Bumperfiskin'!

Ran over Wing Nut Echo Chamber in my blogospheric meanderings tonight. Among other right wingnut activities, keggin, the proprietor, fisks hippie bumper stickers.

Found in the blogroll over on MatthewMaynard.net, who, in either a random act of kindness or absurdity, linked to me. So maybe check him out, too.

Or not. These blog thingies, always risky.

Michael Yon

The best front line reporting I've seen. Absolutely riveting.

Should Democracies Be Held To A Higher Standard?

What do you think?

Beautiful, Mournful Post

Tuesday's Gone

Luke Stricklin: American By God's Amazing Grace

There's been a song on the radio lately that I love, and I've been meaning to track it down on the 'net. This morning, as I was wandering around the 'sphere, I ran across this post about the singer, Luke Stricklin, at Gateway Pundit.

Stricklin spent a year in Iraq as an infantryman, and his story is a good read. Here's the song lyrics:

American By God's Amazing Grace

Bottom of my boots sure are gettin' worn
There's a lot of holes in this faded uniform
My hands are black with dirt and so is my face
I ain't never been to hell
But it couldn't be any worse than this place
Tell my wife don't worry 'cause I know what to do
It makes you feel better sometimes,
But don't know if it's true
I know if I die it's just my time to go
But I pray to God every day that I may get back home.

Well when you've seen what I've seen
Things don't seem so bad
Quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got
Thank God for what you have
'Cause I could be raising my family in this place
But I was born an American
By God's Amazing Grace.

For the last twelve months I've had a new address
The neighborhood smells like sewage and the streets are lined with trash.
You never know what's gonna be the next thing to explode
But unlike these people, I have another home.
It breaks my heart to see these kids out on the streets
Walking barefoot through the trash, diggin' for something to eat.
I give them what I got, just to let them know I care
And I thank God it's not my son that's standing there.

Well when you've seen what I've seen
Things don't seem so bad
Quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got
Thank God for what you have
'Cause I could be raising my family in this place
But I was born an American
By God's Amazing Grace.

If you want to talk about it, you better keep it short
'Cause I got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for.
Really don't care why Bush went into Iraq
I know what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that.
You got somethin' bad to say about the USA
You better save it for different ears 'less you want to crawl away.
And I'll laugh in your face when you say you've got it bad
Until you've spent some time on the streets of Baghdad

Well when you've seen what I've seen
Things don't seem so bad
You quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got,
Thank God for what you have
'Cause you could be raising your family in this place
But you were born an American
By God's Amazing Grace!

Oh, Celebrities ... (Rolls Eyes)

Apropos of the previous post:

Celebrity

Someday I'm gonna be famous
Do I have talent, well, no
These days you don't really need it
Thanks to reality shows

Can't wait to date a supermodel
Can't wait to sue my dad
Can't wait to wreck a Ferrari
On my way to rehab...

Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
You can act just like a fool
People think you're cool
Just cause you're on TV
I can throw major fits
When my latte isn't just how I like it
They say I've gone insane
I'll blame it on the fame
And the pressures that it goes with
Being a celebrity
Uh huh

I get to cry to Barbara Walters
When things don't go my way
I'll get community service
No matter which law I break

I'll make the supermarket tabloids
They'll write some awful stuff
But the more they run my name down
The more my price goes up

Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
No matter what you do
People think you're cool
Just cause you're on TV
I can fall in and out of love
Have marriages that barely last a month
When they go down the drain
I'll blame it on fame
And say it's just so tough
Being a celebrity

So let's hitch up the wagons and head out west
To the land of fun in the sun
We'll be real world bachelors
Jackass millionaires
Hey, hey, Hollywood
Here we come

Yeah, when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
No matter what you do
People think you're cool
Just cause you're on TV
...Being a celebrity
...Yeah, celebrity
...Uh huh
'Where's my coffee?'

###

Written by - Brad Paisley
From - Mud On the Tires
©2003 EMI April Music, Inc. / Sea Gayle Music

Rolling Stoned

From Reuters:

LOS ANGELES (August 10) - The Rolling Stones, not exactly a band at the forefront of rock 'n' roll activism, are taking aim at the American right with a new song on their upcoming album, according to Newsweek magazine.

The track, "Sweet Neo Con," boasts the line, "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of s---," according to the weekly newsmagazine.

Mmmm ... Hey, Mick:

You call yourself a liberal
I call you a hypocrite
You call yourself an intellect
Well I think you're just a twit

That was too easy. Can't wait until the full lyrics come out, heh heh.

A number of other bands have come out with anti-Bush lyrics, and they're at the end of the article, should anyone care to read them.

A Great Blog Find

Global Voices Online is a blog that tries to cover pretty much the whole world, with a number of contributors, translations of posts on non-English blogs, and the "World Aggregator." You can click any of the country or region names in the light green area at the top for posts focusing on that location, though some (like Mongolia) don't have any posts up yet.

The particular post that attracted my attention was Inside the Japanese Blogosphere: The Anti-Korea Wave, which is actually about revisionist history in Japan. It gives a brief glimpse inside the Japanese blogosphere and notes some of the top bloggers are frustrated with the anti-Japanese demonstrations and riots in Korea and China this last spring. It also shows an anti-Korean manga which is apparently quite popular right now, then discusses some related topics, and gives a link to the English version (in PDF) of one of Japan's controversial history texts.

A good post, and it looks like a great blog.