Beware, The Pentagon’s Robot Hunters!

0 | November 20th, 2008 | Posted in journo, scott thill


From Ray Bradbury’s mechanical hounds in Fahrenheit 451 and Philip K. Dick’s replicants and robot spiders in Blade Runner and Minority Report and down to the Terminator, Star Wars and Matrix franchises, machine armies have ruled science-fiction. But now that the Pentagon has sent out a contract for a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” to hunt down “non-cooperative humans,” sci-fi has taken a backseat to the real world. I covered the intersections and fluctuations of this next-generation phenomena for AlterNet today. Read More »

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Metromixed! Holiday Headaches With Billy Bob, Sarah Brightman, Verve

0 | November 19th, 2008 | Posted in journo, scott thill

The holidays are here, and so are the holiday albums. There’s more of them this year than any other year I can remember, which would be great if they were all awesome. Which they are not.

Some are, including Verve’s excellent Christmas remix album. But Billy Bob Thortnton and Sarah Brightman? I’d rather stuff a turkey in my stocking. I tackled these three wannabe kings for Metromix. Read More »

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Clusterfuck! In The Reality Lounge

0 | November 18th, 2008 | Posted in morphizm writers

[Jim Kunstler, Clusterfuck Nation]
The G-20 came to Washington for the weekend and sucked all the air out of the city before announcing that they were really serious about patching all the leaks in the foundering ship of globalism. Well, they have to at least pretend that they are doing something. Meanwhile, the former bit player known as reality has taken center stage in the ship’s main lounge. It is putting on an act even gnarlier than the Kit Kat Klub show in Cabaret. Read More »

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Post Up! Best Music of 2008? You Tell Me

0 | November 17th, 2008 | Posted in journo, music that matters, scott thill, wired


Back into the swing with a late-night stopover, Morphizm pals. I’ve been drowning in music all day, from Femi Kuti to Deerhunter to Juana Molina and onward. Which got me thinking for Wired today: What’s the verdict on the year’s best? Because there’s a lot of best to best. Read More »

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In Praise of a Rocky Transition

0 | November 14th, 2008 | Posted in morphizm writers

[Naomi Klein, Morphizm]
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.

In a moment of high panic in late September, the US Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed — a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that “Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice.” Read More »

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Bring The Bush Administration to Justice

6 | November 11th, 2008 | Posted in morphizm writers

[Viggo Mortensen, Morphizm]
Dear President-Elect Obama,
Please do all that you honestly can to bring to justice Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, William “Jim” Haynes, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tennet, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, and numerous other members of the Bush administration since the start of 2001 who have either been directly responsible for or complicit in the almost countless acts of treason, human rights violations and other crimes in the United States of America and abroad, including in but not limited to Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. Read More »

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Post Up! Loop Returns, At Last

0 | November 10th, 2008 | Posted in journo, music that matters, scott thill, wired

The underrated guitar army Loop is coming back into print, after years hidden beneath the afterglow of My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

If you want a nicely distorted taste of Loop’s droned riffage, make sure to check out Morphizm’s video reel at the top of the site for the “Collision” video. But the band’s best tune “This is Where You End” can be had at my Wired post on the Loop. More after the jump. Read More »

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Comedy Devastated by Obama Victory

0 | November 8th, 2008 | Posted in morphizm writers

[Brad Jacobson, Wounded Courier]
As the majority of Americans continue to bask in the glow of Barack Obama’s landslide victory on Tuesday, comedians nationwide have suddenly fallen on hard times. Some literally.

Widespread reports of comics leaping from windows on Election Night have received little attention in the press. Some historians liken the turn of events to the stock market crash of 1929. But Freddy Roman, Dean of the legendary New York Friar’s Club, called it “worse, much worse, mayo on corn beef bad.” Read More »

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A McCain Victory? Fat Chance!

0 | November 8th, 2008 | Posted in tom mcnichol

[Tom McNichol, Morphizm]
The margin of Barack Obama’s electoral victory caught some pundits by surprise. But Obama’s win was ensured when McCain failed to connect with voters outside of his core constituents, the American obese. Compare the red/blue electoral map of the Obama-McCain contest with the eerily similar map charting obesity in the U.S.:

2008 Presidential Election Results:

2008-11-05-electoral_001.jpg

Obesity By State

2008-11-03-cnnobesitybystate.JPG

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All Hail Curumin’s Tropicalia-Hop!

0 | November 7th, 2008 | Posted in journo, music that matters, scott thill

On the hunt for exceptional music? Check out Curumin, who has delivered one of the finest efforts of the year in Japan Pop Show. It’s a cultural and sonic bleed that bows in so many directions at once, and impressively, that one can’t help but get pulled in by its ingenuity and charm.

Did I mention that the dude sings in Portugese?

I reviewed Curumin’s new release, which dropped on Tuesday, for Metromix. Read up and space the funk out. You’ll be happy you did. Read More »

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