President 2012: Gingrich, NOT Romney

Let’s talk politics. First let’s get some facts lined up:

FACT: The Liberal media provides millions of dollars of free tailwind and headwind to the candidates that they like/don’t like. In 2008, they got John McCain the GOP nomination because he was the closest thing to a Democrat running on the GOP side, and he was the most beatable candidate.

This time, they’d like nothing better than Huntsman, because he’s basically a Democrat. But they know it’s not going to happen, so they are backing Mitt Romney (a man, who, I might add, could NOT beat John McCain last time!). They are backing him in the primary season. If he gets the nomination, expect that same Liberal media that backed him to POUND him on being a Mormon and on having enacted universal healthcare in Mass. Oh, and they’ll dredge up some other stuff. The tone will change ON A DIME–over night.

Romney is NOT a Conservative. He is a very liberal pol. Any Republican who can (a) win in Mass and (b) pass universal healthcare, isn’t Conservative. Oh, and, by the way, that universal healthcare is costing multiples MORE than he promised and that’s precisely how the Obamacare will go and why it is imperitive to repeal it–we simply don’t have the money. Forget that it’s bad law–we simply don’t have the money. It will break us. We borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar spent. To enact a monolithic entitlement program like that when we are borrowing so much money is as close to national suicide as you’ll ever see. It must go.

The candidates who will figure are now running thusly:
Cain, Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann. Paul is only a factor if he is dumb enough to run as a 3rd party guy and virtually ensure that Obama wins. Huntsman is not realistic. Santorum ditto.

Bachmann may do very well in Iowa and, as a Conservative woman with gravitas, she may be a viable veep candidate. I would applaud that as the Dems have a permanent 15% advantage with women and that is why they attack Palin and Bachmann so rudely and visciously: they are scared stiff of a woman on the GOP side pulling that number down. Their whole “party” rests on that. The other leg of the stool is minorities, and that explains the treatment that Cain and Clarence Thomas get.

Now originally I liked Cain. I LOVED that he was NOT ROMNEY! And that was the point to Cain. But for 2 reasons, I don’t want him nominated. The 999 thing is not the right thing right now. I want a candidate who won’t waste ANY political capital on a radical overhaul. The radical overhaul is REPEAL OBAMACARE. It must be the first and only thing focused on until it is done. So 999 is a distraction that could cost us dearly. It also introduces a national sales tax, and I don’t want Congress with any new taxes to play with. Once enacted, they only go up. The power to tax is the power to destroy!

The Cain scandals are not a bother to me. I believe they are 100% manufactured by Dem operatives. That’s how scared they are about Cain on the GOP side. (See my earlier comments). The best thing I’ve read about it is this–it’s a must-read for every American and you won’t hear these things in the mainstream media–that’s how it works.

The real reason Cain needs to step aside? He recently said on the record that China was seeking nuclear weapons! Even as a school kid, I knew that China had them since the 1960′s. You can’t win the general and be throwing this red meat to the media. He will lose. There is too much at stake.

If he was Joe Biden, he’d get a pass, but he’s the opposite of Joe Biden–every Liberal “journo” wants to nail him, and if it’s that easy, then buh-bye, Herman. I respect you; I like you; but you can’t do that and win. This is too important. I wish you all kinds of well. And thank you for a very important job well done–you exposed the hate machine that is the Democratic/Liberal Media complex, that is for those who look at it objectively and in good faith.

With Cain a disaster, that leaves only Gingrich to thwart the disaster that is Romney. I know, I know, he said some things that were head scratchers. The photo op with Pelosi and the Globaloney Warming comments. I get it. But he is so smart and so dang erudite under pressure that he HAS to be the nominee. He also understands as do NO OTHER CANDIDATES that he is not only trying to convince people to vote for his IDEAS, but that he is fighting a ruthless and dishonest enemy: the press. He routinely goes after the press and calls out their ridiculous Liberal bias! To me, this is now a REQUIREMENT of any Conservative candidate. You MUST fight back against the bias and not only is Newt the one best equipped to do that, he is the ONLY one who seems to understand that it must be done! I’m tired of the Bush’s laying back and allowing their enemies attack them with no fear of pushback. The ideas need to be put out there and Newt will do it.

Newt is experienced. He has the Contract with American and the very skill full dampening of the most Liberal part of the Clinton years after the ’94 congress. He understands Congress and how you get things done. He understands the space. He is pleasant and smart and steeped in historical contextual knowledge and what’s more: he can THINK and SPEAK ON HIS FEET!

He is, I believe, realistically Conservative. What does that mean? Well, it means he is smart enough not to waste his time tilting at windmills with stuff like 999 while the healthcare bill alone is holding back GDP by 2-3% per year right now just on fear alone! He knows what needs to be done in what order and he knows what is OBTAINABLE and in what time frame!

We are very close to having the Liberal media, once again, shove a very liberal, lightweight candidate down our throats. We have a very short window left with which to thwart this. Newt is the only choice and he’s a da*n good choice too!

Don’t blow this. Don’t be fooled by radical/unelectable Ron Paul or Cain. Romney is who your enemies want. Gingrich has the added sweetner of being HATED by the Liberals! A Gingrich presidency would rankle them monumentally; right up there with Palin or Bachmann or Cain. They were so scared of Newt in the 90′s that they put him on the cover of Newsweek:

You want to know who the Left fears? Watch who they ATTACK! And NO ONE was more attacked in the 1990′s than Newt.

Addendum: How can I prove the media is pushing Romney and tearing down everyone else? Well, there are many ways. Newbusters.org is a great daily source of objective, verifiable stuff, but it’s even simpler than that. Just go about your business and count up the times you hear a KNOWN Liberal say, “…Oh, Romney has already won” and add that to the number of times you hear: “…Cain CAN’T win” or “…Bachmann can’t win”, or “…Gingrich can’t win”.

They want you to think that it’s over; that Romney has already won; that there are no issues with Romney; that all the other candidates are deeply flawed. Just listen with half an ear and it’s obvious.

Last weekend I worked all weekend clearing trees and raking leaves and had my headphones on Bloomberg Business News and the Liberal bias on Bloomberg was just STAGGERING. It was a joke. It was either bashing Cain or pushing Huntsman the whole weekend. It was a cartoon. But remember, Fox News is biased, even though they can’t give specific examples; even though Shep is a Lib; Greta is a Lib; Juan Williams and Geraldo are Libs. You think there are any Conservatives at MSNBC? hahahaha.

The Making of Jackie Robinson: 10 min video

Click here to see video on youtube in a new window

I’ve finally gotten the time to edit the clips together and it came out fairly well.  I’m pleased.  We are in talks with some potentially big parties so fingers crossed.  Enjoy.

Click here to see the main website for the art/statues

Jackie Robinson In 3-D

With perhaps days/hours to go before the baby, I’m doing a big push on Jackie Robinson to see how far I can get before my life changes so much.  I had a big day in the shop yesterday and took these stereo photos.

Together, they can be viewed in 3-D.  If you were one of those who could left your eyes relax and see those old 3-D, computer-generated drawings, then you SHOULD be able to do this the same way.  I can do it.  But it takes a few moments to get it.

The trick, for me, is to get far enough away from the two photos, so that they are a little smaller than a postcard, held at arms length.  Then you stare, allowing your eyes to relax and not truly focus.  When your eyes are relaxed correctly, you should see double–that’s 4 images.  Keep trying different pressures on your focus until the two center photos become 1 photo and it will be 3-D.  It’s eerie.  When you get it, you will KNOW, so if you are wondering, then you don’t have it.  Remember: Try and make the middle two images merge into one, so that overall, there are 3 photos, and only concentrate on that middle photo–that’s the one that will become 3-dimensional.

How did I take this photo?  With a 3-D camera?  Nahh, with my own camera.  Since I’m working with a tripod, and nothing is in motion, the time lapse between photo1 and photo2 can be ignored.  You couldn’t do this trick with live action, because p1 and p2 would not match.  But in the studio, you just take one photo and then move the tripod 80mm to the right and take another one.  80mm is about the distance between people’s eyes.  The “interpupillary distance”.  Actually, in the population, it’s much smaller for most and is smaller for women and bigger for some ethnic groups.  It runs between 65 and 83 mm.  At 25.4 mm per inch, you do the inch-math.

With the two photos of EXATLY the same thing and yet from two slight different (80mm apart) vantage points, they are about what your brain takes in and processes into one, 3-D image.  The slightly different perspective means that the right eye sees a little further around Jackie’s left side, than the left eye can see.  That info is used by your wonderful brain to give you all sorts of depth and distance information.  Imagine trying to golf without it!  “How far to the pin?”  “Where’s the 150 yd marker?”

And for you Liberals out there, remember, the beauty of the eye and the brain and the depth is pure chance–we’re talking NO INTELLIGENT DESIGN, right?  Don’t even think those words in a public school.

Before you go thinking I’m some kind of techy person, realize that 3-D cameras and looking at “stereo-images” like we are here, originated at about the time of the Civil War.  Stereo view photos were all the rage from about 1870 to 1910.  They looked like this:

They were viewed in a viewer that looked like this:

The slides were available as canned, commercially produced photos of current events and famous places and landmarks.  Think GAF-viewmaster from the 1970′s:

I’m not sure why they fell out of favor.  Perhaps WWI, which destroyed so much of what good was happening in the world around 1914.

Anyway, they did commercially produce stereo cameras for the home-gamer and here is one:

All you need is the ability to take TWO images simultaneously, one interpupillary distance apart.  Now if you search for these things, you will only find, I believe, film cameras from yesteryear.  There doesn’t seem to be any digital stereo cameras available.  There are a couple of guys who have hacked together two digital cameras, but the hack is never simple and the mounting and alignment is never easy.  Both lenses have to point at the same focal point out in space, or the pictures will look hokey–like mine!

What I want to know is why doesn’t SOMEone produce a decent digital stereo camera?  WHY?  With PC’s bringing down photography prices and giving us all sorts of exotic ways to display them, it’s a perfect marriage!  I have searched, but not recently, so it’s possible that there is something out there now.  If anyone knows of a product, comment in please.

For Jackie fans, Jackie may be getting his first paint today on the lower legs and shoes and pants.  It’s always the single biggest, quickest change in the statue and for a medium that goes crawling by in the hundreds of hours, this is a welcome thing.

You Gotta Look Sharp

Here’s a few articles on pitch tipping, a hot topic around here lately. Here’s a quote from one of them:

Lefthander Andy Pettitte was an integral part of the Yankees rotation in 2001, posting a 15-10 record with an ERA of 3.99. But Pettitte got bombed against Arizona in the World Series, going 0-2 with a 10.00 ERA. In nine innings, Pettitte gave up 12 hits and 10 runs.

“He was tipping,” Torre said. “We knew [Arizona] had picked up on something, but when we looked at our video, we weren’t seeing it. We realized later it was because he was tipping in the early part of his windup, and our guys were only filming his delivery. We changed the way we did our video after that.”

Click to launch the original article in a new window

I love it. I mean, here’s genius Joe Torre basically admitting, “…yea, we messed up and lost the World Series”. I’ve always felt that this has to be the biggest baseball story ever NOT written. And to me, it just reeks of the media’s pro-Yankee bias. The writers are all a bunch of little boys who do not want to contemplate, even for a minute, that their “heroes” Torre and Pettite, are to blame for losing the Yankees another, nauseating World Series ring.

Other mere mortals would have been run out of the country. Torre? Stottlemyre? They are guilty of malfeasance in this case and yet you never read a word about it, didja? Nope. Everyone clams up and talks about what a cheap little hit Gonzalez got off of Mariano (another who can do no wrong despite blowing 3 postseasons: ’97 Alomar HR, ’01 Throwing ball into CF in G7, ’04 getting ball with lead over Sox), but no one mentions the Yankees’ own part in the story.

And in baseball terms, it should be a HUGE story. But it isn’t. Why? For generations, you could read about the A’s having the Giants’ signs in the 1911 World Series, and also stories about whether the 1911 World Series was cooked, because gamblers got to the Giants. I think the Giants were probably dirty back then. McGraw was not above it. He had a man take money to the umps before the famous 1908 Merkle-replay game. And the A’s certainly were not above it as they threw the 1914 series to a seriously inferior “Miracle” Boston Braves team. After that double cross, Connie Mack KNEW he had a dirty team, but he didn’t know which ones, so he sold it all off. People still erroneously blame Mack for the fire sale, but he had no choice; he had dirty players and he couldn’t say for sure exactly who it was. And look at Eddie Collins: He was on BOTH of the dirtiest clubs in history: The 1914 A’s and the 1919 White Sox–and yet he was considered to be beyond reproach. Amazing. It must have been mighty frustrating to be on the level and see that going on around you in the days when, remember, the difference between the winners’ and losers’ share, was a journeyman’s yearly salary.

Anyway, my point was pitch-tipping and why wasn’t it getting more play in NY in 2001? But we all know why, don’t we? Suuure.

And some will argue (and do quite convincingly) that it isn’t such a great advantage as you might think. But tell that to the 2001 Dbacks. It IS a big deal. It does cost you ballgames. Sure, not everyone wants the info, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try.  When teams steal signs from the scoreboard (very common throughout baseball history), typically, one in three or four, does NOT want the info.  They feel it does more harm than good.

And not everyone is immune to tipping.  In fact, some pretty good twirlers tipped. Koufax tipped everything out of the stretch for his entire career. It didn’t matter. Bunning tipped during his perfect game no less! It didn’t matter. Pedro and Randy and Schilling have all tipped or been suspected tippers, at one time or another in there HOF careers. It happens.

It happens because throwing a pitch is a physical act and you may very well do things differently for different pitches and it isn’t just about the old high school pitcher, “…wrapping the curve ball”. No, not at the top level. Any wrappers have long since had a high school coach yell that out of them (High school coaches can yell, yes?). No, it’s a glance into a glove. It’s a finger waggle outside the glove. It’s the glove open or closed or wiggling or held high or held low or looping in the stretch or it’s a breath or facial tick or something that is consistent but not overt, and you don’t even know you are doing it.

I think it’s great fun to try and call pitches but the TV coverage is so lousy that you don’t get a chance. The director cuts to a closeup of the runner, the batter, the pitcher, the manager. It’s stupid. I want to see the shot from CF, over the pitcher’s shoulder, EVERY time. I want to see the sign put down and the location, and then see the catcher move to the location and set the target, and most of all, I want to see the pitcher’s full regimen each time. But the directors in the truck don’t get that and they never will.

How would I cover a ballgame?  First off, the camera would never be anywhere except over the pitcher’s shoulder.  Only VERY noteworthy things would trump that continuous shot.  I owe that to the intelligent baseball fans watching.  And almost NO crowd shots, please.  Never.  They aren’t the story.

As the batter is walking up to hit on each at-bat, the announcer would have to review that last AB’s pitch selection.  If there is none, then the “book” on that batter, from that pitcher should be reviewed.  You want to get fancy and show those montage shots of all the pitches?  Now’s the time.  But I’d be satisfied with a verbal, “…here’s Joe Blow, Webb started him with the sinker away last time and then sinker in and then slider away.  Let’s see…”

That’s it!  That’s what I want.  Why is that so hard?

Click here to open another story in a new window

Click here to read yet ANOTHER story in a new window

Click here to launch the 2001 series stats from baseball-reference.com

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

He’s just a man, and not a freak…

Nothing much new today. Seeing the oil refinery explosion and realizing that oil isn’t going to pull back below $90 anytime soon. My strategy is to wait for the next big pullback, hopefully into the mid 80′s and then, assuming that that pullback pulls down MRO Marathon Oil to a nice, sub-45 price, I load up on some Marathon Oil and am pretty certain I’ll see it at 60 sometime in the next 12 months. Remember though, I’m no Jim Kramer.

Also trying to figure out a way to see Liverpool-Inter tomorrow at 2:45pm here Eastern Standard Time or Daylight Time or whatever. Options now are to see if Fox Soccer Channel will air it and tape it while at work. The other option is to go to work at 5am and not take a lunch (mostly don’t anyway) and then ride down to the Bronx at 2:30 and go to Rory Dolan’s and watch it. That’s where I saw them win the European Cup in 2005. Which reminds me. I had thought to list my “top greatest sports thrills” list, for anyone who cares. Here goes:

And this is just me, ok?

Joe DiMaggio’s Eyes

Babe and I Live in Squalor

Since someone gave me the tip to include some scale in these photos, I have to jump in there. And I’m not really dressed for it but that is reality in the cold cellar. That’s two pairs of insulated undies and about three or four shirts. Class.

And although the shelves look dishevelled, everything has a place where it goes. Not a place for storage, just the place I found it and the place I keep leaving it. It’s amazing how much time gets lost if any of that stuff is moved even 2 feet. Some things have not been moved since the early 1990s. Some of those things have been used just once or even never, but they’re still there and they are reference points I guess. Like the garbage collector, I’m not going to give up on certain ideas and tools. You know, the neighbor with the 1939 Ford rotting in the yard? It’s always like, “…it’s still good…it’s worth like, a LOT of money…” Some of the things are there for nostalgia as in, “…yea, I remember when I was that stupid!”. Or, you find a relic and immediately remember exactly what you were doing the night it came to be: “…that was ’92, Tom was hanging out and Johnny Carson did his last show that night…” It could be a tool, a business card or even a little piece of wood that was going to be just right for something. There are times when I wouldn’t trade ANY of this space for the entire Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

Babe Ruth In Satin

Since you liked that one, here’s another. The pile of stuff between his feet is masking tape. Every single pinstripe is the result of two pieces of masking tape. You take 1″ tape and razor blade it down the middle. Then you use the good straight edge to define the outside of one stripe. Repeat for the other. Then you paint the stripe by hand, between the tape, with the Yankee blue acrylic paint. You peel the tape off, and there’s your stripe. I’ve experimented with many other methods: stamping, freehand, rolling. All of them are N/G. This is the best way. As you figured, it is slllloooooowwwww.

Also remember that any sheen on the figure will be removed by overspraying with the top secret window froster. Cloth, and skin for the most part, are flat. Not glossy. Not semi. Not satin.

The edges of the base will be hemmed in 6″ oak planks, which I have just purchased.

 

[There's the Oak on top of the pine and basswood.  You can see the airbrush compressor as well.  In the background is the life size Mickey Mantle statue, awaiting his sprucing up.  Those headphones are fantastic.  They are totally soundproof and also a great am/fm radio.] 

The deck will be coated with a thing called “Turface”. Turface is the stuff that sometimes is referred to as “diamond dry”. It is kiln fired clay that is ground up. It is very light and granular (think unground pepper kernel size) and apparently absorbs water like a son-of-a-gun, however, I don’t care about it’s water properties; only that it is the cleanest “dirt” that I can find that also looks realistic.

Chance Blown

Ice in the NorthEast has been bad.  On Saturday night, I fell on my behind after putting Tommy in the car.  A day and a half later, my dad fell in nearly the same spot and broke his hip.  He’s 81.  The last time he broke a bone, he was preparing to fight the Germans in World War II.  This is not good.  And this comes on top of my brother’s almost unbelievable series of health woes which has been ongoing but lately, has been more intense and has landed him in dialysis every other da. There is nothing routine about pinning an 81 year old’s hip so fingers crossed.  And be careful on the ice out there.  It is a serious thing.

The statue is coming due soon and I’m not sure what the next few days/weeks hold for this latest development.  I still expect to have it done for the deadline but finding the time over the next two weeks will be difficult.  All in all, it’s doable.  And did you ever notice that a while after a big project is done, you can’t recall how tired you were or hard you worked!  It just goes away, doesn’t it?  But you can recall the prize and goal more or less.  It’s a motivator anyway.  It’s time I might have squandered.  But still, there are nights I’d like to squander it with Tomicle.

On other fronts, my nephew’s team is plus 5 guys.  I was an evaluator at the tryout and that was a different deal.  Usually, I’m on the other side.  It was a little weird seeing some parents with “those” looks and knowing that we’re only looking for 5 slots and there were 10 kids.  And I was nervous about the post-mortem; you know, where the coaches have a beverage and decide who they liked.  In our case it took about 10 seconds for us to all unanimously agree on the kids.  No question.  You have to like that.

A last dopey thought.  The XM Zep channel.  Can they stop with the promos of the song beginnings?  It’s a tease.  I hear the opening notes to The Lemon Song and I’m in my car getting cut off by Vinny AyOh and I’m thinking, “…ahh, good song”, and then it flips to the opening bars of Four Sticks, etc.  And they do this ALL the time.  Guys.  XM guys.  We KNOW we are listening to the all-LZ channel.  We have long ago memorized ALL their material.  We want you to STFU and PLAY IT!  Not promo it like we never heard it before–that’s obnoxious!  But that’s the way radio has been done since Jolson was on it so that’s what they are determined to carry on doing.  You thought that they had a chance to totally reinvent the radio.  But no, chance blown.