I, Michael Andrew DuVernois, being of somewhat sound mind and of sound, if often uncoordinated, body do hereby swear, affirm, state, pledge, and promise that in no way do I speak for the School of Physics and Astronomy, the Institute of Technology, the Astrophysics research group, the high-energy research group, or any other part, program, subprogram, division, subdivision, independent, or semi-independent portion of The University of Minnesota. Taking this further, I don't speak for any organizations except for myself (hey, I'm not even incorporated for tax purposes), my church congregation of approximately one (I'm a minister in the Universal Life Church --put that in your pipe and smoke it), my (former) bands (Psychick on Toast and Nitrogen Narcosis for You and Me), and my (former) record label (Toasty toast). Furthermore, my opinions and statements are purely my own, save when they are taken from others, with or without proper attribution. I believe that the First Ammendment (look it up, what are you, lazy?) has yet to be overturned, though I have cancelled my corporate newspaper subscription because of the O.J. Simpson coverage, then forgotten to resume it because of the continuing Iraq Wars, Monica Lewinsky, Princess Die, Survivor, Dubya, etc., so I might have missed something important. (Hey, my senators (when I lived in Illinois) voted against the Exon Bill so it would be hard to blame me for this particular erosion of freedom.) All contents are offered purely for entertainment purposes and any harm, damage, pain, death, legal problems, annoyed neighbors, and ruined sex lives are entirely the fault of the reader. For example, if I have an article about how one, in theory, might make a really large bomb (heck, even for a REALLY REALLY large bomb), it is your responsibility if you make the bomb and it explodes, killing or wounding or maiming either you or others or even your pets. Likewise if the bomb fails to explode, it is also your fault, your responsibility, and not mine. Making the bomb is wrong, not to mention mostly illegal, although publishing the information on how to make the bomb is neither illegal nor wrong. Information has a freedom of its own. Copyrights are a curious thing though, especially in an electronic age--if in doubt of this, ask the kindly folks at Negativland. Alternately, you could ask the people who have had their homes raided by the Scientologists, but I digress, especially now that these pages are 100% Co$-free. To clarify my position then: all material contained in these files are, to the best of my knowledge, implicitly copyrighted by myself, specifically uncopyrighted, specifically copyrighted to the individual, group, or organization mentioned in the document, in the public domain, or else something legal like that. I make no money from this electronic publication, am not (currently) a member of the Communist Party, am ignored by the censors so far, and have never organized a union of graduate students or postdocs or anything else. Does that cover me? Well, I guess anyone can be sued for anything regardless of disclaimers, so let me tell you that I'm a poor assistant professor driving a 15 year old Volvo and it would be a waste of time to take me to court. So there. These files are for the private use of adult individuals over the age of 21 (twenty one) only (at least in the United States of America, where freedom is guaranteed for all who can afford it). These files might very well offend those of the so-called Christian Right which is neither. (For political correctness I have deleted the part of the disclaimer where I worry about creeping fascism in this country.) (I am also opposed to Spanish Fascism, but that war was fought and lost a long time ago. The last noble cause...) Some images and text that I make available over the net may well be defined as obscene, perverse, obscure, evil, "bad," or dangerous to the status quo in parts of the United States and possibly in other countries still struggling out of the dark ages also. In fact some of the material is objectionable to me too. All hail Kibo!

"I am no-one's representative and I have no programmes to push." -R. Vaneigem