I find that I need to address some accusations being made about my time as President of the Free Spirit Alliance; and, more seriously, to discuss a violation of fiduciary duty by one of FSA's Trustees. This will probably lose me a few friends, and now that FSA has a way to expel members it may even get me kicked out. But I find I've reached my limit on holding my tongue on these matters. On the general theory that "sunlight is the best disinfectant", I'm going to talk about some ugly politics, and about what happened to the Free Spirit Beltane event.

The tl;dr version: if, as is claimed, FSA Trustee Cat Castells became aware that FSA had not renewed its contract with the site where Free Spirit Beltane was held, she had an obligation to act in FSA's interest and work to ensure that the contract was renewed. She not only neglected to do so, she personally profited from the situation.

If you just want to go to festivals and have a good time -- and who could blame you? -- skip this. It's a long and unpleasant story, probably only of potential interest to people in the Free Spirit community, or to people dealing with the politics of similar organizations who might learn by negative example how to avoid these problems. In the annals of Pagan Politics, it's not one of the more interesting tales, no sex or bigotry or cultish abuse of power, just old-fashioned conflict of interest.

One of the most memorable scenes in The Karate Kid (the original, not the Jackie Chan remake) was when Daniel and Mr. Miyagi visit the Cobra-Kai dojo. John Kreese, the nasty Cobra-Kai sensei, yells to his students, "Fear does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

"No, sensei!" they reply.

"Pain does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

"No, sensei!"

At the BBC, Alan Moore comments on the rise of the Guy Fawkes mask -- made famous by his amazing graphic novel V for Vendetta, and by the mediocre movie adapted from it -- as the face of Anonymous and other protest groups.

(BTW, a guy who seemed to be experiencing a headful of interesting chemicals told me at a New Year's party that I looked like Guy Fawkes...make of that what you will.)

Back in the glory days of USENET, we would half-joke about the "NSA Line Eater", a (hypothetical?) program that scanned posts for keywords like "cocaine", "nuclear materials", or "Palestinian". It was a standard practice to deliberately include these words in one's .sig or in a header, to overwhelm the (supposed?) spooks.

Well my friends, everything old is new again, and history repeats itself as farce. According to our good friends at EPIC, DHS is using fake accounts to routinely monitor Twitter and Facebook for key terms. And they're serious about it: two unfortunate British tourists were denied entry to the U.S., arrested, and had their passports confiscated after joking on Twitter that they were going to "destroy America" and "dig up Marilyn Monroe".

Now, here's the thing about our confused fans in domestic surveillance: they've actually given us a partial list of what they're looking for. Page 17 of this Department of Homeland Security memo tells us that terms like:

• assassination
• drill
• national preparedness
• dirty bomb
• domestic nuclear detection
• militia
• shots fired
• hostage
• explosion
• state of emergency
• breach
• anthrax
• nerve agent
• ricin
• H5N1

-- well, the list goes on for a bit -- will get their attention.

So, in the spirit of the old NSA Line Eater, and to show that broad snooping, arresting tourists for Family Guy-inspired jokes, and security theater are not the ways to keep us safe, I suggest we start incorporating these terms into our tweets and posts. Have fun.

(nerve agent ricin H5N1)

Three crazy things I read before breakfast today:

• a purported "theory of everything" from an assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology at Case Western Reserve University. A breathless press release titled "Radical theory explains the origin, evolution, and nature of life, challenges conventional wisdom" has been making the rounds, and kicking up some excitement among people who don't read it thoroughly or don't know enough science to spot it as the gibberish it is:

  By fitting the gyromodel to facts accumulated over scientific history, Dr. Andrulis confirms the proposed existence of eight laws of nature. One of these, the natural law of unity, decrees that the living cell and any part of the visible universe are irreducible. This law formally establishes that there is one physical reality.

  Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

  For thorough debunking, see Ars Technica, Retration Watch, and PZ Myers. My first guess was that we might have a Sokal here, but instead it looks like a smart guy having a breakdown. May his nervous system recover its equilibrium.

  But the product of Dr. Andrulis's unbalanced brain is not nearly as nutso as two proposals I read today from Republicans:

In the Disney version of The Jungle Book, King Louie famously sings of his desire to master fire:

Now don't try to kid me, mancub

I made a deal with you

What I desire is man's red fire

To make my dream come true

Give me the secret, mancub

Clue me what to do

Give me the power of man's red flower

So I can be like you

Kanzi the bonobo not only shares this fascination with fire, but can use a lighter to start one, putting to rest the myth that the "dumb beasts" fear fire.

From the "life is great in 21228" department, here's some nice local news: Baltimore City is donating 11 acres in Catonsville to Baltimore County. (For readers outside the region, I should note that Baltimore is an independent city, not part of the county.

Valued at $110,000, the land had been owned by Baltimore City since the 1920s, but the city apparently lost track of it for some time. The space is near Frederick and Rolling Roads; the county will use the land either for a park or a garden, or leave it as a natural area.

This follows on the heels of last month's transfer of 23 acres from Catonsville Rails to Trails to the county, which will ensure that the Short Line Trail will remain open space for years to come.

From the beautiful irony department: a South Carolina circuit court judge has ruled that New Beginnings Baptist Church, a "black church" according to the AP, owns the building housing the "Redneck Shop", a disgusting little business which runs a Klan museum and sells such winning merchandise as KKK robes and T-shirts with racial slurs.

The Redneck Shop runs out of an old movie theater in Laurens, about 70 miles northwest from Columbia. SC. It's been there since 1996, but in 1997 in-fighting within the KKK, and possibly someone seeing the light, resulted in one the Klansmen transferring the building to church ownership.

While a clause in the deed entitles proprietor John Howard, the former KKK grand dragon for the Carolinas who is the store's proprietor, to run his store in the buildng until he dies, the delightful-ness of this irony remains.

As the year opens, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the subject of time.

Time-keeping is complicated. A great example is the recent movement of the international date line to put Samoa and Tokelau on the other side, as the U.S. declines in relative importance as a trading parter compared to Australia, New Zealand, and China.

Time exists at the intersection of cosmology, biology, culture, politics, economics, and technology. The cosmological aspects of time are tricky enough, with at least two different but useful ways to define a year, the "solar year" (or" tropical year"), and the "sidereal year". Neither year works out to an even number of days -- and there are slightly different ways to define "day", as well.

My 2011, as told by my tweets/Facebook statuses. (https://twitter.com/tom_swiss, https://www.facebook.com/tom.swiss ) Typos left intact.

Happy New Year! 2010, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...

Least favorite way to start the new year: "OMG the server's down!!!!" & of course I didn't bring a laptop to the NYE party...all fixed now.

Just saw that 11/11/11 will be a Friday, and thus suitable for parties. Start planning your Six Aces Day party now...

should not watch film noir (The Third Man) on a cold and lonely winter night. Too much gloom all at once.

Little girl in Bean Hollow with the walking stick: my inner child has a crush on you and your ready-to-take-on-the-world attitude.

Today's run: on streets due to snow. Google maps says 6.2 miles -- first time I've measured. 64m 25s. Not too bad, given some serious hills.

Thanks all for the b-day love. I plan on heading over to the Judge's Bench around 9ish tonight for a beer or 3, if anyone cares to join me.

Re: the birthday thing: couldn't have done it without Mom, who did most of the work. Thanks. :-)