Henry Rollins on Free Speech

A Recession Is Great For Freelance Work

Always thought about freelance work but have not found the right time? Well, if we are faced with a recession, experience shows that a recession can be a good time to be a freelancer.

Many larger companies and organizations lay off full-time employees and contract the work out to freelance professionals. It's cheaper for the some companies because they don't have to pay related benefits or long-term employment issues.

How do you get started? You don't need to even quit your full-time job. Becoming a part-time freelance professional has never been easier. Then, if you decide you have enough work and want to switch to full-time later...you can. Some people just stay part-time and enjoy the extra income.

In order to get started, the first step is finding a good freelance community like GoFreelance and search for work that may be of interest to you. There are many different freelance communities with thousands of different jobs available. You will just have to find the one that fits your interests and goals.

Once you have found work that you are interested in, you will either apply or bid on the available work. You may not be chosen for every assignment, but with so many available, you are certain to find just the right work for you.

Then you work with employers, complete your assignments, and receive payment.

As you complete more and more work, you will earn a reputation as a freelance professional...so if a recession hits, they will pick you as their worker of choice.

Socialism or Morons?

Republicans are screaming that we are headed to become a socialist nation...

Well maybe if you were not making the majority of citizens poor, maybe there would not be such a push for government to pay and do everything.

You are creating socialism by creating more poor people. The more poor, the more you have to take care of. So how does giving your rich friends the goodies and then telling poor people to pull them selves up by their boot straps, (if they even have straps to do that. If you don't, then it sux to be you!) is gonna get this economy moving?

I am no business major. I quit school in the 8th grade, but I know this much. Without the middle class buying you rich peoples shiny material shit, you have no fuckin' economy.

Morons...............

Marijuana Inc - Full Documentary

Ban on Arts Stimulus, Declare Arts Worker Jobs Not “Real”

Folks, we have a lot of work ahead of us in the good ole' USA...

The plot in US politics, in the space of a few short weeks, has gone something like this:

1. A new Administration could bring new vision to making the arts part of the economy.
2. Arts spending is wasteful.
3. Any spending on anything should be specifically prohibited from reaching the arts, as that would be wasteful and evil, and the arts are the best symbol of Waste itself.

As digital musicians and visualists, relevancy to the rest of the people around us is important. What we do can be meaningful to people, and it can pay for our health care and our loved ones and our kids. It’s often not a life or death thing - but then, neither are many jobs. It’s a gig. Heck, even if it’s a hobby, it supports someone else’s gig.

So that raises some really deep questions about what’s going on with our society when arts-related jobs are singled out above nearly every other sector as meaningless or “wasteful” or not “real jobs.” This stimulus bill will pass, but that fundamental misunderstanding isn’t going anywhere - and it’s time to recognize there’s a problem, and start to work to set it right.

Roughly half of one one hundredth of one percent of the US economic stimulus plan was slated to support job protection in the arts — US$50 million. Meanwhile, we’ve just passed one trillion-dollar bailout of finance and are told another trillion is needed.

You might expect anger to be directed at finance, given their industry was at the heart of the problem. Instead, legislators single out — the arts?

In last-minute negotiations in the US Senate, legislators — including key liberal Democrats — have gone still further to ban any use of stimulus funds for the arts (”museums,” “theaters,” and “arts centers” get singled out). The move was largely symbolically-motivated, not fiscally-motivated. Adding insult to injury, arts institutions are lumped together with casinos and golf courses - literally.

• U.S. Senate Votes Against the Arts (Chicago Examiner)
• Arts Bashing (Center for American Progress)

Update:

Congress Restores Arts Funding, Drops Arts Stimulus Ban, After Public Outcry

Here in the US, Congressional Democrats have reversed not one but both bad decisions on the role of the arts in the economic stimulus package. Provisions that would have blocked any stimulus funds from reaching arts centers, museums, and theaters have been dropped. (Golf courses and casinos are still in the ban. Maybe this time, someone read the actual legislation.) And the US$50 million (out of some $800 billion) that would go to the National Endowment for the Arts, dropped from a Senate version, has been restored to the bill. It appears both of those changes not only cleared the House but are part of the Senate version that’s in votes as I write this.

If you believe artists shouldn’t rely exclusively on government funding, you can still celebrate. The arts will receive far less of a handout than a lot of other industries — and do more with it. Arts advocacy groups estimate that for every dollar of the NEA money, another seven dollars will come from public and private supporters. What the tiny amount of federal spending does is make up for shortfalls in lean times, protecting an arts sphere that depends on a variety of sources for revenue. Nearly 15,000 real jobs could be saved by those same estimates. That means an arts infrastructure in the US that can remain healthy and independent.

But the important story here has nothing to do with the stimulus bill, or even the US. It’s that public outcry from people like you rescued this legislation. And if public support can do that, it can do a lot more for the arts, not only in federal spending but other key areas.

Americans for the Arts says supporters from its organization alone sent some 100,000 messages and letters to their Members of Congress. That’s not counting the many more letters and phone calls from constituents, not to mention letters to the editor and press attention.

Here’s one example from CDM comments, by Dartanyan Brown:

I heard the congressman from Nashville (!) talking down the $50 million for the
National Endowment for the Arts. I immediately called his office and let his
staffers know that (blue dog democrat Cooper) was full of hot air on this issue.
As a synthesist, jazz musician and former NEA artist-in-residence I had the
facts and anecdotes to make my points clear.

If Rush Limbaugh can get his folks to call, we can at least counteract them with some facts and persistence.

Call them, they listen, they respond to numbers.

More background on today’s developments:

• House passes stimulus bill with $50 million for artists (Los Angeles Times)
• U.S. Senate Begins Voting on Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus Plan (Bloomberg)

To all of you who were active, and to our elected representatives who got this right, thanks.

Targeting the arts in this way may have backfired for those elements seeking to vilify it. Instead, it caused thousands of people to rally to the cause. Here’s an example of organizing meetings in Chicago - and a renewed sense that the arts could be part of the economic solution, not the “costly distraction” so many try to make it out to be.

• Organizing Around Art (Chicago Tribune)

Birds Heading North for the Winter?

Tell me it ain't real thing that is actually happening right now! Open your eyes....

Drew Carey on Weed on CNN!

30 States have laws now legalizing medical marijuana...

Spending in Washington

Write your Repuglican (yes i spelled with a G on purpose) and ask them where were they when Bush was giving the tax payers trillions of dollars of debt from out of control spending?

Easy enough question!

Why when it was for another country (Iraq), they sent BILLIONS there! But for the homeland, nothing.......

The same ones to claim to be so patriotic that they had to take your civil rights to protect this nation are the same ones refusing to spend money at home on it's own people.

Republicans disgust me with their double talk hypocritical selves......

Quote for the Day!

"Michael Phelps is in good company. Nearly one out of two Americans have admitted using marijuana. Whether or not the most decorated athlete in history chooses to unwind during his off time with a glass of wine or a bit of cannabis is really none of the government’s — or our — business." - NORML

AMEN!

Watch Repugs Flip Flop

Republicans had no problem with out of control spending when they gave trillions to Bush and when they gave some of the richest people in this country thousands of dollars in tax cuts. Fuck the right! Your way for 8 years has put this nation in the position it is in. Your way does not work!

4 Red Bull's May Have Killed Student on Dance Floor

But weed is still illegal? You can buy these drinks over the counter and they are killing people. We are such hypocrites. If it is a "speed based" drug, it is legal. They don't want lazy stoners. They rather hyped up on speed slaves to get more done, to make them more money.

Wake the fuck up!

A student who died on a nightclub dancefloor in front of friends suffered a heart condition that may have been triggered by caffeine in the Red Bull she had been drinking, an inquest heard.

Chloe Leach, 21, had drank around four cans of the energy drink and several VKs - a vodka based drink which also contains caffeine - when she suddenly fell to the floor in the Sugarmill club in Hull, East Yorks., on September 30 last year.

Miss Leach, a third-year social work student, of Cottingham, East Yorks., died at the scene despite efforts from staff and paramedics to revive her.

A doctor told the inquest into her death on Monday that it may have been caused by the caffeine triggering a rare heart condition.

It was thought initially that her drink had been spiked but the theory was rebutted by a medical expert at the hearing.

Survive 2012 Lottery Website Opens

A new flashy website that is being promoted on the front page of MySpace.com. It seems to be a site about 2012 and surviving it. They are "giving" away lottery numbers which I assume is something like the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".

http://www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org

If 2012 is like Y2K, people will be pissed...

Are You Wired for Tomorrow?