Austin Vegas, Author at Austin Vegas

January 20, 2010January 24, 2010

Dems & Coakley are on Vacation While Brown Takes it in Mass.

Nothing in politics is certain as Hillary Clinton can attest to that, so when you have a candidate UTB’d* by liberal commentators before the election results are in, you know they’ve failed miserably: “from December 19th when Coakley had a 20 point lead, and then January 5th when her lead was cut in half… Coakley was ‘literally on vacation.'” (Nora O’Donnell of MSNBC)

Sen.-elect Scott Brown takes the interim election in Massachusetts to fill the late Senator Kennedy’s seat until 2012. Brown will be the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 30 years which is a much bigger blow to an opposing party’s politics than when Air Force Capt. and Democrat, Bill Owens defeated businessman Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, in upstate NY.

What the Republicans understand well and the Democrats continue to fail historically at, is if you compromise your political positions as Coakley (another Mass. politician, John Kerry is infamous for being associated with flip flopping as well) had done on the abortion and capital punishment issues, then you’ll lose resoundingly regardless of political history in the voting district.

Ted Kennedy just rolled over in his grave as this result now means major complications for any national healthcare reform. Which really makes the entire DNC look even more pathetic than ever. John Stewart says it well when discussing the death of the healthcare bill:

And the reason it will die … [pauses for effect] … Let’s continue … The reason it will die is because if Coakley loses, Democrats will only then have an eighteen-vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W. Bush ever had in the Senate, when he did whatever the f*** he wanted to do! In fact, the Democrats have a greater majority than the Republicans have had since 1923! But for Democrats, apparently a majority of 100 is … sixty.

“”What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system”
~ Ted Kennedy

Miles Davis – Blue Haze (right-click to download)
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Blue-Haze.mp3]

*UTB – is an acronym for the phrase “Under the Bus”. It’s pronounced as it’s own word (uHt-be) much like such sonar, (created from sound navigation and ranging).

January 19, 2010January 26, 2010

Sun Escape

The weather’s brightened up a bit here in New York. Just in time to hear the Southern Cali whiners crying about a little rain and a tornado watch.

With more time on my hands, and this nicer weather enticing me to get out, I’ve been shopping more at our only Trader Joe’s. This Monday, the line was longer than I had ever seen it since they opened in 2006. The last thing I need is to squeeze past unnecessary carts and old people trying to get less than 12 items so I can cut my line waiting time.

Washington Square 2010 — Washington Square Dead Zone - Click 2 Expand

I went today and despite the bad economy they still had food to sell me. As I was checking out, the floor manager and I got to talking about the weekend business and I was told TJ’s closed record sales on Monday of $218,000. Over the three day weekend they closed a killer half a million dollars in sales. Maybe it’s a good thing they are still a private company….

On the walk back, I went through Washington Square park. They’ve torn up the whole east and south sides of the park now. It’s horrible to look at and I only hope the city puts everything back just after the spring rain subsides. I still have a set of petanque balls that need tossing.

I’ve been playing around more with Photoshop, taking advantage of some Preset Actions and trying out some different compositions. For the most part, I think they aren’t that successful. For instance the below is a little over exposed and heavy on the contrast so it just doesn’t feel right to me. I gave up tonight as it’s close to midnight and needed to post something and get rested for tomorrow.

On a music note, I found a few data discs my sister had given me several years ago for Christmas. I appreciate the exchange of new choons, but I recall this particular year, I had a stack of over 15 with a mix of Jazz, House, Electronic, Goa, Trance, Down Tempo, Breaks, Psychedelic, Rock and Reggae music. My taste has evolved and I’m not that into the Trance, Progressive, electronic as much anymore so nearly half the discs I’ve grown out of favor. Finally I loaded the Reggae and Jazz which never gets old for me and found a new band I’ve never heard before: Midnite (Roots reggae from St. Croix). Here’s 2 tracks from early in this past decade. One is a shot out to those in Haiti struggling for survival and the other is for those news media outlets that refuse to cover the human suffering because they can’t get past their own political bias to support fellow humans regardless of race, beliefs or political background.

Midnite – Suffa Ra (right-click to download)
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Suffa-Ra.mp3]

Midnite – Propaganda (right-click to download)
[audio:https://austinvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Propaganda.mp3]

January 18, 2010January 19, 2010

Celebrate MLK and Continuing to Move Forward

“Ben, make sure you play “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.”

Those were Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last words after falling to the ground from a shot through his right cheek. King had many enemies fighting for civil rights in the 60’s and because of that fight we can have proper social dialect like this from Wanda Sykes.

Poirier – Enemies feat. Face T (Dub I.D. Remix)