Last Night A DJ Saved My Life

"Now, you know what this is!"

"IT'S A CELEBRATION BITCHES!"

Featuring Twista and his Birthday song.

[ED'S NOTE: Ain't gon lie, I totally thought this was going to be a Celebration Ode to the Good old U.S. of A. Boy was I wrong...]

Harder, Better, Faster, STRONGER!(?)

Our work is never over.

Words.

"Tuesday, the U.S. "stood down" in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns -- the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in U.S. history. We have relegated the car and suicide bombings to the inside pages of newspapers, accepting at face value that the "surge" has calmed things down enough so we can finally leave the whole sorry Iraq adventure behind us.

But not. So. Fast."*

LOS ANGELES TIMES: The U.S. in Iraq: An economics lesson

*[ED'S NOTE: Extra periods added for a more dramatic effect]

Girl Talk.

New flava in ya ear!

Drake.

Best I Ever Had.

"Food" for Thought.

ALCOHOL: The leading cause of this.

Words.

"College presidents who have been blaming drinking-age laws for drunkenness at their schools had better look at their own policies. While the amount of binge drinking — downing five or more drinks in a row — remains high at colleges, it has dropped sharply among people of the same age who do not attend college.

...There was some talk that the minimum age for drinking should be reduced back to 18.

Now comes new evidence that the age-21 requirement has been generally effective in reducing binge drinking — except among college students. That was the conclusion of a study by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, published in The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Binge Drinking on Campus

The Final Chapter.

A Moment of Clarity.

Words.

"As the United States prepared to invade Iraq in 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell famously warned that "if you break it, you own it." In many ways, the U.S. did break Iraq, ousting Saddam Hussein's quarter-century regime without ensuring that a stable government would take its place. That ushered in a bloody, six-year occupation that cost the lives of more than 4,300 U.S. troops and nearly $700 billion. Americans will always bear responsibility for this misbegotten war of choice, but now, at last, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities marks the beginning of the country's return to its rightful owners -- Iraqis.

...Although U.S. combat troops have been moving to bases for months, Iraqis sang and set off fireworks to celebrate an end to foreign tanks in their streets and uninvited soldiers in their homes. Some Americans will remain as trainers and advisors, but President Obama has committed to withdrawing all combat troops by 2011. This page opposed the invasion of Iraq, then supported a surge of U.S. troops to stabilize the country and allow our forces to leave. Now it is time to close this shameful chapter."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Iraq for Iraqis

Two of Hearts.

"New" flava in ya ear!

Britney Spears.

Radar.

Here Comes the Wavves!

With their No Hope Kids.

A new flava in ya ear production.

Big ups to the folks over at

Stereogum for putting this on my radar. That's what's up!

How Soon is Now?

A Moment of Clarity.

Words.

"Back during the initial fuss about "don't ask, don't tell," I went over to the Pentagon to see the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We mostly discussed the situation in the Balkans and the pressure on President Bill Clinton to militarily intervene. Then I asked about gays in the military and the chairman, who was opposed, asked me what I thought the reaction would be if two male soldiers took to the dance floor at some military base. No different, I answered, than if a black man danced with a white woman at the same base about 50 years earlier. Colin Powell seemed taken aback and I thought, naively, that "don't ask don't tell" was doomed.

Now it is 16 years later and "don't ask, don't tell" is still the law of the land. Since 1993, more than 13,000 troops have been discharged for being gay. Last year, 619 military personnel got the boot, a number that has held more or less constant in recent years. Some of them had invaluable specialties, such as fluency in Arabic.

In the view of many present and former military officers, changing the policy to allow openly gay people to serve would prove a disaster. In a letter to President Obama, more than 1,000 of them argued that valuable officers and noncoms would leave the services if gays were tolerated, while concerned parents would withhold permission for their sons or daughters to enlist if, God forbid, homosexuals were openly in the ranks. This is nonsense."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Open the Military Closet

The Next Episode.

Up, Up, & Away...

Words.

"BAGHDAD --Today is the deadline by which U.S. troops are to withdraw from major Iraqi cities. This clear line in the sand must provide some relief to many Americans, whose sacrifice has been extraordinary. But as the United States shifts its attention from Iraq to Afghanistan and other issues of grave importance, none of us can be lulled into believing that Iraq is a "mission accomplished." That sense of security is simply false. June 30 is not an historical endpoint to be celebrated by political philosophers; it is the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter in Iraqi democracy and self-governance.

...Our choices are between tribalism and nationalism, and everything in between; parties backed by foreign powers and homegrown grass-roots movements; secularists and Islamists. These choices will set in motion Iraq's rendezvous with destiny. If the coming weeks and months are reasonably peaceful, if progress continues against corruption and basic services continue to be restored, we will have taken a huge step forward. With next year's general election and American troops long gone from our cities, Iraqis should come close, at last, to ruling ourselves."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Iraq: Mission Not Yet Accomplished

Taking care of Business.

Words. For Your Consideration...

"Under Obama, Bush's commitment to winning in Iraq has all but vanished. Convinced from the start that the war was a mistake (a conviction fortified by the Bush team's post-invasion bungling), Obama has for years been the salesman in chief for a narrative of failure: Iraq is seen as a colossal disaster -- a senseless distraction that drained U.S. resources while alienating the rest of the world. While recognizing a vague obligation to help Iraqis forge a better future, Obama's bottom line comes through loud and clear: The war was a strategic blunder, and the sooner the U.S. can wash its hands of it and re-focus on our "real" priorities in the Middle East, the better.

...deeply uncertain about America's long-term commitment to their future, Iraqis are starting to hedge their bets in unhelpful ways. Accommodating themselves to the agenda of the coming Iranian hegemony rather than their departing American liberators is increasingly the order of the day.

Although the Bush administration made many costly mistakes in Iraq, the surge was a resounding success that put the goal of an independent, democratic Iraq back within reach -- as evidenced by January's successful provincial elections. Obama is in position to achieve that goal, but only if the U.S. military withdrawal is offset by a corresponding deepening of high-level diplomatic and economic engagement. That, however, will require the president spending far less time signaling his eagerness to get out of Iraq and more time working with Iraqis to figure out how best we can stay."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Is the job done?

Back, back, forth, and forth.

Turn around.

Words.

"...It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: 40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans

In Memoriam.

New flava in ya ear!

Jay-Z.

D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).

Electric City.

New flava in ya ear!

Kanye West.

Street Lights.

Oh Word?

Jokes.

Man in the Mirror.

Words.

"America's serious news media -- whether print, broadcast or cable -- are in the grip of a collective nervous breakdown. Embracing popular culture and its icons seems somehow therapeutic on several levels: It appears to address charges that serious media are elitist, as well as the manifest indifference of younger readers and viewers to conventional news. Then there's the fact of simple, brute commerce; popular culture in the form of film, music and TV now provides an outsized share of the financially strapped media's advertising revenue. Finally, there's that source of the news media's anxiety and confusion -- and that great enabler of popular culture -- the Internet.

...Whatever they say, many newspaper editors and TV news producers have begun to allow website hits and social media volume to function as a kind of sub rosa ratings system whose numbers dictate coverage and the play of news stories. What's wrong with that? For one thing, it leads to the sort of irrational excess we've all been through since Thursday. No reasonable editor or producer should ignore the kind of public interest we're seeing. But surrendering utterly to it ultimately undercuts what's genuinely valuable about serious news media.

A serious newspaper or broadcast news outlet must simultaneously be a mirror and a window to its audience -- a look at themselves and an opening to the wider world."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Too Much Michael Jackson?