Folk art on four wheels

Whether you consider them to be transportable treasures or just a bump in the road of modern-day car culture, it's impossible to ignore art cars when they come into view.You'll know them when you see them — they're those wacky vehicles that artists transform from anonymous look-a-like automobiles into one-off works of art using paint, glue, magnets, lights and a wide variety of attached materials and objects. Go here to read this article.

VAT’s All the Fuss About?

Have you heard about the value-added tax (VAT), a horrible new tariff Americans will soon have to shoulder?

The alarm is sounding on the conservative Web site Townhall.com, in the editorials of The Wall Street Journal, and on the opinion pages of The Washington Post (as well as in the pages of NEWSWEEK): consumers can expect to soon see the feared VAT sneaked into price tags nationwide.

How an unlikely tax became right-wing pundits' latest fascination                                           

 image source

Where are the Tea Partiers when you need them?

Activists for Latino and immigrant rights -- and supporters of sane governance -- held weekend rallies denouncing the new immigration law in Arizona and vowed to do everything they could to overturn it.

You know who I was looking for?

 The Tea Partiers. Why shouldn’t I have looked for these patriots who believe that an overreaching government poses a serious threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim -- and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state -- would send the Tea Partiers into a frenzy.

But there were no “Don’t Tread on Me” flags waving. There were no men and women wearing colonial clothing and passing out copies of the Constitution. I looked for the placards calling for the good old days – We Want Our Country Back! But there were none. Several weeks ago I wrote a column Tea Party Utopia: no taxes, no government that generated a lot of reader input on the T-S chat forum. The following observation enraged some people and they called me a racist. 

“I've yet to see persons of a minority race at a political tea party. I'm not sure why that is. It would be nice to see the mainstream media showing tea party rallies that include people of different races calling to “get their country back.” I don't think that's happened yet. I could be wrong.”

So I ask again, why weren’t the Tea Partiers out there supporting the American Hispanics who would be adversely affected by this new immigration law? What about their rights? What about that talk of Big Brother waiting to take away the common Americans rights? 

 Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish? You tell me.

Photo Source

PHARM CO. TO PAY FINE FOR PROMOTING SEROQUEL AS ANTI-PTSD DRUG USED BY THE VA

This news should be of great interest to millions of veterans who were given AstraZeneca.

Thanks to VAWatchdog.org :

AstraZeneca has to pay a half billion dollar fine for claiming Seroquel was as anti-PTSD drug. The medicine was used as part of the VA's deadly PTSD cocktail given to PTSD sufferers.

Feel down? It may be better to talk to the dog

My pug Millie (shown here) is a great listener. She’s also a great therapy dog. I better watch out here – she isn’t a licensed therapy dog and I don’t want some therapy dog activists getting upset thinking I’ve don’t know the difference.

In one of my recent columns I talked about therapy dogs: 

What do dogs, cats, and PTSD have in common?

When the column came out most people enjoyed it, but there were some therapy dog trainers with organizations that felt I was misleading the public when I said my pug Millie is my therapy dog (in the column). I was being light-hearted about it, but some people just didn’t get it I guess.

Anyway…let’s segue into today’s article on pets and people:

Many married couples say they share their troubles with their pet, poll finds

Excerpt:

“A third of pet-owning married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Wednesday. Eighteen percent of pet-owning married men said their pets are better listeners than their wives”

‘Sunset Daze’ reveals bawdy reality of seniors

Retirees display dirty mouths, sense of adventure on new reality program

“Sunset Daze,” which makes its debut tonight, pushes the button as it tries to hold its own in the boozy, oversexed reality TV genre. The first episode has commentary on vibrators and going “commando,” slang for not wearing underpants. WE positions the series as “The Golden Girls” meets “Jersey Shore,” the ribald MTV series that spawned Snooki.

Mexico warns citizens in Arizona

Turnabouts fair play I’d say. How many times have we issued warnings to our citizens traveling in Mexico?

This is an issue that’s growing bigger by the day as November elections loom nearer. We’re already seeing plenty of grand-standing, but folks…we ain’t seen nuthin yet! 

Critics decry new immigration law as discriminatory

“Mexico warned its citizens living in or traveling to Arizona that they could be "harassed" there after the state passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the United States last week.”

Newborn diminutive pinto stallion may be a record-breaker

Four-year-old Garrett Mullen watches three-day-old pinto stallion named Einstein in Barnstead, N.H., Sunday, April 25,2010. The diminutive horse born in New Hampshire could lay claim to the world record for lightweight foal. The pinto stallion named Einstein weighed just 6 pounds and measured 14 inches in height when he was born Friday in Barnstead, N.H. Those proportions fit a human baby just about right but are downright tiny for horse, even a miniature breed like Einstein.

Go here to see more photos of Einstein.

Are Tea Partiers Racist?

A new study shows that the movement's supporters are more likely to be racially resentful.

Since the Tea partiers emerged there has been accusations that they are racist. There’s been no empirical evidence to support those claims…until now:

Excerpt:

“A new survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality offers fresh insight into the racial attitudes of Tea Party sympathizers. "The data suggests that people who are Tea Party supporters have a higher probability"—25 percent, to be exact—"of being racially resentful than those who are not Tea Party supporters," says Christopher Parker, who directed the study. "The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race."

Vintage ads - What are these people doing?

What are they doing? Apparently, the girl on the left is choosing a modern-styled lamp, and the couple on the right is preparing to drill and paint things (and can barely contain the excitement).

If you like this kind of vintage advertising go here to see more.