Welcome to Winter 9

The ninth year for the Welcome to Winter 9 skate contest came and went so smoothly that if you weren't in the know, you just did not know. No whining, no fights, no parents abusing young officials. In short - real civil for an "unorganized sport". It was wonderful to see the skaters tearing up the indoor park, having a good time doing it AND being civil to each other in the process. Three cheers for skateboarders. Three cheers for event sponsor and organizer Tiki Room, and all other corporate skateboard company type sponsors.
Here are some photos to let you know what you missed if you did, and to remind you of what you saw if you were there.

Noel with a fistfull of dollars, the man never leaves home without his roll.

Nosin' it

This dude ripped hard and fast all day

2pac - always last off the course

Hittin' the rail

Sarah M over the stairs, she took second place in the 13 and under

Mikey T took first in the Best Trick Contest

More pics at my flickr site.

Religion Rears Its Ugly Head.Again.

From MSNBC this headline:

Kansas education board downplays evolution
State school board OKs standards casting doubt on Darwin

Once again Kansas is rushing forward to push religion ahead of knowledge, and has

"approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution."

Who are they? Who do these people think they are? Are they all evolutionary scientists who have become disgruntled with the status quo? Have these scientists taken it upon themselves to call into question, challenging of course with evidence and documentation to support their position, the theory of evolution. Or are they something else all together?
I will go with the something else answer, as I investigated the Kansas State Department of Education website, found the board information and read the published biographies of the members who voted in favor of approving these new science standards. From what I read it appeared to me that there was nary an evolutionary scientist among them.
Here is what I found:

Mrs. Kathy Martin

Kathy belongs to Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Clay Center

Mr. Kenneth Willard

He is active in his church, and school and community organizations.

Mr. John W. Bacon

John earned his Bachelor's degree in accounting from Mid- America Nazarene University in 1985 and is now self-employed as a certified public accountant.

Mrs. Iris Van Meter

Iris graduated from Kentucky Mountain Bible College in 1956 with a degree in Christian Education. She worked in broadcasting for several years as a radio announcer and control operator. Iris was a minister's wife for over 30 years and held many offices in the church and community.
She has been a Republican precinct committeewoman in Neosho County for several years and has been an active supporter of the Republican Party.

Mrs. Connie Morris

Her autobiography, From the Darkness: One Woman'’s Rise to Nobility, has been published by Huntington House Publishers. The book is Connie'’s story of recovery through Christ from incest, rape, domestic violence, substance abuse, and poverty during her early years in the Appalachian Mountains region.

Dr. Steve E. Abrams

He is a former board member of Family Life Services and is a member of First Baptist Church in Arkansas City.

Also from the article:

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

Thank goodness for that gem. Won't that make the job of a scientist that much easier, not having to search for these so called "natural explanations". No more head scratching, no more thinking! No "natural explanation" required! Perhaps now the Flying Spaghetti Monster will get the recognition and standing it deserves, and will be taught alongside Darwin in Kansas Schools.

It is vital we all pay closer attention to, and take an active role in the democratic process at all levels if we don't want to make public schools nothing more than an extension of religious institutions.

Keep it where it belongs, preach to the converted.

Life Hacks

Always being somewhat reluctant to part with a whole pile of money for most articles of clothing, I am a frequenter of the local Value Village. For the uninitiated among you, at Value Village the discriminating shopper will find all manner of second hand clothing, books, housewares, and bric-a-brac. Don't have much use for the bric-a-brac or the used houseware items, but I always have room in my closet for an obscure t-shirt or two. Then one day I decided to look for shirts with the express intent of hacking their corporate messages with messages of my own.

Here are the results:

These two fun alterations of these "shadverts" (shirts as advertising - you heard it here first) were fun, the reaction has been favourable, and I will keep this up as a weird kind of subversive recreational word gymnastics.

And just the other day I saw a bumper sticker on a car that made me laugh. I had my camera with me and hurriedly snapped a pic ...

Here's hoping the cops aren't paying attention to bumper stickers, at least for the sake of the driver of this car.

Don't You Just Love Fall?

Took a walk on a beautiful fall day, and had my camera along. Just thought I would share some of the sights I took in on a gorgeous calm fall day.

Looking West off the Bridge in Les Sherman Park, those in the know will understand this is near a certain contentious location.

Looking East off the same bridge.

This is my street, close to my home.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... oh just a plane.

Tree and sky, not much more to say.

Kind of a cheat, this was taken at Wascana Trails in 2004, but it was taken in the fall.

And a wasp nest we found ...

and closer ...

and closer still ...

Way more colorful than just green, too bad it is so short lived with the blanket of white coldness coming next.

Talking Trash Cans Or Are They?

The German company Solar-Lifestyle and the City of Berlin have installed talking trash cans around the city to encourage users to deposit trash where it belongs, rather than on the streets of Berlin. Citizens depositing trash in these receptacles receive a positive affirmation for their actions in the form of a "thank you" from the trash bin itself. Wonderful if it works, I say, but then I started to examine these "trash cans" a little more closely.




Compare and contrast the image of the trash can with the image of the sinister Dalek from the BBC Television series Doctor Who. Notice anything?



Look again. While the outside of the trash can does not immediately look like a Dalek, it does appear like it is concealing a Dalek inside. Could it be that pretty soon someone walking up to one of these trash cans, rather than hearing "thank you" will soon start to hear the frightening refrain of "exterminate, exterminate" before being vaporized? Is Solar-Lifestyle nothing more than a clever front for a hostile alien takeover of our planet? And are they making us clean it up before exterminating us? And what about this web site, the online home of "The Dalek Builders' Guild"? Training ground for trash can / world destruction builders?

I am going to find somewhere quiet to rest my head and try to sort all of this out.

Another Reason Not To Go To Wal-Mart

As if substandard wages, shoddy merchandise, and a grind your suppliers until their employees bleed aren't all reason enough to avoid Wal-Mart, here is yet another provided by the folks at The Progressive.

This article tells the story of a high school student in North Carolina doing a project where he was asked to

"take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights"

which turned into a real life lesson on the Bill of Rights, complete with Secret Service agents.
The student

"had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

Standard freedom of expression stuff these days, expressing disgust and disdain for the most powerful man in the world but then he took the photos to Wal-Mart to be developed, and this is where things went a bit haywire. According to the article:

"An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service."

Thank the sweet baby Jesus' tiny toenails America can count Wal-Mart employees among its "first-line defense" against terror and anti-government forces, as beckoned by Condoleezza Rice's siren song in 2002:

"Rice urged Americans to remain vigilant, calling the public "the first line of defense" against attacks. "There have been many cases in which Americans who were alert to suspicious circumstances around them have been able to tip law enforcement officials," she said."*

Secret Service grilled the student, and his teacher before taking the matter to the Attorney General where it was decided that no further action needed to be taken. At least sanity prevailed.

Thanks for keeping America safe Wal-Mart.

>_<'
Somebody please make it stop.
*source United States Department of Defense