Monday, December 15, 2008

This is some real heavy metal art for creative enthusiasts

    

If you have a creative mind and metal working skills it's amazing what you can produce. It also seems to help if you watch a lot of movies.
Called mecha or metal art and sculptures, these creations made of 100% metal are surprisingly realistic.

photos by Damn Funny Photos (2006)

 

A POEM ABOUT THE TOWN I LIVE IN...

    

CLAM BEACH

    Central Avenue pumps cars through the body of McKinleyville which stretches out

like a supplicant

grasping the ocean in one hand and the inland trees in another.

 

                               McKinleyville

Old families still hold slices of  patchwork pieces of privacy
standing against growth until gone - except in memory.

BMW’s are sold where rooster’s once did roam
waking the sleepy town up for another day
Cars crouch there now and call it home
and just won’t go away.  

Where groves of trees once stood in majestic sway
a shopping center now stands
catching monetary prey.

Track homes sit where fields of wild flowers grew  
and ranches that went as far as the eye could see
are now history.

Preview for Tuesday:Your going to love Ditty & Ernie's blogs!

While surfing in cyberspace I discovered a series of wonderful blogs created by Ditty & Ernie.

Rated as some of the Funniest Sites on the Web by Internet Life, they all display satire an it's very best! As an avid satire user and observer, I was swept up by the artwork and the word work.

So...for the very first time, I'm going to do a profile on another blog. Kinda like a feature story. If this goes well with readers, then I might start doing it once a week (Month?)

    

Bush is greeted with flying shoes during Iraq news conference

 President Bush looked slightly bemused after he ducked to avoid a shoe hurled at him during a news conference. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki looked mortified, and as the assailant's second shoe came flying Sunday, he did what any gracious host would do: reached out and tried to catch it before it hit his American guest.

Later, Iraqi journalists identified him as Muntather Zaidi, a correspondent for Baghdadiya, a satellite TV channel that broadcasts from Cairo.

Zaidi was one of several Iraqi journalists attending the Sunday evening news conference in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone. His outburst came without warning as Bush and Maliki prepared to answer questions.
The first shoe flew over the heads of other journalists and might have hit Bush square in the face had he not ducked to avoid it.

"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog," the man said, according to a pool translation.
Seconds later, the journalist hurled his other shoe with similar precision as another Iraqi journalist reached over in an attempt to stop him.
"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," he said, according to the translation. 

Bush's surprise visit to Iraq and Afghanistan didn't accomplish a damn thing, other than some interesting photo ops!

Experts puzzled about why Frogs are rapidly vanishing

I've been reading articles about Frog populations around the world going down. Scientists are concerned about the impact of not having the Frogs in the ecosystem. They can rest easy now. I've discovered that the Frogs are joining motorcycle gangs and leaving the swamps and lily pads to hang out in biker bars!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

What do we learn from watching television?

An Open Apology To Fellow Columnist Andrew Sorkin

For the record. I accused Andrew Ross Sorkin, of The New York Post, of being a Conservative. After further review (and a look at his column from last week - see below), it's apparent he's not. I stand corrected.

 He also rightly pointed out that hourly costs that I sited weren't accurate (as I didn't add production costs into the equation). Once again, I stand corrected.

I'm pointing out my mistakes in all fairness.

It's the least I can do for not doing better research on this column ("Conservative media lying about auto worker's wages"). I appreciate his points and his professionalism.

Here's a copy of the email Mr. Sorkin sent me this morning. 

Dave,
I just finished reading your article in The Times-Standard.
I was disappointed to see you place so much blame on me, in part,
because that facts are a bit different than you suggested.
First, I'm not a conservative columnist. Most people who read me
regularly would suggest I'm probably part of the "liberal media" --
though I don't like that label much either. Take a look at my column
from last week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/media/09sorkin.html?ref=media.
Second, and more importantly, I did not come up with the $70 figure.
It's been used by GM and analysts on Wall Street for years. I am
attaching a chart produced by Deutsche Bank's research department,
which was distributed widely prior to my column, that goes through
GM's hourly wage costs line by line. The chart might help explain the
issue a bit better. Please look at the left hand column marked
"2007GM." You'll see that the total price comes to $70.84 an hour.
Toyota, on the other hand, comes to $47.25 an hour (look at the
right hand column.) If you factor out OPEB, you could probably argue
the number is closer to $55, or more likely $61 an hour, which is
still twice the hourly wage of the average American worker. The
additional wages and benefits at GM add an average of $800 per vehicle
over the cost of rivals like Toyota and Honda, making it pretty hard
to compete on price -- which contradicts what you said in your piece.
Also, these hourly costs do not include production costs (steel,
components, etc), as you said in your article, but wage and benefits
costs.
I imagine you may have thought I started the $70 number because that's
what Keith Olbermann said on his program. Keith has since written me
to apologize. Indeed, if you do a search of articles prior to my
column, you'll find at least 143 references to the $70 an hour figure
by other journalists, analysts, etc.
I very much hope that the automobile makers survive – I don't want
them to falter. The column was an effort to offer a solution that
would allow the companies to continue long into the future and make
them stronger.
I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if you want to speak about
this issue further.
Best,
Andrew

Today's AS IT STANDS in The Times-Standard: Conservative media lying about auto workers wages

The Senate rejected a bailout of the Big Three last Friday. Republicans passed memos that talked about busting unions in America, and making the UAW an example.

There's no doubts that those neo-cons want to use this opportunity to attack unions with every lie in their playbook.

The wages that UAW members make is just one front in their war of disinformation against the American auto worker.

They want to see a deal that precludes the union from even being involved with the new structure that the car companies are going to have to take on either after bankruptcy, or in a revised deal with Congress for a bailout.

Read today's AS IT STANDS by clicking here.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Guess which state gets the dubious honor of being 'most corrupt'

So you think that you know where the most political crooks are coming from, right?

You're sure it's got to be Chicago, for it's machine-style politics and its elected leaders have been under investigation for years. But by one measure, you're wrong. Illinois is not even close to the nation's most-corrupt state.

North Dakota, it turns out, may hold that distinction instead!

Federal authorities arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Tuesday after a wiretap allegedly recorded him scheming to make money on his appointment to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama. Blagojevich, a Democrat, ran for election in part on cleaning up after his predecessor, Republican George Ryan, who was convicted in 2006 of racketeering, bribery and extortion.

IN ILLINOIS: Obama 'appalled and disappointed' by Blagojevich arrest

"If it isn't the most corrupt state in the United States it's certainly one hell of a competitor," Robert Grant, head of the FBI's Chicago office, said Tuesday.

 On a per-capita basis, however, Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007, according to Department of Justice.                                                                                                                              

Don Morrison, executive director of the non-partisan North Dakota Center for the Public Good, said it may be that North Dakotans are better at rooting out corruption when it occurs.                                                                                           

                                                                                                                A statue of "Honest John" Burke, governor from 1907 to 1913, stands in front of the North Dakota's state capitol building in Bismarck. North Dakota had the highest rate of public corruption convictions won by federal prosecutors from 1998 through 2007.

I'm working on a AS IT STANDS column for January 2009, which will deal with corrupt politicians and the states that produce them.

Bombs in America: increased usage in crimes climbs

I'm disturbed by the increasing use of bombs in crimes stateside since the Iraqi war. No records have been kept (thus far) on the correlation between the use of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their use here in the states. All you have to do is follow the headlines from the right coast to the left coast and you can find stories like this one:

DATELINE Woodborn, Oregon - Dec. 13

A bomb blast outside the West Coast Bank Branch of Woodborn, has killed two men, and another is in critical condition. Employees of the bank got a call saying that a bomb had been planted there. Police responded. A state bomb technician and a local police officer where killed instantly when the bomb - which was located outside the bank in some bushes - went off unexpectedly. The town's police chief is in critical condition at a local hospital. Authorities say there are no suspects.

MY TAKE ON THIS - Someone wanted to kill cops. Why else would someone plant the bomb outside and no where near the bank's vault? I also suspect it was remote detonated, a trick that the bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan use on a daily basis. The technology is out there.

MY MILITARY BACKROUND - I was a Combat Engineer (31st Eng.Battalion), and demolition was my primary MOS. I spent many grueling days sweeping mud roads for enemy bombs in Vietnam and Cambodia. I also searched many villages for hidden booby traps that ranged from holes filled with sharpened punji sticks and covered over, to "Bouncing Betties" carefully concealed near tunnel entrances.

If "Charlie" would have used remote detonation (after all the technology was there several decades ago) I wouldn't be writing this blog right now! My guardian angel was looking out for me back then. I once stepped on a weight detonated French landmine, out of sheer stupidity and exhaustion (I didn't spot the indentation).

My squad leader told me to freeze when I first stepped on it. We both knew at about the same time that I may have made a very bad mistake. He ordered the rest of the squad off the dirt road and pulled out his K-bar and started probing around my foot.

As the seconds ticked by I pissed my pants in terror, not yet aware I was too light to set it off. Finally, my squad leader looked at the partially exposed landmine and gave a sigh of relief. "It's a tank mine," he said. "You have to weigh over 500 pounds to set it off." He got up and told me to go ahead and jump when he did. The rest is history.

SUMMARY - The scary thing is how small bombs are these days - note the illustration of the shoe bomb - and how the ability to make them has become common knowledge. The Internet, with it's never-ending flow of knowledge, doesn't morally discern about such things as making bombs or making nasty birthday cakes. 

 

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...