LoudSpeakers

I updated my list of favorite records of 2006 to include the record by Clipse entitled “Hell Hath No Fury.”  It’s pretty darn incredible.

If Of Montreal’s “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” was to be released in 2006, it would be at the top of my list.  It’s amazingly intricate, yet fun at the same time.

On an interesting note, I noticed in my referrer logs that I was listed as the number one result in Google for the search “favorite records of 2006.”

1. M.Ward - Post-War
2. Lambchop - Damaged
3. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
4. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
5. Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
6. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
7. Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
8. Luna - The Best Of Luna
9. Mission Of Burma - The Obliterati
10. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light
11. Robert Pollard - From A Compound Eye
12. Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
13. Asobi Seksu - Citrus
14. Tapes n’ Tapes - The Loon
15. DJ Shadow - The Outsider

I didn’t plan on voting yesterday —– until my Netflix delivery arrived.  “The Tank Man” changed my mind.  I typically don’t pay much attention to mid-term elections and local politics here in Georgia bore me incessantly.  Moreover, being a left-leaning, vegetarian peace supporter in an overwhelmingly Republican state makes for a lonely place. 

“The Tank Man” is a Frontline documentary about the Chinese crackdown on the pro-democracy movement that was highly publicized with the Tiananmen Square massacre.  The story is much deeper than the news we received in the West.   Most of the US media outlets painted a picture that the movement consisted of a group of students alone when in fact it started weeks before that and involved citizenry of all types.  The Chinese were brutal in their crackdown. 

Thousands were killed during the incident or executed afterwards.  But that’s not where it stopped.  The crackdown on personal liberties continues unabaited in China fueled in part by American companies keen on servicing 1+ billion people.  Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Cisco and others contribute in material ways to allow the 30,000 people employed by China’s Internet Police to restrict freedom in egregious ways.  A reporter was sent to the gulag because Yahoo complied with the Chinese government’s request for personally identifiable information.  It’s obvious that these firms are working closely with the Chinese government to help it continue to deprive the people of basic human liberties. 

I stopped the DVD and drove to the polling station and voted regardless of the overwhelming obstacle of living in a Republican state.  I knew enough to vote for the major elected positions, but admittedly, I didn’t know some of the candidates for the minor positions.  In some cases, especially with the judicial positions, I wrote myself in as a write-in candidate.

Sanjay Kumar, the former CEO of Computer Associates, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his part in the accounting scandal that shaved billions of dollars from the company’s market cap. 

He plead guilty for his part in masterminding a 35–day accounting month that also allowed for software sales to occur during a given quarter, but allowed the customer to return products or not pay for the transaction.  In effect, the company’s performance was artificially inflated to achieve revenue targets.  Meanwhile, he personally profited from the company’s perceived strong performance.