Colorless Green Ideas

Its wednesday night church dinner I am talking with a friend He is from the ivory coast Cote D'Ivore A dropout from MIT he speaks of church politics in hushed tones The pastor doesn't show for the dinner and afterward, when it is over, the narcotics anonymous people filter in to sit in a circle in the dark while we talk outside and the children play safely away from very cool cars with very cool bumperstickers and very cool people who are sharing their sickness inside and cigarettes outside One of the children spit on another I chase him and make him say uncle Tell him you're sorry "You're sorry" he says When he screams I place my hand on his mouth opening and closing his long, plaintive cries become peals of laughter through his tears Some members of this dying church Will not pray for anyone named Kennedy They say : "You can go to hell if you pray for a liberal" meanwhile The later service In spanish, grows b...

The odds are against me I am not sure if she loves me the world is cold I am afraid I hear indian music playing A dark pale light cast something gleams in the dark I am alone I reach into the bag across my belt the talcum makes my hands dry I jam my hand into the cleft of the rock and with my legs press up against the sky I am tired The spider is white today I have safely bivouaced beneath a ledge I close my eyes and the pale light returns one goes east. one goes west both from the same wins blown sleep is dreamless regeneration I awake feeling slightly horny The mountain of black glass feels cool to the touch lightless, gleaming, smooth Each bolt, piton, rope - holding fast Each purchase , my friend Each ledge, my ally Sometimes even my lover Will you betray me? And smoothly, in succession, my holds blur I fall into a rhythm three on one off And then somehow I am on top And I look over my legs dangling over the ledge I want to hold on to someth...

There is a great sort of three card monte that the Bush Republicans have been playing with those who wish to be rich, or aspire to hold onto their wealth. Its been this idea that the GOP is the party of the rich Certainly, the conservative philosophy plays to this theme at least in some respects - and its worthwhile to note that for many of the top income earning brackets taxes are a serious issue. Libertarianism requires a real independent streak in you. The two party system in America usually does a good job of responding to the lobbyist's concerns and the type of legislative actions that occur often result in composite position legislature. Big bills composed of many little parts that oppose each other. The two party system usually provides for a fun sort of game of good cop, bad cop. A game that if, you are a true libertarian you don't play. There is a popular radio talk show host who boasts loud and long that he's for this fair tax system, and self identifies as ...

Les rêves des amoureux sont comm’(e) le bon vin Crashing against my own sense of self importance La vie politique Beneath my breath I whisper the creed of the libertarian The slow reasoned intoxicating freedom Like a blessing of justice frees me again and I run To you While the ground falls away beneath me I breathe in your scent and the excitement in the air Like the sailor who fell from grace with the sea Your hair shines like the sun your lips glisten like the snow I trace the line of your dress like a double black diamond run That electric charge , that sense of happiness of purpose and sin I give up control if for the moment or forever

There's a great article on a guy who has done some neat work in physics. He so happens, also to be, like me, a surfer. His name is Garrett Lisi and his idea is stunningly simple. The universe, as we see it , is made up of particles that are built from rotations and projections of a multiple dimension structure or entity called E8. So named because it has eight dimensions. The three you're aware of I'm sure. Fourth is time. Four more. A few simple things fall out from his theory. First, you can find new particles. All you have to do is take the shape, rotate it, and then .. you can think of it like shining a light on something and looking at the pattern on the wall... when you're collapsing a dimension... take the projection and that projection will give you the characteristics of the particles you're looking for. What this means is that the theory predicts a set of particles that can be found without having to use the universe as a supercollider, like...

The dialtone is replaced by music immediately striking me as light and fun and that is replace every now and then by a friendly voice telling me more about the person I am calling Its a groovy riff and I'm in Florida, and then they hit me with "the era of unpredictable energy prices" I close my eyes and see palms blown by the wind the blue sky I smell the ocean feel of the sand beneath my feet and the waves thundering on the horizon "Customer satisifaction is our number one priority" And the music resumes, the guitarist letting his fingers fly in a riff accompanied now by flute and piano and electric synthesizer - muzak redux "Our fixed price offer protects you against rate increases" And I'm still on the line while they are looking forward to speaking with me Please hold One of our customer service representatives will be with you momentarily Customer satisfaction is their number one priority And so I'm holding fo...

I have discovered that whatever password you choose, doesn't really matter. After awhile, you can groove the password and it will be second nature. At work they chose this really, really cryptic password for root on this cluster that runs the mail and then I happened to inherit root and that mother .. is .. gnarly . Different case. Upper/Lower Ascii. Alphanumerics. Alt characters. And the mother is hard to type . Its like calisthenics for the keyboard. What a long distance run from my other scheme I had going there. I was running honey. I would hang machines that were set up to look like primary servers - dictionary attack passwords left on the server so that the hackers would be drawn there. Just open up a relay ever so slightly and they will jump right on. Simple passwords but not so simple script-fu. Clue: Hackers fetch more bounty if they're still warm and breathing when you bring 'em in. They don't have to stay warm and breathin' afterwards. Thats...

I have been a member of the blogosphere for years and years. More than most . I really enjoy reading good pieces out there. Authors that support the blogosphere are by and large, fairly fun to read. But when they get paid, or paid off , its another story. Joe Trippi did a lot of work behind the scenes for a lot of candidates. A while back he discovered that the stock trading board, Raging Bull, was a great place for shareholders to congregate - and that they stuck with their stock even when it was going down. He wanted to bring this to the game of politics. You will hear alot about , large numbers of small donors. In political campaigns, its the new badge of honor. And Trippi was partly responsible. But I think he made a new move this season, as a campaign manager for the Edwards campaign. After all, paid political consultants will act to keep lobbyism in place; lobbyist money feeds the off-season. Trippi is a numbers guy. And a big baseball fan. And he has to pay the bil...

Yesterday was a really great day. Obama won by a bigger margin than expected, and Clinton simply was unable to stop him. What ended up in Indiana, being a contest for second place, was fought out between people in the democratic party who , for lack of a better term I will refer to as the "religious wright" - supported Hillary Clinton for her pander-bear gas tax holiday. But Clinton miscalculated the breadth of that support. Clinton was favored to win that state by 12 percent and Obama bit into her , making it almost a draw. The Clintons actually campaigned heavily in Republican districts. Bill was out there lobbying in his old nemesis' stomping grounds, talking to republicans. The idea was that Clinton could propose a gas tax holiday that will save you 30.00 en toto , over the summer- and that would shore up her credentials as a conservative. And most of the religious wright bought into it. They leapt 29 percentage points over to her camp. However, the base of the...

I have been posting elsewhere that the democratic primary is over today. It really is! The people who have been backing Clinton are watching this election carefully. If Obama wins convincingly in North Carolina, and if the Indiana contest is close, then it will be clear that even after a single win (Pennsylvania), the Clinton campaign cannot carry any momentum and they will be for all intents and purposes dead in the water. The Democratic party will not allow , even with the broken system of superdelegates and party rules - their candidate to be elected by an elite. There is no way they will let the idea of the Democratic party being ruled by wealthy or influential people - become one that will carry into the general election. And also , nepotism. The Clinton campaign, as strong as she is, smacks of favoritism. And let's face it. Hillary Clinton truly inspires no-one. She is a candidate that gets elected in Pennsylvania largely because the Pennsylvanians just don't "g...

The cool thing about the election tomorrow is that states that were not in play are now deciding the endgame. Clinton has been unable to do anything but eke out marginal single digit victories in less than 25% of the contests, while Obama has nailed large , double digit margins of victory in several states and is now convincingly in the lead. Tomorrow, Obama finishes the job he started. Tomorrow the kid wins. This is Super Tuesday Redux. When Clinton loses tomorrow, she will have no real reason to be in the election.