Space-exploration proposals that President Bush is preparing to put into his next budget will not undermine his administration's goal of cutting the federal deficit in half within five years, Treasury Secretary John Snow said Sunday.

Snow said the new space proposals, which include a permanent settlement on the moon and setting a goal of sending Americans to Mars, will be undertaken ``within a framework of fiscal responsibility.''

Snow said the administration's budget, which will be sent to Congress on Feb. 2, will outline the new space proposals plus a plan that will accomplish the goal of cutting record budget deficits in half through a combination of stronger economic growth and spending restraint."

This comes from the adminstration that took your from a $300 billion surplus to a $500 billion deficit in just three years.... this must be some new meaning of "restraint" that us regular folk are not familier with....

Isn't it nice to know that Bush has the same vision as a Democrat that has been dead for 40 years?

News From NASA

It seems that the Mars Rover is stuck and NASA is baffled as to why. They beleive that the airbags deployed to cushion it's landing have snagged it and are trying to further deflate the bags by raising and lowering the exit ramp of the Rover.... what they don't want you to know is that this thing landed in what the Martians refer to as the East Tennessee section of Mars, and some bug-eyed space alien has already sold the wheels for drinking money and put the Rover up on blocks in his/her/it's front yard.

Will it never end???

So yesterday Ric and I have a discussion in the Blog about guns and today MSN has the following story:

"What do Britney Spears, the United Methodist Church, the St. Louis Rams and Hallmark Cards have in common? They're among the hundreds of celebrities, organizations and companies on the National Rifle Association's roster of entities that it considers hostile to gun-ownership rights.

The Fairfax-based NRA has compiled a 15-page list of supporters of the Brady law — which requires federally licensed gun dealers to do background checks on gun buyers — and other gun-control measures.

NRA spokesman Ted Novin said the list was solely for "informational purposes and that it's nothing new."

I ask you gentle readers, will Britney stop at nothing to get my attention?

Please Britney, it's not going to happen! How can I make it any plainer? It would never work out between us! We are from different worlds you and I, and while I am sure you are a truly wonderful person, between kissing Madonna, marrying and annulling your marriage to your friend from your home town and now this,,, well it is just all too much! So please! Let it go! I beg you!!!

And as far as the NRA saying this is nothing new.... well isn't that what you would expect them to say???

interesting - from MoveOn

Many JC bloggers may already be aware of this, but for those of you who aren't ( the biggest thing is a request to watch media for erroneous reporting about this - and report it):

Dear MoveOn member,

As the New Year begins, we'd rather be talking about positive things, and there are plenty of good things happening. But MoveOn.org has come under attack from the Republican National Committee (RNC), which has launched a campaign of malicious misinformation to divert attention from the creativity and power of the Bush in 30 Seconds contest. We need your help to make sure the media don't fall for it.

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie launched the attack on "Fox News Sunday," and the RNC followed it with press releases and calls to reporters. The charges centered on two ads posted on the Bush in 30 Seconds website which compared President Bush's tactis with those of Adolf Hitler. Mr. Gillespie repeatedly referred to the ads as 'the MoveOn ad' or 'MoveOn's ad,' implying that we had sponsored or perhaps even commissioned the ad. And he also claimed that we might spend $7 million to run it on TV.

This is a lie. MoveOn.org hasn't sponsored such an ad, and we never would -- we regret the appearance of these ads on the Bush In 30 Seconds site. The two ads in question are from more than a thousand posted by members of the public, and they were voted on by MoveOn members through December 31st. Obviously the few hundred of you who viewed these ads agreed that they were not worthy of further broadcast or recognition, because they got low ratings. Yesterday we announced the 15 finalists -- all good, hard-hitting and fair appraisals of the Bush record, in the judgment of the members and others who rated them. The two offending ads can only be found one place now -- on the RNC website!

When we've explained this to journalists, most have understood that this is a game of gotcha politics, not news. But even our statement for the press below, which goes through the entire process in detail, hasn't stopped the right wing from working this angle as hard as they can.

That's why we're asking you to please watch for stories on this as they appear, and let us know. Call the news outlet yourself and give them hell for falling victim to such political baloney. I've attached our statement, which fully explains the situation, below. Then please let us know so we can contact the outlets directly.

You can help us track inaccurate reporting on this story at:
http://moveon.org/smear/?id=2233-3138652-KefomeW4mN9Ec4nvuKUCuQ

Second, we need you to get the press back on the right track. After you've corrected the negative accounts, write an upbeat letter to your local paper about the exciting and positive aspects of the contest and the finalists. These ads reflect the courage, hope, and deep patriotism of our membership. They're creative, passionate, and totally unlike most of the political ads that are out there. And perhaps most importantly, they were picked in a democratic way. Now that's a story.

The finalists are online at:
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/

By sharing that URL with your friends, family, and colleagues, you can help to make sure that the RNC isn't successful in stealing our finalists' glory.

Not only is the RNC campaign deceptive, it's also totally disingenuous. Yesterday, the New York Post ran a long opinion column focusing exclusively on how much Presidential Candidate Howard Dean resembles Hitler, even calling him "Herr Howie." Of course, the RNC hasn't issued a condemnation of that. When close RNC ally Grover Norquist repeatedly compared taxing the wealthy with the Holocaust in an interview on NPR, the RNC was muted. And in 2002, the RNC and its allies were silent when supporters of President Bush actually aired TV ads morphing the face of Senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee as a result of wounds sustained in Vietnam, into Osama bin Laden. Given such a transparently partisan track record, the RNC's moral outrage doesn't mean a whole lot.

Obviously, MoveOn.org and its 1.7 million members are now on the right-wing radar. They are going to do everything they can do to silence us, and we simply won't let it happen. Smear tactics and campaigns of misinformation have no place in American democracy.

Sincerely,
--Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
January 6th, 2003

P.S. Here's the statement we released to the press yesterday, which explains the whole situation.

ADS ATTACKED BY RNC CHAIRMAN
ARE NOT MOVEON.ORG VOTER FUND ADS
MoveOn.org Voter Fund Regrets
Screening Process Allowed Ads to Slip Through

Statement by Wes Boyd, Founder of MoveOn.org Voter Fund:

The Republican National Committee and its chairman have falsely accused MoveOn.org of sponsoring ads on its website which compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The claim is deliberately and maliciously misleading.

During December the MoveOn.org Voter Fund invited members of the public to submit ads that purported to tell the truth about the President and his policies. More than 1,500 submissions from ordinary Americans came in and were posted on a web site, bushin30seconds.org, for the public to review.

None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They will not appear on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions. They were voted down by our members and the public, who reviewed the ads and submitted nearly 3 million critiques in the process of choosing the 15 finalist entries.

We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process. In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system.

Contrast this with the behavior of the RNC and its allies when supporters of President Bush used TV ads morphing the face of Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) into that of Osama Bin Laden during the 2002 Senate race.

MoveOn.org and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund exist to bring the public into the political process and produce a more fact-based election process. We regret that the RNC doesn't seem to embrace the same goals.

New Year's report

A Johnson City Story,

So I went to see Rob Russell & the Sore Losers at Down Home this New Year’s Eve. And they were real good and everything. Some girls smoking outside claimed the band is moving to Nashville to make their fortunes this year. Surely there are a lot of JC musicians residing in Nashville with something to say about that…

Anyway, the show was good, but who brought the house down? The fuckin’ Plez by God! Plez came out late in the show with full Angus gear on, and rocked the place with “Whole Lot of Rosie.” This was the most thunderous song of the night, which brought the most thunderous applause in turn. Go Plez!

Britney in the News!

It is reported that Britney Spears got married to a childhood friend over the weekend in Las Vegas, and further that she is already seeking annulment.... While some of the more jaded may think this is a move to create publicity to promote her album, a few of us understand the real meaning.... Oh Britney, when will you learn that you can't make me jealous? These efforts of yours to get my attention are just not working!!! It's time to move on.