Oppose John Roberts

Respect to CHASE SwAyZe for posting this on the okayplayer.com boards:

In the past weeks, Republicans and Democrats have called on President Bush to nominate a moderate for the Supreme Court - someone who would honor the legacy of independent Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But last night, President Bush nominated Judge John Roberts, a far-right lawyer and corporate lobbyist, to fill her post on the Supreme Court.

We've got to stop Roberts. He opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip-mine mountaintops. He worked with Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr), and tried to keep Congress from defending the Voting Rights Act. He wrote that Roe v. Wade should be "overruled," and as a lawyer argued (and won) the case that stopped some doctors from even discussing abortion.

Join our urgent petition to let our senators know we expect them to oppose John Roberts right now here

This is one of the most important domestic fights of President Bush's career. We can win - Americans overwhelmingly want a moderate judge. But to win, we need to get the word out early that Roberts is out of the mainstream.

After you've signed, please send this message on to your friends and colleagues. We need to fight back against the misinformation that the Bush administration is putting out.

John Roberts has little experience as a judge - he was only appointed in 2003. But he's got a lot of experience as a corporate lobbyist and lawyer, consistently favoring wealthy corporations over regular Americans.

Here's a list of some of the things that make Roberts the wrong pick for the Supreme Court:
Wrong on environmental protection: Roberts appears to want to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act, and in papers he wrote while in law school he supported far-right legal theories about "takings" which would make it almost impossible for the government to enforce most environmental legislation.

Wrong on civil rights: Roberts worked to keep Congress from defending parts of the Voting Rights Act.

Wrong on human rights: As a appeals court judge, Roberts ruled that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to some prisoners of war.

Wrong on our right to religious freedom: Roberts argued that schools should be able to impose religious speech on attendees.

Wrong on women's rights: Roberts wrote that "Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled." He also weighed in on behalf of Operation Rescue, a violent anti-abortion group, in a federal case.

President Bush could have chosen many fair-minded and independent jurists to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, he chose a corporate partisan loved by Bush's right-wing base but out of step with the rest of the country.

Tell your senators they need to stop John Roberts now here

Just some ol shullbit

Made a few minor changes. First, I took down the sports blog. I starting thinking about that it says "hip-hop · sports · life" at the top of this page. It would only make sense to include all of that content on one page. so, expect some of that.

That brings me to another thing... if anyone knows of a blogging service that works as well as Blogger, cost as much as Blogger (i.e. free.99), and allows you to post your own templates but catagorize your blogs, let me know.

Anyways, I also provided a link on the left column for copyright info and my XML feed. So, you can now incluse me in your news readers and your My Yahoo! page if you really like rading this page enough. Personaly, that might be a scary thought to me so if you do choose to do that, keep that to yourselves.

Speaking of pages. I've started building my page for my Web Design I class. Wrote the extreamly basic code for it on Friday (everyone was given the same code), made my banner and added a photo today. An image of the page is below.



It's nothing too major at this point. However, I doubt it'll be anything that becomes my page in the future. I'm fairly happy with what I have right now.

Anyway, there isn't too much to say for now.

B.E.Z.

The Foreign Exchange - Connected

Excuse me for sleeping on this album. If it wasn't for cdnow.com saving my preferences while I was browsing to see what's out, I wouldn't have even gave this disc a look.

As I didn't, I'm sure the majority of you that are reading this have not heard of The Foreign Exchange.

FE consists of Phonte from Little Brother fame (check out LB if you haven't done so either) and producer Nicolay. The two met on okayplayer.com, where many mc's and beatmakers like them often hang out online. The two started IM'ing each other, where Nicolay started sending over beats that Phonte would rap over and then send back (thus the group's name). Neither of them knew that the final product would be Connected.

Quite frankly, I'm tired of Hip-Hop for the most part. I'm finding myself in a state where I'm tired of the mainstream and the mixtapes aren't giving me enough of the underground artists I like. Connected is a breath of fresh air in times like these. With beats reminiscent of A Tribe Called Quest or Slum Village and Phonte's flows over those beats, the mixture seems to be a perfect marriage.

This is one of the few albums I can actually listen all the way through without skipping tracks. If you appreciate a change from the normal ignorance that is projected from radio station towers these days, check out Connected. You won't be disappointed.

For more info check out the official site and listen to some sound clips from the album.

Huey Freeman goes swimming

I was looking at the site and making a few minor changes while I was at it, and decided that I would click on the Boondocks link towards the bottom to see if they've updated their site.

They have.

Come to find out in viewing the site that on October 2nd, the series is going to be animated as part of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. Aaron McGruder, the strip's creator, will executive produce the series. Regina King will be doing the voices of Huey and Riley Freeman while john Witherspoon will do the voice for Grandad Freeman. Other character voices will be done by Gary Anthony Williams, Jill Taley, and Cedric Yarbough.

For more info check out boondocks.net

And to read the strip and check out some other cool stuff, check out okayplayer.com

Random notes...

Just had some free time between my classes; three hour's worth to be exact. It's only supposed to be an hour and 40 minute break. But, being that this is the first day of classes, it's nothing but orientation today.

Anyway, just wanted to drop a few notes of things that have been going on around here.

First off, I can't believe that I didn't say anything concerning the approach and aftermath of Hurricane Dennis in the Pensacola area. So, how did things go down there? Well, my father rode out the storm, something that made me nervous up until Dennis' sudden turn northward into the Santa Rosa County area to the east of Pensacola. I'm still awaiting official word from my dad on how things went. I'm guessing electricity is a possible issue.

However, I do know that Pensacola as a whole is in pretty good shape and that the Perdido Key area (not too far from W. Pensacola) reported minimal damage and has been open to the public for the last two days. So, I'm expecting a good report from my dad when I get it.

Now, back to good ol' Lincoln. As I mentioned, I started classes again. I'm taking Web Design I and Photoshop II this quarter. This is the part of my course load that I've been looking to get into. I'm expecting to have a lot of fun with this as this is where I take what I do as a hobby (i.e. this page) and start to make a career out of it. Seriously, how many people can say they get paid for their hobbies? Exactly!!!

So, I'm expecting to start working on what could be some nice changes to the design of this page, not that there's anything wrong with what I have. But, I'm looking to take what I already know and improve on that, which should produce some interesting results. So, stay tuned.

That's all for now.

B.E.Z.