US : True Democracy :: Velveeta : Cheese

(From Comments:) “Humane intervention” is a scam.  The real reason is oil.  All the hype about Darfur?  Guess what?  That is the area of Sudan that has the oil, and the oil companies wanted a change there, so what happened?  South Sudan seceded from Sudan.  Regarding Afghanistan, all the blabber up to 9/11 was about how the Taliban was treating women so badly and had destroyed some important Buddha statues.  But what was going on behind the scenes was bidding on the gas pipeline across Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf.  Just before 9/11, the Taliban government awarded the contract for building the pipeline to an Argentine company instead of the US’s UNOCAL.  When 9/11 happened something like 13 of the hijackers were Saudis and most of the rest were Egyptians.  So, did we invade Saudi Arabia to get rid of the Wahabi sect?  No, we argued that the Taliban were at fault, and invaded Afghanistan.  UNOCAL got their pipeline, and the US got control of it.  Why all the hubbub about Hugo Chavez, when there are penny-ante leaders all over the world that our government could castigate?  Oil.  Why does the US fund the insurgents in Bolivia’s eastern provinces, against their lawfully elected President, pushing them to also secede from Bolivia?  Oil is in them thar hills.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that when we want their oil, we demonise them to justify military action, and support coups (as in the one funded by the CIA that overthrew Chavez for a couple of days), and “popular” secession movements (also funded by the CIA).

Brown University estimates that the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan, will cost $4 trillion altogether and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers.  The economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists involved in the project estimated that the cost of caring for the veterans injured in the wars will reach $1 trillion over the next 30 or 40 years.  In estimating the $4 trillion total, they didn’t count the $5.3 billion in reconstruction spending the US promised Afghanistan, or state and local contributions to veteran care, or interest payments on war debt, or the costs of Medicare for veterans when they reach 65.  The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, has put the federal price tag for the wars at a mere $1.8 trillion through 2021.  The report says that is a gross underestimate (no kidding), predicting that the government has already paid $2.3 — $2.7 trillion.  Perhaps the most sobering conclusion of researchers is that it’s not clear whether the human and economic costs were justified.  (I’d lean more toward saying that it’s clear they weren’t — but how could I know?  I’m not ever told the complete story, am I?)  They recommend the US government be more transparent in disclosing wars’ total costs to taxpayers.  (Stay honest, please.)

When discussing whether government surveillance and data mining pose a threat to privacy, many people respond that they have nothing to hide.  This argument permeates the popular discourse about privacy and security issues.  In Britain, for example, the government has installed millions of public surveillance cameras in cities and towns watched by officials via closed-circuit television.  In a campaign slogan for the programme, the government declares: “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.”  In the US, one anonymous individual from the Department of Justice comments: “If [government officials] need to read my e-mails…  so be it.  I’ve nothing to hide.  Do you?”  One blogger proclaims: “So I don’t mind people wanting to find out things about me, I’ve got nothing to hide!  Which is why I support President Bush’s efforts to find terrorists by monitoring our phone calls!”  Variations include:

• Do I care if the FBI monitors my phone calls?  I have nothing to hide.  Neither does 99.99% of the population.  If the wiretapping stops one of these September 11 incidents, thousands of lives are saved.
• Like I said, I have nothing to hide.  The majority of the American people have nothing to hide.  And those that have something to hide should be found out and get what they have coming to them.

Einstein’s theory of relativity – the combination of his general and special relativity theories – dictates that all photons must move at the speed of light.  A photon is the carrier of electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths, including gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves.  This theory has stood the test of time over the last century, with no challengers.  Until now.  The Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope sited at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands has found that gamma radiation emitted from a distant galaxy arrived at Earth 4 minutes after lower-energy photons, despite apparently being emitted at the same time.  If this information is correct – a repeat performance will be needed to confirm such a finding – then the findings are in direct contradiction to Einstein’s theory of relativity.  A galaxy more than 300 million light years from earth has a “blazer” – a very compact and highly variable energy source associated with a supermassive black hole at its centre.  Part of the blazer includes a relativistic jet – an extremely powerful jet of plasma – that shoots out, amongst other things, gamma rays.  Low and high-energy emissions appeared to have been emitted at the same time.  After travelling through space for some 300 million years, the high-energy emissions were 4 minutes late.

I could find nothing about this picture.  Hungry children somewhere on Earth hoping for food.  There have been, are, and will always be some and they’re painful to see.

“Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness.  We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness.  We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues.  We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts.  Every waking moment and even in our dreams we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.  Drugs are another means toward this end.  Some are illegal; some are stigmatised; some are dangerous — though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect.  There are drugs of extraordinary power and utility, like psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which pose no apparent risk of addiction and are physically well-tolerated, and yet one can still be sent to prison for their use, while drugs like tobacco and alcohol have ruined countless lives but are enjoyed ad libitum in almost every society.  One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves and the next generation about which substances are worth ingesting, and for what purpose, and which are not.  A problem is that we refer to all biologically active compounds by a single term — “drugs” — and this makes it nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion about the psychological, medical, ethical, and legal issues surrounding their use.  The poverty of our language has been only slightly eased by the introduction of terms like “psychedelics” to differentiate certain visionary compounds, which can produce extraordinary states of ecstasy and insight, from “narcotics” and other classic agents of stupefaction and abuse.”  — Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life

In 2005, Weta Workshop was commissioned by Wellington City Council to design and manufacture a public art sculpture as a tribute to the New Zealand Screen Production Industry.  Four designs were short-listed; the winning entry was manufactured in Weta Workshop over 2005.  The finished sculpture was installed on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace, in the heart of Wellington’s entertainment district, November, 2005 and formally unveiled by the Mayor of Wellington.  The tribute is a film camera on a tripod that appears to be composed from a collection of recycled mechanical parts including a video game console, a toasted sandwich maker, a radio, and railway sleepers.  The camera is made from an engine block and a hairdryer serves as the viewfinder.  Weta Workshop founder Richard Taylor says it symbolises the ingenuity and unbounded imagination that the NZ screen industry thrives on.  “We wanted to pay tribute to their 'number 8 wire attitude’ and their ability to create using whatever is at hand.”  Shown is the sculpture’s nameplate.

Some kindly soul(s) have even knitted legwarmers for the tripod (it IS winter, here after all, and Kiwis love their home-grown moviemakers).

Traditionally, big studio movies never miss their release dates.  This is different from the videogame industry, where high-profile AAA titles, under pressure to raise the bar technologically as well as artistically, can be granted extra months or even years if the publisher feels it’s worth it.  Game makers have long admired Big Filmmaking’s ability to meet schedules no matter what.  But with the shift to digital, film post-production is acquiring the atmosphere of a game studio at crunch time:

• A movie demands you’ve-never-seen-this-before visual effects both for marketing and story;
• Ambitious plans and a short schedule leave little margin for error;
• Inevitable schedule problems trigger urgent meetings among studio execs, vendors and filmmakers to get the project back on track;
• “911″ emergency calls go out to almost any vfx shop in the world that can take on some last-minute work;
• Everyone runs a harrowing race to deadline despite all the extra help.

Myths about Introverts: Introverts aren’t shy — they just don’t talk unless they have something to say.  They hate small talk.  Shyness has nothing to do with being an introvert — they just need a reason to interact.  Introverts often don’t see a need to beat around the bush with social pleasantries.  They want everyone to just be real and honest.  Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings.  Introverts like to avoid the complications involved in public activities.  They take in data and experiences very quickly, then they’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all.  In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial.  Introverts are comfortable with their own thoughts and they think a lot. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve, but they like to share their experiences and discoveries with ONE PERSON at a time.  They are individualists who don’t follow the crowd; they primarily look inward, paying close attention to their own thoughts and emotions.  If too much talking and noise is going on, they sometimes shut down.  One study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of introverts in a group increases with IQ.  No more than 25% of people are introverts.

Conrad Veidt wears an early version of make-up for his character in The Man Who Laughs (1928).  This later served as the inspiration for The Joker.  The permanent grin was achieved by drawing back the corners of his mouth with hooks attached to the sides of his dentures.  “Paul Leni, who made Waxworks (the cause of my coming to Hollywood), was the director of my picture, The Man Who Laughs, and we were all very happy about it.  It was the Victor Hugo story of the man whose lips were cut away so that he has to go through life forever smiling, all his teeth showing in a horrible grinning grimace.  It took some months to make.  Sometimes I felt The Man Who Laughs never wanted to smile again.”  — Veidt (1934), quoted in American Gothic: Sixty Years of Horror Cinema

When I first saw this family photo, I was impressed by the photographer’s framing.  I’m not so impressed by the family, however.  Too many kids is too many kids.  Currently, there are 8 boys and 10 girls and the clock is still ticking.  Maybe they could get a tv instead?

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez (8 December 1886 – 24 November 1957) was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo (during the years 1929–1939 and then again 1940–1954).  His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance.  Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City.  In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  Rivera was an atheist.  His mural Dreams of a Sunday in the Alameda depict Ignacio Ramírez holding a sign which reads, “God does not exist.”  This work caused a furor, but Rivera refused to remove the inscription.  The painting was not shown for 9 years, until Rivera agreed to remove the inscription.  He stated: “To affirm 'God does not exist’, I do not have to hide behind Don Ignacio Ramírez; I am an atheist and I consider religions to be a form of collective neurosis.”  While I don’t admire the artist as a person, I find some of his artwork to border on the profound — I like these.  (Okay, his proportions may not reflect reality, if that bothers you.)

Mexican artist Diego Rivera’s images are iconic.  Assembly workers raise tools in a frozen moment of manufacturing.  Doctors and scientists stand near a child in a nativity scene that pays tribute to medicine.  Secretaries and accountants bow heads, their fingers on typewriters and adding machines.  One panel even shows Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, seeming to watch a collection of unseen workers below him.  The meaning of these images is complex, a view of industry that challenges ideas about its role in society and raises issues of class and politics.  Rivera was already well known as the leader of the Mexican muralist movement when he started this work, and he considered Detroit Industry the most successful piece of his career.  He painted workers of different races – white, black and brown – working side by side.  The nudes in the mural were called pornographic, and one panel was labelled blasphemous by some members of the religious community.  The section depicts a nativity scene where a baby is receiving a vaccination from a doctor and scientists from different countries take the place of the wise men.  A Detroit News editorial called the murals “foolishly vulgar … un-American.”  The writer wanted the murals to be destroyed.  Edsel Ford, patron of the murals, never publicly responded to the outcry.  He only issued a simple statement saying “I admire Rivera’s spirit.  I really believe he was trying to express his idea of the spirit of Detroit.”

This x-ray of a bus was done using a cargo x-ray scanner, the same device used by US border police to scan vehicles.  But the people are really only one person.  Some undertaker loans Nick Veasey cadavers, which he scans numerous times in many different positions.  Veasey works with either skeletons in rubber suits (normally used to train radiologists) or cadavers that have been donated to science.  When a corpse becomes available, he has at most 8 hours to pose and shoot before rigour mortis sets in.  I gather he means to show that personal privacy is a thing of the past these days.  (But any passenger knows that.)  A life-size copy of this was applied to the side of a White Plains, New York bus as a local hospital commissioned the piece to celebrate the opening of its new orthopedic facility.  The medical centre’s PR team had a promotional bus wrapped in this image and it drove around White Plains for nearly 2 months.  Passengers gawped in amazement and sometimes missed the bus.  Consequent complaints meant the artwork was withdrawn.

This is Nick Veasey’s scan of a computer keyboard.  Those are cadaver hands?  Veasey has a lot of animal scans on his site.  Of course, the animals are all dead.  Did he kill them so he could scan them?  He doesn’t say.  The 47-year-old Englishman estimates that over the past decade or so he’s x-rayed more than 4,000 objects.  “I’m interested in how things work, and x-rays show what’s happening under the surface,” he says.  “Plus, they look cool.”  To get his pictures, Veasey uses industrial x-ray machines typically employed in art restoration (to examine oil paintings), electronics manufacturing (to inspect circuit boards), and the military (to check tanks for stress fractures).

How cute is this guy?!  One of the cuddliest little mammals on the planet, the slow loris with his enormously engaging eyes and soft fur makes you want to snuggle up with him and keep him as a pet right?  Not!  This sweet and innocent-looking fellow is actually one of the more poisonous animals on the planet due to his ability to create a toxin which he secretes from the brachial (pertaining to an upper limb) glands in his elbows.  The loris licks this venom, mixing it with saliva, them smears it on the kids to protect them.  This venomous mixture can also be delivered by a bite.  If you happen across a slow loris and attempt to give the sweet creature a pet on the head and accidentally piss him off, you might end up in the hospital or much worse (if you go into anaphylactic shock).  (Larger Gif from here.)

A 6-month-old yellow baboon holds a 3-month-old bush baby in the animal orphanage at the Kenya Wildlife Service headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.  The female baboon, abandoned by its family in Maralal in northen Kenya, is taking care of the bush baby that had also been abandoned by its family.

The Eyes of a Cyborg.  (I don’t know why, but this appealed to me.)

REAL hand-to-hand combat.  (I couldn’t find anything about where this sculpture is located.  If anyone knows, please tell me.  Thanks.

The end of a rainbow spotlights a solitary car travelling down a remote road in North America.  Since a rainbow is an optical illusion, it doesn’t have an actual endpoint.  Instead, a rainbow’s position continually shifts depending on the viewer’s perspective.

A doctor was on his morning walk when he noticed an old lady sitting in a doorway smoking a cigar.  He walked up to her and said, “I couldn’t help but notice how happy you look!  What is your secret?”
“I smoke 10 cigars a day,” she said.  “Before I go to bed, I smoke a nice big joint.  Apart from that, I drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels every week, and eat only junk food.  On weekends, I pop pills, have sex, and I don’t exercise at all.”
“That is absolutely amazing!”  marvelled the doctor.  “How old are you?”
“Thirty-six,” she replied.