Mobtown Shank

WTF: Blame The Debate

Repub Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) thinks he knows why so we're losing so many American soldiers in Iraq:

“Al-Qaida knows that we’ve got a lot of wimps in Congress. I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we’ve got to get out, we’ve got to cut and run."

Yes, DeMint believes discussion kills.

Not undertrained troops.
Not undersupplied forces.
Not a lack of exit strategy.
Not corrupt "contractors" (AKA mercenaries) who are little more than War Profiteers.
Not the American military trapped in the middle of a Civil War and serving as a target as occupiers.

No, what's killing Americans in Iraq, according to this southern Repubican Senator, is Congress expressing the voice of the American people and discussing displeasure with this war. This would explain why there was so little discussion when Republicans controlled Congress when we were lead into this war.

None of that "dangerous" debate, just patriotic rubber stamping that got us to this point in the first place.

Source.

RadioShank: Rated Double D

DOUBLE DAGGER - The Psychic [mp3]
DOUBLE DAGGER - Luxury Condos For The Poor [mp3]
DOUBLE DAGGER - Camera Chimera [mp3]
From their new CD - Ragged Rubble.

MEAT PUPPETS - Disappear
New Meat Puppets!

BATTLES - Atlas

PIG DESTROYER - The Machete Twins
Check out Blake on the guitar!

WILCO - Walken [mp3]
For the hippies.
Found on Fluxblog.

ART BRUT - Direct Hit [mp3]

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Get Innocuous [mp3]
I have a friend who swears this is awesome. What do you think?
Found on Fluxblog.

SUFJAN STEVENS - Waste of What Your Kids Won't Have [mp3]
SUFJAN STEVENS - Sister [mp3]
Early SS, re-released.
Found on Gorilla Vs. Bear.

ADAM AND ANDREW - The Emo Song [mp3]
Some people don't get the joke, evidently.

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If the Shank was a print publication, this would be the free CD that comes with it each week. Most of these MP3s (and WAY more) can be found by going through the "LINKS" section on the left, but what the hell...

Click on the song to play, or just right click on the song title, and save.

PLEASE NOTE: The MP3s listed here will not be available indefinitely. So if a file is missing, that's why.

Random Factoid: How Credit Cards Work

I don't think many American consumers really understand how credit cards work. And the more I see people using credit cards on $5 - $10 purchases, the more I really believe this.

Elizabeth Warren, over at TPMCafe breaks it down:

Every time a consumer makes a purchase on a credit card, the credit card networks skims a fee off the top. The fee is typically 2%-3% of the purchase price, but sometimes as high as 15%. The level of fee relates to the merchant’s industry and size and, most crucially, the level of rewards.

Merchants pay more when a customer puts down a cashback/frequent flier super-gold high premium card than when another customer puts down a plain-vanilla card.

...this means that if a customer pays for $100 worth of merchandise ... with a credit card, the store would keep somewhere between $85 and $98, depending on the card the customer used.

Credit cards cost merchants 6x as much as cash transactions and 2x as much as Debit card transactions.

And Visa and Mastercard prevent merchants from charging the consumer more for using the card even if the card costs the merchant more.

Source.

Random Factoid: Happy Memorial Day

980 soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq from Memorial Day 2006 - Memorial Day 2007.

President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.
"It could be a bloody - it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.

Source.

Red State Circus: Meet The New Ann Coulter - Emily Mitchell

Emily Mitchell is a 24-year-old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed former beauty pageant queen. She is also a political organizer working for a Virginia-based nonprofit called The Leadership Institute. Her goal is to push students to become more active in the "conservative movement."

From 2006 - 2007, Mitchell started 57 clubs on college campuses across Arizona, including an abstinence club called The New Sexual Revolution, an anti-feminism club called The Network of Enlightened Women, a libertarian magazine called Choice Magazine, and helped establish chapters of Students for Life (an anti-choice organization) on several college campuses. (Yes, I'm aware at how rich with irony the names of these clubs are.)

She's also the woman behind Arizona State University's Caucasian American Men of ASU (even though she was never a student). CAMASU started because, as student organizer Matthew Jezierski claimed...

Its supporters (at one time, the club had 40 members) told reporters that white males are quickly becoming a minority on college campuses and in America, and that their numbers are declining by outstanding percentages.

In 2006, ASU had 7,000 white graduates and 283 black graduates. Outstanding indeed.

In that obnoxious conservative way, CAMASU took its mission statement almost verbatim from the African American Men of ASU.

When the club started, Jezierski told the campus newspaper, "This club is a way to instill pride in each other and not be ashamed we're Caucasian males."

So after the noise has faded and the controversy has died down, how's the club doing today?

"It dwindled off," [Jezierski] said. "There's not much interest in it." He didn't really want to talk about the club anymore.

To read more about Emily Mitchell.

Past Leadership Institute members & students include:
Karl Rove
Grover Norquist
Ralph Reed
James Guckert (AKA Jeff Gannon).

Source.

Tonight! Double Dagger CD Release Show

Saturday, May 26
DOUBLE DAGGER'S RAGGED RUBBLE CD RELEASE SHOW
Featuring: DOUBLE DAGGER, THE NEW FLESH, THANK YOU, SMART GROWTH 
9:30PM. $5. Current Gallery. Downtown, Baltimore.
30 South Calvert Street
Pick up the new CD and find out why The MobTown Shank calls Double Dagger Baltimore's most important band!

DOUBLE DAGGER MP3s
The Psychic [mp3] - from Ragged Rubble
Luxury Condos For The Poor [mp3] - from Ragged Rubble
Camera Chimera [mp3] - from Ragged Rubble
Plus...

I Was So Bored I Wanted To Hang Myself On The Dancefloor [mp3]
Punk Rock vs. Swiss Modernism [mp3]
Attack Of The Clones [mp3]
Clare Undone [mp3]
The Psychic (live on WFUM, 3/06) [mp3]
Rearranging the Digital Deck Chairs (live on WFUM, 3/06) [mp3]
Army vs. Navy (live on WFUM, 3/06) [mp3]
I Was So Bored I Wanted To Hang Myself On The Dancefloor (live on WFUM, 3/06) [mp3]
Camera Chimera (live @ Ottobar, 7/04)

THE NEW FLESH MP3s
No Expectations [mp3]
Wage Slave [mp3]

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To see weekly calendar listings, visit THE SHANK CALENDAR section of the Shank.
To see more upcoming shows, visit THE SKAG section of the Shank.

WTF: Examiner Editor Goes Gun Crazy?

Frank J. Keegan, editor of The Examiner (MD's most right wing newspaper - although The Sun has been trying really hard to keep up with The Examiner's conservativeness) likes his tobacco and firearms.

Frank J. Keegan, editor of The Baltimore Examiner, was charged early yesterday with pointing a shotgun at a next-door neighbor and his family - including a 3-year-old girl - during a dispute over cigarette smoke.

Keegan, 58, was charged with three counts of second-degree assault and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to injure in connection with the Wednesday night incident.

What was the dispute over? Evidently, Keegan's cigarette smoke had been a negative impact on his nextdoor neighbor's child's ability to breathe.

UPDATE: And how does The Examiner respond to its editor being arrested for assault with a deadly weapon?

Examiner Publisher Michael Beatty said in a statement that he reviewed the police report and spoke with Keegan, and that Keegan should be presumed innocent.

“Frank Keegan is a valued and experienced editor of the Baltimore Examiner and we stand behind him,” Beatty said.

Source1.
Source2.
 

Tonight! Dishwasher Pete

  dishwasher 
  Originally uploaded by sugarfreak.

Thursday, May 24
DISHWASHER PETE
7PM. atomic POP. Hampden, Baltimore.
3620 Falls Rd.

Pete Jordan had a quest - to wash dishes in all 50 states.

For years he self-published his own zine (long out of print and impossible to find) documenting this challenge.

This book collects his stories - a sort of memoir centered around his quest and his historic zine.

Buy the book!

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To see weekly calendar listings, visit THE SHANK CALENDAR section of the Shank.
To see more upcoming shows, visit THE SKAG section of the Shank.

Tonight! Kohoutek and more

Thursday, May 24
Z'EV, SHIKHARA, VIOLET, KOHOUTEK
8PM. $8. Warehouse Next Door. Washington, DC
1021 7th St NW

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To see weekly calendar listings, visit THE SHANK CALENDAR section of the Shank.
To see more upcoming shows, visit THE SKAG section of the Shank.

WTF: King George

Scary.

On May 9, 2007, George W. Bush signed The National Security And Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which declares that should a “catastrophic event” occur:

"The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." 

Congress? George don't need no stinkin' congress.

In the event of a national disaster, Bush becomes a dictator. Odd how this has gone unreported in our media, huh?

Anyone want to start a betting pool on when Bush allows the next 9/11 or New Orleans to happen?

Source1.
Source2.