Alabama Ass Whuppin'

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Isbell Concert Pictures Archive

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
San Francisco, CA
Slims - 1/26/08

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
San Francisco, CA 8/4/07
Cafe du Nord
Part 2

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
San Francisco, CA 8/4/07
Cafe du Nord
Part 1

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Sirens of the Ditch CD Release Party
Sheffield Alabama
7/7/2007

DBT Picture Tours Archive

DBT Picture Tour - Box of Spiders

DBT Picture Tour - Zip City

DBT Picture Tour - Ronnie and Neil

DBT Picture Tour - River Lore

DBT Picture Tour - Ode to Cooley

DBT Picture Tour - Fate Lead Her

DBT Picture Tour - Metropolitan Buttholeville

Saturday, December 31, 2005

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Molly Ivins

"For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country. "
...

"I don't like to play scary games where we all stay awake late at night, telling each other scary stories -- but there's a reason we have never given our government this kind of power. As the late Sen. Frank Church said, 'That capability could at any time be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capacity to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.' And if a dictator took over, the NSA 'could enable it to impose total tyranny.'
...

Folks, we KNOW this program is being and will be misused. We know it from the past record and current reporting. The program has already targeted vegans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- and, boy, if those aren't outposts of al-Qaida, what is? Could this be more pathetic?

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly. Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic? "

Thursday, December 29, 2005

The Enron of Lobbying

The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff

Abramoff is the central figure in what could become the biggest congressional corruption scandal in generations.

He Is A Crook

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Shoals to celebrate life, music of Sam Phillips

Mr. Phillips never blew enough hot air to need a little gold plated paper weight...:

"Big River Broadcasting was cautiously optimistic about the success of its marquee event for the Sam Phillips Music Celebration. - The optimism has paid off. - The Jan. 7 concert at the Marriott Shoals Conference Center, featuring headliner Jerry Lee Lewis, is sold out.

Affectionately known as 'The Killer,' Lewis is the last of a group of performers Phillips brought to prominence in the 1950s and '60s.

That group includes popular music legends Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Roy Orbison."
...

Phillips went on to form Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn., but according to his son, Jerry Phillips, the Florence native never forgot his roots.
...

Phillips is the only person in music to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Martin said.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Fear destroys what bin Laden could not

"One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.

If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.

Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.

If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.

If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.

That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, and we've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.

What is there to say now?"

Rice authorized NSA to spy on UN Security Council in run-up to war, former officials say

Impeach them all

"President Bush and other top officials in his administration used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitored private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the war for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show.

Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment."