February 2009 Archives

Well, at least it is here in southern California. So I decided the time had come to spruce up my blog--a Spring cleaning, if you will. I've mentioned several times in the past that you can view my blog using 5 different themes. These themes are located in the sidebar--probably on the right hand side of your window, unless you are using the Spring theme. To select a different theme, simply click on one of the 5 tiny icons in the sidebar under "Pick a Theme." Each represents a different theme, loosely related to the seasons.

I just updated the Spring theme which now includes, in the top banner, over 100 of the pictures I've shot around the world in the last year. Many of these pictures have not yet been otherwise posted to my blog! So this will be their "world debut:" pictures from Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Russia; pictures from Petra, Jordan; pictures from San Antonio, Nevada, Arizona, Maine, and of course here in California. And, rare though they may be, you will even find a couple of shots feature me! And, the text is larger on the page by default. Finally, I've noticed that most of my visitors are viewing my blog with higher screen resolutions, so the size of the blog itself is larger as well.

The only way to enjoy these photos at present, is to click on the shiny, multicolored bug in the sidebar under "Pick a Theme." I also used a number of new elements and CSS styles here-to-for never used in any of my themes. I know these are visible in the Safari browser (Windows and Mac), but they may not work in other browsers: a glass transparency affect in the navigation bar and text shadowing through CSS may not work in other browsers. IE users' computers may simply melt trying to render my site. Curious to know what the Windows experience is. I've abandoned supporting IE6. It's just such awful technology!

So click the bug, and... Enjoy!

In IE6, the banner to my site completely disappears! The background on the sides is also gone. And the navigation bar has no "glassy" transparency. Just weird!! This is a mess!

Click the image above to enlarge it.

Above is a screenshot of my site in Safari for Windows on the left and IE7 on the right. In Safari, the banner appears with the "glassy" transparent navigation bar and CSS shadowed text.

Download Safari for Windows here for free.

The cartoon printed in the New York Post is a classic example of irresponsible "journalism." It's so offensive, I won't even include it in my post on my blog. The editor should have apologized and fired the persons responsible for allowing this racist drivel to see the light of day!

Sam Stein, a columnist for the site, wrote that "at its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Most provocatively, it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial."

[Source: The Associated Press: NY Post cartoon seems to link Obama to dead chimp]

Man, it's hot outside!

This would force me to upgrade to a new model!

I have never bought an American made car. Know why? Because every car my father ever owned was an American car. And every one of them was junk--pure junk. I vividly recall my father about to have a stroke almost every time he went to crank his Cadillac. He would completely run the battery down because the car just wouldn't start most of the time. The dealership was never able to figure out what was wrong with it, even joked about a bolt with a note from a factory worker some dealer had allegedly found rattling around inside of a car door.

Why were all of his American-made cars garbage? Because, prior to the arrival of affordable, well-made Japanese cars, the American car industry could rip off every one of us, like the American drug companies are doing now.

So I exacted my revenge. I feel bad for the American workers, but I will not support corporate abuse of trapped customers. Over the years I purchased a VW Rabbit (diesel), numerous Honda Accords, an Accura, a Nissan Murano, and a Toyota Prius. As far as I am concerned, the American auto industry needs to go through bankruptcy to get its act together!

But now I have a new list of companies to never support with my purchasing power.

Here is a list of the "Billion Dollar Bailout Club" which I prefer to call corporate welfare recipients who have stolen our money to cap off their greedy, reckless business practice. Frankly, "bailout or no bailout," I will try to avoid doing business with them at all cost. I'm just glad the Republican spin machine didn't get to this one before it got labeled what it is: bailout! Imagine if it had been called: Anti-terrorist Freedom Defense Investment Fund! (Think: No Child Left Behind, and The Patriot Act... spin baby, spin!)

Click to enlarge the list so you can see who the welfare recipients are.

Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/billion-dollar-bailout-club/

And speaks it well! He can think! What a novel approach to the office: having a president who thinks! Here is one of his sentences diagramed. Language Arts teachers can now use the president as an example of how to speak English correctly and coherently! What a breath of fresh air!

Source: http://www.themillionsblog.com/2009/02/diagramming-obama-sentence.html

Yes, more technology goodness! This goes way beyond crazy!

SamSam says: "Gov. Deval Patrick wants to charge drivers by how much they drive on state roads, and at what times. How is he planning on doing this? By adding GPS units to cars, giving at least some state employees the ability to track cars where ever they go."

"It's outrageous, it's kind of Orwellian, Big Brotherish," said Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, who drafted legislation last week to prohibit the practice. "You'd need a whole new department of cronies just to keep track of it."

Massachusetts Gov. wants to track cars on state roads with GPS units in each car

[Source: Massachusetts Gov. wants to track cars on state roads with GPS units in each car]

I just returned from Arizona where I officially fell in love with the desert. Having just rained, the smells of the desert were spectacular!

Base camp for this trip was the amazing home of the parents of a friend and colleague. I was told it takes years to see the bobcat that slinks around the property. I got to see him in the first 24 hours. Also making an appearance on this trip: deer, coyotes, little chipmunk-like critters, and rabbits. I didn't get to see the wild pigs.

From Tucson up to Flagstaff, this state is gorgeous. Hopefully the photo album will appear in the next several weeks, but here are some shots to give you a glimpse. (And, btw, none of these were shot with the polarizing filter. What do you think, Chris?)

I fly all of the time as a result of my work. Yet I had never flown United Airlines until today. I will never fly United again. Full stop!

I encourage everyone to avoid flying United. Frankly, I want them to go out of business--the sooner the better.

My roundtrip flight to Phoenix cost $185. Today, when I checked in to head back home, United charged me an additional $140 ($15 to check a bag + $125 for being over their limit) for my one checked suitcase because it was 10 pounds over their weight limit.

This is absurd. It cost more to fly my suitcase home, which weighs one third what I weigh, than it did to fly me home!

As a platinum flier on Delta, even though the bag would have been 10 pounds over their limit as well, they would have merely said, "Thanks for flying Delta." I wouldn't have paid anything--not even a silly $15 bag fee.

As I told the agent, "There will be a cold day in hell before I ever fly United again." He replied, "Well, I'm trying to get you to take 10 pounds out of your bag so you don't have to pay the extra fee." To which I replied, "It all goes on the same plane, whether I carry it in my hand or leave it in the suitcase. I'm leaving it in the suitcase! Today United has lost a customer forever, that's all."

My carry on bag, a backpack loaded with camera equipment, is heavier than hell, and I am in no mood to add an additional 10 pounds to hold in my hands. Besides, the only thing in the suitcase that might weight 10 pounds is my tripod, and I'm told that it must be checked because it "could be used as a weapon."

The absurdity of air travel today.

Again, I encourage everyone to boycott United so they decide to stop abusing customers with these utterly nonsensical policies.

Two rainbows in two days must mean something good!

Lets face it. We've been had. We're in a serious depression. Thank you capitalism. We believed in you. We were told it was our patriotic duty. And now we learn about the run on the banks in September, 2008, that was never reported in the media. We learn that the government just pull the switch on the massive ATM withdrawal of banking assets to prevent the end of the US economy followed by the collapse of the world economy and sheer anarchy. Astounding!

And the %$#*&^ Republicans want to keep cutting taxes and deregulating? What is wrong with these mad men?!

In the video below get past the frustrated caller. The facts come out at about 2 minutes and 20 seconds into the clip. Representative Kanjorski says:

The Treasury opened its window to help. They pumped a hundred and five billion dollars into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic and there. And that's what actually happened.

If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, five-and-a-half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed."

"It would have been the end of our political system and our economic systems as we know it."

This is an interesting take on the financial crisis. The last question on the table was, "Who will recover first?" China. With their growth, assets, and manufacturing sector will be the first to stabilize in the world economic meltdown. And who wanted to send all of our manufacturing jobs over to China? Hmmm???

And just what will the impact of that be in the USA?!

Cory Doctorow has a wonderful diatribe over at boingboing about the executives' pay cap.

The lead story in today's New York Times Styles section is all about the tremendous difficulties that executives at bankrupt companies receiving public bailouts will face if their salaries are capped at only $500,000. For example, many of these people might have to give up necessities like armed chauffeurs, twice-annual $16,000 vacations, and $4,000,000 summer homes. It's really heartbreaking.

[Source: Bankers can't possibly afford NYC on a mere $500K/year - Boing Boing ]

The article in the New York Times, You Try to Live on 500K in This Town, to which he refers, is worth the read! What is of interest to me is what people living this lifestyle in this place consider necessary to their lifestyle--even after taking out all of the cheap shots. How have we allowed our society to devolve to this point while, at the same time, calling this process success, progress, achievement, the American Way?

This graphic, based on data from the Office of Labor Statistics, has been published on the Speaker of House's web site. It speaks for itself.

Has our massive off shoring of manufacturing finally caught up with us? Can you not produce tangible assets and still create wealth? Will "stimulus" of any kind be sufficient to stabilize capitalism? How long will we live with the devastating affects of greed and arrogance? Have we been chasing worthless paper using an economic model built on a need for unsustainable continuous growth in consumption? Does this mean the WalMart economic model didn't work? Are these even the right questions?

I'm not sure anyone knows the answers.

Source: Speaker of the House

I'm exploding my mind trying to get my head around this CoolIris embed. If you aren't running CoolIris in your browser, check it out. It's sheer awesomeness and works in most browsers.

What you are seeing here is only a small version with embed code. When you install the plug in in your browser, it can fill your entire screen with a live 3D wall of the pictures or videos on a site. It's astounding! I've already enabled my entire site to work with the plug in. Once you've installed the plug in for your browser, you'll see what I mean about how awesome it is.

Now, I've got to get my head around an easy workflow to use when adding rich media to my blog so it puts things where they need to go and automatically updates the photo.rss feed file.

I can't believe I actually got this thing to work for me on the first try!

How does it work:

• Click and drag on the black wall to scroll through all of the pictures I've uploaded on my site in the last couple of years.
• Want to drill down onto a specific picture? Just click on it specifically.
• Want to embed my blog's latest 3D photo wall on your site? Click on the <e> at the bottom of the window.
• The search function doesn't work too well for my site because I neglect to name and tag most of my photos with meaningful names and tags. I'll have to get better about that.

Sometimes something a person says just seems to make horse sense. Read this entire article. It has the ring of truth to it!

As individuals, we humans appear to be an intelligent species. Collectively, however, our behavior ranges from supremely wise to suicidal. Our current collective economic insanity is the product of an illusion—a belief, cultivated by the prevailing economic orthodoxy, that money is wealth and that making money is the equivalent of creating wealth.

... Real wealth is, first of all, the tangible things that support life—food, shelter, clothing. Of course, the most valuable forms of real wealth are those that are beyond price: love; a healthy, happy child; a job that provides a sense of self-worth and contribution; membership in a strong, caring community; a healthy vibrant natural environment; peace. Our Wall-Street-driven economic system makes fantastic amounts of money and actively destroys all these many forms of real wealth.

... Let Wall Street corporations and their phantom wealth machine slip into the abyss of their own making. Devote our public resources to building and strengthening Main Street businesses and financial institutions devoted to creating real wealth in service to their local communities.

Source: Don't Fix Wall Street, Replace It by David Korten from yes!

We rarely have anything but perfect weather. Yesterday we had rain. Last night, just at sunset, the clouds began to break.

Warning! I'm becoming an armchair economist! :o) But this seems about on the mark.

Because what really happened was not globalization of trade but an abrupt and massive relocation of manufacturing capacity, mostly to China. The US alone has “exported” an incredible 4.5 million manufacturing jobs in just seven years, an unprecedented economic event of historic proportions. Other western nations have done the same. What did we exchange these jobs for? Loans of Chinese labourers’ savings in the form of US Treasury and other bonds, i.e. debt. This insane policy of national emasculation will surely go down as one of the worst mistakes in the history of all empires.”

Source: Sudden Debt

I've ordered several of these new keyboards! Source: http://i39.tinypic.com/4idcfp.jpg

You knew this would happen. We pass a law to protect us. Then we pass a law to protect us from the law we passed to protect us. Insanity! And am I the only person on earth sick of hearing about Code Orange every time I go into an airport? Enough already!

The House overwhelmingly adopted legislation this week mandating the creation of a new kind of terrorist watchlist: a database of people who aren't terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway.

[Source: House Approves Whitelist of People Who Aren't Terrorists | Threat Level from Wired.com]

This laser light mounted on the bike projects a bike lane onto the road around the cyclist for safety.

Source: Wired

I've often marveled at the juxtaposition or right and wrong. For example: we would put a person (who is poor and has few resources) in prison for stealing a loaf of bread at the super market, yet we seem to let business executives (with wealth, privilege, and political influence) steal vast sums of money from people's retirement plans and the like without giving it much of a thought. Or, try stealing a gallon of grotesquely over-priced gas from the gas pump. In our society we often ignore the question: "Who's stealing from whom?" We replace that question with, "What will the market bear?" Just how far can we go in our quest for greed?

This political cartoon, by Mike Luckovich, posted at AZspot, brilliantly asks another really pointed question.

A foul stench is in the air! The fact that such a thing would even be considered in the UK smacks of abuse of power!!! I'm shocked the Republican party hasn't already done this in the US! What do they have to hide? And don't even try to use the words terrorism or terrorist. Unrestrained power seems to want to become the new tyranny!   

I only have two words for everyone:

Rodney King

You could be next!

We should never darken transparency of power as doing so will lead to abuse of power.

Britain's set to introduce a law that can send you to jail for a decade for taking a picture of a cop:

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about (members of armed forces) ... which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.

The law is expected to increase the anti-terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places. 'Who is to say that police officers won't abuse these powers,' asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis, who was threatened by an officer last week.

Tallis, a London-based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer. Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.

According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis 'shouldn't have taken that photo, you were intimidating me'. The incident was caught on camera by photojournalist Marc Vallee.

Jail for photographing police? (Thanks, Kris!)

[Source: UK to introduce "photograph a cop, 10 years in jail" law]

via: boingboing

Apparently the Metro has had issues in the UK because of the snow storms.

"The rail service is knackered and there is no timetable,” Alex Bench, a spokesman for the British Transport Police.

I had never heard of the word "knackered," but it exists.

What creates a sense of identity between a customer and a product or company? I'm sure a great deal of money has been spent trying to articulate an answer. In many cases today, it's lifestyle. I suspect that Apple, Inc., for example, isn't selling computers and iPods, they are selling a lifestyle. Starbucks sells lifestyle, not overpriced coffee.

But sometimes product loyalty is the result of a product that really works for a person–meets a need. Such is the case with the product pictured below. Gillette Series, ClearGel, coolwave, deodorant. Those who know me or have read my 100 Things list know that I hate antiperspirant. Why clog your pores with chemicals?!

For years now, I have used this product. It smells good. It applies easily and quickly. It's deodorant and not antiperspirant. It's not about lifestyle: it works.

But there is a problem. It's always been very hard to find! It appears on store shelves and then, once gone, takes forever to reappear. So, when the product appeared on store shelves, I started buying them all. I had quite a stock of it.

A few months back, as my stock was dwindling, I began looking around the drug stores, the grocery stores, the Target stores for a new supply. No one in California seemed to stock it. No one was much aware of the product, just the antiperspirant version. No, I hate chemicals clogging my pores. It irritates my skin and makes my t-shirts look dingy under the arms.

Finally, I contacted the company and was horrified to learn that they have stopped producing it entirely. I was saddened.

Today, my last little container of Gillette Series, ClearGel, coolwave, deodorant gave its all and is now completely empty. The product has died. Pictured on my bathroom counter below is the now empty container. I am in mourning.