Tax Cut Pork. Not!
Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say something kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.
Always exercise your heart's knowing.
You might as well attempt something real
Along this path:
Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.
Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.
Play a game with some children.
Extend yourself to a friend.
Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -
Why not let them get drunk and wild!
Let's toast
Every rung we've climbed on Evolution's ladder.
Whisper, "I love you! I love you!"
To the whole mad world.
Let's stop reading about God -
We will never understand Him.
Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn the whole Universe
That your heart can no longer live
Without real love!
(I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
I sent the following letter to Time magazine, in response to their side bar, Them Hogs Is Hungry! I was actually responding to the drawings that accompanied the words, but those aren't in the on-line version.
To: letters@time.com
Subject: What is that Oink, Oink? (2/19 issue)
Cc: bill@billstclair.com
The February 19 issue depicts three proposed federal income tax cuts as increasingly fattened pigs. How dare you depict this as pork! A tax cut returns stolen money to those who earned it. Pork is the wasting of this plunder by government thieves. The proper amount for the tax cut is $2 trillion per year, every year: 100% of the pilfered income returned to its proper owners.
Bill St. Clair
Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Sonic Boom: most of us have heard a sonic boom. Here's a picture that allows you to see one. Way cool! [pournelle]
From brianf:
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. -- Buckminster Fuller
Kevin Tuma - Impotent Strategic Superpower Weapon System: formerly known as the Dogwagger missile. Hehe.
End the War on Freedom is on The Only Start Page You Will Ever Need at Liberal Arts Media. They're raving this week about The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.
bob lonsberry - Biting Off More Than You Can Chew: Child Protective Services in upstate New York recently took away a woman's kids because she bit one of them. Bob tells us why her behavior was OK. I agree with him.
Parents have the right to, within the strictures of law, discipline their children. That includes corporal punishment.And that includes spanking.
And biting.
To pretend otherwise is to spit in the face of our mothers and grandmothers.
Dave Winer's DaveNet - Ohhh Napster! Dave has a good, simple idea for how everyone can win in the battle between Napster and the recording industry. Postscript:
Give the users what they want dammit.