Remembering a Boy

Blu-ray has arrived!

Blu-ray may have won the format war when it knocked HD-DVD off the market earlier this year, but it was still just boring tech news until this week when Neil Young made it cool.

Another Tuesday Night!

Well, well, well! It's yet another primary night! Tonight we'll be serving beer and brats, and munch on macadamia nuts while sporting leis and cheesehead hats. Wisconsin's polls don't close until 9:00pm eastern time and we won't start hearing from Hawaii until midnight, so it will be a late night!

(UPDATE: But here are some early exit polling numbers.)

While we're waiting for the results, here are a few stories from the week so far... for the first time ever, oil closed at over $100 a barrel today... Al Gore thinks people should check their portfolios... The Clintons are getting fed up with those pesky voters... McCain is playing the system... Oliver offers us a peak at one possible future... Neil Young says it's time for time for science and physics and spirituality... Robert Creamer says we need to be inspired... a California judge does not approve of whistleblowers... there's chaos in Pennsylvania (or is it just with the Clinton campaign?)... Bush mocks himself...

... and finally, if Hillary fans really like her, why do they do things like this to us?

	Democrat	Republican
Tuesday Feb 19	Wisconsin
	Obama 58% Clinton 41%	McCain 55% Huckabee 37%
	Hawaii
	Obama 76% Clinton 24%	(May 18)

Note that in Wisconsin, Obama got 58% of the vote in the Democratic primary, and then compare that with the 55% of the vote that McCain -- the presumptive Republican nominee -- got in the Republican primary.

UPDATES:
-- So, Wisconsin joins the list of states that don't matter.
-- exit poll info!
-- Norah O'Donnell has an awesome laugh.
-- A note from Tom: "The magnitude of Obama's Wisconsin victory is slightly diminished because of the large numbers of white suburban Republicans in crossing over to vote for Clinton, according to former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin's analysis of initial precinct returns."
-- I suspect that maybe Hillary's campaign lost the nomination tonight, but she won't know it for two weeks. DH thinks that she's now the Huckabee on the Democratic side (the numbers just don't add up for her anymore).

And coming up: Austin, Texas debate this coming Thursday at 8pm (on CNN); Cleveland, OH debate next Tuesday at 8pm (on MSNBC); and primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont on March 4th!

From Neil Young's Lips to America's Ear

Nearly half of the US public wants President George W. Bush to face impeachment, and even more favor that fate for Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a poll out Friday.

Link

Well, it's my birthday too--yeah!

Today's birthdays include John Ross, Emily Post, Gore Vidal, John Perry Barlow, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Ray Vaughan (on the day and year as Al Sharpton!), and none other than our own Emmie!

In honor of such an auspicious day (and as a special gift to Emmie), I'm not going to share an embarrassing baby photo here in this space (and please realize what a sacrifice that is for me), nor am I going to post the lyrics to a certain Neil Young song...

Happy Day, everyone.

Followup on Littlefield/Weber and Neil Young

Regarding a couple of stories I've discussed recently...

The Littlefield-Weber story continues to unfold this week as the Times published a story Tuesday about cronyism, which may be what set off the mayor last week.

And information continues to trickle out about Neil Young's forthcoming album, including this review from Howie Klein.

Sing it: Impeach the President!

That's the latest from Neil Young:

Harp magazine reported on its Web site Thursday that Demme had confirmed in an e-mail, “Neil just finished writing and recording -- with no warning -- a new album called 'Living With War.' It all happened in three days… It is a brilliant electric assault, accompanied by a 100-voice choir, on Bush and the war in Iraq… Truly mind blowing. Will be in stores soon.” The magazine continued: “Details are pretty scarce, but the featured track, titled ‘Impeach the President,’ features a rap with Bush’s voice set to the choir chanting ‘flip/flop’ and the like.”

Singer Alicia Morgan reports on her blog:

All I knew was that we were singing on a new Neil Young record, but when the lyrics we were supposed to sing flashed on the giant screen, a roar went up from the choir. I'm not going to give the whole thing away, but the first line of one of the songs was "Let's impeach the President for lyin'!" Turns out the whole thing is a classic beautiful protest record. The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally. Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience. I can't believe my good fortune at being a part of this.
[...]
I've never been at a recording session that was more like being at church. Heck, I've never been to a church that was more like a church than that session. We stood up for 12 hours (except for lunch and dinner) and I got a massive headache by the end, but I didn't care. It was worth the price of admission. We finished the session by singing an a capella version of "America the Beautiful" and there was not a dry eye in the house.

Apparently the album will be out in early June -- and I think it promises to be a good one. Last year's Prairie Wind showed that Neil is in a good place for songwriting at the moment, so this new effort has a lot of potential.