Hail, Hail, Snap and Whistle Associates

the current stamp in the netherlands

2009-05-27T15:51:55Z

finally updated my blog

2009-05-24T19:44:33Z

it's been exactly 20 days, but i finally update my blog:

http://citizenpioneer.blogspot.com/

I'M MOVING

2009-05-06T20:23:29Z

to diversey and kostner AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

WHAT AN INSANE DAY.

COLLEGE IS DONE AND I GOT THE APARTMENT WITHIN 30 MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

save tesla!

2009-05-06T17:17:57Z

Help create a museum for my fellow countryman, NIKOLA TESLA!

http://teslasciencecenter.org/index.html

THE CUTEST THING IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE

2009-04-24T16:49:59Z

change yr names, furriners!

2009-04-10T05:25:34Z

AUSTIN — A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
Easier for voting?

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said Republicans are trying to suppress votes with a partisan identification bill and said Brown “is adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments.”

Brown spokesman Jordan Berry said Brown was not making a racially motivated comment but was trying to resolve an identification problem.

Berry said Democrats are trying to blow Brown’s comments out of proportion because polls show most voters support requiring identification for voting. Berry said the Democrats are using racial rhetoric to inflame partisan feelings against the bill.

“They want this to just be about race,” Berry said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6365320.html

KFC covers potholes!

2009-04-01T16:10:17Z

March 31, 2009, 4:58 pm
Of KFC, PETA, Potholes and Ruffled Feathers
By Robert Mackey AND Ashley Southall

Last week, KFC (the company formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) donated $3,000 to the city of Louisville, where KFC is based, to fill some of the city’s potholes and offered to do the same in four more American cities. Just one string was attached.

As the final paragraph of the company’s press release explained:

KFC-refreshed potholes will be branded via a large stencil that reads “Re-Freshed by KFC” in eye-catching, but non-permanent street chalk.

Here is a sample of a stenciled pothole catching the eye of an actor playing the company’s icon, Colonel Sanders, on a Louisville street:
Colonel Pothole: coming soon to a city near you?

While some people might question the wisdom, or safety, of letting corporations cover the nation’s roads with advertising slogans — particularly in return for such a small amount of money — the chain’s hometown leapt at the offer to fill 350 potholes.

“Budgets are tight for cities across the country, and finding funding for needed road repairs is a continuing challenge,” Louisville’s Mayor Jerry Abramson said in a joint statement with the company. “It’s great to have a concerned corporation like KFC create innovative private/public partnerships like this pothole refresh program.”

As Louisville’s WAVE 3 TV reported on Monday, the KFC program has already led to another offer to fill potholes in return for ad space on Louisville streets. According to WAVE’s Lindsay English, the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants in on the act:

In a letter to Mayor Jerry Abramson, PETA proposed giving Metro Louisville $6,000 to repair potholes, twice as much as KFC gave the city just last week. The restaurant made the repairs and stamped their logo on the patched asphalt. PETA wants to do the same, but they want to add their own rendition of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder, Col. Harland Sanders. PETA depicts him as an evil Colonel Sanders, complete with horns, next to the tagline “KFC Tortures Animals”.

PETA blogger Jeff Mackey (no relation to your Leder) posted an image of the stencil the group would like to see on Louisville’s streets, along with this explanation:
PETA’s proposed pothole covering stencil.

KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won’t, so we’re offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville — if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens’ side of the story — and it isn’t pretty.

Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Louisville’s mayor, said the city would “pass” on PETA’s offer, explaining to WAVE:

KFC is a great corporate citizen of ours. They employ lots of people in our town. They do great things for our hometown and we’re glad to work with them on this pothole program. But PETA, ummm … not so much.

KFC is continuing to look for other places to spread its asphalt love.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Tuesday that the city of Chicago is considering the offer — sort of. While the newspaper says that one Chicago official “raised questions about the quality of asphalt KFC intends to use,” the city’s mayor, Richard Daley — whose car hit a giant pothole and got a flat tire last week — said he would consider the offer if KFC would consider a somewhat larger donation:

“If they give us $25 million or $30 million, we’d be glad to look at it. . . . I want the money up front. I’ll take $50 million if you give me $50 million.”

Asked whether he was opposed to putting corporate logos on Chicago streets, Mayor Daley said, “It all depends if they’re ready to give 50, 60, 70, 80 million. There’s a lot of potholes out here.”

To give a sense of the scale of the problem caused by potholes in cities, transportation crews in Washington repair more than 220,000 potholes annually, at an average total cost of $900,000. On Monday, half way through a month-long “potholepalooza,” the city’s March campaign to clear winter potholes, road crews there had filled more than 3,300 craters, working at a pace of about 280 a day.

mathpaperdirect @ 2009-03-28T00:48:00

2009-03-28T05:48:23Z

i made a blog. i suck

2009-03-27T23:22:45Z

i made a blog that will be slightly more coherent than what i write here. i dont know how to do anything on the internet yet, so it will be fairly simple...no fancy stuff.

citizenpioneer.blogspot.com

plus if you click on the ads at the bottom of the page, i get 2 cents a year!!

current financial crisis

2009-03-26T03:11:42Z

here is a cartoon that simply explains the current credit crisis. it makes it a little easier to understand.

http://www.vimeo.com/3261363?pg=embed&sec=

Another inch to cry over

2009-03-22T14:46:26Z

http://www.quattroforwomen.com/product_trimstyle.php

Yes, that's right! A bush transforms into a neatly trimmed shape! Trimstyle: Another inch to cry over!

If you have something to say to the higher-ups, here's the feedback form:
http://www.shaving.com/feedback.asp

give away stuff, get free stuff in your area

2009-03-21T19:17:29Z

http://reyooz.com/

Hate clutter? Wanna find cool stuff?

Reyooz.com was conceptualised and built by Justin Robinson, Mark Meyer and Peter MacRobert - a bunch of software developers and designers from London.

We built Reyooz to make it easy to get rid of the stuff you've got lying around, without adding to the Earth's over-burdened landfills.

Our aim is to get more people to see the benefits in passing things on and increase awareness of our impact on the planet.

We promise to keep your email address private and you will only get email from us when someone wants to take something you've offered or if we think there's something you really need to know.

If you like what we're doing or want to get in touch then please send us a message via the feedback form or drop us an email on help@reyooz.com.

Happy hunting!

Justin, Mark and Pete
Reyooz.com © 2009

my dream chess set

2009-03-19T05:30:53Z

your anus is taxing the environment

2009-03-18T16:42:18Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/science/earth/26charmin.html?em

February 26, 2009
Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.”

The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness. With the recession pushing the price for recycled paper down and Americans showing more willingness to repurpose everything from clothing to tires, environmental groups want more people to switch to recycled toilet tissue.

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. Most manufacturers use a combination of trees to make their products. According to RISI, an independent market analysis firm in Bedford, Mass., the pulp from one eucalyptus tree, a commonly used tree, produces as many as 1,000 rolls of toilet tissue. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year.

Other countries are far less picky about toilet tissue. In many European nations, a rough sheet of paper is deemed sufficient. Other countries are also more willing to use toilet tissue made in part or exclusively from recycled paper.

In Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market, according to experts at the Kimberly Clark Corporation.

Environmental groups say that the percentage is even higher and that they want to nurture similar acceptance here. Through public events and guides to the recycled content of tissue brands, they are hoping that Americans will become as conscious of the environmental effects of their toilet tissue use as they are about light bulbs or other products.

Dr. Hershkowitz is pushing the high-profile groups he consults with, including Major League Baseball, to use only recycled toilet tissue. At the Academy Awards ceremony last Sunday, the gowns were designer originals but the toilet tissue at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms was 100 percent recycled.

Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill.

Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.

Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old.

But Dave Dickson, a spokesman for Kimberly Clark, said that only 14 percent of the wood pulp used by the company came from the boreal forest and that the company contracted only with suppliers who used “certified sustainable forestry practices.”

Lisa Jester, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, the maker of Charmin, points out that the Forest Products Association of Canada says that no more than 0.5 percent of its forest is harvested annually. Still, even the manufacturers concede that the main reason they have not switched to recycled material is that those fibers tend to be shorter than fibers from standing trees. Long fibers can be laid out and fluffed to make softer tissue.

Jerry Baker, vice president of product and technology research for Kimberly Clark, said the company was not philosophically opposed to recycled products and used them for the “away from home” market, which includes restaurants, offices and schools.

But people who buy toilet tissue for their homes — even those who identify themselves as concerned about the environment — are resistant to toilet tissue made from recycled paper.

With a global recession, however, that may be changing. In the past few months, sales of premium toilet paper have plunged 7 percent nationally, said Ali Dibadj, a senior stock analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, a financial management firm, providing an opening for makers of recycled products.

Marcal, the oldest recycled-paper maker in the country, emerged from bankruptcy under new management last year with a plan to spend $30 million on what is says will be the first national campaign to advertise a toilet tissue’s environmental friendliness. Marcal’s new chief executive, Tim Spring, said the company had seen intense interest in the new product from chains like Walgreens. The company will introduce the new toilet tissue in April, around Earth Day

Mr. Spring said Marcal would be able to price the new tissue below most conventional brands, in part because of the lower cost of recycled material.

“Our idea is that you don’t have to spend extra money to save the Earth,” he said. “And people want to know what happens to the paper they recycle. This will give them closure.”

i'd like to introduce my friend

2009-03-05T16:51:52Z

mathpaperdirect @ 2009-03-02T09:32:00

2009-03-02T15:32:44Z

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings

2009-02-23T07:31:17Z

As you start a new week, don't forget: America was founded on racism, sexism, terror and genocide. Have a nice day!

LOL

2008-12-12T20:31:01Z

i'm generalizing and a prejudice pig, but fuck you

2008-12-05T17:12:22Z

i hate all humans equally.

afghanistan has strict rules about sex, then marries off 11 year old girls in order to pay off debts.

but america bans gay marriage, while only 34 of 50 states have outlawed bestiality.

go humanity! woo!

america did something right!

2008-11-05T05:41:25Z

so i went into the street and screamed and gave booze to some hobos. woo!

mathpaperdirect @ 2008-10-13T22:03:00

2008-10-14T03:03:25Z

i have new and amazing updates on my flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizenpioneer/

including some really awesome ones from my new job at the public library! hooray!

LOL

2008-09-25T03:48:31Z

the new york times says:

"It was the first time in Mr. Bush’s presidency that he delivered a prime-time speech devoted exclusively to the economy."

HAHA. perhaps this is why we're all eating shit now? hahahahahahhaa. what, he has like 3 seconds left as prez and he just NOW addresses one of our major problems that has been haunting us for nearly a decade?

reading the newspaper is like reading mad libs.
"we are in deep....SHIT! use the word SHIT there!"
"there is _______ to do"
"use NOTHING!"

fossil digger finds 9,500-year-old graveyard

2008-08-15T06:36:54Z

A 9,500-year-old find for U of C fossil digger

August 14, 2008

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter

For the University of Chicago's Paul Sereno, the fossils his team uncovered in a remote section of the Sahara desert eight years ago were a treasure trove — but of a different species than he was used to working with.

After uncovering evidence of some 200 graves, it turns out the paleontologist extraordinaire — who has discovered nearly two dozen species of dinosaurs in his career — had also located the largest Stone Age human graveyard ever found in the Sahara.

Sereno, who is holding a news conference in Washington D.C. this morning to discuss his findings, said his archaeological work in the West African nation of Niger has been “thrilling.''

“This the first time I've dug up my own species,'' said Sereno, who said he was so excited during one subsequent trip to collect specimens that “a little tingle went up my spine.'' Although he is not an archaeologist by trade, he has vowed “to bring back the stories'' of the people who lived in the area between 4,500 and 9,500 years ago in an area known as the “Green Sahara.''

But telling those stories hasn't proved easy. First he had to overcome skepticism among archaeologists who criticized everything from his collection methods to his qualifications. At one point one of his funding requests was denied.

And as the human remains face destruction in the wind-swept desert, he can't return to the site because fighting between the Taureg that live there and the government have led to a ban on foreign travel.

But Sereno says he won't give up — he knows the site is crucial to understanding early civilization in an area less studied than the Middle East.

In a paper being released today in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science, Sereno and several colleagues describe how people lived in Africa at the time based on their findings at the site, which they dubbed “Gobero.'”

“We are opening up a window on this time,'' Sereno said.

Although the Sahara is the largest desert on earth today, a change in the earth's orbit more than 10,000 years ago produced a lake in the area. The lake attracted abundant animal life, fish, vegetation — and people. In addition to the graves, Sereno's team found evidence of 54 animal species, including 300-pound fish, elephants and giraffe.

Because of the difficulty of getting to the site, many of the fossils are extremely well-preserved and untouched by looters.

It's so pristine that study co-author Elena Garcea, a paleoanthropologist at Cassino University in Italy, called it a "treasure'' when she visited the site in 2005 to help with the excavation. It's by far the largest she had seen in her trips to Africa.

"In 50 years, we've found two burial sites,'' she said.

Even more spectacular, scientists said, is that the area was used for burials by two distinctive groups of people: the Kiffian, who lived there between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, and the Tenerian, who lived there between 6,500 and 4,500 years ago.

The Kiffian, Sereno and his colleagues believe, were hunters and gatherers, said study co-author Christopher Stojanowski, an assistant professor of anthropology at Arizona State University.

They were big and strong: They uncovered a skeleton of one 6-foot, 3-inch male; the bones show evidence of well-developed muscles.

The Kiffian buried their dead in “unusual'' positions, Stojanowski said, including sitting with their knees in their face. It's possible they were tied or bound in animal skins that have long since decayed, he said.

But the mystery remains as to what happened to them: There is no real evidence of a mass disease, nor clear evidence of where they went, he said. But there is evidence the lake dried up for about 1,000 years.

The Tenerian followed, and may have brought cattle with them. They were generally smaller. And, in contrast to the Kiffian, they buried their dead with more “bling,'' including one female who was wearing a bracelet on her upper arm — the first one ever found from the period, Sereno said. Another wore a necklace made of a Hippopotamus tusk. One man was buried sitting on a turtle shell.

Perhaps the most striking find is a grave featuring a 25-year-old woman and two children, aged 8 and 5. They are buried with their arms around each other. Evidence of pollen underneath them suggests they were laid on a bed of flowers. Four arrowheads were also found in the grave site.

“This is incredible,'' Sereno said. “It's going to be one of Africa's most famous burials.''

Why both cultures chose the same sites, along dunes near the lake, to bury their dead remains a mystery, and how the Tenerian did so without disturbing the other graves is also fascinating, Stojanowski said.

In the end, despite doubts from some, archaeologists might end up learning something from Sereno about collection methods.

While archaeologists typically dig up individual bones in the field, Sereno was careful to cast the entire area around the fossils and brought them back to the lab in Chicago to prepare the bones. That allowed scientists to maintain the context of the burial and also better preserve the fossils, Sereno said.

Stojanowski was so impressed with methods used in the field that he wants Sereno to speak at an archeology conference in Chicago next spring.

While Sereno doesn't know when he can return to the site, he has made agreements with government officials to return many of the specimens to the country and house them in a new national museum in Niger. The museum could also include remains of some of the dozen dinosaurs species he found there.

And while Sereno plans to publish more on the harpoons and arrowheads found at the site, don't expect a career change: This will be his last archaeological dig he says, although he will continue hunting for new dinosaurs.

“Gobero will be studied for years and years to come, but certainly not mostly by me,'' Sereno said.

For more information, go to www.projectexploration.org.

free art show! clothing sale! me Me ME!

2008-08-08T15:35:57Z

Do you like cheap clothes?
How about pretty photos that have nothing in common with one another?
Do YOU like ME? (circle YES or NO)

then come to the FIRST art show of many that I'm now curating on a monthly basis!

free show tonight at the empty bottle

2008-08-04T15:42:30Z

Tonight at the Empty Bottle

9 pm

+ 97-shiki
+ PARSLEY FLAKES (my good friends)! awesome dance music with a message that isn't corny (i.e. a song called Fuck the Media)
+ Black Ladies

record release show!

x-posted to chicago_cheap & free_is_free & chicago_party