Friday, January 31, 2014

The Go Go's: Vaseline Advert

File Under: Madison Ave. Woman Thang



Beer Buzz Observation: Have seen this commercial a couple of times & it's sort of gross. Seems like she's just a dirty woman who's avoiding a body cleaning, ie, shower or bath.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

If It Were Terrorism...

Note: Click Tom Tomorrow Comic To Enlarge

 

Monday, January 27, 2014

The GOP & Accountability

Supreme Court To Decide If Political Groups Can Lie In Advertising

Republican lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that they have a First Amendment right to lie during political campaigns.

The case concerns a challenge by a national anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), which tried to put up a billboard in 2010 attacking Rep. Steven Driehaus, D-Ohio, saying that he was pro-abortion because he supported Obamacare.

The Democratic incumbent stopped the billboard by threatening to sue SBA’s ad agency. He also filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission (OEC) that the ad would have violated a state law making it a crime to knowingly lie in a campaign ad. The OEC found probable cause to proceed with a case, which, in turn, prompted a series of court challenges that is now before the Supreme Court and will be heard later this year.


Note: Click Link For Complete Salon Article By Steven Rosenfeld Of AlterNet


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More from Salon.com:

The 9 Best Moments From Edward Snowden’s Online Q&A

For the first time since last summer, the former NSA contractor took questions from the public.


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The New York Times Editorial Board:

A Hidden Threat in the Farm Bill

The mammoth farm bill is reportedly near a conference compromise in Congress, bristling with more tragic cuts in the food stamp program for the needy and a revision of lucrative commodity subsidies for mostly big farmers. Running below the radar is a dangerous, broadly written amendment that would threaten states’ current powers to enact their own agricultural standards — standards that can extend far beyond farmyards to consumer, worker and environmental safety.

The amendment amounts to a federal fiat that states cannot set mandatory standards on agricultural products that block competition from farmers in other states where standards are looser. The amendment was approved by the Republican-dominated House at the instigation of Representative Steve King, the Iowa Republican and Tea Party champion. He is determined to protect his state’s egg producers from a new California requirement that hens thrive in more humane conditions — basically, a bit more room to move around in their cages.

Mr. King, a notorious mocker of animal protection reform, insists his amendment is “severely limited in scope” to stop “radical” protectionist advantages for California egg producers that he feels violate interstate commerce. But it is far from that specific and is so sweeping and vaguely worded that it threatens all manner of current state prerogatives. This from an avowed opponent of clumsy federal intrusion into local life.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has properly urged rejection of the amendment because it would pre-empt assorted local agricultural policies vital in protecting “our farmland, waterways, forests and most importantly, the health and welfare of our constituents.”


Note: Click Link For Complete NY Times Editorial


Update: Farm Bill Compromise

Washington — House and Senate negotiators on Monday agreed on a new five-year farm bill that will eliminate or consolidate dozens of agriculture subsidy programs, expand government-subsidized crop insurance and cut about $8 billion from the food stamp program over the next decade.

The bipartisan agreement, two years after lawmakers began work on the nearly $1 trillion bill, is a major step forward in reauthorizing hundreds of farm and nutrition programs that must be renewed every five years. And, at least for now, it brings an end to the partisan fighting that stalled two previous attempts to pass the legislation. The bill would reduce spending by about $23 billion over the next 10 years.

The House is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday. It is unclear when the Senate will take up the legislation. Many Senate Democrats are likely to be unhappy with the food stamps measure, which cuts roughly twice as much as senators approved in May.

Yet the food stamp cuts may not be large enough to appease House conservatives, who in June helped defeat a bill backed by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio that would have cut $20 billion from the program. The House eventually passed a bill covering only nutrition programs that would have sliced nearly $40 billion from food stamps.

The negotiations were headed by the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, Representative Frank D. Lucas,  Republican of Oklahoma, and Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan.

The deal “puts us on the verge of enacting a five-year farm bill that saves taxpayers billions, eliminates unnecessary subsidies, creates a more effective farm safety net and helps farmers and businesses create jobs,” Ms. Stabenow said.

The new bill would make the most significant changes to farm programs in decades. It would create a new milk insurance subsidy program and place a cap on farm subsidy payments.

It is expected to leave in place the federal sugar program, which is a combination of import restrictions and production quotas that are intended to keep the price of American sugar well above that available on the world market.

The full details of the bill have not been released.


Note: Click Link For Complete NY Times Article By Ron Nixon


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Say What?

"If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it." -- Mike Huckabee

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Free at Noon: The Pixies

World Cafe - Fri., Jan. 24th, Philadelphia


















Set List:

Monkey Gone to Heaven
In Heaven / Andro Queen
Silver Snail
Greens and Blues
Indie Cindy
Nimrod’s Son
Caribou
Here Comes Your Man


Note: Click Title Link For Show Stream

Photo of The Pixies by John Vettese

Thursday, January 23, 2014

The Fly: Thurston Moore’s 38 Favourite Songs

Tapper Zukie - "Man Ah Warrior"
Patti Smith - "Godspeed"
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - "Orphans"
Mars - "3E"
Public Image LTD - "Public Image"
The Slits - "Love Und Romance"
The Raincoats - "In Love"
Captain Beefheart - "Electricity"
Alice Cooper - "Is It My Body?"
T. Rex - "Children Of The Revolution"
Archie Shepp - "Blasé"
Billie Holiday - "Gloomy Sunday"
Nirvana - "Dive"
Mudhoney - "In 'N Out of Grace"
Dinosaur Jr. - "Little Fury Things"
Jackson C. Frank - "Blues Run The Game"
Bush Tetras - "Too Many Creeps"
The Germs - "Caught In My Eye"
Boredoms - "Born To Anal"
Lou Reed - Satellite Of Love"
Beach Boys - "Hang On To Your Ego"
David Bowie - "Five Years"
Sparks - "Equator"
Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Hong Kong Garden"
The Damned - "New Rose"
The Mentally - "Gacy's Place"
Minor Threat - "Out Of Step"
Black Flag - " I've Got To Run"
The Untouchables - "Nic Fit"
Iron Cross - "Fight Em All"
The Faith - "It's Time"
Void - "My Rules"
Negative Approach - "Nothing"
Youth Brigade - "It's About Time We Had A Change"
State Of Alert - "Gonna Haveta Fight"
Anne Briggs - "Go Your Way"
The Fugs - "Crystal Liaison"
Jimi Hendrix - "Freedom"


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Hat-Tip: Large Hearted Boy (Blog)

Note: Click Title Link For Listicle Listen

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

In Memoriam: Dennis Oppenheim

September 6, 1938 - January 21, 2011







































“Device to Root Out Evil”
Made of Galvanized Steel, Perforated Metal, & Venetian Glass
20' H x 10' W x 12' D
1997









































Study for: Device To Root Out Evil
Pencil, Colored Pencil, Oil Wash & Oil Pastel on Paper
77" x 50
1997

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Personal Note:

In the early 90's while living in NYC, was a plant technician with various accounts, both residential & business.

Every Tues. or Thursday, for about 2 years, had an account in Tribeca. The Duplex Apartment was located on either the 8th or 12th floor. The maid would buzz me up.

I probably watered & took care of about 20 or so house plants. Was usually there for about 40 minutes per week. When upstairs in the master bedroom taking care of a few plants would always look out the large windows. Great view.

Remember watching for about 6 months, even during winter, an artist working on a building rooftop two or three streets over. He was constantly sanding, using both hand & machine, a couple of large pieces made of what looked like fiberglass. The forms were sort of semi-dome shaped & later included attached small passageways between the structures. Also, he occasionally used some kind of spray-gun to add materials to the pieces. Paint? More fiberglass?

About a year or two later, saw a Soho show featuring new sculptures by Dennis Oppenheim.

Thought it cool & sort of funny when I quickly realized that these pieces were the ones I had watched being crafted over a prolonged period of time while watering the house plants of some person I never met.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Three Cookie Fortunes

Faith Is Personal, But Never Private.

Learn Chinese:

Fruit - shui guo

Lucky Numbers:

56, 24, 21, 7, 16, 3


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Working Out The Kinks Today Will Make For A Better Tomorrow.

Learn Chinese:

Dish - cai

Lucky Numbers:

22, 13, 16, 54, 41, 9


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Most Recent Cookie Fortune:


It Is Much Wiser To Take Advice Than To Give It.

Learn Chinese:

Curry Chicken - ka li ji

Lucky Numbers:

44, 54, 5, 51, 42, 1

Friday, January 17, 2014

Beautiful Decay: Playful Penguin Paperback Paintings by Harland Miller


 



Note: Click Title Link for More Paintings by Harland Miller & B/D Post by Stacy Dacheux

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Infographic: Can TIME Predict Your Politics?

Personality Quiz: See how your preferences in dogs, Internet browsers, and 10 other items predict your partisan leanings.

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Survey Says - 78% Liberal 22% Conservative

Monday, January 13, 2014

Court Backs Shielding of Data Collection Legal Memo From Public Scrutiny

WASHINGTON — A Federal Appeals Court on Friday (Jan. 3rd) ruled that the Obama administration may continue to withhold a Justice Department memo that apparently opened a loophole in laws protecting the privacy of consumer data.

The memo establishes the legal basis for telephone companies to hand over customers’ calling records to the government without a subpoena or court order, even when there is no emergency, according to a 2010 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The details of the legal theory, and the circumstances in which it could be invoked, remain unclear.

The ruling, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, came down on the side of a broad conception of the executive branch’s power to keep secret its interpretation of what the law permits it to do. The ruling may make it easier for the government to shield other memos by the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document at issue is a classified memo issued by the Office of Legal Counsel on Jan. 8, 2010. A report later that year by the Justice Department’s inspector general at the time, Glenn A. Fine, disclosed the memo’s existence and its broad conclusion that telephone companies may voluntarily provide records to the government “without legal process or a qualifying emergency,” notwithstanding the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.


Note: Click Title Link For Complete NY Times Article By Charlie Savage


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ProPublica: No Warrant, No Problem - How the Government Can Get Your Digital Data


Xtra: Wired - How The NSA Almost Killed The Internet

 

Friday, January 10, 2014

Dangerous Minds: DADA

Destructive Agitation Against Everything

When he was in exile in Zurich in 1916, the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin would visit the DADAist club Cabaret Voltaire. Lenin was writing his revolutionary plans for a future socialist Russia, and he was living in an apartment nearby the club.

The Cabaret Voltaire had been founded by Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, with the intention of making it a cabaret for radical artistic and political purposes. It was also a focal point for refugees and conscientious objectors, who had fled to Switzerland to avoid fighting in the First World War.

Lenin considered himself quite revolutionary, but when confronted with the nonsense poems, the shouting and verbal abuse, the noise poems, and the endless drumming, the future Russian leader was left confused, and wondered whether this was perhaps how real revolution began?

Were these performers more revolutionary than Lenin himself? Or, were they just privileged bourgeoisie play-acting at being revolutionaries? Lenin approached one of the performers and said:


”I don’t know how radical you are, or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough; that is, one must always be as radical as reality itself.”


DADA was like Punk, but without the Rock. It was subversive, dangerous and revolutionary. European DADA was originally created as a protest movement against war. It was formed by a small group of immigrants from Germany (Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Richard Hülsenbeck), Romania (Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara), and Austria (Walter Serner). These individuals were politically motivated, and wanted to express a new kind of mentality, a “destructive agitation against everything,"

DADA may have been a small movement, responding to the “moral bankruptcy” of the day, but its influence has touched upon almost all major artistic and cultural movements of the twentieth century

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Note: Click DM Title Link for Complete Post by Paul Gallagher plus 1968 Documentary
by Helmut Herbst

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Small Town Adverts: Port Richmond Star (Philadelphia)




























Note: Photos by Michael S. - Barkeep at Julie's Corner Bar (Port Richmond Philadelphia)

Monday, January 6, 2014

Favorite Jokes of Scientists

Two theoretical physicists are lost at the top of a mountain.

Theoretical physicist No 1 pulls out a map and peruses it for a while.

Then he turns to theoretical physicist No 2 and says: "Hey, I've figured it out. I know where we are."

"Where are we then?"

"Do you see that mountain over there?"

"Yes."

"Well… THAT'S where we are."


-- Jeff Forshaw, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester


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Note: Click Title Link for More Guardian Science Humor

Thursday, January 2, 2014

April 1st & Jan. 2nd

District Judge Upholds Government’s Right to Search Electronics at Border

The government’s right to search travelers’ electronic devices at the border was upheld in a ruling released by a federal judge on Tuesday, which dismissed a lawsuit challenging this policy.

In his opinion, Judge Edward R. Korman of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York found that the plaintiffs did not have standing for their lawsuit because such searches occur so rarely that “there is not a substantial risk that their electronic devices will be subject to a search or seizure without reasonable suspicion.”

Even if the plaintiffs did have standing, Judge Korman found that they would lose on the merits of the case, ruling that the government does not need reasonable suspicion to examine or confiscate a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other device at the border.

“There’s no silver lining to this decision,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the plaintiffs. “It’s not just that we lost the case. It’s that the judge decided against us on multiple alternative grounds.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by Pascal Abidor, a graduate student in Islamic studies, who sued the government after American border agents removed him from an Amtrak train crossing from Canada to New York. He was handcuffed, placed in a cell and questioned for several hours, then his laptop was seized and kept for 11 days.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association were also plaintiffs in the case, arguing that their members travel with confidential information that should be protected from government scrutiny.

In rejecting this argument, Judge Korman cited the rarity of electronic device searches and questioned whether travelers need to carry computers containing sensitive data when they travel abroad.

“While it is true that laptops may make overseas work more convenient,” he wrote, “the precautions plaintiffs may choose to take to ‘mitigate’ the alleged harm associated with the remote possibility of a border search are simply among the many inconveniences associated with international travel.”

Mr. Abidor said he was disappointed but not entirely surprised by the ruling.

“I can’t say it wasn’t foreseeable based on the line of questioning by the judge during the initial hearing,” Mr. Abidor said. “He just seemed so skeptical of the basic premise that people need to travel with devices.”

“These checks are essential to enforcing the law, and protecting national security and public safety,”
Peter Boogaard, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement, “always with the shared goals of protecting the American people while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.”

In his opinion, Judge Korman emphasized how infrequently border agents search or detain electronic devices, but it is unclear how accurately the government tracks these statistics.

According to Customs and Border Protection, the agency conducts about 15 device searches a day at American entry points. But a 2011 assessment of this practice by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency, cited problems with how these incidents are counted.

The report noted: “C.B.P.’s system for entering the results of electronic device searches did not allow analysts to accurately identify incidents and seizures related to electronic device search activity, thus hindering C.B.P.’s ability to monitor and evaluate performance and making it difficult to provide accurate operational data concerning searches of electronic devices.”


Note: Click Here for Complete New York Times Article by Susan Stellin


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NY Times Editorial: Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower

Considering the value of his leaks and the N.S.A. abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden should be offered clemency or a plea bargain