… is really stupid. I fucking hate doing this. It’s retarded.
The pickup truck actually has a HUGE bed
Could they make this place any more depressing? This is what I imagine Gitmo being like (the super secret part… not the dog kennel area)
This is so not even close to everything… like my 5×10 box? Isn’t it homey?
Art shot… it’s art. I’m an artist. (if you don’t know me, you wouldn’t understand, but I’m not being serious)
The short answer: I’m weak and living on a boat fixes most of what I’m weak about.
I really dislike average… especially the average American “lifestyle”. The boat fixes most of this.
This isn’t to say I’m not fairly nervous about moving aboard. A lot has changed for me since I was 20 and living aboard in Boston. But, I’m optimistically excited that once I finish the dreaded task of getting rid of 10 years of shit it’ll be better.
Living aboard starts June 1st.
I haven’t gotten mine yet but I plan on giving it to the amazing Kiva organization.
Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.
I’m embarrassed that I only have $675 loaned out through Kiva. My brother (who owns EditMe) has loaned out way more.
So - hopefully, if I ever get $600 from Uncle Sam I can double that. It’s the least someone in the US can do…. especially given our current record.
Best of all - it’s not even giving away your money… just the less-than-inflation interest a lousy bank would give you. I’ve currently got 0% default and 0% delinquency using Kiva. When I get paid back I just roll it back into another Kiva loan. If I’m ever starving on the street the street I could pull the money back out (the money that’s been repaid). So, it’s barely even charity.
This is seriously the best explanation I’ve ever seen about how the modern banking system works. It finally all makes sense for me regarding the economy and the constant growth. I had some ideas - but this really ties it down.
Face it, there are a lot of really evil people out there that are fortunate enough to also be ruling over countries that don’t have oil (or other financial/political incentives) and are thus practically given a free hand to play their horrors out.
Short of building your own standing army (is Blackwater for rent?) how do the people of the world deal with these types.
Why, by assassination of course. Enter our new start-up AssassinTrade.com
It’s a revolutionary (literally) new virtual market place that allows you to bet on the demise, by assassination of some of the most evil bastards out there (Kim Il-sung, Mugabe, Generals in Burma, etc… it could be a very long list).
It’s like a futures market. We issues contracts (no, not those types of contracts) worth between 0 and 100 points. So, if you thought Mugabe was going to be assassinated and the current market price was 50 points you’d buy a contract expecting it to go up. If you thought Mugabe’s security personnel were top notch you’d buy the contract with the expectation that it’d go down (i.e. he dies by natural causes).
While still under discussion we are leaning towards coming up with a who’s-who list of the most evil leaders of corporations and countries based on human rights groups such as (but not limited to) Amnesty International.
We have toyed with allowing this to be a free for all, put anyone up you want, but we feel that it’d turn into a “wife wants husband dead” type site in short order and, we’re not trying to just be the eBay of assassination… we’re trying to bring justice to countries the world as a whole are ignoring (in action).
So, here’s the beautiful part of AssassinTrade.com. If the price is low and you’re an assassin you could buy tons of contracts, do the assassination, and make out like a bandit (literally). Unlike other markets like this, one person can really play the system. Say that everyone under the sun thinks Mugabe is going to be assassinated, the current contract price is over 90 points … well, you, the clever assassin could short buy contracts at say 2 points with the contract maturing in 1 month and then figure out how to make it appear that Mugabe died from natural causes (a bit of the old untraceable poison). Or maybe you just have an inside line on Mugabes latest physical.
In the spirit of living in a police state I suppose that it’s necessary to state that this is meant in jest (even though I think it’d make a killing [ha ha]). I also don’t own a gun or any other weapons more dangerous than a dart or a chef knife.
This week in Fascism is a weekly column with a collection of articles and videos show casing the slide into a fascist police state.
Preachy bit… skip if you just want the news:
It was a pretty busy week (as usual) in Fascism (they’re [the fascists] are all working hard, you’re probably not even reading this crap - who do you think will win?). I’m still blown away by how many “don’t have time” to learn about what’s going on. This is where the “sheeple” phrase comes from. I love this attitude in America that education stops the second you’re out of school. It’s true, there isn’t much you can do (short of becomimg a radical) to effect any of this, but, it’s your duty to at least know about it, spread the word and, at a bare minimum, write your reps.
Some federal air marshals have been denied entry to flights they are assigned to protect when their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list, and the agency says it’s now taking steps to make sure their agents are allowed to board in the future.
Air marshals’ names tagged on ‘no-fly’ list
Signed into law April 24, 2008, the oh-so innocent sounding Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007 establishes a national database of newborn DNA.
This law establishes collection and warehousing of newborn DNA for scientific research and requires no parental consent or knowledge.
In government, nothing is sacred
Journalist released from Guantánamo details beatings, extreme temperature exposures, sexual assault, and denial of medical care for his cancer, kidney infections, and injuries.
Journalist released from Guantánamo details abuse
Again, if you think something like 9/11 is beyond your governments imagination… it’s not. They’ve been planning crap like this for decades.
According to ABC News and government documents on Operation Northwoods, America’s top military leaders drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in US cities to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Approved in writing by the Pentagon Joint Chiefs, Operation Northwoods even proposed blowing up a US ship and hijacking planes as a false pretext for war.
Newsweek wakes up: Terrorist Triage
Why are the presidential candidates—and so many counterterrorism experts—afraid to say that the Al Qaeda threat is overrated?
Shareholders Revolt Against Bloated CEO Pay
“Where can you get a job where you do nothing to earn your money and get paid in advance?” asked one irate shareholder. “Citigroup!” Added another: “There is something wrong in this company.”
From an interview with Terry Gross (audio on site):
a president saying that he has the right to overturn George Washington’s 200-plus year prohibition against torture and torture anyone he wants, with his assistants gathered in the basement of the White House, according to recent revelations, personally reviewing the kinds of torture techniques being used prisoner by prisoner — it’s obscene!
But, they seem very good at wasting money. Bruce Schneier has more.
It’s a pretty sad day when one of the most admirable US politicians is an x-pro wrestler. You can say a lot of things about Ventura but he’s definitely not full of shit like the rest of DC.
Key war on terror architect Douglas Feith has now confirmed Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Wesley Clark in admitting that the so-called War on Terror is a hoax.
In fact, starting right after 9/11 — at the latest — the goal has always been to create “regime change” and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon so as to protect Israel. And the goal was never really to destroy Al Qaeda.
Neocons Admit that “War On Terror” Is a Hoax
discussion on Reddit link to the pdf
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I don’t trust government (and the health care companies that are running said government) but, seriously, a giant public database of health information (like Google is developing) would be seriously helpful to research.
[Video] This guy just refuses to play the game and is eventually sent on his way. These stops are supposedly common in the SW states along the border.
On CommonDreams: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
There is direct evidence that President George W. Bush did not honorably lead this nation, but deliberately misled it into a war he wanted. Bush and his administration knowingly lied to Congress and to the American public — lies that have cost the lives of more than 4,000 young American soldiers and close to $1 trillion.
Charley Resse writes a good article on what we should all be aware of…
Who would have guessed that George W. Bush, who seemed to be a genial good old boy, would turn out to be a tyrant, launching wars of aggression, arresting and confining people without charges or access to a lawyer, condoning torture and lying to the American people? A government that can without trial destroy you by simply putting on a list your name or the name of an organization with which you are associated is a tyranny. A government that invades other countries and that feels free to murder people in any country it chooses is a tyranny.
Americans are on the edge of a long night. We had better wake up and step back before it’s too late.
Patenting life is a bad idea. Unlike the genetically modified corn that Monsanto is ruining people’s lives with, the patent on the pig is simply a patent on a gene pattern they’ve found that produces meatier pigs. That’s right, it’s not new, it effect huge percentages of existing pigs. The Monsanto Patent for a Pig is a really good documentary on this.
I managed to get in a 23 minute flight yesterday (13 minutes longer than a sled ride) by finding a bit of lift on the way down. I still did pretty badly (lots of people were up for hours). For shits-n-grins I recorded the track on the way down…
It was raining when I headed over to Tiger but, just as we got to the top, it cleared up. I got an OK 15 minute flight in (better pilots were up for an hour). Still kind of too distracted while flying to pay attention to thermaling and catching lift. Had a few seconds to snap a quick pic though…
Well, first flight off Tiger in years… just getting back into training. It was gorgeous yesterday and the place was packed.
All pics from yesterday are on flickr.
So - here’s how it works, at least at Seattle Paragliding, for your first solo flight.
First - you hang out at the LZ for a while waiting for the van ride up the hill to come together. It’s a good time to watch landings. Yesterday was really cool - tons of hang gliders out (I’ve never seen them at the LZ before [but I don’t go there that often either]).
You then pile in the van. If this doesn’t convince you to do the 45 minute hike then you’re definitely not a hiker. I won’t be in that van again 
You then proceed to do a very short walk to the next van that takes you up a rough dirt road to the launch.
Then there’s more para-waiting at launch (I’m not complaining, para-waiting is kind of fun).
Then there’s initiation. Marc goes out of his way to make the first time solo pilots feel special. This involves face paint, pink helmets, disco balls, huge streamers and a constant search for the blooper of the day (i.e. failed launch, failed landing, some “fail”). It’s all pretty funny and helps take your mind off the fact that you’re about to jump off a perfectly good mountain.
Marc explains the LZ approach… everyone very serious in pink helmets and war paint.
They then angel launch you off the hill. They control inflation and stabilization of the glider… once you’re flying paragliding is pretty simple, but launch isn’t. At other schools I’ve been too we spent a lot of time practicing “kiting” and were never helped like this at launch.
Yours truly before launch.
I didn’t take any pictures while in flight… you’re on radio and they’re instructing you to do practice maneuvers the entire time. The flight was really fun. I was a bit nervous since I had zero experience with the kite I was on (normally you’d practice kiting and do a few training hill runs to get a feel for how the specific kite works). But, everything went smoothly. They talk you in on the landing and I managed to touch down very smoothly… a very good first landing.
Again, not complaining, but, for the record, I was there from 2pm to 8pm and did a 10 minute flight. I think about the fastest you could do this kind of thing would be 2-3 hours (that’s if you hiked up - 1 hour). If conditions aren’t soarable that means you’re doing a 10 minutes sled ride - if they are soarable you could be up for hours thoughs.
So, like, it has a USB plug on it to collect the data?
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