Colorless Green Ideas

Today , McCain announced that he would , for very important reasons - halt his campaign. Today, for McCain, it's over.

This is epic. Absolutely epic. Obama today announced that any bill that is coming to his office for signature, 5 days before - will be posted online, right here in the blogosphere - to invite comments. If you are a tired old bush republican, you're probably going to just ignore that but to myself, as a free-thinking independent, this is huge. The lobbyists that control the bush republicans have engineered a huge takeover of Washington, quietly in the last eight years of unbridled - unprecedented - historic abuse of power. They operate by silently slipping provisions into bills at the last minute, and passing bills in the middle of the night. They wine and dine politicians, give them cash. The GOP has been taking it hand over fist, making the markets the free, open and wonderful thing that they are. Riiight. Oh yeah and making America. "strong". But one caveat. Almost all of these so called "strategy groups" that are just another name for "lobbyist"…

I mean this in a good way. There's a relationship between sex and death. Sex is a way to increase genetic diversity when the cycle of life and death are longer than the cycle of your opposition's mutation cycle. You have to understand the common virus to get this. A virus is a simple thing. A protein sheath wrapped around a some dna. All a virus does is live to cut into your DNA and then use you, as a kind of evil host to make more of itself. Virus life cycles are short. 20 days. So they mutate. Alot. You might make a copy of yourself once every 20 years, or even once in your life. They've got an advantage. But evil plagues are continually dying off and trying to come up with something new is hard. We are betting that the virus will have to repeat itself. So, what we do, genetically with all these unexpressed sequences of code, is we leave them in our study like a trophy. In fact, its kind of like an armory.. And so we end up with library sequences that allo…

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the …

Today we saw what began on September 15, 2008. The great depression of the 21st century has begun. My day was fairly normal. We have long since been out of the markets, and have foregone much of the normal insurance - working as an independent contractor, I was hoping to get my invoices collected today. But knowing that there was pressure on the client, I chose not to bring it up. My check was ready at 3:30. My wife wanted to get free frequent flyer miles for our Delta Skymiles account, so after the children had all gone to school she dawned upon me that we would meet with a financial advisor today from Ameriprise. What was fun about the meeting was that , apparently, the gentleman with whom we would be meeting - would sign a voucher for 25,000 miles. Works out to about 250.00 an hour for the meeting. Close enough to my billing rate. We spoke of plans, both personal and financial. He mentioned that this year, he hopes to get negative 13 percent. On our way home my wife - who…

Words and Music by Richard Wright. Rest in Peace.

Today the subject and outline of the book became clear. Like a writing assignment left on your desk by a six year old. Stick figures run around on a field of happy green grass. A home with a helicopter landing pad on the top. Smoke curling from the chimney. And a writer in the attic, light burning brightly through the day and night. This book is going to be good.

Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential candidate, and frankly - the person overshadowing McCain himself in his own campaign - has been kept from the press by the McCain campaign. Afraid that the press will probe into questions like "Didn't you run in 2006, with the 'Bridge to Nowhere' as part of your campaign promises?", which she did. Or .." But Sarah, you only shut down the 'Bridge to Nowhere' project after congress cancelled the funds, right?" ... or maybe, how about " But Governor Palin, did you in fact actually take money from the 'Bridge to Nowhere' project" , which, of course, she did. In fact, the Wall Street Journal - who is NOT a member of the so called "liberal media" that the campaign is supposedly "protecting her " - reported today: Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government "thanks but no…

I am by training a physicist, and by practice an engineer. I live the motto - Less Judgement - More Curiousity. :-} I have followed an experiment for a long time. The basic idea, is that when we hit a beam of particles, with another beam - and we hit them hard enough - the constituent elements of the particle break away. Since its in a magnetic field, they make these little spirals (right handed). The spirals can happen in this place called a bubble chamber, where it will leave a little glowing trail like an airplane across the sky (assume voice of sam kennison .. "spiraling to its DEATH! oh! ohhh!! .") ... So, here's the thing. We've always wanted to measure the energy of the vaccuum. 3/4's of the universe , are this kind of dark matter. In fact, interesting point: if you collect up the dark matter in the solar system, its about enough for a small asteroid or a large man. Say a big one with a long flowing beard. This sort of background energy (the higgs…

Written By Robert Smith for Mary Poole, his wife from Age 17.

This is a general slideshow of my ex girlfriends, in that cool internet sort of way, where you'll never find out who they really are. Some good, others not so good - but as Hemmingway said, maybe we were not so good when we were there.. :-) Married now, not talking to any of them. Elizabeth.. Lived together, but not what you think. California girl. Taught me that if you put someone's back to the wall, they can't shoot a basket. Stole her from a guy who was building a mars rover, and she left me for a guy named jeeves. ask him. Oh yeah. One other thing. She was rich. I guess.
Chris. A classical pianist. Taught me the Czerny exercises. Nice catholic girl. She introduced herself to me. Had a twin brother in the Mafia. Sent me hate mail with glitter letters..
Jen. Thought Jim Morrison was God. Went out looking for him. Believed he was still alive, in Laurel Canyon. Florida girl. We quoted each other William Blake..
Betty. A page from the book of lesbians going st…

He sent his vetting team to alaska, +after+ he chose her. And guess what. If its executive experience that counts, she ranks 17th out of 23 GOP governors in terms of experience. If you're an evangelical, this is pretty good stuff.