Quotidian

Po, po, po, po.
Polywankus!
Don't wack us with your briefcase.
Don't hit us with your tights.
We've read the Constitution.
We know well all our rights.
You have to give us butter.
You have to give us lead.
They taste so sweet together
we'll forget to ask for bread.
You have to give us soda
pop!
You have to give us lye.
We'll drink them all together so they bubble
pop!
and we'll bubble till we die!
Hurrah, hurray!
You have to give us poison if we ask
(but it'd be better if you gave it first)
so that we can die today!
(Yeah!)
and know no longer thirst.

Not so salacious,
but super mendacious,
ultra contagious,
so ostentatious
that brilliant lie
that fizzles the glum
that launches the war
that riddles the drum
with dimples tapped
out by arms soon to be freed
of sockets and sleeves
on a body that marches
on stilts that are legs
soon to be pegs
on feet soon to be out
of ankles and shoes.
The news takes its due
whether it's false or it's true
but towards truth it does slide
'cause there's nowhere to hide
from the battering tide
of the terrible, terrible world.

How's that, Mr. House Mouse?
Would you like the door?
I see you have a whore.
That's a nice fur coat she has.
Good. When you have her on her back
at least she'll sweep the floor.
But I must warn you, the cat's a voyeur.
You'll be safe in the foyer.
Just don't munch the yarn
or they'll long be spinning you,
your tail, and how you lost it.

Here's to fate!
Here's to location!
There's to space!
There's to now!
Later's to relations.
Later's to loves,
to doves, to lovey dovey doves
huddling against the cold air
that threatens to freeze their lungs
with each breath.
Their beaks chattering
they have nothing to do
but huddle and wait for death,
a cold chilly death
from which they'll awake
swirling about Hell,
which is also a cold place.
(It froze over long ago.)

To get something done
have something else to do.
To knot your errant socks
have someone get the glue
-- exempli gratia!
and paste your forehead to your shoes.
Upon the ground you'll see
-- ex hypothesi!
dirt that will ground you!
keep your nose in the truth!
(It stinks.)
bind you to reality!
Fill you with the regal,
make you part of royalty!
Fill you up with fealty,
drain out all your apathy
for tea and biscuits
crowned with crowns
crowned with diamonds
pulled from the ground
by children missing a thing or two.

Compliment the pictures
if the words leave you unmoved.
Complement the leather
if God left you unhooved.
Run for cover,
duck for fur,
miffle-waffle-Aaron Burr.
I've got a tale to tell.
"He's got a pail that's fell."
I filled it up with hail!
"He tallied a trolley sail."
One breath puffed it out of jail!
"He doesn't have a clock to wind."
What's the time?
"What is time?"
Nevermind.

J, oh, what a way to write a letter.
Zawoop!
Engineers' imaginary
now don't you tarry while you
drop
that
dot.
Zotz!
(Now you're dead.)

Pool hall, ping pong,
don't go to ol' Sing-a-long
if ya got a busty bong.
They'll snap your neck
like a cluck, cluck, cluck,
not a duck, oh,
a chick with the avian flu.
Achoo!
Bless you!
Achoo!
Adieu, adieu, adieu.

There's a ceiling over that stain.
Can it sustain that moldy crucifix
that browns the edges 'bout the veins
that gird the grid of tiles
over flickering lights?

I've been away so long
I feel hardly I belong
'mongst these words.
I know not their song.
Their progression's left me
and no possesion's filled their place.
Here I wander almost keeping pace line by line
but still falling far enough behind
to lose sight of what once I sought.

The philosopher stroked her beard.
"It's just as I feared," she said.
"All that I say comes out a lie.
The words I hear and the words I think
are just the opposite of what I say.
So, I have to think the opposite if I am to convey
the little truth I have in me.
To tell the truth I must will that I would lie."

Once there was jolly fool who was a moral man.
His duty was to help out others even though he couldn't,
even though the utilitarians'd say he shouldn't.
Fool as he was he was still a rational being
just one incapable of seeing
that there's no benefit to others in on their faces peeing.
But rest assured he didn't piss for bliss
but only out of a sense of duty.

A chigger hitched a ride in the crotch of a jigger. It bit him. Dot, dot, dot. The jigger scratched the spots, but the chigger got away.

Yellow cab down golden street,
taking Coronado to meet the treasure --
it ran a red light to pass the fleet
of merchant marines seeking pleasure.

The yellow bird was lost in the sun. It didn't burn as it turned through the image of gas. It was an imaginary bird. Yeah. And the sun was imaginary too.

I'm the mystic.
Though my words are muddled and twisted
I'm really not sadistic.
I believe all the words I have to say.
And that's why I'm more logician than magician.
For once you've got a hunk of absolute truth,
all that's left to do,
is to deduct and deduct away
through infallible analogical application
of the position of Venus relative to Mars.
So you see, my harem is quite logical
when you note this thing morphological
that dangles between my legs
(though I guess in terms topological we're all just about the same.)
And the partridge's two-halved beak,
squawks of this which I cannot speak,
but by florid metaphor:
A rose is a rose a torreador.
A bull fighter may step into some dung if a rose is a rose.
Therefore, modus ponens hocus pocus
you should give me 10% of all you earn.

The millisecond clock.
It went tick-tock.
A thousand times a second.
Tick-tick-tock.
The millisecond millipede.
It went step-step.
Every second, every second,
a thousand pairs of feet.
Walking, walking,
walking, walking.
Walking up the wall.
Countering the gravity.
Up and not to fall.
The millisecond millimeter.
Measurement misconstrued.
All alone at the bar it sat.
For the speed thought it rude.

The merry little piggy,
didn't have a bank.
It rode upon its piggy tails
all its bills to blank.
Oh, my little piggy,
why aren't you just a toe?
Then you could be neither
my friend nor my foe.
The cherry little piggy,
had a broken bow.
But luckily the archery
it knew how to sew.
Oh, my little piggy,
why aren't you now a thane?
For in Scotland now you aren't a cow
-- no madness'd have your brain.

The sailor one last time looked back at the marina.
Only it was the shore that moved away.

Branches flow like water from a trunk that seeks the sun.
Like a willow bows the maple to the clouds that over run
the sky as blue as water as blue as sky not over run.

They showered him with compliments they all knew he had not earned,
for they thought their praise would raise him as he gloried in their words,
but instead he came to dread all praise and with doubled shame he burned.

Hark! Hark! Hark!
The mark just got bit by a dog that barked
for it missed the car that the mark just parked.
Heart! Heart! Heart!
The jack must have dropped his pants to have farted
for there they are and the air is still parted.
Squid! Squid! Squid!
The kid hung himself because too much he'd been kidded
for he'd tentacles for hair and brains not quite lidded.
Muse! Muse! Muse!
The Girl Scouts all were quite confused
for the lightning strike left the lovers fused.
End! End! End!
The finish really can't be lended
for once it's put its stop the rest too is ended.

She smiles not when she sees me.
She smiles when I'm away.
Her frown begins upside down turning
when I turn to go away.

My presence is a burden.
That's clear from her wrinkled brow.
Outwardly she's politely scornful.
Inwardly she breaks my plow.

David Keightley
"I study the origins of Chinese civilization in the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages, employing the archaeological and inscriptional evidence."

An Open Letter to the APA
"I am writing because I am disturbed by the apparent policy of many mainstream philosophy journals toward Chinese and comparative philosophy. The assumption seems to be that such work should be confined to the handful of specialist journals. I believe that this is an antiquated and counter-productive policy. Philosophers have recognized for a long time that any well-educated ethicist needs to know something about Aristotle, Kant, and the secondary work published on them. Because of changes in our society and in the world as a whole, the time has come for us to recognize that an ethicist should also know something about Mo Tzu, Hsn Tzu and Chu Hsi."

Baby lower,
baby more low,
his mamma,
she smoked a thesaurus,
'cause she lost her doe, ray, me.
So,
by his second trimester,
he was a rhymester.
Semester pester.
Lest hate fester,
rheotaxis. Try it pool side.
Yeah. Woo.
Slip, slippery slide down the do doo doo.

Backwater riband
tied around the bow
of the greatest hunter the rhumb woods would ever know,
rubious yet not a ruby,
red as blood in snow,
why into a rhombus does your rueful master go?

Where's the sleeping harpy singing,
rhoncus rising above the rheum that's ringing
the wretched wench's bloodshot eyes.

The platitudinarian took his dog to a veterinarian:
"My dog has turned vegetarian.
"It's a dog's world. Woof, woof, woof.
"It worries me not to see the dog eat the cow."
The veterinarian was a disestablishmentarian:
"Arroooo. You will not force me to follow your shallow religion.
"I fly with the pidgeons and drink up the punch.
"It's not wise to spend too much time in the world of nonsense
for the longer your stay there the less chance you'll escape."
The dog commented, "Bark. Bark. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
The secretary's stomach growled.

Sea, harpy, stone does sing a stone to stew the sea away.
All migraine so sideways plant to part the angry coral day.
Polygonal portal stop to watch the mobster social clock.
Carpal syndrome wrists wreck sack all fiddle poodle door mat dock.
Neptune hoary putter north to clean up all the oozing sores.
Gentle caddie moral hatter keep good track of holy platters.
Set orbit on rabbit tip all too to toe the turtle buy rye tatters.
Rotate humor tankard lee on oil of tanker on the sea, harpy seal all underneath.

"I'm pretty sure I pissed my pants."
Overheard through a closed door. A female voice moving in the direction of the unisex bathroom.

One of his atoms malfunctioned. The universe exploded. The insurance company refused to pay.

Owe the hoe a row of beans,
missed while in the shed
set aside another means
to till the ornery bed.

At the bottom of the barrel at the back of the bar,
lives a pickled eyeball that has seen very far.
Its iris is blue but it just sees green
for that's the hue of vinegar and jealousy.
It wants to wink but eyelashed eyelids it lacks.
The pustile pickled rooster foot gave it a scratch.
...

Which character would I be?
"@" or "a"?
"@" is more Arthurian,
while "a" is right Shakespearean.
Nah, I would be K.
Raw, raw, raw, raw character code.
As my friend Ian would say,
"All the world's a toilet,
and we're the poop."

December 4th, down by the warf,
next to my new wooden dingy,
I saw a crow caw.
For a sound it was round,
but for a taste'd be square,
all wrapped in a ball and all stringy.

Maple wood in willow tree,
there it should not be,
but there it is.
Hark! Hark! The fletcher's art
doth slayeth me
as I sleepeth under yonder weeper.

Cough, cough. Now for some definitions:
The definition of "definition" is "potato."
The definition of "is" is "destroys."
The definition of "the" is "your."
The definition of "of" is "beside."
Your potato beside "Pluto" destroys "Neptune."
Mu.

Just how incoherent can a bee be? Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzt! Bzz. Bzzzt. Bzzt!

Where's the light, there's hope, at least when hope is a carrying a light. No, that's not right! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Then there's light where there's hope. Nope? There's only hope where there's light when light is carrying hope, and light doesn't carry hope when it's a superpowerful X-ray laser beam aimed at your head.

The comb gritted its teeth.
"I'm God-damned tired of being drawn through sandy hair!"

Please refrain from repeating the refrain --
"All is well in the gravy stain" --
for it is no longer true
due to the infighting amongst the organisms therein:
Oh, the bacteria are mounting a mighty fight to take the mount of grease
while the fungi wrap their tendrals round the meat bits claimed by bees.
The ants shit their pants when they saw that the plants with their roots had claimed the salt.
But the dog like a log rolled over all till all awled were eating fur.

Nickle-plated quarters,
jingle for a change.
Throw up the silver disks
for a shot in the shooting range.
You hit no cent in particular
but still you get a dime.
Money itself is worthless
but to some it represents time.

Where's the Grey Poupon?
Not in the great beyond?
It's at the bottom of the pond?
Too bad I don't have scuba gear.
My French hot dog is getting cold.

The earl was in such a hurry, he forget to shave his legs. The ladies of the court were horrified when he took off his pants for the coronation.

Right side,
just look on the bright side,
which is the right side
when the light is shining that way.
La, la, la, la.
Trite side,
just look on the sound bite side,
but don't drink formaldehyde,
and also don't smoke it,
at least not around me
because it's wet
and I have to pee.

The doorbell, the doorbell, the doorbell;
the doorbell, doorbell, doorbell, doorbell, doorbell.
Won't someone please answer the door?
My legs no longer connect with floor,
and by "floor" I mean "ground."
Ah! What's the sound?
Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Bear, the bear, it became aware
not just of its environment but of its teeny mind,
but soon it'd had enough and put down another stein.

The text below this heading was most likely written before December 3, 2002.

A simpleton sips from a cup
at the edge of a lively crowd
and on words not understood does sup
trying not to be overly proud.

Freed from the moor of outer life
she escaped but a while from strife
for what was wrong was not the world without
but the world she ruled not within.

Hold the pumpkin light on rose
to laminate the angel's pose,
put forth awkward monkey nose,
poppy soda corduroy chose
to polyglot soap note on doze.

Her space bar was stuck. At first, everything she typed was filled with huge gaps. Words she could usually keep together but sometimes "widget" would come out "wid get" or even "w idget." Then abruptly she could get no spaces at all. Her boss suspected her of being a German spy, and she was summarily fired. She is now working as a mannequin in eastern Bulgaria.

What is up and what is down?
Is the blue sky below the ground?
I can see my face from here.
There it is in the silver mirror.

Something new, oh, woe, oh, something old,
the blur's the world, on, and spriral in,
wave the arm round, ah, and faster spin,
colors rush, ah, ha, ah, colors fade,
all without rushes to within,
on now, to past, on future, glides,
the soul, nothing, no longer hides,
where, when, what, who, oh, why,
on swirl, oh, swirl of sky blue sky,
oh, animals with shapes like clouds,
dance on above the funeral shrouds.

A patch of color twisted to a cup,
I drink my cup of tea,
and my arm-shaped blob does set it on a brown anomaly.
My brain says it's a table,
but then it begins to scream.
Table, what's the matter?
Why is it that you scream?
I'm your wife and not a table and you've just squashed your son the bee.

Weary temple, indistinct ache,
not to sleep, to stay awake
to ponder the ever trivial,
too tired to grasp the deep,
rushing along for knowledge
to be missed for want of sleep.

Erasing the line,
the kin begins to whine,
"I cannot divine,
nor sally serpentine,
why cobra venom doesn't taste like eudaimonic twine."

The prudish pedagogue leads her class in reading Robert Burns's Comin thro' the Rye.

Multicultural.
Canto atypical.
Hem the pants too long,
put on the hat,
take off the sleeves,
and sing this song:
Oh, skellum skater snicker snack,
shibboleth center tinder track,
flotsam floosy spindle spack,
stay in school, don't smoke crack,
watch out for pleasant diddle whack,
oh, meretricious fiddle pack.
Metal hooves go click clack.
Chorus porous, please don't bore us,
choir higher, please dazed retire,
fire steel sheep shopping sack,
aloe vera ain't for charcoal lack.

Are there any cultures that don't have a concept of ought, of right and wrong? Should we expect there to be common moral values? Why? Where does morality come from?

Does a group evolve biologically to become better at speaking the prevalent language of that group?

I've read that slavery left Southerners with a negative view of industriousness (because to work was to be like a slave). Have there been any studies to confirm or deny this idea? (Comparative analyses of pre-Civil War diaries of Southerners and Northerners? Of the heroes of their fiction and popular cultures?)

Does genetic engineering pose a problem for the idea that life exists for the sake of DNA? What about work or dreams on transferring human consciousness to a machine? What about work to create non-organic life or artificial intelligence, potentially to replace organic life or intelligence? (I guess Richard Dawkins doesn't think so.)

Nonday Neven

What color are your socks?

Do you think it's moral for people to keep pets?

Probably. Most of the pets I've come into contact with have seemed happy, if somewhat neurotic.

What actions did you do out of habit today?

Which actions of mine today weren't done out of habit? I notice that I'm chewing my nails again. I'm not sure when that started.

The Farm Dole
by Eve Tushnet
When I said, "journalism," one white-haired relative (I think she was an aunt of some variety) fixed me with a ferocious gaze and said intensely, "Write about farm prices!"
last updated April 19, 2002

"Milton Friedman has shown us that when government attempts to substitute its own judgments for the judgments of free people, the results are usually disastrous. In contrast to the free market's invisible hand, which improves the lives of people, the government's invisible foot tramples on people's hopes and destroys their dreams."
President George W. Bush, in tribute to Milton Friedman, May 9, 2002

"There was never any intention on our part to harm the community."
A statement by FARC in a May 8, 2002 BBC News article on FARC's massacre of upwards of 118 civilians.

The skin between the toes cools dry. A fan blurs the view of new grass and red bud trees. Vague words raise specific thoughts and worries. The shadow of a sycamore crosses the sidewalk. A car door slams. Eyes close. Sleep.

"People know they're having too many children. They know they can't feed them. But they don't know how to stop having them," Hieber Girardet of WHO said in a May 5, 2002 AP article by Niko Price.

"Free after nearly five years imprisonment, Cuba's best known dissident, Vladimiro Roca, said Monday that his time behind bars confirmed his conviction that the island's political system does not work and must be changed."
from a May 6, 2002 AP article by Vivian Sequera

"The planting of the mine was likely an attempt to enforce a three-day strike in the state called by communist rebels to protest a new law labeling them and 21 other Indian guerrilla groups as terrorists."
from a May 7, 2002 AP article by Suresh Tiwary

Studying the message chipped into the bark,
he munched a tasty sandwich, buttered with a lark.
"Square alfalfa back on holly to scrutinize the spark,"
baker said the folly polylingual jingo mark.

The gentle clink of rain squeezed through pipes.
A unimportant conversation muffled by the closed door.
The soft whine of a cooling fan.
The undulating hum of a washing machine rising up through the floor.
Not music anymore.

"The ICRC recognizes only the cross and the Muslim crescent as official emblems and will not sanction the Jewish star of David as a symbol for relief workers."
April 24, 2002, AP article.

Bus station,
lost salvation,
grimy place on journey west.
People huddle,
stretch their legs,
getting ready to sit for hours.
A grandmother leads a granchild round;
he has a plastic bat.

Evolutionism Propaganda by Dr. Richard Paley
"Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism."
What a hoax. It is a hoax, right?

Misleading Math about the Earth
Several, rather scathing critiques of The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg. I don't trust them completely, but they seem to have some substance.

Well, I think there are some problems with the critiques themselves. For example, one writer complains that Lomberg's espousal of the idea that resources aren't becoming more scarce is pointless (a strawman problem) since most of his opponents already admit this. I, however, recall seeing a recent article in The Des Moines Register by a physicist warning the public of an impending energy crisis. And while some people I know have said the idea that resources are not becoming more scarce is obvious, my general perception is that this idea is far from widespread, either amongst the public or especially in the environmental movement.

Sideways eight, looping through soup,
slid off the plate, grouping the troup:
inverse, closure, identity, associative!
Left right, right left, left right, right left right;
pretentious pandas all refuse to fight;
chewing on bamboo, they allude, dimunitive,
to trances that are slight.
Oil away to squeak, squeak,
felten nova night.

The margarine bears do not enjoy the hot, warm milk. Cold, cool militants exit through the front cupboard of the bears' house. A neighbor attempts to call the police but instead ends up with an order of stale mosquito larvae. They do not hatch, but she is sickened by their smell.

Eyes not closed but mind asleep,
letting in the sound waves seep,
stare into the glowing screen,
and let slip away your dreams
for the stale lies of others.

Goodness. What percentage of the human population is between the ages of 34.79999 and 34.80000 years? Really? Since there are so few of them, they must be unnatural. And since they're unnatural, they must be evil. Wait. How many people exactly like you are there? Just one? Repulsive! Be gone, sinner!

Extra! Extra! Survey Finds Most Survey Authors Don't Know the Danger of Relying on People's Perceptions of the World to Gauge the Actual State of the World
Finds Additionally Many Journalists Swallow BS Surveys Whole *

Theorem D. K is not empty. There exists x of K such that P(x) implies that for all y of K, P(y).
Proof. By cases:
Case 1. Assume that for all y of K, P(y). Take any x of K. P(x). There exists x of K such that P(x). Taking such an x, both sides of the implication are true. The whole is true. D holds.
Case 2. Assume that P doesn't hold for all y of K. Then, there exists x such that not P(x). Taking such an x, the left side of the implication is false; then the whole is true. D holds.

"people" and "person x is drinking" form a model for D, I think, and "There exists x of people such that person x is drinking implies that for all y of people, person y is drinking" is an interpretation of D. Almost. I think "person x is drinking" is not quite what we want. Too bad.

Serious as wooden gnomes,
invading vinyl pleasure domes,
flipping molten hippy homes,
riddle ruffle rabbit roams.

I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning thinking about model theory, which is unfortunate because I do not know very much about model theory.
April 2, 2002

How may obviousness be formalized? Obviously, obviousness is not the same thing as correctness because there are many statements that are correct but not obvious. Should the formalization allow a statement to be obvious but incorrect?

Federated Farmers

In 1985, New Zealand's government cut almost all farm subsidies. The effects for the country as a whole and for farmers in particular have been positive.

The Federated Farmers is "the premier organisation representing New Zealand's farmers and rural communities." Its Web site carries several reports on the effects of cutting the subsidies.

Scissor-wielding cheetahs, allowed to hold alleles,
discombobulate a diva by dictating to her meals.
Malcontented macaroni may miscontrue lemmata;
all hook a book to Captain Cook to seal up the stomata.
Luciferin, glow to breathe, weave a wave on weather wheels.
Rain on parades to chase the naught and yodel bottle hussy heels.

But if we should ask these profound expositors of God's intentions, How about those man-eating animals -- lions, tigers, alligators -- which smack their lips over raw man? Or about those myriads of noxious insects that destroy labor and drink his blood? Doubtless man was intended for food and drink for all these? Oh, no! Not at all! These are unresolvable difficulties connected with Eden's apple and the Devil. Why does water drown its lord? Why do so many minerals poison him? Why are so many plants and fishes deadly enemies? Why is the lord of creation subjected to the same laws of life as his subjects? Oh, all these things are satanic, or in some way connected with the first garden.

Now, it never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers that Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit -- the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.
John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf

Making Martyrs
A March 19, 2002 PBS NewsHour report on "some of the forces that help create a Palestinian suicide bomber." "Like other families of suicide assailants, Mohammed Badawi received approximately $15,000 from Iraq through Hamas." "Saudi Arabia granted several dozen relatives of suicide attackers a free trip to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage."

He thought his watch might be going slow. He looked at his friend's watch. Her watch appeared to be moving at the same rate. "But maybe both watches are slow?" he thought. He built a sundial. The rate of its shadow's movement agreed with his watch. "But maybe the Earth's rotation has slowed?" he thought. He looked at his watch. It still seemed to him to be going slow. "But maybe my thoughts are just going faster?" he thought.

And what are we to think of the self-proclaimed relativist who goes around snottily correcting the absolutist statements of others?

Student Publications
Prasad Ram, "A New Understanding of Greed," Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA Computer Science Department, June 1993.
"Our chief contribution is to provide a new and simple characterization of greed" as opposed to greedoids, etc.

All have the dream but one.
On him they look with kindess
but can offer not a clue.
One day he wakes alone,
while up through space the others go.
Where they went he'll never know,
and him they've already forgotten.

I'm scared of my shadow, because it fears the light.
Round my feet it follows, waiting there to give a fright.

Some classes of errors I've noticed in writing words:
1. Leaving out a portion of a word -- "transpotion" for "transposition."
2. Switching around homophones -- "their" for "they're."
3. Dropping a letter from the end of one word and prepending it to the next word in sequence.
4. Leaving out an intended sequence of words.
5. Repeating a sequence of words.

What is the average life span for a human mitochondrian? How are dead mitochondria cleaned up?

Would you rather freeze to death in sight of other people enjoying a warm fire or alone in the dark?

"[L]ike the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, 'The light is better there.'"
p. 6, Peopleware

Kant?
The idea that we ought to act in such a way that we would will that everyone else would act identically has some intuitive appeal. Perhaps this may be explained by the powerful effects of dissent.

Is that really an intuitive idea? Intuititive to whom? Even if it is intuitive, does that necessarily mean that it is worthwhile to search for a reason for its being intuitive? Is it even sensible to search for a reason for an intuition? To find a reason why something is useful is not the same thing as to find why it is intuitive. What evidence is there that dissent does have powerful effects?

An individual's actions do not matter, for the most part. Then even if it would be better if all people acted in a certain way, it does not follow that an individual should act in that way unless by acting in that way the individual somehow induces others to act in that way.

What's your argument that an individual's actions don't matter? Doesn't chaos theory suggest to us that every action has huge effects? Even if an individual's actions don't usually have effects appreciable at a global level, what ethical system are you assuming in saying that this makes the individual's actions morally insignificant?

Dissent makes it easier for people to question the majority opinion. Whether the "right" way of acting, that which we would will everyone to follow, is currently the majority way or not, the power of dissent suggests that the individual should act in the "right" way. If the individual is in the minority, then the individual creates "right" dissent. If the individual is in the majority, the individual reinforces "right" consent.
2:35 a.m., February 28, 2002

How does the individual know which ways of acting we should will to be universal laws? What if by dissenting, the individual frees people to act in even worse ways than before? There are rarely, if ever, just two ways of acting.
7:47 p.m., February 28, 2002

Procrastination:
a determination
to avoid the unpleasant
for as long as is prescient,
a most reasonable, natural inclination.

Sally fourth to alienation,
Jimmy fifth to defenestration,
Allie sixth to encrustation,
And Ollie to the shredder.

Using HEAD to get the headers,
is much more fun than GET
so HTTP the mouse's cheddar
before you permute the random set.

Poke a whole in the fall
and you seek the gradient
of grape delicious lemonade
purple yellow collonade
serene siren serenade:
ee-wa, ee-wa, ee-wa.

Bleh.
Dissent helps the people see that they are truly free,
but if the rule that's broken was a prop for society,
then unwelcome chaos damps the glee from new found liberty.

Do not vilipend the viscacha for vying vociferantly with the vivisector.
Villatic vigia! Villatic vigia! Virility vitrifies virid vittae.

Another crappy poem
I'm terrified of Pterophyta.
Please keep away those ferns.
Unfurling fronds smother me,
as my plant-filled nightmare turns.
Rhizomes are quite scary
when they carry rabbit's feet.
And cinnamon seems unnatural
when it ain't with something sweet.

Rudimentary rumpus ropers
stopped stomping student stucco stokers
from freeing frozen frogs
upon uppity
dirty dirigible dogs
inside insidious
crushed crane crates
with wall weights
and Andean androgenous ants,
playing plucky pluralist plants
for four foaming fixtures,
moving malevolent mixtures
virulently, violently,
sillily, silently,
joining jocular jay janitors
in inclining
towards tomato totalitarianism.

His algorithm he did not purport to sort in linear time,
instead he said it will make your bed and squeeze a fresh green lime.
So carefully keep your playing cards neat and bound with a rubberband,
but fear ye not if you've messed your cot or you find your drink too bland.

"Baa," the socially conscious intellectual said, "look at those slobs, good for nothing but watching TV. How am I ever going to liberate this bunch of morons from the chains of wage slavery?"

"Baa," the humble student said, "my classmates are such fools they can't even out do me, the humble student. I cannot deny my fantastic achievements, but surely they must be all to chance, as I am so rightfully humble. And what is of chance should go equally to all so it's really pathetic my classmates don't out do this most humble student. Not that I don't mind out doing them, for even I, the lowliest scum, enjoy beating out someone... or everyone... Oh, to see the expressions on their faces... Ha, ha, ha... it makes me want to cry."

Oh, how inspiring. How insightful.
What a bunch of crap this all is.
I might as well pre-curl my lip before looking here again so as to be ready to take on again a pained, sarcastic smile.
Moo.

"Is your current web-based Email Provider offering you a minimal amount of mailbox space that is over-run with SPAM?"
-- A spam message sent to my current Web-based e-mail account. Bastards.

Isis
"Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology, and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new publications in the field are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, this is the oldest (and most widely circulating) English-language journal in the field."

If Robert Fisk had been a member of that mob, would he have helped to kill the Afghani aviation minister?

Tacky malefactor factor factory,
sticky opposition is proceeding evilly.
Don't walk backwards down a busy liquid street,
or file attack wack hack will whisk you of your feat.
Salutory sing song -- join the throng playing Pong
while the world whirls willingly into the effervescent sun.
Bubble, bubble.

In days of yore,
people talked with clothespins on their snouts
so as to have a nasal air.
Oh, woe, oh, woe, oh, woe,
for those days of yore,
when everyone spoke in iambic pentameter,
with nary a chance of seeing Lego porn.
"Corn" rhymes with "porn" so let us end this line with "corn,"
lest ye forget to mourn the unborn exposed to dorn scorn.
Now for another meaningless metaphor:
Hated marauder Capricorn is a fruited nylon thorn
so drop the net upon the lorn to draw their sadness snidely.

Still old murky swimming pool.
Float between the submerged waves,
losing thought in lazy haze.
Sun-dolloped rain drops,
whisper ether bossom rays,
free to taste the settled light
of distant stars on quiet night
that rippled down on peaceful pool.

Sink amidst hidden happy dreams,
and worry not whether they ever touched reality,
for here their laughter is stifled not,
but reaches us clear and pure.
Bemused at fingers, toes, and knees,
the body dissipates as the mind relaxes
and mixes with the universe.
Swirl onto happy cosmic dreams,
as sweet chaos swallows up the soul.

Yellow surface glowing green,
warms the hands and heart;
tramping round the rotund roots,
glean a sharp eye's gleam
and fling it up to the eagle
so that all this she may see.

Fell, foul, filthy gourd,
pour out your scum
for us to drink,
to leave us dumb,
and less apt to think.

Battle with the atmosphere,
free-willed, funny fiddler.
Play them a tune made out of words,
lead on the herd with brain-shaped breath,
blowing away the idle wisps of oafs;
be a sesquipedalian mesmerizer.

Oh, possession, you bring me pride, for whom but I may have you?
Do not be cross if I shout out your name
for I should not be asked to contain the happy knowledge of my superiority.
Of what worth is it if kept secret, of what worth are you?
Let them see what I am by what I have, by what I say of what I have.
They have set the measure, and now finally I will fill it.

He left the dinner early. The food was bad for his health, he felt. But still he lingered long to look in through the glass at the other people eating.

Nobody told him about the postage stamp stuck to his forehead. Soon, he was on his way to Tongo.

The dove pecked at the seeds in the ogre's hand. The ogre breathed softly so as not to disturb a feather. Uneasily, he looked out at the field of ripe grain.

Round the rim they walked, till on their tracks they tread again,
feeling that old dread again of endless cycle, endless return, no escape from repetition.

Look! My model has a spiral! What do you mean you think it's a worthless piece of shit? Here, have some more acronyms.

Soda cola pop ah pepsi
fountain bubbler dribbler spout
turn record upside downways
alimentary message oop
sentimental moca scoop
satisfactory chicken coop
burlap purple peanut trap.

Turtle bottle throttle top
all upon the mountain mop,
spinning at the pinnacle
of its long, long shadow.

Tick a wick to lick the battle
mat the moping opal cattle
so syrup serpents will repent.

Work, work, work.
You think your boss is a jerk,
and he or she surely is.
Drink, drink, drink.
Push your liver to the brink,
make it harder for the brain to think,
and drown yourself with your despair.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Or lie awake and instead weep,
counting down the digital hours,
wondering what is wrong.
Hope, hope, hope.
For a way to escape or at least to cope
until your emancipation day,
when you will fly far far away
and wrinkle your face with smiling.

You're different,
just like every other one of the 6 billion people on earth is different,
and that's wonderful.
You do not spend an excessive amount of time cleansing your body,
yet you do not smell exceedingly foul,
and that's glorious.
You have two eyes, two ears, and a nose, no more, no less,
(though of course I'll support you 100% if you should decide to change,)
and that's beautiful.
Oh, woe for he or she who fails to bribe fate the great combinator with an offering of bread and American cheese,
random luck unappeased is to be feared on the average,
and that's so-so, OK.
Now let us pray for vigorous tape worms:
ubudu, nubudu, flenectum. Bleh-bleh-bleh.

Lyrical lute tell the tale
in notes exhaled
by lungs availed
of plant-breathed air...
of blundering birds
and dzomo herds
etched in his brain
by the electric chair.

Yawn onto the dawn;
stay awake to the see the light,
celebrating tiredly
the sun's first rays
to tickle forth the conscious wave,
sublime orange, yellow, red,
across your private sky.

Mourn the morning lost to noon,
little bobbing bosom loon.
Placid packets meet their doom,
routed to Minnesota,
Internet Brigadoon,
caught in a gloomy tune;
queue away the clatter.

Queue. Quality? Quorum. Quibble not, for time is short; unless beeswax is matriculated, the old washerwoman will eat a feather sweater.

If "men," as is in "chairmen," is a gender neutral term, why do we have "washerwomen"?

[Setting: home. Motivation: nothing]
CROW: Today's puzzle completed 6 Minutes & 41 Seconds

FOXNews: Our reporters can shout louder than your reporters.
FOXNews: More opinion, less tact. Shinier hair, fewer facts.
FOXNews: Now with twice as many flag animation sequences.
FOXNews: Watch Bill O'Reilley devour a live chicken!
FOXNews: Next up, Pat Buchanan, visionary.

HOST: Stupid pansy!
GUEST 1: Geneva Convention...
GUEST 2: Terrorists!
HOST: Terrorists! Queer.
GUEST 1: Civil liberties...
HOST: Murderers! Terrorists!
GUEST 2: Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!
HOST: Terrorists!
GUEST 1: Constitution.
HOST: Terrorist.
GUEST 2: Stupid. Terrorists! Terrorists!
HOST: Well, we're all out of time. Thank you both.

Information:
- The kid in the video may have been Jason Cerbone from "The Sopranos."
- The letter at the beginning of the last segment of a Library of Congress call number is based off of the book's author's name or the title of the book.

I've heard of cultures whose people don't regard the death of a loved one as a sad event because they believe the spirit of their loved one is still with them. Are there any cultures that do not regard the death of a loved one with sadness and also do not have the belief that the loved one is still among them in some form? (Or when we say we "love" something do we just mean that we'd be sad without it?)

Maybe our little agent can generate a list of the responses it expects to receive in return for its output, using the list of expected responses to help understand the actual response?
January 17, 2002

π μ ε ← ↑ → ↓ ↵ ∀ ∃ ∈ ∅ ∴ ∞ ∫ ∩ ∪ ∑ ∼ ⊥ ⊗ ⊕ ⊂ ⊆

a•lac•ri•ty n. 1. Cheerful willingness; eagerness 2. Speed or quickness; celerity. [From alacritas, from alacer, lively.]
--The American Heritage Dictionary

"As for her virtuous husband, Isaac Johnson, he tried to live without her, liked it not, and died."

"The nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from spreading in their midst. But it depends upon themselves whether equality is to lead to servitude or freedom, knowledge or barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness."
--Alexis de Tocqueville

Blood.
Marathon race,
the heart beats its self to painful pieces,
competing with the liver for the brain.
Scream for the adrenaline,
the veins exposed,
sweat drops, sour breath -- loud, harsh
out through twisted lips.
Teeth grinding, a dentist's delight.
Oh, conscious bruxism, flakes of fluoridated enamel on the pulsing tongue.
Rush on, rush on, there's no time to lose.
We must win, we must win, or die.
Fight, fight, no flight.
Let the eyeballs bulge, the neurons tear, but fill up the brain,
for battle's near.
Shove in knowledge through every sensible orifice,
on, on into the skull.
On, on, on to the path of war.

Funny Snake vs. Logician: Round 1: List Comprehension

Snake bite logician. But snake bite taste like candy cane. Logician laugh: ha, ha, ha. * x

The user should have the option of having the system keep a detailed log of daily activities to serve as an automatic journal. The log should not be a simple text file but a rich database including links to the Web sites the user viewed, e-mail messages sent and received, names of documents created and destroyed, and of applications used. The user should be able to browse all of the information stored by the system from within the system. The user should be able to annotate any piece of data within the system. The user's use of the system should itself generate data -- which items were accessed most recently, which items or types of items have been accessed most frequently, etc. The system should notice which applications are used most often and spend time optimizing itself for their use.
3:22 a.m.

People standing round a circle,
think they see a crocodile.
Hand in hand, they tip toe forward,
bifurcating all the while.
#S

How was the rate of mutation of mitochondrial DNA determined?
Do the cells of a living organism evolve? For example, do the cells of a sunbather grow more resistant to damage from sunlight with each generation?

As I regain consciousness, I find myself smeared, splashed, and scrubbed with chemicals: sodium fluoride, aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly, cocamidopropyl betaine, guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride, dodecylbenzenesulfonate, methylchloroisothiazolinone, propylparaben -- toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, and shaving cream. My scalp is poked with petrified petrochemicals. I am ready to re-enter society.

Hostile,
been betrayed,
time's slipped away,
more life turned to death for nothing.

"If it is difficult, as it may be, to say what is the human Common Law, it is a thousand times more difficult to say what is the Divine Law. So that if it be but too easy for a man to find an inlet for his own caprice under shelter of the first mentioned exception, it is a thousand times more easy under shelter of this last. Farewell Law and Common Sense: Welcome Fanatacism!"
--Jeremy Bentham

"Open your eyes and see how beautiful the world is, and how lucky we are who are alive!"
Karl Popper, Unended Quest

Maybe consciousness is a relation between frames of awareness, as motion is a relation between frames of position?

When you burn your hand, your body pulls it away from the burner before the pain signal reaches your brain. Does this mean that your hand feels pain in the same way as your brain? Is every part of the body conscious in some way?

"When Will We Run Out of Oil? Never!"
Title of a chapter in Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource 2.

"Danish toy maker Lego has agreed to halt production of a range of toys based on ethnic cultures after protests about its use of indigenous Maori names for some toys, a Maori intellectual property lawyer said Tuesday."
-- AP article.

Teachers in public schools are not payed competitive wages. The good teachers in public schools must be working for non-economic benefits as well as economic. The good teachers will serve more than other teachers as role models for the good students. The good students will pick up the good teachers' altruistic tendencies.
1:43 a.m., Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Impertinent, little twerp,
likes to laugh at perceived ignorance,
but hates to teach.
Maybe he's afraid to learn that he knows nothing worth smirking about.

Tables arranged.
Silverware.
Two forks for each plate.
Two knives too.
Napkins neatly folded.
White cloth. Pure.
Contrasts with the interluders.
Spin around.
Walk out.
Then race up the stairs.
Find a mirror.
And some chairs.
Discover.
What in the walls with names resides.

Stillness.
Angelic hymns by cooling fans.
Keys click.
TV round the corner.
"Here's Jay Leno."
Cheers.
Indecipherable chatter.
A distant train runs into a woman's voice.

Light.
A flickering rectangle.
Sound.
The smell of popcorn.
Your back hurts but, for a moment, you don't care.

The group and the one.
Side by side but separate.
The conversation between the two one way.
Overheard.

Footsteps echo off the cement.
One-two, one-two-one.
Down the stairs.
Eyes down those coming up.
They float by,
laughing at something.

A thousand, thin strands of text across the Internet.
Not a substitute for one touch.
October 26, 2001

Unresponsive,
fingers slow.
Neck swaying,
eyelids close.
Breathe deep,
floating on the edge of sleep.
Lull, lull, lullaby.

There is no such thing as a duty to harm the world, to make it a less happy place.
Revenge is for fools who think the past still exists and so forget the future.

"The ultimate resource is people -- skilled, spirited, hopeful people -- who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit as well as in a spirit of faith and social concern. Inevitably they will benefit not only themselves but the poor and the rest of us as well."
--Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2

A flurry of furry slurry hit
the merry berry ferry so
prepare to bear a parafin chair.

Tired but not to go to bed,
they drank a vibrant tea.
Some whispered discordant tones,
to keep awake their chilly bones
and steer away the sea.

House a lewd original,
bear the olive oil,
test the flitful forest style,
wine and cheese lead to bile,
in the muck twist and revile,
laughing at the grim guards
who soley stare down the thunderstorm,
sacrificing themselves to the norm.

Meaningless?
No black and white?
Gray on gray,
no yesterday?
No day to come?
No wise ones --
only fools,
so spit at schools?
Spit on truth?
Then onto bland mystery,
floating without history,
where no one knows,
and no one cares,
and where there is no where or who or when or why?

Don't forget "what"!
What is unbelievable is not believed.
Those who spout such words cannot be truly self-deceived,
but speak without thinking on what they from other non-thinkers have received.

"What a lovely diastema!" cried the lady.
She blew a breath out the window of her burning barouche.
October 15, 2001

I used to climb the tower here,
till the terrible eustasy;
now the tower's tip's a moldy pier
for mooring fallow feluccas.
October 14, 2001

Restless, still,
bound, tied down,
hindered,
bothered,
bottled,
broken,
clutching at the meaningless token.
Frustrated by the melancholy,
yet bored by the solution.
Tapping fingers,
flipping channels,
browsing known news --
angered at the aimlessness,
untightening the screws.
Tight chested,
divested,
with mal-digested broccoli;
rolling eyes,
grinding teeth,
not twisting round to break the leash.
Simmering,
frittering,
self-bickering,
unsure...
Typing,
griping,
dying, sighing, lying, vying
for whatever it is that cannot be.
Yearning to yearn,
to be denied,
to find not even expectation,
to find there is no explanation.

Synchronized watches were dismayed by the dismemberment of the atomic bomb. Tick a lick off, toe too taut.

Everyday,
ho-hum,
quotidian,
flat and plumb,
eyes on ground,
face grim set,
shuffling
corporate pet.
Feed the body,
starve the brain...
avoid pleasure,
avoid pain...
Blink at light,
fear the dark,
mow the lawn,
car the park.
Fear dissolution,
fear a spark...
Drink tepid tea,
read soggy news,
smirk at freedom,
pay your dues.
Wear silk socks
and uncomfortable shoes,
plan to wake up early,
but then hit snooze.
Sleep at work,
but follow the clock,
hate your boss,
but buy the stock.

Mighty mitochondria,
useless hammocks light the trees,
cell walls burn on gasoline,
and golden gutters freeze.

Sorry, sorry, excuse me, sorry...
Bow, bend, and step right back...
Alack, boo-hoo, wa-wa, sob, sob...
Foot on toe, knee in way,
spilt the contents of the tray,
How are you?
I'm fine. Nod, nod.
Walk, walk, backwards, straight,
eyes closed, concentrate --
they're watching you,
but do not wait,
for the ballerinas to applaud...
green tutus obscure their robot gears...
their arms cannot hallucinate,
but surely Charley Chan can.
And any honest man can
open cans of beans with the gleam of the glimmer
of their apple beams hammered smooth
to rue the withering baum of the lawn
tom, oh, turkey, run from the sun,
there's a man with a gun who doesn't look glum
when he thinks on Thanksgiving dinner.

Berry, merry, much impounded,
car door ajar, believer hounded,
sour hour, but happy day,
jump towards the yellow light.

Flamingos on the hurricane,
cried out for paper blue,
blew dust up on the solo glade,
dropped silver split on hobo blade,
yak sorrow terry boo.

"Home Secretary David Blunkett announced Wednesday that he will make spreading religious hatred a crime punishable in court 'to ensure attention-seekers and extremists cannot abuse our rights of free speech to stir up tensions in our cities and towns.'"
--From an October 4, 2001, AP news article

A minihelicopter was chasing me the first time I woke up. A droning noise from outside continued to disturb me.

An old high school -- I step out of a fake linoleum-tiled hallway into a classroom. Terrariums filled with moss and vines are stacked on tables.

I clutch a green leaf. A large, middle-aged woman turns to face me. I say, "I think it might have spider mites."

"We don't worry about that sort of thing here," she says. She smiles and takes my leaf. She slides open the lid of a terrarium. She drops the leaf into the terrarium.
October 1, 2001

Cattle saddle sing-song,
Rope a chapel, ping pong,
Sank a game upon the strip,
Tipped a tinny battle ship,
Dope eloped high ding dong.

If you reply to an e-mail message with a viral attachment, don't send the poor bastard back the attachment. Otherwise, you'll probably just get another infected e-mail.

If you are in charge of maintaining a mailing list on Project Vincent, then you may find the following scripts useful:

OSH Answers: Common Cold
A Q&A on the common cold covering topics such as suggestions for preventing the spread of the common cold and when an infected person is most infective.

"I do not think government should be used to offend people."
--Governor of South Dakota Bill Janklow

"A man cannot get a coat or a pair of boots to fit him unless they are either made to his measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet?"
--John Stuart Mill in On Liberty

"contravariance violation"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%..........
Thank you, Rah1!
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%..............

The portrait was hung upside down, but not one person who attended the gallery's grand opening noticed. They were all too busy eating French cheese and running from the axe-wielding badgers. [Is it OK to say "they"? Yessum, opposum, molasses-toting flotsam, where's my jetsam? Well, hell, then I'd better get some. Sam Spade spayed Sam the dog who bayed. Ruff.]

Tantamount to cavalcade,
they marched on stilts of marmelade
and ate the goose's golden egg.
Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah.

Shouts, screams, broken seams,
rabbits sawing balance beams...
Circus swirling under trees,
crickets nuzzling bumble bees,
arose from tumultuous tulip schemes.
Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah.

Snotty potty, haughty loo,
preppy privy, how are you?
"I've received my share of spew,
but I'm still too good to be used by you."
Strip, wipe, look at the stripe,
and sell it to the gallery.
Barf, barf, barf. Ha, ha, ha.
Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah.

Yak greeter on the low,
split the germ and made it glow,
but if he was a snob, didn't let it show.
Cement rament Ross Perot.

Peekaboo!

If you expect respect, please give respect. Do not shout down the opposition. Do not steal their propaganda. Do not resort to name calling. Do not call for government censorship. Do not destroy your opponents' property. Do not interfere with their meetings. Do not threaten. Do not harm. Speak truly, live truly, and remember that there's always more to learn.

Oh, oh. How lovely, pa. Here. Let me get a lollilop. I want something sweet to go with your tasteless, patronizing b.s.

This morning, I dreamed about a 4th of July moss growing contest. Each child was given a packet of roasted sunflower seeds to plant in their pan of moss. I don't remember what my sunflower seeds grew into.
July 2, 2001

The flutist played a clarinet and stood an overture
of single, eligible roosters, pining for a hen.

Alack, alack, fish the dropped the hook,
babbled, saddled up the brook,
inside nook the read a book:
"Butterflies and Moths: A Guide to the More Common American Species."

Twinkle, twinkle city lights,
and make the clouds glow pink.
Signal, signal that there is human life,
then into darkness sink.
Moon, moon, rise above
the fog that you made shine;
Circle, cycle, cycle, circle,
over yellow dividing line.

I don't remember whether the mountains were purple. Probably, they were more of a hazy blue.

We passed by a lake -- from where I was sitting I couldn't really tell whether it was great and salty or not. On one side of the highway was the lake; on the other, there were ponds. Some had square, tractored corners, but from the water filling the ditch between the highway lanes, I guessed that the water would've spilled there bidden or not.

Coarse grass and reeds grew out of the side of the ditch where it was wet. I saw long legged, long beaked birds poking along in the muck along the ditch. Sandpipers? The bus driver wouldn't have stopped to let me ask their names in any case.

As we were driven farther south, the water disappeared into a brown sludge. The continuous edging of green grass gave way to patches of gray sage brush on dusty, tan soil. Then a white alkali cap crusted over the sludge.

The ditch down the center of the highway's two black lanes was a white stripe to the horizon. On either side, the flat, white plane stretched out till it disappeared shimmering at the base of the blue mountains.

Sometimes, a storm of blinding rainbow sparkles would shoot out of the white plain. Salt crystals or sherds of glass: I don't know which they were.

Myself

My projects on Google

Experiments

Jumping jacks were used to attack the Parliament last Thursday.
Though they were fortified, my thimbles fried, but Tony Blair still excused me.
"Bloody hell! What is that noise? Oh, my God! Not children's toys!"
"We've prepared for terrorists, not naughty girls and boys."
Labor won but didn't have fun for the Thames was full of duckies.

Erroneous arrows, didn't point the way
the driver followed and went astray,
of road, of shoulder, of ground.
Cadillac flew, it flew, it flew,
on silver fumes through unfallen dew,
until it landed on a basswood tree,
and squashed her calico kitten.
Don't bother calling the fire department.
No ladder for splatter.

The clown forgot his makeup. He found it unsettling that the children laughed at him as loudly as before.

Regret
not the cool green leaves under foot, over head,
not the soft rich earth, nor the smell of it...
Don't cry for the singing birds and
the squacks of their hungry nestlings...
Don't sigh when you look at the sky,
white clouds floating across the clear blue ceiling.
Slip smiling into the dirty crowd, and remember that you are ancient.

OK? Huh?
What's the point?
Sharpen your pencil, needle nose. It's time to fill in some ovals.

Everything you see is the product of all that went before,
and is part of the base of all that'll be.
Twelve billion years on into infinity.

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye, looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Courses and Programs
This page includes a list of all majors offered at ISU, along with their abbreviations.

Schedule of Classes
It is possible to get a list of all classes offered in a major simply by entering the name of that major in the Qcourse field without specifying a specific class number.

Chow mein suicide,
ran over the new bride,
got flea repair reapplied,
flimsy, floosy, boozy doozy,
if you're a bumb, don't get too choosy,
Susie losie flower dour,
couldn't keep track of her rock in the meteor shower,
power plower breaks my mind.

Free wheeling, Cheerio chomping, egg stomping, tree lopping loggers fell the monument. It was white with excrement from disrespectful spotted owls.

Six out of five ornithologists would dislike the future if they knew what it held. So says the lollipop-licking hooer.

What? What?
Really, I'm joking. I can understand you.
Or at least it started out as a joke. Someone laughed at it once, and then I made it habit.

David Faden