2013-03-21

holdings

the vatican owns
Italy's top gay bathhouse
but swears it's "hands off"

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through

past the isotherm
no  longer just clinging on
the rockets kick in

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epistemology

Bishop Berkeley knew
just what went on in his head
the rest was hearsay

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false witness

routine perjury
taints many drug convictions
yet the cops walk free

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Telushkin III

rabbi Telushkin
fears Hillel has gotten lost
in Shammai's rule books

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Telushkin II

Telushkin argues
Shammai's codified rule books
are crushing Hillel

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above the law

Cheney's grand project
Executive without bounds
threatens all our Rights

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great circle of life II

lizards hunting flies
hunted--in their turn--by cats
great horned owl watching

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Telushkin

Telushkin's "Hillel"
rips pious orthodoxy
on Social Action

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Green war

Ukrainians train
dolphins to harpoon Russian
low-carbon warfare

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post-Hillel

Orthodoxy drifts
step by step, insensibly
to endorse Shammai

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neoTzarist

Putin's new Russia
puts Cossacks above the law
"same as the old boss"

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circus

Steubenville headlines
humanize the criminals
more than the victim

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Mission Accomplished!

ten years in Iraq
Weapons of Mass Destruction
tally: zero (still)

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narrow

Roth's narcissism
leaves little room for women
except as objects

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insight

no less than Darwin
the Dunning-Kruger effect
explains the workplace

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pipedream

"the charm is broken
all the phantom-world so fair"
shattered at Porlock

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quest

like Diogenes
senator Patrick Leahy
peers into darkness

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so fucking easy

hire a teenager
while she still knows everything
to fix the world's ills

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faith and credit

sign at the checkout
announces: "IN GOD WE TRUST
all others, pay cash"

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devastation

the Porlock merchant
collecting a petty debt
laid waste to a world

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kingmaker

in urban districts
Stephen Colbert's influence
could shape our Congress

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2013-03-12

pattern recognition

viewed from too close up
Claude Monet's water-lillies
dissolve into noise

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priorities

in this troubled world
the love of power confounds
the power of love

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hysteresis

growth factors amok
an exuberance of bone
can freeze a shoulder

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culture clash

Funston-trained ridge-rats
clog the air in front of launch
thermalling takes room!

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interesting?

Freud's theory of dreams
defies falsification
unscientific

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unforgiven

Mark Sanford's ex-wife
demurred to help him campaign
nest to "that woman"

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bad boy

for the Arab Street
Chavez was a new Nassar
tweaking Uncle Sam

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collateral

al-Assad's death throes
convulse the entire region
sucks for Lebanon

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peers?

George Zimmerman hopes
a jury of scared racists
will find murder "just"

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slow victory

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's
dissent in re Ledbetter
got the law repaired

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unmoored

Dennis Rodman's trip
boosted Kim Jong-un's ego
through the stratosphere

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score!

seasonal bounty
as I'm filleting herring
bonus sacs of roe

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fundamental

cationic bees
choose anionic blossoms
basic attraction

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vantage

keep some perspective
one's "collateral damage"
is another's "son"

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deracinated

Yiddishkeit's dying
wine-swilling Californians
sniff at slivovitz

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tenuous

a thin rind of air
clinging like a coat of paint
bounds our biosphere

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bloat

siddurim wax fat
obsessive-compulsive Jews
cling to every verse

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bought


Feinstein blocked Wyden
"Regulatory Capture"
greased John Brennan's path

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lynched

two al-Awlakis
killed by their own government
haunt a nation's sleep

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S/N

sorting EEG
from EMG artifacts
most papers are crap

hospitality

Avram avinu
treated strangers like angels
each one worth a world

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unballanced power

a craven Congress
shirks its duty to impeach
even for murder

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institutional inertia

LBJ was warned
if we blink in Vietnam
dominoes will fall

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over and out

sign on the clinic
exhortative? Humorous?
"REHAB'S FOR QUITTERS"

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used

let's drop the pretense
Dubya was a sock-puppet
over Cheney's fist

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un-free press

in-bed editors
quashed Brennan's Awlaki link
'til he'd been confirmed

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echoes

Tolkien wasn't coy
modeled Rohan on Saxons
and the Dwarves on Jews

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brat

Kim Jong-un's tantrum
tearing up the armistice
to get attention

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hello? hello?

there's nothing "out there"
reality's a construct
built on sparse data

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2013-03-04

importance

in the Berkeley Club
one teaches, the other talks
crossed priorities

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self-made fraud

perfect candidate
born cute in a log cabin
that he'd built himself

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poof

clouds well below launch
didn't stop us flying Tam
however briefly

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Banks' man

decoupling Wall Street
from U.S. economy
Geithner's sleight of hand

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meet the new boss...

evil Emperor
installs his clone on the throne
retreats to shadow

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the Green of the Red

take only headshots
leave only offal to rot
rednecks' Green ethos

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dark dreams

Hrothgar's countrymen
drink the Winter nights away
dreaming of the Sun

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frosted

snow caps Diablo
like some out-sized confection
to tittilate Thor

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out-classed

honorable show
Thor came in second to Fire
dumb eating contest

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dumb and dumber

tetraethyl lead
poisoned a generation
to make Big Oil rich

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Mensheviks

colonoscopies
out-poll most Republicans
money can't buy love

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see what it gets you

oppressed Tibetans
piously non-violent
get snubbed, robbed and killed

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self portrait

portrait of a mind
edgy as a mosaic
composed of haiku

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winning

Darwin's bottom line
breeding opportunities
reward high status

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sinking through lift

helical glide-path
optimizing the thermal
stairway to heaven

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simplify

you can forget "speed"
it's all "angle of attack"
from the wing's vantage

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blah blah blah

fake erudition
names things but explains nothing
no one's the wiser

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death throes?

as al-Assad falls
Hezbollah's feeling naked
cranks up violence

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Stick and Rudder

for Langewiesche
every LZ's a short field
he comes in nose-high

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timeless

fifth century bards
Aeschylus, Euripides...
spawned modernity

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uncoupled

until Tim Geithner
rising tides lifted all boats
now, it's "sauve qui peut"

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don't forget to close the door

Texas patriots
remember the Alamo
more than the Union

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rodef dom

Hariri jr
wants al-Assad jr's head
to fatten the crows

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out of the ring

as the conclave looms
Keith cardinal O'Brien
turned in his red hat

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proto-humanist

the Eumenides
replaced Furies with juries
meting out Justice

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hero

Douglas Fairbanks' films
invented Action Heroes
steroids came later

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vanity of vanities

all schoolboys' hero
rather than dull senescence
Achilles chose death

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the road to Hell

Bibi's ambition
for anschluss with the WestBank
taints Zionism

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