The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Steve:

So what's my complaint? Well, I guess I'd be happier if the period from 1990 to today had produced just one or two new artists of the talent and memorability of the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, or even Stevie Nicks.

Wow, Stevie Nicks? You're setting the bar kind of low, aren't you? How about De La Soul, who I'd say are roughly equivalent to the Beatles of hip-hop*? (3 Feet High and Rising came out in 1989, but who's counting?)

I mean, I could name three dozen bands and albums that I think just demolish Rumors on every level, but that's because I heard them, and not Fleetwood Mac (or even the Bruce, really), in my formative years. How much is because good, innovative stuff wasn't getting played on the radio and you never heard it? (For readers not into hip-hop, I'll throw out Fugazi's Red Medicine and Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out, two independent releases that chew up and spit out fifteen years of American punk music in interesting and exciting ways; the Sleater-Kinney album also has the benefit of being a balls-out rocker. If either one of them got an hour's play total on commercial radio, I'd be utterly shocked, and Fugazi is probably the most influential still-extant indie band in America.)

How much is because thirty years of hindsight has weeded out the aforementioned 1910 Fruitgum Company? How much is because, quite frankly, no music is ever going to sound as good as what you were really obsessiely listening to from 16 to 19? I'm sure thirty years from now I'll be complaining that whatever weird music the kids are rocking out to is unlistenable noise, and not nearly as good as the unlistenable noise that the Pixies and Unwound used to make.

* I've heard Public Enemy or Eric B. and Rakim put forward as the Beatles of hip-hop, but they fall further outside the correct time frame, and I'm trying to make a point.

After Johns Hopkins released its utterly damning security review and defense contractor SAIC released it's "yeah but" explanation of how the Diebold machines had horrific flaws but could be used securely (including such apparently novel steps as preventing unauthorized physical access to the machines and changing the default passwords), Maryland decided to use them anyway. The Georgia story does not give me great hope.

Of course, I might be the only Electrolite-reading Bhangra hip-hop fan...but I do recommend it.

How's Rishi Rich? He was making some noise in the British charts when I was in England this summer, but I don't think I ever actually heard anything by him.

Patrick, are you hosting Electrolite yourself? If you're using a commercial host, odds are very good that they have MySQL available (possibly only for people buying a premium package, but it's really quite common.)

If you put everything between the dashed lines into a text file with a .php extension ("info.php" or whatever), upload it to your server, and pull it up in a browser. That'll give you all the information you need about your particular PHP installation. Search for "MySQL" and see if it's mentioned; after that, you'll need to talk to your admin about getting a database login if you don't already have one.

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Conversation has moved on, but this quote, which I've seen attributed to Jefferson, seems to capture something wonderful about the country (almost as wonderful as giant chauvenist cheeses): "It matters not to me whether my neighbor worships one God or twenty; it neither breaks my leg nor takes money from my pocket."

Regarding non-Christian nations in which religious tolerance has taken root, Ghandi's India springs to mind. I'll avoid discussing the current state of affairs in the country, lest I demonstrate my own ignorance, but Ghandi (who was admittedly heavily influenced by Western thinkers, notably Thoreau) brought Muslims and a Christian with him from the start of his march to Dandi in protest of the salt tax. And, of course, he was killed by a Hindu fanatic who felt that he was giving away the state to Muslims by promoting religious freedom.

Re: the dictionary complaint, I'll point people at the still-not-up-and-running-but-should-be-soonish Eat More Words, a group formed to get cut-rate access to the online OED by (among others) Judith of 20 Things.

Seriously, that comment really comes awfully close to "making terroristic threats" or something...let's hope she completely takes the brakes off and says something she can actually be arrested for.

Oh, come now. One can want people to stop taking her seriously as a political commentator or media critic, want her career to come to a crashing, ignominious halt, or even want her just to shut up and go away without wanting her locked up for saying perfectly harmless (if loopy, offensive, and often factually incorrecty) things. As an American (even if I'm not a real American, since I like New York and don't like the Kansas City Royals), I support Coulter's right to be loopy and offensive and wish ill on whomever she wants.

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