Great art made from leaves, nails, fruit, pencil shavings, etc.

Bet you can't set your table like this:

Great street art:

An Open Letter To David Cameron & The IOC (about Sochi and LGBT rights):

Dear Prime Minister, M Rogge, Lord Coe and Members of the International Olympic Committee,
I write in the earnest hope that all those with a love of sport and the Olympic spirit will consider the stain on the Five Rings that occurred when the 1936 Berlin Olympics proceeded under the exultant aegis of a tyrant who had passed into law, three years earlier, an act which singled out for special persecution a minority whose only crime was the accident of their birth. In his case he banned Jews from academic tenure or public office, he made sure that the police turned a blind eye to any beatings, thefts or humiliations afflicted on them, he burned and banned books written by them. He claimed they “polluted” the purity and tradition of what it was to be German, that they were a threat to the state, to the children and the future of the Reich. He blamed them simultaneously for the mutually exclusive crimes of Communism and for the controlling of international capital and banks. He blamed them for ruining the culture with their liberalism and difference. The Olympic movement at that time paid precisely no attention to this evil and proceeded with the notorious Berlin Olympiad, which provided a stage for a gleeful Führer and only increased his status at home and abroad. It gave him confidence. All historians are agreed on that. What he did with that confidence we all know.
Putin is eerily repeating this insane crime, only this time against LGBT Russians. Beatings, murders and humiliations are ignored by the police. Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law. Any statement, for example, that Tchaikovsky was gay and that his art and life reflects this sexuality and are an inspiration to other gay artists would be punishable by imprisonment. It is simply not enough to say that gay Olympians may or may not be safe in their village. The IOC absolutely must take a firm stance on behalf of the shared humanity it is supposed to represent against the barbaric, fascist law that Putin has pushed through the Duma. Let us not forget that Olympic events used not only to be athletic, they used to include cultural competitions. Let us realise that in fact, sport is cultural. It does not exist in a bubble outside society or politics. The idea that sport and politics don’t connect is worse than disingenuous, worse than stupid. It is wickedly, wilfully wrong. Everyone knows politics interconnects with everything for “politics” is simply the Greek for “to do with the people”.
An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.
He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews. He cannot be allowed to get away with it. I know whereof I speak. I have visited Russia, stood up to the political deputy who introduced the first of these laws, in his city of St Petersburg. I looked into the face of the man and, on camera, tried to reason with him, counter him, make him understand what he was doing. All I saw reflected back at me was what Hannah Arendt called, so memorably, “the banality of evil.” A stupid man, but like so many tyrants, one with an instinct of how to exploit a disaffected people by finding scapegoats. Putin may not be quite as oafish and stupid as Deputy Milanov but his instincts are the same. He may claim that the “values” of Russia are not the “values” of the West, but this is absolutely in opposition to Peter the Great’s philosophy, and against the hopes of millions of Russians, those not in the grip of that toxic mix of shaven headed thuggery and bigoted religion, those who are agonised by the rolling back of democracy and the formation of a new autocracy in the motherland that has suffered so much (and whose music, literature and drama, incidentally I love so passionately).
I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler’s anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian “correctively” raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.
“All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” so wrote Edmund Burke. Are you, the men and women of the IOC going to be those “good” who allow evil to triumph?
The Summer Olympics of 2012 were one of the most glorious moments of my life and the life of my country. For there to be a Russian Winter Olympics would stain the movement forever and wipe away any of that glory. The Five Rings would finally be forever smeared, besmirched and ruined in the eyes of the civilised world.
I am begging you to resist the pressures of pragmatism, of money, of the oily cowardice of diplomats and to stand up resolutely and proudly for humanity the world over, as your movement is pledged to do. Wave your Olympic flag with pride as we gay men and women wave our Rainbow flag with pride. Be brave enough to live up to the oaths and protocols of your movement, which I remind you of verbatim below.
Rule 4 Cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace
Rule 6: Act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement
Rule 15 Encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education
I especially appeal to you, Prime Minister, a man for whom i have the utmost respect. As the leader of a party I have for almost all of my life opposed and instinctively disliked, you showed a determined, passionate and clearly honest commitment to LGBT rights and helped pushed gay marriage through both houses of our parliament in the teeth of vehement opposition from so many of your own side. For that I will always admire you, whatever other differences may lie between us. In the end I believe you know when a thing is wrong or right. Please act on that instinct now.
Yours in desperate hope for humanity
Stephen Fry
- See more at: http://www.stephenfry.com/2013/08/07/an-open-letter-to-david-cameron-and-the-ioc/single-page/#sthash.Bbwj4jGR.dpuf

Word!
Use places with existing structures from prior Olympics.
Start now so that a new place chosen can refurbish and update the facilities. Countries can make their travel and other plans now.

Taken-Under civil forfeiture, Americans who haven’t been charged with crimes can be stripped of

their cash, cars, and even homes. Is that all we’re losing?

(This is a long but eye-opening read. Even if you have read about civil forfeitures, the scope of the problem as recounted in this article is astounding. It is also frightening and beyond outrageous.
What kind of country have we become? Not one I am particulry proud of on too many occasions.)

On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Henderson’s home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Henderson’s father. This year, they’d decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their car’s center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read “Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with BIG Potential!”

They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond “Texas redneck from Lubbock,” by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.

He asked if Henderson knew that he’d been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.

No, Henderson replied. He said he’d moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.

Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.
<Snip>
Much more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

smh.....
I have no more hair left to catch on fire. I am not out of outrage. I am just exhausted from having it elicited 24/7.

T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security

WASHINGTON — As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.

The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States.

“The T.S.A., huh,” said Donald Neubauer of Greenville, Ohio, as he walked past the squad. “I thought they were just at the airports.”

With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.

T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.
<snip>
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyond-airport-security.html?_r=0&

Happy Happy, Joy Joy.

Ariz. Hotshot widow Juliann Ashcraft fighting for denied benefits

(CBS News) PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Five weeks ago, 19 men were killed fighting a wildfire near Yarnell, Ariz. They died together.

Andrew Ashcraft, 29, seen here with his wife, Juliann Ashcraft, was one of 19 elite "hotshot" firefighters killed in an Arizona wildfire this week.

It turns out, however, their families may not receive the same compensation.

The fire that swept over the Granite Mountain Hotshots left Juliann Ashcraft a widow. Her husband Andrew was 29 years old. "I want to be able to just be mourning my husband, be supporting my children, be figuring out what our new normal is," she said.

But she's been denied the lifetime benefits she was counting on to raise her four children, the youngest of whom is 18 months old. Ashcraft did not think it would be this much of an issue.

"As shocked as I was that my husband went to work and never came home, I'm equally shocked in how the city has treated our family since then," she said.

All 19 hotshot families will receive worker's compensation and a one-time federal payment of $328,000. But the city insists Ashcraft and 12 others were seasonal employees and are therefore not entitled to the lifetime salaries and health benefits -- worth millions -- given to the six full-time Hotshots.
<snip>
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57597110/ariz-hotshot-widow-juliann-ashcraft-fighting-for-denied-benefits/

Sigh.....
It never ends.

2 children dead after python escapes N.B. pet store

A snake escaped Ocean Reptile and killed two children upstairs. (CBC)

A python photo posted to Ocean Reptile's Facebook page.
Two children died after a python got into an apartment in Campbellton, N.B., RCMP say.

"Police are investigating two sudden deaths of two young boys," Const. Julie Rogers-Marsh said Monday.

It's believed the snake escaped from a pet store called Reptile Ocean. The victims were boys aged five and seven. They were in the apartment above the store.

"The preliminary investigation has led police to believe that a python snake escaped its enclosure in the store sometime overnight," the constable said..

Rogers-Marsh said it went through the ventilation. "It's believed the two boys were strangled by the snake," she said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2013/08/05/nb-two-die-boa-attack.html

Gak!

You will never look at ducks the same way again:

"I'll Bet You Did:"