What's Your Favorite Scary Movie?

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YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! While that statement is universally true (you will die at some point, not me, Bill Compton is my alternate personality), some people may edge closer if the Pig virus has anything to do with it. According to a report issued by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Tech (PCAST), more than half of the US may catch the swine flu, aka H1N1, this fall and winter.

I know what you're thinking, avid FOX News watcher, and the answer is yes. Yes, this does seem like scare tactics to help Obama push through health care reform (which is headed nowhere according to Sen. Feingold) but less we forget, we've been blatantly lied to more times than I can count the past 8 years. Which would you choose: lies got us into 2 useless wars and built our deficit to astronomical numbers OR lies that would get A LOT of people insured while driving insurance cost down? Hmmmm, no brainer.

Speaking of the health care debate, did you see Jon Steward ROAST Betsy McCaughey's flimsy arguments and misinformation last week? WATCH HERE!

Lastly on health, good news for everyone who rocks the Professor Farnsworth glasses, scientist have created eye cells from stem cells. Will this disrupt weed for glaucoma treatments? That remains to be seen but hopefully, the stickiest of the icky will be legalized anyway soon.

Confirmed: Mike Vick will make his debut Thursday against the Jacksonville Jaguars making this the first time we see the Monovon VickNabb ((c) Goldyn Child) in action. Coach Reid has said, "Look for him sooner rather than later," and don't expect him in the 4th quarter. How he will be used remains to be seen but expect to see him toss the dog pig-skin at least once.

Getting my sports center on, in Baseball news (as Goldyn Child cringes), NY Met's Johan Santana will be out for the season with Herr's bone chips in his elbow. Another blow to the already expected to fail Mets. How dire is the situation there? Santana (no Carlos) is the 12th Met to join the disabled list. Ouch. (pun intended).

Well, today seems to be a bad day to be a Santana as Juelz Santana was arrested this morning for threatening to kill his baby mom's and domestic violence. Juelz was quoted as yell at her to, "Sit in the car! And don't touch nothin, sit in the car!"

Oh and O'Rly has responded to Jay-Z. Would somebody please rip out this dude's endocrine system please?

C-Murder caught another 10 years. So if he somehow serves his life sentence completely, he'll still have 10 more years to go. Overkill? TRU.

I do love it when my two loves hip-hop and video games unite. It's either REALLY bad (Wu-Tang Shaolin anyone?), REALLY good (DJ Hero & Scratch) or just hilarious (50 Cent's Blood On The Sand), but check this out: Pacific Division (aka PacDiv) dropped their flash game Church League Champions: The Game today. Play as Mibbs, Like or BeYoung and try to hit as many 3's or free throws as possible. Nice.

[NERD NEWS]
Check out this pack of web programming car stickers for when you just have to let people know how much of a geek you are. Shout out to .NET tho, that's my jammie.

If you haven't watched the two Halo: ODST ViDocs yet, you are definitely playin yaself (c) Jeru. Check out Desperate Measures and Bip. Bap. Bam. NOW! If those two don't get you pumped you are probably a jock with a stupid face who dates the best looking cheerleader who I tried to get with and couldn't because I didn't have a car and didn't have money and wasn't popular and was nervous because she was so pretty that I almost fainted; But if they do get you pumped, pre-order H:ODST at Amazon to receive a $5 mp3 credit, $15 towards a future video game purchase and an unlock code to play Sgt. Johnson [||] in Firefight mode.

Just as quickly The Pirate Bay disappeared, it reappeared and ready to fight. Avast TPB! Man the cannons, raise the flag and prepare to swashbuckle until we can't swashbuckle no more!
[/NERD NEWS]

Release Dates:
Games: Batman: Arkham Asylum (X360, PS3); Metroid: Trilogy (Wii); Professor Layton & The Diabolical Box (DS); Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP); Warriors Orochi 2 (PSP); NBA 2k10: Draft Combine (XBLA); Cursed Mountain (Wii); see more... <---- awesome week for us gamers
Music: Arctic Monkeys - Humbug; LeToya - Lady Love; Lil Wyte - The Bad Influence; Queen Latifah - Persona; Matisyahu - Light; see more...
DVDs: Duplicity w/ Clive Owen & Julia Roberts; Fighting w/ Channing Tatum & Terrance Howard; Adventureland w/ Jesse Eisenburg & Kristen Stewart; Sunshine Cleaning w/ Amy Adams & Emily Blunt; see more...

If there's one thing I really need yous guys to do, it's go see Inglourious Basterds PLEASE.

Follow me @cthecatalyst.

Hot Shit: Inglourious Basterds, VickNabb and football coming back, Batman: AA
Not Shit: Bill O'Rly, the GOP as a whole, Swine Flu, house breaking a puppy

-- The Catalyst aka HeptMurda (I guess only avid hip-hop twitterers will get that)

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I Think Obama Can Win Too

As I've stated before. I'm a huge fan of SOHH. I'm loving the fact that they have a wide range of blogs discussing different topics. My favorite now is Biko's HH4PREZ blog where he's covering politics from the Hip-Hop side of things. First off congratulations homey on making it out to Denver and covering the festivities. A job I wish I could have had as me & the wife would have loved to have gone.

In Biko's newest post he list 5 things he believes will help Obama on to victory that first Tuesday of November. While I agree with you Biko on a lot of stuff in your previous post, I've got a few things that I gotta talk out with your list.

#1 He Needs to Keep Working with Clintons - True

You won't get an argument from me. What REALLY needs to happen, besides campaigning in the battleground states, is the Clintons need to deliver Arkansas. While it's only worth 6 EV, it's 6 EV that's taken away from Sen. McCain. If Bill & Hillary can pull that off, they'll really restore their standing in the party.

#2 Stops Pissing Off Veteran Black Leaders - False

Here's where we get some static. I don't know if you know this but Jesse Jackson & Tavis Smiley are the ONLY Black leaders that really went off on Obama (Bob Johnson doesn't count); and both of them only did it for personal reasons. Jesse was mad that Obama pretty much told the Black community what we needed to hear and is getting shine from it while Jesse isn't getting any play while Tavis just felt slighted because Obama didn't attend. James Clyburn, John Lewis, Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and the rest have ALL voice their support for Obama. Farrakhan even forgave and embraced Obama after Obama was FORCED to rebuke him. The Congressional Black Caucus never felt slighted by Obama and are all now behind him 100%, at least in public. The CBC, if they do indeed feel slighted, need to get over it and work hard for this man, simply because he's for ALL Americans, not just specifically for the Black community.

#3 Embrace Hip-Hop Culture But Not Get Caught in the Fu*ckery - Plausible

Now this is indeed a rock & a hard place, but it's a rock & a hard place that Obama need not be. If any one puts him there, IT WILL BE US. We as Black folk CANNOT expect Obama to fully embrace Hip-Hop because we KNOW for certain how that will look. If WE force Obama to address his lackluster support for Hip-Hop WE doom him. Not only that, but Black folk need to get off that BS about not voting for him because he doesn't voice his liking for Hip-Hop for 2 reasons: 1. He's already said he listens to Jay-Z and Luda and 2. Black folk need to be looking at his policies not his playlist. Obama need not ever mention Hip-Hop again unless he chooses to because it shouldn't even be an issue.

Obama has plenty of Hip-Hop advocates. In fact, Hip-Hop has been told to tone down it's support for Obama before we scare off the working class White vote. People like Jeezy, Luda, Jay-Z, T.I., Kanye, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and plenty others have been putting his name in their raps for a minute now. It's Black radio and the listeners' faults if their not hearing it.

#4 Stop Hiring Outsiders to Organize Urban Communities - False

Do you know why the campaign isn't hiring leaders from local urban communities? Because they aren't showing that much interest. If local leaders are really, and I mean REALLY, that hype and eager to go help and canvas for the Obama campaign, they need to call in and let them know. The "outsiders" you call them are the super excited Democrat activist who are eager to go to every corner of every neighborhood and talk to every citizen in them about supporting Obama. Local urban leaders cannot be so full of themselves as to just sit on their hands and wait for the call because it's not coming. If they really want to fight for Obama then they've got to git up, git out and git something, word to Outkast & Goodie. You always have to reach for the brass ring...

#5 Obama Needs To Read This Blog - Plausible

While I do think it's a great blog, Biko, it's a little too urban centric for Obama's platform.

You, I and a great deal of folks desire to see Obama in the White House. We just have to make sure that we as Black folk keep those chips off of our shoulders and realize that we as a race are not #1 on his list, but we as Americans are.

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Who Killed It?

I am a fan of SOHH. I've been reading it since I discovered back around 1999/2000 or so. I have the RSS feed linked to my Outlook box at work so I can take a gander at Hip-Hop news and blog entries without losing that much productivity. So when the latest blog entry from Flx for the southern focused Dirty Blog hit my feed lines about his take on hip-hop being alive, his writing sparked something in me to respond. Flx, I understand what you're saying but I must respectfully disagree. I'm not going to go into this generally, just a point by point rebuttal is all.

The argument, primarily started by Nas a couple years ago, is hip-hop is dead vs hip-hop is alive & thriving. The back & forth to this argument has caused beefs, heated debates and kurfuffles but it seems like each side holds steady to their beliefs while not trying to understand the other side.

Let me put this bluntly, Hip-Hop, in it's truest form and by pure definition is DEAD.. Now why do I say that? Because the term Hip-Hop refers to a culture that houses 4 elements (KRS-One would say 5, but let's stick with the classic definition). 2 of those elements are on life-support and the last two have, in the overall sense, transformed into an unrecognizable forms of themselves, would you not agree Flx? Sales matter now MORE THAN EVER and there is hardly ANY respect for the art. When ringtone sales sparks more discussion then what the artist says on the song made into a ringtone, something's wrong.

First off, pull any young bul whippin his mama's car banging the latest Lil Wayne he downloaded off of one of the New Music Cartel's sites and ask him, "What are the 4 elements of Hip-Hop". I'll put money down and say he can't name them, I'll double down and say not even 2. It's because of this the fundamentals of the culture are thrown out of wack. Jazz may not be as strong of a genre as it was before the 80s/90s but the fundamentals are still there, same with Rock (although they'd might have a similar argument to this one with the rise of EMO music), same with Lo-Fi, same with Techno, etc.

You say there is more variety than ever. On a certain level you're right, but overall, I disagree. As SOON as some rapper finds a tiny iota of success you have 15 rappers out doing the same thing and that fad FLOODS the airwaves (radio, tv, youtube, etc). So as soon as we get something thats different, the climate is such that we have copycats immediately and it becomes a fad and the variety disappears.

Soulja Boy. Here's where I'd say a few southern cats get irked because they don't understand the criticisms leveraged at him. No, it is NOT Soulja Boy's fault for the downfall of Hip-Hop (I'll save who I blame for another day), BUT Soulja is simply the poster boy for everything wrong with the culture and, honestly & unfortunately, there's no one else to blame at this time.

And do me a favor, DO NOT compare "Yahh" to "Parent's Just Don't Understand". One has situations that kids today may/may not still be able to relate to, the other is complete nonsensical gibberish, although hilarious. Mims said it best and Soulja followed it, "I can make a mill saying nothing on the beat". Soulja Boy has done nothing to broaden the genre. He's only created a new fad for new dudes to run with until they run it into the ground.

The underground has and will always thrive, no matter how for under the ground it keeps getting pushed. So no argument there. As far as independence, I wouldn't call it a trend that Slim Thug is starting. I'd say Rawkus, Landspeed, Stones Throw and the current king Koch are good examples of independence that can go right (Koch, Stones Throw) and when it can nose dive (Rawkus, Landspeed).

I think I'm rambling now so I'll end this entry with this: Hip-Hop is either dead or dying, but Rapping IS doing fine and the business of rapping is better than ever.

I'll leave you all with the brilliant "Who" by Joe Budden.

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