1. White From Here - Holly Figueroa


2. Dancing with the Women at the Bar - Ryan Adams and Gillian Welch (from a live show in 1999)


3. Juicy Lucy - Stefan Grossman


4. New Amsterdam - Elvis Costello and the Attractions


5. Fear - Sarah McLachlan


6. Small Swift Birds - Cowboy Junkies (from a live show at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens)


7. Love You Madly - Ella Fitzgerald


8. Blue Light Boogie - Louis Jordan


9. Plenty More - Squirrel Nut Zippers


10. Cold Winter Day - Blind Willie McTell


11. Red Door Blues - Indigo Swing

Everyone have a good <insert favorite holiday>.

My Congressional Representative, David Scott has called for the withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq.

U.S. Rep. David Scott has changed his mind about Iraq.

After supporting the war, the Georgia congressman is calling for a removal of U.S. troops from the country.

Scott said in an interview Thursday on Atlanta radio station WAOK-AM that he believes the job that the U.S. military was sent to do is finished and "a sizable number of troops" should start coming home.

"We cannot go the course we've been going on because we are being viewed as an occupier," said Scott, a two-term conservative Democrat who represents the southern suburbs of Atlanta.

"I still support our troops, but I do not support our policy."

Scott, who sits on the House National Security Committee, said he changed his stance after the Bush administration "kicked Colin Powell out of the saddle."

Scott said a pullout of troops should start by February.

I sent him my thanks this morning.

1. Live Free - Son Volt


2. Vox (Extended Remix) - Sarah McLachlan


3. Highway 90 - Jane Jensen


4. All the Pretty Little Horses - Holly Cole


5. Anna Lee - Elmore James


6. Alley Flowers - Jolie Holland


7. You Stepped Out of a Dream - Tal Farlow


8. Breezin' Along with the Breeze - Josephine Baker


9. What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again) - Louis Jordan


10. Hit That Jive Jack - Diana Krall


11. Take It With Me - Tom Waits

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Extreme
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

1. Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple


2. Out of this World - Ella Fitzgerald


3. Them There Eyes - Django Reinhardt


4. Al Di's Dream Theme - Al Di Meola


5. Drummin' Man - Gene Krupa


6. Katmandu - Cat Stevens


7. Devil Doll - X


8. Watching the Moonlight - Vigilantes of Love


9. Bronze - Joshua Redman Quartet


10. He Never Mentioned Love - Kirsty MacColl


11. Blue and Sentimental - Count Basie

The book is going well. I've had to back up and throw out some of the stuff that I'd written (well not literally) then go back and do more research, more in depth character studies, and more plotting; but I've greater confidence with what I have and where I'm going with it.

Per instructions from The General, here is a card wishing everyone joy and eggnog for the holidays christmas.

To be honest, half the references in the questions are not even on my cultural radar.

Hardhat

You are an atheist, a rationalist, a believer in the triumph of science and of reason over libido. You can’t stand mumbo jumbo, ritual, spiritual nonsense of any kind, and you refuse to allow for these longings in others.


Astrologers, Scientologists and new–age crystal ball creeps are no different in your view from priests, rabbis and imams. They’re all just weak–minded pilgrims on the road to easy answers. Nature as revealed by science is awesome enough for you, but it’s a nature that needs curbing and taming by us on our evolutionary journey to perfection.


Your heros are Einstein, Darwin, Marx and — these days — Gould, Blakemore, Watson, Crick and Rosalind Franklin. Could you be hiding a little behind those absolutist views, worried that, if you let in a few doubts and contradictory ideas, the whole edifice might crumble? Loosen up a bit and try to enjoy the amazing variety of human belief systems. Don’t worry — it’s unlikely you’ll end up chanting your days away in some distant mountain cult.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

For my friends who are John Cusack fanatics (you know who you are), he has an essay up on the Huffington Post.

Bush 2. How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration's world view actually is...how low the moral bar has been lowered...and (though I know I'm capable of intellectually lazy notions of collective guilt) how complicit our silence as citizens is...Nixon, a true fiend, looks like a paragon of virtue next to the criminally incompetent robber barons now raiding the present and future.

But where are the Dems? American foreign policy is in chaos. We are now left in the surreal position of having to condemn American-sponsored torture as official policy while a deranged President Bush orders his staff to attend ethics briefings -- a "refresher course" -- from the White House counsel. The very idea of America is in chaos and this chaos has created a vacuum. 

One question for any Democrat: Who will have the balls to get us out of Iraq? 

If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will. They will take us out of Iraq. And then the Democrats will be left holding the bag -- first as the enablers who let the Republicans take us into an unnecessary and immoral war, and then as the whipping boys who stood by while the Republicans kept justifying what was clearly an unnecessary and immoral war. They were so worried about positioning themselves as hawks, not being seen as soft on terror and war, that they lost the capacity for outrage when the person responsible for a legal memo that denied the validity of the Geneva Conventions was appointed Attorney General. And it was downhill from there.

1. Tracy Chapman - She's Got Her Ticket


2. Aimee Mann - Dear John


3. Larry Coryell - Lotus Revelation


4. Paris Combo - Aléas


5. Smokey Robinson - Being with You


6. Jesus Christ Superstar - What's the Buzz/Strange Thing


7. Bonnie Raitt - One Part Be My Lover


8. Van Morrison - The Smile You Smile


9. Buddy Rich Big Band - Goodbye Yesterday


10. Royal Crown Revue - Swingin' All Day


11. Absa Gueye - Mane Kouma Khol Thi Yao

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

Anyone wanna buy a church?