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I'm not
Responsible;
I sit on the table,
Waiting for the tendon hammer--
To blame.

This came out of some thoughts that ran through my mind as I was reading a discussion of moral agency in Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves. I initially envisaged it as something around sonnet length, but the concept boiled right down to a snapshot of self-delusion.

"Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated."
-Qantas spokesman

Since the T-shirt describes Bush as the World's #1 Terrorist, it's true that it has the potential to offend other customers, but was this really the clause that blocked boarding, or was it the potential to threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft? Exactly what would happen if the World's #1 Terrorist knew that Qantas was aiding and abetting a promulgator of anti-Bush sentiments? Perhaps the people at Qantas realize how dangerous that would be.

Mr Deity
GTA!
No war (via)
Truth
A New Sith (via)
Perspective

I'm a regular reader of xkcd, a web comic of quirky, geeky, romantic fun. It's one of the pages that regularly makes me smile. In just such a quirky, geeky, romantic mood, I decided to write some poems (i.e. frivolous verse), which I'll call Scenes from an Imaginary Romance.

Getting to know you

Because the day was frustrating,
because the evening was balmy,
because the restaurant was already packed,
because the next street would be lively,
because the lane was a quicker route,
because the shadows concealed,
because the addiction compelled,
because the knife craved cash or blood,
I saw more to you than I ever expected,
and a junkie clutched his groin.

It doesn't take much

Even without music-manipulated emotions
or pheromone-spiced senses
or dopamine-powered perceptions,
a single moment's synchrony
can taste like destiny...
Damn your statistics! This was meant to be.

Up close

Binocular reflections warp a room I thought I knew:
your floor distorted, walls non-parallel, ceiling quirked,
curved curtains and TV both reframing an obtuse world,
a coffee table inclined to agree,
and a gravity well sofa.
Was I wrong to look so deeply?

Night Stray

It's after 1am; the concert's done
and neon keeps the empty street alive.
Break step, walk backwards, shuffle, spin and sing,
and relive all the best lines of the night,
then wonder why she signals me to hush.

I freeze mid step, a classic cartoon pose,
then turn to where she gazes. It's a cat,
coquetting down the catwalk of the street
bewitching with that vain mesmeric tail.

Follow. Let the creature lead the way.
Ignore the bounds of privacy. The night
gives license to explore, to find the place
of perfect pleasure only cats can know.

And now it's 6am; I'm feeling cold,
despite the sleeping girlfriend in my arms
(and friendly cat against my thigh). A man
is just about to open his back door,
and ask me why the hell
we're rolling in his celery garden.

 What can a government do when they've found that their accusations were wrong, and that they've turned a functioning human into a fear-paralysed zombie?

After spending more than 25 hours with Padilla, both psychiatric experts have concluded that his isolation and interrogation have resulted in so much mental damage that he is incompetent to stand trial.

 Well, what can they do?

The government maintains that whatever happened to Padilla during his detention is irrelevant, since no information obtained during that time is being used in the criminal case against him.

... 

The government adamantly denies mistreating Padilla, though it does not dispute the particulars cited in Padilla's legal papers. Rather, the government says its treatment of Padilla was humane and notes that it provided medical treatment when necessary.

I saw V for Vendetta last night, and it's getting harder and harder to watch movies like that as fiction. How long will it be before the voters in the USA will listen to yet another government lie and give the appropriate response: "Bollocks!"?

Pinker thoughts (via)
Word bombs (via)
Kitty dance
Helms Deep (via)
Death politics (via)
Getting hammered

Seasons Greetings (via)
Cathulhu
Measure Happiness (via)
Head games (via)
Christmas poem (via)
Bumper stickers

Pharyngula: Music for Cephalopodmas

Long time ago in elder days,
So the traveling cultist raves,
A great stone city, tombs and all,
Had sunk beneath the waves.

Hark, you fools: That is not dead
Which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death,
Yes, even death may die.

In his house the Dread One dreams;
Wait upon that day
When Old Ones rise to rule the earth
And mankind burns to play.

When psychics tell of dreams at night
They speak of cities strange and vast
With Titan blocks and monoliths
Imbued with horror's cast,
All clad in ooze and hieroglyphs;
And from some point below
There comes a voice, that's not a voice,
Of chaos none should know.

Hark, you fools: That is not dead
Which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death,
Yes, even death may die.

In his house the Dread One dreams;
Wait upon that day
When Old Ones rise to rule the earth
And mankind burns to play.

The great priest, in his chasm of stone
Since when the sun was young,
Inspires his own to prance and slay
And yell with alien tongue.
In time this utter loathsomeness
Shall greet our human eyes;
For what has risen yet may sink,
And what has sunk may rise.

Hark, you fools: That is not dead
Which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death,
Yes, even death may die.

In his house the Dread One dreams;
Wait upon that day
When Old Ones rise to rule the earth
And mankind burns to play.

(Crossposted from PhaWRONGula)

Though others' have ended in tears,
Our alchemy's right, it appears,
'Cause it's silver we've made
From one lad and one maid,
And it only took twenty-five years.

This non-exothermic reaction
Begins with a chemical attraction;
The reagents, once hitched,
Are entwined and enriched,
But I'd best say no more of the action.