Formerly known a "Breaking the Silence", this band formed in 2006 very quickly separated themselves from the underground with, judging from the some of the internet chatter I've seen, a fantastic live performance that comes from a mission to touch lives. They became known for their strong work ethic, playing 150 shows a year. A last minute call from Tooth & Nail Records to fill for a band that had just split up found them playing alongside Dizmas and Children 18:3, and eventually with them signing on with the label. Having found a mainstream band with a similar name, they chose a new name for themselves, one that has a curious ring to it: The Letter Black.

They released an EP, their first album under their new name, in September, and "Hanging On By A Thread" is starting to get a lot of airplay on Christian rock radio. The song grabbed my attention, but as with any great song by a band I'd never heard of before, I was afraid that either lightning had struck once and all their other stuff would be mediocre, or that they'd suffer from Nickelback-syndrome, where all their songs sounded the same. Having done some investigating and listening, I can happily say that neither is the case. It's actually impressive just how different from each other the songs are, especially from a band as new as they are. And they all sound great.

So here is the single that got my attention. "Hainging On By A Thread" is off the EP Breaking the Silence. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from this band in the coming years.

So you've probably heard by now about some strange data on the government's effort at transparency in the distribution of stimulus funds, Recovery.gov. To sum up, the site showed a total of $6.4 billion and slightly under 30,000 jobs "created or saved"...in Congressional districts that do not exist. A total of 440 Congressional districts have been "created" in the sites records, which would almost double the membership of the House of Representatives. Naturally President Obama's critics have seized on the numbers, calling the reports false, that funds are being embezzled, that the stimulus has failed, that Obama used the money to buy new earrings for Michelle and a pony for the girls (OK, I made that last one up). On Wednesday, the errors were cleaned up, sort of. All the phantom districts are now being collected into an "Unassigned congressional district" category in a rather obvious act of digital hand-waving. The White House has responded to the criticism, saying that "transparency" is necessarily messy and attributes the anomolies to user error, but still claims that the stimulus has been an overwhelming success when you look at the "big picture".

I mean, it's not like the site shows 57 states. (You know I had to go there. )

As someone who does this for a living, I'm inclined to believe the White House's reason for the phantom districts. The most likely cause is user error. But it also reflects on the gross incompetence of the people who designed the site, particularly the back-end area where users were entering data. It should not have been possible to enter data for non-existent districts, and it's really not very hard at all to prevent users from doing so when you have a very finite set of legitimate values. Seriously, this is Web Application Design 101 kind of stuff. I have to wonder if their programmers knew enough to "escape out" all user-supplied data. I'm half tempted to root around for the backend and see what kind of chaos I could cause by entering data for Congressional district "'; DROP DATABASE; '".

But that's what I think is going on: user error and bad site management. Nothing nefarious is going on, at least with these phantom districts. Of course, I couldn't help but notice that the White House is already using the phantom districts as a straw man. They address this minor snafu as if it's the only issue people have raised, ignoring more serious discrepancies with the job numbers being reported, or reports that stimulus money is going toward allied political advocacy groups like La Raza, the AARP and the SEIU.

And that's been my frustration with Obama critics, as an Obama critic myself. We're too quick to grab the low-dangling fruit, the criticisms that are easy to make and easy to refute. For instance, during the campaign we obsessed over Obama's friendship with Bill Ayers, and the Obama apologists rightly pointed out that one friendship doesn't make him a Weather Underground wannabe. But if we'd taken the time to expand things, to show that there were actually a great number of extreme and corrupt characters in his circle of friends and associates, the contention that those friendships are not reflective on him becomes harder to make. And too often we get overly critical of the fluffy stuff. Seriously no one should be outraged by Mrs. Obama's expensive shoes or that the First Couple had a Broadway date night.

This does not preclude the occasional joke being made at the President's expense. I mean, really, what kind of self-respecting democracy would we be if we didn't make fun of the people in charge from time to time. Jokes are one thing. But when trying to make the case against Obama's policies, we need to tune out the fluff and get right to the heart of the matter. The non-existent districts are a mere hiccup; the numerous examples of obviously fabricated numbers in the stimulus job reports are troubling, as is the money being appropriated to political groups. The heart of the matter with so-called health care reform is not "death panels" or "jail time", but the ridiculous notions that we'll somehow make something less expensive by taxing it more and the notion that a government bureaucracy that's less answerable to the public than either corporations or politicians will somehow respond to the needs of the public better.

Seriously. We're supposed to be conservatives. The serious thinkers. The realists. How 'bout a little focus?

• This was a week that saw the offensive "teabagger" (used to smear Tea Party protesters by equating them with a disgusting sex act) by someone you'd expect to know better: former President Bill Clinton. Yeah, I suppose there's a joke to be made as his expense here, but I'm not going there. Whether numerous Republican victories in this month's elections indicates that the Democrats are actually "winning", as Clinton contends, I leave as an exercise to the reader.
• Ed Schultz makes his seemingly weekly appearance on this list, bizarrely comparing the horror of the Fort Hood shootings to the horror of...Joe Lieberman in the Senate.
• Of course, the Fort Hood shooting prompted many to fret over a violent backlash against Muslims coming from those crazy right-wingers, something that, predictably, never actually materialized. But past history didn't stop the fretting. CNN's Carol Costello showed the strangest case of this: attacking Phyllis Chesler for a column she wrote in Pajamas Media. The strange part: Chesler is actually a feminist, not a conservative.
  
• MSNBC's Contessa Brewer's penchant for sticking her foot in her mouth in issues of race continued. A few weeks after mistaking Jesse Jackson for Al Sharpton, she derides conservatives for backing Marco Rubio, whom she calls a "great white hope". Or wait, she says she meant to say "right". Maybe. Calling Rubio a "great white hope", besides being offensive, is quite bizarre, as he's Hispanic, the son of Cuban immigrants.
• Regionalist chest-thumping occurred over the upcoming trials of Gitmo detainees on American soil. New York based publisher Greg Mitchell tweeted that New Yorkers happy to host the trials and that people in the heartland were "wimps". I'm just guessing that the sampling of New Yorkers Mitchell polled was quite small.

But the two biggest targets for leftist vitriol in the past week were Sarah Palin and the Catholic Church. Sarah Palin, of course, is a polarizing figure much like George W Bush or Barack Obama, but it'd be nice to think that people who so often touting their superior education and tolerance would not act so threatened that the person who lost her run for the Vice Presidency wrote a book. The Catholic Church got it on two different issues: bishops' involvement in pushing passage of the Stupak amendment, which would prohibit public health care funds from paying for abortion, and a decision to not take government money in DC designated to help the poor should a law be passed that'd require those who take such money to cover same-sex partners. Apparently a lot of liberals think being religious means you give up First Amendment rights like the right to petition the government, and that it's not really helping the poor unless the government is paying for it.

A few of the craziest instances of Palin Derangement Syndrome:

• Countdown back-up host Lawrence O'Donnell called Palin an idiot and said her book was extremely simplistic. This is quite an interesting take, as the book hasn't gone on sale quite yet, and it doesn't sound like O'Donnell was one of the lucky ones to receive an advance copy. O'Donnell also called Rush Limbaugh, who is reportedly quite impressed with the book, an idiot, and said that even Palin's dumbed-down writing would be a challenge for him.
  
• USNews.com contributing editor Bonnie Erbe called Palin "loony" for saying that Levi Johnston, in spite of all he's said publicly, would still be welcome at Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently practicing the Christian doctrine of forgiveness makes the former Governor "loony". This is a wild guess, but something tells me that not practicing that doctrine would have made her a "hypocrite".
• Al Gore-owned Current TV ran a cartoon on their SuperNews! program called "The Stupid Virus", in which a monkey who thinks that Barack Obama isn't a U.S. Citizen (Come on. Hasn't this crazy conspiracy theory pretty much run its course now?) escapes and infects much of America, including conservative talk show hosts and Sarah Palin. Besides fact that none of these commentators ever actually subscribed to birther theory--and Palin has suffered through a crazed birther theory directed at her--the episode calls Palin a "Gun-Ho" and a "twilf" (Twitterer I'd like to...). It also features a vulgar and bizarre attack on Glenn Beck at the end.

As for the renewed outbreak of Know-Nothingism:

• MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman opined that the IRS should investigate the Catholic Church in retaliation for exercising their rights and petitioning the government. Apparently in Snyderman's world the non-existent "separation of church and state" trumps actual Constitutional rights like freedom of religion and freedom to petition Congress.
• Allison Kilkenny of the Huffington Post went off on Catholics for stating that they'd be unable to help the city administer social service programs if doing so would force them to violate their beliefs. Kilkenny called the Church an "Inexplicably Evil Organization" and the pope a "decrepit former Nazi youth..who now wears a funny hat". She also tried to argue that Catholicism will soon be extinct because...wait for it...they're in the minority, in spite of the fact that Catholics have kinda always been a minority in this country.
  

Current TV was pretty bad, and I'd expect better from a former President, but Allison Kilkenny takes the cake. She is the Liberal Hater of the Week.

So there's this silly little Xanga thang¹ going around, and apparently I've caught it. Riis gave it to me. Most I would have ignored, but because it's Riis, one of the few men I can unabashedly call "sexay"², I do the whole 25 random things rigamarole. But, Riis, you call this 25 random things? I'll show you 25 random things:

This video has been going viral on teh interwebz for several days. It shows a women's soccer game between the University of New Mexico and Brigham Young University, and features particularly violent play (if you can call it "play") of Lobos forward Elizabeth Lambert.



Somehow, woman vs woman violence is always a big sale. Why is that? I wonder if it's because we don't expect it. And I wonder if it isn't because we tend to put women on a bit of a pedestal, praising them for being more even-handed, considerate and non-violent. Then we enjoy it when a woman proves us wrong, because it takes them down a peg. Or possibly we just find the idea of women exerting themselves to be arousing.

And where were the refs? If this were the NFL Lambert wouldn't be able to do half the things she did, because she'd be ejected from the game at the first punch. Now, after the fact she's been suspended indefinitely, but why didn't the refs step in and stop it while the game was going on?

Just a couple things things to ponder on a Wednesday afternoon.

It looks like conservatives have found the perfect person to callout House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the way she and other members of the Congressional leadership have stymied Republicans' attempts to put forth their own ideas and effect the outcome of the bill writing process all while claiming "bipartisanship". Madame Speaker, get an earful from...Nancy Pelosi.

With off-term elections and a "historic" health care bill passing the House (which looks to be DOA in the Senate), you'd think that it'd be time to get serious and put aside the usual snark. But, no, this is the time when some have to show just how much they loathe the other side.

First the (dis)honorable mentions:

• MSNBC's David Shuster, a guest on the Stephanie Miller show, opined about the peculiar problem with an electorate that doesn't always want to fully back the agenda of the Democratic Party, saying "Washington can focus on a lot of things at once, but for whatever reason the public can’t." Yep. It's like herding cats. Things would be so much simpler if voters just relented and let the government do their thinking for them.

• CNN's Roland Martin kept things classy by cheering Glenn Beck's emergency appendectomy last week. In a post on Twitter he wrote, "Glenn Beck had an appendectomy today. He must have blown a gasket after Hoffman lost the NY-23. Keep crying, Glenn!" Apparently the fact that he had an appendectomy back in 2000 gives him the right to revel in the pain of others.

• Keith Olbermann was in rare form last week, at times unintentionally funny, at other times just spewing the usual vitriol. Among the lowlights from his show:
  • Called out Fox & Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson for asking the question on whether Muslims should be given more attention. I understand where Olbermann is coming from here, but then he went on to suggest that the co-hosts were promoted into their positions because they're not black, Hispanic, Asian or Muslim. Apparently he is unaware that he and other members of MSNBC's primetime lineup are none of these as well. UPDATE: Olbermann Watch has the full story on this one. Suffice it to say, it's blatant character assassination and a classic case of quotes being taken out of context.
    
  • Said Sarah Palin was guilty of sexism for opposing liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election. I can totally see where he's coming from, as Palin is totally the type who's threatened by the notion of a woman in authority. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if she decides to run for president?
    
  • Said of the "house call" protest on the Capitol steps that it looked like a "pro-apartheid" rally. Yes, health care takeover reform is totally about race.
  • Showed just how open-minded and tolerant he is when, on his program, he told Glenn Beck and 9/12'ers opposed the health care takeover reform to "go to hell". Hoboy!

But the one that really makes your jaw drop this week is actually from an anonymous contributor. Racism and homophobia reared its ugly head in Baltimore city elections this week, as a flier was circulated imploring voters to maintain their race's power in the City Council and depicted an openly gay candidate as a child molester. However, the flier was advocating black power and voting for Democrat Classie Hoyle and attacking Republican Scott Bowling. Any other week Olbermann would have won in a runaway with his "go to hell", but this week, for descending into the depth of racism and homophobia that Democrats claim to be against, our anonymous flier writer is our Liberal Hater of the Week.

In case you missed from a few days ago, there were a few protests last Thursday over the Democrats' health care takeover reform agenda. The first one was small. Nine protesters briefly occupied Senator Joe Lieberman's office. Lieberman has recently come out against the government public competitive puppies and rainbows option. (Sooner or later they'll find the right phrase that will make all of America fall in line, just you watch!) This has angered left wing, so in an expression of the sort of inclusive, big tent thinking that Democrats like to claim they have, these protesters stormed into his office, chanted loudly and got themselves arrested.

The second and much larger protest occurred on the Capitol steps around midday. At the request of Michelle Bachmann, several thousand came to protest the bill taken up by the House of Representatives, the proverbial "switch" to the Senate's vapor bill "bait". There were signs and boisterousness. There were also a few arrests. Ten of them tried to enter Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and making enough of a commotion in the hallways that they were arrested.

For those of you scoring at home, that's 9 of 9 Obamacare supporters arrested and 10 out of a couple thousand arrested. The determination of which side was more law-abiding is left as an exercise for the reader.

Besides the arrests, the leftosphere is taking offense at some of the signage. HuffPo compiled a list of the 12 most offensive signs. Given that they included an sarcastic reference to Pelosi's ridiculous "astroturf" charge and a sign depicting Obama on the Titanic as "offensive"...yeah, they were reeeeeeeeeeeally reaching to come up with 12. But there were a handful that were genuinely offensive. The one that has the left most in vapors is this one:

A British court has ruled that belief in man-made global cooling global warming climate change, if genuinely held, can enjoy the same protections as religions under the country's Religion and Belief Regulations.

Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger plc, claims that he was laid off (the British article uses the very British and thus adorably cute term "redundant") from his job because of his "philosophical belief about climate change and the environment". Grainger had challenged the ruling, saying that his beliefs were political and scientific, not religious and philosophical. Grainger argued that his beliefs were subject to scientific proof and thus not protected under British religious protection laws. But the court ruled in Nicholson's favor.

Observers believe this ruling may open the door to employees forcing their employers to accomodate environmentalist beliefs, such as providing recycling receptacles or offering "low-carbon" alternatives for travel.

Nicholson told the court that his beliefs were so strong that he refused to travel by air and had his house renovated to be more environmentally-friendly. In other words, he holds his beliefs a whole lot stronger than Al Gore does.

It should be noted that the judge in this case is the same one who ruled that Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth was political and partisan, and thus ought to be accompanied with material documenting its errors when shown in the classroom.

It's an odd numbered year, so here in the U.S. of A. there are only a couple of governor races and "special" elections. Wait. I thought last year's presidential election was "special". Anyway, only certain areas are going to the polls today. But as this is Xanga, we can all certainly vote on the great questions of our time and the issues that affect us all. So let your voices be heard.