In The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program I wrote:

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets. Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism.

The Inside Deal continues to pay off for some groups and those companies and individuals and special interest groups recognize that in order for them to continue to be provided with political and economic support, they need to keep in power a group of politicians who will continue to steer money to them in spite of whether they deserve it or produce anything of value. That group of politicians in the Democratic Party, and so it is not surprising that the Inside Deal is creating a tight relationship between those groups that the Democrats steer money to and those groups rewarding Democratic politicians in the form of campaign finance.

One such group that has benefited from the Inside Deal is the Big Green Machine. Via theblogprof comes this story from the Washington Examiner did a little bit of journalism and reported on the suspected corruption between Democrats and Big Green Machine:

Officials of a dozen top Big Green environmental groups contributed more than $14.5 million to congressional and presidential candidates in 2008 and through the second quarter of 2010 with 96 percent of the total going to Democrats, according to an Examiner analysis of federal campaign data.


...Six of the dozen collectively received more than $160 million in federal grants and contracts, according to their 2008 or 2007 IRS tax returns, with the Nature Conservancy's $110.6 million being the highest, followed by the Trust for Public Land ($28 million), Audubon Society ($17.5 million), the Environmental Defense Fund (parent of the EDF Action Fund) with $3.6 million, Natural Resources Defense Council ($358,072) and Defenders of Wildlife ($205,021).

President Obama was the biggest recipient by far of contributions with a total of more than $2.4 million. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was Obama's main 2008 primary rival, got $86,500. ...Obama's biggest groups of environmental supporters came from the Sierra Club ($917,965) and Defenders of Wildlife ($905,375).

This is the definition of corruption- they give campaign money to candidates who then support their companies and interests with tax money for 'research' or 'oversight' or 'awareness' or some sort of garbage. The relationship is one that use my labor and your labor to strengthen relationships between politicians and those who are politically connected, and that is not what America was about. Republicans do it too, especially with Big Oil and Big Defense, but it appears to be worse under Democrats since they pass bigger spending budgets and spend more money on discretionary items and appear to be a little less ethical about it all. That means anyone with a "D" in front of their name this election should be thrown out- it'll lessen the corruption, although then we need to go after "R"'s that are corrupt too.

Common Problems when Painting a Sunset

Clean Colours for Sunsets Rachel Shirley

• Trying to make a sunset look dazzling by using exclusively bright colours in a painting, such as pinks, mauves and oranges, resulting in a candyfloss and childlike portrayal of dusk.
• Placing dark colours of sunset prior to the pales, causing contamination of the bright colours by the neighbouring dark colours.
• Allowing two contrasting colours, such as violet and yellow or blue and orange, to overlap on the painting, resulting in muddy streaks across the sky.
• Making generalisations about how sunsets should look, such as the gradations of colours when receding from the sun. This is often portrayed as yellow to orange, orange to red, red to mauve and mauve to blue.
• Using black to darken a bright colour, such as red or orange.
• Miscalculating the tonal values of a sunset scene in favour of the colour by making the assumption that blue is always darker than red, or yellow is always paler than mauve.
• Portraying the landscape at the horizon as a cardboard cut-out black silhouette.

Secrets to Painting Sunsets



Tonal Values of Sunsets





Colours of Clouds at Sunset


Art Techniques for Painting Sunsets

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Look for diverse darks on the foreground landscape. Some will appear warmer than others. Some may have violets, others, smoky blue. Again, nearer objects will often have sharper edges than distant objects. This will help give the silhouetted landscape depth.

Links on Painting Sunsets

• How to paint weather
• Demonstration on painting a sunset
• How to paint mackrel skies
• How to prevent dirty colour mixes
• Books on landscape painting

The parable of the broken window was created by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850 (see his book Essays on Political Economy for more) to illuminate the notion of hidden costs associated with destroying property of others, and yet today uneducated and foolish Democrats ignore it and insist that economic growth can be stimulated in the United States simply by spending money. Democrats at every level point towards their insistence on government spending as a way of demonstrating that they know how to revive the economy, but most of that spending involves the destruction of something in society which is then rebuilt at a large cost.

For example, my Democratic Congressman pushed to redo a bunch of roads in my area, roads which were still okay and only showed slight signs of deterioration, and then he campaigns about how he is reviving the economy through actions like that. Tearing up a road and rebuilding it does not revive the economy and more so than breaking someones window does. The destruction of property followed by its reconstruction with only marginal improvements might seem like you are marginally improving society, but to pay for that destruction and reconstruction you need to take money from people who are putting it to considerable productive use (investing it, buying products, saving it in the bank, buying services, etc). The trade-off is a loss for society as a whole. It isn't really that complicated, and yet the wise and intelligent Democrats don't seem to get it.

Via memeorandum comes this story from The New York Daily News "New Yorkers outraged as bureaucrats order city to change lettering on every single street sign":

The city will change the lettering on every single street sign - at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million - because the feds don't like the font. Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday.

By 2018, MADISON AVE. will become Madison Ave. and will be printed in a font called Clearview, the city Department of Transportation says. The Federal Highway Administration says the switch will improve safety because drivers identify the words more quickly when they're displayed that way - and can sooner return their eyes to the road.

Still, several city residents were OUTRAGED.

The government under the Democrats continue to break windows and destroy the economy, and every day that they are in power our country and society gets a little worse off, in hundreds of little ways.

UPDATE: Apparently Democrats broke window's all over the nation, as the law that forces NYC to change its signs is a federal unfunded mandate that requires that all traffic signs in the entire nation be of a certain minimum size and be made of a more highly reflective paint to make them easier to read, particularly at night. It also dictates that street names be printed in a combination of capital and lowercase letters rather than in all capital letters. There is no money to support this mandate, and it falls on local communities to implement this change or face lawsuits.

As of now, local communities all across the nation are deciding to layoff policeman and fireman in order to comply with this federal mandate.

Pigments for Dark Skin Tones Rachel Shirley

• Rendering dark skin, such as African, Indian or native Aboriginal skin colour by adding black to a premixed skin colour pigment.
• Introducing white to a very dark skin colour such as African to express highlights, resulting in grey.
• Assigning a separate flesh colour pigment for different skin colours, such as using “flesh tint” for white skin, or “yellow ochre” for Chinese skin and “sepia tint” for Indian skin.
• Having lots of earth colours, beiges and creams at one’s disposal for every skin colour imagined, causing a chromatically cluttered, confused and dirty result.
• Making assumptions about the colour of different skin, such as using any brown that is handy and using it for a portrait of an African or Indian person.
• Again, due to assumptions, using yellow pigment as part of the Chinese skin colour palette.
• Neglecting to use light tones or bright colours on a portrait of an African or Indian person, even when apparent, because the notion of dark skin gets in the way.

How to Paint an Ethnic Portrait

I have found numerous oil pigments unnecessary for rendering different skin colours. I never use “flesh tint” and am much mystified to the popularity of yellow ochre, which in my view just makes the colours appear dirty and jaundiced. The basis of all skin colours, including ethnic, Indian, African and Chinese skin can be mixed by the use of the following limited selection of oil paints of various ratios.

• Titanium white
• Burnt sienna
• Burnt umber
• Permanent rose
• Cadmium red
• French ultramarine
• Pthalo blue

Other colours can often be seen in dark skin colours, as they can be seen in Caucasian skin, such as violets, greens and yellows. But dark skin will appear to reflect bright colours more easily than white skin, due to the contrast. Look out, also for reflected light. This is reflections from neighbouring bright objects on the skin, causing shadows to soften. Reflected light is great for bringing out facial contours.

Guide to Skin Colours:

As guide, I have found the following skin colours can be mixed by various ratios of oil pigments. This is a guide only, but may help in getting the base colours for different skin types. List of pigments begin with the most prevalent.

Pakistani and Indian Skin Colour

There are many casts of Indian skin, but generally I have found them to have warm colours from chocolate to warm coffee. The following oil pigments can be used:

Burnt sienna, ultramarine, white and burnt umber. Small amounts of pthalo blue can be added for shadows, and additional permanent rose for a little warmth. Be careful when using cadmium red or the skin colour could look orange. If this happens, tone it down with a little ultramarine and white.

If Indian skin has a cool cast, a little pthalo blue can be added, although I have sometimes found a greenish tinge in some Indian skin, in which case, I will add (the tiniest) viridian and burnt umber to the skin colour.

African Skin Colour

Generally darker, this skin colour often appears cooler, but shades can vary. The following pigments can be used for African skin:

Burnt umber, burnt sienna, ultramarine and white. Very dark skin can be achieved by the use of burnt umber and a little permanent rose. Ultramarine can be added for shadows. Pale colours may consist of burnt umber, a touch of permanent rose and white. Avoid simply adding white to a very dark colour (such as burnt umber and pthalo blue) or it will turn out grey. A little burnt sienna may take the coldness out of the skin colour.

Eastern and Chinese Skin Colour

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Avoid using yellow or yellow ochre for Chinese skin. The following oil pigments can be used for more realistic effect.

Burnt umber, pthalo blue, white and burnt sienna. Olive skin can be achieved by mixing burnt sienna, a little burnt umber and white. Darken Asian skin with a little ultramarine for warm shadows. Take care when lightening Chinese skin or it could look too brown. If this happens, introduce more burnt umber and/or little pthalo blue with the white.

The Colour of Dark Skin

Dispelling presumptions about the colour of an ethnic person’s skin is the key to painting realistic portraits of ethnic people. A limited palette of oil pigments is all that is required. Close observation will reveal unlikely colours within ethnic skin, such as violets and blues, but the basis of all skin colours can be found within the aforementioned colour guide.

• How to paint figures
• How to pint children from a photo
• Flesh tones in portraits
• The skin tones on my portraits look wrong
• Art books on portrait painting

From the Africa Report:

Even without much-needed infrastructure developments, Nigeria is on course to become Africa’s largest economy. However, much remains to be done for the country to reach its full potential.  

The road suddenly peters out. The few bin bags littering the end of the worksite suggest that the funds have run out, too. On either side of the road, however, new farms and buildings have sprung up, growing thicker as you cross the new Makarfi bridge into Kaduna. They will, ultimately, make up Millennium City, a decongestion suburb for Kaduna, with planned lots linked to the national grid and water mains. Had former Governor Ahmed Makarfi managed to connect the road to the Abuja road, who knows what other entrepreneurial forces would have been unleashed.
..[continue reading]

Bizarro world strikes again! From the Boston Globe, via memeorandum:

Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the failed 1988 presidential nominee, recently visited the White House and delivered his strategy for the midterm elections: pound key precincts across the country with the message that Republicans want to implement the same policies that led to the Great Recession.


Asked if the White House aides were receptive, he said, "I think they certainly get it." He declined to name the aides he met at the White House.

Nope, this isn't a story pulled from the Onion- this is an honest case of a clear loser telling another soon-to-be loser how to run a losing campaign. Oh, and Obama gets it- the Democrats in general are now all running on the 'blame Bush' strategy, even though they've controlled Congress for 4 years and the White House for 2. I'm rather optimistic that voters won't fall for this sort of garbage in the coming elections, and the result for Obama and the Democrats will be similar to what it was back in 1988.

Time-travel back to 1988 by going to The Living Room Candidate. If you haven't checked out this website before, it is an excellent repository of all of the campaign commercials the major candidates ran on television during their campaigns for the President. As you can see by clicking on the 'Election Year' and '1988' tabs, Dukakis ran one of the worst campaigns ever, by sounding a message that was both negative and boring. Not sure if you have been paying attention to old BoBo the Clown, but that's what he increasingly sounds like too.

Many people foget about Micheal Dukakis when discussing politics, but he was the nominee for President for the Democratic Party in 1988 and as such he shouldn't just be dismissed. His record as Governor and his campaign for President both are enlightening, and I've written about them before on this blog. As a curiously, in Massachusetts Miracle I wrote:

I found this fun fact about Dukakis on wikipedia- Soon after his loss in the 1988 Presidential election to George Herbert Walker Bush, the so-called 'Massachusetts Miracle' of prosperity also went bust, and Michael Dukakis was little more than a 'lame duck' Governor for his final two years in office. At the close of his tenure, Massachusetts was mired deeply in debt facing a budget shortfall of more than $1.5 billion.

But then as I thought about it further, I realized that Barack Obama is Micheal Dukakis, which I elaborated on in my post Obama is Dukakis? Smack JSM's Campaign Manager Around!

Both Obama and Dukakis are creatures of the liberal Northeast and of Harvard, with no sense at all of most of the rest of the country; both rationalists who impose legalistic criteria on emotion-rich subjects; both with fixed ideas of who society’s victims are, which do not accord with the views of the public; and both with a tin ear for the culture and a genius for creating wedge issues that split their own party.

So what happened? If Obama is Dukakis, how did Obama win while Dukakis lost? George H.W. Bush hammered away at how Dukakis was simply an elitist, no-nothing, Harvard-educated liberal who was purely smoke-and-mirrors and who, if put in charge of our nation, would never make the hard tough choices that have to be made.

Yup, back then GHWB knew how to hammer away at a candidate like Obama running a negative 'blame the guy before me' campaign. Hopefully the next GOP candidate for President will learn that lesson too.

UPDATE: The code of conduct on Bizarro world is "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!". In one episode of the comics, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: "Guaranteed to lose money for you". Yup, sounds like Dukakis advising Obama on how to run the United States of America.

In Aid Watch:

It’s sure was nice to see mainly Ethiopians vigorously participating in a debate about Ethiopia, in contrast to the usual Old White Men debating Africa. The Meles visit to Columbia had the unintentional effect of promoting this debate...[continue reading]

Watch related videos:

Democratic Incumbent Congressman Gary Peters flew back from Washington DC on Monday night to debate his challenger, Republican nominee Rocky Raczkowski, and the lively debate did a great job of contrasting the two opponents.

Over a series of questions on 'don't ask, don't tell', 'campaign commercials,' 'tax breaks,' 'illegal immigration,' and other issues, the two candidates contrasted their styles and hammered away at their strategies to win the upcoming election on November 2.

Gary Peters hammered at Rocky through a series of personal attacks, questioning his honesty, integrity, and motivation. He seized on jokes, mischaracterized Rocky's positions, slandered him, and frequently referred to the frivolous lawsuit by the cocaine addicted customer that provides much of the information that Peters is campaigning on. At every opportunity, he dodged his votes and his stands on issues, and promised that if you give him another two years in Congress, he will continue to work hard and make sure that he does nothing other than vote the Democratic party line. At one point he even accused his lack of production on legislation on the Republicans, who are the minority party (by large numbers) in Congress, hoping that voters wouldn't realize how lame that excuse is. Peters campaign is going to be 'Rocky is a birther, Rocky is being sued, Rocky had someone controversial at an event he was at, and Rocky is corrupt.'

Oh, I also liked when Congressman Peters said that Rocky couldn't be trusted because he was a politician and had run for office 6 or 7 times in the past. This is the kind of logic you get from a politician who has run for office 6 times and is trying to make the campaign into one of trust. Voters don't have to worry about that with Peters- we already know that Congressman Gary Peters takes the word of a cocaine-addict who has had his frivolous lawsuits dismissed already and therefore can't be trusted.
 
One other thing I'd like you to chew on from this debate. If you haven't read The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs in a while, you should. Peters really hates Wall Street and the stock market because it's had a really bad downturn lately. He doesn't want you to put any money into those. That kind of philosophy is a good way of killing the Golden Goose.

Lauren Streib in the Daily Beast reports on the work of Productive Agricultural Linkages and Marketing Systems (PALMS), they:

Teach women farmers to use basic machinery, like tractors, and crop production will increase. But the effects of the implementation of such technology are revolutionary. The women helped through PALMS have access to knowledge, capital, and technology that allows them to assert power within their families, their communities, and improve the economy of the entire country...[continue reading]

Watch Letticia Brenyah of PALMS describe their work and its impact:

The United Nations wants to be the one who aliens get taken too. Mazlan Othman, the head of the U.N.'s little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa) was recently named  "Chief Alien Ambassador". In this role, she will lobby for funding and assistants and office space so that if aliens ever do land on our planet and ask to see our leader, the UN can claim that it has in place the bureaucracy to handle the negotiations. She will set out the details of her proposed new role at a Royal Society conference in Buckinghamshire next week.

The truth of the matter is that your tax money is going to the United Nations who have people working diligently on how they can take power and voice and authority from you and your elected Representatives and rule over you. Don't forget, the UN is in reality a collection of despots and tyrants with only a few truly elected and limited executives scattered in, and one has to be very careful about ceding to that body future negotiations with alien races. The UN gave Iran the chair of the Council on Human Rights- they'd probably select North Korea to negotiate with the aliens because Kim Jung Il is a moonbat.

The good thing is that in all likelihood this plan will just siphon money from hard working people and give it to appointed academics who will sit around living nicely on your income. I highly doubt it will be the blunder that will end the entire human race. Rest safely- if aliens do land and plan on destroying us, the Lightmaker will part the seas and save humanity with the musical sounds of himself.

UPDATE: If movies are accurate, it is unlikely that aliens will land somewhere where residents recognize the United Nations as any sort of authority on anything- they tend to like trailer parks (see The Last Starfighter) and stuff.

Peter Cunliffe-Jones writing in the BBC:

...Both Indonesia and Nigeria, my guidebook told me, are the giants of their region, home to tens of millions of people. Both were formed as one nation by Europeans around 1900. Both were governed by the colonial system of "indirect rule". Both once made money from palm oil, and later discovered oil and gas.At independence, the standards of living in the two countries were comparable on most measures. And since independence, both have suffered three decades of military misrule and corruption.Their first coups were launched within months of each other - in September 1965 in Indonesia and in January 1966 in Nigeria - and their military regimes died within 12 months, in May 1998 and 1999.
It was not only my friend who made the comparisons. But, talking to the editor of an Indonesian magazine the day after I arrived, I was struck by a statistic he mentioned in passing. In Indonesia, he said, the life expectancy of a child at birth had risen from 45 to 70 years since independence.In 1960, Nigeria produced almost half the world's palm oil, now it covers just 7%In Nigeria, life expectancy remains stuck just above 45; today it is around 47.

More here
Jeremy Weate providing further context states:

...in the final analysis, the difference in models of corruption and commercial contracts boils down to a stronger civil society in the archipelago state. In which case, the lesson Nigeria can learn from Indonesia is the importance of building up a healthy civil society, which includes non-governmental organisations, the media and religious organisations. The work is still all ahead..

Suman Bery writing in the Economist:

With the two exceptions of Malaysia and Indonesia these countries did not enjoy rents from significant mineral resources. As such they were not subjected to the so-called “resource curse” of a struggle for control of these rents, the problems of an appreciated real exchange rate, and lack of competitiveness of the tradables sector. Also, at the time of their fast growth episodes, most of the Asian countries were well into their demographic transition, with the dependency ratio declining as the labour force expanded. This led to a rise in their saving rates, complemented in many cases by significant foreign aid.
As Angus Maddison pointed out a decade ago (in his "The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective") Africa’s underlying circumstances are much less favourable. (His discussion includes Mediterranean Africa, while I will restrict myself to sub-Saharan Africa.) Several of its major economies enjoy enormous mineral riches, which the world over pose tremendous problems for economic management. The prices for these minerals fluctuate violently in global markets causing volatility in revenues; the easy availability of mineral revenues inhibits the growth of a domestic taxation culture essential for the development of accountability to the citizenry; the struggle for illegal control of the mineral resources has been a source of fierce conflict and corruption; while the easy foreign exchange revenues the mineral exports make available boost the real exchange rate. This inhibits the growth of labour-intensive manufacture, which was the source of Asia’s growth.

More here

On September 24, this picture of Chairman Vincent Gray and Chancellor Michelle Rhee appeared on page B1 in the Washington Post metro section. It was taken following presumptive Mayor-elect Gray's 90 minute meeting with Rhee in what Gray called a "philosophical discussion" about public education. Supposedly Rhee's future with Gray's administration was not discussed. As the adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words suggests that a message can be conveyed with just a single still image. The title of the Post online article is "Rhee appears shaken after meeting with Gray."
What is this picture saying to you?

Sugata Mitra at TED:
.

..I think we've just stumbled across a self-organizing system. one where a structure appears without explicit intervention from the outside. Self-organzing systems also always show emergence,which is that the system starts to do things,which it was never designed for...Education is a self-organizing system,where learning is an emergent phenomenon.Itll take a few years to prove it,experimentally,but I'm going to try..

In Grandiose Parlor:

I would love to see either Ribadu or Utomi become president one day, but what they are doing is trying to score a knock-out victory without throwing a punch! They must earn their slots, politically. They need to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty by learning to operate from within the political system, even if they so much hate it. This is the only way they would understand and appreciate the magnitude of the problem of governance—or lack thereof.
Ribadu and Utomi can showcase their brilliance and impeccable qualities to other politicians and the electorate at the grassroots, if they would operate in a capacity less glamorous as the presidency. This would offer them the opportunity of political baptism and credibility, which they lack but need to win elections.

More here

Yesterday as I as walking through the halls of my school, it suddenly occurred to me what was on the walls. Oh, I know I look for liberal bias in textbooks, in breakroom conversations, and in different educational practices of teachers, but for some reason I never noticed before yesterday that the art work on the walls of the school are liberally-slanted.

Most of the art in our school comes from students, who have been inspired by and whose direction was shaped by some sort of contest for artwork. Of course, everyone is a winner, since in a liberal world everyone is a loser, and each piece of artwork that was made is proudly displayed on the wall. Were the contests based around doing something profitable or demonstrating some sort of school? No- not surprisingly in an institution dominated by the liberal leftist agenda, these contests are ideologically based around the values and beliefs of the liberal left-wing agenda.

In my school, the walls are covered by students who studied and worked long hours trying to bring to life the themes ‘give peace a chance’ and ‘internationalism’.  The goal of these contests is to get young children thinking about and building and strengthening the liberal world-view, in particular the liberal views on foreign policy that I would characterize as global nation-building, weak national security, and puppy-dog and sunshine views of terrorists. On the other hand, students were guided into producing posters and drawings that show 'give peace a chance' and 'internationalism' in a more positive light.  In these posters, the only person who is allowed to use force or think independently is the king, who lords over the peasants, for their benefit, of course. You see, a liberal wants to be the king of everyone, telling them what to do, and therefore willingly supports a super-global king, as long as he is liberal. It's okay for the UN to come in and tell nations what to do (ie, internationalism) and it's okay for Obama to tell nations what to do (peace prize), but everyone else is to be contemned for fighting for life, liberty, and property.

These posters do have an affect on these young kids. Students are learning still, and the ones shaping the minds of our nation’s youths are these warped individuals with leftist liberal leanings. It is wrong when a kid is told that national security isn’t that important and that he should not draw guns and bombs, but instead should draw hearts and flowers to enter in the school wide and supported by taxpayers money ‘give peace a chance’ contest. It is wrong when a kids poster is rejected for showing a people enslaved to the UN because the teacher thinks that internationalism is the correct way to go.

Next time you're in a school, look around, and let me know if you see anything similar on the walls. In an institution dominated by liberalism, it won't be surprising.

This campaign season is wild! As you can see by my past posts, I've been very busy, and even have hopes of turning my "Democrats Two America's" theme into a campaign advertisement. Here are the kinds of campaign advertisements that have been inspiring me- follow the link for some great fun!

Chuck Norris endorses Mike Huckabee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8

Nancy Pelosi, Wicked Witch of the West:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7jJI1cfEgc

Alabama Agricultural Commissioner Commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0

Carly Fiorina, Demon Sheep: Mutton on the Lamb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZxk_9GTHrs

Tim James “We Speak English”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEPh_KlTyII

A Beer With Steve Novik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2UesvrH-cs

Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLi5B0Iefsk

Senate Candidate Freilich on a Cow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I9h2d8hw6g

"YUM! YUM!" - Jim Bender, Republican Candidate for US Senate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvd2fDsBos

"...Naija Lingo is an online Dictionary for all your Nigerian pidgin/broken English needs. It is a dictionary for people who want definitions to Nigerian words or slang, names and phrases and created by the people (you) who know them. Naija Lingo is an open dictionary where you the user are free to add and edit words as time changes, and as the meaning of words evolve and new words are formed..."-website

Founded by K. Y Amoako "...The African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) was established in 2007 to promote high-quality policy analysis and advisory services, assisting African governments in achieving long-term growth and transformation of African economies..."-website

As reported on WTOP news by Mark Segraves, Vincent Gray will consider rehiring DC's fired teachers. Gray who will meet with Chancellor Michelle Rhee today at noon about her occupational future, told DC 50's News Plus that he thinks any of the 266 teachers and school personnel who were fired for budget reasons should be allowed back in the classrooms. In an interview scheduled to air this Friday, Gray stated: "I'm open for them being able to be considered for a job. I don't know why anybody would say they shouldn't be considered when in fact they were let go supposedly for budget reasons."

Check out the full story by visiting:
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=2059488

The Problems with Painting Moonlight

What Colour is Night? Rachel Shirley

• Adding black to all the colours normally seen in a landscape. For instance, mixing green with black to render a dark meadow or mixing blue with black to express a seascape set at night.
• Illustrating all objects in a moonlit landscape as being lighter on one side than the other.
• Delineating silhouettes with the same black and using it in an illustrative way, such as painting branches or chimney pots, resulting in a painting that lacks depth.
• Painting the moon merely white and without any variations in tone.
• Flecking white dots over the night sky to express stars.

What Colour is Night?

Colours cannot be detected at night time, causing objects to appear monochromatic. But any light that shine upon an object will reveal its colour. This means that a partially-lit landscape, such as one set in the evening or by streetlight will consist of two colour palettes: monochrome and full colour. The degree to which the object is illuminated will affect how colourful it will appear. This means that an object lit under subtle lighting, will have soft colours.

But even a landscape painting illuminated by moonlight will have more colours than just black and white. In fact, I would use black sparingly. Close observation will reveal a multitude of neutrals, violets and earth colours that make up a moonlit landscape. The following pigments in any combination and in various amounts can be used for monochromes:

Ultramarine, pthalo blue, burnt sienna, burnt umber, permanent rose and varying amounts of white.

The Colour of Darks

A landscape under moonlight often contains a lot of blue, and sometimes violet. Mixing ultramarine and permanent rose with a little white will result in rich violets often seen on clear nights. Mixing pthalo blue and burnt umber with a little white will result in a bluish neutral colour often seen on moonlit snow. Rich darks, such as those found in deep shadows can be achieved by mixing pthalo blue with burnt umber, or ultramarine with burnt sienna. Darks also have different colour temperatures, some being warmer than others. Using contrasting darks will add richness to a moonlit painting.

How to Paint a Dark Landscape

It helps to paint dark to light when rendering a landscape set at night. This means applying a thin wash of neutral or grey over the art board prior to painting. This will help set the tones of the night time landscape, for painting straight onto white will give a misleading impression of the paints’ tonal values. Starting with the mid tones will help the artist accurately measure one tone against the other, which is what painting a moonlit scene is all about.

How to Paint the Moon

Close observation will reveal that the moon is not just white, it can be eggshell, china blue or even pink, depending upon the atmospheric conditions. A crescent moon will have tonal variations, not just a half-moon cut-out shape. Similarly, stars have different colours, some appear gold, others look blue.

Silhouette Painting

click to buy from Amazon

• Colour theory to prevent dirty colours
• How to mix oil paint for darks and shadows
• How to paint light and shadows
• How to paint sunsets
• Art books on landscape painting

ABC reports on the presidential candidacy announcement of Nuhu Ribadu:
"There is a need for a party that is national," Ribadu said. "There is a need for a party that will give Nigerians a chance for democracy to work, an alternative to what we have today."...[continue reading]

On the north end of Democrat Gary Peters 9th District, the story of two different Americas is clearly visible for everyone to see. One America is the America of capitalism and private-sector jobs, and the other America is of corporatization and public-sector jobs. One America is the bankrupt ruins of a $2 billion shopping and housing development, and the other America is the road construction workers dutifully ripping up and rebuilding a major road right in front of it.

Democrats like Peters believe that the best way to lead our nation back to growth and prosperity is to have the national government lead the way by having the national government borrow money from banks in the US and from lenders like China abroad and then use that money to build roads, bridges, schools, and public buildings. In this America, there is job growth and pay raises, assuming that you have the correct political connections to get the jobs and you belong to the labor unions that do business with the state. In this America, there is little accountability to customers and little money to be made by taking risks, increasing efficiency, or cutting costs- in the Democrats America, there is always a job for everyone willing to do the bidding of the state.

This America is the road construction that you see in the pictures and videos, and is something that Democrats like Gary Peters can rightly take credit for.

But there is another America out there, an America where jobs are increasingly scarce, investment funds are nonexistent, and pay cuts are the norm. In this America, increasing taxes, increasing regulation, and increasing uncertainty caused by a growing state presence in the marketplace has caused it to be less profitable to do business, has scared customers and investors, and has led to high unemployment and low job growth. The government is borrowing funds for their projects, and so businesses find it increasingly difficult to borrow money for their projects. Efforts to cut costs and increase efficiency are met by political leaders publicly speaking ill about your company, and it becomes increasingly difficult to meet the bottom line when the government forces the bottom line up and talks profits down.

This America is the abandoned and bankrupt building project that you can see in the pictures and videos, and this is also something that Democrats and Gary Peters can take credit for.

The two Americas meet at the 93-acre site on Telegraph Road near Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Hills. Bloomfield Park was once the symbol of booming private America- a place where citizens could work, buy products, and live. It now lies abandoned, naked steel girders and half-built looming structures, some seven stories tall, crumbling and rusting in front of construction work to rebuild the public road that goes past it. Its marble foundations and ambitious scale are the risks that America once took on itself, but at its feet now scurry the workers of the America that now safely puts its power in the hands of government officials.

But work continues on Telegraph road. Signs boldly advertise that the project was paid for by stimulus dollars voted for and signed into law by Democrats. Democrats like Peters point to this as a sign that his plan is working, and wants to be returned to office based on public works projects like these. That's the America that Democrats ultimately want- an America that is dependent on the state for jobs and income and growth while the private sector dies.

All video and picture was taken by me from my camera phone, after I snuck past security and risked my life walking through the dangerous ruins of America's once glorious past (pre-2008).

UPDATE: Thanks for linking!

The TVE Channel profiles the "Area Girls" of Lagos:

Oil Techniqes for Teeth Rachel Shirley

• Allowing generalisations about teeth to leak into the portrait painting, such as the following: All teeth are square in shape, the gaps between the teeth are black and equal in width and all teeth emerge from red gums in equal measure from the top and bottom of the mouth.
• Using only white to represent the enamel colour of teeth and then darkening the colour with black or grey.
• Treating teeth as separate entities to the rest of the portrait.
• Painting teeth as equal in size and shape in a set of teeth
• Not altering the tone or colour of each tooth, but using the same hue for each, resulting in flat-looking teeth.
• Forgetting to check the photographic reference when painting teeth.

How to Paint Teeth in Portraits

The following tips on painting teeth will help contribute to the overall quality of the portrait painting and create a more desirable focal point along with the eyes.

• Teeth are rarely just white but other hues. The colour of teeth can vary from ivory to tea-coloured. Even teeth within the same mouth will often vary in colour, whether locally or through shadows. Look out for blues, browns, violets and beiges in teeth.
• Look out for shadows on various areas of the teeth, such as that cast from the upper lip and where the back teeth retreat into the mouth. Shading will also define the shape of each tooth, particularly where the edges round off.
• Take notice of the different shapes and sizes of teeth. The bottom teeth are often a little narrower than the upper teeth. The two front incisors will often be the most prominent. If necessary, count the number of teeth in view on the photograph and echo this in the painting.
• The colour of gums is often subtle rather than bright red. The divisions between teeth and gums are also soft and require a little blending to prevent harsh lines from drawing the eye. Shadows will often darken the gums almost to black. Highlights can often be found on gums too, which provides a great opportunity for the artist to make the gums look more convincing.

Take extra care when rendering outlines to teeth, which will easily look harsh and make the portrait jar. It may often be necessary to blend outlines with a soft clean brush. Similarly, it helps to view the lips around the teeth as an extension of the teeth, rather than as separate entities. Observe how the lips and teeth relate to one another in the painting, for example, how the tonal values of the teeth compare to that of the mouth.

Techniques for Painting Teeth

Fine sable brushes are crucial when painting detail around teeth. Start from the pale colours and work to the darks. This will prevent a neighbouring colour from contaminating the pale hues of teeth. Half-close the eyes to gauge the tonal value of teeth. Avoid loading the brush with too much paint or this will make the detail hard to manage. Wipe off excess paint onto a rag and mix a little linseed oil into the paint for the detail. Don’t use black to express outlines and dark areas. Instead, introduce a little violet into the pale colour and blend any gradations in shades. Apply the darkest areas and highlights last. If a mistake is made, blot the paint off or soften it with a clean sable.

The Colour of Teeth

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