Take a look at some of the contested ballots in the Minnesota Senate race at BAGnewsNotes.

I'm writing in "Lizard People" for Congress in 2010.

Tonight's Zelda's Inferno exercise: Write something that is truthful, but that sounds made-up. This came out rather essay-ish, probably since I'd been working on the book earlier.

There are things that are true that you'd never believe if not properly prepared. Like the idea that light is both a particle and a wave. Or that Euler's constant to the power of pi times the square root of minus one, works out to be one. Or that everything that you are, everything that you know and think and dream, is generated by about a liter and half of fatty meat. You hear these ideas for the first time, you think "Dude, you are full of shit. No way that's true."

Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. But the notion of "sense" encoded in the structure of our brains evolved out of the survival needs of primates on the jungles and grasslands of Africa, not out of science or technology or mathematics or art. The universe doesn't care whether or not it is sensible to our monkey-minds.

Heading for Kate's party last night, I was headed west on Edmondson Avenue, about to turn left on Old Frederick Road. A car coming the other way got into the right lane, pulled out into the intersection, stopped, put his left blinker on, and just stood there. WTF? As I tried to go around him, I saw the driver waving at me. Guess he was lost.

I rolled down my window.

"Excuse me," he yelled, "can you tell me how to get to Edmondson Avenue, back in the the city?" (For those who don't know, I'm a short way out into the suburbs of Baltimore, just a few miles from the city line.)

"Well, this is Edmondson."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. Just keep going the way you're going and it'll take you into the city."

"Thanks!" And we each went on our way.

This is certainly a metaphor for something, isn't it?

From the Baltimore Sun: "Baltimore officials activated an energy generation plant at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Facility this morning, extinguishing the 20-foot flares burning the methane gas that will now provide 20 percent of the plant's electricity."

Back in February 2006, I posted about the dangers of the ubiquitous chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA), a synthetic hormone that is the building block of polycarbonate.

More attention has been focused on BPA of late. Time reports on the latest data and the latest regulatory action:

Why the renewed uproar over plastic? Since the FDA completed its original analysis in August, additional data on the potential health effects of BPA have emerged, linking high levels of BPA exposure to increased risk of heart disease and diabetes and even a decreased sensitivity to chemotherapy in cancer patients. The compound is also linked to developmental and brain effects in infants; BPA is known to mimic the hormone estrogen in the body, which can cause changes in developing fetuses and infants. "There is enough evidence today for the FDA to take the precaution and to certainly get BPA out of infant products," says Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. "Even more, consumers should not be ingesting this substance while the science is being figured out."

Tonight's Zelda's Inferno exercise: riffing off a phrase from Kurt Vonneygut, "If this isn't pleasant, I don't know what is." Mine sort of turned into a list poem, but I think it has some potential.

"...all times I have enjoyed / Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those / That loved me, and alone..." -- Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Once I sat with a friend on his back porch, drinking crazy ginsing liquor and smoking cigars and laughing late into the night.

Once I danced around a bonfire and handed out golden apples to women, saying to each, "For the prettiest one"

Once I drove home in the light of dawn after playing music at a party, playing all night, people coming into the room where I was to hear, the first time I drew an audience of strangers

Once I stood on the beach with my fellow karate-ka in a thunderstorm - and this was stupid - but we trained in the rain, punching and kicking and throwing each other to the sand, and shouting our kiai to challenge the thunder

Once I sat in a hammock in the woods and strummed my guitar, making up nonsense songs

The Minnesota senate race remains too close to call. The margin is just 238 votes, 1,211,542 to 1,211,304 in GOP candidate Coleman's favor. The recount seems to be running Franken's favor and closing the gap, so the Coleman campaign is trying to stop it.

Once again, we hear "count every vote!" for the Democrats, and "some votes are more equal than others!" from the Republicans.

Tom's Post-Election Reflections: 2008

My friends,

Four years ago, I sent out a little screed about the disappointment of the 2004 elections (http://www.infamous.net/election2004msg.html). It seems fitting, after recent events, to send out a follow-up.

So. Wow. This is a new experience. For the first time in my life - all the way back to that "Weekly Reader" mock election in 1976 - the Presidential candidate for whom I voted, has won. (Yes, I voted for Ford when I was six. Ah, the folly of youth.)

Last October, I wrote that Obama and Kucinich were my favorites among the major party candidates, and praised Obama's commonsense take on nuclear disarmament, diplomacy with rival nations, and the demonstration of patriotism by action rather than by jewelry.

Given my history with Presidential candidates, I figured that my positive reaction meant that his campaign was doomed.

As it turned out, somehow this time was different.

Yes, I was disappointed along the way: Obama's backpedaling on marijuana decriminalization, his reversal on FISA, his softening stance on getting us the hell out of Iraq, and his failure to stand up for full legal equality for gay and lesbian couples, saddened me.

I thought about giving my vote to Cynthia McKinney (the Green Party candidate) or Ralph Nader. But in the end, when I marked my ballot next to the name Barack Obama, I felt good. I felt proud.

And on Tuesday I left Maryland and joined thousands of other volunteers in Virginia. I got partnered up with a Navy veteran (a gay submarine veteran, no less!) and we walked around Reston, knocking on doors and reminding Obama supporters to vote. And we helped get the state that at one time held the capital of the Confederate States of America, to cast its electoral votes for the first black President.

Wow.

Now what?