Introduction to "An American Carol"

This is hilarious!

David Zucker beat us to it ... visit the website, get involved!

See the slide show.

Also as a Facebook group, Michael's own page, and Moove Along, democrazy in action ...

Grassroots Politics

The real meaning of grassroots-up politics (possibly only appreciated if you don't belong to a postmodern elite, otherwise known as the caste of armchair socialists).

Pat Garrett Performs "Moose Shootin' Mama" Live On Fox 29


There's more ... McCain Sings Streisand ... the fun side of politics...

Victor Davis Hanson compares the grass roots with the ivory towers: "While civilization advances on the shoulders of the educated, it is carried along by the legs of the muscular classes. And the latter are not there by some magical IQ test or a natural filtering process that separates the wheat from the chaff, but rather by either birth, or, as often, by their preference for action and the physical world."

The New Stuff of Fabulous Fab

PJM: "Manufacturing on Demand: The Future Is Now", by Charlie Martin

Computer and internet technology is bringing big changes to daily life: music distribution without the need for big physical production plants, electronic book publishing, and even what the continuing advances in computer technology will mean to computers themselves. All of these changes really come down to one central idea: increasingly the real product is information, not a physical object built around that information. (...)

Now, it happens that I have on my desk a lovely little object (...) made by my old friend Bathsheba Grossman, a mathematical sculptor, using a 3D printing process. Imagine, just for a second, how your regular ink-jet printer works. (...) The print head scans across the paper, and the platen moves the paper upward; every place the paper should be black, the print head spits a tiny dot of waxy black ink at the paper. If you keep going back and forth over the paper, you can imagine how the waxy ink would build up to be thicker and thicker.

These metal objects are “printed” in much the same way, except to make them of metal, the “ink” is a kind of resin “glue” that sticks together fine metal powder. Later, the metal objects are heated, which drives off the glue and bonds the metal, a process called “sintering.” Sheba then does a few manual finishing steps, but the result is an object that really can’t be made by any other method — and it comes off the printer in a matter of hours. (...)

This notion of quickly turning a digital description into a physical object is becoming known as “rapid prototyping,” with a range of possible technologies: numerically-controlled machining, various kinds of “3D printing” like Sheba uses, even numerically controlled woodworking. (You can find a nice summary of the different technologies at the University of Utah Rapid Prototyping Home Page, and this Rapid Prototyping tutorial page.)

We’re pretty much at the MITS 8800 stage of manufacturing on demand — there’s no guessing which technologies will come out to be the winners. But we can make some guesses what the eventual results will be, if we just think about what the computer revolution has already done. (...)

If you want a particular style of fork and can find it on the Internet, you can have it: send it to a fabrication company (or maybe even have your own at-home 3D printer — you can already make a do-it-yourself version, like the Fab@Home project) and within hours or days you have your fork. If you have a design for a fork, you can sketch it with something like Sketch-Up, advertise it and sell it. No need to have a factory, no need to pitch it to a big company, no need to share the rights. (...)

What will it mean when everyone can be a designer and a manufacturer, just as computer technology lets everyone be a publisher, or cut and sell a record?

Start thinking about it. The time is coming. >>>

McCartney: Live and Let Die

Jihad Watch: "Jihadists: We'll kill Paul McCartney if he plays Israel"

"We’ll Kill Sir Paul If He Plays Israel," by Dennis Rice in the Sunday Express, September 14 (thanks to Kyros):

SIR Paul McCartney has been threatened that he will be the target of suicide bombers unless he abandons plans to play his first concert in Israel.

When you were young, and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live. But in this ever changing world in which we live in, makes you give in and cry -- live and let die...

Self-styled preacher of hate Omar Bakri claimed the former Beatle’s decision to take part in the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary celebrations had made him an enemy of all Muslims.

Such a mean old man.

Sources said Sir Paul was shocked but refused to be intimidated.

He never listens to them. He knows that they're the fools.

In an interview with Israeli media yesterday he said: “I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel.” (...) >>>

Here's one earning his noble title. Always knew there'd be something in him we would be proud of, except being an exceptional modern composer - one for the ages! Bravo Sir Paul, a hero with moral courage at last ...

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The Light of a Fifties Icon

Art Daily: "Opelvillen Museum in Russelheim Shows Romy Schneider Portraits Never Exhibited Before"

The Opelvillen Museum in Rüsselsheim will open a photographic exhibition on Austrian actress Romy Schneider with a collection of 130 portraits, 40 of which have never been exhibited.

The exhibition is titled "Memory is Frequently Prettier - Photographic Portraits of Romy Schneider" and will show daily scenes and professional scenes of the actress that became famous for playing the part of "Sisi", Empress Elizabeth of Austria.

The exhibition will be on view through December 28 and includes images taken by photographers such as Werner Bokelberg, Peter Brüchmann and Roger Fritz.

Exhibition curator Beate Kemfert said, "Romy Schneider was photographed thousands of times, nevertheless she was always enigmatic.

Among the images is a portrait by Herbert List of the teenage artist, who only photographed her once, as well as a series by Robert Lebeck from the 1950's. (...) The actress would have been 70 years old on September 23. She was found dead in 1982 at her home in Paris at the age of 43. >>>

Related:

- Romy Schneider biography

The Obama Campaign: the Gift that Keeps On Giving

The Obama campaign is getting a teeny bit anaemic and could do with a shot in the biceps. Yesterday some genius suggested to put out a sarky toned commercial, dropping a few subtle memes in the line of 'Dems-for-the-economy-stupid' and a blunt one on the jaw that John McCain isn't in touch because "he doesn't know how to send an email!!!!" Sheer brilliance!




Too bad
Unfortunately they forgot that the reason John McCain doesn't send emails is because his fingers were crushed so badly during torture by the Viet Cong that he cannot use a keyboard.

You'll think of something
But it's cool, dudes of Obamaland, no need to apologize! You can always say that the opponent "seized on a innocent remark and took it out of context" - that "it's catnip for the news media."

Unfit to tie the laces of his shoes
It's no big deal ... America likes to see their tortured, disabled war heroes becoming the butt of politically motivated jokes. A tortured war hero comes home, recovers against the odds, but cannot tie his own shoes, comb his hair, or use a keyboard. A young start-up thinks it’s a clever idea for a campaign poster.

Blame, pass it on
Be careful with the sharp end of that incisive humor or you'll cut yourself badly one of these days. You know what, if you lose the elections you can always blame America's latent racism, or accuse the Republicans of vile Rove tactics.

Keep 'em coming ...

Boston Globe: "McCain character loyal to a fault," by Mary Leonard, Globe Staff, 3/4/2000

"(...) McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. (...) After Vietnam, McCain had Ann Lawrence, a physical therapist, help him regain flexibility in his leg, which had been frozen in an extended position by a shattered knee. It was the only way he could hope to resume his career as a Navy flier, but Lawrence said the treatment, taken twice a week for six months, was excruciatingly painful. "He endured it, he wouldn't settle for less,"' said Lawrence, who rejoiced with McCain when he passed the Navy physical. "I have never seen such toughness and resolve (...)" >>>

Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs, The Astute Bloggers
















- More cartoons by Glenn McCoy -

- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House" -

Have You Forgotten?

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Earth to Planet Niburu: We're Still Here!

It is said that man's mind needs some form of religion.

The Postmodernists admitted as much after relentlessly attacking Christianity for most of their existence; they went on to propagate Hinduism and Buddhism; protect, aid and abet assertive Islamism; peddle New Ageism, and creating the Emerging Church - a form of Christianity that manages to combine, without the slightest cognitive dissonance, the absolutism of the message of Jesus Christ with agnosticism, as far as truth is concerned! The same is practiced in pomo politics.

It is also said that if no longer accepting organized religion people will believe anything, specifically clueless, peawitted Narcissists, doing philosophy with theoretical physics, the same reason why relativists refer to Einstein's Theory of Relativity for an explanation.

It cannot be said enough: you cannot use chemistry for doing math, you cannot use physics to do philosophy.

A little knowledge is a terrible thing.

CERN: Hadron Collider (enlarged photo here) - here explained in three minutes


Update 23rd Sep 2008 - adding insult to the injuries of the technology Luddites, not planet earth exploded, but the contraption itself went rather flat - the ultimate anticlimax ...

Gallimaufry & Chips: "Large Hadron Collider Results"

It would appear that £4 billion has been spent to produce an anticlimax which isn't actually a little bit of a little bit of an atom but just the announcement that the experiment designed to break things has broken itself. (...) >>>