“The Whigs”

I just want to highlight a little bit about the history of the Republican party so people can better understand where their origins lie, the Whig party.

Excerpts taken from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_%28United_States%29

This name was chosen to echo the American Whigs of 1776, who fought for independence, and because “Whig” was then a widely recognized label of choice for people who saw themselves as opposing autocratic rule.

If you go by their name it seems from the start the party had chosen an image that was contrary to their implied opposition to Aristocratic rule.  As better  explained by the paragraph that follows.

The Whigs, also known as the “white heads”, won votes in every socio-economic category, but appealed more to the professional and business classes: doctors, lawyers, merchants, ministers, bankers, storekeepers, factory owners, commercially-oriented farmers and large-scale planters. In general, commercial and manufacturing towns and cities voted Whig, save for strongly Democratic precincts in Irish Catholic and German immigrant communities; the Democrats often sharpened their appeal to the poor by ridiculing the Whigs’ aristocratic pretensions.

We now go to a bit of their beliefs about how the country should be governed:

The Whigs came to unite around economic policy, celebrating Clay’s vision of the “American System” which favored government support for a more modern, industrial economy in which education and commerce would equal physical labor or land ownership as a means of productive wealth.

I would like to add that modernization is not a bad thing. Many of their ideas in moderation are perfectly acceptable.

By contrast, the Democrats hearkened to the Jeffersonian political philosophy ideal of an egalitarian agricultural society, advising that traditional farm life bred republican simplicity, while modernization threatened to create a politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats who threatened to subvert democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_%28United_States%29

I’ve included some quotes from Thomas Jefferson I found on website that detailed the “Jeffersonian Philosophy” that the Whigs opposed.  Seems to me that a lot of the problems that have arisen today would not exist if we could have heeded many of the ideas of Thomas Jefferson.  History gives us the ability to look at things on a much larger prospective than the analyzing the present. In retrospect you can see the parts as a whole rather than in small pieces.

I suppose my overall point is to examine the basic ideologies and attitudes of the Whig party in comparison with the Republican party we know today.  A party ruled by deception and philosophies that benefit no one but their own. (my opinion) This has lead to a dramatic contrast between the wealthy and the impoverished that we see today, as displayed by the link posted below. Allowing  for the wealthy to control almost every aspect of the common man’s life. In one of my opinions, one of the very reasons this country was formed, to break away from the monarchy and aristocratic rule.

The Wealth Distribution

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Banks I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction… I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity … is but swindling futurity on a large scale. Thomas Jefferson

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are preserved to the states or to the people.’ … To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution.”

The car was in rather horrible shape and probably could have served the role of a parts car rather well but I just didn’t have the heart to part this one out.  The car was virtually rust free and had never been painted so there was no hidden body work waiting to show up in the future.  I feel that the car deserves another chance to be a respectable car once more.  True that it would take a lot of work but it is nothing that I can’t take care of.  I only took a few pictures of the car when I first acquired it just to spare it the shame of being shown in the condition that I found it.

I’ll start the list of bad and non nonsensical things I found here:

1. The previous owner had attempted to change the rear wheel bearing and decided they couldn’t do it after they had mangled up the hub while trying to get the axle nut off, therefore the wheel was just barely on there.

2.  The car had about three different sizes of tires on it, which two of them were something like a 215/70/14, the best part was the white walls.

3.  The floor mat had been glued down the the floor on the drivers side, not really sure what the goal of that was, if they were trying to protect the carpet the silicone coating it had somewhat defeated the purpose, at least in my opinion.

4. The original front valance was gone and it had been replaced with a bumper, valance, and bumper surrounds from a 84 318i.

5. It seemed as if the back seat was long gone as well, replaced with a faded blue cloth seat from the previously mentioned 318.

6. The dash had been coated with that truck bedliner stuff, again… I have to admit that was a great improvement, they took a cracked dash and well… ended up with a cracked dash covered in a grainy, slightly glossy black goo.

7. The auxiliary fan was wired to a switch that was powered, get this… by a piece of modified extension cord that ran from the front of the car to the trunk where it was wired into the trunk light for power.  That was just a brilliant idea, wish I could have thought of that one, next time my fan relay goes out that will be the first thing I try.

8. The guy said somebody had just stolen the catalytic converter a couple days before I came to pick it up. therefore it had no exhaust from near the engine back, not to mention the muffler which was of no use anyway.

That is the worst factors the car had going for it, disregarding some of the smaller technical details.

I immediately washed it up with a pressure washer and threw four matching wheels and tires that I had lying around, can’t say that I’m one for chrome wheels but having four tires that are the same size is a great improvement over three different sizes. I also removed the spray painted generic spoiler that was bolted down to the trunk lid.

Once it was washed up I could begin to replace some of the damaged and unusable parts such as the front bumper, bumper surrounds, fenders, and hood.  The original hood wasn’t in terrible shape but it did have a slight bend on one corner so I felt I would rather replace it than try to repair  it.  One fender had a little bit of rust on the bottom and the other was a bit too dented for my taste. Luckily I had all these parts lying around for the taking. The only thing that I didn’t have was the valance which would have to found on eBay. 

With the help of a block of wood and a hammer I straightened out the bends from improper lifting, though I couldn’t get it perfect I made a drastic improvement.

I cleaned up the carpet but it will be replaced as well

I mounted a set of 15″ euroweaves on it to give it a bit more appealing look for the moment.

All the previous photos were taken about a year ago from the time of this posting, Since then the car has sat dormant until now.  I had purchased a set of plastic bumpers and a face lift valance to get it looking a little more like it should. Those were installed a shortly before I ceased my progress on the car temporarily.

My current tasks at hand are repair of the drive shaft and replacement of the exhaust system, once these are taken care of I can move on to the suspension and brake systems.  I plan to get the car in good proper working stock condition prior to any modifications.

As for the body, I’m currently working on smoothing out the dings and getting the car in a coat of primer until I get the M-Tech Body kit once funding permits me to do so.   A coat of primer will serve as the paint job for now.  A solid coat of black primer is definitely going to look much better than the silver, bronzit, black and grey spotted color scheme that it sports at the moment.

Drive shaft ready to go back in…

1. Deviant Art

Deviant Art is a great site due to the high amount of users and social networking quality that allows you get awesome feedback and exposure for your work regardless of the medium, Traditional art, Digital art, photography, poetry, crafts, and much more.  It also has some excellent resources such as plug-ins, stock images, and much more. I have been a member of Deviant art for a little over a year now and my photos have received over 40k views.

2. SutterStock

Shutterstock is a great site to submit your stock photos on a paid per download method.  Every photo that you submit and have downloaded you receive 25 cents, or if you get a purchaser request an enhanced license you receive 28$ per download.  This site is great as a resource and a money making tool.  If you would rather download stock images you can go here to sign up for a downloaders account.

3.  Panoramio

Panoramio is a great because it allows you to map your photos by geographic location as well as offering monthly contest for users.  Once you upload your photo you can map the location and your photo may even be included on Google Earth if it is selected.

Summersville Storm I

It took a while to get these shots due to the heavy but intermittent rain, I had hoped to catch a good sunset but the rain seemed like it would never let up after waiting a couple hours.

The first image was composed of three raw shots…

Shutter Speed: 19277/100000 second
F Number: F/16.0
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Picture Taken: Jul 20, 2009, 5:59:15 PM

The second image was a single RAW shot processed in Photoshop CS4

Shutter Speed: 1/25 second
F Number: F/16.0
Focal Length: 47 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Picture Taken: Jul 20, 2009, 5:56:54 PM

BMW VIN decoding Guide

See my BMW series Guide Here

The 17-digit VIN number of every car manufactured in, or

imported to, the U.S. since 1981 has a check digit in its

9th position. The value of the check digit depends upon

the characters in the remaining 16 locations. It is

computed by the following algorithm:Each of the characters in the VIN is assigned a value. If

the character is a digit 0-9, it is assigned that value. If the

character is alphabetic, it is assigned a value as follows:

.A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9,

.J=1, K=2, L=3, M=4, N=5, O=6, P=7, Q=8, R=9,

.S=2, T=3, U=4, V=5, W=6, X=7, Y=8, Z=9.

Note that the sequence S,T,U,.. begins with 2,3,4,.. and

not 1,2,3,…

Each of the positions in the VIN is assigned a weight taken

sequentially from the following list:

.{8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 10, -, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2}.

That is, position 1 has a weight of 8, position 2 has a

weight of 7, and so forth. The 9th position is the location

of the check digit and does not enter into the computation.

The check digit is computed by multiplying the value of

each character by its positional weight, summing the

products, and dividing the sum by 11. The remainder is

the value of the check digit; if the remainder is 10, the

check digit is assigned the character ‘X’.

As an example, consider the VIN

.WBAAF931XMEE68337

Translating the characters into values gives the result

.62116931-45568337

The values, when multiplied by the positional weights, give

the sequence

.{48, 14, 6, 5, 24, 27, 6, 10, -, 36, 40, 35, 36, 40, 12, 9, 14}

whose sum is 362. Division by 11 leaves a remainder of

10, so the check digit is an ‘X’, as indicated.

RSS Network – submit RSS feeds & select cataegory

Blog Digger – submit your rss feed for your blog

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Globe of Blogs – submit your rss feed for you blog

Kmax Blog Links – blog submission

BlogDex – submit your blog

Blog Universe – blog submission

BlogSearchEngine – submit rss feeds for web logs

BlogHop – submit feeds for blogs

BlogWise - rss feed submission for blogs

EatonWeb – submit feed for online blogs

PopDex - feed sumbission for web blogs

Blizg – submit rss feeds for web logs

Blo.gs – blog submissions

BlogCensus – submit your rss feed for your blog

BlogTree - blog submission

BlogStreet – rss feed submission for blog

BritBlog – blog submission

BlogLines - submit your blog to the directory

Bloogz - submit your blog

Australian Blog Directory - submit your blog

BoingBoing – submit blogs for review

RootBlog – enter the URL of a RSS feed you want to added to the database.

Weblog Directory – submit blog to directory

BlogoSphere EcoSystems – add your weblog

Blogz – add your blog

BlogWatcher – submit the url of your web log

BlogMatcher – submit your blog url

BlogPulse – automated trend discovery system for blogs

BlogCatalog – The Ultimate Blog Directory – Search For Blogs

Blogdex – add a weblog

Blogdir – spanish blog community

Australian Weblogs – Australian Weblogs seeks to highlight Australian owned or based weblog, everything-nothing and journal style web sites.

AllAfrica Blogs – open listing of Africa-related weblogs

Canadian Blog Directory – BlogsCanada is maintained by a couple of Elves who evaluate blogs for inclusion in the directory. All submissions are subject to the Elves’ evaluation.

Corzblog – blog submissions

BlogSearchEngine – submit your blog

DeskFeeds – rss feed and blog submissions

Blog Dump – submit your online web log to the dump!

WebLog Directory – submit your blog

Weblog Madness – blog sumission sites

Findory – blog submissions

Ploogle – submit blog

HDR Tutorial

John Donahoe, the successor of CEO Meg Whitman made the following statement about the eBay market place when commenting about the new changes:

John Donahoe:
“A year ago, we had 14 per cent of global e-commerce, we are the largest e-commerce provider, and our home page still looks like a flea market,” he says. “The world around us had changed. In particular our buyers’ experience hadn’t kept up.”

In fact eBay’s rise to power was fueled by the very fact that they could be compared greatly to a flea market style of buying and selling. In essence it was the greatest flea market in the world where you could find virtually anything you could imagine. This was the very essence that drove so many people to use eBay. It was a place where you could find the one item you needed to complete your collection or vintage t-shirt that you could never find in a department store. Likewise, you could sell that old collection of baseball cards or clean out your closet and make a few dollars while doing it. Those very factors made eBay the unique experience that it once was in the past.

I get the sense that the heads of eBay such as John Donahoe have a different view of how eBay should work which is greatly different to the seeds that eBay has grown from. It will be an eBay full of professional department store style vendors that are currently everywhere on the internet to begin with. Therefore eliminating the factor that made eBay an E-commerce giant to start with. Though they can’t just eliminate the smaller sellers directly through constant subtle changes they can slowly weed out those “inefficient” small time sellers in favor of larger professional retail vendors. Therefore just creating another generic online market place full of the same items that you can buy from any other store or website.

It is clear that the eBay market place is suffering considering that nearly 40 percent of auction style listings are not successful, meaning no bids on the items. In my auction experience as a seller I have noticed fewer items listed and fewer bids. Items that I could have started for one dollar now have to be started at their value due to the simple fact that there are just not as many people out there to bid, combined with higher listing fees it makes it a much more costly experience when attempting to sell an item. I believe this only discourages more sellers to just not list items purely because it becomes more of an expense than an income.

People are starting to investigate other options for selling their goods online such as Amazon which has just recently surpassed eBay in numbers of listings for the first time in the company’s history. There are many new auction sites springing up but it will take a well marketed site to take control of the bulk of the online auction business. I have a saying that goes as follows: “Not all of eBay buyers are sellers but all eBay sellers are buyers as well”. It is a simple thing that eBay needs to understand, with every seller that eBay looses they will also be loosing one buyer. I alone can not determine the fate of eBay but I can say that by changing the base idea that eBay was founded on they will lose what made them unique, the very factor that is essential to success on nearly any online business.