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Sunday, 15 November 2009

  • "'til all of us are sucked in"



    The Barlow sisters--Becca, Alyssa and Lauren--are well known to fans of Christian music for their musical style which ranges from guitar rock to ballads, as well as their strong--some might say controversial--stand for sexual purity and against dating, something they've derided as "little pretend marriages". And while their stances might earn them a few detractors, it's also earned them legions of fan, particularly among teen girls who no longer feel alone in taking the same stand.

    And it probably doesn't hurt that all three of them are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And in case you're wondering, yes, I have a silly little crush on Lauren.

    The group actually became well known even before they released their first CD. Superchic[k] included a tribute to the sisters as one of the songs on their 2003 album Karaoke Superstars, celebrating their stand on purity and introducing their fans to the new, up & coming band. Their self-titled debut album contained a number of nice songs pop-rockish songs and a couple ballads, but one song in particular, the Evanescence-esque "Never Alone" took the whole Christian music world by storm, being named Song of the Year on both Christian Hit Radio and Christian Rock charts. A follow up album, Another Journal Entry, was also very well received by both fans and critics alike.

    Their third album, How Can We Be Silent, debuted #1 on Billboard's Christian chart and #40 on their Top 200. They became the first all-female band of any genre since the Bangles to make it into Billboard's top 40 albums. However, this album left a bit to be desired. It wasn't bad, but, in my personal opinion, did not seem as inspired as the last two.

    The ladies released their fourth album Love & War back in September. This album is much better, more like the BarlowGirl we'd fallen in love with. The ballad "Beautiful Ending" is getting a lot of play on contemporary Christian radio, but the one I am featuring this week, entitled "Time For You To Go" is more quintessentially BarlowGirl: driving rock and unafraid to be outspoken about the ills of society.


    Time For You To Go (Album) - BarlowGirl

    Currently
    Love & War
    By BarlowGirl
    see related

Saturday, 14 November 2009

  • 25 Random Things

    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:

    1. How everything smells right after it rains

    2. My trip to Disney World

    3. A spool of green thread

    4. Shaun of the Dead

    5. California emission

    6. A black & white television set

    7. 1200 baud modem

    8. The Iliad

    9. The Kuiper Belt

    10. Deng Xiaoping

    11. Autumn foliage

    12. Na-Dene language family

    13. Taquitos Mexicanos

    14. PHP Regex functions

    15. Mike Oliphant

    16. Pachycephalosaurus3

    17. Matt "Positron" Miller

    18. For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women

    19. Worchestershire

    20. Mice in the ceiling

    21. "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"

    22. Avery Johnson

    23. Pot calling the Kettle Black

    24. cumulonimbus

    25. Jake Peavy

    Wait, what's that? I'm supposed to do 25 random things about me? Oh snap!4 Ah well, I'll do that too, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow.


    1 I'm so 1990.
    2 Soooo 2001.
    3 Reminds me of a lot of people I know on teh interwebz.
    4 Hellooooooo 2007!

Friday, 13 November 2009

  • Is Charlie Crist Racist?

    A little background for the uninitiated: Charlie Crist, a Republican and current governor of Florida, is making a run at the Senate in 2010. He faces what looks increasingly like a stiff challenge from Marco Rubio, former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Oh, and Rubio is of Cuban descent, the first Cuban-American to be Speaker in Florida.

    So out comes this attack ad from TheRealMarcoRubio.com, an on-again, off-again site that has been outed as being run by the Charlie Crist campaign.



    So let's see what we have here:
    • Marco Rubio is being congratulated by then-candidate Barack Obama, a Republican bogeyman. 
    • Attended a Cuban National Foundation function with Barack Obama. Double booga-booga!
    • Supported a Democrat charged with extortion.
    • Supported a Democrat with a scarily Spanish name.
    • And he's speaking Spanish throughout much of this ad.
    Or at least that's what a lot of the chatter on teh interwebz is saying. But you tell me. Is this a racist attack ad?

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

  • Cat Fight!

    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.
  • Political Correctness Turns Deadly

    Jonah Goldberg nailed it in a column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times (which apparently is still in circulation). The money quote:
    We have a real problem when much of the political and journalistic establishment is eager to jump to the conclusion that peaceful political opponents are in league with violent extremists, but is terrified to consider the possibility that violent extremists really are violent extremists if doing so means calling attention to the fact that they are Muslims.

    Let me be clear: Major Nidal Malik Hasan should not have warranted special attention from our law enforcement because he was a Muslim, but because he was an extremist. And yet, it appears that he was allowed to roam free and possess firearms for far too long precisely because he was Muslim, and we didn't want to give the impression that we were persecuting a poor Muslim. So the fact that he
    • lectured his colleagues with an extreme interpretation of the Koran, saying that non-Muslims should be set on fire, beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.
    • tried to contact al-Qaeda.
    • expressed agreement with suicide bombers, saying there should be more of them.
    Apparently this was not enough to get him removed from the military or even questioned by law enforcement. But anyone who has participated in tea parties is suspected of being or having ties to violent extremists, even though as an observer of the news it seems as if Obamacare supporters are committing more actual violence and getting themselves arrested more at these events. And some actual violent extremists are being falsely called "Christian" and claims that they have ties to mainstream conservatism or evangelical Christianity.

    To be clear, I am not trying to say that pagans should have to apologize for George Tiller's murder, or that 9/11 "truthers" and anti-capitalists should have to apologize for James von Brunn, the Holocaust museum shooter.

    Did political correctness kill 13 people last week? Is there a double standard here?

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

  • Calling out Nancy Pelosi

    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.



    So which is more hypocritical: to treat your opponents unfairly and then complain when you receive the same treatment, or to complain about being treated unfairly and then give your opponents the same treatment?
  • NFL Top 5 Plays

    #5. The Denver Broncos take the lead thanks to their defense.


    Unfortunately for them, the Steelers offense started to figure things out as the game wore on.


    #4. Who said those creamsicle-colored uniforms are jinxed?



    #3. Randy Moss one-on-one with a rookie defesive back. This is a mismatch, right?



    #2. Randy Moss one-on-one with a rookie defesive back. This is a mismatch, right?




    #1. It seems that every week Maurice Jones-Drew is getting on this list. Maybe he really is a "Pocket Hercules".



Monday, 09 November 2009

  • Liberal Hater of the Week [small update]

    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.

Sunday, 08 November 2009

  • Of Presidents, Nazis and Short Memories

    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:



    I suppose it's an arguable point that the economic policies of Barack Obama resemble Adolph Hitler's National Socialist agenda more than George W. Bush's did. But the Holocaust is really not something I can see happening under Obama. Hyperinflation, yes. Double-digit unemployment, already happening. But concentration camps? In spite of his scary reference to a "national civilian security force" during the campaign, I don't see it. And Obama is not a Nazi; he's a corporatist. But I suppose corporatism is something not well understood by very many people.

    When asked about the event the following morning, Worst Ever White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (it's actually painful to sit and watch one of his press conferences) incredibly offered this lament.

    "Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler."

    Those of you not born yesterday can have a minute to lift your jaw back into place. Because as you know, we don't have to imagine.

    It is entirely fair to call out some of worst behavior at the tea parties. But it is not accurate to claim that they represent some great escalation in extreme rhetoric. Yes, a smattering of Obama as Hitler posters have appears, though a few are from LaRoucheites and not the tea partiers. But Bush as Hitler placards were ubiquitous at leftist demonstrations of the past few years. And to pretend that they never happened is just plain revisionist history.

  • "The sickness is myself"

    Are they or aren't they? It seems to be a popular stance in Christian rock, where fans and the band members themselves are turned off by the popular perception of "Christian music", some of it with good reason. Or the bands are trying, admirably, to spread their message into the mainstream, to live in the world as ambassadors for Christ and not stay separate from it. And in terms of mainstream acceptance you'd be hard-pressed to find an act more successful than Switchfoot.

    In their early years they were "just" a Christian band, virtually unknown to the mainstream. This was not by design, as they had intended all along to market outside the contemporary Christian music scene. But those plans were sidetracked when the independent label they were with was bought out by Sparrow Records, who marketed them almost exclusively to Christian radio and retail outlets.

    That changed in 2002, when four of their songs were featured in the movie A Walk to Remember. This led to them signing on with Columbia Records and the release of the The Beautiful Letdown. That album went double-platinum and contained their most iconic hit songs "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move".

    Following the release of that album, the band broke away from the Christian music scene. Although they still marketed their music to Christian outlets, but stayed away from Christian festivals and declined interviews with Christian publications. The band had always thought that the "Christian" label was excluding, turning off many of the fans they wanted to reach out to. As lead singer Jon Foreman has said, "For us, it's a faith, not a genre." But more recently they have gone back a bit on this policy and seem to have accepted the idea that they are embraced by both genres. They now occasionally headline Christian music festivals and interview with Christian publications, while still marketing themselves to a mainstream audience.

    Earlier this year they went back to the studio and announced that they were working on not one, but four albums that would be released back-to-back-to-back-to-back. The first of those albums, Hello Hurricane, goes on sale this coming Tuesday, November 10, 2009. "Mess of Me" is the first single off that album.


Saturday, 07 November 2009

  • It's Official: "Climate Change" is a Religion

    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.

    So what do you think? Is "climate change" a religion? Should it enjoy the same protections in the workplace as (other) religions? Is that an "I can't believe I just got away with it" smirk on Nicholson's face? Does Al Gore really believe what he's selling? And is there any people group cuter than the British?

Friday, 06 November 2009

  • [UPDATED] Glenn Beck Tragically Not Dead

    TheOnion, for the uninitiated (both of you), is a parody news service. And they have been known to occasionally go over the top. But their latest video has raised objections even from some of its target's detractors.



    Glenn Beck is the host of a popular Fox News commentary program and a radio program that is, rather proudly, the third most listened to program in all of America. He is loved by many, and very, very loathed by many. These days it could be argued that he is even more controversial than the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow.

    TheOnion's latest video centers around Beck. In it, the anchor reports on a story of a tragic death. The tragic part, however, is not so much that she was a beautiful high school student full of life and with her best years ahead of her, but that it wasn't Glenn Beck. The video also shows a paramedic describing how he wanted to make sure it wasn't Beck before administering aid, and the victim's own mother crying over the fact that Beck will outlive her daughter.

    Naturally many in the rightosphere are outraged, but even some on the left are saying that joking about wanting someone dead is not funny. Here's the video, so you can make your own judgment. (Content warning: the video does contain a few uses of profanity, by which I mean a couple f-bombs are dropped.)


    Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck


    So what do you think? Is it funny, or does it cross a line?

    (Note: I'll be back tomorrow [Friday] with my own answer. It might surprise you.)

    UPDATE: And now for the rest of the story.

    I really don't think Glenn Beck is losing sleep over this one. Nor should he. For one, he doesn't seem to be the type to fret over what TheOnion thinks of him. And second, I don't think he's the actual target here.

    TheOnion aren't nearly the leftist ideological shills that they've been called in some parts of the rightosphere. They have been much more willing to direct their barbs at Obama than most of the media, realizing that he really is a veritable gold mine of comedy.

    So is Glenn Beck, but I don't think he's the actual target. Instead, I see this video as laughing at the Beck-haters out there, who are unaware that they are even more hateful and over the top than he is. I've actually spent parts of the past 24 hours getting a good laugh at commenters around the web who are saying it's funny because Beck really does deserve to die, unaware that they are the butt of the joke. Though I suppose that the reason not many have caught on is because this is barely parody.

Tuesday, 03 November 2009

  • Off Year Election

    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.



    Has the Snuggie become so dorky it's cool now?
  • Top 5 NFL Plays

    It was a week of long distances, second helpings, making the extra effort and even, on the day after Halloween, a little trick-or-treating.

    #5. For one week, Peyton Manning does not lead the Colts in touchdown passes.



    #4. Braylon Edwards hasn't actually been making as frequent trips to the endzone since being traded to a contender. But he makes sure he gets this one.



    #3. Can't blame Chris Johnson for being tired at the end of this play, can you?



    #2. Ted Ginn, Jr., had already run one kickoff back for a touchdown in this game. He couldn't do it again, could he?



    #1. They call him "Pocket Hercules". It's his second long touchdown run of the day.



Monday, 02 November 2009

  • Liberal Hater of the Week

    It was an interesting week. Liberal commentators, personalities and politicians engaged in misogyny, playground taunts, religious crusades and contributed further to the Beavis-and-Butthead-ization of political discourse.

    There were, of course, the usual suspects, the sort who could easily end up winning this award weekly. I have to raise the hate-bar for these people just to give the others a fair shot. Joy Behar called Obama critics "the stinky kids in the coatroom who eat their own boogers". And both Congressman Alan Grayson and MSNBC TV host Ed Schultz tried to earn their way into the he-man woman-haters club by calling someone a "whore". Grayson's target was an advisor to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, while Schultz went after the wife of independent Senator Joe Lieberman.

    We saw more uses of the pejorative "teabagger" to describe tea party protesters. Note to the uninitiated: tea partiers do not use that term for themselves. It is actually a rather sick sexual joke, a term used to belittle those people disagree with. It's morally equivalent of referring to a homosexual as a "fudge packer": just incredibly sick and wrong. If you want to be taken seriously as an adult, don't use the term.

    Unfortunately, too many liberals who ought to know better are still trying to mainstream the term. Frank Rich went the Beavis route in his column in the pages of the New York Times in which he also, incredibly, referred to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as "Stalinists" (somehow calling Barack Obama a "socialist" doesn't seem so bad any more). And NJ.com writer Jamie Duffy used the term not once, not twice, but seven times in her story on the Morristown, New Jersey, tea party.

    And speaking of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd was the latest columnist from that paper to engage in Know-Nothing-ness, spreading lies about the Pope and the Catholic church. She misrepresented a letter Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote before he became Pope Benedict XVI, saying it called for women to be submissive when it actually spoke of "active collaboration" between the sexes and also said that

    "women should be present in the world of work and in the organization of society, and that women should have access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems."

    Hardly seems like wanting to keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, doesn't it? She also repeats the discredited claim that he had joined the Hitler Youth. Membership was compulsory and he deserted the group as soon as he was able, even though doing so made it harder to pay tuition.

    And then there was Mike Malloy, radio show host, who responded to Dick Cheney's criticism of the President's policy (or lack thereof) in Afghanistan. Malloy showed what an astute observer he was when he exclaimed that Cheney was looking "very ruddy"...and concluded that he must have just eaten a baby. He then expounded for a bit on this observation, telling how it must have been a Jewish or Muslim baby and not a Christian baby, and referred to Liz Cheney as his "spawn" rather than his daughter.

    On face value, Malloy is the worst of the bunch. But it is clear that he is joking, as over the top and sick as the joke is, while Dowd clearly believes her drivel. So I'm splitting the prize this week. Maureen Dowd and Mike Malloy are this week's co-winners of the Liberal Hater of the Week award.

     


Sunday, 01 November 2009

  • Obama vs Fox: Did It Backfire Worse Than We Thought?

    It seems that for now the Obama Administration's assault of words on the Fox News Channel seems to have abated. The whole brouhaha culminated when Fox was excluded from a pool interview with White House "pay czar" Ken Feinberg (which now seems to be a decision by an overzealous staffer than by the President himself), something which the other networks pushed back on.

    After an interesting few weeks, Fox appears to be the victor. Their content has not changed, and the feud has brought in more viewers, particularly among the lucrative age 25-54 demographic.

    But could the damage to the prestige of the Administration be more profound than those numbers indicate? I'm not talking about the ability of Fox News to take the President down a peg, as I doubt they can do more damage than they already have. I'm talking about the reaction of the other "news" organizations. The President has enjoyed near-fawning coverage from the other networks for quite some time. But whatever their ideological differences, the other networks and organizations apparently did not take kindly to the notion that the White House could decide who is and isn't a news organization. The White House has also come across as thin-skinned in other ways, firing back at non-ideological organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and Edmunds.com. The notion of Obama as being one of great magnanimity appears to be wearing off.

    And now, maybe we are seeing a cooling of the others' attitudes toward the President. Both the AP and CBS were highly critical of a White House report hundreds of thousands of jobs "created or saved" by the pork-filled monstrosity stimulus. CNN has already been dipping their toes in that water. The release of video where Anita Dunn boasts on how the Obama campaign/administration "controlled" the media may have been the tipping point. While the establishment media still has a liberal ideological bent, I can imagine how they might bristle at the notion that the White House somehow controls them. And now, watching Fox News not only survive but thrive while under verbal attack is proof enough that staking out a more independent position and being willing to criticize the President once in a while might not be as suicidal as many thought a few months ago.

  • All Saints Day

    All Saints Day. In Western tradition it falls on November 1, the day after Halloween. Or more properly, Halloween falls on the night before All Saints Day. But being Brethren, it's one of those things I'll never completely understand. You can learn more about it here.

    But if you want to celebrate the august history of the church, go here.



Saturday, 31 October 2009

  • "You wonder why I'm not afraid"

    C'mon. Who else could I feature on Halloween but Project 86?

    Project 86 has been one of the more interesting and unique bands in Christian rock for over a decade. They sport an aggressive, hardcore rock sound that at times has been described as rapcore (a description lead singer Andrew Schwab has disagreed with), nu-metal and post hardcore. Over the years they've incorporated elements of folk music, hip hop, goth rock and even 80s rock. Their lyrics are often cryptic, sometimes more so than others, but they exhibit a definitively Christian world view. According to Schwab, the "86" is from a slang term for kicking something out, getting rid of it, and the band is about nonconformity, being rejected and not going along with the group.

    The band has not been without controversy, particularly in the earlier part of this decade. Originally signed with Tooth & Nail records, they soon attracted more mainstream interest and signed on with Atlantic. By agreement Atlantic would handle marketing to the mainstream audience while Tooth & Nail would continue marketing to the Christian audience. However, their contract with Atlantic required them to prioritize the mainstream audience, leading to Tooth & Nail selling their contract to Atlantic. Christian fans were turned off by the darker, depressing tone, and were concerned about certain lyrics, wondering if Project 86 was all that Christian any more. Around the same time, the group released a concept album Truthless Heroes, which failed to attract mainstream interest. One single was seen as being especially critical of the Iraq War at a time when American companies shied away from such messages, and Atlantic refused to release it. These things, along with the declining popularity of the whole nu-metal genre, led to Atlantic dropping the band.

    The band independently produced a new album entitled, appropriately enough, Songs to Burn Your Bridges By. Oddly enough, it was this very album that got Tooth & Nail interested in re-signing the group. They've released three more full-length albums since then, which include the criticially acclaimed Rival Factions and this year's Picket Fence Cartel.

    "The Butcher" is off that latest album. It makes for a great Halloween song.


  • Is Halloween right-wing?

    CNN's Christine Romans discussing how capitalist trick-or-treating is. And apparently her mom was an "evil socialist."



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randomneuralfirings

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Chatboard (6)

  • Aquarello
    Just ran across this... sounds like something right up your alley, blog-wise. http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1965_the_tornado_the_lutherans_and_homosexuality/
  • Peridot21
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  • randomneuralfirings
    @Peridot21 - Yes, I'm able to hear it just fine.
  • Peridot21
    heyboihey =) were you able to listen to my audio? jw, cause it's not workin' for me...agaaaainnnn
  • Evolutionary_21
    Hi....mind if I tell you that you're kind of old? No offense...I just noted your birthday and I thought, Yipes! Old!
  • ClockworkBunny
    Hey, I actually read that article about the bill to permanently recognize Juneteenth. So, what do you think? How long will it take before this "South Carolina finally frees the slaves" thing becomes a bona fide urban myth? (groan) I know people- both African-American and Caucasian- who live in the S