000309.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 09 Mar 2000 13:00:00 GMT

Why all this talk?

Why all this talk of the Beloved,
Music and dancing,

And
Liquid ruby-light we can lift in a cup?

Because it is low tide,
A very low tide in this age
And around most hearts.

We are exquisite coral reefs,
Dying when exposed to strange
Elements.

God is the wine-ocean we crave -
We miss.

Flowing in and out of our
Pores.

Daniel Ladinsky - The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild & Sweet Poems of Hafiz


Attention please: The Last Page of the Internet [script]

Jon Carroll at the San Francisco Chronicle - Blame That Bleeping Canada: great article about the motion picture academy's attempted censoring of "Blame Canada," the song from "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" that they chose as a nominee for best song. Hilarious. [faisal]

Tim O'Reilly - Responses to Amazon Patent Questions: Tim responds to the most common questions elicited by his Open Letter to Amazon. Includes a link to a 3MB file of comments from the 10,000 people who signed it. [script]

Bloomberg via Marijuana News - Swiss Upper House Approves Proposal to Legalize Marijuana Use: all uses of the cannabis plant will likely be legal in Switzerland in the near future. Bravo! [mjn]

Honolulu Advertiser via Cannabis News - Legislators Approve Marijuana Proposals: The Hawaii house and senate have approved a bill legalizing medical marijuana. A veto is unlikely. Good news! [cn]

I don't think I've told this story here yet, so here goes. I used a number of different "controlled substances" in college and for 4 years thereafter. I discovered, after 2 months of free-base (called crack now) use at the end of 1982, that what I liked about the drug was there all the time. The drug only helped me to see it. I quit all drugs except alcohol immediately. About 6 months later, I had an experience in Germany where the feeling that I call God left my heart after becoming drunk at a Weinfest. I gave up alcohol that night. Currently, the most highly psychotropic substances I consume are sugar and coffee. I believe that other people should be free to discover what I did: God works better than drugs (or joy works better than drugs, or love works better than drugs, whichever word you like to use for the life force). The only way to discover this is to be allowed to make the same mistakes that I did. The only way to really learn what works is to do what doesn't work and suffer the natural consequences. Jail time should not be one of those consequences.

There, when the drug warriors eliminate the statute of limitations on drug "crimes", and I'm sure they'd love to, they can put me away.

Lew Rockwell at World Net Daily - Secede, New England!: Mr. Rockwell proposes, tongue firmly planted in cheek (?),with lots of historical reminders, that New England secede and elect McCain as their president. "The United States is vastly too big as it is. It should have been broken up into a few pieces much earlier. We could use a little more competition between independent political units." [wnd]

Deborah Solomon at USA Today - Could Linux outdo Windows? [lt]

"MindTerm is an entirely FREE(*) SSH (currently v1.5) client program written in 100% pure Java... NOTE: MindTerm contains code implementing the RSA algorithm which is patented and subject to licensing in certain countries (e.g. the United States). It is therefore illegal to use MindTerm (for ANY purpose, even non-commercial) without proper licensing from RSA in these countries. We have been in contact with RSA on this matter and might be able to provide a licensed version of MindTerm for non-commercial use, and, for a fee, for commercial use, should we reach an agreement with them." [meat]

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