"Burn," she said.

In a few hours I will begin my trek to the Burning Man festival. Last week, I was unexpectedly let go from my job of the last four years. The firing was a bad scene; I was one of the founders of said company. Over the last two weeks I have been running into friends and co-workers who know my work there and it has been a confusing and conflicting period. Various friends and co-workers know various elements and interpretations of the events that led to my dismissal. Most of them are friendly with both my former business partner and me, and are trying to remain neutral since “facts” are always up for interpretation and no one’s really sure exactly what really went on between my partner and me. Indeed, I don’t blame anyone for his or her impartiality. Even I’m not sure how two old friends who worked side by side for years can have the sort of falling out that he and I seem to have had. I am avoiding any and all details of the event, as they are not relevant and would only be my biased and subjective take on the scene anyway, but suffice to say, I feel I was wronged, as apparently do many others, but that’s life, business is business and we all need to move on to bigger and better things.

So I burn. I do hope that this trip, the longest solo journey I have ever been on, will both provide me answers as to how I have come to this point, what decisions I might have made differently, and what was also simply unavoidable and out of my realm of control. But more than answers to the past, I’m hoping this trip will show me something about my future, what lays ahead, what new goals to set for myself, and how best to choose a positive path that will allow me to put the past in perspective and use all the wonderful and difficult experiences I’ve been through, to create something new and wonderful.

“Burn,” she said. A friend of mine, DJ Goldilox, she’ll be at the festival, unexpectedly dropped out of the ether about six months ago, essentially showing up on my doorstep after years and years of us not having seen each other. She had been to the West Coast and Europe, married and divorced, and, as we caught up with each other’s life stories, she kept coming back to telling me about the Burning Man Festival. I HAD to go, she repeated. You need to, “Burn.” I made excuses that my job was way too demanding for me to take off the 2-3 weeks necessary to check out the festival this summer. I had already planned a trip to Italy (which was wonderful and up to this point the most awe inspiring trip I’ve ever been on, there’s something about sitting on a 2600 year-old Greek Altar in the ruins of an ancient temple watching the sun set over mountains hiding Etna in the distance…), bla bla bla, excuse, excuse, excuse.

Fate has a funny way of forcing its hand.

“Burn,” she said. And so I will. Baptism my fire, a cleansing of the soul, a fiery Phoenix and rebirth and one hell of a road trip to and fro’.

If I have time before I leave I will post a bit of an itinerary and may be able to make occasional posts from the road, but I don’t expect to have very much access to the ‘net over the next 3-4 weeks.

Peace.

T.S.O.L. Frontman Running For Governor Of California

The headline is not a joke, and neither is Jack Grisham.

MTV.com - News -T.S.O.L. Frontman Running For Governor Of California

Lighting Vs. UFOs for the biggest blackout in history!

So, my Dad is an atheist but nevertheless possesses a strong interest in the paranormal. He would often tell stories about the blackout of ’65 and never failed to mention the plethora of UFO reports that surrounded that blackout. He even claims to have seen something in the Boston sky the night of the blackout, a derby shaped object that hovered around the Verizon building (AT&T/New England Telephone at the time) in Bowdoin Square. The following story talks about it too:

Great Northwest Blackout

But in regards to today’s blackout, what I found most interesting (besides the fact that the news channels were still reporting non-stop on the non-story some five to six hours later – there was no looting, no terrorism, no major issues other than the fact that subway cars and elevators were stuck and people were still being evacuated and yet still they never left the story … ugh) was the fact that despite the blackout hitting around 4pm, I never saw a single representative from a power company or heard about a single press release from the power companies through at least 7pm (and I had CNN on in the background all afternoon/evening). We heard from mayors, presidents, governors and Homeland Security heads, all assuring us terrorism was not involved, but we didn't hear from Power Company reps telling us what was, or even giving an update. The power companies were, in my opinion, noticably and oddly quiet. As of this point the only thing I’ve heard regarding a cause for the blackout was potentially a lightening strike. And that was from Canadian power reps.
A lightening strike?

Tens of millions of people lost their power in Northeast North America due to a lightening strike?

Well, some are already question that theory. The Drudge Report has this link (weather chart form Niagara area airport), which shows that the weather around 4pm EST was “A few clouds” and the folks from New York Power Authority have not made any statement regarding the cause.

Now, UFOs may be far-fetched to some, but I would prefer that UFOs be the cause. I can forgive the folks in charge of the energy grid for not preparing against an alien attack, I’m sure it just didn’t come up at any meetings. But I would assume that the power grid for the northeast, the grid that runs NYC, would be able to take a few lighting strikes, and not succumb to the furious electrical storms created by “a few clouds.”

No floppy ears or fuzzy tail - just "Bunny Batteries"

The Bunny Hybrid article was forwarded to me through a Burning Man list I belong to. This is an exceprt of one of the replies:


"Mitochondrial DNA does not contribute to the genotype of a zygote. An organism's development is directed, to the best of our knowledge, solely by chromosomal DNA. They [the hybrid zygotes] have little intracellular bunny bio-batteries, but the embryos are definitely human."

Live Action Bugs Bunny Movie Around the Corner - No Special Effects Needed

washingtonpost.com: Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo

Nevertheless, I still think government should stay out of legislating science. Even weird fucked up science that makes bunny people. Evil bunny people like in Donnie Darko.

The powers that be, whether the Catholic church of the 1500s or President Bush and the Christian Right that so often influences his policy making these days, tend to be very reactionary to new science. Sure, we don’t place scientist under house arrest or burn them at the stake any longer (consider the sad story of Giordano Bruno) but many in society who possess a fear of the unknown and fear of what –might- happen are actually lobbying – and many politicians are inclined to agree – that some knowledge should be forbidden. While the morality of cloning is argued in legislatures and in media, I can’t help but notice that seldom is the reality of the situation ever spelled out as: These laws would forbid scientist from conducting some experiments – it would make increasing one’s knowledge in certain areas of science illegal and make the quest for said knowledge and illegal activity.

I know I am not the only one who sees the irony in this. By declaring cloning a “forbidden fruit” – a forbidden “tree of knowledge” – those Xians in favor of such policy are actually playing god themselves, declaring to mankind what things are off limits to know. And not for nothing but I thought playing god was a bad thing in Xian tradition

Evolution has progressed us to the point where we have discovered that we can clone ourselves. Who is to say that the next step in our evolution isn’t a thinking being that can manipulate its own evolution? Mankind is not separate from nature, man is a part of nature too (like an old Love and Rocket’s lyric) so why isn’t our intelligence as valid an a natural environmental factor influencing our evolution as any other geographic, biological, or other factor that has triggered evolutions throughout the ages?

Virtual Soldier...

...win the war for America...
Wired News: Virtual Soldiers? Dream on, Darpa
So we're making progress on an Emergency Medical Hologram, just like in Star Trek Voyager.

How close are we to a Seven of Nine?

(there's also a link to an article about real-world 'tricorders' coming soon)

Reality Slap

Ok, this made me go, "wow." The "Before and After" concept goes digital, and we all suck this BS up all the time. This shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, but, it did.
Greg's Digital Archive

School Teacher in her 60s faces up to 12 years, $1million in fines for visiting Iraq...

...while Child Molesting priests hide behind staute of limitations.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Human shields face 12 years' jail for visiting Iraq
Ain't life a bitch?

ABCNEWS.com : Less in Missile Plot Than Meets the Eye?

The BBC began hammering away at this last night:
ABCNEWS.com : Less in Missile Plot Than Meets the Eye?
We are, for real, surrounded by lies and half truths.

To the desert I go.

Fuck CSI, this is the real scary shit.

Udai and Qusay Post Mortems

Tell me your local school has enough money.

Tell me the military moticians had to ask for a budget.

Pritorites, kids, priorities.

Finger Head

Because he can:
Finger Head

Angels and Demons...

Angel: Estella Warren

Demon: Sperminator?

Um, the current slang is: Not safe For Work (thanks to Fark for all of this)

Also check out:
A good beach book for conspiratorial nuts who don't like their stories too sexy.

Robert Anton Wilson is far better (and sexier) but Brown is gonna bring the Illuminati and the Priory of Sion to the masses.

He gets points for that.

Then, all hell will break loose.

For some, that's a pun.

Fnord.

Unidentified Flying Objects

No, really, in the literal sense. I might go looking for them when I go to Burning Man. Cuz, well, I've got nothing better to do except blog and look for reasons to doubt everything:
How to tell your UFOs from UAVs

Yes, the French are different, but that's OK with me...

Naked French women rubbing themselves with ice cubes is newsworthy. CNN to launch porn site soon and investigative series soon:
CNN.com - Modesty melts in steamy Paris - Aug. 13, 2003

Bush and Sharon are made for each other

This is the kinda' shit that gives me insomnia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52278-2003Aug12.html
Thanks to the Agonist for making me just a wee bit more paranoid.

Holy Blood Holy Grailien!

Now it all makes sense. Jesus was an Alien and Mary had a little lamb of god...
http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id6.html
Go ahead, laugh. This theory comes from the Histographer Royal to the house of Stewart.

Fire Cleanses

I go here http://www.burningman.com in a few days. Light fires. See stars. Clear head. Then here http://www.roswell-usa.com/city/index.html to look for UFOs.

So, we're talking about godhood here aren't we?

Do you wanna' live forever?!
http://www.extropy.org/ideas/principles.html

This book was damn good:

http://www.davidbrin.com/othersfbooks.html#earth

This is what democracy looks like?

There is now offically no difference between entertainment and politics:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51101-2003Aug12?language=printer