Monday looks to be a flashpoint in the illegal-immigration debate. Not only is it the big "May Day" walkout (or should that be "Uno de Mayo?"), it'll be the premiere of the American National Anthem, Version 2.0: Nuestro Himno. That's right; the National Anthem has been transliterated into Spanish and will be hitting the airwaves to coincide with a rally for criminal rights.

Yes, I said "transliterated." It's not a word-for-word translation, but rather an "interpretation," and a particularly vulgar one, both in execution and intent. New lyrics have been added to this "interpretation," …

Ah, it's been awhile. If you don't know who this happy little gent is, well…you've never seen Manos: the Hands of Fate. When I was in college, a friend brought a copy of this movie over one Friday night for us to watch. It had been given to him by his film professor as "a catalog of heinous mistakes." We tried to sit through it. We really did.

In the years since, I'd largely buried the resulting psychological trauma under a thin veneer of denial and forgetfulness. Although I'd …

I'm not sure where to start on this one. Goldmund is the alter-ego of Keith Kenniff, a Boston-based musician who's done some superb electronic work for Type over the last couple of years. I ordered this sight-unseen, and although I expected something different, this took me completely by surprise.

Kenniff's discarded all his computerized trappings in favor of an album of mostly solo piano. There are thirteen short tracks, unified by the influence of American Civil-War music. It's an odd, elegaic and beautiful record, and certainly the last thing I expected.

I'm not sure what to …

If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says …

Famous last words, especially when you're a Federal Agent lecturing students on gun safety, and you shoot yourself after saying this. In case you're not familiar with the sad case of Lee Paige, here goes.

Paige was lecturing a group of students and parents of the Orlando Minority Golf Association in April of 2004. He gave a very condescending lecture, during which he held up his duty weapon and said, "I'm the only one in this room, that I know of, professional enough to carry this Glock 40." He then pointed the gun at his foot and discharged …

Over the last couple of years, all the telcos and cable companies around these parts have merged into one supermegaloconglamerate under the Comcast banner. That's what I'm stuck with, at least for cable television. Since I want cable internet, the only way for that is also through Comcast, since it's their line running into the house.

Two days ago, my neighbor had their service installed, and in the process of laying the lines, the techs sliced the line feeding into my house. I got home Friday night to find that I had no television, no internet and (since …

Well, it's about damn time. This is a classic recording that's been out of print for almost ten years. I lost mine awhile back and regretted it ever since. The good folks at Ryko have finally acquired the rights and reissued it with an excellent remastering job.

I've always been somewhat ambivalent in my feelings toward the Kronos Quartet. On one hand, I'm grateful for the job they've done exposing the public to new and challenging repetoire, and they approach their work with a great deal of skill and enthusiasm.

On the other hand, their enthusiasm sometimes gets …

Here in America, we seem to have forgotten one simple fact: our elected officials work for us, not the other way around. They answer to us. They deserve no special privileges or indulgences, and they are just as accountable to the law (if not more so) as any of us.

Come on, why do I even have to remind people of this? Do they even teach government in the schools anymore?

Case in point: Cynthia McKinney's recent assault on a Capitol Hill police officer. Let's make sure we have the facts straight here, shall we? She walked …

In these days of restrictive DRM, lawsuits from the BSA, and all manner of spyware, adware, trojans and virii, most pre-adolescent girls are migrating to Linux and other OSS variants. Studies done by really smart people with clipboards have shown it.

To respond to this demand, Mattel has released BarbieOs 1.99, which will be powering the B-Book laptop available this Politically Correct Non-Denominational Winter Holiday (formerly known as X-mas, formerly known as Christmas).

According to a company spokesdroid, the BarbieOs runs under Debian, reflecting young consumers' concerns for speed, stability, security and scalability. He says that …