Dodger's Digital Den

Receding Roar of White America

2012-01-17T18:57:00.000-06:00

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Normally I do not have a lot of use for David Brooks but he has been known to be spot-on on many occasions.
This is one of them:

I was also struck, as in New Hampshire and Iowa, by the mood of this year’s rallies. Republican audiences this year want a restoration. America once had strong values, they believe, but we have gone astray. We’ve got to go back and rediscover what we had. Heads nod enthusiastically every time a candidate touches this theme.I agree with the sentiment, but it makes for an incredibly backward-looking campaign. I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

Oh we have strong values today, alright: Greed and selfishness. Yes, they have always been with us but not so near the surface as they are these days. Thank Reagan for starting that.
One of the things I llike to rub in conservatives' faces is the fact that by the middle of this century, the white race will be in the minority in this country. Suck on that!

Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale

2012-01-14T09:51:00.000-06:00

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Argue class warfare with a wingnut republican, Fox News viewer, whatever, and they will tell you that people are jealous of the rich. Envy, that's all. After all, didn't Steve Jobs and Bill Gates make products that a lot of people are willing to spend a lot of money on? Come on, how can you not understand that? This is what I get constantly from "libertarians" and other Obama-haters trying to put the best face on the gross inequality in our society.
The ultra-rich are the innovators of our society, the producers, the job creators. They should be left to create, unfettered by taxes, government regulation, and class envy. A rising tide lifts all boats, right?

That plays well on Planet Wingnut where Fox is the only thing on TV and Rush and Hannity are the only things on radio. All day, all night. It's comforting to know that everything is happening the way it is supposed to. The laws of economics and the free market always prevail in the end.

Well, give that article a read and you will see that it is not Jobs and Gates who are the problem. It's the Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs types who are the problem.

According to the FBI, crimes against person and property, including theft, account for a few billion dollars in losses each year. Corporate malfeasance, such as that described in the above article, account for hundreds of billions. No one goes to jail for the latter.

And if you question it, you are jealous. That's all.

The Nikon D4 is Here!

2012-01-06T08:34:00.000-06:00

See the review here

It's here... Nikon has announced the 16mp D4 DSLR.

16.2mp Nikon-developed CMOS FX sensor
Dust reduction system
Dual slots (1x XQD, 1x CF Type 1)
100% viewfinder coverage, 0.70x magnification.
Carbon fiber shutter rated at 400,000 cycles, max speed 1/8000s
1/250s flash sync speed
10fps shooting speed with full AF, 11fps with no AF
91,000-pixel exposure metering system
ISO 100-12,800 (50-204,800 expanded)
Multi-CAM 3500FX 51-point autofocus, down to f/8 and -2ev
USB 3.0 interface
New EN-EL18 battery, 2600 shots per charge
41.6oz (1180g) camera body only
Illuminated function buttons

If you have an extra $6K or so lying around, you should get this. Peanuts compared to the Canon 1DX coming soon. Me, I am holding out for the D800 but, practically speaking, the D700 will have to do me for the near term. Not a problem, it's a great camera (doesn't do video, though).

The Real Attack on the Spirit of Christmas Comes From the Right Wing

2011-12-20T10:04:00.000-06:00

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Good article showing how the quality of human empathy, as detailed in the parable of The Good Samaritan, will save humanity.
And how the opposite spectrum, represented by Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan/Rush/Hannity, will destroy it.

Since humanity learned several decades ago how to destroy itself several times over, we need to keep our sense of empathy on pace with the progress of our technology.

Nikon No Longer Underwater

2011-12-03T09:47:00.001-06:00

Nikon resumes shipment of some products, factory in Thailand no longer submerged | NikonHQ

Sorry Michele

2011-11-25T14:15:00.000-06:00

NBC apologizes to Bachmann over song - CNN.com

As much as I wanted to chuckle & smile over Jimmy Fallon's band playing "Lyin' Ass Bitch" when MB came on, I did not.
First, it is not the right thing to do.
Second, if it had been Hillary or Granholm or some other Dem woman and they did this, I would be outraged. Oh wait, Rush, Savage and those guys do it all the time. Oh well.
Third, we have plenty to skewer the Li'l Chipmunk on, we don't need to do stuff like this.
So knock it off, boys.

Exporting Democracy

2011-11-24T11:38:00.001-06:00

Bachmann: Obama Ending Iraq War Is Desecration Of American Dead

2011-11-13T13:00:00.001-06:00

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Hey Michele, the cave just called - it wants its batshit back.
Does this mean we can never ever end a war?
Newsflash: We are leaving Iraq because the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), negotiated by the Bush Administration, has expired and Iraq said they do not want a new one. PERIOD. Non-debateable.
She is polling lower than the KKK and anyone is still paying attention to her?
What an embarassment to Minnesota and the country.
My favorite comment:

It is becoming quite clear to me that if Obama wins another term as President of the United States, it will simply mean the end of all life on Planet Earth as we know it.

But before all life is extinguished in some cataclysmic event, every man, woman, and especially child will suffer pains beyond anything the Devil in Hell could imagine.

Each and everyone of us will wish we had voted over and over for one of the world saviors, all from the Repoublican/Tea Party because only those anointed souls would have been able to save mankind.

Before we all die deaths of unimaginable horror we will first see:
-Every nation in the world immediately attain Nuclear superiority over the US, including remarkable advanced delivery systems that run on the a penlight battery.
-Obama's healthcare plan will cause everyone to develop all manner of disease, from cancer to really annoying paper cuts.
-Every terrorist everywhere will kill every American...several times.

It's going to be bad, really bad.

And all because we reelected Barack Obama to the White House.

But you can stop this tragedy, you have the power.

Vote for BachmannCainGingrichHuntsmanPaul or if your really, REALLY, need to, that Mormon guy.

Remember, only you an stop the scourge of four more years and certain death.

Please, do it for the children.

The entire GOP field is a sick joke.

Lie, Cheat, Steal

2011-11-12T10:44:00.001-06:00

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I question whether this is a serious plot but it does not surprise me. Wisconsin guy going to con people into signing Recall Walker petitions then destroying them.

It is my humble opinion that working-class/middle class people who walk around calling themselves "conservative republicans" are the stupidest human beings on the planet.
This guy is a textbook case. Since this article hit, his Facebook Wall is getting blistered by his opposition.
Extra dumb, he allows anyone to leave comments. His profile pic is a dead giveaway, too. Typical needle-dick white guy with fat fingers and dirty fingernails trying to act tough.

Question for everybody: Where is/was the left-wing equivalent of this? And if you say the 2 black guys standing in front of a polling place in Philadelphia in 2008 (a majority-African American precinct, btw), don't.

New firmware out for D7000 and D5100, fixes issues

2011-11-12T09:59:00.001-06:00

New firmware out for D7000 and D5100, fixes issues | NikonHQ

The Big Lie Goes Viral

2011-11-09T14:14:00.001-06:00

Washington Post Article

Synopsis:

1. Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent

2. Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities.

3. Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.

4. Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.

5. The “Bear Stearns exemption” replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

6. Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.

7. The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.

8. These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.

9. “Innovative” mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers.

See. I told you so . . .
Notice not a word about Barney Frank or Fannie/Freddie?
I am seeing that bullshit meme more and more: trying to blame it on Clinton and Fannie Mae.
Yeah, they MADE the banks write bad mortgages, bundle them up with other debt, get the whole thing rated AAA by the crooked rating agencies and then sell them to pension funds that invested the nest eggs of hard-working middle/working class folks in what they KNEW was garbage from day one...
I understand why the rich defend the banks and Wall Street, but anyone that makes less than $250k a year and defends the banks from the heinous crimes they committed is a f*****g moron.

Barney Frank Made Me Do It

2011-11-06T11:10:00.001-06:00

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Matt Taibbi has been all over the financial crisis, doing actual shoe-leather reporting. As opposed to "conservative bloggers" who just cut & paste what they found on each others' blogs.
Bring up the financial/housing crisis with a "Libertarian" and even most conservatives, I've found, and you will immediately get a lecture on:

Barney Frank
CRA
Stupid unqualified mortgage borrowers
Fannie & Freddie

I know this for a fact, from personal experience.
Even, for the sake of argument, if it's true that Barney Frank forced these innocent lamb financial institutions to loan to unqualified borrowers, what ensued is what was really the problem.

Here is the money quote:

Nomi Prins pointed out in her book It Takes a Pillage that we could have paid off every subprime loan in America at the start of the crisis for about $1.4 trillion dollars. But the bailouts ended up being four, five, perhaps as much as ten or twelve times that size.
Why? Because we weren’t paying off the underlying loans of those subprime, personal-responsibility-deficient homeowners. We were paying off the banks' bets on those loans. We were adopting all those clones they made.

And: Fannie & Freddie do not originate mortgage loans!

The problem with this, and many other disputes, is that libertarians/conservatives view this stuff as left versus right, liberal versus conservative. They perceive that only liberals think what the banks did was bad and they would rather stick a hot poker up their orifice than agree with a goddamned liberal on anything, so . . .

The size of the slice of the Blame Pie for those 4 entities above is razor thin.

Nikon issues 3rd Notice on the damage from the Thai flood, factory still under water | NikonHQ

2011-11-05T10:08:00.000-05:00

Nikon issues 3rd Notice on the damage from the Thai flood, factory still under water | NikonHQ:

I wonder if this is going to impact the release of the D800 . . . . not good.

You want oil? We own it. You want gas? We own it.

2011-10-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

I got another one: "You want the Congress and President to work for you?" "We Own the Congress and President"

Some comedian once said: "If they could put a meter on the sun, we'd have solar everything by sundown tomorrow."

I once had a debate with a "libertarian" . . . if any of you have had the misfortune of doing this, prepare for a long-winded screed on economic theory and return on investment. Profit motive, incentives. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Yada yada.. a very unpleasant experience.

Anyway, the ROI argument came up.
Obviously Alaska, Siberia, Scandinavian countries, The Arctic and Antarctic et al are not going to be able to do 100% solar.

But Colorado has 301 days of sunshine each year. Ditto Arizona, New Mexico, many parts of Texas, Utah, a lot of California. Plus often the Midwest could be happily relying on solar. And Chicago could easily do a solar/wind combination - they are not called the Windy City because of wishful thinking but because of reality.

A friend's neighborhood on the shoulders of Mt Konocti in Northern California could be one hundred percent off the grid by using solar technology combined with wind technology.

Also, and you may not have heard about this, NASA is planning on solar powered space stations that will do nothing but collect solar energy and ZAP it back to the earth. So one reason why there is such fervor to cut back NASA isn't because of the meme "Why put people on Mars when we cannot solve our problems here?" but its opposite: because the Powers that Be fear what this type of technology would free mankind from.

Conservative Blogger caught and punked at Occupy Wall St

2011-10-26T09:27:00.000-05:00

This is how they do it. A new video by Joey Boots shows conservative blogger Evan Coyne Maloney confronted while attempting to distribute bongs and Che Guevara rolling papers to protesters at Zuccotti Park in New York. A small crowd forms as a protester begins publicly questioning Maloney's blatant attempt at creating a hippie-esqe photo-op.

Just like the wingnut who brought a box of bricks to OccupyMN at the Hennepin County Govt Center labeled "Riot Gear."

In the video, Maloney is seen giving out Che Guevara rolling papers. A male protester shouts "false, false!" as Maloney is confronted by cameraman Joey Boots, a regular guest on the Howard Stern show. Boots accuses Maloney of trying to create a photo-op for Fox News. Maloney responds by stating that he is just "giving away free stuff" because he is a "nice guy". Boots suggests that Maloney give away blankets if he wants to help so bad.

Question for everyone: Who on the left does this kind of stuff?
Another question for the wingnuts: Are your positions and points of view so bereft of factual basis that you have to lie, cheat, and steal to get your way?

Are They Nuts? Conservatives Deconstructed

2011-10-23T20:53:00.002-05:00

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Have you ever wondered about those ubiquitous conservatives?
Why do they support tax breaks for the rich when so many of their fellow citizens are in dire straits? Why do they applaud John Ashcroft and his post-9/11 curtailment of civil liberties? Why do they oppose laws that address historic wrongs and enforce constitutionally guaranteed rights? Why do they respond to a societal drug problem with incarceration and expanded prison construction? Why do they gut regulations that are meant to protect the environment? Why do they invest more than half of our tax dollars in the military? Why are they so meanspirited? In other words, why do conservatives do what they do? Are they nuts? (clip)

The authors acknowledge what has long been assumed by sociologists, economists, and political scientists: people adopt conservative beliefs to serve their own self interests. They agree that this helps explain the conservatism of "upper-class elites." However, the authors hold that the personal need to "reduce fear, anxiety, dissonance, uncertainty or instability" better explains why a vastly greater number of people who are not part of the elite, and particularly those who are disadvantaged or from low-status groups, "might embrace right-wing ideologies."

Thus the right wing succeeds by creating fear, uncertainty and doubt among the uninformed. Then they portray themselves as the answer by opposing change and promising tough law and order policies to combat the threat to the status quo. The OWS movement must scare the hell out of the conservative elite.

Save Us From Big Government!

2011-10-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

We Are the 99 Percent

2011-10-08T23:15:00.001-05:00

Nikon D700, Sigma 12-24 UWA, f/6.3 1/250

See Gallery Here

Update: See a video taken by FrogWorks.org the same day here.

I was watching the livestream of OccupyMN this morning - it was a guy walking around with his laptop with a webcam - when his battery drained. Apparently the power got cut off in the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza and the police wouldn't let them have a generator. Doesn't look like anything sinister, it is apparently standard practice to cut power after a certain time at night and on weekends.
So, your typical collection of leftists, fringe types, but lots of "conventional" people, too. In fact, Occupy Wall Street/OccupyMN people have a lot more in common with the original Tea Party folks than today's Teabaggers do. This page gives you a better idea of who these people are, hopefully to show you they are not a bunch of loons.

Unlike your garden variety Teabagger rally, all the signs were spelled correctly here. Oh sure, there were some signs that made you want to shake your head (outright wealth redistribution, straight-up socialism), but nothing really as asinine as the "Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare" signs at Tea Party rallies.
This one ought to make some Libertarian heads explode:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/5 1/100, 48mm

Although I don't think it helps the cause to advocate against capitalism.
Keep on walking around and . . . . OMG, the horror! The humanity! Free food for people who did not work for it or grow it themselves! This is (expletive deleted) welfare! Someone notify the Cato Institute and Fox News at once:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/6.3 1/250, 28mm

Sad that caring for fellow human beings has become a vice in this country.
After a while, the organizers got most of the people to march down 5th St. to the Nicollet Mall, down to 6th and back. Since there was no power for a PA system, a leader would stand on a box and half a dozen or so volunteers would shout repeat his words. Perhaps if they had corporate benefactors such as the Teabagger did . . . just saying.

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/5 1/100, 62mm

I kind of lost Karen, we split up taking our own pictures (she had the D70) and she ended up going with this group and I stayed behind. I could not find her so assumed this is what she did. The marchers shouted "We are the 99 percent!"
Lots of law enforcemen - MPD, Hennepin County Sheriff, private security. No riot gear, thank goodness, this wasn't like the Republican Convention of '08. I got the feeling those cops saw this assignment as a joke, some easy overtime money.

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/6.3 1/250, 90mm

So afterward, Karen and I hoofed it 4 blocks over to the Mall, then 4 blocks down to one of our favorite places, The Local. We stopped for a quick pose with MTM outside of Daytons -- oops, I mean Macy's:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/6.3 1/250, 32mm

The 8th of October, it should have been in the 50s. It was in the 80s, like July. We dined outside:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/6.3 1/160, 42mm

Bummer, Jameson is not their signature whiskey any more, maybe this isn't my favorite place any more:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/5 1/80, 36mm

I love getting skyscraper pictures, here is one - the IDS building, with a little Nik Efex single-image HDR tone-mapping applied:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-300, f/6.3 1/160, 28mm

Let the Bit-Chomping Begin

2011-10-05T21:48:00.004-05:00

http://nikonrumors.com/2011/10/03/the-name-will-be-nikon-d800-the-sensor-will-be-36mp-99-probability.aspx/

The value of my D700 will plummet when this comes out. This new one should go for a little under $4K but boy is it good.

Auto Focus Settings

2011-10-03T11:16:00.002-05:00

Good blog post about all the AF settings on the D700 and others:

http://prakashphotography.blogspot.com/2008/12/nikon-d700d3d300-autofocus-settings.html

How Much Does Stupid Cost?

2011-09-25T11:03:00.001-05:00

How It's Done

2011-09-24T17:02:00.000-05:00

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Attention lily-livered Democrats and take heed: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) just gave a class on dealing with hypocritical Republican pricks - in fact she picked one of the biggest pricks of them all, Darrel Issa (R-CA).
This guy quietly begged for green job money while railing against it in Congress and voting to kill the program.
Now he's leading the charge against Solyndra as a way to nail the Obama Administration.

This is how you do it - I know because I have been doing this for years. You take the documented facts, shove them in these weasely bastards' faces and kick them right square in the nuts until they scream.

Playing nice with these people gets you nowhere. Pres. Obama is only now starting to understand that.
He should have talked to me a couple years ago.

Nikon 1 comparison - J1 vs V1 - what's different?

2011-09-24T10:48:00.000-05:00

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Nikon "1 Brand" V1 and J1 Mirrorless Cameras Announced

2011-09-21T09:13:00.000-05:00

Nikon "1 Brand" V1 and J1 Mirrorless Cameras Announced - New Mount, New Lenses NikonHQ

Nikon and Canon are jumping on this mirrorless market. Less moving parts.
Sounds exciting if for no other reason in that it would enable more folks to get into the SLR game without getting a second mortgage.
More later.

A Decade After 9/11: We've Become What We Loathe

2011-09-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

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The sad legacy of 9/11 is that the assholes on each side won.

We have still not woken up to whom we have become, to the fatal erosion of domestic and international law and the senseless waste of lives, resources and trillions of dollars to wage wars that ultimately we can never win. We do not see that our own faces have become as contorted as the faces of the demented hijackers who seized the three commercial jetliners a decade ago. We do not grasp that Osama bin Laden’s twisted vision of a world of indiscriminate violence and terror has triumphed. The attacks turned us into monsters, grotesque ghouls, sadists and killers who drop bombs on village children and waterboard those we kidnap, strip of their rights and hold for years without due process. We acted before we were able to think. And it is the satanic lust of violence that has us locked in its grip.

You could look at it another way and see it as a profound strategic failure on the part of the perpetrators :

They didn't get the USA out of the Middle East.
They triggered multiple wars that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims.
They triggered a global wave of Islamophobia.

Heck of a job, there!