Not that anybody asked, but I thought I’d toss up a couple of my picks for the best photos of the year.

This image is of Mary McHugh at the grave of her fiancé, Sgt James J. Regan at Arlington National Cemetery. He was from Manhasset, New York. Sgt Regan was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

After a record drought year, this past fire season was one of the most destructive and costly in Southern California history, photographer Karen Tapia-Anderson took this photo of 12 firefighters trapped atop a ridge in Orange County after flames jumped the road sending the fire up the hillside, prompting the firefighters to deploy their fire shelters. "We just remained calm, everyone did," one firefighter said after he was checked out by paramedics. All 12 firefighters were treated at the scene, none of them wanted to be sent to the hospital. 

A photo of the gruesome aftermath of Pakistan’s oppositional leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the suicide attack left more then 20 people dead.

In case you have not already seen this really funny (but sadly true) Mad TV skit about the US foreign policy and the ongoing war,  in which Michael McDonald plays Apple founder Steve Jobs and introduces Apple's latest program - the iRack, take a few minutes and watch this brilliant satire that simultaneously pokes fun at Jobs and the Bush administration - but mainly the latter.

The new compilation "WAR II (the turd hunt continues...)" - the sequel to the 2003 anti-war compilation "WAR: If It Feels Good Do It" - is just being released and will be available exclusively at Amoeba Music's three locations (Hollywood, Berkeley, and San Francisco) and online throug Hip Hop Slam online shop. It features Public Enemy, Steinski, Braintax, Backyard Bangers, DJ ALF, OkiZoo, the DJs of Mass Destruction, and others. 

Like the first WAR compilation this hip-hop collection is also produced by the DJs of Mass Destruction featuring this blogger along with DJ Pone, Shing02, DJ ALF, DnZ, & Dawgisht - all of whom will be performing live on KFJC on Saturday afternoon, June 23rd on DJ Trinity's show on 89.7FM (noon - 3PM) with an estimated performance time
                                                                                         of 1PM - 2:15PM (West Coast time). 

KFJC in Los Altos Hills is a legendary Bay Area college radio station that for years has been broadcasting over the Bay Area (its signal is pretty good) with quality radio - including lots of live studio performances. This will be the second time the DJs of Mass Destruction perform on DJ Trinity's show. In fact we turned part of the last KFJC performance (2003 release party for "WAR: If it feels good do it") into a music video - featuring Bush/War footage mixed with the KFJC performance. The video originally appeared on the enhanced CD  section of the 2CD  Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. V 2 set. This video, which was produced by Hip Hop Slam's Nausea Girl, can be viewed below. The video at top of this page, produced by ALF, was made for the new WAR II: the turd hunt continues. The audio track for this video is the opening track on the 14-track new WAR II CD.