Hammer Mill Days

All right, all right, I'm coming. Keep your shirt on. Not wearing a shirt? Fine - keep your pants on. Wait, wait.... don't tell me... don't leave me with that image... Oh, yeah... Hello, friends. Back at the mill again. We survived our little rumble at the rustic local tavern. Hate to tell you how. Suffice to say that it took guile and skill... and a willingness to give in, just a little. Okay... more than a little. Some might call it a total climb-down. We handed back to the bartender the overalls, straw hat, and flannel shirt we'd stolen off of his scarecrow to make Marvin (my personal robot assistant) more presentable. It was a humbling moment, to be sure, but w.t.f., friends, they had pitch forks and broken bottles! We had to think of something, and while ordinarily I'd be the last one to raise the white flag in a fight (reason: I'm usually the first one out the door), I had to think of our fans, our mastering project (still underway!), our corporate ove...

Incredibly, it's been five years since the invasion of Iraq, and there are, as yet, no signs that this war/occupation will be coming to an end any time soon. The most incredible part is this: something like two-thirds of the American people want us out of Iraq, as do a large majority of the Iraqi people (not that anyone cares what they think - shut up and be grateful, damned foreigners! ). And yet we're obviously not bringing the troops home - quite the opposite. Congress is lukewarm on the idea of a change in policy, and the administration is just plain smug about their refusal to bring this disaster to a close. Confronted with the polling data, Cheney just smirked and said that it didn't matter. We've even seen Bush going around opining that there's something romantic about being dispatched to the Afghan frontier, and that he wish he were younger so he could do it himself (my ass !). Why aren't these people run out of town on a rail? Why is it "politica...