All posts by G. Gordon Gritty

Culture Jamming, economics, Politics

Opposing Bernanke

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Jim DeMint’s Website
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, announced this morning that he will oppose the nomination of Ben Bernanke to serve a second term as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Senator DeMint made the announcement after Bernanke’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, and pledged to object to floor consideration of the nomination until the Senate votes on S. 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009.

“Ben Bernanke is an intelligent and well-intended public servant, but the fact is the Fed has failed the American people during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and I cannot support his nomination for a second term,” said Senator DeMint. “Americans want a new Fed chairman who is willing to provide transparency into the Fed’s actions, who is willing to accept responsibility for the Fed’s mistakes, and who is willing to support true monetary reform that guarantees the soundness of our money.

Bernanke is constantly ignoring sound money. For that, he should not be get another term.

business, Health/Science, News

$4.1 Billion For Thin-Film Solar

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Since its founding in 2002, Nanosolar has raised a lot of money – half a billion dollars to date – and made a lot of noise about upending the solar industry, but the Silicon Valley start-up has been a bit vague on specifics about why it’s the next big green thing.

On Wednesday, Nanosolar pulled back the curtain on its thin-film photovoltaic cell technology — which it claims is more efficient and less expensive than that of industry leader First Solar — and announced that it has secured $4.1 billion in orders for its solar panels.

Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar’s chief executive, said customers included solar power plant developers like NextLight, AES Solar and Beck Energy of Germany.

The typical Nanosolar farm will be between 2 and 20 megawatts in size, Mr. Roscheisen said in an e-mail message from Germany, where he was attending the opening of Nanosolar’s new factory near Berlin. “This is a sweet spot in terms of ease of permitting and distributed deployment without having to tax the transmission infrastructure.”

Yeah, so I don’t really know much about it, but it sounds interesting.

Entertainment

Quote of the Day

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Mark Sultan On People That Go To KK+BBQ Shows:

Sure, there’s the jock with the 8-foot thick Mohawk on his head, wearing some shitty Billabong shirt and head-butting a girl because he can’t get it up, and he’s looking in the mirror and hating himself because he’s secretly gay and all his friends hate him. Sure, that guy is there, and I hate him. He sucks. He’s the worst faker in the world. And he’s mouthing along to songs that we’re not even playing because he’s just trying to look like someone else that likes the music and he’s there for the wrong reasons. But that guy is going to disappear, because the music doesn’t mean anything to him. The people that do love the music will always come to the show, and it will always have a special place in their hearts.

Entertainment, Music

Recommended Listens

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If you are a fan of far out garage/noise/punk then you ought to head over to the blog Teenage Lobotomy and download their Mix Volume 2. Most of the songs on the Mix are by unknowns, at least to me anyway.

Acid Eater‘s “Top of Spot” is straight up noise-punk. Rat Traps‘ “Tennessee Rock ‘N Roll” is precisely the type of song that I am influenced by. It’s lo-fi garage pop to the max. AH Kraken‘s “Axe Vertical” shouldn’t claim to be anything except a really lo-fi cut of a repetitive psychedelic riff. Nice Face‘s extremely quick “Beater” reminds me of good old Thee Oh Sees and No Bunny. Watch out for FNU Ronnies‘ “Meat” because it’s crackly, noisy, and threatening to your personal security. Human Eye‘s “Rare Little Creature” is a manifestation of the band’s alien punk attitude, which doesn’t actually tell you too much about their sound, but that’s fine. It’s got keyboards like the Spooks do, but HE is more notorious. “Mental Shark Bite” by Final Solutions isn’t too awesome, but it gets the job done much like a band called  Scouflaws does. The Spaceshits, yes Mark Sultan/King Khan Spaceshits, were hailed as one of the best garage bands north of the border and I can see that as fact even though the recording of “Bacon Grease” is exactly that. The Homosexual Police Officers (okay…Fag Cop… for short) sound like a Black Lips side project, but no no they aren’t. Their “Skull Splits” is a glass shattering, mumbling, noise tune that gives their mom a kiss, but fucks your sister too. Check out the evolving beats on the spoken word garage popper “The Nihilist” by TV Ghost, an In The Red groupie. Wolfdowners‘ “Tooshie Bagel” doesn’t really present anything new and exciting to the table, unfortunately. Francis Harold and the Holograms is a damn mouthful and so is their song “Glitter Girlz,” which is a bit too hardcore for me. Lamps “Rototiller” is buried so deep in the grave of garage punk that you’d be a hero to dig this Electric Eels-esque shit up. Homostupids (are they homo or what’s up?) “Beneath the Blackman” is a Circle Jerks B-Side or something. Well, it could have been. Monoshock is an acid trip gone bad, or at least that’s what they said about songs like “Mexican Dentistry” from these ’90s ‘cisco psych-punks.

Just listening to this Mix reminds me that I know near- nothing about the type of music I like.

Entertainment, News

2010 LP/EP Releases

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Will 2010 be better than 2009 in terms of releases? It’s tough to say at this point, obviously. What I do know is that 2009 saw debut albums from many great bands (Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Uninhabitable Mansions, to name two), not to mention a wealth of awesome LPs from bands who’ve been around the circuit for a while (Black Lips and Arctic Monkeys, to name two). Here are some LP/EP that I will definitely get around to reviewing next year:

January
[12] Vampire Weekend (Contra LP)
[18] Cold War Kids (Behave Yourself  EP)
[19] Spoon (Transference LP)
[26] Moonface (Dreamland EP)
[26] Magnetic Fields (Realism LP)

February
[9] Yeasayer (Odd Blood LP)

May
[?] Arcade Fire (?)
[?] MGMT (Congratulations LP)
[?] Walkmen (?)

Q3-Q4 Release Date
– Bon Iver
– Interpol
– Panda Bear
– Radiohead
– The Shins
– The Strokes
– Wolf Parade

Drugs, Entertainment, Health/Science, News

Booze Pills

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IGN
 Behold the world’s tax dollars at work. A Russian professor at the Saint Petersburg Technological University has developed a process that allows him to take almost any kind of alcohol, turn it into a powder, and then pack it into a pill for easy transport. Yeah, someone actually took the time and the research money to figure this out. Why bring a bottle of wine to your next dinner party when you can just drop a few tablets of whisky on the kitchen table and call it a night?

“We have developed a technology that allowed us to turn any liquid solution into powder,” the scientist was quoted as saying by a web portal.

The mastermind behind the technique is Evgeny Moskalev, who was first able to produce vodka into a “dry” form, supposedly to make it easier for consumer to calculate an exact dosage. After the transformation, the “dry” vodka (or whiskey, or beer) can fit easily into bag or even your pocket.

Screw underage drinking, it’s all about thizzin’.

business, Entertainment, News, Politics

FTC Mandates Blog Rules

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Washington Post
Bloggers who offer endorsements must disclose any payments they have received from the subjects of their reviews or face penalties of up to $11,000 per violation, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday.

The agency, charged with protecting consumer interests, had not updated its policy on endorsements in nearly three decades, well before the Internet became a force in shaping consumer tastes. The new rules attempt to make more transparent corporate payments to bloggers, research firms and celebrities that help promote a product.

“Given that social media has become such a significant player in the advertising area, we thought it was necessary to address social media as well,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director for the division of advertising practices at the FTC.

I wonder if this will play any role for big name music blogs like Pitchfuck who probably haul in thousands just to positively review albums like Album. Contrary to popular belief, KLYAM does not receive any cash as to meet a monthly quota of at least 9,000 Death Cult (Black Lips, King Khan, and Jay Reatard) related posts.