Bender applauds Al Gore's Video!

Bender applauds Al Gore's Video!
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

You have to watch the clip, Futurama advertises Al Gore's video, Bender and Al gore side by side. Great trailer for the video: "An Inconvenient Truth."

Locash Cowboys

locash cowboys
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

I finally found the locash cowboys web site. I sat next to BJ the lead guitarist on a plane ride from denver to chicago. more about them here.

Geoff's air conditioner

Geoff's air conditioner
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

this guy is a genius! Here is how to design your own air conditioner for less than $20.

who killed the electric car?

funeral
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

here is a trailer for the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? sounds like a good film. For more infor on the electric car, go here. and here is the trailer link.

fluorescent chain cat shark

fluorescent chain cat shark
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

there is no such thing as a jaguar shark, like the one in The Life Aquatic. However, here is a deep sea shark that glows, its very short, only a meter long. researchers were looking for giant squid deep in the ocean, and they photographed this shark - surprise!

awesome paint job

awesome paint job
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

here's a gunman posing in front of his commander's car in Somalia. But look at the paint job!!! Awesome! with the crescent! And that one star blue flag on the drivers door! Can't you just see getting a late model jeep and painting it like that! The guns are too scary though....

last picture show

last picture show
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Absolutely incredible film. Shown at Regent Square Theater in pittsburgh, Sunday night only. From 1971 - timeless classic. Timothy Bottoms was great, Cloris Leachman was great - the entire cast was great. the Director Peter Bogdonovich was incredible - 31 yrs old - made a perfect movie. I dont think he can ever make a movie this good again, not that he isnt good now, but this movie was so perfect, the script, the actors, the black and white film, the landscape, the music. Absolutley perfect. here are the actors. and some dialogue follows.

Timothy Bottoms
Jeff Bridges
Cybill Shepherd
Ben Johnson
Cloris Leachman
Ellen Burstyn
Eileen Brennan
Clu Gulager
Sam Bottoms
Sharon Taggart
Randy Quaid



Now you boys can get on outta here. I don't wanna have no more to do with ya. Scarin' an unfortunate creature like Billy, just so's you could have a few laughs. I've been around that trashy behavior all my life. I'm gettin' tired of puttin' up with it. And you can stay outta this poolhall, outta my cafe and my picture show too. I don't want no more of your business.

Sonny: Nothin's really been right since Sam the Lion died.
Lois: No, no it hasn't. (Her eyes well up with tears) Oh God, I get sad if I think of Sam for long. Did you know he had beautiful hands?
Sonny: I guess you liked him, didn't you? Aw, I guess everybody did.
Lois: Well, I tell you, it was different with me, Sonny. I loved him. He loved me, too.
Sonny: Are you - are you the one he used to take swimmin'? Out at the tank?
Lois: (She smiles and then muses) He told you about that, huh? Yeah, I was the one. I guess if it wasn't for Sam, I'd just about have missed it, whatever it is. I'd have been one of them Amity types that thinks that playin' bridge is about the best thing that life has to offer. Old Sam the Lion. (After holding back tears, she's crying visibly) Sam the Lion - you know, nobody knows where he got that name. I gave it to him. One night, well, it just came to me. He was so pleased. I was 22 years old then. Can you imagine? I'll tell you, Sonny, it's terrible to only meet one man in your whole life who knows what you're worth. Just terrible. I've looked, too. You wouldn't believe how I've looked.

George Harrison tribute

George Harrison tribute
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

This is the most beautiful George Harrison tribute video on the web. He meditated sometimes 4 hrs a day, read the Gnostic gospels too. I think Hinduism and gnosticism led him to find the answer to the human dilemma: love. It's that simple after all....

Bob Hoover - world's greatest pilot

hoover
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

I have seen this guy at air shows - amazing. He was test pilot in WWII, shot down over europe spent time in POW camp. His air shows are incredible. This video shows his famous power off loop, barrel roll and landing - unbelievable - and he also shows how he can do a barrel roll and pour a glass of iced tea at the same time!!!

Buddhist temple 360 degrees panorama

buddhist chanting
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Here is a link to a very cool page, providing 360 degree panoramas of locations around the world, everything from london, to a hill in scotland, to a Buddhist sunset chanting ceremony performed by nuns. You have to be amazed at what you can find on the internet that makes the world become so small....

New glasses - pierced nose

glasses
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

these minimalist glasses require you to have the bridge of your nose pierced, then you attach your glasses. I am speechless....

Tom Waits: American buddha

Tom Waits: American buddha
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Tom Waits is an amazing song writer. His performances are no less fantastic. Here is waits from the Letterman show. He even does a soft shoe dance!

Pres Al Gore Won't leave West Wing set!

Pres Al Gore
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Here is the video of Al Gore on SNN, pretending to have been President for the last 6 years. funny!

10 commandments parody

10 commandments
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

They remade the 10 Commandments movie into a teen flick! Yes, the new kid moses arrives at high school, and takes on the establishment. Funny part of trailer is Sam Jackson as the flaming bush - very funny.

"We don't need no stinking badges!"

badges
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Pres. Bush has proposed that National Guard troops will serve two-week stints guarding our southern border before rotating out of the assignment, so keeping the force level at 6,000 over the course of a year could require up to 156,000 troops. Is this completely nuts? What will a national guard soldier do for 2 weeks patroling the border? Drive around in a humvee? Where will they live, in tents? Its the f**cking desert! How many will be support troops, how many will actually patrol? Remember how the national guard "guarded" our airports after 911? They stood around with unloaded weapons. The guard should not be used for border patrol, they won't be patroling anything anyway - its all a show. Its racism: the republicans pander to the right wingers in california and arizona and texas, and they dont want the USA to become Mexicanized (remember when Bush said he spoke Mexican?) That part of the US was part of Mexico. Look at the picture - its a picture of the actor from Treasure of Sierra Madre, when humphrey bogart asked him, "if you are the federales, then show us your badges..." Its a racist argument - its not about jobs, its about "mexicans" expanding as a % of our population. We have always been racist about immigration - our laws restricted immigrants from asia until recently, and favored european immigrants, esp those from "iron curtain" nations. Actually, bush is trying to do the right thing, find a way of legalizing immigration, but for the wrong reasons - mexican immigrants are important members of the work force for low paying, non union jobs. oh, the humanity....

Libya

libya
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

The term "real politik" applies to a foreign policy based on self interest, not on human rights, "freedom," or any consistently applied principle. Look at our relations with Cuba - communist state, we must isolate it. Iran - socialist islamist state, we must isolate. Iraq - socialist, dictatorship with crazy person (Saddam) as ruler. But Libya???? Within the past 20 years, it has been a terrorist state, a dictatorship, a radical islamic fundamentalist state, and now we are restoring relations with Libya. Why? Oil. Kadaffi (one of the principle rulers) wants to sell oil to international companies connected to US, for money, what else? Its about trade: we pay top dollar for Libya's money, they get all sanctions dropped. Were they responsible for the Locherbie 747 bombing? Perhaps their agents were connected, but it was a hit called for by Iran - the Libyans were easier to prosecute. (read this editorial written by the parent of one of the young women killed on that plane.) What is the difference between Libya and Saddam's Iraq? Saddam hated US, didnt care about sanctions, was convinced he could use Iraq oil to leverage an alliance with germany, france, to have sanctions released by UN, to isolate the US from the second largest supply of oil in the world. The UN drops sanctions against Iraq, Iraq says "f**ck you america we sell our oil to the European Union," and Iraq wins. But, we invaded. the lesson? Sell us your oil or we will find a way of wrecking your economy, or of invading your country. No sense of morality whatsoever.

The Dick

The Dick
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

Vice President Dick Cheney went pheasant shooting in Pennsylvania in December 2003, but unlike most of his fellow hunters across America, he didn't have to spend hours or even days tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of bagging a brace of birds for the dinner table.

Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds. According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl. I love it! a bunch of old, fat men, eat barbecue and drink beer, then they stand in one place while handlers release and chase birds in front of them so they can shoot - domestic rraised birds - without even having to walk. hell, why not release the birds by the tables where the barbecue and beer are at, that way cheney doesnt even have to walk to shoot. Is this hunting? What did they hunt? They stood in one place and shot domestic raised birds. This is not what "men" do, its what eunuchs do.

After lunch, the group shot flocks of mallard ducks, also reared in pens and shot like so many live skeet. There's been no report on the number of mallards the hunting party killed, but it's likely that hundreds fell.

Rolling Rock is an exclusive private club for the wealthy with a world-class golf course and a closed membership list. It is also a "canned hunting" operation—a place where fee-paying hunters blast away at released animals, whether birds or mammals, who often have no reasonable chance to escape. Most are "no kill, no pay" operations where patrons only shells out funds for the animals they kill.

Bird-shooting operations offer pheasants, quail, partridges, and mallard ducks, often dizzying the birds and planting them in front of hunters or tossing them from towers toward waiting shotguns. There are, perhaps, more than 3,000 such operations in the United States, according to outdoor writer Ted Williams.

For canned hunts involving mammals, hunters can shoot animals native to given continents—everything from Addax to Zebra—within the confines of a fenced area, assuring the animals have no opportunity to escape. Time magazine estimates that 2,000 facilities offer native or exotic mammals for shooting within fenced enclosures.

The HSUS worked hard to expose Cheney's shooting spree, and we were fortunate in persuading The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and other media outlets to cover the events of that day and our subsequent criticism.

Our criticism is simple to understand: Farm-raised pheasants are about as wary as urban pigeons and shooting them is nothing more than live target practice, especially when they are released from a hill in front of 10 gunners hidden below in blinds—as Cheney and his party were. Such hunting makes a mockery of basic principles of fair play and humane treatment, and the vice president should not associate himself with such conduct.

The private excesses of Cheney are bad enough, and worthy of The HSUS's rebuke. But it's the public policy excesses that are of even greater concern to me. Cheney's hunting trip strikes me as emblematic of the Bush Administration's callousness towards the earth's animals.

The administration's most outrageous proposal is its plan to allow trophy hunters to shoot endangered species in other countries and import the trophies and hides into the United States. The administration first floated the proposal a few months ago, with formal proposals subsequently published in the Federal Register, and President Bush is expected to make a final decision soon on the plan, which originated with his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has provided critical protections for species near extinction in the United States. The act also protects species in foreign nations, by barring pet traders, circuses, trophy hunters, and others from importing live or dead endangered species. While we can't prevent the shooting or capture of endangered species overseas, we can prevent imports—thus eliminating the incentive for American hunters and others to shoot or trap the animals in the first place.

But with this plan the administration is seeking to punch gaping holes in the prohibitions, under the assumption that generating revenue through the sale of hunting licenses will aid on-the-ground conservation in foreign lands.

The plan is transparent on its face. It's not aimed to help species, but to aid special interests who want to profit from the exploitation of wildlife. No group is more centrally involved in this miserable plan than Safari Club International, the world's leading trophy hunting organization and an entity with close ties to the Bush Administration.

The 40,000 member organization of rich trophy collectors has doled out close to $600,000 in campaign contributions among GOP candidates in the past six years. President Bush appointed a former top lobbyist of the Safari Club to be the deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—again, the very agency promoting the plan to allow the selling off of endangered species to private interests.

The HSUS is not a pro-hunting organization. That said, we view certain types of hunting as worse than others. It crosses any reasonable line to support the shooting of some of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world. And it is beyond the pale to advocate for or participate in the shooting of animals in canned hunts—for birds or mammals.

President Bush met with leaders of 19 hunting organizations on December 12. While we expect him to endorse certain forms of hunting, he should in no way countenance the shooting of endangered species or the hunting of captive or pen-reared animals. If that's where these hunting groups want to lead him, he needs to resist their entreaties. He needs to stand up to these special interest groups and draw a bright line between certain types of hunting conduct.

Americans don't support this nonsense, and the president shouldn't either.

Deerhunter on the big screen

deer
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

I just saw Deer Hunter on the big screen, at regent sq theater in pittsburgh. Amazing. I could see the whole scene as the director wanted - huge screen. Regent sq is an old theater, with the big screen, not the small screens those muliplex theaters have. The colors were so vibrant. And I could hear the dialogue better than ever. For a film criticized so much (poor editing, poor dialogue etc) it was nominated for many award, won 5 academy awards, Michael Cimino won every director's award there was that year. Oddly enough, this is only one of two Cimino films that were ever considered good and it still has its critics. The wedding party scene was great on the wide screen. I finally connected the choir at church wedding with the choir singing when Michael goes deer hunting the first time. In church, he mocks stan when stan makes the sign of the cross. Then when they are hunting the first time, the choir starts to sing as Michael stalks the deer: the woods are Michael's church! He worships the deer, the hunt, the "one shot" code. The second time he hunts, he purposely misses the deer, and yells, "OKAYYYY?!" up in the air, as if speaking to heaven - does he now believe in God? Meryl Streep was soooo beautiful - her hair is so many shades of blonde. the scene where she sleeps next to michael in her towel...no dialogue, none needed. And when michael waits for her outside the Eagle market, she gets in car, says, "Did you even think our lives would turn out like this?" Michael of course is silent (De Niro didnt have many long lines in the movie). Finally figured out what the viet cong guy is yelling during the russian roulette scenes: "Di di Mau! Mau!" It means hurry up in Vietnamese. The GI's in nam started using it as a phrase, as in, "Lieutenant, it looks like an entire NVA battalion is about to over whelm us, I suggest we Di Di Mau!!!" like lets get the hell out of here quick. Its an expression vietnam vets would recognize. The movie was perfect, although they cut the sound off too soon for the speaker after the film - that song is so beautiful at the end, you have to let it play out. The funeral at the end, in that run down cemetary next to the church where stevie and angela were married, the sound of a train and factory in background, these are not affluent people, this is not a rich mans cemetary, and then the breakfast scene afterward, Linda fumbling with the silver war, no one really functioning, speaking, and then finally the song God Bless America - absolutley heart breaking...I mean you know these people and actually care about them. I have seen this film about 30 times, I still cried all the way through it, starting at the wedding party, going right through to the end.
ihave some Vietnam links elsewhere on the blog here and here. Christopher Walken for President!

british helo downed

british helo downed
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

No a good sign. The british occupy southern iraq, around Basra, where there has been less opposition to the invasion. The reason for this, is that Shia militia effectively control the area - the british are tolerated because the militia is really in control. The police are controlled by the militia. In other words, the central gov isnt in control of this part of Iraq, the british troops arent "enforcing" anything. The Shia are alligned with Iran, and Iran has poored arms into southern iraq to support the shia militia. But Tony Blair didnt do well in the the british elections, and it was in large part due to his support of the iraq war. I think the militia in basra figured out that Blair is weakened, and maybe now is the time to put the hammer on the british troops, who really arent in control of anything to begin with. The press doesnt report this - no real analysis behind the news. So what happens if the british leave? Nothing, other than the militia will continue to be in control, and the central government will not have legitimacy in southern Iraq. There is only the illusion of "Iraqi Government" legitimacy now in southern iraq. There is a de facto division of Iraq, with Kurds controlling the north, shia militia controlling the south, and the US army/marines trying to shore up the central gov by battling the sunni insurgents.

nagasaki

nagasaki
Originally uploaded by recyclingfan.

there is a book entitled "When Presidents lie: a history of deception and its consequences" by eric alterman. Not a bad book, doesnt really go into the great lies of presidents. Like when Harry Truman explained that he had no remorse about dropping the bomb on japan, that it saved American lives. Truth is, Japan was trying to surrender, an invasion wasnt necessary. US wanted unconditional surrender, refused any negotiations. Meanwhile, continued to drop indendiary bombs on a nation that couldnt defend itself. Here are some eyewitness accounts of the day the bomb was dropped. You know you dont have to be a historian to study presidential deception: we have it today with Bush and his handlers. The entire iraq invasion was a giant deception. I cant get over the hubris involved in the US invading iraq over the "threat" of weapons of mass destruction, or the fear of a nuclear Iran, when the US has the record for using weapons of mass destruction. The only time nuclear weapons have been used is by the US, against Japan which was at the time a defenseless nation. And who gave the chemical and biological weapons to Iraq? the US of course.