Rube Goldberg Lives!

Honda made this commercial:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php.

"There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it. The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work.

They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence.

In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!) When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.

There are six, and only six, hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.

Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars. The voice-over is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten.

They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real.

Oh. And about those funky windshield wipers . On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial. Make sure your sound is on."

Immigration Hilarity

This item today on CNN:


http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/05/16/mexico.immigration.ap/index.html

Had me rolling on the floor laughing.

Since when does the Mexican (or any other country's) government have any standing in U.S. Courts? They will get laughed out the door, and down the street.

One can just imagine the reverse situation -- likely the lawyer in Mexico would get beaten and thrown into prison for suing to enforce the rights of an illegal immigrant to Mexico from the U.S.

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The really sad thing about this whole circus is that we had a working cross-border labor program from 1942 through 1964:

The Bracero Program

It had its problems -- as all human arrangements do -- but it at least tried to be fair to the poor Mexicans who came to work in the U.S.

Immigration Hypocricy

A couple of things that came to my mailbox:

LIMBAUGH LAWS

ON A RECENT LIMBAUGH SHOW HE SAID HE WOULD HAVE
THE FOLLOWING IMMIGRATION LAWS IF HE WERE
IN CHARGE OF THE COUNTRY:

1. If you immigrate here you must speak our language.

2. There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools, no special
ballots for elections, no government business will be conducted in your
native language.

3. Foreigners will not have the right to vote, I don't care how long you are
here, nor will you ever be allowed to hold political office.

4. You cannot burden taxpayers. You're not entitled to welfare, food
stamps or other government goodies.

5. You must be a professional or an investor. We won't take unskilled
workers. You will not be allowed.

6. You can come if you invest here. But it must be an amount equal
to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If you don't have that much you
CANNOT come and invest. You have to stay home. If you do come and you
want to buy land, okay, but you will not be allowed to buy waterfront
property. That will be reserved for citizens naturally born in this country. As a
foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to property.

7. You don't have the right to protest when you come here. You're
allowed no demonstrations. You cannot wave a foreign flag, no political
organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies, or you get sent
home.
You're a foreigner. You shut your mouth or you get out. And if you come
here illegally, we're going to hunt you down 'til we find you and then you
go straight to jail.

............................

I can imagine many of you think that the Limbaugh Laws are pretty harsh.

WRONG! I LIED!

Every one of these laws is an actual law of MEXICO today. These are
MEXICO's immigration laws. This is how the MEXICAN government handles
immigrants to their country.

And:

The following from a director with SW BELL in Mexico City.
I spent five years working in Mexico.

I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it
for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was
technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.

During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to
secure a permanent work visa called an FM3. It was in addition to my US
passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country.
Barbara's was the same except hers did not permit her to work.

To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals
(not copies) of my:

1. Birth certificates for Barbara and me.

2. Marriage certificate.

3. High school transcripts and proof of graduation.

4. College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of
graduation.

5. Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at
least one year.

6. A letter from The St Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest
record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was "a citizen in good
standing."

7. Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why
there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were
important to Mexico. We called it our "I am the greatest person on earth"
letter. It was fun to write.

All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish
and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized It
produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side
and Spanish on the right.

Once they were completed Barbara and I spent about five hours accompanied
by a Mexican attorney touring Mexican government office locations and
being photographed and fingerprinted at least three times. At each
location (and we remember at least four locations) we were instructed on
Mexican tax, labor, housing, and criminal law and that we were required
to obey their laws or face the consequences. We could not protest any of
the government's actions or we would be committing a felony. We paid out
four thousand dollars in fees and bribes to complete the process. When
this was done we could legally bring in our household goods that were
held by US customs in Laredo Texas. This meant we rented furniture in
Mexico while awaiting our goods. There were extensive fees involved
here that the company paid.

We could not buy a home and were required to rent at very high rates and
under contract and compliance with Mexican law.

We were required to get a Mexican drivers license. This was an amazing
process. The company arranged for the licensing agency to come to our
headquarters location with their photography and finger print equipment
and the laminating machine. We showed our US license, were photographed
and fingerprinted again and issued the license instantly after paying out
a six dollar fee. We did not take a written or driving test and never
received instructions on the rules of the road. Our only instruction was
never give a policeman your license if stopped and asked. We were
instructed to hold it against the inside window away from his grasp. If
he got his hands on it you would have to pay ransom to get it back.

We then had to pay and file Mexican income tax annually using the number
of our FM3 as our ID number. The companies Mexican accountants did this
for us and we just signed what they prepared I was about twenty legal
size pages annually.

The FM 3 was good for three years and renewable for two more after paying
more fees.

Leaving the country meant turning in the FM# and certifying we were
leaving no debts behind and no outstanding legal affairs (warrants,
tickets or liens) before our household goods were released to customs.

It was a real adventure and If any of our senators or congressmen went
through it once they would have a different attitude toward Mexico.

The Mexican Government uses its vast military and police forces to keep
its citizens intimidated and compliant. They never protest at their White
House or government offices but do protest daily in front of the United
States Embassy. The US embassy looks like a strongly reinforced fortress
and during most protests the Mexican Military surround the block with
their men standing shoulder to shoulder in full riot gear to protect the
Embassy.

These protests are never shown on U.S. or Mexican TV. There is a large
public park across the street where they do their protesting. Anything
can cause a protest such as proposed law changes in California or Texas.

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Now -- you were saying about the unfairness of U.S. Immigration laws?

Fair is Fair

On IRC, the Evangelical Atheists are always going on about the Inquisition and the other religious persecutions managed by Christianity over the ages, and expecting Christians to take the blame.

I don't buy it.

First, if you go by number of people killed for ideological reasons, Mao Tse Tung (a couple hundred million) and Josef Stalin (about 100 Million) lead the pack -- good ideological Atheists, both. Next comes Hitler's Germany -- which they falsely accuse of being Christian -- with 6 million Jews and another 6 million Christians, Romany, and other miscellaneous victims -- including atheist intellectuals.

In fourth place (if you believe his numbers in "De Bello Gallico"), comes that exemplary Pagan, Julius Caesar with 5 million Gauls slaughtered.

In 5th place is Pol Pot -- yet another ideological atheist -- with 3 million Cambodian deaths.

The Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, seems to have tried about 125,000 people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_tolls

. . . and executed 1200 -- 2500 over the period 1485 to 1808 -- between 3 and 8 a year, tops.

Numbers for other Inquisitions are similarly inflated, The Protestant "Fox's Martyrs" is grossly exaggerated, and Wiccan numbers for the "Burning Times" are simply ludicrous -- they take the worst fringe Protestant numbers and multiply by 100 or 1000.

So, my response to the Evangelical Atheists is:

"If you seriously expect us to take responsibility for executions in our far past, you need to take responsibility for your monstrously enormous executions in the near past." This really upsets them.