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David Lee Roth Touring With Van Halen Again

It was announced yesterday that the tour will start this fall.

The lastest twist is that founding bassist Michael Anthony has been given the boot, and Van Halen’s teenage son, Wolfgang, has replaced him.

Hmmm. I doubt that statement is entirely true. My guess is that because Eddie Van Halen is such a jerk, Sammy Hagar wouldn’t tour with them again. Sammy and Michael Anthony are still good friends, and Mike probably sees that Ed is a jerk now too and doesn’t want to deal with him.

That leaves Ed and Alex in a bind. They hate David Lee Roth, but they can’t make any money with any singers other than DLR or Sammy. Since Sammy won’t have anything to do with them, they have to put up with DLR, and since Mike won’t have anything to do with them, they have to have Wolfgang play bass.

Dave? He doesn’t care. It’s a chance for him to get on stage and say, “Look at all the people here tonight!” a few more times. He’s probably chomping at the bit to get out on the road and annoy Ed nightly, and I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d do the same thing just out of spite.

Of all the guys who’ve been in this band, Sammy and Mike are the only ones I’d ever want to hang out with. Dave would be fun to hang out with for a weekend bender, but he’d get on your nerves so bad after a couple of days that you’d have to get away…kind of like being in Vegas for more than a few days. He has, however, done a great job building that reputation and marketing himself.

I’d be surprised if this tour lasts more than a few dates. Look for it to be cancelled because of Eddie’s health.

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Patriot Act Keeps Us Safe From Fighting Cocks

Whew! Good thing we have the Patriot Act to keep us safe from those radical Islamic…chickens?

Just after midnight on May 13, 2004, a small team of FBI agents crept into the legendary Del Rio Cockfighting Pit in Cocke County.
…
Acting under the authority of the Patriot Act, the agents had obtained a search warrant that allowed them to clandestinely enter the property, search for evidence and not tell anyone about it until the government or a judge was ready to let the owners know they’d been there.

This is unreal. It is bad enough that this is what our law enforcement stays busy with this, but the Patriot Act? C’mon. Guys involved in a cock fighting ring may have a lot of undesirable traits, but being unpatriotic probably isn’t one of them.

The full story is in the KNS. by way of Michael Silence

*** UPDATE ***
More on this important national security issue from Knoxviews and
Tam,

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Fox News — Sensationalist?

I just went to our cafeteria here at work to get some coffee and saw this “headline” on Fox News…”Bloggers a Threat?”

To be fair, I (thankfully) couldn’t hear what they were saying, only see the alert they had scrolling across the bottom of the screen. But are these guys serious? I used to think that the whole blogosphere vs. mainstream media thing was sort of a ploy by bloggers to make themselves seem a little more important than they are. Now I’m not so sure.

Even locally and regionally, there have been incidents like this, that show the divide is very real, and the tension is building on both sides.

In general, I think local news outlets do a decent job at reporting. But there really isn’t much analysis of local news except in the blogosphere. True, there are editorials in the newspaper, but without competition from the blogosphere there would be no balance of opinions. In this sense, there is a real market (need?) for local blogging, and I think that may scare local media.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is national coverage, with several 24 hour stations and analysis of the news–infotainment. Large media outlets have a lot ($$$) on the line, and cannot afford to only report the news. They have to entertain their viewers to keep them glued and keep the ad dollars rolling in. It seems to me that they are afraid of the blogosphere because they are actually getting scooped on stories that matter and are losing journalistic credibility. Others **cough O’Reilly cough** just can’t seem to take the heat of competition.

But I could be wrong.

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Blogger’s Union

As nuts as it may sound, some are trying to do it. Michael Silence has this to say:

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

This is actually the first union I’ve ever heard of that I think is a good idea. Maybe by forming and joining this inevitable disaster, these left-leaning bloggers will realize what a ridiculous idea it is. It may be the only way they ever get it through their thick skulls.

Then again, that didn’t really work with liberal talk radio did it? Instead of realizing that their product didn’t appeal to the market, they instead tried to blame the market for not desiring their product.

**UPDATE**
I thought of other benefits…

Based on the tendency of unions to discourage actual work, the end result will be that they will blog less. Everybody wins!

Think about it, no blogging on weekends, holidays, or after hours. Not to mention the frequent and extended breaks they will take while actually “working”. This idea sounds better and better the more I think about it.

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Seth Godin on Toxic Bosses

Because bosses are often able to define reality, at least for those in their sphere of influence, they can cause whole sections of an organization to go off the rails. More often than not, in organizations with significant marketing problems, we can point to one person who’s responsible. And you can bet that person is a boss.

Great marketers often have the unusual combination of humility and confidence. Toxic ones have neither.

Ouch. That truth, it do hurt.

There are a lot of people in many types of organizations, county government being a possible candidate, that could glean some valuable knowledge from
Seth’s blog.

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Great-Grandmothers, Tact, and Spanking

I had a conversation with a really nice lady while waiting outside at the OB’s office yesterday. I would have never guessed her as a great-grandmother if she hadn’t told me she was there with her granddaughter who had a 10 month old baby.

We talked about a lot of things having to do with kids, and of course she gave me some parenting advice. She’d obviously had a lot of practice in giving advice without seeming like she was giving advice, and I even though I picked up on what she was doing, I appreciated the fact that she made an effort to disguise it.

The point is, I knew what she was driving at, and actually appreciated what she had to say.

Her main point was that we shouldn’t hesitate to spank when needed. Of course, she didn’t come right out and say this. She gave a couple of anecdotes about kids misbehaving in the store, at the doctor’s office (hint, hint to the other lady waiting with her 3 year old), and at church. She followed that up by saying that she was sure that my parents had spanked me when I needed it, and look at what a nice young man I’d turned out to be.

Well, at least she was half right. 😛

I’m down with spanking. No doubt about it.

Luckily for Becky, she doesn’t have to question herself on spanking. She has plenty of other people to question it for her.

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New Theme…Sorry for Any Issues

Please be patient over the next couple of days if things get really screwed up when you’re trying to view this site. I’m going through my first attempt at developing a WordPress theme, and I’m sure there are plenty of things I’ve missed and will change.

I’ve done a few things that I hope will make this site more convenient for the regular readers and a little more organized and easy to navigate for new readers. Most of these changes are due to some really good information I’ve gotten from sites like Copy Blogger and things that I like/dislike when browsing around myself:

* Larger text for posts
* Moved to a “double wide” single column in the left margin so you don’t have to look between two columns to get to the meaty content
* Separated colors for content columns from navigation/ad columns to make the content stand out a little more.
* Integrated Google Ads into the site a little better. Hopefully this will not only make the site flow more easily for regular readers, but result in a better CTR for new visitors.
* New graphics for comments, header, etc.

Please let me know if you guys see anything I’ve overlooked (I’m sure there’s plenty) or anything you’d like to see done differently!

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Whoops, Sorry About That

So yesterday I got around to subscribing to my own RSS feed and realized that I’ve been sending out summary only posts to the feed, requiring readers to actually visit the site to get the full post. To those of you who have been kind enough to do so, sorry about that–nothing annoys me more than partial posts on a feed I actually chose to subscribe to.

Also, I’ll apologize in advance to all of those poor souls who will be subjected to the full extent of my illiteracy now that full posts will appear in the feed.

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My Newest Feed — MyBootsNMe

Although I encourage EVERYONE to subscribe to my RSS feed (it’s free after all), I’m generally pretty picky when choosing to subscribe to a blog. Yesterday was an exception. I came across MyBootsNMe and browsed a little. I was pretty impressed and subscribed immediately. Great photos, great writing, and a pleasure to read. Check it out.

It is rare that I will subscribe to a single blog like this. Usually, I’ll have my interest in something peaked and subscribe to 10 or more new feeds on that topic within a couple of days. Invariably, most of these don’t stay on my list for more than a week or two because I’m either bored with them or they aren’t putting out much good new material.

That reminds me of another reason Google Reader is great. It provides you with stats that actually tell you how often a feed is updated and how many of the items you are actually reading. It makes it pretty easy to decide what should stay and go on your list. I try to keep my list of feeds pretty short while still spread across subjects I’m interested in.