Cycletron

What the hell?

Just stumbled across this picture, of what I guess is the Cycletron...

I am still trying to grasp just how all that work, but it sure must have.

Faster than 200mph, for some record.  I don't even know which...

Research is in order.

Post Modernism

So, are we post-post-modern now?

Or is this some sort of neo-revivalism-post-modernity we are living in?

Maybe the early stages of pre-revival-neo -modernist thought, breaking away from established neo-modernity and moving towards a neo-pre-post-modernism?

Sunday Drive

It is all down hill, from here...

Soon

Weekend Plans

Fan Mail Friday

I get this kinda shit, all the time...

Cat Mummy

Yeah, it is a cat mummy...

British Museum.

Underwear

You know how I can tell we have really peaked, as a civilization, and everything is all going to shit?


Nobody ever throws adult, underwear themed, roller skating parties anymore...

Two Wheels Tuesday

If you look closely, you might notice that all the boxes are for some Columbus blood drive, or something...

Feeling Cool?

Bring me another beer.

Sunday Drive

Did we pass it?

Messengers/Monk

Weekend Plans

Something like this...

Status Update

Pat the Bat

Pat Burrell is coming back to Philly, on a one day contract, to officially retire Saturday...
Opening pitch.
In a Phillies uniform.


Seems like a class move, in my book.

Evidence

Cab has been ruling it since before you even knew there were any rules...

Sometimes while wearing a sweater.

Two Wheels Tuesday

Special dirt biking nuns edition.

Mad Magazine Monday

I read a lot of Mad magazines in my youth...


I will still pick one up to thumb through, if I see it on a news stand.

Just Sayin'

Sunday Drive

Just keep going.  You won't miss it...

Gosh

FED Friday

Because we haven't had one for a while...

Weekend Plans

Something like this...

Ocean State

So, yeah, Rhode Island it is for us...
Next move in our randomly plotted adventure.

If you were hoping to visit us in Boston, just plan a day trip.  We will be close.
The new spot will be in Warwick, RI.

It seems a bit of opposite of our present situation, which I am fine with.
The new place, I mean.
We will land there soon, but not next week...
June-ish.

If you didn't know, now you do.

Thresher Thursday

Making a conscious effort to draw more of the historical/restored farm implement crowd to the the site, here...


They seem like a group that would know how to party.

Autopilot

Is activated.

Two Wheels Tuesday

Cool chopper, with bonus Brit chick edition.

Ramps

It is that time of year again...

Ramp season.

Restaurants across the city have these little bastards plucked from the dirt and whisked to their kitchens, by secret sources.

Foodies swoon and blather on about the delicate scarcity of this amazing wild onion.


Seriously, can we all just chill out on the ramps?

I mean, they are fine.  Nothing wrong with them...

Do we really need to fetishize a fucking wild onion?




Also, I was having a nosh at one of the local joints.
I will skip naming it, because the owners seem nice enough.  The whole deal has struggled pretty much since opening day, with maybe four chefs in a year, or so.  It has the vibe of one of those spots that you know you'll read about closing down, because you haven't really felt the need to visit it, in three months.

Anyway, I am sitting there, at the bar and next to the most recent guy hired to turn things around.  He was there, chatting up some new vendor.  Food vendor.
"Oh, it'll be a whole new menu, next week." he says.
That is a line I have heard a dozen times, in this place, but it all still seems the same...
As he keeps talking, I realize that the vendor sitting with him is starting some line of pickles, or pickled stuff at least.
New cook guy actually says "Just let me know, next week, what you can do.  We'll take anything you've got."

Which made me snort up some beer, because I immediately thought of this...




 

Economics/Happiness

I was rambling around The Atlantic website and stumbled across a story on Bhutan and their promotion of the concept of a revision of the GNP concept to something which accounts for sustainability and even personal happiness.

I certainly am not the first or only person to say that an economic system built on the premise of eternal positive growth is simply not sustainable, but I have made that point before.

Here is the conversation Bhutan has put forth, at the UN.-

The world is at a crossroads. The future of mankind and the planet is at stake. On 9 November the International Energy Agency warned: “Rising fossil-fuel energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.” Despite Rio, despite Kyoto, despite Copenhagen, CO2 emissions rose by 5.3% last year. Humanity is using up natural resources 35% faster than they can regenerate. And in Bhutan and Nepal, we can no longer stave off glacial melting that threatens devastating glacial lake outburst flooding, and shrinking sources of water for hundreds of millions downstream. There is no time to waste. Without immediate action, warns the IEA, by 2017 all CO2 emissions will be “locked in” by existing power plants, factories, buildings and other infrastructure. 

Our global economic system is in rapid melt-down, starting with the financial collapse of 2008 and now manifesting in Europe’s severe and spreading debt crisis. That economic system, based on the totally unsustainable premise of limitless growth on a finite planet, is the direct cause of the very policies that the IEA says are leading us to a calamitous end as evident in the growing frequency and magnitude of man made and natural disasters. And that economic system has produced ever widening inequities, with 20% of the world’s people now consuming 86% of its goods, 84% of its paper, and 87% of its cars, while the poorest 20% consume 1% or less of each and emit only 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases. That gap, coupled with the deep economic crisis, led the International Labour Organization to warn on 30 October that the world faces years of social unrest as economies falter. 

The OECD warned that "without decisive action the outlook is gloomy." But the “decisive action” now required goes far beyond tinkering with the fundamentally flawed GDP-based economic system, which mistakenly counts resource depletion as economic gain. It was instituted at a time when economists did not know the limits of nature’s capacity to support human economic activity, or that human activity could change the climate of the planet to produce what the UNDP calls “the greatest challenge facing humanity.” 

And yet, this moment presents an opportunity. The world is in need of an international consensus for the creation of a sustainability-based economic paradigm, with wellbeing indicators, national accounting systems that count natural and social capital values to assess the true costs and gains of economic activity, regulatory institutions, and systems of trade and incentives for sustainable production. There is the urgent need for measures to reduce pollution and drastically slow resource degradation while protecting and supporting the world’s most vulnerable peoples.

The UN General Assembly resolution A/65/L.86, introduced by Bhutan with support from 68 Member States, and unanimously adopted by the UN, called for a “holistic approach to development” aimed at promoting sustainable happiness and wellbeing. It thrust on my small country the responsibility of initiating steps for the furtherance of this resolution. It is therefore planned that key representative leaders from developed and developing nations, along with leading economists, scientists, and civil society and spiritual leaders, come together to issue a clarion call at the UN on 2nd April for a sustainability-based economic development paradigm to replace the current system. To this end, it is hoped that the high-level meeting will call for the world’s best experts, based on the best available knowledge to work together over the next year to hammer out the details of the measures, accounts, and financial mechanisms required for a happiness-based economic model for the consideration of the international community. Such a model, or aspects of it would then be available for incorporation into national policies on a voluntary basis.

I know, a funny picture might be better than a wordy manifesto on economic policy...

Still, it is a concept worth pondering - what if positive national growth was not just a financial effort, but also one of social and spiritual ends?

Sunday Drive

This shit is really starting to kick in...

Out of Line

Here is a flash back song, huh?
Well, for me I mean...

I don't know what the fuck you were doing back then.

Weekend Plans

Something like this...

Rover

Well, isn't that just six different kinds of awesome, stacked on top of each other in a fuck shit stack of awesome.




Yes, I guess I do like it...

Stupid

“To be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.”








Flaubert said that.  I just kinda agree...

Whoah Wednesday

I  imagine he envisioned cresting that hill somewhat differently...

Nice karate man form, though.

Crazy Clown Time

Who is up for some?

Reading Material

Have you read any Vonnegut lately?

Marmoset Monday

Listen, not every post here can be a winner...

April

Sunday Drive

All roads lead here...