My Sister Julia

One of my two sisters, taken at a party for my Dad.

Lake Isabella and Sequoia NP

So, obviously I've been MIA since I got my new bike - wedding planning and riding have taken up most of my free time. Not to mention building websites. Anyway, here's a couple from my ride up to Lake Isabella and the Sequoias over Memorial Day:

My new baby!

Well, a few weeks ago someone backed into my SV650 and left it on it's side overnight. It got banged up enough to push the repair costs well over 80% of the bike's value - thus today insurance declared it totalled.

Grr!

But, on the positive side, insurance paid me what I paid for the bike, with which I was able to go and buy my brand new 2008 Suzuki V-Strom 650!

This one will be way better for rides with Jade, as there's room for both her and our luggage (unlike the SV). It's super comfortable and has the same engine my SV had.

I just can't stay pissed at the asshole who backed into my SV, with this in front of the house :)

Dinosauria

Just for fun.

Nikon FE2 and a trip to Santa Cruz

It was off to Santa Cruz the other weekend, en route to my good friend's wedding reception in Hollister. A good time was had by all, and despite a 4 foot drop onto the pavement, my FE2 was reliably clicking along the whole time.

Another from "The Good Land"

Goleta, CA

Night Clouds, Santa Barbara

New Series - "The Good Land"

I am working on a new project, entitled (at least provisionally) "The Good Land". The works are a bit of a departure from my normal landscapes, but I've been developing the ideas behind this series for some time. They are inspired by the likes of Jeff Brouws, Ed Ruscha and Peter Baker, along with any number of contemporary German landscape photographers. These works attempt to juxtapose and perhaps reconcile the mythical, idealized California with the everyday reality of the street.

The title comes from the nickname for the town of Goleta here on the central coast.

A work in progress.

See the series on my Behance portfolio

See the set on Flickr

Street Art & the War on Terror released

I was browsing Urban Outfitters the other day and found the book I was featured in, right next to Banksy's book! I recently received my copy - it's a fantastic collection of anti-war art, proof positive of the strength of anti-war and anti-empire sentiment around the world. I am proud to do my part to uphold the American tradition of dissent and rebellion, especially nowadays, when most have forgotten to care.

Calling Hillary on her Bullshit

Image courtesy Washington Post

One of Hillary's campaign planks in her bid for the Democratic nomination is that she would be better equipped to handle national emergencies such as terrorist attacks, international threats, and domestic emergencies. Her campaign would have us believe that she would bring more experience to the position than Obama, and thus could be trusted to handle such situations more than he. To support her claim, she has released a new fear-mongering campaign commercial about a 3am phone call in the White House about some sort of disaster, asking who the viewer would rather have answer that call. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from hawkish neocons, and illustrates how far Hillary is having to stoop these days.

The part she apparently wants you to forget is that she has been in a position of authority during a national emergency, and we can judge her against Obama by comparing their reactions. In 2002 Obama gave a speech concerning the apparent intention of G.W. Bush's government to attack Iraq. Also in 2002, Hillary gave a speech on the Senate floor regarding the Resolution to Authorize Use of the United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. A comparison of the two speeches may help shed some light on the kind of "experience" Hillary has making this sort of decision, and why Obama's "lack of experience" might be strongly preferable.

From Obama's speech:

[I] know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.

[Emphasis mine]

From Hillary's speech:

[Saddam Hussein has] given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Now this much is undisputed.

I suppose it was undisputed by ill-informed politicians like Hillary, but it didn't take a whole lot of prodding, even back then, to see the cracks in Bushco's wall of bullshit. Is this Hillary's "experience"? The tendency to accept blindly the false assertions of neocon fearmongers? At best, she didn't do her homework, and at worst, she was stupid enough to buy the Bush administrations lies hook, line and sinker. Either way, it does not impress on me the sort of confidence she seems to think we owe her.

Also unlike Hillary, Obama went on in his speech to propose some concrete actions we could have taken to increase the security of the US without starting a unilateral war of agression:

Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.... Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.... Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Now that's the kind of leadership I want. That's the kind of leadership that would have saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and kept al-Qaeda out of Iraq. Obama called it like it was, pointing out that the Iraq adventure was a "cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz... to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats." Why couldn't Hillary see that? Perhaps her "experience" was clouding her judgment?

Obama's response to Hillary's laughable "3am phone call" commercial puts it eloquently: "The question is not picking up the phone. The question is what kind of judgment will you exercise when you pick up that phone. In fact we have had a red-phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. President Bush gave the wrong answer. Sen. Clinton gave the wrong answer… Sen. McCain gave the wrong answer."

I'll end with another quote from Hillary's speech. Summing up her position, she stated "A vote for [the Resolution] is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President".

Gross, tragic levels of naivete, Mrs. Clinton, do not constitute experience.