Amazing Photorealistic Star Wars Art – Christian Waggoner

The best part of these images are in the reflections. The full StarWars.com interview is here.

“I love reflections. I mean, if you crop one of my paintings, it can be abstract, it can be surreal, it’s a play of light, a play of values, how things get distorted. You can just play around with so much. I’m now trying to take the art to see more hidden things in the reflections that people will catch.”

– Chris Waggoner

Why Fox News Is Un-American | Newsweek Newsweek Voices – Jacob Weisberg | Newsweek.com

A proper critique of the treasonous travesty that is FAUXNews.

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for “evidence” that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored….

Rather than in any way maturing, Fox has in recent months become more boisterous and demagogic. Fox sponsored as much as it covered the anti-Obama “tea parties” this summer. Its “fact checking” about the president’s health-care proposal is provided by Karl Rove. And weepy Glenn Beck has begun to exhibit a Strangelovean concern about government invading our bloodstream by vaccinating people for swine flu. With this misinformation campaign, Fox stands to become the first network to actively try to kill its viewers.

To followup, a slideshow of 10 of the worst FAUXNews lies.

Also, this:

StarWars.com | Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion

I’ve been having a lot of fun skimming through the new Star Wars: The Essential Atlas. The link here takes you to some background info, author chats, and an online planetary directory that will be updated as new systems and such get written/created.

As a fan, it’s been more than a little discouraging to pour through dozens of fan-made maps, hoping for a system that works. A guy named Cartographer had taken the maps created for the New Jedi Order and had spent a lot of work organizing those into something usable. Up until this book’s release, the best current map was a mash-up of Cartographer’s and Modi’s map, found here.

Fourth grader asks President Obama “Why do people hate you?”

Some honesty from a fourth grader at the end of the President’s speech in New Orleans.

Let’s be honest, there is at least one big media company (FAUX, Wall Street Journal, et al), various radio blowhards, and lots of racists cheering on anyone trying to diminish the work of the president.

They have a huge bullhorn so at times, yes, it seems like the angry American mob is out to get the president.

But as he said in some of his response to the young boy:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me,. What is true is if you were watching TV lately, it seems like everybody’s just getting mad all the time. And I — you know, I think that you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just what’s called politics where, you know, once one party wins, then the other party kind of gets — feels like it needs to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes….

“You’ve just got to keep on going, even when folks are criticizing you, because — as long as you know that you’re doing it for other people, all right?”