Fly me to the moon: A long lens further enhances the seemingly close juxtaposition of plane and moon over Falkenhagen, Germany on late Tuesday, May 29, 2012.
Naval Explosive Ordinance Disposal officers, Erik Spalding and Cole Evans were once responsible for defusing and disposing of explosive devices that have become all-too-common in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Green Beach America is a San Diego, California based charity, that is dedicated to providing housing for disabled Veterans. Enabling America’s Disabled Heroes to live an independent and productive life while promoting energy conservation and a clean environment.
“I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you’re depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you?” — Margaret Atwood (via larmoyante)
(via eatelectricsugar)
And just whooo are you, my friend?
Vintage Laurel and Hardy posters
It’s hard to imagine that these still life flower photos, made of splashed paint, were created without the assistance of Photoshop or 3D software. But photographer Jack Long captures each shot as a single event in camera. Not one of these images was assembled from multiple exposures.
Today’s cover of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Living section suggests that you shit yourself. This unintentional message is the result of a poor graphic effect applied to the headline “Suit Yourself,” or perhaps it’s just a crappy font choice. Of course, given that newspapers have less and less staff to check these things, we might blame it on the demise of news rags in our increasingly digital nation. But whoever we want to blame, I can’t wait to see the correction they run.
Robert Reich: True Patriotism -
True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going.
Those who earn tens of millions of dollars a year but pay less than 14 percent of their incomes in taxes, and argue the rich should pay even less, are not true patriots.
Those who defend indefensible tax loopholes, such as the “carried interest” loophole that allows private-equity managers to treat their incomes as capital gains even if they risk no income of their own, are not true patriots.
Those who avoid taxes by putting huge amounts of their earnings into IRAs via foreign tax shelters are not true patriots.
Those who want to cut programs that benefit the poor — Food stamps, child nutrition, Pell grants, Medicaid — so that they can get a tax cut for themselves and their affluent friends— are not true patriots.So how do you really feel about Romney?
Robert Reich: True Patriotism -
True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going.
Those who earn tens of millions of dollars a year but pay less than 14 percent of their incomes in taxes, and argue the rich should pay even less, are not true patriots.
Those who defend indefensible tax loopholes, such as the “carried interest” loophole that allows private-equity managers to treat their incomes as capital gains even if they risk no income of their own, are not true patriots.
Those who avoid taxes by putting huge amounts of their earnings into IRAs via foreign tax shelters are not true patriots.
Those who want to cut programs that benefit the poor — Food stamps, child nutrition, Pell grants, Medicaid — so that they can get a tax cut for themselves and their affluent friends— are not true patriots.
So how do you really feel about Romney?
(via joost5)
Robert Reich: True Patriotism -
True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going.
Those who earn tens of millions of dollars a year but pay less than 14 percent of their incomes in taxes, and argue the rich should pay even less, are not true patriots.
Those who defend indefensible tax loopholes, such as the “carried interest” loophole that allows private-equity managers to treat their incomes as capital gains even if they risk no income of their own, are not true patriots.
Those who avoid taxes by putting huge amounts of their earnings into IRAs via foreign tax shelters are not true patriots.
Those who want to cut programs that benefit the poor — Food stamps, child nutrition, Pell grants, Medicaid — so that they can get a tax cut for themselves and their affluent friends— are not true patriots.So how do you really feel about Romney?
Memorial Day Question: Why do we need to honor 6,440 U.S. soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq? Answer: Because they were asked to go there.
Would we?
Baby, baby, you’re the one!
Memorial Day.
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in the military service. It originally honored soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War) but was expanded after World War I.
By this Memorial day over 6,400 US troops will have been killed in Americas middle-east ‘wars’ of choice’. Let us be perfectly clear, these were all unnecessary deaths. America was lied into the invasion of Iraq. It wasn’t an honest mistake or faulty intelligence. The American public were played for fools. Then the same administration that lied so shamelessly over Iraq invaded and occupied Afghanistan with no plan and no clue what success would look like. Ten years later the killing still goes on in the same bone-headed, bloody and muddled way and nothing has been achieved. Nothing. Collectively these ‘wars’ have been one of Americas biggest foreign policy blunders to date, right up there with Vietnam.
Blood and money. America has spent at least $1.38 trillion so far in operational costs for its unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Money America could not afford. What does $1 trillion look like ? Can anyone even comprehend a sum that vast ? If you made a million dollars a year, it would take you a million years to earn $1 trillion. A mind-boggling sum of tax-payers money. Imagine the homes and schools and hospitals that money would have built. Imagine the good it could have done in these hard recessionary times if it hadn’t been so foolishly squandered on destruction and death. There were always other choices. There are now.
Soldiers who risk their lives for their country deserve our respect. The craven politicians who lied America into unnecessary and immoral ‘wars’ and those who now want more of the same deserve none. It seems to me the best way that any patriotic American can support the troops and mark Memorial day is to demand .. not ask .. demand that America ends its catastrophic meddling in the middle-east and brings its soldiers home safe. All of them. Completely out of countries where they have no business being. Every single soldier. Now.
President Eisenhower who, unlike recent American leaders actually knew what he was talking about on this subject, said “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” He also said ..“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.”
With the usual warmongers clamoring for conflict with Iran now, America’s leaders could usefully reflect on Eisenhower’s words this Memorial Day. I hope they do.
(Source: elledark)
