Dan Gould

Its pretty simple - the Articles of Confederation included a "President". As it was conceived, it was a completely different position. From the Wikipedia entry: In short, the "President" was little more than the modern day Speaker of the House (if our system didn't include an independent executive). The Constitutional Convention was called to "amend" the Articles, not junk them. Fortunately, the members managed to do so, and the states were called upon to ratify a completely new, and totally different set of ground rules for the young nation. So, under the Constitution, Washington was the first President. There were previous presidents under the Articles of Confederation.

Unless there is some bad grammar I'm not aware of, the Articles were poorly conceived, not written.

I was assaulted by the preview at "I Am Legend" and my wife and I turned to each other and said "I don't think so". Though I've seen a couple of good reviews, there would have to be unanimous, effusive raves before I'd reconsider.

I'd propose offering you in trade (for a partial bag of ice) but they'd get sick of even quicker.

Peter is usually generous with his legal advice but if Shawn actually needs to hire an attorney licensed in VA, Peter can only help if he knows someone with the requisite experience. You might check with the Virginia Bar, Shawn. They may have unbiased referral services. Unless its a slip & fall case, I'd stay away from the ambulance chasers who advertise on daytime TV.

D'OH

The two I have feature Joe Williams and Sweets Edison as "guest soloist". Good music I haven't re-visited in a long time.

Thanks for the correcting my misunderstanding, Paul and John.

There are supposed to be rules in place about what level of industry success you've had previously. The fact that she got dropped before releasing a major label album probably makes her eligible. But they weren't exactly honest about her background. She's opened for some pretty big acts like Neal McCoy, and sung the National Anthem at a bunch of venues. It does feel like she's closer to success than anyone else previously. It will be interesting to see, assuming she gets through to the final group when the public starts to vote, if that background works against her and someone who is really struggling to get noticed gets more support.

Yeah, but I got one problem with Ace. They own the Duke catalog, right? I know they've put out some fine Gatemouth comps - but where is the full-on, we-love-him-and-he-deserves-it treatment of one JUNIOR PARKER??? I've seen one lousy Ace LP, and he's not even listed on the site under "artists" at all. And Junior Parker, from the start of his career to the end, was one of the very greatest blues/R&B/soul singers of them all. Is it possible Ace doesn't own all of the Duke recordings? I know that MCA put out some Junior Parker comps on CD - did they lease or do they maintain the rights? And what of his label-mate and co-concert attraction, Bobby Bland? Personally, every single thing I've heard by Junior Parker rates as nothing less than "good" and most of the time is flat-out GREAT, from the Duke sides to the Mercury LPs and even what I've heard of the Groove Merchant years at the end of his life (haven't heard the Beatles covers, but that's about it). Call me crazy, I like Bobby Bland but LOVE Junior Parker. It would be nice if Ace felt the same way.

Yeah, that was creepy, espcially when he was moving in closer and closer to Paula while singing. My favorite verse: "if I was a plumber I would caulk her" I think it was all a lark. If Paula had experiences with crazed stalkers, she probably wouldn't have been laughing through the whole thing, she'd have gotten up and had security hustle him out the door. Plus, everyone goes through the first screening before a select few get the chance to be on TV, so they must have thought it was harmless to put him through to the "real" audition in the first place. I really liked the "If I were Columbo, I'd Peter Falk her" line.

If you didn't see it, here's the "stalker" song.

Seems to me that what was viewed by the inspector is enough to convict on its own. He acknowledged that the laptop was his and he entered the password to show the video. The Inspector can testify to what he saw in the video and this guy should go away for a long time. I would err on the side of not protecting the "rights" of consumers of child porn.

Since I buy more vinyl than CDs, I'd say I spend a good deal of time transferring the vinyl to CD. Wish I had more time for it, actually.

How about that stalking song dedicated to Paula? That's gotta be on youtube as we speak - if they'll allow it.

Allow me to be first to say that the kick-boxing horse trainer is the finest looking contestant of all-time.

We have different people.

Surely not the first or last such statement, but this comment is especially stupid:

OTOH, have you considered that in fact Britney is "role-playing" the ten thousandth performance of "child star achieves great success, can't handle it, descends into booze & drug pit of despair"? Sure, that's a given. But not my point. OK, and my reaction to the fascination with Brit doesn't have anything to do with "conformity" or enjoying someone "pay the price" but rather that it is nothing other than the same instinct to rubber-neck at the site of a car wreck.

That can't be! Haven't you heard? They only hound Barry Bonds!

Of course it is easy to just excise a tiny portion of a huge company that doesn't add anything to the bottom line, but the fact is that when you are looking for huge savings, you have to look at where you spend huge dollars - and that is the pop side of things. My guess is that at worse, the pace of reissues slows and what was scheduled for early this year might be the whole kit and caboodle, spread out over 2008.

You're right of course, I was too lazy to make sure - but most of those recordings did sound more like an LA Modern/RPM record than a Chess!

I have not tried those "Down Home" comps but the title of this Ace release certainly goes with what Aric is talking about: The Traveling Record Man Here's another name in the MODERN whose recordings we should be grateful for: LOWELL FULSON. Heck, since he recorded in LA and sent the masters to Chicago, and Maxwell Davis did alot of the arranging, those Chess recordings are practically MODERN recordings anyway. But as great as the Chess stuff is, the Bihari recordings in the 60s are every bit as essential, imo.

Now, if she'd only replicate this cover:

OTOH, have you considered that in fact Britney is "role-playing" the ten thousandth performance of "child star achieves great success, can't handle it, descends into booze & drug pit of despair"?