Alients and UFO's Are Real

Apollo Astronaut Mitchell Says Aliens Exist and The Government Doesn't Want You To Know About Them

Now seventy-seven years old, the sixth man to walk on the surface of the moon told a stunned radio audience that Aliens from other worlds have contacted humans and that governments have purposely covered up what they have learned about these entities. Mitchell describes the beings as “little people who look strange to us.” He says that the traditional description of creatures with a small body frame, large eyes and over-sized head is accurate.

Mitchell told radio host Nick Margerrison, “'It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it… I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit.”

Source: 9/24/08

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=8307

Shock and Awe... About Prices

So what would 25 cents buy in the '50's?

This menu from Woolworth's will bring back good memories to some of you, and disbelief to others.

Click on the menu to enlarge.

Source: thanks to the Big Boy

3D Web Is The Next Killer App

Now that over 80 % of American homes have web access, the next frontier is 3D video in high definition.

Over the last 30 years, we have gone from punch cards to DOS typed commands to drag-and-drop folders to Windows Vista's 3D panels

Now, what real estate, home decorating, or architectural firm wouldn't want their clients to be able to see high definition, 3 dimensional images?

Bandwidth and processing power are constantly growing, leading to several convergent trends.

Interfaces are moving closer to reality. Hardware that makes 3D immersion possible starting to now reach consumers' homes.

WSJ, 7/17/08, Benjamin Duranske reporting

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121625069754060057.html

Return of the bag lunch

It's no surprise with the cost of gas that people are brown bagging it more than ever.

Instead of indulging in a roasted portobello sandwich and gourmet chips at a nearby bistro, many workers are now brown-bagging it.

As the comparison (see left) shows, the cost of brown bagging it is about 1/2 of a similar lunch from an upscale deli.

In fact, online bag retailer eBags.com saw sales of lunch bags and coolers increase 39% in June over the year before.

Other workers are turning to cheaper alternatives -- like subsidized or free corporate cafeterias and cheaper fast-food spots.

WSJ 5/15/08 Dana Mattioli reporting

Donna (Still Sizzling-Hot) Summer

Donna Summer has an most impressive body of work of any artist associated with the disco era, selling some 130 million recordings. Her voice, powerful in the mid-range and thrilling when it soars, is still a wonder, and on stage she plays to perfection the role of approachable icon.

Her first brush with international acclaim was in 1975 with the disco favorite "Love to Love You Baby," but by decade's end she had added blues, funk, rock and soul to her sound on "Bad Girls," the best-selling album of her career.

Her first new album in 17 years, "Crayon" is a musical variety pack. The blistering "I'm a Fire" is as close as the album gets to disco. "Sand on My Feet" is a folk-rock ballad; "Drivin' Down Brazil," a samba; and the title cut, featuring Ziggy Marley, a reggae pop tune. "Slide Over Backwards" nestles her in with country harmonica and snapping percussion that bring to mind a back-porch blues jam. The ballad "Be Myself Again" is a powerhouse showcase for the singer.

WSJ 7/10/08, Jim Fuselli reporting

$20 Million Trove of Cartoons May Finally Get A Home

We have the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. The Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hockey Hall of Fame.

But why no Cartoon Hall of Fame?

Good news: a treasure trove of classic cartoons, worth $20 Million, may finally get a well deserved home.

Mort Walker, cartoonist for "Beetle Bailey," chronicling the lighter side of Army life, for 58 years, has amassed more than 200,000 pieces -- including comic books from heavyweights like "Spider-Man" creator Stan Lee and the late cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who died in 1970. The trove includes Mickey and Minnie Mouse drawings by Walt Disney and hand-drawn panels of "Peanuts" by Charles Schulz.

In 1996, Mr. Walker moved the collection to Boca Raton, Fla. He drew up plans for a majestic new space until two corporate sponsors filed for bankruptcy. The museum lost $5 million in expected donations and was unable to afford basic maintenance costs, Mr. Walker says. The bank foreclosed, he says, and the museum closed in 2002.

In 2007, Ohio State University Prof. Lucy Caswell, a former member of the cartoon museum's board of directors, began to talk with the Walkers about merging their collection with the university's own cartoon collection.

The university promised the art would be available for all to see, and the Walkers finally decided that was the way to go. The art arrived in Ohio last month.

From WSJ, 7-16-08, Mary Pilon reporting

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121615221992855615.html

Welcome to the Sunshine ? State

It's July in Florida and we have hot days then about 5 PM the skies open.


We won't be adding water to the pool for awhile.


Our community has a so-called "intelligent watering system", technology run amuk, intended to read soil dryness.




When it rains heavily, the "brain" never fails to sends commands up to the satellite starting the sprinklers full blast.


For you golfers, a few new water hazards along the fairway.

The American Dream -- 8 years later

[click to expand]

courtesy of News-Press, Doug MacGregor

iPhone - Pricey but Nifty

According to Walt Mossberg at WSJ, new iPhone is pricey but nifty.


Pros
...significantly faster than older iPhone
...availability of third-party software could be the biggest attraction to the new iPhone 3G.
...all in one web device functionality, ease and simplicity of use.
...ability to synchronize all of your content, e-mails, pix, music, etc. automatically, so whatever you do on iPhone, those same changes are loaded onto your other network computers

Cons
...AT&T Inc., has effectively negated the iPhone's up-front price cut by jacking up its monthly fee for unlimited data use by $10.
...Over the course of the two-year contract you must sign to get the lower hardware prices, that adds $240, overwhelming the $200 savings on the phone itself. If you want text messaging, the cost rises further. With the first iPhone, 200 text messages a month came free. Now, 200 messages will cost $5 a month, or another $120 over the two-year contract.
...iPhone 3G's battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks.
...significant problem because, unlike most other smart phones, the iPhone has a sealed battery that can't be replaced with a spare.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121555740704037313.html

A Bridezilla Floatilla !!

Here's a FL lifestyle way of getting married

We were staying at local resort, minding our own business, when a noisy bridal party arrived by boat, a Bridezilla Floatilla.

Afternoon was hot and wedding party was already trashed when bridal reception began at dockside bar.

The blushing bride paraded around poolside in modified bra, panties and veil. One celebrants couldn't walk she was so toasted; her husband guided her away from walking into pool. Several party guys jumped in the pool and were unceremoniously called "out" by the lifeguard/baby sitter.

[click on pictures to expand]

About Virtues

From Peggy Noonan, WSJ 6/22/08, about virtues

When somebody dies, we tell his story and try to define and isolate what was special about it—what it was he brought to the party, how he enhanced life by showing up. In this way we educate ourselves about what really matters. Or, often, re-educate ourselves, for "man needs more to be reminded than instructed."

(In Tim Russert's passing, we were reminded of the virtues of) taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," said Ronald Reagan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121390975307189781.html

Ollie Johnston - Last of the Red Hot Animators

From Wall Street Journal - 4/22/08

Ollie Johnston was born the same year the Titanic sank. When he died last week in his 96th year -- on the anniversary of the night the ill-fated liner struck the iceberg -- he was the last of a now-vanished breed of 20th-century American artist.

Disney's Nine Old Men, with Johnston fifth from the left, in an early 1950s photo.

For Johnston was a master animator (of the hand-drawn variety) who worked directly with Walt Disney on such pioneering, gold-standard films as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), "Pinocchio" (1940), "Fantasia" (1940) and "Bambi" (1942). Later, he became one of Disney's legendary "Nine Old Men," an elite group of animators who maintained the highest standards of animation performance in such later classics as "Cinderella" (1950), "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), "Peter Pan" (1953), "Lady and the Tramp" (1955), "101 Dalmatians" (1961) and "The Jungle Book" (1967)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882212448633049.html

A Message from the Founding Fathers

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

July 4th Wish - Bring Back the "Can-Do"

Almost 7 years later, Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center stood, is a 16-acre reminder of bureaucratic gridlock as 19 governmental entities "each lay claim to some component of the project", according to the latest Port Authority analysis.

The most optimistic scenario has the new structure opening no earlier than 10 years after 9/11.

The wish on this July 4th... lets make government accountable again. Let's return to a "can do" approach, what made America great.

A shining reminder of this is the Empire State Building. The entire building was constructed in just one year and 45 days -- an amazing feat -- both on time and $10 million under its $50 million budget.



HAPPY 4th of JULY !!!

The Best Weather Forecasting Tool

Gary's rock beats doppler first-alert radar any day ! Click on it to expand the pic.

Cool iPhone Timeline -- Apple's Patience Pays Off

From digg, timelines are not usually cool but this iPhone one is. Click on it to expand the pic.

Inspired Madness -- Warner Bros. Cartoons

From Wall Street Journal, Inspired by a Bunny Wabbit, 6/28/08


The Mount Rushmore of Warner Bros. cartoons would be composed of the not-so-solemn faces of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and the token human, Elmer Fudd. As a young viewer, I had no doubts about the superiority of this gang to the characters of Disney. Disney cartoons were tame, conventional, Apollonian. Warner Bros.' were manic, unnerving, iconoclastic, spastic, Dionysian. The most telling difference was that the Disney characters had romantic partners, spouses, even families of a kind. There was something treacly about the scenes where Mickey and Minnie's smooches were accompanied by all those little red hearts floating in the air. Donald had his Daisy and somehow three nephews even though their parent, the duck's brother or sister, was never mentioned. The Disney characters were socialized, domesticated, bourgeois. Warner Bros. characters, with the exception of hen-pecked Porky and his Petunia, were mavericks -- unregenerate, anti-social. There is no Mrs. Fudd. And a Mrs. Daffy Duck? Inconceivable. Sex in the Warner toons was more likely to be transgressive and connected to deception, especially cross-dressing. Bugs is quick to put on a frock and kiss Elmer on the mouth but only for the purpose of fooling his perennial victim. Disney-romance led to marriage. Warner Brothers-romance was linked to guile and aimed at redress.

Spy Satellites Amongst Us

BERKELEY, California -- For most people, photographing something that isn't there might be tough. Not so for Trevor Paglen.

His shots of 189 secret spy satellites are the subject of a new exhibit -- despite the fact that, officially speaking, the satellites don't exist. The Other Night Sky, on display at the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum through September 14, is only a small selection from the 1,500 astrophotographs Paglen has taken thus far.

In taking these photos, Paglen is trying to draw a metaphorical connection between modern government secrecy and the doctrine of the Catholic Church in Galileo's time.

"What would it mean to find these secret moons in orbit around the earth in the same way that Galileo found these moons that shouldn't exist in orbit around Jupiter?" Paglen says.

Satellites are just the latest in Paglen's photography of supposedly nonexistent subjects. To date, he's snapped haunting images of various military sites in the Nevada deserts, "torture taxis" (private planes that whisk people off to secret prisons without judicial oversight) and uniform patches from various top-secret military programs.

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2008/06/secret_satellites

Here's my Prez. campaign ad... just click on arrow, bottom of screen, left side

Here's one of my self portraits