pamibe

Talented Dalton Ghetti works as a carpenter, but in his spare time carves intricate art into pencils. Some pieces take two and half years to complete.

‘At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present.

‘Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible.

‘I experimented sculpting with different materials, such as chalk, but one day I had an eureka moment and decided to carve into the graphite of a pencil.’ Dalton uses three basic tools to make his incredible creations – a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife.

He even refuses to use a magnifying glass and has never sold any of his work, only given it away to friends.
Daily Mail

[...]

Is in Los Angeles. The $578 million Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools opens next month in the former Ambassador Hotel amid controversy… and little of it seems to be centered on the fact that the Ambassador was the site of RFK’s assassination.

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of “Taj Mahal” schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.

“There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail,’” said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. “Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.”

What’s wrong with cinderblock? A showpiece for the community??

Many parents are not impressed, given the 50% drop out rate, but L.A. is hardly alone in their extravagance:

Los Angeles is not alone, however, in building big. Some of the most expensive schools are found in low-performing districts — New York City has a $235 million campus; New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January.

Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums, orchestra-pit auditoriums, food courts, even bamboo nooks. The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers.

“…whether more money should be spent on teachers.”

What are they thinking?

The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other LA schools among the nation’s costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009.

The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation’s second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation’s lowest performing.

Yikes. ‘Bamboo nooks’ over teachers. I’d rather my child learned in a cinder-block building with a good, well paid teaching professional, thanks.

Yahoo News

It’s pretty bad when the LA Slimes* doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about the Liar-in-Chief:

If any president’s supporters knew what they were going to hear for their $30,400 fundraiser admission ticket, few would likely shell out even $30. (Groans). Which is why so many Hollywood liberal luminaries like Jeffrey Katzenberg and Barbra Streisand bought the tickets and then completely skipped Barack Obama’s speech, the one that raised $1 million for Democratic House campaigns along with the ire of thousands of L.A. commuters who paid nothing and got no canapes for the privilege of sitting a couple of hours in stubborn security traffic jams around the entire neighborhood of mansions. (Boos.)…This week’s fundraising speeches across the nation have a shorter brag list and a more stridently partisan tone, aimed at congressional Republicans who, if summer polls are any indicator, only need to keep breathing in order to regain control at least of the House on Nov. 2.

The Democrat is trying to portray Republicans in Congress as obstructionists, as if American voters gave the GOP lopsided majorities in both houses in the 2008 elections, instead of the other way around.

If Republicans were such obstinate obstacles, why didn’t Democrats approve healthcare last year when they had 60 Senate votes and the GOP was helpless to halt it? Obama doesn’t discuss the dissension among Democrats.

The president has also fallen into recycling the same jokes — one about his favorite Republican, Abraham Lincoln (see full text below), and another, lifted from the rhetorical repertoire of Iowa Democrat Chet Culver, about American drivers knowing that to go forward they put their car in D and to go backwards they put the vehicle in R. (Groans.)

And then there’s this:

Just a few minor things to catch up on for the weekend now that the Fundraiser-in-Chief has gone on another vacation (Don’t worry though. White House chef Sam Kass went along, so the first family need not eat ordinary human food.)

– The Congressional Budget Office says the 2010 federal deficit will be in excess of $1.3 trillion, as in $1,000,000,000,000+. (BTW, the next level we’ll be talking about out of Washington is quadrillion, which has fifteen 0′s.)

– Despite Vice President Joe Biden’s April boast that administration stimulus spending would spur the economy to add a half-million jobs a month by now, initial unemployment claims jumped a half-million last week, the worst since last November, as national unemployment remains at 9.5% and the economy sheds 131,000 more jobs.

– But the economy’s going great at the Democratic National Committee, which reports collecting $11.5 million from donors in July on top of the $53.8 million already taken in from various sources this year. The president just devoted three workdays across five states to rake in several more millions for his party.

– But before leaving for his ninth presidential vacation, 10 days at a….

…secluded estate on Martha’s Vineyard, Obama devoted four minutes in the White House driveway to a special statement on the latest disappointing jobs numbers. (Full text, as usual, can be read on the jump, along with a brief reaction from the Republican National Committee chairman.)

No questions allowed because the president didn’t want to explain why despite the administration’s announced Recovery Summer Program, the jobs numbers have started going backward again after 19 months of promises and $787 billion in alleged stimulation spending. Because, faced with the uncertainty of the economy and the certainty of new taxes after Nov. 2, employers are holding back on hiring.

And now, a joke courtesy of this blog’s host, Pamibe:

The Top Secret Air Force 1 Project:

Air Force General: Mr. President, we’ve just invented an invisibility cloak for Air Force One. Air Force One is now invisible, ensuring your security in the face of growing hostility.

Obama: No S***?

General: That’s right, sir. Will you be going along on its maiden flight?

Obama: Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

General: Have a good trip, sir.

*H/T: Folly

Whether stifling dissent or simply filling their coffers, the city of Philadelphia has begun to charge bloggers $300 a year for a business license. A bill will be introduced in September that would reform the ‘privilege’ business tax, but it will still require bloggers to pay, and since most personal blogs don’t make any money, Philadelphia would be charging people for a hobby.

PAY UP: Got a blog that makes no money? The city wants $300, thank you very much.
by Valerie Rubinsky
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

“The real kick in the pants is that I don’t even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous,” Bess says.

It would be one thing if Bess’ website were, well, an actual business, or if the amount of money the city wanted didn’t outpace her earnings six-fold. Sure, the city has its rules; and yes, cash-strapped cities can’t very well ignore potential sources of income. But at the same time, there must be some room for discretion and common sense.

When Bess pressed her case to officials with the city’s now-closed tax amnesty program, she says, “I was told to hire an accountant.”

She’s not alone. After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made.

Even if, as with Sean Barry, that profit is $11 over two years.

Barry’s music-oriented blog, Circle of Fits, is hosted on Blogspot; as of this writing, its home page has two ads on it, but because he gets only a fraction of the already low ad revenue — the rest goes to Blogspot — it’s far from lucrative.

“Personally, I don’t think Circle of Fits is a business,” says Barry. “It might be someday if I start selling coffee mugs, key chains or locks of my hair to my fans. I don’t think blogs should be taxed unless they are making an immense profit.”

The city disagrees. Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year,” he adds.

Mannino says the city doesn’t keep track of how many bloggers and small-website owners are affected. But bloggers aren’t the only ones upset with the city’s tax structure. In June, City Council members Bill Green and Maria Quiñones-Sánchez unveiled a proposal to reform the city’s business privilege tax in an effort to make Philly a more attractive place for small businesses. If their bill passes, bloggers will still have to get a privilege license if their sites are designed to make money, but they would no longer have to pay taxes on their first $100,000 in profit. (If bloggers don’t want to fork over $300 for a lifetime license, Green suggests they take the city’s $50-a-year plan.)

Their bill will be officially introduced in September. “There’s a lot of support and interest in this idea,” Green says.

Perhaps, but it doesn’t change the fact that the city wants some people to pay more in taxes than they earn. “I definitely don’t want to see people paying more in taxes and fees than what [we] earn,” says Bess. “But I do think the city needs to establish a minimal amount of money that they won’t tax, whether you’re a bike messenger, microblogger or a freelance typist.”

~City Paper

Who’s next?

Filched from the Reaganite Republican.

Here’s the headline in today’s Huffington Post:

Shot Fired At Franken’s Condo, Police Investigating

Of course, my suspicions that this was a tempest in a teapot were confirmed when I clicked on the link. What self-respecting would-be assassin would shoot at Franken’s house with a pellet gun? I’m sure he called the police to make a mountain out of a molehill so he could feed his ego.

What a fucking pussy.

And then you read some of the comments and realize that there are some very stupid drama queens out there supporting this assclown.

Sucking our life's blood.

I took liberties with the new Rolling Stone cover… a feeble attempt… but it made me smile.

Russell Simmons thinks it’s just ‘wrong-headed’ to blame Muslims for the 9/11 attacks… hell, we didn’t blame Christians for the first WTC bombing, right? Well, then.

What the hell?

Poor Russell has come to believe whatever the fairies whisper into his good ear.

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,500 lb (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device[1] was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people.[2][3] It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured 1,042.

The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.
Wiki

Via Moonbattery

Started tearing up at the ‘shower of affection’ and things just got better from there. I needed this.

Filched from Joan. While you’re there, go on down to this piece of brilliance. The woman has insight and can convey ideas as few others in the ‘sphere.

you can tell your guests:
If you don’t like the accommodations, get the F*CK out!

“I can’t find a place to charge my phone”? “I hate the giant bouquet”? SERIOUSLY? Who writes this crap for Yahoo and how do I get that job?