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Sweet blog special: Behind the Clinton/Obama YouTube ad: The mysterious "ParkRidge47." Who are you?

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Read Sifry's article at
Sifty writes:


This from "ParkRidge47" in response to Sifry e-mail earlier this month.....

"Thank you for your interest in the video. It has been amazing to watch it explode on the viral scene. At one point it was the #3 most watched video on YouTube and is at 108,000 views and growing.

Considering Hillary Clinton's biggest video has only received 12,000 views on YouTube, I'd say the grassroots has won the first round.

The idea was simple and so was the execution. Make a bold statement about the Democratic primary race by culture jacking a famous commercial and replacing as few images as possible. For some people it doesn't register, but for people familiar with the ad and the race it has obviously struck a chord.

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Thank you for welcoming me.


Montreal, March 22, 1995

President William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Mister President:



"Uphold Democracy" operation is truly a beautiful historical moment.


With underdeveloped tools - a camera and a few films - I have tried, in
denounce Newton's Theory of Colors.

have written the enclosed book entitled Haiti, Let There Be Light! I hope

represent! Please believe me: your courageous commitment to facilitate the
of your swearing-in ceremony, I wished to send you my book, Haďti, Que La
Lumičre Soit!, which questions Newton's Theory of Colors. I did not do so,

of my book, I contented myself with dreaming - dreaming that on one of your
Mrs. Clinton and your daughter Chelsea. You were reading Haďti, Que La
Lumičre Soit! I imagined you carefully examining certain passages of that
work in its English version, which is now in preparation - typed by a
missing matter, darkness in space, "black holes" - in a word: the invisible
Valleys", which contained the following passage:


House since Thomas Jefferson.

Nixon could not run a tape recorder.

Johnson could not fully figure out his alarm wrist watch.

speculation that they might provide answers to what holds the Universe

the President of a star-spangled republic to choose between "Star Peace" and
"Star War". As to the former President's inclination toward Einstein's
certain laws of the Cosmos to politics and diplomacy. Consider the "Tunnel
Effect", the way that energy escapes from black holes.

me think about Aristide - both of them are well at ease in both the Western
one difference: the Haitians follow Aristide everywhere, like a comet's
tail. If Aristide is considered as a "Black Sun", then the Haitians are
"space refugees".

"Yes, Haiti! We are pulled down to earth. Democracy. the exodus of the Boat
People. with the Law of Probabilities, whether we think about Planck or

"What business did the Haitians have in that "boat"?"

of the "Black Sun"?"

Let there be light! Que la lumičre soit! Black holes, black sun, tunnel
effect, Aristide effect, boat people, space refugees, Carl Sagan, Jimmy
Carter. six of one and half a dozen of the other."

There is loud laughter in the Oval Room.

Bill a ri Bill laughed
Hillary a ri Hillary laughed
Chelsea a ri aussi Chelsea laughed too

Humor is American, Mr. President, and so are dreams. Let my book "Haïti! Que
La Lumière Soit!" be the "dark matter", arguing in favor of the development
of the Black world - visible and invisible!


propelled by the energy of invisible and concentrated dark matter, like
black holes. A mini black hole of an avant-garde design whose motor sequence
light, and scientifically controlled reversibility of the phenomenon.

What a new synthesis, but also what a liberation!

Synthesis and analysis are two wings of the same bird - contracted and

This would be the natural and constructive counterpart of Newton's Theory of
with its camera.



where law and order are transcendent, just as in democracy.

like an inevitable and immeasurable energy, has practically absorbed me,
allowing me to express myself.

On October 4, 1994, in the General Assembly of the United Nations, a voice
echoed the power of your leadership. In new words, on March 31, 1995, that
same voice will repeat:

"Even now, with the peaceful launching of the operation "UPHOLD DEMOCRACY"
on 19 September last year, a tropical smile has shed light upon the faces of
those who espouse and love peace - Peacemakers, Peacekeepers, and
Peacelovers. Together, President Clinton and we have managed to open up a
"tunnel" of hope after so much suffering."

That testimony by President Aristide at the U.N. emphasizes the magnitude of
the efforts needed to bring about such a happy conclusion.

Your present trip to Haiti is the strongest confirmation of that sequence of
well as in the life of the Haitian people

Development Initiative (S.D.I.) at the dawn of the "Star Peace".

Glaze Storm



The Right Honorable Lucien Bouchard

Prime Minister of Quebec

Building Hydro-Québec

75, boulevard René Lévesque Ouest

Montréal (Québec)

H2Z 1A4

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:





Each of us should express solidarity, according to his means.








Why did that happened to me, in such a way, like an ice storm, camera in hand, in full darkness? - " the taboo arises as a negative categorical imperative," affirms Roger Caillois. It is not saying little. Especially when it is a question of adequately correcting the theory of Newton on light and colors.



Presently, why should we take the result instead of the cause? Objectively and in a pragmatic way, by a new synthesis; consequently, what a liberation ! At the threshold of the third millennium, let light live, invisible by synthesis, visible by analysis.



Energetic formula with a unique character !


A winning formula !

In Québec !

By Hydro-Québec !











Is it still broad daylight

in the shadow of the black sun?

Yours truly,



96 percent of cosmos puzzles astronomers
Friday, June 20, 2003 Posted: 1629 GMT (12:29 AM HKT)

Luminous matter accounts for only about 0.4 percent of the universe.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Earth, moon, sun and all visible stars in the sky make up less than one percent of the universe. Almost all the rest is dark matter and dark energy, unknown forces that puzzle astronomers.

Observations in recent years have changed the basic understanding of how the universe evolved and have emphasized for astronomers how little is known about the major forces and substances that shaped our world.

Astronomers now know that luminous matter -- stars, planets and hot gas -- account for only about 0.4 percent of the universe. Nonluminous components, such as black holes and intergalactic gas, make up 3.6 percent. The rest is either dark matter, about 23 percent, or dark energy, about 73 percent.

Dark matter, sometimes called "cold dark matter," has been known for some time. Only recently have researchers come to understand the pivotal role it played in the formation of stars, planets and even people.

"We owe our very existence to dark matter," said Paul Steinhardt, a physicist at Princeton University and a co-author of a review on dark matter appearing this week in the journal Science.

Steinhardt said it is believed that following the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe, dark matter caused particles to clump together. That set up the gravitation processes that led to the formation of stars and galaxies. Those stars, in turn, created the basic chemicals, such as carbon and iron, that were fundamental to the evolution of life.

"Dark matter dominated the formation of structure in the early universe," Steinhardt said. "For the first few billion years dark matter contained most of the mass of the universe. You can think of ordinary matter as a froth on an ocean of dark matter. The dark matter clumps and the ordinary matter falls into it. That led to the formation of the stars and galaxies."

Without dark matter, "there would be virtually no structures in the universe," he said.

The nature of dark matter is unknown. It cannot be seen or detected directly. Astronomers know it is there because of its effect on celestial objects than can be seen and measured.

But the most dominating force of all in the universe is called dark energy, a recently proven power that astronomers say is causing the galaxies in the universe to separate at a faster and faster speed. It is the force that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate.

Robert P. Kirshner, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the presence of dark energy was proved only five years ago when astronomers studying very distant exploding stars discovered they were moving away at a constant acceleration. It was a stunning discovery that has since been proved by other observations.

Kirshner said it is clear now that dark matter and dark energy engaged in a gravitational tug of war that, eventually, dark energy won.

Following the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago, matter in the universe streaked outward. It formed galaxies, thinned out and then began to slow down.

"Dark matter was trying to slow things down and dark energy was trying to speed it up," said Kirshner, the author of a review article on dark energy in Science.

"We think dark matter was winning for the first seven billion years, but then universe went from slowing down to speeding up. ... Dark energy took over."

Kirshner said astronomers do not really understand dark energy. Albert Einstein first proposed a form of the idea, but discarded it later. Now, researchers know it exists, but its exact form and nature are mysterious, although it is thought to be related to gravity.

"What this is pointing to is a deep mystery at the heart of physics," said Kirshner. "We don't understand gravity in the same way we understand other forces."

He said there are virtually no experiments on Earth that would explore the nature of dark energy. It can only be studied across vast stellar distances by observing the motion of objects extremely far away, a skill that has been possible only in recent decades with the development of very powerful telescopes.

"Dark energy will cause the universe to expanded faster and faster and eventually, over time, we will see less and less of it," Kirshner said. Over millions of years, familiar stars and nearby galaxies will disappear from view and the sky, now choked with stars, will slowly darken.

"The piece of the universe that we can see will get lonelier and lonelier," he said. (

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This page contains a single entry by Lynn Sweet published on March 20, 2007 4:47 PM.

Sweet blog special: Obama's Harvard pals high dollar fundraiser. UPDATE. Dodd funder. was the previous entry in this blog.

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