inkbluesky

Vista Leaves 3 wallpaper

31 States Record Increases in Adult Obesity 

The new report has Mississippi weighing in as the “largest” state, with 29.5 percent of its adult population considered obese. Alabama and West Virginia are second and third with 28.7 percent and 28.6 percent of the adult population, respectively, in the super-size category. Mississippi also has the highest combined level of obese plus overweight adults — 67.3 percent.

Overall, the South is the “Biggest Belt,” containing nine of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates. The region is also home to nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of diabetes and hypertension, both of which are associated with obesity.

One can’t help notice these red states that voted for Bush, not once, but twice have a collective obsessive compulsive eating disorder.

Only women need apply for traffic police

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is to create its first women-only traffic police unit because commanders believe they are less corrupt than men, a newspaper reported Monday.

The male-dominated traffic police routinely forgive traffic violations in exchange for bribes. Many believe this culture helps make Russia’s roads among the world’s most dangerous: about 35,000 people are killed in accidents each year.

Since men spend a good deal of their time and effort getting money so that they can get women, take women out, and on occasion getting married with the desire to care for said women, maybe we shouldn’t judge these bribe takers too harshly. On the other hand they could have used those bribes to get drunk, buy porn and play poker so bring on the women traffic cops.

amy acker portrait 3

Golden Gate Bridge Photo Album

If you have a slow connection like me click the link and go make a sandwich. When you get back there will be some historical photos of the building of the Golden gate. If you like history and old photos its worth the wait.

Money and Morals: A Time Line

Capitalism has been used to justify callousness, exploitation, even slavery. But among the greed weeds grow flowers of generosity and altruism, proof that capitalism is a human institution that can occasionally respond to our better natures.

Between A.D. 25 and 32 — Jesus throws the money changers out of the temple.

1736 — Philadelphia newspaper publisher Benjamin Franklin organizes the first North American volunteer fire brigade.

July 4, 1851 — The city of Baltimore celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by releasing all debtors from jail and firing guns in their honor.

1881 — Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie begins construction on a library in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland — the first of some 2,800 libraries he will fund.

1917 — The National Industrial Conference Board, a business organization, endorses the eight-hour workday.

1919 — Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company starts its Industrial Assembly, a kind of model House of Representatives designed to give its 30,000 employees more say in company affairs.

1946 — John D. Rockefeller Jr. donates $8.5 million to the United Nations for the site of its permanent headquarters in New York City.

1953 — In his book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman, pioneer Howard Bowen makes the case for corporate social responsibility.

1978 — The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility creates and coordinates the South African divestiture movement.

1981 — Musician Tom Petty threatens to change his album title from Hard Promises to $8.98 when MCA tries to sell it for $9.98. Petty prevails.

1982 — Actor Paul Newman founds Newman’s Own, a for-profit food company that donates all profits to some 1,000 charities.

1985 — Telecom Working Assets is founded with a social agenda: to support progressive causes.

1988 — At the request of Mexican coffee farmers, the Netherlands launches Max Havelaar, the first guaranteed fair trade label.

1994 — Rugmark Foundation, a nonprofit that works to end slavery in the rug and carpet industry, is established by rug companies and human rights organizations.

1997 — Media mogul Ted Turner announces his intention to donate $1 billion to the United Nations over 10 years.

One of the many ironies of our age is the corporate big wig that got his job because his uncle owns the company, gets upset at the state of the nation’s morals after the one second glimpse of Janet Jackson’s boob then sends lobbyists to Washington to get legislative relief in order to put  more arsenic in our drinking water, while giving himself a 20% rise and his workers a 1.8% raise. That’s not capitalism, that the corruption of capitalism. Obviously it doesn’t have to be that way.

Plain Bliss II wallpaper

Done by wallpaper artist dimage. Nice used as is , but also a good starter background to add your own enhancements.

Picasso’s Other Muse, of the Dachshund Kind

More than three decades after the deaths of the Spanish-born artist and the German-born dachshund, Mr. Duncan has published “Picasso and Lump: A Dachshund’s Odyssey” (Bulfinch Press, $24.95), a 100-page book of photographs taken in 1957 that show Lump as the top dog in the Villa La Californie, Picasso’s hillside mansion in Cannes.

The sequence starts on April 19, 1957, the day that Lump met Picasso. Mr. Duncan, who had first photographed Picasso a year earlier, brought Lump along for the ride, largely because the dog did not get along well with Mr. Duncan’s other pet, an Afghan hound called Kublai Khan.

Picasso was an a**hole, but that doesn’t mean his art and the little things, like small dogs that inspired it isn’t interesting.

Andrew Sullivan is also worthy of name calling, but he does deliver this bit of absurd and ironic news, Bush’s final gamble: giving Iraq a dictator? 

But last week the new nugget: an anonymous “military affairs expert” attended a White House briefing and reported: “Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy. Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect, but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.”

Indeed. The number of civilian casualties in what can now only be called Iraq’s civil war grows with each month. The thousands of innocent Iraqis killed in the past month dwarfs the civilian losses in Lebanon and Israel. The attempt by Nouri al-Maliki’s government to put down sectarian warfare in Baghdad has failed, requiring more US troops in the capital and thus abandoning the heartland of the insurgency, Anbar, to the enemy. General John Abizaid, head of American forces in the Middle East, told the Senate earlier this month that violence in Iraq is “probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular”.

Install a totalitarian puppet government like we did in Iran forty years ago and that won’t come back to haunt us? A crisis brought on by people that look like they mapped out their foreign policy using a weegie board and now that they’ve failed America and the people of Iraq they reach into a bag of obsolete old tricks. Simply brilliant in a twisted sick kind of way.

every move you make

Black Light Tattoos

No, it’s not an X-ray. It’s actually the hottest trend in tattoo art. Richie, an artist in Canon City, Colo., has achieved fame for these black light tattoos that are almost invisible in daylight but show in great detail with a black light. Richie says that black light tattoos are more expensive and take longer, but that his clients love them.

There are some pics at the link. Good idea that could be executed a little better.

Charlize Theron is Serious About Censorship

Charlize Theron has taken some chances as an actress, and now she’s moved into the heady world of producing documentaries. In a fascinating interview with The Guardian, Theron discusses her role producing doc East of Havana, which recently premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. The film focuses on the issue of censorship in Cuba, told through the story of three young hip-hop artists struggling to create in a climate of poverty, censorship and restricted access to travel. Theron says in the piece, “the foundation of Cuba is censorship. You have to ask: would I take the free healthcare and education and accept being a prisoner in my soul?”

Always nice to have a fellow traveler in the anti-censorship wars. Somewhat related I’ve been to Miami a lot and know some older guys that remember Cuba before and after Castro and while I’m no fan of the old fart, they have a selective memory about the way things were before Castro, i.e. corrupt, brutal, no healthcare, dirty, prostitution was rampant. So I’m not of the school, that for Cubans anyway it was very simple choice between no censorship and healthcare. There are those like myself that would opt for no censorship, but I would feel uncomfortable making that choice for others or their families.