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Charles Grassley (Republic Senator from Iowa) made a stupid comment about AIG executives.

Obviously, the AIG situation is bad. This isn’t about that. It’s about hypocrisy.

It occurs to me that a person believing that others should take full responsibility for their actions might want to do that himself. Instead, Grassley seems to believe that it is reasonable to backtrack on his inhumane comment and put it in another context.

It was a stupid comment. Take responsibility.

2008 was in interesting music year for me. I had less time than ever to discover new music (which has lead to a lot of familiar names on my best of list).

The year for me featured a lot of new albums from old (as well as recent) favorites. In addition to those in my list, solid return albums that I enjoyed included REM - Accelerate, Weezer (Red Album), and Coldplay - Viva La Vida. The year also saw a number of acclaimed albums that I just couldn’t get in to (Girl Talk, Dr. Dog, Blitzen Trapper).

Anyway, here’s where I landed…

10. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

No, this isn’t here to prove that I do like some lighter stuff. It’s an excellent album from an extremely talented group…even if they fall outside of my usual tastes. And by the way, their performance at The Terrace this summer was fantastic.

9. Kings of Leon - Only by the Night

It isn’t quite up to the high standard set by “Because of the Times”, but it is a solid follow-up from a group that has become one of my favorites.

8. The Toadies - No Deliverance

Speaking of favorites, one of my high school favorites is back! Nostalgia contributed, but I thoroughly enjoyed this album. And to see them close-up at The Annex the night before Lollapalooza (along with The Whigs) was an unbelievable start to 72 hours of nearly non-stop shows.

7. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

This band doesn’t seem to get much love. Perhaps it’s the “supergroup” label…with some folks still preferring the original works of The White Stripes, The Greenhornes, and Brendan Benson solo. However, I have thoroughly enjoyed two albums and two Lollapalooza performance from these guys.

6. Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha

Maybe I’m missing it, but why is nobody else talking about this album? OK, maybe it doesn’t have anything musically “revolutionary”…but this is just an all-around “fun” album.

5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Now well-known, catch stuff. And how could the whitest band on the planet (hilarious) not make my list?

4. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Just another all-around good album. If you like Death Cab, you like this album.

3. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

I am staying positive…that these guys are still the best live band on the planet! Ok…sorry about that. Stay Positive contains more trademark Hold Steady songs about partying, drugs, and girls. It’s such a simple recipe, but they’ve absolutely mastered it. Like The Kings of Leon effort, The Hold Steady wasn’t quite able to live up to the extremely high standard set by the last album (Boys and Girls in America), but this is still one of my favs of the year.

2. The Whigs - Mission Control

I realize that these guys have been around a little bit, but The Whigs were definitely MY new band of the year. After seeing them live a couple times (and never hearing the album), I found myself humming songs like “Hot Bed,” “Right Hand on My Heart,” and “Mission Control.” The album still grows on me each time I listen to it.

1. The Black Keys - Attack & Release

If The Hold Steady weren’t around, these guys would certainly be my favorite live band. No doubt. They were fantastic at Lollapalooza again this year, and they were the definitely the highlight of Madison’s SoCo Music Experience. Regarding their albums, I’ve enjoyed nearly all of their stuff. I didn’t really think they’d ever top Thickfreakness (my previous fav), but Attack & Release has done just that.

There’s a nice little day-after-Christmas “no-shit” article leading CNN Politics (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/26/bush.poll/index.html).

26 days and counting…

More RNC ridiculousness…even Newt Gingrich agrees. What in the world would be the purpose of putting together smear ads at this point in time?

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/17/how-can-gop-help-pres-elect-obama/

The fact of the matter is that the parties should focus on moving the country forward. Concentrating on nothing but smearing the other side does nothing but set the country back.

Maybe that subject isn’t what he intended to mean by these statements, but I’m wondering if it’ll turn out to be accurate.

The lack of an end to the finger pointing from this guy is amazing. It’s unfortunate for him that winning an election is no longer as simple as spreading fear.

Anyway…off to find a tissue to dry my tears from hearing his sob story about not being accepted.

I think it’s actually gotten to the point where Twitter Whale jokes are kind of stale, but I still found this funny…

Twitter’s routing structure + it’s abundant downtime = These Results in the Firefox Smart Location Bar

…apparently America agrees more than ever. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of Bush’s work reached 76% in the CNN/Gallup poll released today.

To put it in historical perspective, check out the chart tab. The article is actually kind of kind by just noting that no other president has crossed the 70% mark. In reality, no president has ever been within ten percentage points of that 76% level…and the president who reached the 66% level was Nixon (at the height of Watergate and at the point of his resignation).

Good riddance.

There is a ton of discussion right now about why the GOP was crushed this week. Most of it is noise.

• Some (inexplicably) think that the GOP has lost independents because they aren’t conservative enough
• Some think it was because McCain’s strategy centered on baseless attacks (i.e. calling Obama a socialist, communist, terrorist)
• Or was it because McCain tried to attack Obama for being inexperienced while pushing a VP candidate who was mayor of a town of less than 10,00 people two years ago
• Or is it because Obama’s campaign is better with this crazy Internet thing
• Or maybe because some conservatives couldn’t decide if Obama is more like Karl Marx or Dwight Eisenhower

It’s time to take a step back and realize what THE PRIMARY CAUSE is: incompetencehttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/bush.legacy/index.html?eref=rss_politics. For the last eight years, you have given incompetence a face.

…and when you suggested the country elect the oldest president in history with a laughably unqualified running mate, perhaps the final nail was that many realized you were likely to continue to lead us down our spiral.

I love this post from Oliver Willis (a liberal blogger that I read). It’s short, to the point, and speaks to something that I’ve always thought is obvious.

In my mind, there shouldn’t be much of an argument about economic policy between the parties. Those of us who are interested/educated in economics can argue the real effects of the differing fiscal policies. However, all you really need to do is look at statistics or public experience of the economy over the past 30 years:

1981: Reagan administration takes over and implements Trickle-Down Economics. The rich get richer and the economy slows. However, Reagan is an pretty adequate leader, so confidence and economic performance dwindle relatively slowly.

1989: George H. W. Bush takes over and continues the same flawed economic policies. However, he is a less adequate leader in general, so we dive into recession. We then invade Iraq (justifiably) which stimulates the economy, but it is short-lived. The economy is bad enough to be a primary reason Bush is not reelected in 1992.

1993: Bill Clinton takes over and implements economic and fiscal policies that most of recognize as Democratic policies. We gradually come out of recession. The huge deficit is converted into a surplus. The budget is balanced. Economic times are good.

2001: George W. Bush takes over and reverses economic policy. The surplus turns into the largest deficit in American history. Our national debt grows to dangerous levels. The administration faces some tough challenges (9/11, Katrina, etc.), but the leadership largely proves to be incompetent. We invade Iraq (unjustifiably this time). We dwindle into recession, bank failures, and what is largely viewed as the most serious economic crisis since The Great Depression.

2009: Obama will take power. My guess (and hope): we once again have a competent leader with solid economic & fiscal policy who will clean up the latest Bush-directed mess.

This new strategy from Microsoft is interesting and out of character for them. As a technologist who is partial to startups and had the (mostly unfortunate) experience of working for Microsoft for a short time, I had to comment.

I can’t imagine this gaining MSFT much market share. The key, early personnel at startups are going to have strong opinions about the tech stack…and aren’t going to be swayed by what is essentially a period of deferred license feeds.

My personal opinion is that there are still two huge problems with this:

1. Their suite is still inferior to almost all alternatives
2. It’s obvious that taking them on up this program will lock you into the Microsoft platform for the long haul, meaning you’re going to start paying those hefty fees as soon as you hit your 3rd birthday or $1M in revenue.

No thanks.