This week, I`m presenting images from Lithuania.
They were taken by a friend of my client Villija, who just returned from there with her daughter Kendra.
All I know about this mount of crosses is that under Soviet rule, no displays of a religious nature were allowed.
If a cross was put up to commemorate the death of a loved one, the authorities smashed it down.
The Lithuanians then began to bring their crosses to this remote area, & a tradition began & more & more crosses were erected till this is what it is now.
Villija & Kendra were there to bring clothing & necessities to babies in an orphanage there that they collected through a network here in the US.
Here is the
Mount of Crosses

I`m a nice guy
I stopped at my local market after a hard week at work this late afternoon.
I usually post my distraction essay on Fridays, but had a heavy work schedule this week.
I`m self employed & have been for thirty plus years around the world.
When I got to the market, I was distracted by these offensive images.
I went & parked my truck & approached the people manning this little booth & confronted them about their disgusting display.
Being simply a DOFH(dirty old fucking hippy) they seemed to simply try & laugh me off.
I told them I would be back within 20 minutes to take photographs of them & their display, which was met with more derisive chuckles.
At that point, a man in a blue cap, (he is in the images) walked by & told me, he was proud that at least someone was in their respective faces.
He wondered how the market could allow this.
I told him it was a 'Free Speech' issue.
He was quite surprised at that.
I had him follow me into the market, (a quite large Pavilion , btw) to confront the manager, a person I`m familiar with, who is also likewise with me.
He stated, as I had told the "blue cap guy" that the market was powerless, because the property outside the market was public space, & free speech rules applied, but that the market did non endorse the 'petitioners' outside.
Within 15 mins. I was back with my camera, & announced my return.
I immediately noticed that these three men, moved out of the picture frame.
I told them to please move closer together so their "moms" could have a shot of them with Adolf Obama in the frame, since I was going to post the images of them online today.
I eventually shamed them into the frame.
I may seem mellow recounting this but I was stopping passersby & asking them if the Adolf Obama poster offended them.
Almost all were disgusted, but some may not have "glommed onto " or "Grokked" the idea.
I kept shaming them into getting into the frame by arguing that if their "health care" argument was so persuasive, they shouldn`t have to revert to vile caricatures, nor depictions of Obama.
That started the Obamabot argument. _I asked them if they were here now, where had they been for the last eight years at "my" market.
The next part was that I didn`t have a sense of humor, so I told them that I was also a "stand-up comic". _I told them their dismissiveness (of me) was really a true measure of their lack of commitment to their cause,(whatever it was besides being offensive)
Oh Oh! here comes a lowrider with four "Brothers" (I won`t call them "OG`s since I`m not a profiler, but I moved to their car, & asked them for an opinion. _They mentioned, "you mean those fools with the Nazi Obama, we`re cruising to do a "drive-by on them". _I instinctively knew there would be no shooting, so I told them to not use that terminology,"Please". _The carload of "gangsters" laughed at my comment, both knowing we both knew who we were, & familiar with our status, in the eyes of outsiders. _I kept stopping people going in & out of the market & asking them to comment. _I know most of the people in the area, & if I don`t know them, they know me, (or about me) _These three guys are now demanding that I do a stand-up routine, but as Jon Stewart said,"I`m nobodies` monkey. _This transpired throughout maybe 20 minutes. _(that means I`m real pissed off). IOW`s I usually don`t have time for "morans" _A lady comes out of the market & says, "Tony, are you doing a story on these idiots for the local paper?" _I told her, what a great addition to my purpose, but would you please tell the aforementioned idiots how you know me. _Her name is Justine, & she told these "guys" that 30 years ago at this same location where she had a kiosk, that I`d bought roses for everyone working in the area, that didn`t get time off to serve customers who needed their services, _She told them, (& I blush) that the last person they should ever hope to be dismissive of was me. _Justine knows some of my other secrets. _So in closing, I have not had time to prepare my "Distractions" that I so love to offer all of you here, but was so distracted by these offensive images, at my own market, (we are possessive aren`t we) that I spent my time elsewhere, (here) _In lieu of those usually posted distractions, see if you can find me in the background of these images. _Have a great weekend, & I`m always in the background,, Yelling Louder.

How to Kill a Canadian

For those interested, this is a short tutorial on how to achieve perspectives or how to change it for a better image. It involves straightening an image, copy & pasting another image into the original, creating new portions to compliment or correct an image, skewing the pasted images to conform to the original perspective of the image & using a larger background to create a more pleasant viewing canvas. I will then reverse course to take the final image & paste it back into an image I used in the original creation.
In view of the fact, that following the steps to create or correct an image, can get complicated for those who don`t know that much about Photoshop but would like to learn, I will first include a series of images to show the progression with a brief description. I will answer any questions in detail in the comments section.For general info, I am using PS v.8 or CS.
The first images I will put in the first comments.
Be patient please. I can click a shutter faster than I can use a keyboard.

I walked up to Mr. Johnson & by way of introducing myself, I stated my username.
Now this guy is either very good at deception or he has a very good memory. Before I could mention The BooMan Tribune, which was to be my next intro line, he said "Hey, How are you?" as if he recognized me from here at the tribune. So he remembered me from my comments or he knows how to speak to people. I mentioned that he had said, if Fred Thompson ever announces his candidacy, that he wanted someone to ask him how he liked representing  the treason faction of the republican party. So now that he`s announced, what was he [Mr. Johnson] going to do about it. His reply gave me more confidence in the ultimite survival of this country as I always envisioned it to be, not because of the content of it, but because of his confident & determined manner in which he gave it.
He told me though, that there were plenty of things they were doing & working on & that the process of restoring sanity here, would not waver.
The moderator, Ian Masters, a very wellspoken & seemingly knowledgeable man, started his talk by way of announcing how the evening was to progress, who would be speaking & a little about them.  As the evening progressed I could see that Ian Masters, was more than a moderator, but a person that shared the same thoughts, fears, & feelings about the state of affairs , as the people who came to hear the speakers.
Mr. Ray McGovern sits in front of me & since we had just seen him on a screen showing his "nerve' when he shot down Don Rumsfeld`s claim to never having said he knew where Saddam`s WMD`s were, by calling him a liar, I had to congratulate him thank him for his 27 years in the service to this country, & his ongoing efforts to bring forward & educate as many people as possible to the facts that some people already know but need to be reinforced & to those who don`t yet know that they`ve been bent over .

The moderator Ian Masters had given us a brief history of Mr. McGovern`s career, & one of the things that he had done was to present, to the POTUS, by hand, the Presidential Daily Briefing.
[" We never could have imagined" Condi Rice.]
One of the things I noticed about Mr. McGovern was that he was just like your dad, or your friend. There was no pretention, it was true. Whatever he was saying, it was very easy to trust he was speaking the truth, & you could see it better when listening to him voice his aprehension, about even begining to speak out.
 After being called a "Wuss"[ by his friends,& in humor] for not immediately speaking out & being pointed to Cindy Shehan & Rachel Corrie who weren`t afraid, he decided to go for broke & called the liar [Rumsfeld] a liar. He then mentioned how there were "Raging Grannies" out there, now where were the raging grampas. The lady in front of me started whooping & clapping, as if she also wanted to know where they were. I tapped her on the shoulder & said, "Right behind you, lady"
Mr Johnson, explained how the people you grow up with in a career, is much the same as a group that gravitate towards a like minded group in college. Those connections are reinforced through time & to this day they remain a very tight group. There are some very very "POed" people who will not let  Valerie Plame`s outing & her husband`s, Mr. Wilson, name be treated in the manner in which they have. He stated that there were assets, more than just Valerie Plame, that were lost due to the actions of people like Libby, & those who were involved in her outing.
They have done "Great Harm" to this country, he said.
He was not a happy man, when he was talking about that. I would not want to be the subject of his conviction to fix this wrong.
A few more points, for whatever it means.
At the question period, about 30 people lined up for questions. Jeebus,
I know we were in Venice Ca. but when the conspiracy people started talking or getting a little out there, a lot of people left. Then there were others, one,  who wanted to explain his own personal "Deja Vu" with many contorted hand motions. It reminded me of Led Zeppelin, you know, "Ramble On".
Then an impaired person, remember, we`re in Venice, tried to mumble about something most people couldn`t hear, so Larry said, "I`ll take that one.That`s an easy question, uh! no, wait [ it wasn`t], I`ll give you an easy answer." More questions on whether we should worry about martial law.
Mr. johnson sugested that there were legal steps that should be taken & that the rule of law should be followed.
Invasion of Iran: Mr. McGovern, is of the opinion that the military has stopped the presidents eagerness to do so by presenting him with a "Day After" scenario, in which he was convinced it was not a good idea, but one can`t watch bush all the time & if cheney got his mitts in that oven, all bets were off. He did go on to explain the utter idiocy of attacking Iran by explaining the "Day After" briefing which the president was given. Interestingly, he linked how the lobby for Israel who have been cheering an attack on Iran for a long time, would be a major loser if it did come about.
 Then in the question period, a lady stood up & questioned why he was so quick to mention Israel, but had not mentioned "oil".
Another lady got up & sorta tried to maybe imply that since they were both CIA insiders tthat they had some kind of agenda that they were involved with at this very moment to pull more wool over "OUR" eyes.
A guy over on my side of the room said to a rude lady next to me, "I don`t trust that guy on the right". He was speaking of Mr Johnson.
A few minutes later, he started talking over me again to the same lady. I told him it was very rude to interrupt my listening, they`re answering questions & interrupting the poeple who came to ask the questions.
And don`t trust the guy on the left, that`s me on your left buddy.
A few other people started chiming in about not learning anything new bla bla. The moderator Ian Masters tells the people it`s not cool to be insulting "Guests" . Meeting is pretty much over. I went & thanked Mr.Johnson who was surrounded by people with more questions, & also MR. McGovern who also had a crowd around him. I have to also acknowledge a female comedienne who obviously had not preformed in a church before.
At the entrance to the hall in the lobby I noticed that "Code Pink" was being very helpful also.
I like those Code Pink ladies. I met a whole bunch of them once, but they probably thought I was just a run of the mill nut.
I wish I could tell them, I`m not a run of the mill nut, but a genuine hand forged one.
 Goodnight.
I`ll post a few pics in the first comment.

Canada`s prime minister Stephen[editor's note, by KNUCKLEHEAD] Harper apologized to Mr. Arar & announced a 10.5 million dollar compensation for the harm done to him.
On a return trip from a family vacation in Tunisia, Mr Arar was detained in the US., chained & shackled for 11 days during interogation then renditioned to Syria. If you remember last week, during testimony at a hearing with Abu Gonzales, Mr. Arar`s case was brought up by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the new Democratic head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scolding US Attorney General, Albert Gonzales, for not explaining why Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen,  was sent to Syria. In Syria for 10 months, he was tortured into making false confessions. Syria then released him saying they had no reason to hold him any longer. Although this man was cleared of any ties to any terrorist organization by Canadian authorities, the US refuses to remove him from any terror lists or from the "No Fly" list.
From the article:
"U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, on Wednesday chastised Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for continuing to press Washington on the Arar matter.

"It's a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins said."
What he might have said was that nobody tells the US who we can torture.
In the aftermath of Mr Arar`s case being made public, RCMP commissioner Giulliano Zacardelli resigned over his handling of the file.
Mr. Arar : "Arar said his case has forced some Canadians to question their relationship to the United States, noting U.S. authorities declined to participate in Canada's federal inquiry.

"It's a question that touches all Canadians," Arar said. "Can we really trust the Americans to be our partners in the fight against terrorism?"
Who`s next? You? Your mom? Your brother? Me?  

ORIGINAL PEARL HARBOR PHOTOS

Never seen these before----must be somebody's private pictures they saved all this time.

These pic's are so clear....very sad....but, good that we can see them......

THE FELLOW WHO SENT THESE RECEIVED THEM  FROM AN OLD SHIPMATE ON THE USS QUAPAW

ATF-11O. INTERESTING AS HE'S NEVER SEEN THEM ANYWHERE ELSE.

I THINK THEY'RE SPECTACULAR.

PEARL HARBOR December 7th, 1941

Porter goss just stepped down or tumbled. Breaking now.