The 4th Quarterly CD Ranking List

It's sort of like the anti-Best-of-2005 list. Few of these CDs are from the new millenium, much less 2005.

Band - Album (09.01 Rank) (comments, if applicable)
01. Christie Front Drive - Anthology (3) (almost twice as many listens as the next CD)
02. The Appleseed Cast - Mare Vitalis (1) (I think nostalgic value provides a lot of weight to this)
03. Mineral - The Power of Failing (2) (Completing the same triumvirate as last time)
04. Radiohead - OK Computer (-)
05. The Cure - Disintergration (4)
06. Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People (6)
07. Mineral - EndSerenading (15)
08. Strike Anywhere - Change Is A Sound (7)
09. The 101 - Green Street (-)
10. Jets To Brazil - Four Cornered Night (-) (I guess this didn't make the top 50 cut last time...!)
11. Mogwai - EP + 2 (14)
12. The Appleseed Cast - Low Level Owl Volume I (5)
13. Explosions In The Sky - How Strange, Innocence (8)
14. Muse - Absolution (11)
15. The Appleseed Cast - Two Conversations (9)
16. The Gloria Record - Start Here (26)
17. Mogwai - Young Team (-)
18. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (32)
19. The 101 - The 101 (-)
20. The Appleseed Cast - Low Level Owl Volume II (20)
21. Jets To Brazil - Perfecting Loneliness (22)
22. Last Days of April - Angel Youth (-)
23. Christie Front Drive - "Stereo" (-)
24. Strike Anywhere - Exit English (-)
25. Mogwai - Rock Action (21)
26. The Appleseed Cast - Lost Songs (-)
27. Explosions In The Sky - Those Who Tell The Truth Will Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Will Live Forever (33)
28. Mono - Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined (16)
29. Hundred Hands - Little Eyes (-)
30. Jeremy Enigk - Return of The Frog Queen (17)
31. The Appleseed Cast - The End of The Ring Wars (18)
32. The Get Up Kids - Something To Write Home About (29)
33. Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary (10) (Maybe I'll get back into it one day...)
34. Mogwai - Come On Die Young (25)
35. Emo Diaries 1 - What's Mine Is Yours (-) (various artists c.1997)
36. The Velvet Teen - Out of The Fierce Parade (24)
37. Sigur Rós - Agætis Bÿrtun (41)
38. Antartica - 81:03 (-)
39. The Cure - Bloodflowers (-)
40. Strike Anywhere - To Live In Discontent (30)
41. The Cure - Pornography (27)
42. Texas Is The Reason - Do You Know Who You Are? (12)
43. Emo Diaries 2 - A Million Miles Away (-) (various artists c.1998)
44. Pop Unknown - If Arsenic Fails, Try Algebra (-)
45. Sigur Rós - ( ) (31)
46. Deftones - White Pony (46)
47. American Football - American Football (38)
48. A Perfect Circle - Mers de Noms (37)
49. Further Seems Forever - The Moon Is Down (35)
50. Saves The Day - In Reverie (23)

And there you have it.

Wal-Mart

I just finished watching a documentary on Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices. I wouldn't call it "eye-opening," but it did reveal a number of very important facts and information, all of which was presented together. The movie was well-done as a whole, and lacked the obnoxious voiceover narration that made Farenheit 9/11 such a hackjob. It was mainly composed of interviews and news reports, with only the occasional numerical interspersals. I won't review the film, however, but merely mention some of the sections they had and discuss them.

The film discussed the common issue of Wal-Mart moving into a town and crushing all the local businesses. What angered those interviewed (many of whom were former store owners) most was that Wal-Mart got generous subsidies from local towns in order to entice them to move in, while the "Mom n' Pop" stores supposedly so valued were never given any subsidy.

What infuriated me most was that Wal-Mart underpaid its workers, and then promoted government services such as welfare, medicaid, and WIC to workers to make up for the gaps between pay and expenses. The average Wal-Mart worker made a little over $13,000 dollars a year, leaving a lot of need for assitance. In total, Wal-Mart workers cost taxpayers $1.6 billion in 2004 in government assitance alone. Meanwhile, the company makes over $1 billion in profit per quarter. The gall of the company to do this is absurd. However, the government does nothing at all about it; big business at its finest, I guess.

Why do Wal-Mart workers make only $13,000 a year? Because of two reasons: Wal-Mart does not pay its workers for any work past their alloted hours, and Wal-Mart aggressively breaks any attempt at union activity.

Wal-Mart makes it a condition of hiring that workers will do whatever they are told to do, even if doing the task will exceed their alloted hours. Furthermore, they will not be paid for this extra work - only their intended work. Workers cannot argue with this provision because the economy is so poor that many of them have to take whatever they are given, even if they are being ripped off. In Texas alone, it is estimated Wal-Mart has cheated workers out of $150 million dollars in unpaid labor.

Secondly, Wal-Mart aggressively hunts down union sympathizers. If a worker is even suspected of supporting unions, they can be fired. Wal-Mart maintains a fleet of jets (at a multi-million dollar cost) to send anti-union representatives out to "trouble spots" where employees have attempted to unionize. Without the ability to collectively bargain, workers are forced to take whatever is given to them, and often forced to spy on one another.

There were a number of other very interesting and troubling points made, but these were what struck me most. I would recommend the movie to anyone, especially those who shop at "The Empire."

Torture And Secret Detentions

Remember those big bad guys that everyone hated in the second half of the 20th century? The ones who tortured people, detained suspects without trials, and set up secret jails in which to carry out these acts? The ones that the United States spent fifty years opposing, believing themselves to be the "beacon of democracy and freedom?" Remember how happy everyone was when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed?

Well, fifteen years later, people are still torturing and detaining people in secret jails. Except, this time, it's not the Soviets. It's the CIA.

The Senate recently passed an amendment to the spending bill that would ban the use of torture by the American government, under any circumnstances, by a vote of 90-9. Despte this overwhelming support, the White House has threatened to veto the entire spending bill to stop the torture amendment from passing. Dick Cheney explains that it would "tie the President's hands in a time of war." Is that not the idea? No one should ever have the ability to torture another person. First, torture is cruel and inhuman, and no one should ever be subjected to it. Second, and more importantly, torture is not an effective means of information gathering. The person under duress will do anything at all to stop the pain, including telling you what you want to hear, even if it is false. Despite the fact that this has been well-documented by many studies, the US government wants to continue using it. John Roberts, recently appointed Chief Justice, opposes a ban, believing that the "potential" for torture, which would be removed in a ban, factors into a detainee's willingness to confess. What he misses in this is that the very fear of torture, such as when a bunch of CIA guys are waving jumper cables around in your face, is a form of torture itself.

On the other side of the lake, the European Union is investigating claims that the CIA is maintaining secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate individuals that they believe are connected to terrorism. Though everyone involved denies it, a number of flights by CIA jets known to carry detainees have stopped at airports in Poland and Romania a number of times. The reason that these secret jails would be set up is because they are not subject to the International Coalition of the Red Cross' inspection, like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is. Therefore, they can do basically anything they please.

Once again, hypocrisy seems to be a central US government trait.