Scarabus
Crawling toward the sunlight
Archive for April, 2012
Dr. T. J. Eckleberg
Sunday, April 29th, 2012What planet does Romney inhabit?
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
Horny Man
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
The guy and the mask are stock photos. The “horns” are actually a photo of a root we dug up in our yard. I just duplicated the layer in Photoshop and then flipped it horizontally. I chose to leave the fact obvious. The green thing is the shattered remnant of a bottle of chardonnay I put in the freezer and forgot. I set a small fluorescent slide viewer in back and turned the bottle’s next toward that light source.
Suggest a caption
Friday, April 27th, 2012
Recipe for the famous “Ricky Assbanger Kochtail”
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
(Please note that despite the similar-sounding name, this delicious beverage has no relationship to the “rickey” family of drinks, which typically include gin and lime juice.)
The Ricky Assbanger Kochtail was created at the most recent national convention of the College Republicans as a “joint” tribute to one of their favorite presidential candidates and to one of their most munificent financial supporters: Sen. Rick Santorum and Mr. David Koch, respectively.
Ingredients
Note! All ingredients should be at body temperature or warmer.
- 4 oz. of patriotic American whiskey, either Bourbon/Tennessee-style or rye. (The former tends to be a little sweeter than the latter.)
- 2 oz. of “Koch Brothers Branch Water,” drawn directly from a formerly pristine stream now being polluted by one of the Koch Brothers’ enterprises and bottled immediately, without filtration. (Make sure the seal on the murky brown bottle has not been tampered with!)
- 1 oz. of fresh milk from a mother who is nursing a child conceived during rape or abusive incest. Note that the milk must come from the birth mother herself, not a wet-nurse or adoptive mother. And note also that the mother must have been forced against both her own will and her physician’s advice to carry the child rather than terminate the pregnancy.
- 1 oz. of “santorum,” either fresh or fermented, according to preference. (If you can’t find it in your local store, you’ll discover it’s very easy to meet with one or more partners and make some for yourself. Many persons have reported experiencing great pleasure and satisfaction in this traditional artisanal practice.)
- Several squares of firmly packed fudge.
Assembly
- Pour the whiskey and Koch Brothers Branch Water™ into a transparent mug and stir together gently. The idea is to make sure the particulate matter from the unfiltered water remains suspended, adding both to the aesthetics and to the consistency of texture and flavor.
- Gently add the mother’s milk. It should make a sort of gradually disappearing spiral as it seems to move reluctantly toward the murky bottom of the mug. Think of it as symbolizing what Republicans are doing to women’s health and women’s rights, and you’ll catch on quickly.
- The santorum should not be blended but floated on top. That way the synesthetic complexity of its visual and aromatic texture will strike with a rush as the guest draws the mug toward his or her face. And as soon as the guest takes that initial sip, the taste and physical texture will come immediately into play, intensifying the pleasure.
- And don’t forget the presentation! Customarily the Ricky Assbanger Kochtail is served on a saucer, accompanied by a garnish of solidly packed fudge.
Salut!
Alternate ways to destroy a nation.
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Quiz, art afficionadoes!
Monday, April 23rd, 2012First, a “gimme.”
- What’s depicted in the left half of the image?
Second, no trickery.
- Which part of which very famous artwork is depicted in the right half?
Third, gotta think Surrealist film makers.
- To which scene in which movie does the overall image allude?
Reflections on growing old
Friday, April 20th, 2012
Occupy advertising!
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012This morning I read the article I’ve quoted from below. It was posted by an organization that promotes and reports on the ideas and activities of the Occupy movement.
The Importance of Being Sassy
Truth in Advertising
Corporations may try to influence our perceptions through advertising, but who’s to say activists can’t give their messages a little editing? San Francisco’s Billboard Liberation Front has been “improving” ads for clients ranging from Wachovia Bank to McDonald’s for more than 30 years. One recent campaign helped telecommunications giant AT&T refine its message from an obtuse “AT&T works in more places, like Chilondoscow” (Chicago, London, Moscow, get it?) to the more discerning “AT&T works in more places, like NSA Headquarters.”
The collage above comprises some random examples of images depicting work by the Billboard Liberation Front. As you can see, it’s sort of like grafitti that comments on important social issues. In other words, it’s an example of a phenomenon that’s been around since ancient times.
What I’ve done (apart from assembling that collage) is to take a beer ad that’s already been targeted by BLF and modify it to make a satiric comment on Republican male hubris in underestimating the perceptiveness and power of women. And at the same time to make a PG- or maybe R-rated comment on their obsession with sex.
Important letter from Dr. James Hansen
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
Dear Wayne,
A few months ago, you and more than 14,000 other Forecast the Facts members called on the American Meteorological Society to pass a strong, science-based information statement on climate change. After months of delay, we’re excited to announce that the AMS has finally completed a draft statement.
We want to help you understand the statement and share your thoughts about it with the AMS. But the draft is only viewable by AMS members. So we asked leading climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to read the statement and tell you what he thinks.
Please take a minute to read Dr. Hansen’s message below, and then share your thoughts with the AMS.
Dear Forecast the Facts Community,
As a climate scientist, I know that there’s a huge gap between what scientists understand about climate change and what the public knows. And when TV meteorologists get the science wrong, it just furthers public confusion.
The American Meteorological Society has an important role to play in clearing up the confusion by giving clear guidance to their members. I’m pleased to say that their new climate change statement is largely in line with current science, but there is an important caveat, as I will explain. Here’s what I saw when I read the statement:
- Overall, the statement is stronger than the AMS’ 2007 statement. The previous statement emphasized uncertainties and natural causes for climate change. By contrast, the new statement makes the unequivocal case for human-induced climate change.
- The draft statement defends the merits of climate models as a tool for understanding climate change. This is important, because TV meteorologists often call these models unreliable in order to create doubt about climate science.
- The draft statement acknowledges that severe weather events are expected to increase with global warming. The predictions include: More extreme precipitation events and more intense dry spells in between, more severe droughts, a higher proportion of strong hurricanes, and longer/more intense periods of extreme heat.
- The current statement does not adequately describe major climate threats that concern scientists. Their statement does not make clear that we will guarantee enormous undesirable consequences for young people if we continue with rapid fossil fuel emissions to the atmosphere. For example, they note that sealevel will rise 20 cm by 2100 due to thermal expansion of ocean water, but that underplays the fact that continued rapid warming will cause much larger sea level rise via ice sheet disintegration. The difficulty in predicting exact timing of sea level rise and location of increasing extreme climate anomalies does not diminish the threats that they pose.
My principal concern with the statement is that it assumes emissions will continue to grow. We must never accept “business-as-usual” as inevitable. If the U.S. and the international community joined together to put an honest price on carbon emissions, the exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels and coal could rapidly be phased out
Overall, I’m pleased that the AMS is headed toward a strong, science-based statement, which will go a long way toward educating broadcast meteorologists who cover this important topic. I’ll be sending a note to the AMS thanking them for their progress so far, and encouraging them to continue improving upon this draft before the statement is finalized.Can you please join me by doing the same?
Click here to send a note to the AMS.
Factually yours,
Dr. James Hansen
Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
P.S. If you’re interested in becoming a member of the AMS, you may do so here. Members are allowed to login and read draft statements, including the the latest statement on climate change.