Kids wearing Rubber "sex bracelets" Is this, as some say, an urban myth? Or is it a case where an urban myth became an urban reality? Alice Cooper really is Eddie Haskell, ya know.
EXCERPT:
(NYP)-- A bizarre new kids' sex craze is sweeping the city's elementary schools.
Girls as young as 11 are stacking colorful rubber "sex bracelets" up their arms while their parents are unaware that each piece of the cheap jewelry represents a different sex act, according to a secret-code the kids share.
Some symbolize an invitation to kinky get-togethers, several kids told The Post.
The kids play a game called "Snap" associated with wearing the bracelets. In the game, girls wear the bracelets around their wrists, and if a boy runs up and rips one off, he gets a "coupon" from the girl to perform whatever sex act the color stands for.
And to think...the best my generation could do was "red on Friday"...
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Ambition makes them greedy : A googlepoem
Ambition makes them greedy : A googlepoem
I dunno. Great breakdown of the newspeak by the way, too.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
We can only observe his acts, and they condemn him as incompetent to lead.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
Would Lee Greenwood stand a chance against the Beatles?
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
My suggestion is for an open thread every 6 hours at minimum.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
back to the return counter for a full refund.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
more consistently, but would be unelectable.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
Maybe I underestimate the American public. I hope I do.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
people would get electrocuted if they tried.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
America. Spalding Gray Swimming to Cambodia, 1987
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
matter how good their methodolgy may seem to you.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
crap that gets passed would have no chance.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
marginalized people of America something to vote FOR.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
They still don't rule the day, but they're mostly not so nice.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
premise. It's related to a circular argument.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
blog, in the view of this cautious optimist.
"Ambition makes them greedy, and mediocrity makes them cheat and lie."
Arnold Voted Most Famous Governor in Recent California Memory
Arnold Voted Most Famous Governor in Recent California Memory
Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous movie actor, is now being celebrated for being the most famous governor too. At least in recent memory...and we know how burnt out the California memory is.
Jerry Brown still reigns as the coolest and hippest governor, but there are still people who think fame is a virtue, and so let's pander to them, shall we?
Fine!
Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous movie actor, is now being celebrated for being the most famous governor too. At least in recent memory...and we know how burnt out the California memory is.
Jerry Brown still reigns as the coolest and hippest governor, but there are still people who think fame is a virtue, and so let's pander to them, shall we?
Fine!
"The Nihilist's Holiday" by Tom Simoneaux
"The Nihilist's Holiday" by Tom Simoneaux
AMAZON LINK
iUNIVERSE LINK
BROWSE THE BOOK
from the book:
"...I do not belong, anywhere, to anything. Any attempt to dig myself a toehold in the social upslope succeeds only in shoveling my coffinhole a little deeper. Nearly twenty-five, and all the people I know are strangers, ciphers, ghosts. I have held apart from others and kept silent and gone cynical and avoided lowering myself into the messy ordinariness of life. Hours, days, months and years slink past in solitude. My ears buzz with the silence."
Letterman: The Gayest Show on Television
Letterman: The Gayest Show on Television
Leave it to Dave to flout the current hypocrisy.
Gays are the "niggers" of today...and the gay-bashers and homophobes are the KKKlan of today.
Where would these ne'er-do-wells be without an enemy to have a culture war against?
Leave it to Dave to flout the current hypocrisy.
Gays are the "niggers" of today...and the gay-bashers and homophobes are the KKKlan of today.
Where would these ne'er-do-wells be without an enemy to have a culture war against?
President Gore's Historic Speech
President Gore's Speech
EXCERPTS (SUBHEADS MINE)
Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared
...
BUSH SQUANDERS AMERICA'S GOOD WILL
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
DOMINANCE IS AS DOMINANCE DOES
More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.
BUSH'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.
One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.
...
BUSH CHANGES TONE, STARTS MURDERING PEOPLE
President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."
George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.
How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.
How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.
...
GORE DEMANDS RESIGNATIONS
We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.
We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.
Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.
George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.
As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.
During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?
The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what's been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights....
...
BUSH'S UNILATERALISM SUCKS
Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.
A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.
Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on."
Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.
Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
...
EXCERPTS (SUBHEADS MINE)
Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared
...
BUSH SQUANDERS AMERICA'S GOOD WILL
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
DOMINANCE IS AS DOMINANCE DOES
More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.
BUSH'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.
One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.
...
BUSH CHANGES TONE, STARTS MURDERING PEOPLE
President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."
George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.
How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.
How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.
...
GORE DEMANDS RESIGNATIONS
We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.
We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.
Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.
George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.
As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.
During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?
The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what's been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights....
...
BUSH'S UNILATERALISM SUCKS
Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.
A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.
Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on."
Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.
Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
...
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Monday, May 24, 2004
20 Minute Ovation for World Hero, Michael Moore
20 Minute Ovation for World Hero, Michael Moore
EXCERPTS:
The festival hung a garland on Moore for his scathing denunciation of the President's dubious democratic credentials, the Bush family connections with the Bin Ladens and the diversionary war on Iraq. It was a spectacular rebuke to Republican and corporate America, a stunning exocet of scorn launched from the epicentre of old Europe.
A widespread cinema release could bring anti-war/anti-Bush opinion to the political tipping point. It might make a real difference to the Presidential election and perhaps even to the future of American and British troops in Iraq. It isn't often that Cannes juries have it in their power to change the course of history.
EXCERPTS:
The festival hung a garland on Moore for his scathing denunciation of the President's dubious democratic credentials, the Bush family connections with the Bin Ladens and the diversionary war on Iraq. It was a spectacular rebuke to Republican and corporate America, a stunning exocet of scorn launched from the epicentre of old Europe.
A widespread cinema release could bring anti-war/anti-Bush opinion to the political tipping point. It might make a real difference to the Presidential election and perhaps even to the future of American and British troops in Iraq. It isn't often that Cannes juries have it in their power to change the course of history.
Carl Bernstein: Bush is another Nixon
Carl Bernstein: Bush is another Nixon
History lesson: GOP must stop Bush
By Carl Bernstein
Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution and rule of law.
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator — Howard Baker of Tennessee — famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago.
Today, confronted by the graphic horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, by ginned-up intelligence to justify war, by 652 American deaths since presidential operatives declared "Mission Accomplished," Republican leaders have yet to suggest that George W. Bush be held responsible for the disaster in Iraq and that perhaps he, not just Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is ill-suited for his job.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
The Day After Tomorrow - seeing the pictures makes it more real
The Day After Tomorrow
"Everyone knew this was happening...seeing the pictures simply made it all more real and tangible somehow." - Donald Rumsfeld
"From the scientific point of view it is now very likely that there will be again another Ice Age, quite soon, in the world, that we shall have the north part of the world all frozen like it used to be, and we're beginning to have natural disasters, from the scientists' study it seems likely that we should soon begin to have these great changes in the earth's climate so people will not be able to live where they have, and the oceans will rise, and many cities will be flooded, like London, and Calcutta, and so on. These things, they say, will happen, according to scientific theory, in about forty years at the most, but maybe even quicker." - J.G. Bennett
This fragment of a speech by Gurdjieff protege, J.G. Bennett was included on an album by Robert Fripp, "Exposure" back in the '70s. To many of us, this is nothing new...
A Conservative Case for Voting Democratic
A Conservative Case for Voting Democratic
Give either party complete control of government, and the vaults are quickly emptied.
By Doug Bandow
LINK
Conservatives, Republicans, Moderates, Independents...they are all bolting from Bush and his failed "presidency". They are not too happy about the administration or Congress either. And I think there may be a rare point of unity with Liberals, Democrats and Progressives on just this need to return Government to those who understand how to best govern. I have a newfound respect for those who are not so hoodwinked that they can see that Bush Inc. has been bad medicine for America, Iraq and the entire world.
But I think also that many are bolting just because they hate to be on the losing side. These people do not have my newfound respect. They are simply remaining opportunistic. Maybe they had best just sit on their hands election time, as we really don't want to go down the opportunism road. We want a return to simple decency, honesty, reward for work, a love for peace and tolerance, a cleaner and more healthy environment. Things we all, rich and poor, share.
I sense a new dawn on the horizon. A better 21st century is on the vision train!
Give either party complete control of government, and the vaults are quickly emptied.
By Doug Bandow
LINK
Conservatives, Republicans, Moderates, Independents...they are all bolting from Bush and his failed "presidency". They are not too happy about the administration or Congress either. And I think there may be a rare point of unity with Liberals, Democrats and Progressives on just this need to return Government to those who understand how to best govern. I have a newfound respect for those who are not so hoodwinked that they can see that Bush Inc. has been bad medicine for America, Iraq and the entire world.
But I think also that many are bolting just because they hate to be on the losing side. These people do not have my newfound respect. They are simply remaining opportunistic. Maybe they had best just sit on their hands election time, as we really don't want to go down the opportunism road. We want a return to simple decency, honesty, reward for work, a love for peace and tolerance, a cleaner and more healthy environment. Things we all, rich and poor, share.
I sense a new dawn on the horizon. A better 21st century is on the vision train!
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