Gone Fishing

BREAKING NEWZ UPDATE!
Businessman looks at a painted portrait of Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne created by New York artist Geoffrey Raymond, on which people and Bear Stearns employees have written messages to Cayne expressing their anger about the collapse of the investment giant, in front of Bear Stearns headquarters in New York, May 29, 2008

Decapitating Sarah Jessica Parker

Seems like London’s resident mad doctor of street art THE DECAPITATOR feels the same way about Sarah Jessica Parker’s horse face and the impending Sex & The City movie as the rest of us do…

The Post-Car World

Thoughts of Decay by *Digidrama

Following up on the having a car is so 20th century post wagga sent me the following example of Americans changing their driving habits:
As rising gas prices leave drivers with ever-heftier tabs at the pump, Americans have started looking for ways to reduce the drain on their budget. For some, transitioning away from a one-person, one-car lifestyle has proved rewarding.

BTW don't forget to vote on the Laura Richardson foreclosure poll!

In other banal news, my Dr. confirmed I have chemical burns on my elbows.

À la recherche du temps perdu

memorial day by ~herekittykittay



memorial day by ~annalavigne

While you're enjoying your BBQ and day off, please take a moment to think about the more than 4000 troops in Iraq who died for...For what exactly?
Think of how many others are seriously crippled, brain-dead, committing suicide and ask yourself FOR WHAT EXACTLY?
FOR WHAT EXACTLY?????!!!!!!!!
For fucking what exactly?!!!!!!!
FOR FUCKING WHAT EXACTLY?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you find an answer that makes any ethical sense, please feel free to let me know what it might be.

The Post-American World

Zakaria's central thesis is that while the U.S. still has many unique assets, "the rise of the rest" -- the Chinas, the Indias, the Brazils and even smaller nonstate actors -- is creating a world where many other countries are slowly moving up to America's level of economic clout and self-assertion, in every realm. "Today, India has 18 all-news channels of its own," notes Zakaria. "And the perspectives they provide are very different from those you will get in the Western media. The rest now has the confidence to present its own narrative, where it is at the center."

For too long, argues Zakaria, America has taken its many natural assets -- its research universities, free markets and diversity of human talent -- and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health-care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness.

"That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing," argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term.

"They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game," he said. If we don't fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, "the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise."

When Wagga sent me this article mentioning Fareed Zakaria's “The Post-American World” I was reminded of this recent photo of Obama.

Other than "My Pet Goat" I wonder what Bush has read since he has been in office...

Andalusian Decay

hike on the wild side



bush infrastructure paradigm ?

Hat tip to Wagga for everything but the hot cave woman.

having a car is so 20th century

dizzy-in-Tokyo by ~petaluda

With car buying down by close to 33-percent since 1990, Japan is claimed to be in the grips of kuruma banare, which, for Japanese carmakers, is the polar opposite of hakuna matata.

It's being labeled the "demotorization" process, and it involves large numbers of people in Japan's urban centers not buying cars. Surveys have revealed a variety of reasons, from the cost of purchase and ownership, to vehicles simply not being status symbols anymore, to cars being passé -- as in "so 20th century." The greatest worry is that young folks are simply not into cars, preferring cell phones and gadgets to Cubes and keis. Losing their audience before the love affair has even begun is no doubt causing JDM manufacturers to lose sleep.
Excerpted from Is Japan facing a post-car society?
Hat tip to Wagga!

Kimiyuki Suda should be a perfect customer for Japan's carmakers. He's a young (34), successful executive at an Internet-services company in Tokyo and has plenty of disposable income. He used to own Toyota's Hilux Surf, a sport utility vehicle. But now he uses mostly subways and trains. "It's not inconvenient at all," he says. Besides, "having a car is so 20th century."
UPDATE!
I think Billary looks like an evil frog.