This is the Original Shot.
Not too bad. But..... Other Things are Possible..........
For example:
A Raku Fountain..
One of the things about digital photography that makes it so fun is the manipulation that can be done.
Here are some variations on the theme.
Do I qualify for Jerry Springer now? Well I suppose since it is just prescription shots of cortisone, maybe not. She probably won't bulk up like Barry Bond because I am pretty sure she won't be getting into any weight lifting regime and 'roid rage' is not a likely outcome. She has some sort of back problem or something and it is really very painful. She can not stand for more than 5 minutes at a time or walk for more about 200 feet.
That would be a bummer for anybody, but when one of your major entertainments is flea markets and estate sales and auctions and such, well it is a real bummer. I, for example, might not feel that put out by such a circumstance. A good chair, my wireless keyboard and mouse, a nice big monitor and I could computer geek it all day. Not good for me but reasonably satisfying.
Anyhow, now she has a 'Rascal', a red one, Ferrari racing colors I believe, though she did settle for the 5mph model instead of the 15mph model. Can you imagine that, 15mph on a Rascal. Like I told her thats fast enough to be a 'grab and go' shoplifter. I can see the headlines now; "Red Rascal Terrorizes Tuscon" or "Market Mesmerized by Marauding Madam".
With that kind of speed you could organize actually exciting races in the park. Book the skateboard facilities three afternoons a week or something. With sponsors and all it could develop into big money, ESPN, pay per view, who knows! We baby boomers are a really growing market these days! Any maker out there going for that 20mph baby? In British racing Green?
The Grand and Glorious Protector of the Artiste has done it again. They have moved on from suing teenagers and grandmothers to suing Russian companies. Of course they sued the Russian company in a New York court because it is apparently acknowledged by all sides that the Russian company is in compliance with Russian law and therefore could not be successfully sued there. And such a nice realistic sum they sued for too! A mere $1.65 trillion in damages. Now according to a New York Times article annual music industry sales for the US are about $75 billion including concerts, merchandising and all other revenue streams. So I guess suing one Russian company for 22 years of music industry gross income is reasonable. Not!!!
And apparently the Russian site has deposited all the royalties with the Russian royalty collection body and the RIAA has not accepted the money, perhaps because it would weaken their claim of “not one penny paid” in royalties. I have no idea if the Russian company has actually deposited proper royalties and it may well be that they are not being “good industry citizens” but one thing I am sure of: For an organization that makes its money off the backs of artists to waste its money on lawsuits it can't win, for ridiculous sums of money, in the name of 'protecting' its clients is unconscionable.
The RIAA needs to reconstituted, but given the distressingly purchasable politician of this day and age I suspect that the best we can hope for is that it is soon relegated to irrelevancy by its own greed and stupidity as demonstrated by the above action.
The Iranian blustering and North Korean bargain hunting spree has put the question of Nuclear Disarmament in many peoples minds once again. And once again people are suggesting that if we really want nuclear weapons to not spread and to stop being a threat then we must do our part and disarm ourselves to show 'good faith' if nothing else. It puts me in mind of the great "Star Wars" kerfuffle. While there was, and still is, some effort being expended toward some projects of that type we can all be very thankful it hasn't actually worked.
At the time, there were a number of computer scientists and the like openly stating that such a system as could defend any place completely from attack by ICBMs was simply impossible to build. The computer software would be very complex and no complex software has ever been written 100 percent error free and, because of the nature of what the software would have to do, there would be no way to test it sufficiently to remove the 'bugs'.
The argument went as follows; Because the only way it could be particularly useful at all was if it was sure to be 100% effective, and because such complex systems simply are never 100% the first time, (or the second or third) and because it could not be tested to any really significant degree, the plan was doomed from the start. Having done some programming and even more software testing, I have to say that the argument is probably valid, but it maybe a little hard for most people to see.
But the problem becomes clearer if you look at it like this:
It takes perhaps 4 or 5 good nuclear bomb hits to effectively take a large country like the U.S. completely out any considerations of economic and/or military power in the world, so, assuming the country to be attacked cannot retaliate because they have relied on 'defense', all that is needed to beat them is to get 4 or 5 missiles through and the attacker wins. If the defense system is 99.9% effective the attacker sends 5000 and wins; if it is 99.99% effective the attacker sends 50000 missiles and wins. As you can see, only perfection in the defense will do for complete security.
What nobody ever pointed out, in anything I read, is what a disaster it would be if it worked.! Why? Just look at the following scenario:
The 'Star Wars” system is perfected and in place around the world (remember Reagan's promise). It is impossible for anyone , person or country, to get a hostile missile up into the air and back down again Nuclear peace at last!???? Everybody gets rid of their nuclear missiles because they can not use them. Of course they were never going to use them except as a retaliatory weapon anyway, but now they don't even need them for that. No retaliatory strikes possible so the missiles are not necessary.
Whoa! What was that last sentence? “ No retaliatory strikes possible.......”
That means that I, the long term planner and rightful inheritor of the world, can defeat the “Great Satan” and survive the conflict intact. All I need to do is build dozen suitcase bombs and secret them around New York, LA, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and say Chicago, then set them off and the “Great Satan” is ruined and can't do anything to me, even if they knew who I was, because they threw away their ability to retaliate as they die!. Now I dare an attack!
As distressingly nihilist as Mutually Assured Destruction sounds, it is still all that keeps friends and enemies working together to see that nobody starts the deadly chain reaction. And given that, a successful 'Star Wars' defense system might well be the worst thing that could happen in the world of nuclear politics.
I was reading an article, to which "www. military.com" had directed my attention, about bringing back the draft. The opening paragraphs follow:
WASHINGTON - Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.
"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.
In a way I sympathize with the goals of the sponsors of this bill. I can see the point of there being less readiness to start a war if the military was picked from the population at large.
However I think the best bet for really controlling the urge to war for fun and profit would be to mandate the selection of politicians over 50 and their wives, sons, daughters, grandsons, grand-daughters etc., first.
Of course there is another alternative that has been suggested before: Only those that have served in the military, or similar capacity, could vote or hold office and that only after having completed their service. That should both reduce the political support for war and make sure that the military was not short of manpower. And frankly if the possibility were opened to everybody in what ever capacity of military or community service they were capable of, I see no ethical or 'democratic' problem with the concept.
If military and quasi-military organizations were developed to perform, or assist with, all sorts of general "community services" ( for example: nursing aides and orderlys, teachers assistants, environmental cleanup, simple home care for the elderly and disabled, etc) there would be plenty of work to go around for all those wishing to avail themselves of their political privileges and the services provided could greatly improve the life of the community as a whole.
I do not think that democracy and an all-professional military are compatible and I do not think that being alive is particularly sufficient qualification for the exercise of political power. And while I certainly do not condone limitations to political rights based on such irrelevancies as gender or skin color or even age, I do think that it is reasonable to require a certain level of demonstrated commitment to the society that one wishes to exercise control in. A couple of years service to the society at "room and board and a little spending money" levels of reimbursement would be a good method of demonstrating that commitment.
There are numerous developments in the Internet world that should be of concern to all of us. One thing, of course, is the issue of 'net neutrality' which primarily revolves around data carriers attempts to be able to control who uses their services. Basically the deal is that companies like Verizon, Bell, etc. want to be able to sell exclusivity or priority on their available data streams to the highest bidder. Their claims that they need this ability to afford to develop more data carrying capability are completely fallacious, but they have found a way to make it sound reasonable and are willing to bribe as many politicians as necessary to make this happen. The possible profits for them are beyond calculation as they would, of course, quit wasting money on developing more capability and simply sell current capacity at the highest possible price. Can you imagine what, for example, Google might pay to have Yahoo, Ask.com, Amazon.com, etc. denied access or limited to slow dial up lines?
The article “Italy opens probe into Google over bullying video” ( look it up with a Google News Search) points to another insidious attack on the Internet as we know it. In this case the Italian government is trying to hold Google responsible for letting people see a video of four teenagers beating a disabled teen in a classroom in Turin. What the Italian government would have us believe is that Google committed some kind of crime by letting the public find this video on the Internet.
"I've said repeatedly that there can't be double standards, one for the press and television and another for the Internet," Fioroni told ANSA news agency.
The Internet search engine shared the same duty as other forms of media in distributing "responsible" content, he said.
It sounds quite reasonable but think a minute. Is the researcher who finds pictures of naked people in the middle of the New York Sunday Times guilty of the same breach of standards as the editors who put pictures of naked people in the middle of the New York Times? Well according to the Italian government finding illicit published material is the same crime as publishing illicit material. Hmmm!I suppose that the same argument could be made that if someone put the names of all the undercover CIA agents around the world in a flyer and passed it out by putting it under the windshield wipers of all the cars parked in New York City, it would be a reasonable and legal response to try all the people who read the flyer for treason and jail them for life. Only those that destroyed the document and erased all memory of it could be considered blameless.
These actions, in this case by the Italian government but actually distressingly common throughout the world, are taken because governments prefer secrecy. The last thing anyone in power actually wants is an informed public. The Internet scares the 'bejesus' out of the powerful.
Without certain tools the Internet is such a mass of diffuse data that it would be nearly useless, but the search engines, data miners, aggregators, etc. turn it into a tool that everyday people can use. Therefore, quite sensibly from their point of view, governments and powerful corporations have chosen to aim their attack at those tools. If they can manage to make the researchers responsible for what is found they will have effectively crippled the information dissemination potential of the Internet and helped restore the ignorance of the public.
Making these ridiculous attacks as many of the powerful have done, and giving in to them as Google, MSN and others have continually done is not a minor issue. Being a 'little bit' censored is a lot like being a 'little bit' pregnant. There really is no such thing!
