William Bragg

Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

From Patrick Moberg:

No, seriously! Luke gets dumped on his whole life—his adoptive parents get killed, all his friends get injured or killed, the girl he falls in love with turns out to be his sister, his father turns out to be one of the most evil people in the galaxy, his hand gets cut off. Then he gets a chance to co-rule the galaxy. Who wouldn’t take that offer at that point?

Topless Robot - The 5 Reasons Luke Skywalker Is a Complete Idiot.

Photoshop disaster highlights the problem with reflections. In this case the photoshopping did not extend to the reflections of the high gloss table -revealing some pretty obvious truths.

ummm… that would be the son of William F. Buckley, you know… the founder of National Review:

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Buckley Bows Out of National Review - The Daily Beast.

Vote for Obama: MCCAIN LACKS THE CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT TO BE PRESIDENT. AND PALIN IS SIMPLY A DISGRACE.

The 10 worst halloween costumes.

(via Zoe Strauss)

I hate election time. Too much negativity. And this one is definitely descending quickly into the depths. So a friend sent me this link, and it made me smile. The English translation is not literal, but rather what the lyrics sound like in English. For your viewing pleasure:

Of course, this was dumb. Banks didn’t really care (because they weren’t holding the bad paper) but the people investing in those “mortgage-backed securities” were slowly getting wise to the fact that many of the borrowers were in over their heads. What to do? The credit industry went ahead and lobbied Washington to change the bankruptcy laws. While corporations could claim bankruptcy and stop paying for their retirees’ health coverage, individuals would no longer be able to claim bankruptcy, and even if they did, they would still owe their creditors the money they borrowed, forever. The credit industry spent over $100 million lobbying lawmakers for the new provisions.

(my emphasis)

"Before someone amputates your penis, you want to be real sure it's necessary," he said.

Conservative or Liberal? Workspace Reveals All.

Given it’s election time, the taxpayer bailout of the rich and powerful, and so many other things, I thought this would be helpful and appropriate: collection of videos that make you feel better - Featured on BuzzFeed.

The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com.

Some of his commentary follows:

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

…

What’s most vital to underscore is that the beneficiaries of this week’s extraordinary Government schemes aren’t just the coincidental recipients of largesse due to some random stroke of good luck. The people on whose behalf these schemes are being implemented — the true beneficiaries — are the very same people who have been running and owning our Government — both parties — for decades, which is why they have been able to do what they’ve been doing without interference. They were able to gamble without limit because they control the Government, and now they’re having others bear the brunt of their collapse for the same reason — because the Government is largely run for their benefit.

…

Can anyone point to any discussion of what the implications are for having the Federal Government seize control of the largest and most powerful insurance company in the country, as well as virtually the entire mortgage industry and other key swaths of financial services? Haven’t we heard all these years that national health care was an extremely risky and dangerous undertaking because of what happens when the Federal Government gets too involved in an industry? What happened in the last month dwarfs all of that by many magnitudes.

(my emphasis)

**I can hear the bleats of the sheep right now**

One of my favorite photographers talking about his 1000 polaroids project while you watch some of the images.

While investigating curriculums for my 8th graders, I came across this from the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment:

This is accomplished by adding the Science of Creative Intelligence® (SCI) to the study of traditional academic disciplines. Together with its practical aspect, the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi® programs, including Yogic Flying, SCI provides the knowledge and experience of Transcendental Consciousness, the unified field of Nature’s creativity and intelligence at the source of thought. Only the regular experience of this field of “Total Knowledge” enlivens the total brain physiology.

(my emphasis)

This is what a major network should have covered - at The Big Picture.

The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web.

Damien Hirst’s diamond skull: $24.95 edition.

The 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube