The big Animation...

So, I decided to create the gif animation above based on a news article today that proudly displayed the folks for all to see...

Well, the 'before' picture was one I created from the '2005' pic... I just made the duo thinner in Photoshop. That's a big fish - but THOSE ARE BIG PEOPLE! Do we as a society not see anything wrong with that? I'm not trying to single out overweight people here but there's definitely a difference between people with a thyroid problem and just plain ole' people who just eat and eat. That and they eat the wrong things.

I'm not innocent here. I am about 15 pounds overweight and need to lose that weight... but no one would look at me and say - "ewww" or "do you think they know they're that big?". I think I got that last one from an old Louie Anderson (rest his soul) comedy routine. But anyway, weight in our society is a serious issue and it speaks volumes about our society.

army...

So, this is my design to combine one of my favorite movies with one of the most gregarious ad hooks of all time. You can check out my website for more about my screen prints and art.

Not much news to report today. Its very wet down here. The town south of me had almost 30 inches of rain in the last couple days from Tropical Storm Fay. Sucks to be down there... actually, there were reports of alligators roaming the streets and catfish in people's yards. Weird... but not for land that was a swamp only 100 years ago.

Humans aren't very smart to build on such land.

sparing the rod...

Hey Parents, great job on raising your spoiled kid!
When I read the story below, I couldn't believe it. If there was a Matrix, lots of video game nuts would love to be plugged in... I found the below story after reading a similar story where players of the new World of Warcraft game complained of getting sick and physically ill from long bouts of playing the game - sometimes up to 18 hours. Insane! ... and yes, idiotic. But this, in my opinion, is where our society is headed. The longer we watch tv and play video games, the sooner we'll all become slaves.

16-year-old quits school to play video game
Mother "couldn't take the complaining anymore"
By Mike Smith


It's both a teenager's dream and a parent's worst nightmare.

Blake Peebles, a 16-year-old from Raleigh, NC., dropped out of high school last September in order to devote more time to playing Guitar Hero, according to an article in the Raleigh News & Observer. Peebles, who's receiving at-home tuition in lieu of his schooling, puts himself among the top 15 or 20 Guitar Hero players in the country, and has racked up about $1000 in prizes so far. Only a handful are able to make a living from professional gaming, but the number is growing. Peebles, who plays under the alias "Dreminem," hopes to become one of them. Although his parents didn't want him to ditch school, in the words of the article he "bugged them until they let him quit." "We couldn't take the complaining anymore," Peebles' mother Hunter told the News & Observer. "He always told me he thought school was a waste of time." Blake hopes to win a place at the 2008 World Cyber Games Grand Final, which takes place in Germany in November, where -- if successful -- he'd take on gamers from over 70 countries. Would he have better career prospects if he'd dropped out of school to be an actual guitarist? Time will tell.

tap...

Vegas is in a dead heat as to who Barack Obama's vice presidential pick will be. Who knows? I don't. But I doubt it will be either one... but then I don't know much. And after the pick is made, I don't think it will make much difference. Anyway, I think its amazing how much energy and effort goes into this process... the politics on television is a tired and dragged out process. Just like everything else the news reports - like Tropical Storm Fay that's supposedly assaulting us here in Florida now.

Nonsense.

The eye is about 50 miles from my house here and the only thing different about today than any other day is the wind is blowing and its raining, no different than a normal thunderstorm. Yet, if you listen to the news, the sky is falling... here's where the shelters are... here's what to do to hide from the storm... its just ridiculous. Sickening actually because there's no reason for this.

Blah blah blah.

breaking the banks...

This would be absolutely amazing... imagine, the federal government being forced to break up the big banks!? Yeah, what a dream right? Well, there's an article out now that's calling for that. An article isn't much but it is covering the mention of such things. Andrew Jackson would come back from the dead to see the big bank die.

Here's the article.

Breaking up big banks questioned as losses mount
Aug 16, 1:11 AM (ET)
By JOE BEL BRUNO

NEW YORK (AP) - America's biggest banks have suffered unprecedented losses from the ongoing credit crisis, and that's made some investors question whether the big financial conglomerates should be broken up in order to survive.

Break-up advocates, who for months have been clamoring for Citigroup Inc. (C) to be dismantled, got some validation of their viewpoint this past week. Europe's UBS AG (UBS) - created through the combination of Swiss Bank Corp. and Union Bank of Switzerland in 1997 - on Wednesday laid the groundwork to tear up its business model after another quarter of steep losses.

Though the UBS announcement was expected, it was nonetheless a departure from what executives promised during a wave of big bank deals that began in the late 1990s. The creators of global banks like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), and HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) had promised customers and shareholders that a diverse set of businesses would shield them from economic volatility.

But, those models haven't sheltered the banks from the subprime mortgage crisis that turned into a dislocation of the credit markets. Major global banks have taken more than $300 billion in asset write-downs, and organizations like the International Monetary Fund believe that amount could reach $1 trillion.

"The whole idea was, 'let's be so unbelievably diversified that we won't be affected,' but when the credit markets seize up, no matter what kind of financial company you are, everything seizes up," said William Smith, president of New York-based Smith Asset Management. "The UBS statement basically shows the model is a failure."

That's not what former Citigroup Chief Executive Sanford Weill envisioned when the company was created in 1998 by the combination of Citicorp and Travelers Group. He maintained that offering a mix of financial products - such as investment banking at Salomon Brothers, brokerage services through Smith Barney, and Citibank's retail and consumer banking - would protect the company.

Critics like Smith believe that Citigroup is worth more split up. Current CEO Vikram Pandit has rejected the idea, believing the company should come through the credit crisis in one piece.

But, John Reed, who as head of Citicorp forged the deal with Weill's Travelers Group, commented recently that the universal bank model didn't work. That's only been highlighted by Citigroup's stock price, down 71 percent from its 52-week high of $49.

Talk about how Citigroup and others should be structured will only intensify now that UBS appears to have turned its back on its "one bank" strategy. Switzerland's largest bank posted a hefty $5.1 billion write-down for the second quarter, and disclosed plans to separate its ailing investment bank from healthier businesses.

And, concerns about the execution of the business model are spreading, even among those who support the idea of financial conglomerates.

Ladenburg Thalmann's Richard X. Bove, one of the most outspoken banking analysts since the credit crisis began last year, wrote in a note that the "concept behind the creation of JPMorgan Chase has broken down."

Bove said JPMorgan's acquisition of Chicago's Bank One in 2004 was intended to beef up its consumer business, including banking and credit cards. That would help offset problems if the capital markets, like investment banking and related areas, were to falter. The problem is that both markets are currently weak.

He said JPMorgan's exposure was hurt further by the acquisition of crippled Bear Stearns in March. Still, despite all this, Bove feels the model is viable - and that JPMorgan can work through the troubles over a number of years by cutting costs and refining its businesses.

"No steel company can sell steel when auto manufacturers aren't selling cars, and no bank can make big profits when there's a weakness in the housing and credit markets," he said. "They have to ride out the cycle, minimize the losses, and maximize profits when the cycle returns. You can't restructure a company to avoid that cycle."

"In 1985, there were 14,500 banks in the U.S. - and now there's 7,200," he said. "For the past 23 years, six of them went away each week. The big universal banks might get hit, but they stay in business and come out with a bigger share of the market than they had before."

link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080816/D92J64J01.html

too much...

George Carlin will be sorely missed. Yeah, I'm about a month late, but you can never be too late when it comes to saluting talented recently deceased humans. So, last week I found a couple records at the garage sales. Two from Carlin from back in the 70's... the first was Class Clown and the second was Toledo Window box. If I think about it, I'll grab a couple clips out of one of these albums and post it - if not for any other reason than to compare and contrast the world events which happened in Viet Nam - vs - what's happening now with Iraq. Carlin brought up points from then in the 70's that could perfectly compare to what's happening now.

"History may not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes" - Mark Twain

fountain and youth...

Well, anyway, there's like some dudes out there in - like - the world or something that think they can, uh, make people young by like doing stuff with their cells or something... its pretty bad ass.


Scientists stop the ageing process
ABC Australia / AFP | August 12, 2008

Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says.

Published in today’s online edition of Nature Medicine, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger.

...more here at this link: http://www.infowars.com/?p=3919