inkbluesky

trees, shed and mountains wallpaper

If I didn’t put up the occasional tattoo photo the most popular clicks on this site would probably be the landscapes like the ones pictured above or the photos of Japan that I put over the last week or so. Still the fact that people given a choice will click on humans first then landscapes makes this story a little surprising, Beauty of the beasts

Animals were the first things that human beings drew. Not plants. Not landscapes. Not even themselves. But animals. Why? The earliest known drawings are some 30,000 years old. They survive in the depths of caves in western Europe. The fact that some people crawled for half a mile or more along underground passages through the blackness is evidence enough that the production of such pictures was an act of great importance to these artists.

But what was their purpose? Maybe drawing was an essential part of the ceremonials they believed were necessary to ensure success in hunting. Maybe the paintings were intended not to bring about the death of the creatures portrayed but, on the contrary, to ensure their continued fertility so that the people would have a permanent source of meat. We cannot tell. One thing, however, is certain. These drawings are amazingly assured, wonderfully accurate and often breathtakingly beautiful.

Some nice photos and the rest of the story at the link.

Remember or have you read about Iran-Contra, the scandal where the Reagan Administration sold arms to Iran and used the profits to fund a secret war in Latin America? We seem to be having a Iran-Contra Redux where the Bush administration is secretly funding groups affiliated with al-Queda to fight Shias affiliated with Iran, Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups [VIDEO]

Seymour Hersh’s latest piece in the New Yorker reveals that the Pentagon is accelerating plans for an attack on Iran, that ex-Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte is moving to the State Dept because he’s “too ethical” for the Pentagon and that the president is pushing the “absolute limit” of his authority in bypassing Congress and sowing the seeds of an even greater Middle East clusterf*ck.

There are so many problems here, not the least of which is watching one of the most oafish, incompetent, and ignorant administrations in history attempt to reach something like equilibrium or control by playing with the various factions and sub-factions of Islam in the Middle East. It’s like watching a spastic pre-teen wander into a ceramics studio. Except with the possibility of nuclear war.

I’d vote for a spastic fourteen year old before I’d vote for these amateurs who are clearly in over their heads.

note: Too bad there isn’t a way that I could make money for typos. I could make a fortune.

Psychological Needs Of Military Personnel And Their Families Are Increasing, Reports Task Force

According to the APA Report, a growing number of military personnel and their families are reporting emotional problems resulting from deployment stress. More than 30 percent of all soldiers met the criteria for a mental disorder but less than half (23-40%) of those with mental health concerns sought help. Moreover, these figures do not include those who don’t identify concerns or those who develop symptoms after returning from deployments.

They’re not getting the psychological help they need for the usual reason, lack of access - not enough qualified counselors, but there is another reason,

Further, according to the report, stigma and negative attitudes within the military about obtaining mental health treatment often prevent those in need of care from seeking it.

Here we are in the 21st century and there is still a stigma attached to emotional problems. Tough it out, cheer up just isn’t enough sometimes. Its odd that many work places acknowledge stress and being “stressed out” is a common complaint.

graphic art: yellow number 6

Did this casket contain Christ’s bones? (photo at link)

The ossuary discovered 25 years ago that was yesterday claimed to be the burial casket of Jesus

However, his claims were contested by scholars and priests in Jerusalem, where the casket was found miles away from the traditional site of Jesus’ burial in the city’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, some academics insisted that it was a routine archaeological find and that its inscription, “Jesus son of Joseph”, features two names common in the 1st century AD.

snip

However, if the tomb is accepted as that of the Holy Family, it raises a more controversial challenge to Christian orthodoxy. For alongside the casket of “Jesus” and “Mariamene” is one for “Judah son of Jesus”, implying that the Messiah had a son. “I have never doubted that there was a historical Jesus, that he walked the Earth, but the simple fact is that there has never been a shred of physical archaeological evidence to support that fact until right now,” said Mr Cameron.

For some scholars however, the extravagant claims made by the film makers are not matched by equivalent in-depth academic research. Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who oversaw work on the site upon its discovery, dismissed its new-found Hollywood treatment. “It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave,” he told reporters in Jerusalem. “

I saw Cameron and a gentleman who’s name I don’t remember  on the Today Show and Cameron’s friend came off as a hustler. If Cameron has a case to make it might want to consider someone else as his sidekick. This is one of those news events where people of varying camps for their own reasons have already staked out one side or the other. One thing that struck me was the so-called DNA “evidence”. That would be great, but for one thing you would have to compare the DNA from the bones in the coffin to a known sample of Christ’s DNA.

japanese waterfall wallpaper

japanese waterfall wallpaper 1600×1200. i didn’t realize how popular this post and picture would become. seeing how many different monitor sizes there are now both regular and widescreen i thought i’d add a version big enough so that just about everyone should be able to resize or crop to fit their monitor.

They labeled this Best Joke of the Night,

Ellen DeGeneres opened this year’s Academy Awards ceremony by celebrating its newfound diversity, and she pointed to the bigoted rants of Michael Richards, Mel Gibson and Tim Hardaway: “If there weren’t blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars … or anyone named Oscar, when you think about it.”

I’d say it was a tie with Jerry Seinfeld,

When Jerry Seinfeld presented best documentary — referring to the five “incredibly depressing” nominees — he instantly made you wish he was hanging around a little longer

The documentaries are important, but they are like spinach most of the time we watch them because we they’re good for us not because we enjoy them.

Religion, Drugs Similarily Affect Brain

Some squirm at the notion that drug experiences are on the same level of “true” religious experiences. If manifestations of religious or spiritual experiences are simply the result of firing synapses in the brain, it would severely undercut the idea of an objective existence of “God.” Dr. Andrew Newberg, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has pioneered neuroimaging techniques of both believers and non-believers alike.

He found certain areas in the temporal lobe were excited during prayer or meditation, this is where the brain rates the significance of events which are then strongly internalized.

I’m not fond of Frederick Niche, but it appears that there is some literal truth in his statement that religion is the “opiate of the masses”.

How taxes are like dentists

Sanders’s (Senator Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt) office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family — the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune — would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.

The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation — some of the world’s evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D’Ivoire — if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That’s more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.

Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:

* Cox family (Cox cable TV) receives $9.7 billion tax break while education would get $1.5 billion in cuts

* Nordstrom family (Nordstrom dept. stores) receives $826.5 million tax break while Community Service Block Grants would be eliminated, a $630 million cut

* Ernest Gallo family (shitty wines) receives a $468.4 million cut while LIHEAP (heating oil to poor) would get a $420 million cut

And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.

Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children.

Somehow, to me, that’s the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers.

There are at least two things in life that people share a universal dislike for paying taxes and going to the dentist. Though most people are well aware of the consequences of not going to the dentist. As for paying taxes there is still that lingering myth that if our elected representatives would just make some tough decisions and cut waste we could all just pay a mere 10% or less and still have a great school system, the best trained military in the world, and a well trained fireman with equipped with all the latest life saving gizmos a phone call away. It doesn’t work that way, good government services costs money just like it costs money for good quality products and services in the private sector. Frequently government provides services at a great price compared to the private sector because profits aren’t an issue. This administration has certainly done a commendable job in keeping up the waste meme though; turning Medicare into a welfare program for pharmaceutical and health-care companies is a prime example. There’s nothing inherently wrong with throwing money at the problem, but spending the nation’s revenue is not like horseshoes you have to hit the target. Throwing money at Exxon or the Cox family or Paris Hilton doesn’t solve much unless you belong to The Church of the Great Trickle Down. BushCo and his supporters are in fact redistributing the wealth like no president in history, only they’re taking it from the middle-class and giving it to the richest ten percent. Its like going to the dentist, suffering through the anxiety, the needle with the Novocaine, the occasional pain spasm from the exposed nerve and later find out that she performed a root canal on the wrong tooth. When you go to the dentist or pay your taxes the least you can expect is value in return for your sacrifice.

evening fast lane wallpaper 

Poll: Most Popular Tattoo Is Chinese Character For ‘Unique’ 

In the United States, where body art and body modification are suddenly all the rage, the most popular tattoo design is the Chinese symbol for “unique,” according to a new survey by the American Association of Tattoo Artists.

For the first time, the design beat out other popular favorites, including the crucifix, the yin and yang, the butterfly on the lower back, the barbed wire around the upper arm, the heart with the knife through it, and the Chinese character for ‘original.’