An important message

It's been months since i've written anything here, it's true, but i'm back with an important message:

DON'T VOTE ROMNEY

There's a sizeable section of the working-to-middle class that are under the general impression that having a multimillionaire in office will somehow help them become multimillionaires by association. That will not happen. Wolves do not not teach sheep how to eat like wolves, they merely eat the sheep. Look to recent-to-present-day Italy for an example. They will just sell you out.

Illustration: There's a billionaire, a blue collar and a poor man all at the dinner table with a pie. The billionaire, with seven of the eight slices of the pie, says to the blue collar, "Watch out! That guy over there wants to steal your slice!"

anneshelby wrote (Sep 21, 2012 8:36pm EDT):

Is Romney in poverty? Why is he paying poverty level tax rates? He pays less than someone making $8,701 a year.
tax rates –
10% $0 – $8,700
15% $8,701 – $35,350
25% $35,351 – $85,650
28% $85,651 – $178,650
33% $178,651 – $388,350
35% $388,351+

That is all. Do the right thing.

Michigan voted 50th most intelligent state

...voted by a panel of one...me.

• Most Michiganders support paying 6% Michigan sales tax for online purchases, poll shows. Proves that most Michigan citizens actually believe in paying for things you shouldn't have to. Maybe the American 0.1%-1% should be paying more than 14% of income tax on their earnings, like most of the middle class (right-leaning or not) is paying out. Let's see what that does for state income.
• “Are they allowed to be here?”, asked 17-year-old high school student Dana Messman, regarding the protesters outside (400 feet outside from the outside) of the University of Michigan's Glick Fieldhouse, Ann Arbor, MI where President Obama gave his speech. Are they allowed to be here? Really? Says Attorney and passerby Barry Goodman, “I don’t agree with what they’re saying, but they have a right to be there.” Uhmmm, just in case y'all forgot.
• And, me, even though Google has changed their privacy policy and terms of service effective March 1, 2012, i'm still posting with their Blogger service, still using their GMail service, still watching and posting on their YouTube service, and own an Android-based phone which lays bare any and all my movements telephonic. From their privacy policy FAQ:

We believe anonymizing IP addresses after 9 months and cookies in our search engine logs after 18 months strikes the right balance

Right balance of what? Now i'm not so naive that we get all these nifty Google services without some kind of price. Of course their data collection is probably all in the making a buck and probably not in some evil scheme to literally rule the world, a la Pinky and The Brain. Nevertheless, three-quarters of a year? A year and a half? Google thinks anonymizing (which is not erasing) IP addresses after 6480 hours strikes the right balance.
And yet, here i am...pointing you to YouTube... We are morons, tried and true; and we'll do our yell for you... (go to 3'54")

I'm so rude

A belated but sincere Happy 2012 to you all.

Just saw this article about Mitt Romney on the site i read far too often (why, The Detroit Free Press' RSS feed). It seems to confirm a lot of suspicions not just about Romney but the whole shrinking middle class/1%/economic crisis polemic we all are dealing with. And somebody actually had the nerve to ask me last year, did a poor man ever give you a job? Maybe not, but apparently not all rich men create jobs either. Or even help the economic landscape.

Meanwhile (via NYT, grazie Slashdot), there's an article on how Apple's manufacturing operations are almost entirely overseas. Prize winning quote: We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible. Heartless. Bragging how their chinese slave labor camps are more resiliant than the american work force.

Happy New Year, everybody. And Happy Birthday, Edie!

We're all water

Benetton, scoppia caso internazionale - Vaticano minaccia azioni legali, Obama irritato
(Benetton creates international scandal - Vatican threatens legal action, Obama not amused)
Warning: the Repubblica article contains a pop-up window.

© respective owner. Upload believed to be fair usage.

In other news, violent clash between student protesters and police in Milan yesterday. The demonstration subject: We don't want a new government ruled by the banks. And i think i pretty much side with this sentiment, being how these are the same organizations that put the entire world in the position it finds itself in recent years.

After being forcibly expunged from Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park -- that's why i couldn't place it mentally) in lower Manhattan, Occupy Wall Street protesters are now occupying the Brookyln Bridge.

Eye Candy

ROSA from Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.


Evelyn Evelyn "Have You Seen My Sister Evelyn" Music Video from Amanda Palmer on Vimeo.

And...

Happy Birthday, Joey Tomorrow! “I ain't got the time/For your peace of mind!"

Gang of four

Vivendi buys EMI for $1,900,000,000.00. Now all recorded music is owned, for the most part, by one of four companies (Vivendi, Sony, Warner and BMG). Almost every recording label is a subsidiary of these four conglomerates.

Art imitates art

photo © respective owner

Separated at birth?

BOOM!, Part II: Indignati

18:28:02 – smoke from the exploded Carabinieri van (maria?) in piazza San Giovanni, photographed from the roof of the Rome office.

Whether you like it or not

Still here, still alive. Working working working... general VFX and the like for a couple of films, of which one i did the opening titles (AmeriQua), plus other dancing baloney graphic things for italian TV and not.

Be back later...

BOOM!

Did i scare ya?

DuPont Imprelis

Simple Google search for the single word "Imprelis", DuPont's chemical herbicide.

As of 1 August 2011, eight of the ten displayed hyperlinks are not marketing/product pages.

From Michigan State University: What to do with Imprelis-affected trees
Also from Michigan State: Imprelis herbicide may injure evergreens
From Mother Earth News: Imprelis, another deadly herbicide, this time from DuPont

If DuPont's EPA-approved Imprelis (aminocyclopyrachlor) is causing said alleged ecological damage (it has yet to be legally proven), what could be expected as far as clean-up goes? What could you possibly do in a contamination situation, if such a situation were to exist?

Drink bottled water and don't eat your garden's vegetables.

Joey

"I'm filling up your H...ehm, SD card...heh heh heh..."
"Thanks!...and killing the battery all at the same time."

Strike terror into their hearts

I realize i'm coming in late on this but...

On 18 May 2011 here at Rome's Termini Station, a statue of Pope John Paul II was inaugurated to not a small amount of controversy and various polemics. I'll leave the search up to you if yr really interested. "Google is your friend," said the idiot who keeps a blog on Google's servers.

Strangely enough, even though i pass near Termini quite frequently (i live within walking distance) i hadn't seen the statue until many weeks later, while i was on (probably) the 75 bus. And this is what i saw (click the pics for a larger view)...

...coming from Piazza dei Cinquecento onto viale Enrico De Nicola...

...and from viale Enrico De Nicola.

Well...! It seriously took me minutes to realize who this new statue was supposed to be, even though i'd seen all of the fuss on the TG and the newspapers/websites. I seriously was thinking of another equally famous personality. And after my brain made the necessary connections, i still said (like many others had), "it doesn't even look like him!" But what i wanna know is what's with the cape?

Anyway, after weeks and weeks of threatening a little guerilla art, i have been dissuaded by two things: i could never pull it off physically and even if i could it's surrounded by surveillence cameras. It wouldn't have been a simple tag-and-run. So without further ado, i present the virtual version of my little piece of urban sabotage...



Works much better in this context, don't you agree?

Selected photos

I dreamt...

...of a song last night/this morning. Upon waking i had the phrase "...hide your madness in jar..." repeating in my head. My brain ran through its semi-vast index of songs, artists and lyrics...and nothing. For some reason i kept thinking it was something off of the "White Album," specifically Dear Prudence, but i knew that was wrong (for some reason i kept playing the Siouxsie and The Banshees version in my head). I then branched off into other territory, hoping to find the answer.

Nothing.

It took the "Answerer of all questions" to relieve the nagging. How sad.

Hard news

FLASH! -- This just in from the Detroit Free Press website...

Detroit bomb squad investigates suspicious garbage bag, finds it's just garbage

And just in case, as in the past, the article "Symes", here's a screenshot of the page...




DFP Staff, i'm sure that Pulitzer is being giftwrapped as we speak! I have got to stop reading the Free Press so often.

Borders Group in liquidation

I just read that Borders Group has filed for liquidation in US Bankruptcy Court yesterday (via the Detroit Free Press). Which i find sad. I remember i loved going to Borders bookstore. I mean it was always a near-religious experience for me. Seriously. I can't explain why. It's not as if it was the first bookstore i'd ever encountered (that would probably be recently-defunct mall staple B. Dalton). Maybe because of its size: from my first visit to the Ann Arbor location in the early eighties to my semi-regular visits to the Southfield bookstore, it just seemed like acres of books! And it seemed as if they covered the gamut of the printed word (which they probably did for the most part). Like some kids going to the ice cream shop, that was me going to Borders. Barnes & Noble?! Why, they're just an imitation of the Borders look and feel!*

The last books i'd bought from a physical bookstore were from a Borders franchise in the Atlanta (i'm pretty sure) airport. At the urging of the cashier i'd even signed up for their emailings. But that was in 2006 and a pretty generic experience, not the Borders experience i'd remembered. Obviously, being on the other side of the world for the last 15-ish years made it difficult to visit them. I eventually found their mailings with their exclusive offers and e-coupons pointless and i eventually unsubscribed. These last few years of books came from an online presence...another online presence...not Borders. Borders without walls, without a physical presence, made no sense to me. It was to be experienced, not just ordered from like a pizza joint. And maybe that was part of the problem.

The article also mentions how changing reading habits (i.e., eBooks) played a part in Borders' closing. Whereas i think this is just management not moving in step with the times, for many years now i've had this...fear...for the future of the printed book. While i can appreciate all the advantages of delivering media in electronic form, it also raises the bar of entry, especially in the matter of books...and reading...and literacy. Not that the closing of the Borders chain has anything to do with that. But i can't help feeling how one is just a signpost for the other.

* I honestly don't know in this case who copied whose style. I was first introduced to Borders before Barnes & Noble had a presence in the Detroit area...and i'm stickin' to that! :P

I did not know that!

As the late Johnny Carson used to say. According to this article on the Detroit Free Press' website, Detroit's People Mover, well, moves about 3,500 riders daily...5,000-6,000 on weekends and even more during special events. (emphasis mine)

Nine tells me (as well as our friend Wikipedia) it costs 50¢ to ride. 50 cents! That's nothing! According to Wikipedia, ...in fiscal year 1999-2000, the city spent $3.00 for every $0.50 rider fare, according to The Detroit News. That's ten years ago and it's still 50¢! I mean, would it be that big a deal to raise it to, say, a dollar? I mean, a dollar! That's still nothing! It's not as if the city couldn't use the fiscal help right now.

Nine says don't give them any ideas!

Cookies

Direct Hit Warning: heavy geekiness ahead.

Okay, there're utmas and phpbbs and apaches, and a plethora of others but...what the hell is this?!...

(No subject)

Listening to: Pete and The Pirates...a lot!

According to the Detroit Free Press' site, today's most popular non-sports-related articles are...

• Police: Man bites off wife's eyelid, chases her with steak knife in domestic dispute
• Feral cat population in metro Detroit overwhelms animal welfare groups, residents
• Kwame Kilpatrick autobiography goes on preorder

...what, i gotta add one of my smart-ass comments to this?

But, just in case, like my link to Detroit's third-place national ranking in bedbugs disappeared, here's a brief rundown...

A 32-year-old Clinton Township, Rahsaan Lavonte Thedford, man could spend up to 10 years in jail if convicted of biting off his wife's eyelid during an argument.

"I find this crime absolutely heinous," St. Clair Shores Police Detective Margaret Eidt said today. "In 18 years of being a police officer and detective, this is the first time I've ever seen a case like this."

Eidt said Thedford's wife called police from her car outside her St. Clair Shores home at 4 a.m. on May 8, Mother's Day.

In the Mother’s Day incident, Thedford is accused of punching his wife in the face when: "He was on top of her, leaned over and bit her eyelid off,” Eidt said.

Police caught him about a block away, trying to climb under a chain-link fence to hide in a yard, Eidt added.

***

By one estimate, there are about 657,000 feral cats in metro Detroit -- that's 16 cats for every seat at Comerica Park. The cat population strains animal control and animal welfare groups, which say they have limited money and space.

***

And as far as the Kilpatrick book...well...celebrity porn is/has been/will be what it is. Famous, infamous...

Ah, and one last link under the most commented section (and the headline says it all)...
New study: You can't live on minimum wage
...well, thanks, Captain Obvious! We love our graphics and so...

***

Moving right along, today is a national holiday here in Italy: the anniversary of the founding of the Italian republic in 1946 as well as the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. I will also refrain from wisecracks here as well. Here's the BBC's photo...
The link will take you to the BBC Week in Pictures. It's the fifth photo from the left.

...and live from the terrazzo of the Rome office...

And lastly, Feex got her Macbook back from the shop and has finally returned to her digital life. Feexy, i missed you!