Friday, April 30, 2004
Ventilation
Tax dollars part two.
WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money, documents show.
In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between 1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism. Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.
In contrast, OFAC opened 10,683 enforcement investigations since 1990 for possible violations of the long-standing economic embargo against Fidel Castro's regime, and collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994, mostly from people who sent money to, did business with or traveled to Cuba without permission. - Yahoo
Art students. Castro. With priorities like these, who needs enemies?
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Driveway Flower
Baby Dragonfly
Your tax dollars at work.
The drawings by a 15-year-old boy in Prosser, Washington, were enough to prompt some questions from the Secret Service.
Agents questioned the teen after being called by police. The boy's art teacher told school officials about the drawings, and they called police. - WFTV
So let me get this straight, Osama Bin Laden is free to scamper about from cave to cave, and an art student is gets hassled by the Secret Service. Does this make sense to anyone? Is it possible that the resources used investigating little Johnny could have been put to better use? There's some terrorists that need attending to. Corporate criminals threaten millions of lives daily. They say every two minutes a woman is raped. 720 victims every day, and these clowns are investigating an art student over some drawings. Warhol had it wrong, it's not "in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." In the future everyone will be investigated for a minimum of fifteen minutes.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
St. Johns Bridge
Rusty Boat
Monday, April 26, 2004
Chernobyl
KIEV, Ukraine - Mourners laid flowers and lit candles in gatherings across the former Soviet Union Monday to mark the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which spread radiation over much of northern Europe.
In all, 7 million people in the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered physical or psychological injuries from the April 26, 1986, catastrophe, when reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded and caught fire. - Yahoo
If you can catch it on a day it's up (The site is hosted by Angelfire and constantly exceeding bandwidth limitations.), check out this site. The woman who runs the page has tons of photos of Chernobyl, shot during her frequent motorcycle trips to the city, err...ghost town. Very intense.
Sandy Barr's Fleamart
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Purple Flower
Purple Fire Hydrant
High Tech Vacation Slides
The clichéd horror of forced viewings of Aunt Ethel's most recent vacation slides has a whole new complexion with the advent of online photo albums, e-mailable images, and photo blogs.
You are no longer a captive audience on a plastic covered couch, required to "oooh" and "ahhh" at the 82nd photo of the new baby. On the flip side, Aunt Ethel just might figure out how to fill your inbox with all 82 shots. No need to visit her in Florida.
You could spend endless amounts of time on the web pages like this one looking at what ultimately amounts to a published personal photo album. You could also spend endless amounts of time putting up such pages.
My sister-in-law would not be likely to snail mail photos of the monstrous snow plow my brother welded to go on a tractor at work to the whole family and more than a few friends; but popping off an e-mail to everyone in the address book, forgedaboutit. It is pretty cool to be able to instantly connect with friends and family over great distance in this way.
There is always a chance you could end up as the next schmuck passed out drunk and decorated with the link being forwarded all over the world wide web. You could find out from a co-worker that the you ended up showing your boobs to a few (thousand) more people than were at that little bar to get your beads on Fat Tuesday.
From petroglyphs to present day man has been sharing his own story with others through pictures. Check out the new wall in our digital cave.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Excerpt
"One who is supposed to be a warrior considers it his foremost concern to keep death in mind at all times, every day and every night, from the morning of New Year's Day through the night of New Year's Eve.
"As long as you keep death in mind at all times, you will also fulfill the ways of loyalty and familial duty. You will also avoid myriad evils and calamities, you will be physically sound and healthy, and you will live a long life. What is more, your character will improve and your virtue will grow."
"If people comfort their minds with the assumption that they will live a long time, something might happen, because they think they will have forever to do their work and look after their parents-they may fail to perform for their employers and also treat their parents thoughtlessly." - Code of the Samurai: A Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu - Thomas Cleary
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Quoting Roth
"I've tried drawing little cards, little pictures of food items. Because you'll be stopping in places-in Poperinge, Belgium, or somewhere outside of Karlskoga, Sweden. These are little places-little, little places-and you'll stop at a roadside something or other. If you're looking for a hamburger, that you can draw a picture of and it's fairly well understood. Pizza, I've had good luck with. Various fruit stuffs, apple, pear, like this. Cottage cheese, I almost got punched in the mouth. There's no way to draw cottage cheese without insulting somebody. And I defy you to draw me a picture of yogurt that won't lose your audience within thirty seconds. Show them a picture of either one and I don't care how good of an artist you are, they are going to hand you a bottle of Belgian Pepto-Bismol, at best." -Crazy From The Heat by David Lee Roth
Monday, April 19, 2004
Confessions
\con*fess"\, v. i. 1. to make confession; to disclose sins or faults, or the state of the conscience.
A friend turned me on to this site. Very addicting in a voyeuristic kind of way.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Gay Marriage
With the gay marriage debate finally making its way into the court system, it's time to think about an often overlooked side effect of the issue. While I personally could give a rats ass who anyone chooses to love or marry, I do find this disturbing. It is now entirely possible that Amanda Peet and Kate Moss could marry, hyphenating their names to become Kate and Amanda Peet-Moss. Discuss.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Who's the fool?
The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. -1 Corinthians 1:25-28 (As quoted in A Wrinkle in Time.)
Yes, I re-read the book recently. Kinda like visiting a childhood fort or something. Everyone should have an Aunt Beast. (If you don't know, read the book.)
I particularly like the part of the quote about the the things that are despised. Which is why I wanted to put it up. Right now there is clearly a group of people who fall in that description according to a large majority of the Christian population.
I am not saying that I believe all Christian people despise homosexuals; but there are clearly a large number. You see them on TV. Regardless of what rational or semi-rational argument they are making - you can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices, or that telling string of spittle hanging from the corner of their mouth often gives it away.
Then of course there is the "people are going to marry toasters" faction. These people don't feel comfortable expressing their hate (fear) openly. Either they realize that won't win them any points with the fence sitters or they are honestly ashamed of their bigotry. Whatever their motivation is; the clown college argument that people are going to want to shack up with inanimate objects if gay marriage is allowed can't be helping your side. I believe you fall under the foolish things of the world portion of scripture. Keep up the good work.
Again we see a great example of the foolish confounding the wise when it comes to treatment of gays in Tammy Faye. Although, she does not support gay marriage Tammy clearly does not despise the gay citizens of this or any country. She loves them the same as anyone else. She accepts people for exactly who they are and loves them, period. She may not approve but she still loves. Even if I don't agree with it, I personally have a great deal more respect for her opinion on the subject than I do ravening fanatics and terrified homophobes.
This evening I watched an older, rough man who openly and loudly admitted he was a redneck that had trouble learning to like black people, play a very touchy testosterone style hitting game with a flamboyantly gay young man. In a stodgy old man bar frequented by WWII vets and longshoremen a redneck and a fairy play happily together - not an eyelash flutters and no toasters are harmed. If only the whole country were like this. - Molliwogg
Fear of a Black Hat Quotes
Ice Cold: Right, but see actually that shit was supposed to be NWH: Fear of a Black Hat, then subtitled Don't Shoot Until You See The Whites.
Nina Blackburn: Of their eyes?
Ice Cold: Who's eyes?
Nina Blackburn: Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
Ice Cold: Nah, don't shoot until you see the whites, period, that's it, end of story.
Nina Blackburn: Are all these weapons registered with the state?
Tasty Taste: The state of siege, heh heh!
Nina Blackburn: What, if any, is the difference between a hoe and a bitch?
Tone Def: A hoe fucks EVERYBODY.
Ice Cold: Right, but a bitch fucks everybody BUT YOU.
Tone Def: When you take that bus, you get there.
Tasty Taste: We anti violent, anyone says different, I'll bust a cap in their ass.
Nina Blackburn: So, what's the deal about the hats?
Ice Cold: Shit, the hats're what it's all about! See, back when we was still slaves, the white man made the black man work in the fields. Heads totally exposed to the sun. So when the slaves got back from the fields, they was too tired to fight the white man. So what we're sayin' now is: Yo, we got some hats now muh-fuckas!
Tasty Taste: And we ain't too tired to bust a cap in yo' ass!
Personally, I think Fear of a Black Hat is even better than Spinal Tap. I've seen this movie dozens of times and I still laugh myself to tears every time.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Peter Cat O'Nine Tails
A church trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children.
People who attended Saturday's performance at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, "There is no Easter bunny," and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.
Melissa Salzmann, who took her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. "He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,"Salzmann said. - Post-Gazette
Please, please, please, let there be someone out there who filmed this.
Friday, April 02, 2004
Riddle Me This Batman...
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".
"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. - Independent UK
If this turns out to be true-and with the way this administration works, it very well may be-what will be the number the Clinton Body Count conspiracy theorists apply to Bush and friends? This number? Or maybe this one?
In the grand scheme of things, which of the following lies can YOU live with? a) Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. b) The Bush administration had no prior knowledge of 9/11. c) I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
"But I don't give a fuck who they're screwing in private, I wanna know who their screwing in public." - from Oh My God by Spearhead
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Quotes of the day.
On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals. - Washington Post
"I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important." - George W. on Osama Bin Laden via Center For American Progress
I swear with all the lies King George, Condaleeza Such-A-Skeeza and the rest right-wing Brady Bunch spew forth, it feels like every day is April Fool's Day.
Excerpt
"Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is all about." - The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
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