The Disquieting Art of Oliver De Sagazan

Oliver De Sagazan is a prolific French painter, sculptor, and performance artist, whose work suggests he issues with the human form -- and, perhaps, his and our place in the world. I have hesitated in putting a more disturbing and grotesque sample of his oeuvre (he's French), but, trust me, there's plenty there. His work is over-the-top, but still moving and compelling.

"Climate of Doubt"

Climate of Doubt is a Frontline documentary about the global warming skepticism "movement," which is a coordinated, highly financed attempt to sow doubt about the legitimate science and overwhelming consensus of climatologists about global warming. Meanwhile, Climatologist Michael Mann has sued The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation due to comments they made about him and his work. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a subject of Climate of Doubt.

The Cut Book Collages of Alexander Korzer-Robinson

At Colossal a set of images of recent work by Alexander Korzer-Robinson, who describes his work like this:

I make book sculptures / cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. In this way, I build my composition using only the images found in the book.

This is wonderful found art; a transcendental idea beautifully executed. Here's a few additions to what colossal put up (going farther back into Korzer-Robinson's historical work:

A Few Words on the U.S. Budget, Deficit, and Stimulus Package

The U.S. budget for the 2013 fiscal year (which for the U.S. government runs October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013) is about $3.8 trillion of which about $2.45 trillion is for nondiscretionary spending (social security, medicare, medicaid, children's health insurance, interest on the national debt, and TARP/stimulus), and about $1.35 trillion is for discretionary spending (military and numerous other smaller discretionary). The U.S. national debt is $16.16 trillion, which, of course, has been accumulated over many years. The 2013 budget has a $246 billion (i.e. $.25 trillion) deficit (and so will add that amount to the existing debt); roughly the same amount is being paid in 2013 in interest on the existing debt.

The United States is slowly, ever so slowly, climbing out of the deep worldwide recession. About seven years ago it was evident that President G.W. Bush's economic approaches had put the US economically in trouble, the nation needed a large stimulus package, and the Republicans opposed it . Our stimulus was too small, but it was something. Europe did not take this approach overall, the prime exception being Iceland. Europe is still deep in trouble, the prime exception being Iceland. Among other things, the Republicans opposed aggressive funding of TARP and a bailout of the United States automobile industry, most of which was repaid ahead of schedule.

The are three principal ways for the U.S. to improve its budget (i.e. to eliminate its yearly deficits and pay down its debt): (1) raise more revenue by imposing more taxes (the leading theory for doing that is to return taxes on the wealthy to their higher historical levels); (2) reduce expenditures (the only significant way that can be done as to discretionary spending is to reduce military spending); and (3) to stimulate the economy. That's where the stimulus package comes in. The Republicans, again, oppose all three of these measures.

Some of this post appeared previously in my post Why I am Not a Republican and is posted here as part of my 2012 election series.

Oh Boy! Oh boy! Only Two Days Until Jesusween!

As everybody knows, October 31 is Jesusween, and it's going to be great this year! We're going to draw pictures of Jesus v.2.0 and some people will even come in costume and we'll have storytelling and even hand out fantasy stories and people will wear their white tops [very unfair link] and we'll eat Jesus Harvest Seeds which aren't candy corn, and we will all go to heaven. Jesusween: because nobody can party like Jesus.

Uptight Religion

This is one of the best mash-ups out there:

Sculpture by Villafane Studios

Ray Villafane is an incredible realist/fantasy sculptor who has developed a following for his carvings of pumpkins and sand sculptures. His studio now involves five other sculptors, and their site has an incredible amount of great work -- it's worth clicking through to. The fact that they work in the nontraditional media of pumpkins and sand doesn't diminish the artistic merit -- or incredible craftsmanship -- of their work.  Below the break is a video, via boing boing, of them carving an incredible zombie at the New York Botanical Garden.

A Few Words on Taxation of the Wealthy

Chart from Visualizing Economics

Over the last 50 years the United States has repeatedly reduced taxes on the wealthy. This is a fact; the highest tax rates have steadily gone down for the last 50 years. Today the highest tax rate is 1/2 of what it was in 1980 and about 1/3 of what it was in 1963. Individual tax rates in the United States are lower than most other westernized nations, and far lower as a percentage of GDP. The wealthy also receive tax breaks other taxpayers do not qualify for. In short, the idea that the wealthy in the United States pay too much in taxes is a canard. It is refuted both by the nation's history and by comparing it to other countries.

The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 years Later

Today -- October 28, 2012 -- is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the day that the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed that the nuclear armed weapons the U.S.S.R. was installing in Cuba would be removed in exchange or the U.S. removing nuclear armed missiles from Turkey and Italy and agreeing not to invade Cuba. In the years since the crisis it is evident that the U.S. was very close to invading Cuba and to launching a preemptive strike on the U.S.S.R., that Castro wanted the U.S.S.R. to launch a full out nuclear strike on the U.S., and that several incidents nearly occurred where missiles were launched without direct orders from Moscow or Washington, D.C. The closest of those was when the U.S. Navy had cornered three Russian subs and two of the three commanders on on one sub wanted to launch its nuclear weapons and started steps to do so. There have been several excellent write-ups about what we know of the crisis, and an excellent Bob Edwards Weekend piece on it on PBS radio, and several PBS television documentary shows on it.

CGI in Movies and Television by Stargate Studios

Stargate Studios produces a lot of computer generated imagery (CGI), chroma key compositing (green screen), and other production effects for television and film. Via Neatorama, who came to it via Reddit, here are two videos demonstrating Stargate's work, the first, immediately below, showing green screen mostly in television shows (it's still pretty interesting), and the second, below the break, showing more CGI type effects.

Wind Map of the United States: This is so Cool (or, um, Hot)

The Wind Map (click the link - it's worth seeing) shows in more or less real time the wind directions in the United States. This shows weather patterns and, at least to me, presents a more intuitive way to look at it (compare here). The data is scrapped from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This comes, by the way, via Hint.fm -- which is an awesome site run by two Ph.D's who run Google's Big Picture visual research lab (and ran their own visual research lab before that and ran IBM's Visual Communication Lab before that, all with groundbreaking work).

Via Zack.

Saturday Night Music: "Free Your Mind"

A Few Words on Runaway U.S. Military Spending

Two months ago I wrote a very detailed post, with numerous factual referents and links, on Why I am Not a Republican. Over the next week leading up to the U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections I'll be highlighting some of the most important subjects.  I am not an ideologue; there are aspects of the Democrat's approach I dislike, too, and I'll mention those.

Chart from The International Institute for Strategic Studies

The United States is not in danger of being attacked by another nation. Yet military spending by the United States constitutes 45.7% of all military spending by the entire world (2011 numbers). This is incredible. But it is indisputable. And it is unjustifiable.

The United States is not a war with the rest of the world. It would have to be to justify spending about half the world's military spending.

The Iraq War is over. The U.S. does not have an extensive troop presence there. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan cannot justify this level of spending. U.S. involvement in Libya was de minimis; it does not have a presence in Syria. The threat of terror attacks, based on one horrific surreptitious attack in the U.S., does not justify this level of spending. Indeed, the billions budgeted are only direct costs; the reaction to potential terrorism has numerous and substantial indirect costs to the U.S.

The Layered Glass Artwork of Angela Palmer

Angela Palmer is a Scottish/English artist who began her career as a journalist and magazine editor, and began showing as an artist in the early mid-2000's. Her work now usually involves drawings or etchings on layers of glass of images taken from MRIs. She says she is inspired by maps, and each image reflects this, with the layers giving the work depth and demonstrating the complexity of the structures she is representing. A recent massive public work is Ghost Forest, which is a display of stumps of massive rainforest trees intended to draw attention to the loss of rainforests throughout the world.

Via Colossal.

Clown Convention in Mexico City; Trump Flying In Tomorrow

As reported by THV11, the pride of Little Rock, "eight hundred brightly-dressed clowns from around the world converged in Mexico City on Wednesday for the 17th International Clown Convention. The convention's theme is peace through laughter." They arrived by single car.

America's Favorite Clown, Donald Trump, may arrive at any moment. Trump recently delighted the nation with his antic shenanigans of trying to get the U.S. President to jump through hoops for a possible charitable donation by Trump. It was funny becauseTrump has been called "the country’s least charitable billionaire, a guy who has personally donated [only] a combined $3.7 million to his foundation since 1990" and "the laughingstock of the uberwealthy." Trump, who is known for his hilarious catch phrase "you're fired!," is a charter member of the Island of Idiots.

Let it Be, No Cry

I am not sure this is as strong as some of the others I've posted -- the speed up on Let It Be is noticable -- and the mixed songs are each so strong alone that the mix doesn't necessarily help them.  But it's an interesting combination anyway that sort of works ...

A Map Showing the "History of Religion"

This is interesting but a little simplistic. Where are Confucianism and Daoism? Where are animistic and shamanistic religions? Where are the New World beliefs? And wouldn't be better to show the mixing of religion rather than just colored regions with hard edges between them (color is actually great to show religion because one can use shades and show mixing and degree). But I expect too much.

A 9 Billion Pixel Image of the Milky Way from ESO

The European Southern Observatory has just released a massive 9 billion pixel image of the Milky Way made from a composite of photos taken by the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy ("VISTA") at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. This is the largest most detailed image of the Milky Way ever taken. The version below, expanded, is a measly 380 KB (~1.2 million pixels). It's not grainy; those are stars.

Maik Scherer: "Nano-vegetable"

"Microphase separated diblock copolymer film with HPL morphology. All of my images are individual scanning electron micrographs with feature sizes ranging from 10 to 20 nanometres and were colour enhanced."

This can be found at the Carl Zeiss competititon photostream at Flickr, which is a great set with many equally great photos (scroll down). I saw it through the tumblrs Proof (Math is Beautiful) and Fresh Photons, both of which are awesome math/science image driven blogs. In fact, instead of posting more images here from the Cambridge photostream (which is great but you have to go through it), here's a few fabulous recent images from Fresh Photons:

"Tina Fey Rips ‘Grey-Faced Men with $2 Haircuts’ Defining Rape"

Note the update at the bottom, after the break

Quoting The Raw Story, quoting Tina Fey in part:

“I wish we could have an honest and respectful dialogue about these complicated issues,” the comedienne told the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala. “But it seems like we can’t right now. And if I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m gonna lose my mind!”

Last month, Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin had asserted that women could not get pregnant through “legitimate rape.” And then Republican Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed on Tuesday that pregnancy from rape “is something that God intended to happen.

Bluestar: Taking Wacky to a Whole New Level

My recent suggestion that we colonize the stars with human embryos and robots was intended to be as nutty as I could imagine (the implication being that other popular star colonization schemes, which are even less physically plausible, are also nutty).  But now I've been one-upped.  One upped by a serious plan called "Bluestar" which sought to have a ball of water (evidently free floating in space) with dolphins swimming in it surrounded by a ring of "thinking and laboratory spaces. The dolphins would supposedly be able to think brilliantly in space without the limitations of gravity and they would function as a computer and use their highly advanced sonar skills to talk with humans and other animals.

Here's a video (I've set it up to start a little bit in, where it starts to get relevant):

"Golden Waves" -- Photographs by William Dalton

Golden Waves is a post at the weblog Illusion consisting of photos by William Dalton of, well, waves. But they're really great photos of waves. Illusion links only to Dalton's Flickr photostream, which consists of many (admittedly beautiful) nature photographs, more of birds than anything else. Illusion's post seems to have been borrowed from the Craze Base, and that, well, I can't tell where that came from except maybe a Flickr collection.

NGC 2623, Just Because This is Beautiful

NGC 2623 is two merging galaxies only 300 million light years away from us. If we leave now they should be all merged by the time we get there. From Astronomy Picture of the Day, the Hubble Legacy Archive, and the European Space Agency.

Photography by Brett Walker

Brett Walker's photo stream at Flickr, via Stellar, mostly portraits, mostly black and white, mostly awesome.

I, for One, Knew All Along Romney Directed Bin Laden's Capture

Via The Onion

Downtown Octopus

The Books of King Modus and Queen Ratio

I have no idea what's going on here. It's sort of like Game of Thrones as an illuminated manuscript: there's Queen Cersei and Ser Jamie sending Bran out the window. Or maybe the king just doesn't want to hang out with his mother-in-law. Anyway, drawing an illuminated manuscript of the Game of Thrones is a SUPER GREAT IDEA! Sort of like the genius who drew Russian lubeki woodblock prints for famous movies. Sort of like the website "Arrested Westeros" ("Arrested Development + Game of Thrones") but funny.

Really, this is from The Books of King Modus and Queen Ratio, a two volume set, from which BiblioOdyssey posts a number of its beautiful pages (v. large sized if you click through to his Flickr downloads). The full book, in fact, is on line at the Royal Library of Belgium. Written in the 13th century and published in the 14th, the first book (the Book of Infer) is the first treatise in french on hunting and the second book (the Dream of Pestilence), is a poem about morality. King Modus and Queen Ratio, by the way, were not real. They're fictional, though King Modus is evidently very much into hunting boars and stags ... just like King Robert! (This is definitely King Robert.) And there's tournaments and intrigue and townsfolk rioting and a deer with a cross growing it out of its head and a person with a big open-mouthed face growing on his stomach and ravens serving as messengers or something (I'm not sure) and what could be wolves and maybe a little person (okay, I lied about that).

Positive Law and Natural Law

In this blog I'll use the phrase positive law to mean "law that derives from human expression" and I'll use the phrase natural law to mean "law that does not derive from human expression."  So, that's simple.

Lamentably, those aren't quite the uses that lawyers (or philosophers) often have for the terms; their uses frequently are ambiguous, poorly reasoned, and inconsistent. What may not seem to be a big deal does turn out to be a big deal. It leaves their analysis often clotted and wrong, and betrays a larger failure to understand how humans and our rules relate to the world we inhabit.  So, it's time for a somewhat esoteric discussion of these terms -- that may not be your "thing"  -- feel free to go. But there is a reason (besides its interest to me): it has important legal, political, and ontological ramifications.

Why, Yes, Mr. Romney, Surely Our Underpowered Navy Needs About 100,000 of These

Mr. Romney has so thoughtfully suggested that our Navy is no better supplied today than it was in 1917. Yes, that is so very correct. Cruise missiles. I have no idea why I wrote that. Anyway, for the latest in the totally automated killing of our enemies, may I suggest bankrupting us with the following:

Some Recent Concerns About "The Media"

Look, there are lots of newspapers, magazines, television stations, and radio stations in the U.S., not to mention the world, and lots of major websites as well.  There is no monolithic "Media" acting in concert. Most major media outlets are motivated first and foremost by trying to sell their media, either to consumers or advertisers or both. Credibility at some level is usually their stock in trade, and, though they pander to target certain audiences and their preferences (and are loathe to publish anything that will offend their core audience), they are hesitant to go to far out lest they offend too many or damage their credibility.

But some recent actions by some "mainstream" media outlets have to make us concerned.