TheMaker

I'm perpetually amazed by people like ikol. I mean, how the fuck can you look at yourself in the mirror when you know that you care more about money than people? I'd literally have to kill myself if it ever came to that. An excellent point. There's no waiting in Canada to see a G.P., to my knowledge. I'm typically able to make same-day appointments with mine, for instance, and if he's on vacation or at a retreat of some kind, I can pop into a walk-in clinic with minimal fuss in the event of an emergency.

There's no comparison, really. Moore doctors headlines, intentionally tweaks quotes, and gets loud when he wants to make a point. When Ann makes a point, everybody who isn't rich, white, American, Christian, or part of a nuclear family is marginalized, brutalized, or flat-out threatened with extermination. The strongest evidence that the woman is nothing more than a crass sensationalist is the fact that she'd have been institutionalized decades ago if she actually believed the pitch-black shit that gushes out of her head every time she opens her mouth to talk. Check out the assortment of quo

Pretty funny, I guess, as gallows humour goes. I wouldn't be laughing if I had to mortgage my home to pay for heart surgery or if I'd been denied care by my HMO for a completely arbitrary reason, though. In fact, I'd probably find your comments unforgivable in those instances.

Okay, I lied: Yes! This is beautiful, Beltmann. What of the millions of Americans toiling in the service industry, for example? "Better start saving your tip money!" And what of retirees who are denied benefits? "Well, you're old, so... um." As I pointed out earlier in the thread, there is no rigid axis which neatly matches "hard work" with "comfortable income." Among the hardest working people I know (and I hope you'll pardon me for including myself in this group), just as many have met with struggle as have met with great success. It's something to think about. The last two response

Dreamin' has got it bang-on once again! The prioritization of corporate interests over the public good is the biggest problem in the U.S. with regards to healthcare. Big pharma is big business down there, with pharmaceutical corps posting bigger profits than virtually any other kind of business. It ain't criminal, but it sure is disgusting. The kicker is that there's more money floating around on the demand side in the U.S. to fund public healthcare than in any other Western nation. At present, only the pig-rich can afford "the best healthcare in the world," while an uncomfortable number o

Right the fuck on, bro. You hate your job, you believe that each man is an island, and you like to spell cheque like only one country does. Anyway, I'm done talking to you for just about ever. What's the point in trying to get blood from a stone? Enjoy the downward spiral.

Re: Colbert being "real" And people sometimes have the temerity to ask why I'm proud that I'm a self-made professional with no pieces of fancy paper... Christ, people are stupid. (No offense intended in the event that these guys are close friends of yours, of course. Oh, who am I kidding?) Coulter is a wind-up artist, plain and simple. She's a three-dimensional cartoon, and she goes around spouting these beastly ideas and opinions simply because the public goes along with it and writes her cheques worth millions. It'd be kind of funny if her views weren't actually representative of so many

Oh, after my big rant a couple days ago, how could I possibly live with myself if I passed up this invitation? (This post is dedicated to Tweedling, who is beginning to stand revealed as my favourite kind of starred 'n' striped chat board troll; that is, one who steadfastly refuses to engage in proper discourse with those who would challenge his perceptions, but who nonetheless keeps a collection of weblinks at the ready which irrefutably prove the superiority of his country. Hope this finds y'well, Tweedles!) Anyhoo, like Dreamin', I've heard tell of a lot of horror stories about the e

Is there a new Bonnie "Prince" Billy confirmed, or is that just speculation? It seems early for him yet... Pencil me in for that one, the I'm Not There soundtrack, and Wolf Parade, although I've been hearing less and less about that disc as the year dwindles to its end.

Or we could talk about how much ass Nels kicks on this recording of AATW. WOW.

I'm a Carlinist when it comes to politics. I'd rather do something useful than waste my fucking time voting. (I'm also not American.)

Two percent of a penny? Sounds about right.

Cease and desist, criminal! Wouldn't you rather watch Dylan blasting across the Alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated Escalade? Legally? http://www.xmradio.com/dylan-cadillac/index.xmc

I was sort of ranting against glib, knee-jerk crapola, but if that's your only response, I guess that's cool.

Living in a border town, as I have for the entirety of my nearly 30 years of life, I'm a bit of an outsider looking in on the U.S. Please take all of this with a grain of salt, because I really do love your country, but the number one problem with America, as I see it, is its tendency to obfuscate its problems so loudly, and with such vigor, that any hope for significant change is rendered damned near impossible. On a long enough timeline, everything always seems to come down to either sleight-of-hand or whiny milk-baby bullshit, both of which are counterproductive to actually getting shit don

I'm probably the only dude hereabouts who really doesn't care for Bird at all, so allow me the following: ew.

I started crying and pooped my pants and then closed the window when I saw this: 1997 The Boatman's Call, Nick Cave Savage Garden, Savage Garden Either/Or, Elliott Smith OK Computer, Radiohead Time Out Of Mind, Bob Dylan Urban Hymns, The Verve I don't have a preference. Seriously, there's no way I could pick a favourite between those three records. Talk about Sophie's Choice...

I'm jonesin' for Lanegan doing Man in the Long Black Coat. What are the odds that this recording is going to be chilling? 100:100? Something like that, I think. Talk about a perfect choice.

People all bein' biased 'n' shit. I love Sufjan, but his covers of established artists' songs mostly really suck. He messed up Joni's Free Man in Paris when he covered it recently, too. It's just really overblown. The other three are great. I'm a fair weather Chan fan - I actually hate her thin-stew acoustic stuff, but I love it when she's got a Stax-style soul band backing her, performing the kind of music to which her voice is actually well suited - but this is just a great recording of a great song. Jim and Jeff nailed their songs. The former sounds unerringly like it did in my head, and

I don't really follow NY's sets, so I don't know how rare some of those performances are, but if I saw that show I'd probably die on the spot. Right around the time he whipped out Bad Fog and Winterlong, I bet. That's just an amazing set.

Jesus Christ, Goin' to Acapulco is about as perfect as music gets. One of my favourite songs in the world nailed by one of the best bands of the decade. Can't ask for any more than that. (Jeff did great too, natch. Love the refrain!)

Somebody mentioned Demonoid, so this isn't quite threadjacking (but I admit it's close): can Americans still use the site? They're blocking Canadian ISPs now, which struck me as odd, since I'm used to downloading with impunity and clucking my tongue every time I read about a torrent site disabling access from the US.

Now you do. PW and LWW have their moments, but there's something about them that wears thin after a few weeks of listening. CDII feels startlingly like an inferior marriage of both. Save the first two tracks, there's not a lot here that I'm liking. I've heard "The Believer" three times now, and its simple charms delighted me the first time I heard it, but now it just seems thin, anemic, unimpressive. I'm not one for giving legends a pass, sorry, so this joins Magic and Modern Times on the scrap heap. If it makes you feel better, I really like Joni Mitchell's new one. You know, the record t

Judging from the lack of responses, I guess everybody else found this disc about as interesting as I did. Another spin or two should do it, and then I'll throw it on the pile marked "Neil's '00s shit."

I know this hits DVD in a few weeks, but as a Dylanphile, I have to ask: anybody seen this on any torrent sites yet?