Haus der Luege : Noli Evocare Quod Reprimere Non Potes

Given time, I can draw well enough. But it’s not the fun part - I like painting a lot better. Sometime in my 20’s I got a bit damaged and developed some fine-motor control issues which made drawing and painting all the more challenging. Frankly, I’m a bit lazy, and there just wasn’t enough motivation for me to redevelop the skill in the real world, when I was using computers to do a lot of my work anyhow. So, I started doing it digitally, where there’s no such thing as a fatal mistake, but plenty of easy ways to make bad art and cheat. I dislike cheating at anything , so I evolved this process, which let’s me claim pretty legitimately that I “done gone and made a pretty.”

I recently got an iPad and frankly, this technique is so suited to the device that I couldn’t resist banging one out. This tutorial will take you through creating a “sketch” from the photo all the way to a finished product, using Photoshop CS and ArtStudio.

It’s a sort of paining-by-numbers method, but it takes a lot of practice and a fair amount of skill to do well.

Klint Finley over at Renegade Futurist recently pointed out This Story from the Wall Street Journal about the city of Oakland, CA hiring private guards to supplement their police force. Their reasoning, that contracting private guards are less expensive than hiring new police officers may well be sound; however, there’s a moral issue involved that concerns me: who bears responsibility for the actions of those private guards?

Ideally, the responsibility would still lie with the city, since the guards are acting as their agents. but as we saw with Blackwater Worldwide, now called Xe Worldwide over in the Middle East, what we find is that the penalties for misconduct are financial at best and result in a company having to rebrand, at worst. What I haven’t seen from either the government that hired Blackwater, or from Blackwater/Xe’s management is a sincere mea culpa. They paid a few million dollars in fines - to the government - which essentially came back to them in the form of renewed and extended contracts from that same government. In other words, their responsibility has been pretty minimal, in light of what they’ve been accused of.

So what happens when we see that same lack of culpability manifest in this country?

/me casts the obligatory initial 'meh'.

From the Courier Mail

Man fined for penis in pasta jar
November 19, 2008 04:20pm

A MAN caught by police with his penis submerged in a pasta sauce jar was still pleasuring himself while resisting arrest, a court has been told.

Police drew their weapons after New South Wales man Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, led them on a brief, slow-speed car chase, the Newcastle Herald reports.
Weatherley attracted police attention while he was parked in a no-stopping zone near Nobby's Beach on October 26, Newcastle Local Court was told yesterday. .
Police thought he might have a weapon because they saw him doing something with his hands in his lap, the Herald said.

Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said.

That's when the pursuit began, the court was told.

Great piece over at the Onion.

I Love My Country–Aw, Who Am I Kidding? My Country Can Go Fuck Itself

Sad to say, but this resonates with me as an expression of hte mixed feelings that I have about the United States.

I look at the T.V.
Your America's doing well
I look out the window
My America's catching hell
I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?
I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?
I change the channel
Your America's doing fine
I read the headlines
My America's doing time
I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?
I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?
Go west young, go west young man
Don't want to crossover
But how do I keep from going under?
Where is my picket fence?
My long, tall glass of lemonade?
Where is my VCR, my stereo, my T.V. show?
I look at the T.V.
I don't see your America
I look out the window
I don't see your America
I want to know how to get to your America
I want to know how to get to your America

(V. Reid/Living Color)