The new WPA

From the front line of the New Great Depression:

Put a stamp on it -- that’s what the White House says.

President Obama announced today that his administration will begin stamping an emblem on projects funded by the economic stimulus package so that people can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

All projects will be stamped with the ARRA logo (short for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and lists the recovery.gov website on the emblem.

I really dig the retro kind'a art deco modernist/constructivist design of the Recovery.gov logo. Really drives the whole Recovery = New Deal thing home if you didn't already get it.

This is a politically shrewd move by the Obama administration. Instead of letting Congresspeople go back to their districts and take all the credit for projects funding by the recovery bill, which if they're a Republican then didn't even vote for, this lets everyone know who they have to thank for their new school, bridge, highway, commuter rail line etc.

It's kind of like how back in the First Great Depression we had these all over the place


Good job President Obama on properly branding the recovery effort so that people will known who's to thank for improving the infrastructure in their communities, even if it makes me feel like I'm living in a Woody Guthrie song.

white t-shirt

white t-shirt
Originally uploaded by akagoldfish

White T-Shirt, Socks, Boxers.. those are important things...

Ummm... what's Pink Moisturizer?

Vice Tax or Tax Vice?

From the front line of the New Great Depression:

In his 11 years in the Washington Legislature, Representative Mark Miloscia says he has supported all manner of methods to fill the state’s coffers... most of which, he said, passed “without a peep.”

And so it was last month that Mr. Miloscia, a Democrat, decided he might try to “find a new tax source” — pornography.

The response, however, was a turn-off.

“People came down on me like a ton of bricks,” said Mr. Miloscia, who proposed an 18.5 percent sales tax on items like sex toys and adult magazines. “I didn’t quite understand. Apparently porn is right up there with Mom and apple pie.”

My senior year of college I was a teacher's assistant for Intro to American Government. For this class, I taught a unit on the Constitution. If this was my class room, after reading the above, I would ask my students: "So, do any of you guys see any problems here?"

The two students in my group of half a dozen who had done the reading would say "Doesn't it conflict with freedom of the press?"

"Okay, why would that be?" I'd ask.

The student who hadn't done he reading, but who'd be scrambling through her text book while I was talking, would probably say "yes, it does, because pornography is protected speech, and an 18.5% tax is enough to have a chilling effect on what people read"

"Good, any other problems?" I'd then say

And then, the one kid who may or may not have done his readings but always was on top of things even though he'd be the last to speak up would go: "Who's going to decide what is and isn't porno?"

And there you have it: a class of six freshmen and sophomore non-polisci majors could take apart Rep. Miloscia's idiotic bill inside of two minutes, exposing it as a bill that would create a vague and arbitrary standard under which material would be subjected to this heavy tax, and put the Revenue arm of the State of Washington in the Consitutionally repugenet position of deciding what speech is and is not pornography.

Rep. Miloscia, who's bill shows the Consitutional wisdom of a boiled grapefruit, was shocked at the reception his jackassery received.

Mr. Miloscia said he had also received criticism from an array of residents and business owners, who accused him of attacking the First Amendment and other sacred institutions with his pornography proposal.

“I didn’t know how passionate people are about this stuff.”

Yes Representitive Miloscia, people get passionate when an earnest idiot like you tries to chill their Consitutional Rights.

If you want more money in your state coffers, why not decriminize pot like they're doing in California?

Things that you wish you didn't know

Holy Living Fuck.

Report: Obama helicopter security breached

A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported Saturday.

Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.

Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter."

The reason this information got into unfriendly hands? A computer of a defense contractor containing the sensitive data on the helicopter that carries The President of the United States had a p2p program installed on it.

Sounds like an RIAA scare story, but this one was real!

Profiles in Jackassery: Rob Liefeld

Today we will start two on-going features: Profiles in Jackassery, and What the Fuck is Wrong With Rob Liefeld! (the title of the second may change with the second installment).

If you love comics, you probably know the name Rob Liefeld and hate it. Rob Liefeld is a living symbol of not only the worst tendencies in mainstream comic books, but in humanity in general. He is widely know as egoistical, hard to work with and passive-agressive, lazy, and a plagerist.

All this might be forgivable if he was some sort of mad comics talent; some sort of tortured genius, fatally flawed, but scorching brilliant.

But he can't even cover his ass with that, because Rob Liefeld is an monstrously bad artist.

I could try to describe the artistic abominations that have come from Liefeld's pencil, or explain how he can barely draw feet (and spends a lot of time finding ways to avoid drawing them), but I think the only way to truly explain how awful Rob Liefeld is as an artist is to just show you.

So how bad is Liefeld...


HOLY CRUTCH ON A CHRIST, THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE FACE IN AMERICA AND HE CAN'T GET IT RIGHT!

For a detailed run down of Liefeld's crimes against comics, see The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings at Progressive Boink.

Tune in again for Profiles in Jackassery.

Yeah, that's right, I blog now

Not content to simply observe the decay of western civilization through the silent art of photography, and the occasional caustic quip, on this day, February 28, in this foul year of our Lord 2009, I have started a blog.

When ever one starts something like this, it's good to set forth a mission statement, a set of principles, a governing agenda that will set the tone for future. So here it is.

This blog will be in the genre commonly known as "cultural criticism." This means I will comment on and critique contemporary culture, both at home and aboard across all categories of human endeavor. At least, that how journalists and members of the chattering class would explain it. To explain succinctly what this entails, I'll basically be posting news stories and various things I found on the internet and going "HOLYGODJESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? LOOK, EVERYBODY, CROWED AROUND AND LOOK AT THIS HORRIBLE THING I FOUND." Well some of the time. This isn't going to be strict misanthropicism here. Hunter S. Thompson tried that, and the poor bastard blew his brains out (but then, that was because he didn't like getting old). We will focus on the live affirming and the positive as well as the evil and soul crushing. However we will at all times act with an eye towards the Weird and the Rare.

Some things that will be covered here include: Politics, Americana, urbanism, post-industrialization, cultural decay, urban decay, tooth decay, why Anarchism is untenable, public space, spaceships, Rob Liefeld, corrupt rat bastards, bad movies, good movies, good bad movies, urban exploration, subversion of all kinds (especially subversion of the subversive), anachronisms, street art, political theory, theories of all kinds, ANYTHING I DAMN WELL WANT.

Also, because I am an avid photographer, the photos of myself and other worthies will frequently be a subject here. I will also be shamelessly self-promote my work, including prints which I may have for sale, and my forthcoming photo book (which should be out just as soon as I get the damn photos picked out for it) on a frequent basis.

Now that we've got that settled, let's get down to brass tacks. Onward and upward, damn the torpedoes, free lunch... final wisdom... TOTAL COVERAGE