at $900 million that's $7500 a head.

Egrets...we have a few.

Bush was never one to care about the environment. Why start now? The man is a cretin.

And he's obviously forgotten about New Orleans. His word to rebuild the city doesn't mean much, does it?

Uh, it's pretty much all gonna be below sea level in a couple of decades.

How about a huge fricking dike around the whole US of A?

I'd make a joke here, but I am too afraid of Laura.

OAKLAND
Mobile politics: it's all art
Topsy-Turvy bus makes statement about U.S. budget
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Inside a West Oakland warehouse, some of the best minds in American ice cream are collaborating with Burning Man's top art car builders to create a piece of roving political theater for the upcoming presidential campaign.

The Topsy-Turvy Bus, a "shortie" yellow school bus with its twin welded upside down to the roof, was commissioned by Ben & Jerry's ice cream co-founder Ben Cohen to protest U.S. military spending.

A crew of 10 artists who build sculpture for the annual Burning Man art festival in the Nevada desert is putting the finishing touches on the bus, including stenciling the sides to say, "The U.S. Budget Is Topsy-Turvy." They are putting large pie charts on the flip-out stop signs that show half of federal discretionary spending is reserved for the Pentagon, and diet-size slivers set aside for other concerns such as education, health care and the environment.

Tuesday, lead builder Tom Kennedy and artist Flash Hopkins were using a ceiling crane to lower the wheels onto the upside down bus.

"Our military arsenal is big enough blow up every major city 10 times," said Kennedy, citing numbers compiled by Cohen. "What we're saying with the bus is that if we just cut back to blowing up every city four times, we could save 40 billion a year for things like schools."

The Topsy-Turvy Bus will be unveiled today on hallowed protest ground, at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus.

Within the next few weeks, Kennedy and fellow artist Haideen Anderson will drive the bus to Cohen in Vermont, with political rally stops in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The bus is the latest political art car in the growing fleet Cohen has driven to promote his nonprofit group, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, made up of 700 business leaders who want to reduce U.S. military spending.

Cohen has driven cars turned into piggy banks, a Honda Element transformed into a federal budget pie chart, and stacked Oreo cookies the size of dinner plates to show the disparity between military and social spending.

Field organizers for Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities will take turns driving the Topsy-Turvy Bus during the presidential campaign. Inside, they will show a 10-minute video about Cohen's organization, and gather signatures urging presidential candidates to discuss federal spending priorities. Cohen plans to tour the bus primarily in New Hampshire and Iowa to take advantage of the early voting in those states.

"Essentially this is a marketing technique that I started doing at Ben and Jerry's," Cohen said. "We find that dollar for dollar, it's more effective than run-of-the-mill TV advertising. Seeing this weird vehicle in three dimensions makes more of a lasting impression."

Kennedy, a 46-year-old San Franciscan who has driven whales, sharks, spaceships and Cheshire cats on the freeways, says the bus is road-ready. It's under the 13.6-foot height limit and within the weight limit for noncommercial vehicles, he said.

With rare exception, most police officers who pull him over just want a picture to show their families.

"I usually crack some kind of joke, like telling the officer I can't possibly be robbing banks in this kind of vehicle," Kennedy said.

Berkeley sign artist Steven Vigeant is decorating the inside of the roof with federal spending bar charts.

"I just love the politics of this project, and the '60s 'magic bus' feel of it, too," he said. "You just know this bus is going to be in a museum one day."

Ben & Jerry's and Burning Man are a natural fit, Cohen said, a sort of Merry Pranksters for the new millennium.

Cohen has attended a few Burning Man festivals, and met Kennedy after the executive director of Cohen's nonprofit suggested tapping the Burning Man community for a builder.

Cohen's friend, Stefan Sagmeister, a celebrated New York graphic artist, designed the bus.

"I'm a guy who's been looking to use art cars for social benefit, and Kennedy is a guy who wants to make art cars for a living with some social purpose," Cohen said. "Clearly, we were both searching for each other."

E-mail Meredith May at mmay@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

But then again...

can you imagine vetoing this for a paltry 900M when we are spending that almost daily in iraq? bush is a scoundrel. i hope americans think a bit more before they elect the next crook in chief.

by the way, what;s the original source for the orig post? i'd like to fwd it to a few hundred interested parties.

there's an article on nola.com from yesterday

thanks for the head's up!

Throw enough at the wall, something is bound to stick. Bravo, Bob.

Egrets stick to walls?

It's sorta like throwing scissors. Gotta make sure they hit beak first.

I'm the Rob Deer of comedy.