Barack Obama on Religion

For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.

This isn’t to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways‚ and not necessarily the best way‚ that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.

In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well.

Cleese

Long cat MkII

U.S. missile Shield

Area in blue is the missle shield

SELL SELL SELL!!!!!!

Go to directory.sootle.com/ and click What is your website worth? then type in a website address and it shows its value. Don’t know if it really is the true market value, but it is interesting.

Big Brother Bush

Prevail!

McCain

Four more years

Cat Butt

Yellowstone

2010

Kirovs

They’re reporting

Heat Vision & Jack

Anyone ever see this? It was pretty funny just for the cheese effect. You can see the whole pilot on YouTube..

Rich Vs. Poor

Large Hand

Nixion – Yes!

Exploding Steel Wool with Tesla Coils

More here:

Ship Dismantling In Progress

Gorilla Knitting

Beer Bottle Ash Tray

I remember always needing something like this back in my smoking days.

Sexy Army of Darkness

from nebezial.deviantart.com/

The Maxx

Teletubbies afterhours

T-Rex Staple remover

Elephant Race

19-0

The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots

I put in a preorder for this book this morning (Feb 4). Not only was it canceled by Amazon with no notice, it’s gone from their listings too. Bummer.

Jim Henson and the Muppets

Henson: The Movie is in the works and being directed by Penny Marshall.

Michael Munger for Governor?

Libertarian governor wannabe in North Carolina

LOW ON GAS

Trapped in time, surrounded by evil, Low on gas!

Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun

William Blake – The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun

The Difference…

Scientology Protest Mask

I’m bringing a sizable posse of Discordians and other ne’er-do-wells to the Anonymous NYC Scientology protest on 2/10/08. I’ll be bringing a few hundred of these, too.

Are any of you going?

Link Motivational Poster

Stick it in her-
You’ve rescued the bitch fifteen fucking times.

Creepy Clown

There are no non-creepy clowns.

‘cept maybe Crusty.

Colani’s Horch

1996. Colani mega-roadster Horch (Foto Tom Vack) www.bangertinternational.de/colani/images/images.php

Colani

The man himself www.bangertinternational.de/colani/images/images.php

Colani’s Ferrari Testa d’Oro

1989. Colani Ferrari Testa d’Oro. Holder of the world record in its class at 351 km/h. n 1991, with Mike Strasburg at the wheel, the car hit a world record for vehicles with catalytic converters when tested on Salt Lake, Utah.

Colani’s Ferrari Lotec Testa d’Oro, Rear View

1989. Rear view of the Colani Ferrari Lotec Testa d’Oro.

Colani’s Maglev

1978. HM-1. Wind tunnel model for a magnetic levitation train. Fin-shaped steering gear produces the requisite downforce. In 1974 engineers at Thyssen Henschel in Kassel began development work on the long stator magnetic propulsion technology that was later to be a success.

Colani’s Three-wheeler

1970. Life-size model of a two-part hybrid car. The engine and cam shaft are taken from a Lamborghini Miura, the separate passenger cabin is designed like the cockpit of a glider.

Barack Obama Quote

“When I am this party’s nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I supported Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don’t like. And he will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture, because it is never ok‚ I will end the war in Iraq‚ I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, “You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.”

Colani’s Frog-Red

Frog. 1973. Study of possible shapes for a motorcycle.

Colani’s C 112

1970. Colani sportscar C 112 (Foto Tom Vack) www.bangertinternational.de/colani/images/images.php

Colani’s C 112-Rear View

1970. Colani sportscar C 112 (Foto Tom Vack)

Colani’s Truck

1997/2002. Truck based on a DAF chassis, and Spitzer silo truck on a Mercedes Actros chassis. Just why the automobile industry never adopted Colani’s ideas, which he has propagated for 30 years, and never put the series into mass production will remain one of life’s great mysteries. www.bangertinternational.de/colani/images/images.php

Colani’s Frog

1973. Study for a motorcycle (Foto Tom Vack)

Colani’s Speed-bike

1989. Rollout of the futurist concept study for the high-speed Utah 8 two-wheeler in Berne, Switzerland. This motorcycle was specially created for an attempt at the world land record held by Utah legend Don Vesco (518 km/h). Colani intended to then go for the absolute world record of 659 km/h for wheel-based vehicles – held by Bob Summer driving his “Goldenrod” and dating from 1965. The high-speed vehicles amount to the climax of his ingenious focus on this type of formal solution.

Colani’s Mazda Prototype

Colani exhibition in Karlsruhe, southern Germany
In front: 1983. Flying object for the road. With his prototype for Mazda, Colani took the principle of wing cars to the extreme. The plan was, at a later stage, to use a 4-chamber Mazda Wankel rotary engine, capable of between 960 and 1400 hp for the Le Mans vehicle, which was only available as a life-size model,. The wing shape was meant to enable this veritable powerhouse to accelerate to speeds of 350-380 km/h. www.bangertinternational.de/colani/images/images.php

More Flying Tigers

Following up the R. T. Smith photo of Flying Tigers P-40s over China, here is the cover of my history of the American Volunteer Group, published last fall by HarperCollins. The cover photo was taken by George Rodger for Life, though it wasn’t published in the magazine. From left to right: Jack Newkirk, Hank Geselbracht, Bob Layher, Bill Bartling, and Jim Howard at Rangoon in January or February 1942. For more about the Tigers, see www.warbirdforum.com/avg.htm and www.FlyingTigersBook.com Blue skies! — Dan Ford

Science???

Is this Science?

Affirmative Action

Jericho

This is coming back for it’s second season. Anyone else watched it yet?