Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Land of Giants
The Land of Giants Award Winner 2010 Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture Honorable Mention Icelandic High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition This design transforms mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design. |
Making only minor alterations to well established steel-framed tower design, we have created a series of towers that are powerful, solemn and variable. These iconic pylon-figures will become monuments in the landscape. Seeing the pylon-figures will become an unforgettable experience, elevating the towers to something more than merely a functional design of necessity.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
The American Nekkid Nightmare
Finally someone has stated the obvious ... Not only the emperor but all of us are nekkid ... My compliments to Michael Lind for doing his best in trying to tell us the truth.
. . .
For a generation, most Americans have been told by left, right and center that they would be failures if they ended their educations with high school, worked hard, saved cash for emergencies and bought modest homes they could afford. They have been told that to succeed in life they need to ape the lifestyles of the upper middle class that provides most of America’s politicians, pundits and scholars.
The result has been an experiment in social engineering that has gone horribly wrong: the creation of a faux mass upper middle class. Millions of Americans who by objective standards belong to the working class or lower middle class have persuaded themselves that they are part of the professional-investor elite, because they have worthless degrees from diploma mills, negligible amounts invested in stocks, and suburban trophy houses they cannot afford. For the college graduates at Starbucks working to pay off student loans for degrees that they will never use, as for the millions of Americans who are now "underwater," owing more on their mortgages than their houses are worth, the American dream has turned into a nightmare.
LINK: The fantasy of a vast upper middle class
Friday, August 06, 2010
And this person is a physician?
Fort Belvoir, Virginia (CNN) -- Charges against the Army officer who refused deployment to Afghanistan because he says President Barack Obama doesn't have the authority to send him, should be thrown out says his attorney, Paul Jensen.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin went before a military judge -- and a standing-room-only courtroom -- in Virginia on Friday to face three charges of disobeying a lawful order, one count of missing movement (not deploying with his unit) and one count of dereliction of duty.
LINK: CNN Justice
Let loose the dogs... of rhetoric.
I guess if all you have is a Military-Industrial mentality then all you can see is war. I was insulted when I read the following headline and then the subsequent snippet that is accessible before hitting the WSJ-pay-wall. John Lee is the worst sort of saber-rattling 50's propaganda fear mongering profit. <= Spelled correctly - sensational journalism sells something.
China's Rise and the Road to War
BY: JOHN LEE | THE WALL STREET JOURNALAs with Germany a century ago, an emerging power is overestimating its capabilities.
To draw such an archaic comparison as 'Germany a century ago' to the current world circumstance is broaching the irresponsible. There isn't a country on the planet that is seeking any sort of 'world domination'. Besides, China has already won. Their reign as the pre-eminent wold power will last well beyond our short lifetimes or even shorter memories. To paraphrase Steven Wright, "If China had everything, where would it put it?" The answer is "Everywhere." Silly John Lee, China has already won and we are still right where we are.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Jim Crow is Alive in Khali-phorn-i-ah
Jim Crow is Alive and Well in California
SB 1121 was hardly a radical-sounding piece of legislation. Among other things, it would have given California's 700,000 farm workers the right to take one day off out of every seven. Hourly paid agricultural employees would have received overtime pay after eight hours per day or 40 hours per week.
But when the bill landed on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk, he vetoed it, saying that the new provisions would put farmers out of business.
Had the law passed, California farm laborers would have been the first in the country to receive the right to overtime pay. In order to get his New Deal policies past southern Democrats in the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt exempted field hands (most of whom were African-American at the time) from protections granted other workers. Those exemptions still stand.
"The governor had a chance to make history," Sen. Dean Florez, the bill's author, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "He had a chance to wipe a 70-year-old shame off the books of California. Instead he has decided to side with the shameful."
Perhaps we should boycott Khali-phorn-i-ah?
LINK: The Atlantic
Monday, August 02, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Chaos is the New Calm - Poets.org
Chaos is the New Calm
by Wyn Cooper Chaos is the new calm
violence the new balm
to be spread on lips
unused to a kiss. Left is the new right
as I brace for a fight
with a man who stands
on his remaining hand.Fetid harbor harbor me
until someone is free
to drive me away
from what happened today.Don't strand me standing here.
If you leave, leave beer.
by Wyn Cooper Chaos is the new calm
violence the new balm
to be spread on lips
unused to a kiss. Left is the new right
as I brace for a fight
with a man who stands
on his remaining hand.Fetid harbor harbor me
until someone is free
to drive me away
from what happened today.Don't strand me standing here.
If you leave, leave beer.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I am throwing 80 years of First Amendment jurisprudence on its head
Judge Bars Reporter From Publishing Legally Obtained Factual Info, Saying She Doesn't Care If It Violates First Amendment
from the wow dept
Found via the Citizen Media Law Project is a report about how The National Law Journalwas barred from publishing information it had obtained legally in reporting about a dispute between a law firm and one of its former clients about fees. According to The National Law Journal, D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff signed a temporary restraining order barring it from publishing the material the reporter had found out, specifically saying that The National Law Journal could not name the government agency that was involved in a "regulatory inquiry" into one of the participants in the lawsuit. When the NLJ reporter pointed to the First Amendment, the judge allegedly replied that she did not care:
"If I am throwing 80 years of First Amendment jurisprudence on its head, so be it." She said the court's interest in maintaining the "integrity" of its docket trumped the First Amendment concern.Not surprisingly, the Journal is looking to appeal this ruling, but it really makes you wonder what the judge was thinking.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Japanese robot baby is terrifying
"This newest Japanese robot baby is terrifying. It is more proof of why we must order Japan to cease and desist in making any and all robots. There is no middle ground that can be had in this matter.""Japan has lead the world in robot production, for several years now. We’ve told about how they’ve created fire-breathing robots, robot priests, ‘companion’ robots for dire pleasures and even friend-ship robots, to teach and talk to children when they are lonely. All of these things are immoral and against natural order.There is nothing to replace a good, standard relationship between humans as was ordained by our creation. If robots were meant to be, they would have been accounted for in the creation story. Instead, these machines will be used to try to usurp mankind’s role in our very own lives."
Honest to God Link: ChrisTwire.org
Monday, July 26, 2010
Recovery or Getting on with your life.
God grand me the Senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do,
and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Feed the world's hungry with... wait for it...
In what can only be seen as the pinnacle of affluent arrogance FarmVille users are "feeding" the planet's hungry one virtual blueberry at a time. bon appétit
Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.
NASA maps forests
What other uses can you image for NASA's map of our world's forests? What other kinds of data would you like to see them add to this set?[img credit: exlibris]
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Extending grace, worthy of praise
'mantle' mosque by daniel andersson and christiane flügel
all images courtesy of daniel andersson, christiane flügel and via traffic
'mantle' by freelance architects daniel andersson (finland) and christiane flügel (germany)
is a shortlisted competition entry for the 'design as reform' competition organized by dubai-based
design collective traffic. the architecture category of the multi-disciplinary competition called
for the design of a new, contemporary mosque.
William Meloney
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Voice: 270-215-4275
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Voice: 270-215-4275
Anonymous Comments a Right? NO! A privilege
Should people be allowed to comment anonymously online? That question is currently making its way through the U.S. legal system. A New York couple has issued dragnet subpoenas to Google and Yahoo demanding the identities of users behind 10 email accounts, 30 blog operators, website administrators, and the identities of anyone who had ever commented on those sites. That's hundreds of people! Riding to the rescue of our privacy and freedom are our heroes -- the EFF.
Anonymous comments should be a privilege. Now here is the very hard part - this is a privilege earned not by position, reputation or political sway but by a much more rigorous criteria - content. Anonymous comments should be allowed to exist only if the content warrants its existence. Common sense, albeit scarce in these quickly evolving times, should be used to temper decisions about whether a given anonymous post should be allowed to exist or not.
If an anonymous poster's offering is denied on such grounds then that individual has three courses of action. 1.) Rewrite the posting in a manner that doesn't violate the common sense rules of valid content. 2.) Repost and own up to a possibly contrary perspective or point of view. 3. ) STFU
Contrary to the seemingly popular belief we do not have the unalienable right to say anything we want without owning up to it.
It is time for common sense to be the rule in our civilized society.
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