ORIGINAL POSTERS

My POSTERS

As you have seen the original poster, you may have already realized that the title is different. For the dark shadow, I first took a picture of one of my friends and then used the laso tool in Photoshop to mask her out. After that has been done, I adjusted the levels setting to get this dark shadow effect. As for the gun she’s holding, I downloaded a gun Photoshop brush. Same goes for the flames. I downloaded some fire Photoshop brushes and then played around with the opacity, layers, and etc. to get the fire effect. For the font, I download this font called Trojan Pro from dafont.com. And as for the credit font, I used Steel Tong. I actually liked how this poster turned out and am very happy with it.

The process in creating this poster is similar to the previous one. The only difference it that this one took me longer. When I first saw the original poster, I had no idea how to get the feather shape and how to put a picture in it. But then I figured it out. I first created a blank canvas with my desired color background. Next, I downloaded some feather Photoshop brushes and created a new layer and paint the feather onto it with the color black. After doing some manipulation such as rotating the feather to the position I want, I merged the two layers together. Then I used the magic wand tool to highlight the  black feather to delete it. Now I can insert an image by putting the image layer under the feather layer. And that is pretty much how I created the feather “picture frame.” The seagull shadows and clouds are all Photoshop brushes. For the font, I downloaded the Walt Disney font and combined it with another default font from Photoshop to match up the theme of this poster.

Facts and figures:

1. Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide that kill men.
2. Smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer (my dad didn’t smoke)
3. Carcinogens such as radon gas or asbestos exposure are also accountable for lung cancer
4. Infections (bacterial or viral) have also been found to attribute to lung cancer in some instances.

Types of lung cancer:

1. NSCLC (non-small cell lung carcinoma) such as adenocarcinoma, squamous cell lung carcinoma and large lung cell carcinoma. These cancers are slower growing than other cancer types.
2. SCLC (small cell lung carcinoma), these tumours are quick growing and spread rapidly and are strongly associated with smoking.

Signs and symptoms of lung cancer:

1. Shortness of breath
2. Coughing up blood
3. Chronic coughing
4. Wheezing
5. Weight loss
6. Fatigue (feeling tired)
7. Collapsed lung

Some or all of these symptoms can also be associated with a range of other conditions (cold, flu, TB, hay fever), so just because you have these symptoms does NOT mean you have lung cancer.

Even if you or a friend/family member is diagnosed there are a lot of treatment options available.

In my experience my dad was sick for many months with a chronic cough and some experience of coughing up blood, which just seemed like a bit of a cold. Eventually we found he had a collapsed lung. Upon X-ray they discovered a tumour which he then had biopsied, which turned out to be lung cancer. My dad had a round of radiotherapy more for palliative care than a cure, which shrunk the tumour enough to re-inflate his lung. My dad then had a stroke, which we feared would be the cancer spreading, it wasn’t, it was a clot on the brain. After the stroke, dad never really recovered, he would get frustrated that he couldn’t speak properly; he couldn’t say what he knew he wanted to. The last thing my dad truly said to me was that he loved me, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much, at that point I kind of knew he wouldn’t be around for much longer. Dad continued to lose weight and really changed from the man I knew, with the twinkle in his eye and his cheeky smile. I don’t want to think of my father in those last few months, I want to remember him as the funny, often stubborn loving father that he was. 6 months after his diagnosis, he was gone.

Dad passed away 2^nd December 2011

© Scott Stantis

Today, the president had decided not to release a photo of Osama bin Laden taken post-mortem.

In both instances, there are people doubting the validity of the claim. On the birth certificate issue, people are saying that the certificate is doctored up, or there are other bits of evidence that contradict the certificate. On the death of Osama, others are saying that we won’t produce a photo because Osama is actually dead (but even if one were produced, you know you’d have so-called ‘experts’ out there showing how it’s photoshopped).

We also have the “truthers” who deny that 9/11 was caused by a terrorist cell based out of the Middle East (the most simplistic explanation). Prior to the birth certificate, upwards of 20% of Americans doubted that Obama was born in the US. In a recent poll, upwards of 30% of Americans think the US government had something to do with 9/11. And rest assured that a multitude of Americans will doubt whether or not Osama bin Laden is actually dead.

What is going on in America? Do we just have an abnormally large number of people who are crazy, or is it something else? I would contend it’s something else.

Empiricism is the belief that all knowledge must be gained through sense-experience or through observation. In the philosophy departments at the turn of the century, the driving ideology in the study of epistemology was empiricism – all knowledge was gained through what we could observe, test, etc. Thus, morals, God, the soul, and everything else was cast aside. Even today when you argue with some people on the existence of God, they say, “Well you can’t falsify God,” which is code for, “You can’t do a scientific experiment on God.” Thus, they still adhere to empiricism when they assert that we must be able to perform an experiment on something in order to prove it.

Of course, empiricism died a quit and abrupt death within philosophy departments nearly sixty years ago. The reason is people realized that it was extremely problematic – empiricism can’t be tested, can’t be experienced, can’t be derived by sense experiences, so how could we know it is true? Furthermore, nothing in empiricism gave us a level where we could say that belief was justified; nothing in empiricism says that something isn’t knowledge until x amount of evidence is reached.

One thing that people often ignore is that what is found in the philosophy department eventually filters down into the public, though this can sometimes take anywhere from twenty year to two hundred years. The thing is, empiricism as a whole never really took off with the public, but instead ended up being a filtered, watered-down version. It is what led to the rise of subjectivity in morals, religion, and so on because we can’t really “prove” those things like we can “prove” the temperature of a casserole. Rather than rejecting emotions or religion, modern culture has turned these things into “feelings” and “spirituality.” But the underlying idea of empiricism – that knowledge is gained through sense-experience and observable data – is still the driving force behind our cultural epistemology.

With that in mind, is it any wonder that we have a society of extreme skeptics who won’t even accept photos as proof of something occurring? Remember, there’s nothing within empiricism that says, “once x has been met, a theory is justified.” So one person looks at the picture of the birth certificate and says, “That’s all I need to know it’s true.” Another person, however, looks at it and says, “It could have been faked” and can then demonstrate how to fake the birth certificate. In such a case, who is justified in their respective beliefs when we evaluate them empirically? Both.

So long as the birther, or the truther, or the soon-to-be-labeled “deather,” can provide a repeatable experiment justifying their claims, then they have met the burden of knowledge according to empiricism. Why is it that someone would need to see the picture of Osama bin Laden in order to believe he’s dead? Because “seeing is believing.” They can’t rely on the warranted belief that Osama bin Laden is dead, but instead require empirical proof. Someone won’t believe the birth certificate is real (especially if someone can cast enough doubt to show it’s a fake, even if the doubt is unwarranted) because there’s no sense-experience associated with it.

Yet we think such people are crazy when they’re only following a philosophy to its logical ends. This isn’t to say that evidence isn’t necessary in many instances (such as in a court), but merely that empiricism itself can’t adequately interpret or justify the interpretation of evidence. Evidence can and does work to prove a point, but only under a proper epistemological view (one that I won’t attempt to put forth right now, as it would be somewhere between skeptical realism and Plantinga’s warrant and proper function).

In the end, we’re seeing the logical conclusion of empiricism, which seems crazy to us because it is crazy. Yet, it was born out of philosophy departments and is still mostly embraced by the public when it’s convenient. “Don’t tell me there’s a God until you can falsify and experiment on such a belief, but on Osama bin Laden I don’t need to falsify the claim; I’ll simply take it as it is.” This is an inconsistency because no one can really live by empiricism, we’re not programmed that way so we can’t force ourselves into it.

So the next time you hear a birther, deather, or truther, remember that you don’t always have to see something in order to believe it.

Click for the back-story of the fall of ObM

Click here for Official White House feed…

Wiki about Abbottabad

]]> http://liberalfieldguide.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/how-to-use-group-nomenclature/ Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:58:04 +0000 blibberalblabberal http://liberalfieldguide.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/how-to-use-group-nomenclature/ The idea of individualism should be saved for the tattoo parlor. Therefore, when interacting with those that appose your ideas, be sure to lump them all together in a group with a catchy name. Examples of this practice would be “Birthers”, or similarly, “Deathers”.  If you are unable to distinguish which of the previous groups they belong, feel free to refer to them as “Tea-Baggers”! If they have a name like that – they’ve got to be wrong!

Gold Star Tip: Try combining a group name like “Tea-Baggers” with a LBW (Liberal Buzz Word) like “racist” . Paired together they create quite a title that is hard to shake off and will certainly silence their hillbilly, guntoting regimes!

Palin is, of course, wrong to say that the public is still “rightfully” bringing up the issue — it’s been answered again and again at this point, and there’s no doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii. But she is right about a couple things: For one, whoever the Republican nominee is in 2012, they won’t “have to bother to make it an issue.” It already will be, if not one discussed explicitly by the campaign and its surrogates, because so many Republicans already have doubts about the president’s birthplace. The fact that Palin and other mainstream figures, like Lou Dobbs and Tom DeLay, have indulged the Birthers doesn’t help matters.

Palin’s also right to draw a parallel between the conspiracy theories that surround Obama’s birth and the one about her son. The two are equally nutty. You’d hope, however, that going through that experience would teach her that it’s an awful thing to happen to anyone, regardless of political party. Instead, her attitude seems to be that the two wrongs somehow make a right.

That is a great point. All kinds of ugly rumors were spread during the campaign about her as they were about President Obama and his family. Yet, it seems Palin has not learned much from the ugliness that has targeted her own family. Palin continues to help the effort to mainstream the idiotic and already-debunked birther movement by pretty much irresponsibly endorsing it as an issue worthy of discussion.

Salon:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2009/12/03/palin_birther/index.html

I thought I’d take a little time and see how many of these new words I can list.

Birthers – These are the folks who say that Obama’s Hawaiian certified copy of live birth is fake and/or Hawaiian officials are part of a conspiracy and/or Obama’s gradma watched him being born in Kenya and/or Obama has some sort of weird dual citizenship issue that precludes him from being president, etc. Interestingly enough there are several competing factions who produce their fraudulent documents and file their lawsuits and don’t trust fellow birthers with wierdo variant theories. But that doesn’t stop some from still believing these theories. Thus they have earned the proud name of “birthers.”

Preppers – Some people who believe the end of the world is near so they are busy stocking up on guns, ammo, food and survival supplies. I can’t help but wonder, though, what good will any of that crap serve if the world does actually end??? You can’t take it with you, right?

Truthers – Also known as the “9/11 Truth Movement” these are people who think that the government had something to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that the “mainstream” media has failed to report the real truth of what actually happened that day.

Deathers – These are folks who are anti-Obama and anti-health care reform. They believe that health care reform will result in mass euthanasia of the elderly and other people as a viable method of making the plan cheaper. Less people alive means less money spent on health care, right? I guess the most famous deather of all would have to be former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin who worked so hard to make “death panels” a household phrase.

Warmers – Idiots who refuse to accept the massive “truth” that global warming is the biggest lie of all time have earned this appellation. Global warming may very well be one of the most complex theories of all time, one that is completely unprovable by mere humans, and, unlike some claim, there is no clear consensus of scientists one way or the other, so let’s insult the other side by putting them down with this particular label.

Teabaggers – Damn them for perverting this once wholesome term. This group of folks doesn’t like the direction our country is heading and they have wisely concluded that if it worked once in Boston, heck, it’ll probably work again. They busy themselves making protest signs, sporting shirts that say things like “revive the revolution” and quoting Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Blood? Revolution? Are you actually threatening our country?

Thrown Under The Bus – This phrase earns a lifetime achievement award for longevity. The phrase has actually been around for a while but really got legs during the 2008 presidential campaign. Since then usage his hit titanic proportions. As someone thrown under the bus on an almost daily basis, I can vouch for it!

Can you think of any others I forgot? Pound that comment function and tell me all about it.

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2009.

Obama’s nefarious plan for the nation’s genitals? His evil designs on your children? Here are the most absurd right-wing assaults on the president — and logic and reason.

Today, President Barack Obama is slated to give a speech urging America’s schoolchildren to do their homework and stay in school.

Naturally, conservatives are extremely alarmed, because obviously the president is looking to create a vast army of adorable little zombies that will help him destroy America faster.

All last week, conservative bloggers and pundits gleefully accused the centrist president of plotting to force radical politics on America’s impressionable youth, after Florida’s Republican chairman Jim Greer said Obama’s address would “indoctrinate” children and spread “socialist ideology.”

The week of right-wing echo chamber freak-outs led to protests by conservative parents, which put school districts throughout the country in the unenviable position of having to deal with the “controversy”: Some have decided not to air the president’s address; others are requiring parental permission.

So, thanks to the right-wing saviors of America’s youth, a bunch of kids will be shielded from the president’s dangerous message that learning things is good.

Could this be the stupidest, most irrational way conservatives have tried to tear down Obama? Is it even possible to answer that question?

We’ve assembled the most absurd, logic-defying right-wing attacks on the president. Some you’ve undoubtedly encountered before, as all are incessantly blared by conservative pundits and shock jocks, while many are cynically embraced by GOP lawmakers.

Assembled together, they illustrate the absurd extremes to which right-wingers are trying to drive the public discourse in their efforts to thwart essential reforms in health care, energy policy and the economy.

The Advent of Socialism/Fascism

Most historians would agree that fascism and socialism represent vastly different ideologies and historical phenomena. But not the historians at Fox News! Since Obama took office, right-wing pundits have lobbed these smears interchangeably, not quite clarifying whether Obama is leading the proletariat to a glorious utopian future or trying to bring the master race to world dominion.

MORE HERE

HILARIOUS!

1. The government wants to kill my grandparents. They will be “put on a list and forced to die early”….by being sent out into the ocean on ice floes…

2. The government is going to use the takeover of health care to promote abortion. The more abortions people have the more the government benefits because (fill in the blank).

Did I miss anything?