Saturday is this: woken up by the sun, manage to dodge that for a couple hours, get dressed and share brunch at the corner diner with the belle du mois after which she heads home. Return, sleepy from pancakes, work for a bit on a project with Zack, get burned out, decide I'm staying in and resting up. Reconsider. Decide I've got to go out to pay homage for Kristi's birthday. Get a little high and load up the iPod for the subway and subsequent walk through the East Village.

Listening to this John Henry song on the elevated part of the F-train is good. Logjam getting out because there's a Little Person (or midget, if you prefer) Woman making out with someone on the 2nd ave stairwell. Queens of the Stone Age kicks in, which is good for clopping through the Village. Old places I used to go.

Drink whiskey and eat fancy cheese at the bar with Jeremy, Wes, Alex and Laura while other people we know (and don't) trickle though. Will the Easter-European hostess let us into the back room? Something organized going on. Lots of guys, possibly in finance. A fratty feel. Attention paid to the Duke/UNC basketball game (UNC wins!). Yeah, we can go on back there, she supposes, and really there's plenty of room. A lot of couches. Some other random girls I knew from Tisch there -- Strokes concert afterparty -- with a friendly man with gigantic hands. Remembering a more innocent time; I used to have a crush. It gets too crowded, our party breaking up.

Around the bend and across the park to a place called Hop Devil, used to be Lucky Changs (trannie waitresses, let you drink underage sometimes) and Kristi's chef boy has unwrapped a Peking Duck. Tasty. It's about 1:30am, two hours later than I planned on staying out, but Jeremy wants to drink some Pabst, so there I am for a little bit longer. Blur my way home and fall asleep trying to watch an episode of Carnivale.

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll; that is the fucking truth. No matter what your field, your pursuit, it is a long way to the top if you don't want to compromise. Free as in freedom, baby.

After a long day of work I was tempted to pack it in: take a bath, read a little, ponder my navel and so forth. But I'd been inside working all day. I made a few calls. Franz was going out, some place on the Bowery, some girls from Barnard. So in spite of the 15-degree wind chill factor I motivated and rode in.

I've been trying to ride more. With all the biz-travel and then the snowstorm, I haven't been getting out on the wheels a lot in the past month. It makes me soft, leaves me nervous and pent up not to have the physical release. Really I should be going to the gym and/or practicing a little yoga on my own, but nine or ten miles of city riding is good enough to keep me chugging along.

It's a pretty good experience, riding with the fixed gear. It takes some getting used to, and initially it's somewhat terrifying; the margin for error is tighter than riding freewheel; your legs directly connected to the machine. But once you get the hang of it, terror becomes thrill as you realize that the system works, you can handle it, and your power has increased. The only thing I can compare it to is playing Wipeout on the ol' Playstation, when you'd upgrade to a new class of ship.

The trick is building and maintaining momentum. You have only one gear, so you have to keep your cruising speed. On the straightaway this is no problem: because there's so much less friction in a fixed-gear system, you can maintain a higher median velocity with the same effort you'd put out on a regular bike, and your ability to accelerate is just awesome -- you can really stomp on the pedals and make things happen.

One gear means it can be hard to keep up on hills. You have to hump it a bit getting over the bridge -- just another man-made hill, really -- but revving up your engine is what this is all about, right? With good music this can even be a meditative process, you own Private Psychadellic Reel.

I personally really enjoy dropping into a social situation fresh from this kind of exertion, this exercise of Human Power. It makes me confident to the point of being a little cocky, like I'm of a different species, especially if the surrounding atmosphere is at all rarified. I used to love riding to the Upper East Side when Sam would get me odd jobs there at an Opera where he was Technical Director. It's such a rich and stiff 'hood, I got all sorts of classist kicks thundering in as a sweaty outsider.

When you've had a good roll in the winter time and you stop to lock up, unslinging the big heavy chain that's now mandatory in this city, it makes a loud clink hitting the pavement; a big gesture. You're breathing hard, and you unzip your jacket to cool off for a second, let the trapped perspiration does it's evaporative thing. Your head and body emit steam. It's sexy.

There is a whole gestalt to making this a part of your life, and it's as big an influence on how you look at the world as driving or walking or taking mass transit as your mainstay. These choices about how we get from point A to point B color the way we see the world, and I'm pretty happy with mine.

There's a fair amount of gammering going on around lately wrt Ann Coulter, partly because she recently was a featured speaker at the biggest "movement conservative" convention of the year and scoffed "I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences," According to Max Blumenthal, who "infiltrated" CPAC to report on what went down.

His stuff was picked up eventually by the Huffington Post, which is probably why it was used as an example in the Glenn Greenwald post I linked to the other day about right wing cultism. The rational digestion.

And now the final arc of a Coulter Event, the parody:

Bill Maher, from Los Angeles, CA writes:
Ann, sweetcheeks – call me back, OK? Why is it we only hook up when you’re in LA, lonely, and zonked on Dexatrim? Anyway, I'm having a little bipartisan snugglefest tonight on my vibrating waterbed to break in my new hookah. Would love to have you. Can you hop the next red-eye to "La"?

Ann Coulter:
Bill, take it easy, please. This whole "friends" thing was hatched for book cross-marketing purposes, remember? Yes, I was a deadhead for many years, and yes, my 35-foot Eddie Bauer edition Airsteam was party central in concert parking lots from coast to coast. But come on. Weed? Everyone knows I was always an acid queen.

The rest is savage, a lot of it sexual, verging on misogynistic... but if you can stomach it, quite hilarious. The pathology is explored from all angles.

This is the work of an artiste, but crude at the same time. Many critiques of Coulter are inflected by/towards her sexuality. I think it's because politics is still dominated by men with issues with women, especially on that side. I mean, she's literally the most prominant conservative woman in the political mass psyche. Think about that. Creepy.

There's so much weirdness in politics, especially deep right wing politics, it's good fodder for the nerdly mind. Like what was on the other end of that "acid queen" link. Someone had fun making that. The truth is stranger than fiction, and it makes for great humor, list this:

Moon has been talking about saving the world with a tunnel to Russia. But astute AlterNet reader Mitch Kramer points out that his rival, power-hungry doomsday peddler Lyndon LaRouche, was talking about building his own world-saving tunnel to Russia shortly after 9/11, without a Neil Bush endorsement.

That, of course, is Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a vaguely fascist mass cult leader who gives a lot of money to politicians (generally Republicans) and owns the Washington Times, a conservative DC newspaper. He recently provlaimed himself the Massaiah on Capitol Hill. The truth is stranger than fiction.

And on that note, in case you've been in a hole all week, Dick Cheney shot a man.

Anyway, headed down to DC tomorrow, wheeling and dealing with Trellon. We're gonna by buying some drinks for friends Thursday night; email me if you wanna come. Back on Saturday for Frank and Laura's a-Typical Wedding Party. They got engaged and then married by the court. Shazam!

There's a fair amount of gammering going on around lately wrt Ann Coulter, partly because she recently was a featured speaker at the biggest "movement conservative" convention of the year and scoffed "I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences," According to Max Blumenthal, who "infiltrated" CPAC to report on what went down.

His stuff was picked up eventually by the Huffington Post, which is probably why it was used as an example in the Glenn Greenwald post I linked to the other day about right wing cultism. The rational digestion.

And now the final arc of a Coulter Event, the parody:

Bill Maher, from Los Angeles, CA writes:
Ann, sweetcheeks – call me back, OK? Why is it we only hook up when you’re in LA, lonely, and zonked on Dexatrim? Anyway, I'm having a little bipartisan snugglefest tonight on my vibrating waterbed to break in my new hookah. Would love to have you. Can you hop the next red-eye to "La"?

Ann Coulter:
Bill, take it easy, please. This whole "friends" thing was hatched for book cross-marketing purposes, remember? Yes, I was a deadhead for many years, and yes, my 35-foot Eddie Bauer edition Airsteam was party central in concert parking lots from coast to coast. But come on. Weed? Everyone knows I was always an acid queen.

The rest is savage, a lot of it sexual, verging on misogynistic... but if you can stomach it, quite hilarious. The pathology is explored from all angles.

This is the work of an artiste, but crude at the same time. Many critiques of Coulter are inflected by/towards her sexuality. I think it's because politics is still dominated by men with issues with women, especially on that side. I mean, she's literally the most prominant conservative woman in the political mass psyche. Think about that. Creepy.

There's so much weirdness in politics, especially deep right wing politics, it's good fodder for the nerdly mind. Like what was on the other end of that "acid queen" link. Someone had fun making that. The truth is stranger than fiction, and it makes for great humor, list this:

Moon has been talking about saving the world with a tunnel to Russia. But astute AlterNet reader Mitch Kramer points out that his rival, power-hungry doomsday peddler Lyndon LaRouche, was talking about building his own world-saving tunnel to Russia shortly after 9/11, without a Neil Bush endorsement.

That, of course, is Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a vaguely fascist mass cult leader who gives a lot of money to politicians (generally Republicans) and owns the Washington Times, a conservative DC newspaper. He recently provlaimed himself the Massaiah on Capitol Hill. The truth is stranger than fiction.

And on that note, in case you've been in a hole all week, Dick Cheney shot a man.

Anyway, headed down to DC tomorrow, wheeling and dealing with Trellon. We're gonna by buying some drinks for friends Thursday night; email me if you wanna come. Back on Saturday for Frank and Laura's a-Typical Wedding Party. They got engaged and then married by the court. Shazam!

As the collective methological knoweldge of the Open Source movement begins to permeate those who understand government and politics and things of that nature, I suspect we'll begin to see more and more stuff like this:

The real damage to our national security isn't in the too much disclosure of information. Al Qaeda doesn't have bureaucracies of analysts and spies probing for weaknesses in the American security system. The worst thing that could potentially happen is that the name of a captured jihadi is prematurely leaked before useful intelligence can be gained. Does anyone truly think that al Qaeda actually believed that e-mails and phone calls to the US weren't being monitored?

No, the HUGE problem, the elephant in the room, isn't leaks. Rather, it is in a complete lack of transparency. As we have seen again and again, secrecy prevents the full analysis of alternatives. It shuts down debate and prevents the qualification of sources. It is also the crutch of bad and/or nefarious management.

This is why Microsoft's products are routinely exploited by malicious software (viruses, spyware, etc) and high-quality open source products are not. Market-share is a factor, but the reality is there are simply way more holes in Windows than in Linux (or BSD, the open source core of MacOS X). There is no way for you to vet the Windows code, whereas every proposed patch and development to any active open source project will be reviewed and debated -- in public, I might add -- by experts in the field, with the opportunity for anyone at any time to suggest an improvement or fix.

The application of this simple revelation to Government is a little tricky, but the overrarching lesson is that Security Through Obscurity Is Not Dependable, and may in fact create vulnerability, not to mention being latently undemocratic.

The simple reality is that in the 21st-Century, Governments must go on-line in a real way which empoweres citizens to learn about, watchdog and interact with public servants and services. This will inevitably provide better governance, which is what citizens deserve and desire. The first political party to explain (perhaps demonstrate) and "own" this sort of initiative will make political hay.

Why do local credit unions routinely have better web services than the Social Security Administration?

Why isn't the Government providing secure, trusted, unified identity services?

Why isn't a unified federal budget available online with the ability to drill down from departmental appropriations to specific expendatures?

The truth is that people respond to real information as well as to propaganda and fearmongering. In the long run, one form of building political capital creates a strong civil society which can make collective desisions and support itself, and the other creates a latently facist Daddy State in which citizens are disempowered, afraid, and seek protection and patronage from their superiors in the statehouse.

Pick one.

As the collective methological knoweldge of the Open Source movement begins to permeate those who understand government and politics and things of that nature, I suspect we'll begin to see more and more stuff like this:

The real damage to our national security isn't in the too much disclosure of information. Al Qaeda doesn't have bureaucracies of analysts and spies probing for weaknesses in the American security system. The worst thing that could potentially happen is that the name of a captured jihadi is prematurely leaked before useful intelligence can be gained. Does anyone truly think that al Qaeda actually believed that e-mails and phone calls to the US weren't being monitored?

No, the HUGE problem, the elephant in the room, isn't leaks. Rather, it is in a complete lack of transparency. As we have seen again and again, secrecy prevents the full analysis of alternatives. It shuts down debate and prevents the qualification of sources. It is also the crutch of bad and/or nefarious management.

This is why Microsoft's products are routinely exploited by malicious software (viruses, spyware, etc) and high-quality open source products are not. Market-share is a factor, but the reality is there are simply way more holes in Windows than in Linux (or BSD, the open source core of MacOS X). There is no way for you to vet the Windows code, whereas every proposed patch and development to any active open source project will be reviewed and debated -- in public, I might add -- by experts in the field, with the opportunity for anyone at any time to suggest an improvement or fix.

The application of this simple revelation to Government is a little tricky, but the overrarching lesson is that Security Through Obscurity Is Not Dependable, and may in fact create vulnerability, not to mention being latently undemocratic.

The simple reality is that in the 21st-Century, Governments must go on-line in a real way which empoweres citizens to learn about, watchdog and interact with public servants and services. This will inevitably provide better governance, which is what citizens deserve and desire. The first political party to explain (perhaps demonstrate) and "own" this sort of initiative will make political hay.

Why do local credit unions routinely have better web services than the Social Security Administration?

Why isn't the Government providing secure, trusted, unified identity services?

Why isn't a unified federal budget available online with the ability to drill down from departmental appropriations to specific expendatures?

The truth is that people respond to real information as well as to propaganda and fearmongering. In the long run, one form of building political capital creates a strong civil society which can make collective desisions and support itself, and the other creates a latently facist Daddy State in which citizens are disempowered, afraid, and seek protection and patronage from their superiors in the statehouse.

Pick one.

This week I'm headed to British Columbia for DrupalCon 2006.

I'll be using my flight time to do some noodling.

Will post from there.

This week I'm headed to British Columbia for DrupalCon 2006.

I'll be using my flight time to do some noodling.

Will post from there.

Representing perennial powerhouse, Hastings college of Law, he will eat the competition at The national Moot Court competetion just like he ate that plate of steak and potatoes.

To get yrself pumped up, may I suggest a quick... montage!

It's gonna be a show-down... goin' downtown, gonna mess around, showdown, put your nose down... SHOW-DOWN!

Just watched the first 7 episodes of Boondocks. It's seems to be just finding it's stride, the timing could be tighter at times, but it's most definiately smart and most definitely art. The comedy pushes the envelope constantly, and the visuals are quite cinematic.

I, of course, enjoy the politics. I mean, the episode with the two whiteboy gangsters named W and Rummy, and W's voiced by Charlie Murphy and Rummy's voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, and he's shouting, "The absense of evidence is not evidence of absence!" and "That's an unknown unknown!" while on a spree of robbery disguised as vigilantism... that was fucking funny.

I torrented the pack of episodes because I'd been curious about the show (have enjoyed the comic strip) but then I heard somewhere it wasn't good. Since I don't have cable, I never saw for myself. But then I read this post by Steve Gillard:

Besides the gorgeous, anime-level animation, the politcs here are much more aggressive than in the strip. The word nigga is the least reason to complain about the show. The grandfather beats a man to death over an argument, Uncle Rukus is a self-hating black man who would surpass the clowns who work for NRO. In short, there is a lot to dislike about the show.

But, the fact is that this is the first time a non-rapper, non-novelist gets to have a forum to discuss black life from someone under 50. This is a nearly unique perspective on modern African American life and it is not comfortable at times. But it is not ignorant either. It is extremely well thought out and makes points in a way which need to be made.

That sounded interesting, so I decided to check it out. Ironically, Steve's blog post was in response to Al Sharpton asking Aaron McGruder (the creator of the show and strip) to apologize for a recent episode which I have not seen that they did with Dr. King. So, you have me getting turned on to a show because Al Sharpton called for the creator to apologize for the show being offensive. Fucking postmodern, yeah.

Anyway, enjoyable comedy. I heard they got renewed. Many happy returns to McGruder and cheers to Comedy Central Cartoon Network (thanks Stephen... it's all bittorrent to me) for taking a chance on something nonstandard.