Mira
Mira's JournalVery fine Trompe L'Oeil Art on a Walk in Asheville on Christmas Day
The family likes to take a drive when everything is closed - when we can look all around and park wherever we want - in a stunning city like Asheville that is a rewarding thing to do.
Found this fabulous building along the French Broad River decorated with beautiful
fool-the -eye painting on the old facade.
Here is the painted part of the building as I approach it. Old brinks are stuccoed over and then the surface is painted with the murals.
Getting a bit closer now
And finally some detail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l%27%C5%93il
A Holiday Letter from John Boehner - to all of us from Andy Borowitz
December 24, 2012
A Holiday Letter from John Boehner
Posted by Andy Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:
Dear American People:
It’s Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won’t mince words. I’ve started drinking a little early this Christmas.
Yes, I’m sitting here in my man-cave, panelled in mahogany the color of me, doing a rack of Canadian Club shooters and smoking my way through a carton of Lucky Strikes as if they were the last Twinkies in creation. If my chief of staff knew that I was writing to you while I was this polluted, he’d shit a phone book. But guess what? I don’t fucking care anymore.
You see, this will be my last Christmas as Speaker of the House, all because a cabal of Tea Party miscreants in the House of Representatives doesn’t think I’m a ginormous enough asshole for their taste. Who’s more to their liking? Virginia’s own Eric Cantor. As a waiter might say at an all-you-can-eat shit buffet, “Excellent choice.” How odious is Eric Cantor? Let me put it this way: when we have to speak to the press, I actually prefer to stand next to Mitch McConnell.
What will life be like under Speaker of the House Eric Cantor? Well, he’s the guy who recommended cuts in disaster funding just hours after tornadoes hit Joplin, Missouri. Nice. And it was his “never met a dick-measuring contest I didn’t like” pathology that helped create last year’s debt-ceiling crisis. You can’t put a price tag on a performance like that. Well, actually you can: it cost the country nineteen billion dollars. Starting to miss me already, aren’t you? Fuck you.
So have a very Eric Cantor Christmas, America, and as that smug four-eyed sociopath drives the entire nation off the cliff, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now leave me alone, God damn you. Damn you all to hell.
Happy Holidays,
Speaker Boehner
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/12/a-holiday-letter-from-john-boehner.html#ixzz2FzvZe8sD
And I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
We've come through a lot this year, and emerged victorious, I'm grateful.
Mira
Chuck Schumer's analogy: Guns/Mass Murder and Cigarettes/Lung Cancer
He made a simple comment on MTP about Wayne LaPierre's spreading blame willy-nilly all over the place:
"Talking about Mass Murder without talking about guns, is like talking about Lung Cancer and not mention cigarettes."
edited to put the c in Schumer
Leftover Reflection Shots that go into the archives
What I like best about the contests is that even though I enter a photo from my collection quite often, I do walk around with my eyes open with the subject in mind and therefore see my surroundings in new ways all the time.
The photo I entered is not a new one, it's just one I really like. The last three here were taken in the last two weeks as the subject "reflections" was uppermost in my mind.
"Information-Feedback-Emotion" My grandson's reaction to Wayne LaPierre
My grandson came to spend the day with me, saying if it's the last day of the world he wants to come and spend it with me, eat - drink - watch movies and be merry.
Worked for me.
So he was here when LaPierre started tallking, hushed me during the speech, and then went into a diatribe of his feedback.
I listened, and then said: Write that down for me, and I'll post it on DU, many don't have young people in their lives to react to this speech. So he did, and without anything other than copying and pasting here it is for you to read if you so choose:
These (admittedly very violent) games that Wayne mentioned are intended for an audience of people who have more fully developed brains, and who are less susceptible to desensitization of violence. That said, Wayne didn't blame children getting these games and developing an acceptance of such violence, he simply blamed the games as well as films and television for destroying morality in our nation. But I'm going to stick to speaking about games.
Studies find no correlation between violent video games and violent people. Blaming the games found in their homes for the actions of these mass murderers is akin to blaming the microwave in their kitchens. Yes, they play games, yes, they microwave food, and yes, they kill people. But I also have games and a microwave, and I don't kill people. Same with my stepmother, my friends, and so on. There simply isn't a correlation.
Moving back to myself personally, I have grown up around video games my entire life. The first time I pretended to shoot someone in a game was probably around the age of 7 or 8. That instance, in fact, wasn't even the first time I'd pretended to shoot someone. I was a little boy! I would run around on the playground pretending to shoot other kids and imaginary monsters or aliens all the time. By now, I've pretended to kill tens of thousands of people in increasingly graphic and brutal ways through the gaming medium. Sure, it's not the best way to spend my time, but it's enjoyable. It's what I choose to do. While I've become desensitized to many forms of death in a game, I recognize the difference between virtual and real violence. I've never been in an actual fight in my life, and frankly I wouldn't know how to handle myself if I did find myself in one. I prefer to solve problems with words and argumentation.
While I am a virtual mass murderer, I, in real life, am actually a very nice person who believes in harming others only as a form of last-second self defense when there is no other option. And despite all the training I may have received from video games and violent media, I'd have no idea how to actually defend myself with or without a weapon.
Bear Arms - a visual - and a hearty FUCK YOU to Wayne
Wayne - I'm in favor of you getting away from that podium, and start digging graves.
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Tulips in bloom in Mid January - if this continues we may see it. Photo of their groundbreaking
I'm in North Carolina.
This is what I should be seeing in my yard by the end of February.
I've seen it in January a time or two lately.
But at CHRISTMAS?
End of World Means Most Amazing Home Page Ever, Says Google (as told by Andy Borowitz)
December 18, 2012
End of World Means Most Amazing Home Page Ever, Says Google
Posted by Andy Borowitz
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Cal. (The Borowitz Report)—While billions around the world await the Mayan Apocalypse this Friday with increasing dread, there is palpable excitement about it at the headquarters of Google, Inc., which is preparing what its C.E.O. is calling “our most awesome Google Doodle ever.”
“People are freaking out about the world coming to an end—I totally get that,” said the Google C.E.O. Larry Page in a conference call with reporters. “But at Google we view the Apocalypse as a unique opportunity. This company was founded with the goal to ‘organize the world’s information’ and we see the next three days as our chance to get that done.”
As for the marching orders that Page gave to Google’s team of designers: “The world is going to be destroyed and mankind will cease to exist. Make Google the last page they see, and give us one last chance to serve them tracking cookies.”
With the ancient Mayan prophets predicting that on Friday the earth will crash into a comet, collide with the planet Nibiru, or burn to a crisp in a mammoth solar storm, “our designers have had a lot of cool stuff to work with,” Mr. Page said.
Mr. Page said that a buzz-worthy home page is crucial to what he sees as Google’s final mission on Earth: “We want to communicate to billions of people that this is the last day of human history, so maybe they should finally sign up for Google Plus.”
When reminded that the end of the world would mean the end of Google, too, Mr. Page was philosophical: “As long as it also means the end of Apple and Microsoft, I’m fine with that.”
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/12/end-of-world-means-most-amazing-homepage-ever-says-google.html#ixzz2FS35yA6u
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