For Poe's Law's sake

Has anyone noticed how Jerry Seinfeld's show was a warning about socialism?

For example: When George became stronger Elaine became a pushover parasite.  Kramer never seemed to have a job, but lived the high life with a very nice Manhattan apartment.  How could he have afforded this?  Was Kramer living on Section 8 Vouchers and collecting a type of SNAP benefits?  If it wasn't the drug or sex trade I have to wonder how an adult could make a living acting like Kramer did.

The warning signs were all there.  They had the episode where the car was literally torched for parking in a disabled spot.  They had the episode about the Puerto Rican Day Parade that cut them off from their own world.  George even managed to injure a Boy In a Bubble while attempting to help him.  It was like a blueprint for the future of the Obamacare plan.

Even the subtle background details included vague hints of future liberalism.  Jerry had a bike hanging in his apartment, and an Apple computer.  A man who is strict about the rules on his private property in his own business is mocked as being a Soup Nazi.  The entire "Not there there's anything wrong about that" "joke"?  The phrase "Cartwright, party of four" is a joke instead of taking PC just too far.

What was the world coming to in the 1990's, when this was acceptable as a "SitCom" for parents to watch with their children?

Portland Streetcar leader gets Obama Promotion

Chandra Brown was just appointed to be the U.S. Commerce Department's deputy assistant secretary for manufacturing.  That's good for her, but United Streetcar, the company she was just head of (as President since 2007 and CEO since January), has delivered one streetcar to Portland and it's not even in operation.  That's the payback for the city that basically sponsored them existing as a division of Oregon Iron Works.  Right now there is a backorder of the entire set Portland was expecting to open their Eastside Loop with.

Even worse for Tucson, AZ is that they're waiting for a set of streetcars as well.  These aren't some crazy new design that's never been tested either.  These are a Czech design that's been used successfully, but apparently it's a little tougher to use licensed blueprints than it might sound.

I have to wonder how a company that hasn't actually delivered anything they promised gets promoted to a cabinet appointment?  How does a company with such a failing record end up with their CEO getting this kind of promotion?

"This is my coffee table, his name is Dave"

Hi there, my name is Dave.  I'd like to be your coffee table.  Or lamp.  Or, if you're an artist, your signature project.

The problem might be, is it legal to license the use of a dead human who is properly preserved for artistic reasons?

I've realized I probably won't mind if I don't have my body anymore after I die.  I don't plan on doing so anytime soon, but when it does happen I don't want to just get thrown away, recycled, or just put in a compost pile.  So, what is there to do with a Dave?

Well, maybe I could be a coffee table, or otherwise a piece of art.    I'd bet with some properly bolted in metal plates I could be part of an awesome bookshelf or workbench.  Since I was a...  Maybe a teenager?  It's been a while, but anyway, I've thought it would be funny to be encased in plastic either on my back like a stranded turtle, or on my hands and knees with a table top attached so I could become a coffee table.

Maybe that's too simple, and I could be made into a lamp that could change my appearance with the seasons simply by dressing up my preserved corpse?  It's not like I'll need it by then.

For the right price, maybe I could become a trophy.  It really won't matter if it's after I'm dead, which is pretty much the only way I'll accept any negotiations for the trade in of my body.

But, if anyone wanted to buy a license to use my image, including after death, as well as the rights to the source material I'd be happy to consider negotiating a license to use my leftovers when I'm gone in the most entertaining and profitable way possible.

In the long, long run, like, once I've been dead for fifty years, for it to end up in a museum, which is why I would prefer it to just be a license to use my body until I become a more long term art project for the public to appreciate.

If anyone has ideas about how they'd like to license a Dave please feel free to contact me; just have creative ideas for the first free range Dave as well as a lawyer with some idea for how I can rent my not-quite rotting remains to you when I'm gone.  (Which, if you really are serious, you'll need a serious long-term plan.  I'm only in my 30's now, so it might be a while before your vision can be achieved.  I have to be kind of done with this body first.)

The PATRIOT Act was passed because as a nation we were scared.  Maybe we should all just take a few deep breaths and look at this as a complex problem that knee-jerk reactions won't fix.

There are definitely problems with gun accessibility for the suspected mentally ill in this country.  Harris and Klebold had both been court-ordered into psychiatric care.  Virginia Tech?  Well, Cho was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder before the attack.  Loughner was kicked out of college for being too crazy for people to feel comfortable around him, and campus police and the administration removed him until he had a psych exam (which his parents didn't bother with.)  Holmes was referred to police for saying he was going to kill people.  Adam Lanza it seems everyone but his mom realized was a bit off.  It just goes on and on.  There were red flags waving everywhere, but people just ignored them.

The Columbine kids found a straw purchaser.  VT guy had no record because it's really tough to put one on someone who has never committed a crime, even if everyone around them things they're crazy.  Loughner was a case of the college trying to wash its hands, just like Holmes.  With Lanza the issues appear more complex, but he stole guns that his mom left accessible to him even though everyone around him knew something wasn't right with him.  I'll even point out the Clackamas Town Center shootings were done by someone who stole a gun from a friend who most likely didn't secure it well.  The Aurora shooter (Holmes) is the most pathetic case of the system failing, since his doctor alerted police, but apparently once he dropped out nobody cared to follow up.

So, maybe we should be looking at how we find a way to respond to tons of people seeing red flags but not reporting any of them rather than jump at a quick and easy solution that would be unlikely to actually prevent mentally ill people with severe anger issues from killing a lot of people.

Pedobear in Portland

KPTV in Portland has a story tonight about some cars that teenagers hit with rocks thrown from overpasses of I-205.  One of the victims has Pedobear on his hood. (The picture is from 1 min 11 sec into the video.)