Dallas Symphony Orchestra Strikes Out

So all the Halloween candy has been disbursed (and we've yet to stock up on Decemberween weevils yet), and so Maddie and I settled back to listen to WRR play their Halloween special, which's a panoply of pieces that they adjudged appropriate -- first up, was the Toccata from Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor. That's kinda cool, although I've always thought the fugue was the cool part, I can see the "evil-scary" purpose of putting the 1st part in. But this was something of the conductor's own arranging: a mixture of Bach's version for organ and Leopold Stokowski's rendition for symphony orchestra.

And it sucked. Chuped. Choked on the big one. I mean, lemme ask one sovereign question to put it in perspective: how does anyone who has half a clue as to what they're doing arrange Bach to be sluggish and leaden?

It was almost as bad as the Bolshoi's rendition of Khatchaturian's Masquerade Waltz, aka, to quote Maddie, "You'd think the Russians could conduct a Russian". It nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol. It was almost enough for me to want "MTT" back. Almost.

W not convincing many

For all that many left-wing people think that the Economist should be renamed World Fascist Daily (oh Irony...), if even the Brits think he's off his twig, then perhaps the NeoCons will finally get shovelled into the shallow roadside graves they deserve.

Sadly, given the lack of conservatives among the Republican "front-runners", I won't be holding my breath....

(hat tip to The Mess That Greenspan Made for linking to the Economist cartoon)

New Burglar in Town

I know a guy who says that criminals are stupid, and that's why they chose to be criminals -- I'm not sure I completely agree with that across all spectra of crime, but surely if you are a burglar, in order not to be seen or heard at 3am, wouldn't you choose to walk in all the fallen leaves and to fiddle with all the jingly things on your keyring? And when you ducked behind a shed when someone flips on the backdoor light, would you leave the tip of your boot hanging outside of the shadowed zone?

After hearing the slide on my .270 racked, at least he was smart enough to bug out in the provided time-frame before Buster, Mr. Mag-light and I did our sweep. Given the rapidity with which the seemingly random pickup-truck blasted out of our neighborhood at 3:30 during said sweep, I assume he'll be looking for greener pastures....

Supporting Ron Paul

As everyone knows, I rather like Ron Paul, since he's the only libertarian running right now (the Libertarians, as in the Libertarian party, are a sad joke and look like they'll remain so for decades to come).

If you want to support Paul, but don't want to throw away your cash too soon, there's a new online Pledge you can sign up for that states:

"I will donate $100 but only if 1,000,000 other people will do the same."

If you're interested in signing up, the link is here.