Did a political cartoon over the weekend, something new for me. Not as nice as some of my 3D pictures, but I think the message should be fairly clear. It somehow didn’t seem appropriate to use a 3D rendered image, although that’s how it began. Maybe if I do another one at some point I’ll go 3D the whole way.
Author: Jason Orrill
Turns out the UFO picture is a hot item, at least compared to everything else here. I got another request last week for the image sans UFOs. So…for everyone’s convenience, I’ve now made that image available at TurboSquid. Ten bucks and it’s yours to do whatever you want with.
In other news…meet my new site mascot. I know, he’s got nothing visually in common with the rest of the site design, but I don’t really care. The dude needs a name, though. Any suggestions?
I don’t think so…although you would be forgiven for thinking that it is given the new design. At the moment I’m just trying to simplify things and get rid of the graphics-heavy look. While the large section of whitespace in the middle here does lend itself to brain dumps, the odds of that happening on anything resembling a regular basis are slim.
So for now, just think of the new design this way: professional stuff on the right, personal stuff on the left, and a big blank canvas in the middle…
One more thing…my apologies if you’ve come here looking for something and gotten a “not found” error.
INT. DAY, DINING ROOM CHANDRA I talked with Jon & Lisa last night and was a non-family witness that they don't want to be kept alive with a feeding tube. JASON Did you sign something? CHANDRA No. JASON Ok-- that probably won't count then. You need to get something on paper. CHANDRA Oh. (pauses) Just for the record, I don't want to be kept alive, either. JASON Ok. (pauses) I want to be kept alive, though. CHANDRA Really? JASON Yes. Only under certain conditions, though. I want to be kept alive and propped up in Congress as a public testament to the value of life. I also want to wear seasonally appropriate hats. CHANDRA Like for Dr. Seuss' birthday? JASON Sure, and a yarmulke for Hannukkah and Yom Kippur, a Santa hat for Christmas, a green hat for St. Patrick's Day. And a sombrero for Cinco de Maya. CHANDRA How about beads for Mardi Gras? JASON Sure-- and if the women in Congress flash me, they can take a set of beads. CHANDRA You really want Hillary Clinton to flash you? JASON Hey, if she really valued life, she would.Posted by Jason at March 19, 2005 11:09 AM | TrackBack
This is just a quick test of the rel=”nofollow” plugin to verify that it’s working. If this works, then I may start allowing comments again…
Not sure what’s going on with the weird entries. Movable Type & NetNewsWire seem to be having some sort of spat. I’ll see if I can’t straighten that out here…
Over at Daily Kos there’s a bit about Dubya’s tendency to personalize things:
What’s depressing is this infuriating penchant for Bush to villify individuals, as though our battles can be won by exterminating a few well-placed leaders. We have seen this with al Qaida and OBL, we have seen it with Saddam Hussein, and now with our two latest boogeymen — Sadr and Abu Musab Zarqawi.
The enemies we face are bigger than one person. Killing Sadr would be as effective in ending Shiite opposition as capturing Saddam was in ending Sunni opposition (or killing his sons, for that matter). Killing or capturing Osama bin Laden would make us all feel good (especially killing him), but it wouldn’t have any real effect on Al Qaida operations.
Yet the administration insists on creating the fiction that killing or capturing any one man can help us win our various wars. It’s understandable, in a way — a relatively easy way to prove progress to a domestic audience.
This is one case where I don’t think Bush is really to blame. The tendency to focus on individuals is actually fairly common in American diplomacy. I don’t remember the details, but this is something Kissinger covered in his book, Diplomacy. The point Kos makes is perfectly valid in terms of how focusing on individual personalities can be the wrong approach, but it’s not necessarily a flaw of Bush’s particularly (although I’ll grant that his lack of attention probably exacerbates the problem).
You know, I get tired of posting this graphic, but there’s “supporting the troops”, and there’s supporting the troops:
“Countering the insurgency, [Cpl. Richard] Stayskal [, a 22-year-old Marine from San Jose, Calif.] said, has been difficult for Marines on the ground. In his case, his unit was chronically short of ammunition, and his support unit got pinned down at the same time across town. The two units couldn’t help each other.
“They weren’t giving us nearly enough ammunition for the situations out there. Everyone was running out. Everyone was grabbing each other’s ammunition.”
Sometimes you just have to test things, that’s all.