Fox News is announcing Torricelli is going to drop out of the Senate. This may be harder for Forrester going up against any other Democrat who will probably be harder to beat than Torricelli. The Democrats do not have a replacement as of yet.

LL Cool J And The Future Of Black Politics

Last Monday it was generally anounced that P. Diddy has endorsed Carl McCall in New York's gubernatorial contest. Now, LL Cool J has stepped in and endorsed Pataki. LL Cool J endorsed Pataki for stepping up after September 11th and doing great thinks for Queens.

LL Cool J is the first rapper to endorse a candidate outside of the Democratic Party. As of yet, most hip-hop political activism has consisted mostly of artists supporting the status quo Democratic candidate. The entrance over competition for endorsements can only help the inner city community that has been largely taken advantage of by the Democratic Party.

Comments are back!

Messed with the template. Okay I'm not sure what I did but it will be fixed soon. If your link is not back by Monday or you want your link added; tell me.

Funkmaster Flex lays the smack down on Steph Lova
The New York Daily News reports that Funkmaster Flex, a deejay on New York's Hot 97 rap station, was arrested for 3rd degree misdemeanor assault after hitting, choking and scratching Steph Lova, a deejay on competing Power 105, last week. How has radio competition come to this? It is bellieved that the violence was related to the competion between the two stations and the ongoing beef between Nas and JAY-Z. This is getting ridiculous Flex needs to learn how to act like an adult. You can't just go around beating people. That is not how bussiness is done.

CEOs have rediscovered Atlas Shrugged.
(Link via Radley Balko

Jeb Bush has anounced new voting plans after recent voting problems.
In response to Janet Reno's complaint about voting machines not working recently, Jeb Bush has come up with the latest in vote counting technology.

Chris Matthews and P. Diddy
P. Diddy plans to endorse Carl McCall In New York's Governor's race. Chris Matthews reported this on his show Hardball tonight. Chris Matthews quoted P. Diddy as saying "I do vote, I do have kids, and I do have a duty as a citizen to be politically conscious." Matthews then for some reason thought it was appropriate to mention that P. Diddy had recently been acquitted of weapon possesion charges. Was that really necessary of Matthews to mention? If treatment like that is necessary he should provide it to every person his show deals with such as asking Al Sharpton, who was next on tonight's show about cocaine or Tawana Brawley, or Ted Kennedy about Chappaquiddick or John McCain about the Keating 5. Matthews doesn't continue to bring those up charges. Partly because everyone knows about them, but also because politics isn't jus about ad hominems. Technically Matthews is also right in his claim that P. Diddy is the first rapper to endorse a candidate but Russell Simmons, a competing hip-hop mogul, has been endorsing Democratic candidates for years.

Al Barger gives a celebration of Ray Charles on Charles' 72nd birthday.

Anyone who thinks that U.N. inspectors will succeed at this point is being naive. If Saddam had any intention of giving the inspectors unfettered access he would not have forbidden access to his Presidential Palaces. Quote From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON -- After agreeing last week to allow U.N. weapons inspectors unconditional access, Iraq reversed course Saturday and said it would not abide by any new U.N. resolution allowing monitors entry to key presidential compounds

Mickey Kaus continues to make the connection between welfare and terrorism.

SOHH.com reports that Jurrasic 5 has scheduled October 8th for their new release Power In Number. Power In Numbers will features guest appearances by Nelly Furtado, Big Daddy Kane and the JuJu of the BeatNuts.

Punditwatch is up.

Payola and Funkmaster Flex

An anonymous letter is going around the internet accusing Funkmaster Flex of payola. The argument goes as follows: Flex owns Franchise Marketing which markets records for the large rap record companies to DJs. Funkmaster Flex is a DJ on New York's Hot 97 who repeatedly plays songs pushed by Franchise Marketing. But this argument is unfair to make because, as Davey D points out, those songs are usually the most popular records.

The author of this letter clearly has a bias against Funkmaster Flex and most of the popular music because his solution is for Flex to play underground artists like Slum Village in higher rotation (or at all) How does this "anonymous" author plan to do this? He threatens to take the major media outlets like the New York Times. Hip-Hop must really be in a sad state if blackmail is the only way in can be fixed.

Davey D reports that Hip-Hop pioneer promoter Vansilk has told Nas and Jay-z to basically put up or shut up. After a long string of diss songs between Nas and Jay-z Vansilk has tried to get an actual emcee battle together. Vansilk's chances are more likely than those who originally proposed a pay-per-view battle because Vansilk has said there will be a 2 million dollar stake on the battle, for which he already has funding. Isn't Vansilk forgetting Nas already has turned down possible pay-per-view events before. Nice idea but I think the chances of it happening are pretty low.

James Landrith shows how crazy racists really are in their own words.

Matthew Edgar is back to blogging!

Garrett Moritz gives a history of the bicycle.

Someone found my site search google for "homicide bombers" vs. "suicide bombers". Dave Littman suggests they be called "jihad bombers." I'll settle with crazy motherfuckers.

Kathy Kinsley takes down sexism, racism and multiculturalism.

HipHopDX reports that Chuck D feels he was discriminated against by MTV censors. MTV asked Chuck to edit out "all affixed logos" from Public Enemy's "Gotta Give The Peeps What They Need" video. Editing logos out of videos has been a longstanding policy of MTV. Sounds like Chuck wants to treat around the rules.

Chuck seems angry though that he was asked to edit out all audio and visual references to Mumia Abu Jamal. Poor Chuck MTV won;t let him show references to a cop killer on their station. Chuck ought to edit the air time or not, but he should definitely stop whining.

Eric Raymond has some moving thoughts on September 11th.

Fred Pruitt tears apart the Nigerian spammers.

According to the BBC, Saddam claims that the U.S. solely caused the September 11th attacks to start a war on terror against Arab and Muslims. Saddam also says he can kick America's ass. Sounds like Saddam believes the war is eminent. Hey Saddam lay off the crack for a while. Someone's going to get their ass kicked and it's not gooing to be the good ole U.S.A.

As crazy as Saddam's idea sounds I heard a similar idea proposed by a taxi driver in the patriotic area of Roanoke, Virginia.

I flew home from London today. The fact I accepted this for a travel date is one tiny finger of defiance to those who misunderstood Americans so badly. I am not going to say a great deal as much is being said by those with far more right than I to say it. Today we remember. Today we honour. Today we come together and reiterate just how undefeatable is the spirit of our free country.

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch said to his BBC interviewer in New York City a few minutes ago: "We will fight. And we will win". Our enemy does not understand us and has no conception of what they have awakened. If our enemies did have any idea of what they have unleashed, they would be terrified of the fearsome retribution that awaits every one of them.

"We will fight them. And we will defeat them."

-Dale Amon taken in full from Libertarian Samizdata

Howard Fienberg tells his story.

Ken Layne has some moving thoughts on September 11th.

This morning I woke up to a nice beautifull morning. Sunny and summer warm. One would think this would be a good thing but no. It was almost freakishly like the weather last year. A few hundred, out of around 1700, students gathered for the September 11th rememberance. When the students arrived the majority were either making jokes or acting like they felt obligated to attend but not with a solemn face that seems appropriate. It preceded with a bell ringing exactly one year later after the plane crash. The ceremonies started with prayer and passages from the new testament, the old testament and the Koran. In the background without a microphone someone read the names of the dead victims. But then the choir stepped in and sang some modern song that just did not seem appropriate. The choir was able to save itself by singing Amazing Grace. Still this seemed upsetting to me people should be LISTENING TO THE NAMES OF THE DEAD not the choir.

At 9 when the choir stopped the students left immediately. Hardly any students stayed to listen to hear the names of the dead. I left for class dismayed by the lack of seriousness by the precedings.

Returning at 10:20 there appeared to be a more serious tone. 15 students were left listening to the names of the dead. Students took turns going up on stage and reading the names of the dead. It felt moving. Looking at the names on the list all that went through my mind was THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS KILLED PEOPLE WHERE I LIVE!

It ended nicely with a local crazy guy starting to sing some gospel song who put all his heart into it.

Jim Cramer writes about September 11th and he is damn pissed off.

Russell Simmons fact-checks the LA Times article on Tupac and Biggie.

Tony Woodlief gives 10 reasons why he loves America. The first one is my favorite

1. We are a nation of rabble-rousing entrepreneurs. Many of us are descended from people who picked up their rifles when taxes got too high. Many more of us have ancestors who came to America because it was a land free from oppressive government, a place where the individual can rise to greatness by dint of hard work and a good idea, the "Golden Mountain," as my Chinese friends call it. We've invented near everything worth having (e.g., planes and automobiles), or made it better and cheaper (e.g., food), and we've invented darn near everything not worth having as well (e.g., television, rap music, and the Democratic Party).

Peter Sean Bradley has some eloquent words on memorializing September 11th.

PunditWatch is up!

Matt Welch points out that free speech has been open as ever in the year since 9/11. I would say there has been too much dissent if anything. I am not suggesting censorship I just believe corporations should avoid giving their limited space to the anti-war, anti-America crowd.

Go check out Cold Fury right now. He is in a New York state of mind.
Read this NOW! Read the comments to the post too. Read this and remember why we are still at war.

A review of Eminem's The Eminem Show is up on BlogCritics.com

Rap and Freedom

"You've got to fight the power! Fight the powers that be!" - Public Enemy, Fight the Power

While Chuck D talked about fighting the powers that be he was able to do that in a country with an unrestricted freedom of speech. Americans have always been able to say what they want. We must remember that is not the case in Cuba where rappers are getting arrested for singing protst songs.

Matthew Yglesias thinks Saddam will let inspectors in if the US demands it. It makes sense Saddam wants to cover hiss ass and would be able to do this if inspectors came in. I'm sure Saddam would rather have inspectors in Iraq than be militarily destroyed by the United States.

Is the reason why we are going to kick Saddam's ass because he a dictator who beats up on his own peole? Or are we going to attack Iraq because he's a lunatic with WMDs? If we are going to attack Iraq because he is a dictator, do we have to kick the crap out of every dictator around the world? The U.S. can't clean up the whole world and war is expensive. If WMDs are the concern, we might as well at least try inspectors. But I don't really know what I'm talking about or saying for that manner go read Matthew Yglesias for someone with similar but more organized thoughts.

Thanks to The Sabertooth Journal for the perma-link.

Richard Rothstein belongs on the oped of the New York TImes. He shouldn't be on the Op-ed because he writes well but because he writes biased editorials. Take his article "Conservatives, Teacher Unions and Poisoned Debate" from yesterday.

1. Rothstein claims about the NEA's September 11th plan that it does not say Al-Qaeda is not responsible. But in a previous paragraph he has already quote the plan as saying the NEA "suggest any group is not responsible. I do not understand how they could let Al-Qaeda off the hook.

2. Mainly though Rothstein argues that "union rules" are not responsible for education. He goes on to basically say how the teacher's union are saints. But the fact is the teachers union has been a preventitive element to the education establishment. Vouchers are a reasonable alternative that the teacher's union has acted to prevent. Maybe this Rothstein guy is the one who needs to go back to school.

Go read Andrea Haris' defense of America. It makes me proud to be an American.

I'm not the only hip-hop libertarian! Check out One Man Gang for a libertarian blog feauturing daily rap lyrics.

Hmmm... Britney and porn what more could one want?

Darmon Thornton tears to shreds the reperations movement

Dan Pink thinks post-election DC in 2002 will be worse than Florida in 2000. Sounds like he's knows what he is talking about.

Intermixing between the races has long been an aspect of American culture. I doubt you can find a large number of Americans who have been here more than two generations that are purely from one "race." America is a nation of mutts and mongrels. To say that the actions of an African-American have anything to do with the action of some is a ridiculous notion

If we are going to break the races down should not the traits be purer in those who are more clearly members of the race? How do the tendencies differ with interbreeding between the races?

William Jennings Bryan was right. Not in opposing evolution, but correct in opposing preposterous, crackpot theories similar to those being supported by GNXP. I believe there is an appropriate vernacular world for the eugenic theories similar to those you are proposing. Have these proponents provided any specific evidence for their ideas? Or are they just talking out of their ass?GNXP. I believe there is an appropriate vernacular world for the eugenic theories similar to those you are proposing. Have these proponents provided any specific evidence for their ideas? Or are they just talking out of their ass?

GNXP when claiming to talk about race is just talking about social race. By social research, I mean a group assumed to have a biological basis but actually perceived and defined in a social context, by a particular culture rather than by scientific culture.

Jim Treacher has an analysis of MTV's VMA's up in many ways in the spirit of Tony Pierce

Tim Blair takes the World Summit to task. Quote:

The whoring bastards are spending many times as much on prostitutes and booze. Yet we're urged to listen to their pleas for pollution control and third world aid. Go tell it to the hookers, freaks.

Dave Meck suggests MLB would be better off if it divided itself into 2 corporations.