Nation's designers welcome in the new 'economy-inspired' paint colors for 2012

Benjamin Poore Introduces 8 New Hues

For the New Economy

Already offering you designers more than 3,000 shades, Benjamin Poore says its new 8-strong Color-less Stories collection not only reflects your clients' zero options for a bright future but also introduces a whole new concept in paint science by doubling the number of failures in each formula to create a full spectrum of color-less hues. 

Benjamin Poore says it's re-created the can with its new Color-less Stories paint line. The collection's nine palettes contain 240 hues of what the company calls an incredible array of dull-spectrum non-colors, which are achieved by omitting five to seven pigments rather than the usual three and celebrating the more depressing black and gray tints as filler. The company claims the paint is richer and the darks have more depth, emulating our less than vibrant economy and the deep despair our government is providing us, especially with elections coming up in 2012. 

The pigments being blended to create these nuanced hues have no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Because the company makes its own colorants it can ensure that when pigments are mixed into low-VOC paint the total VOCs remain under 50 grams per liter. This has less meaning considering a quicker death nowadays by starvation instead of breathing in fumes but is progress nonetheless.

The overtones generated from careful blending of no pigments will be readily apparent to builders, architects, designers, and homeowners who have all but lost everything they ever owned.  Natural versus artificial lighting will affect dynamic changes in the paint's otherwise drab characteristics throughout the day. "With Color-less Stories there's a complete lack of complexity and compromise to the color experience that is amazing," states Jay Romez, Benjamin Poore's director of color marketing, in a release about the new line. “This new color line accurately represents what our Congress and House of Representatives is truly providing the country now – a total lack of leadership and a total failure to act fostering a complete lack of trust and hope for any kind of even dismal future for this country”  he goes on to say, “the colors are right on target”.   

 The palettes assembled to debut this new paint mixology include an array of un-inspired shades of grey with individual colors ranging from a muted gray called sea salt to the vivid grey of the certain approaching Great Depression II . Each palette evokes a different place or mood to give the collection a personal feel—earthen blackish hues, elemental light greys, fiery blacks, fluid black-greys, black dead fields, naturally neutral, shades of gray and 'forclosure pewter' an uninspiring hue of a sickly national grey.

"And after all..." says Jay,"....the country WAS only black and white during the depression."

It's always something...

Big Ben Leans - but which direction?

Big Ben is leaning.  I’ve heard about this too and decided to look into some British history to see exactly which way it might actually be leaning.

With some help from Wikipedia, I fount that prior to the mid-19th century politics in the United Kingdom was dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. These were not political parties in the modern sense but somewhat loose alliances of interests and individuals. 

The Whigs included many of the leading aristocratic dynasties committed to the Protestant succession, and later drew support from elements of the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories were associated with the landed gentry, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.

By the mid 19th century the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party. In the late 19th century the Liberal Party began to pursue more left wing policies, and many of the heirs of the Whig tradition became Liberal Unionists and moved closer to the Conservatives on many of the key issues of the time.

The Liberal and Conservatives dominated the political scene until the 1920s, when the Liberal Party declined in popularity and suffered a long stream of resignations. It was replaced as the main left-wing party by the newly emerging Labour Party, who represented an alliance between the trades unions and various socialist societies.

So it seems that it’s really leaning in the direction of your point of view.

From the bridge the Conservatives claim Big Ben is leaning to the Right.  From the other side, the Labour Party claims Big Ben is certainly leaning to the Left.

It’s not leaning much yet.  Experts say 1.64 feet (9 mm per year)  this is 1/16th the lean of the Tower in Pisa. They conclude:

"Our resident expert believes it will be between 4,000 and 10,000 years before it becomes a problem. They don't know what's behind the acceleration, however, and say that there's "No real proof what has caused it"."

An American entrepreneur has suggested moving Big Ben to Washington DC to solve the problem of which way it’s leaning and, hopefully someday to fix it.  

This was not approved, however, since experts estimated that the Administration, Congress and The House would not be able to agree on this for at least 15,000 years.  Big Ben would then share the Mall Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in its horizontal resting place.


It's always something...