Times are hard and people are doing everything theycan to keep their jobs.
I've heard that you are supposed to make yourself invaluable to your boss by multi-tasking.
Beside always being on time, and always ready to get the boss a cop of coffee, employees must be prepared to do what it takes to please their boss.
Brown-nosing is now the 21st Century tool for keeping your job.
A good brown-noser can expect to be the last one laid off before the company goes kaput!
This last week has seen the post "Optical Illusions: How many faces can you count?" go International and National, as readers puzzled over it.
I got my first visitor from China yesterday - Shenzhen, Guangdong, China - and whoever it was, they enjoyed the Optical Illusion post.
A reader from Madres, Tamil Nadu, India, was another Optical Illusion viewer. Someone in orebro, Orebro Lan, Sweden, also stopped by to check out the Optical Illusion post.
A Jakarta, Jakarta Raya, Indonesia, reader stopped to read about my post on chess - RETI Gambit Opening Theme and fun way to fight the French Defense.
Painting by Penguins and other Animals, was viewed by a reader in Bergen, Hordaland, Norway.
My post on - Slinky Co-Founder, Betty James, passes away at 90 - was viewed by some in Makati, Rizal, Philippines. A viewer from Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, found the - Monster Pumpkin Feeds on Lesser Gourds! - post amusing. Another viewer from Staffordshire, United Kingdom, found the - Graffiti Art Stretches Across America's Ghettos - interesting.
A couple of Canadians - one from Ottawa, Ontario, and the other from Mission, British Columbia, stopped by two visit. The first looked at the post - Watch Out For Weird Trick-or-Treaters - and the other one checked out - Looking Like Christmas at Nana and Papa's House.
Other international readers in the last 48 hours include, Dechtice Trnava, Slovakia; Woking Surrey, United Kingdom; Cardiff, United Kingdom; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Bradford, United Kingdom; Quebec, Canada; Raahe Oulu, Finland, and Elgin Moray, United Kingdom.
Tribune and many other newspaper owners, already hurting from the migration of advertising revenue to the Internet, have suffered even bigger setbacks amid the broad economic downturn.
Other media companies, such as Freedom Communications Inc., which operates the Orange County Register, have been struggling with their debt.
The newspaper industry continues to see extraordinary declines in ad revenues, and Tribune is no exception.
The company -- owner of eight newspapers, 23 television stations and other assets, including a share of the Food Network -- has laid off hundreds of employees and combined operations in an attempt to pay its bills.
I'm not sure how old this article is, but I suspect that it dates back to the late sixties or mid-seventies.
NASA experiments have always intrigued me, and the fact that they were busy giving different kinds of dope to spiders really makes this one a classic.
The caption suggested that getting spiders high would lead to some toxicity-testing technique.
That's just one reason I suspect this is an old article. Nowadays you can go to any pharmacy and buy a bottle of stuff that will tell you if you got marijuana, or practically anything else, in your system.
The new "pee and see" system just might owe these early experiments with drugged spiders a debt!
The premise was certainly simple. Get a spider high on numerous substances, and see what each one makes him do to his web! See diagrams to the right.
What's not clear is why they used spiders, instead of mammals.As far as I know we're not too close on the evolutionary chain to spiders/insects, although I have met some people who think like insects (specialization is their forte).
Among the earthshaking data that came out of this undoubtedly million dollar research project, is that the more toxic a substance, the more the spider screws things up and loses the normally beautiful symmetry his web displays.
I have to admit that I'm somewhat skeptical as to the value of this NASA research project, but what do I know? I'm no rocket scientist!
How far have we really come in regards to racial hatred in America today?
On one hand we've elected the first African-American President, and on the other, He (Obama) is being hung in effigy, and the target for assassination pools across the country.
The KKK is bragging about their sudden re-emergence with overloaded web sites devoted to hatred.
The FBI has been tracking the progress of these hate groups and are reporting a huge increase in racially motivated incidents throughout America.
So how far have we really come?
See today's AS IT STANDS - click here - in the Times-Standard.
What painter wouldn't want this table? Orange tables like this are original.
Have you ever made a paper airplane?
Functional table art is a fun way to project some originality into your living space. I've seen a lot crazier tables than these.
I knew someone once who built his house around a redwood tree, and the table in the living room was something to see! A thing of true beauty.
I can remember times when my wife and I used cardboard boxes for end tables. Covered them up with a clothe and made sure not to put something too heavy on them.
USC head coach Pete Carroll thinks the fans will appreciate seeing two colorful uniforms during the Rose Bowl game this year. The problem is, USC is supposed to wear the "visitor's" white jerseys. UCLA is the home team and they get to wear their colorful uniforms by way of NCAA rules. UCLA head coach, Rick Nueheisel, likes the idea too, but then his team has nothing to lose. in 1982 USC and UCLA both wore homejerseys when they both shared the Coliseum, in that year's Rose Bowl.
So, it's already happened once, and Nueheisel, whose ready to sacrifice two timeouts
Meanwhile, the NCAA is meeting today and there's a chance they may relax the rules and not penalize USC for wearing their home jerseys.
I have been a fan of both UCLA and USC since the early sixties, and can remember going to many of their games with my buddies.
Four or five of us (depending on whose car we took) would pool our money for gas. I can remember seeing O.J. Simpson play for USC. He was an exceptional athlete back then.
Now O.J. is doing prison time and is a disgraced public figure.
Every brick, and every break in the wall, becomes part of the composition.
A single Senator, John Ensign (R-NV.) has been obstructing Senate passage of S. 223 providing for electronic disclosure and prompt Internet searchability of Senate campaign contributions. This bill, sponsored by Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) and 39 other bipartisan Senators, has no public opposition. However, Ensign has withheld unanimous consent to take it up and pass it by insisting on a vote on his controversial, unrelated amendment to force charities, religious organizations and civic nonprofit organizations to disclose all of their $5,000+ donors when they file ethics complaints against sitting Senators.
Now a broad group of ideologically diverse nonprofit organizations and coalitions has written to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to “drop” or “defeat” the “retaliatory Ensign Amendment to S. 223.” Signatories include: Alliance for Justice, Americans for the Preservation of Liberty, The American Conservative Union, Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, The Free Speech Coalition, James Bopp, General Counsel, James Madison Center for Free Speech, Gun Owners of America, National Center for Public Policy Research, and OMB Watch which took the lead in circulating the letter (see copy of letter below).
In their November 9th letter, the organizations declared that "This proposal is a clear attempt to intimidate the public from seeking enforcement of Senate ethics rules." They add that "Its retaliatory nature is counter to donors' privacy rights and the First Amendment rights of association and speech, and raises significant constitutional questions." Furthermore, if adopted, "this provision would have the effect of changing existing tax law without the benefit of a full and open public debate, including involvement of Congressional tax-writing committees."
Responding to Sen. Ensign's argument that donor disclosure would enable Senators to find out if complaints are being filed "purely for political reasons" and thereby "protect this institution," the nonprofit signers point out that "Current law provides adequate information about any organization filing an ethics complaint. Any Senator can learn more about the organization by requesting disclosure of their IRS Form 990 which does not publicly identify donors, but does provide information on key leadership, finances and activities."
Copy of letter
CFI Executive Director Michael Malbin commented, "In view of this broad condemnation of the Ensign Amendment from major nonprofits spanning the ideological spectrum, Senator Ensign should agree to drop his obstructionist amendment. If he wants to pursue the issue despite the broad opposition, let it stand on its own." Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee which unanimously reported out S. 223, has offered Sen. Ensign a prompt hearing on his proposal.
"If Sen. Ensign does not withdraw the amendment, Majority Leader Reid should bring up S. 223 promptly -- with 20 minutes of debate on the amendment as Ensign and Republican Leader McConnell have proposed. Faced with these statements of broad- based opposition, and with no committee hearings on the Ensign proposal, the Senate should then vote down the amendment and pass the underlying bill. It is already the middle of an election cycle and voters need to know in a timely way who is donating to Senate candidates. The public has had this information about House and Presidential candidates since 2001. Every Senator who has spoken out on S. 223 has supported it. That includes Sen. Ensign. It is time for the Senate to stop playing games and do what they say they support."
To my untrained eye the above is just a pile of neatly stacked trash.
I have to admit the artists involved had to do some real planning to get that perfect silhouette against the wall.
It really is kinda clever. Meanwhile, I imagine any rats in the area see this pile as evidence of intelligent design!
I wonder how long it took to come up with this masterpiece?
People have always admired dogs' super sense of smell. That's why we use them for multiple societal tasks, from tracking down lost...
