inkbluesky

thunder road wallpaper 

The Tattoo Eraser

Until now. A company called Freedom-2, formed by a group of scientists, aims to re-write that history, and to wipe out any unwanted tattoos along the way. The researchers have created body art that can be removed in full with a single laser treatment.

“The main problem we have with removing tattoos is you can’t predict what the outcome’s going to be,” says Dr. Rox Anderson, a dermatologist at Harvard Medical School who co-founded Freedom-2. “We’re removing that gamble.”

Ancient forms of tattoo removal included primitive dermabrasion—scraping the skin with rough surfaces, such as sandpaper. Romans used such a method as early as the first century, when soldiers returned from exotic regions with taboo markings.

I’m trying to picture this Corporal Markus gets home from conquering Armenia and his mom yells go get the sandpaper those tattoos have to go. Anyway the trick to this new laser method isn’t so much the laser as the ink. Unlike some tattoo ink these news inks are safe pigments ( like beta carotene) and the laser breaks up the small nodules and the ink itself is then used safely absorbed by the body.

Congress, the Constitution and war 

President George W. Bush doesn’t seem to care that Congress wants a bigger role in guiding the Iraq war. Talking about his plan to send in 20,000 more troops, he said on “60 Minutes” that he knew Congress could vote against it, “but I’ve made my decision and we’re going forward.”

It is hardly the first time this president has insisted that he is “the decider,” or even the first time he’s used the Constitution to justify it, as Vice President Dick Cheney did when he told Fox News: “The Constitution is very clear that the president is in fact, under Article 2, the commander in chief.”

But Cheney told only half the story. Congress has war powers, too, and with 70 percent of Americans now opposed to Bush’s handling of the war, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, it is becoming more assertive about them. Congress is poised to pass a resolution denouncing the troop increase. Down the line, Congress may well consider mandatory caps on the number of troops in Iraq, or setting a date for withdrawal.

If it does, we may be headed toward a constitutional clash, with the administration trying to read powers into the Constitution — as it has with its “enemy combatant” doctrine and presidential “signing statements” — that the Founders did not put there. The Constitution’s drafters were intent on balancing power so no one branch could drift toward despotism.

Remember on 9-11 Bush was so engrossed in reading My Pet Goat that instead of excusing himself to respond immediately he stayed and finished reading. So it is little wonder that he doesn’t understand the Constitution or how a modern democracy works.

blue morning mist wallpaper 

Sociological Study of male serial killers in the United States from 1970 to 1992

The study found that social structural factors, such as the percentage of a state’s urban population, divorced residents, one-person households and unemployed residents, all helped to explain why some states and regions are home to more male serial killers. The study also found that cultural factors, such as a high ratio of executions to homicides and classification as a southern state, correlated with a higher rate of serial killers.

As far as serial killers go it looks like you’re in more danger in the red to purple states then the blue states. Even though the death penalty might be appropriate in some cases it turns the conventional wisdom on its ear that frequent use of the death penalty in a state actually contributes to the state having more violent crime.

Evgen Bavcar is blind. He is a photographer. Click the little boxes at the bottom to browse his gallery.

blue naked binary 

“Now, my friends,” I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, “I can give you self-evident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively.”

I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair which dominated every other feeling.
The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a sort of low, universal cry, and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.

from What Was It? A Mystery 1859, By Fitz-James O’Brien. By way of introduction to this:

The Mystery of Consciousness 

As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people’s sentience becomes ludicrous. “Hath not a Jew eyes?” asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew–or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog–a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.

And when you think about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11.

Think, too, about why we sometimes remind ourselves that “life is short.” It is an impetus to extend a gesture of affection to a loved one, to bury the hatchet in a pointless dispute, to use time productively rather than squander it. I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

This is part of a much longer essay about what we know and don’t know about human consciousness. The only part that gave me pause was they quoted Tom Wolfe, not the most irrelevant writer of our age, but close.  That anyone pays attention to anything the eliteness curmudgeon says is a wonder of consciousness or lack of.

frosty mittens wallpaper 

When I was growing up I had the ones made of fake leather with a fake shearling lining. They stayed dryer a little longer so you’re hands were a little slower to freeze during a snowball fight.

Culture Vulture: Art in the windows 

With commercialism, form usually follows function. When department stores began appearing in the mid-1800s, large expanses of glass panes — store windows — soon followed. Glassmakers adapted to supply the demand for these cumbersome yet fragile sheets of glass, and the design of buildings had to change in order to support them. Thus, the architectural design of commercial buildings changed forever.

With store windows began the art of “window dressing” or visual display design. Lyman Frank Baum, writer of the Oz series of books, edited a magazine devoted to the art of department store window visual design, which took on epic proportions in size, scale and grandiosity in the late 19th century. They still do in New York during the holidays.

With all respects to window dressers, commercial window design just isn’t something I find interesting, but it is interesting that the author of The Wizard of Oz edited a magazine about window dressing.

If you work for a company big or small, how many times can an employee totally screw-up before they’re canned, It’s even better than Kos reports

    PELOSI: He’s tried this two times — it’s failed twice. I asked him at the White House, ‘Mr. President, why do you think  this time it’s going to work?’

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn’t you tell them that the other two times?

M’s Pelosi’s problem is that she is part of the reality based community. She wants to know why after three years at a cost of around 9 billion dollars a month, the deaths of over 3000 Americans and half a millions Iraqis why Bush didn’t put his new sure fire plan in effect sooner. And for those that appreciate irony, DAVOS-U.S. invasion was “idiot decision”-Iraq vice president 

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an “idiot decision” and Iraqi troops now need to secure Baghdad to ensure the country’s future, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday.

“Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision,” Mahdi said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. (emphasis mine)