Way cool sculptures by Tony Sikorski, who works in Wood and Corrugated.

Note that these are all sculptures -- and not drawings

Corrugated
click for larger photos

Wood

via Hemmings Classic Car

Posted at 07:04 AM in Art & Design, Automobiles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger graphic

Source:
NOAA National Climate Data Center

Posted at 09:39 AM in Current Affairs, Science | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Here's how it was done:

Posted at 06:59 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger graph

Source:
In Reviving New Orleans, a Challenge of Many Tiers
JOHN SCHWARTZ, ANDREW C. REVKIN and MATTHEW L. WALD
NYT, September 12, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/national/nationalspecial/12rebuild.html

Posted at 11:21 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

As a former NYC resident (Manahttan and Queens), I can tell you from first hand experience how true this is:

graphic courtesy of NYT

"It's damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Source:
At the Curb, an Exercise in Confusion
ANTHONY DEPALMA
NYT, September 12, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/nyregion/12recycle.html

Posted at 11:03 AM in Current Affairs, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Its no contest:

click for enormous graphic

>

Source:
In City of Skyscrapers, Which Is the Mightiest of the High?
DAVID W. DUNLAP
NYT, September 1, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/nyregion/01skyscraper.html

Posted at 09:22 AM in Art & Design | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Uh-oh:

click for video

What makes this so amusing and ironic is that the Veep ran on the platform of restoring dignity to the White House. Then Cheney dropped the F-Bomb to a Senator -- in the actual Senate Building.

Its ironic to see that what goes around comes aound . . . It would be even more so if any time Cheney appears in public, the crowd returns the favor!

via Crooks & Liars

Posted at 11:45 AM in Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNN put together a series of quotes from FEMA and Federal Officials, and then compares them to the reality on the ground:

The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible.

But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:

Conditions in the Convention Center

• FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of Brown explaining how news reports alerted FEMA to convention center chaos. -- 2:11)

• Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)

• CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.

• Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

Uncollected corpses

• Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate.

• Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. (See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36)

• Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.

Hospital evacuations

• Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

• CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. (Watch the video report of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45)

• Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough. (Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03)

Violence and civil unrest

• Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

• CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street.(Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)

The federal response:

• Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

• Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

• Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help.

• Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there.

• Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.

Security

• Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. (See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)

• Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

• Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

• Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

-- CNN, The big disconnect on New Orleans
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html

Note that the situation was so bad that Andrew Sullivan -- apparently replaced recently by Pod people -- had to draw a parallel to Iraq:

THE DISCONNECT: CNN - which has just had one of its finest hours - puts together a string of quotes from officials compared with what their own reporting showed at the time. The gap between Bush rhetoric and reality in America is stunning. Now transpose that to Iraq. And worry.

-Daily Dish

Posted at 08:05 AM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, the intelligent god of Pastafarianism:

NYT:

Is the super-intelligent, super-popular god known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster any match for the prophets of intelligent design?

This month, the Kansas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to allow teaching alternatives to evolution like intelligent design (the theory that a smart being designed the universe). And President Bush and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee both gave the thumbs up to teaching intelligent design.

Long before that, Bobby Henderson, a 25-year-old with a physics degree from Oregon State University, had a divine vision. An intelligent god, a Flying Spaghetti Monster, he said, "revealed himself to me in a dream."

He posted a sketch on his Web site, venganza.org, showing an airborne tangle of spaghetti and meatballs with two eyes looming over a mountain, trees and a stick man labeled "midgit." Prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, his site says, end with "ramen," not "amen."

Then, Mr. Henderson, who says on his site that he is desperately trying to avoid taking a job programming slot machines in Las Vegas, posted an open letter to the Kansas board.

In perfect deadpan he wrote that although he agreed that science students should "hear multiple viewpoints" of how the universe came to be, he was worried that they would be hearing only one theory of intelligent design. After all, he noted, there are many such theories, including his own fervent belief that "the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster." He demanded equal time in the classroom and threatened a lawsuit.

Soon he was flooded with e-mail messages. Ninety-five percent of those who wrote to him, he said on his Web site, were "in favor of teaching Flying Spaghetti Monsterism in schools." Five percent suggested that he would be going to hell. Lawyers contacted him inquiring how serious he was about a lawsuit against the Kansas board. His answer: "Very."

Source:
But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There?
By SARAH BOXER
Published: August 29, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/arts/design/29mons.html

Posted at 06:16 AM in Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Music Industry insider Bob Lefsetz rants about the current state of Government:

"Driving in Santa Monica earlier today I heard George Bush on the radio.  He
said to send cash.  To the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

I want to send cash.  But I want to send it to the government.

The head of FEMA took the right wing position yesterday.  He blamed the
predicament of those in New Orleans on themselves.  They just didn't follow
instructions.  They needed to LEAVE when warned.

But it's not easy to leave if you're dirt poor and have no transportation.  I
was just about ready for some Republican to tell those in New Orleans to HELP
themselves.  Isn't that their position?  Your life situation is of your own
doing?  And you should prepare for the inevitable disaster?  By saving?

That's not very Christian.

My understanding is Christianity is about being compassionate, helping your
brother.

Although I share those values, I don't happen to be a Christian.  So, I'm not
exactly happy with placing all charity in the hands of a religious
organization.  I'd rather place my faith in the government.

We need a government.  That's what the tragedy and lawlessness in New Orleans
evidences.  We need a police force.  And services.

Services.  They don't come free.  You've got to pay for them.  And you do
this through TAXES!

The Republicans have succeeded in making "tax" a dirty word.  To the point
where nobody can run for office on a platform of increasing individual financial
liability to the government.  What do they say?  It's YOUR MONEY?  We don't
want to take it from you?

Well, why don't they then say you now won't get services.  That's what taxes
give you, a government that renders services.

I'm gonna let you in on a secret.  You can't spend money without wasting it. 
It can be simple.  You can buy the wrong paper for your printer, one that
doesn't render the proper finished product.  But does that mean you should shut
your business down, stop printing, because you blew $3.50?

If the government begins a program, money will be wasted.  It's INHERENT in
the process.  But that doesn't mean we should eliminate all programs.  We
should do the best we can to eliminate waste, but we shouldn't throw the baby out
with the bathwater.

The individualist philosophy that has invaded out country has lowered our
quality of life.  Let's not pay for education in the inner city, we don't live
there.  Then again, who ends up doing the work in your neighborhood, the stuff
you don't want to do?

I've been paying insurance on my domicile for THIRTY YEARS!  I've never
collected once.  But I keep paying, fearful a disaster COULD take place.  That's
how reasonable people run their lives.  We think about consequences.  But we
can't protect against ALL disasters.  I don't have a stockpile of groceries in my
house, of medicines, if an earthquake occurs, I'm counting on the government
to take care of me, at least get me through.  That's why I'm paying income
taxes and taxes on a whole host of other things.

I'm happy to pay a percentage of my earnings for services, for protection
against disaster.  It's an insurance policy just like the one I have on my house.

I want to drive the streets knowing that potholes will be filled in a
reasonable time.

I want bridges inspected so they don't collapse when I'm on them.

I want education funded so people can get reasonable jobs and not become drug
addicts and a scourge on society.  Making me fearful every time I leave my
house.

I want to pay for not only law and order, but a better place for ALL of us to
live.  I want to know there's a safety net for those hit by misfortune that
is unforeseeable, whether it be a hurricane, earthquake or medical problem.

Contrary to what the rich believe, flying in private aircraft, vacationing in
private enclaves, living in spacious apartments with doormen, we're all in
this together.  And if the poor people weren't buying your product, you wouldn't
HAVE these creature comforts.

Screw collecting for charity.  Raise taxes tomorrow.  On ALL of us.  Because
we're all going to be affected by this tragedy.  Just watch the price of
gasoline.

Posted at 06:29 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack