Alma Mater's in the news again

Continuing to develop mids morally, mentally and physically. This ends badly pretty much no matter what.

HometownAnnapolis.com, Top Stories - Star Navy quarterback Owens charged with raping mid:

"Navy's starting quarterback was charged yesterday with raping a female midshipman on Jan. 29 in the academy's dormitory.

In addition to the rape charge, Midshipman 1st Class Lamar S. Owens Jr. also is charged with wrongfully entering the victim's room and engaging in sexual conduct. A third count charges him with indecent assault 'by kissing her mouth, with intent to gratify his sexual desires.'

Midshipman Owens, Navy's captain and most valuable player, was honored last week with the Silver Helmet Award at a banquet sponsored by the Touchdown Club of Annapolis.

Word of the charges sent shock waves through the Naval Academy this morning.

...The academy declined to release the name, class or any other information about the victim."

Guaranteed nearly everybody in Bancroft Hall already knows who the girl is. The rumor mill was always unprecedented in getting this kind of info out around the Yard.

Duesberg's Alternative Aids Hypothesis

I've always been interested in alternative AIDS explanations. Mainly due to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet album [I think] that mentioned the possibility of AIDS as a bioweapon. Developed, if I remember correctly, at Fort Detrick, Maryland. A disease that overwhelmingly targeted drug users, homosexuals and minorities seemed just too wonky to have developed by happenstance. Living in the Reagan Era, well, let's just say it didn't seem implausible. Obviously in no position to judge the scientific merits myself, but it's fascinating.

A Modern-Day Copernicus: Peter H. Duesberg by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD:

"His principle work on HIV/AIDS is Inventing the AIDS Virus, published in 1996. In this book, and in other papers he has written on the subject, Duesberg systematically dismantles, piece by piece, the germ theory of AIDS. This theory/hypothesis has two parts: 1) HIV causes AIDS, and 2) HIV is sexually transmitted.

With regard to sexual transmission, only 1 in 1,000 unprotected sexual contacts transmit HIV. One in 275 U.S. citizens has antibodies to this virus. Therefore, an uninfected person would need to have 275,000 random unprotected sexual contacts in order to acquire sexually transmitted HIV. Prostitutes do not get AIDS, unless they are drug addicts; and wives of HIV-positive hemophiliacs do not contract AIDS from their husbands. Proponents of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis ignore these facts. The dire heterosexual AIDS epidemic predicted to occur in the U.S., Canada, and Europe twenty years ago has not happened, and the disease remains confined to the original two main risk groups – gay men (66 percent of all AIDS cases) and intravenous drug users, male and female (32 percent). The other 2 percent are hemophiliacs and babies born to mothers who used intravenous drugs during pregnancy.

...AIDS appeared in young gay men in the early 1980s following an explosion of recreational drug use that began twenty years earlier in the 1960s. Male homosexuals are the highest users of recreational drugs. AZT, given to people who are HIV-positive, first used in 1987, is another cause of AIDS. As Duesberg and coauthors show in this paper, a chemical (noninfectious) basis for AIDS is supported by a lot of important data. One fact is this, which government spokespersons and the media do not report: HIV-positive people treated with antiretroviral drugs have a four to five times higher annual mortality rate compared to HIV-positive people who refuse treatment with these drugs – 6.6–8.7 percent vs. 1.4 percent. Duesberg writes, "AIDS is stabilized, even cured, if patients stop using recreational drugs or AZT – regardless of the presence of HIV. The drug hypothesis predicts that AIDS is an entirely preventable and in part curable disease.""

Paying to have sex = bad. Getting paid to have sex = upholding morality. If you're a cop. Or something.

Legally Lewd: A Right Reserved Only For Cops by Aaron Singleton:

"...someone’s got to stop consenting adults from paying and receiving money for acts that are perfectly legal if no money is exchanged. I mean, if two strangers meet in a bar or at a party and want to get it on that’s fine, as long as all they want is physical and egotistical gratification. But if one of them wants money and the other is willing to give it to them, well that’s downright criminal. It’s good to know there are selfless men out there willing to sacrifice their virtue to put a stop to this villainy.

Getting to first or second base isn’t enough for the dedicated officers of Spotsylvania. They want to make sure they get convictions and the only way to do that is to round third and come on home. But that’s not all. It isn’t enough to catch these girls in the act once. In order to build up a rapport with these malefactors, they evidently need to round the bases three or four times over the course of a month. Of course this kind of important operation costs money. That’s why Spotsylvania detectives spent over $1,200 at the Moon Spa massage parlor last month alone. And being the gentlemen they are, they of course tip very generously ($350 on one occasion). When you’re willing to throw other people’s money around like that it really shows your level of commitment to maintaining law and order.

All joking aside though, this is a sobering story. Police officers repeatedly engaging in sex acts with prostitutes using tax dollars I mean where do these guys get off? Okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words, but something is seriously wrong here."

See, cause drugs makes ya lazy and stupid. Riiight.

phishhook.com :: View topic - you put your weed in it:

"This grow was underneath a house in a cave. The entrance was through a secret hydraulic door in the garage that led to a concrete ramp that went about 50 yards into the ground. Inside the cave was living quarters and a secret escape hatch that led you through a tunnel that exited via another hydraulic door that opened up a rock on the outside. It was very elaborate. The set up allowed them to harvest every 60 days which resulted in multi-million dollar sales. One of the guys busted was living in a house on the water in FL and had a nice yacht."

"The great fallacy of childhood is the belief that grownups must know what they are doing. There is no evidence for this in the historical record."

Fred On Everything:

"I have decided to become a drunk and live under a bench, maybe in a radiation suit. It only makes sense. The times are dire. Dark shapes twist in the international fog. The US, in the hands of puzzled children of low moral character, flaps about like a damp rag in a high wind. Anything could happen.

...There is much to cause worry. The strange little man in the White House is leering at Iran in his customary state of martial priapism. Not good. (Wild thought: Someone ought to give Iran nuclear weapons, so he won’t attack it.) Anyway, wee Bush, not having enough army for his current wars, wants to start a bigger and shinier one.

Somebody explain it to me. I have limited geostrategic grasp. Perhaps he believes that by spreading unwinnability over several wars, he will reduce it in each. Victory through distributed defeat.

...The president’s virtuous plan to spread democracy like bird flu goes apace. Ain’t nobody heah ceptin’ us missionaries. The rascal is imposing democracy right and left, though mostly left as it turns out.

It is working. Well, it is having an effect. In Venezuela democracy brought about Hugo Chavez, who hates the United States. In Bolivia it produced Evo Morales, who hates the United States. In Iran it empowered Ahmawhatsispelling, who hates the United States. So does the elected government in Iraq. In Palestine Mr. Bush’s righteousness elected Hamas, which hates the United States, perhaps as much as does the Muslim Brotherhood, which keeps getting more elected in Egypt.

There’s nothing like democracy, I say. There’s nothing like brains either, but they seem to be in short supply. I mean, if you force elections in countries where everybody hates you, after doing things that make sure that everyone hates you…?

...See, this whole mess is a splendid contest between a Titan and a pygmy, the pygmy being very well armed and the Titan being very smart. High drama and all. Made for television. The pygmy used New York as a pretext to conquer the Middle East and get the oil. Bin Laden used New York to sucker the pygmy into a losing war that would leave the United States defanged and broken. One of them has guessed wrong. We’ll know which before long.

I still don’t get it. Maybe psilocybin would help. It doesn’t make you understand anything, but makes everything else equally confusing so that nothing stands out. These days, it’s the best you can hope for."

"Now I am enlightened". The true explanation[s] for the war in Iraq.

Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.:

"Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. For freedom! Recent intelligence informs us it is on the march.
Q. Hooray! Where's it marching to?
A. To set up a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and held in check by strict adherence to the laws of Islam.
Q. Whew! Is democracy on the march?
A. Democracy was on the march. Sadly, freedom and democracy were caught in a blizzard and freedom was forced to eat democracy to survive.
Q. It died as it lived: sautéed in garlic sauce with a side of scalloped potatoes.
A. Democracy is survived by sectarian violence and fanaticism. In lieu of flowers, please send a coherent exit strategy.

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. Terror! By occupying Iraq we get Iraqis to fight us there so they won’t fight us at home.
Q. We’ve cleverly lured them to where they already were, only in terrorist form!
A. Now you’re catching on!
Q. What if we can’t kill all the terrorists in Iraq?
A. Then we’ll invade somewhere else and trick ‘em into attacking us there – only this time it’ll be someplace really far away where they’ll get stuck, like the ocean or the moon!

...Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To remove Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Q. But he didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction.
A. Maybe. But in a sense, Saddam Hussein was a weapon of mass destruction.
Q. Well, that’s a pretty metaphorical –
A. And by that I mean his mustache was made of anthrax.
Q. Oh no!

...Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To prevent the failure of the occupation of Iraq. If we pull out now the occupation will be a failure!
Q. Would it have been easier to have never occupied it in the first place?
A. Ah, but if we never occupied Iraq, then the occupation certainly would have been a failure, now wouldn’t it?
Q. [meditates for many years]
Q. Now I am enlightened.

Q. The reason we’re in Iraq seems to change every time I ask about it.
A. It’s always the same reason. It just mutates in response to different stimuli in different environments.
Q. Like the bird flu! Oh my god – is it the bird flu?
A. Are you scared of the bird flu?
Q. Yes! Thousands of diseased Chinese chickens could explode from my febrile lungs at any moment!
A. Then yes, the cause of the war is bird flu!

...Q. Huh! Freedom sounds strangely like theocracy.
A. No it doesn’t! It is representative godocracy, in which laws are written by the legislative branch, enforced by the executive branch, and interpreted by an all-powerful all-knowing deity which manifests its will through a panel of senior clerics."

The psychological downside of conspiracy theory and too much information.

Calling All Jedi! - Pop Occulture:

"I have a sneaking suspicion that the more we consider dark arcane possibilities like that Dick Cheney hunts humans for sport, the more their power grows. For every evil act we believe the bad guys commit and get away with, another stone is knocked out from the wall of our resistance. We don’t become better informed or have our consciousness raised. We are instead indoctrinated further into the idea that evil people can do outrageous shit totally out in the open and get away with it - that there’s nothing we can do to stem the tide but whisper furtively in our chat rooms and holding cells. Oh, we’re spreading the truth all right, but who’s truth and why?

There’s a very real possibility that conspiracy theorists are not a thorn in the side of the Evil Empire, as they so adamantly believe. There’s a very real possibility that we inadvertently support the mythology of power and abuse we think we’re battling against. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that publishing more and more shocking photos of torture in Iraqi prisons doesn’t expose the abusers, so much as it gives them psychological power. “Look what we can do to you!” We’re spreading their propaganda viruses for them without even giving it a second thought. It’s a brilliant manuever - using the energy of your dissidents to fuel your machine.

The only way out of the trap, I think, is to collectively stop fetishizing the exploits of the Sith overlords. That’s what the want and need is for us to constantly spend our mental energy on them and their constructs. Doing so lends them legitimacy. Conspiracy theory is teetering on the brink of becoming just another form of celebrity obsession - people buying supermarket tabloids so they can gloat over how fat Britney Spears is today, or how strung out Angelina Jolie looked yesterday. There’s a Daniel Pinchbeck quote I like which I think could be applied here:

Steiner believed that the best way to oppose “evil” is not through strident protest and negativity (which tends to be the monotonous approach of the Left), but by simply creating what is “good.”

Robert Heinlein as Thelemite.

Whence Came the Stranger: [...]Adam Walks Between Worlds:

"How does a highly respected, conservative, commercial author of primarily juvenile science fiction come to write a heretical parable concerning, among other things, sexual freedom and responsibility, anti-Christianity, anti-patriotism, and applied cultural relativism? And, how does such a parable emerge from 'sleeper' status in science fiction circles to become a major classic best-seller of 20th century literature? How do entire religions coalesce from 'a mere work of fiction' -- the Holy Bible notwithstanding? What was the inspiration for so bold a stroke? What were you thinking, Mr. Heinlein?

The premise of this article is that Heinlein wrote Stranger as an allegorical recapitulation of Thelema. (The word Thelema is Greek for 'Great Will' and refers to the body of philosophy and magickal practices codified by the late Aleister Crowley and continued by many.) This article details Heinlein's magickal interests, his relationships with the most famous of Crowley's American disciples, and his many coded references to Thelema in Stranger and other written works. Moreover, we will establish that Heinlein wrote Stranger with the intent of initiating a Thelemic 'whole systems transition' in human thought and expression. This means that Stranger cannot be regarded merely as the work of a master storyteller, the product of a literary genius. Rather, Stranger is much better understood as a consciously wrought, carefully considered and brilliantly successful casting -- a talismanic spell in itself, still dynamic, with its direct purpose being to spark human evolution along Thelemic lines. This is our hypothesis."

"...imagine yourself as a transhuman demigod exploring space." I do that ALL the time. But they call me MAD! MAD!

Time distortion, projection, futurism, the singularity and imprinting change.

Alchemically Braindamaged:

"
Technology not a sufficient cause for optimism? Extrapolate it forward twenty years and imagine yourself as a transhuman demigod exploring space. There’s a headrush for you, and because all you did was plug things that are really happening into your future conjuring algorithm, it must be true. your subconscious mind buys it.

Disenfranchised with the present? Track the rates of oil extraction, ecological destruction, and population growth into your curve generator and shudder in terror, or else gasp in ecstasy that the hated world that is, is on the way out.

Same function either way. You’re utilizing a hypnotic principle called time distortion. If you can trick a person into visualizing an outcome, then their subconscious mind treats it as it were already happening and they don’t resist it. All you did was provide the raw data and the timeframe. So if you carefully frame the data and the time frame you could make pretty much anyone accept pretty much anything.

With me so far? Now here’s the big whammy. If you’re really clever with this stuff you can generate what is known as a catastophic transition. You project some process so far into it’s future that it launches off the graph that use to measure it and into a completely unpredictable realm of behavior. The reason things like peak oil or the singularity pack such a punch is that they use mathematical trends to convince your brain that you’re going into a totally unpredictable transition state. You’ve been tricked into confounding your normal categories and definitions of things.

What’s interesting is, you’ve sucked yourself into the realm of chaotic behavior, and in that state of imprint vulnerability, someone else can come along and implant some new set of ideas. It’s the same principle as brainwashing. You render someone helpless, destroy their existing model of the world and in the totally dependent state of confusion, they will grab hold of whatever you give them.

In short, you take someone’s model, time distort it until it explodes and then help them reinterpret the aftermath. TA-DA!!! New reality. New self, even, perhaps.

Now keep in mind, this is not usually an deliberate act on the part of another person to brainwash you. But human beings are hypnosis machines and these distortions and trances are how we construct our world and communicate with each other. Words are just the delivery vehicle for sharing our personal trance states.

Now presuming you understand this, or even if you don’t, you can use this to your benefit. I’ve said elsewhere that your frontal mind places strong limitations on what are accessible or internally consistent experiences for you to have. No matter how much fun or pleasure or joy you want, your subconscious mind knows you almost always prefer to preserve your sense of self and inner continuity, so anything too strong to incorporate into your reality stays in the category of ‘other’ or at least displaced so far into some vague future that there’s no danger in the present moment to your safe state of misery and confusion. If you’re reasonably together or progressively goal oriented you’ll have designed and implemented a kind of incremental curve whereby you can, over time access more happiness, more love or more creative flow and relaxation or whatever.

...What you do is, and this is easy, is to presume that nothing in yourself is ever going to change. Your conscious mind should have no trouble accepting this, because most of us either crave stasis or fear it so much that we can’t stop thinking about it.

Imagine that for the rest of your life you’re going to keep doing exactly what you’re doing right now, and do it in all the same ways with all the same beliefs. Imagine it in five or ten year increments. Same job, same partner, same limitations, same hobbies and habit patterns. Some of them will be good, some will be not so good. Where will you be? Your mind shouldn’t have any difficulty accepting this scenario, because it doesn’t require you to do anything different. You don’t need to be mindful, or conscious of your activities. You just need to stay on autopilot.

How long will you live? How is your health? What sort of experiences have you had? Children, real estate, extended family? What sort of markers of personal growth occur simply by adding more time into the equation?

Now I’m going to presume that you haven’t hanged yourself in the shower just now, probably because of the few things in your life that involve growth, creativity and learning. If I addressed this to a crowd of ‘average’ people they would probably shrivel in despair. But if you’ve been around for some time, you almost certainly have some kind of regimen of meditation, banishing, metaprogramming work, or artistic expession in place. So play it out. No more grand upheavals or ecstatic changes. Just play out what you’re doing as routine right now, right this moment in your life, and give yourself the time to see where you end up. Plug 40 or 50 years into that, in five year increments, and what comes out the other end? Do you even get 40 or 50 years, or does your diet, lack of exercise and generally shit state of mind do you in long before that? Or conversely, does your ongoing regiment of health enhancing activities and positive state creation see you through into your second century of life?

Think about education. Are you content with everything you’ve learned? If so, you can look forward to seeing your cherished assumptions systematically torn apart by time and change until you end up confused, rigid and disillusioned. OR, you do some simple math: you could get the equivalent of a PhD in pretty much anything in an average of about five or six years. Even a modest 50 or 60 years of adult life is the equivalent of ten PhD’s if you continue learning, even informally. How much learning have you picked up so far, and how much do think you will pick up just out of habit in the years to come?

Now change the exercise a little bit, because no human being is truly static. You are not a simple equation. As time goes on you do not simply continue at the same rate. Whatever you invest in right now is what you are getting better and better at. If you invest in negativity, rigidity, fear and toxicity, you can look forward to an exponential swirl down into the recycling bin. Life is cheap and the biosphere is never short of human beings. If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.

BUT: If you invest in learning, growth, positivity, embracing healthy change and discipline, you will not only learn and grow more, but you will be learning and growing faster and faster as time goes by. The PhD equivalent you picked in 6 years will come in 4 years soon enough, then 3 years, then who knows? The joyous and creative states that come fleetingly now, will come sparingly soon enough, and reliably still later, and eventually the most outlandishly ecstatic states become your new baseline, until your current measurement system for understanding your life no longer is relevant. You’ve jumped the curve.

...You see how this works? First you have habits that involve no change, then habits that involve predictable positive change, then habits that predictably accelerate positive change, then habits that predictably accelerate the acceleration of positive changes, until the whole concept of time and change and scales of positive experience cease to bound your consciousness. Your personal singularity. Because, all due respect to Ray Kurzweil but we don’t need some fucking computer to jump the curve for us. We’ve got the equipment right now."

How great is this?

Hearing Loss News and Articles: Copulating deaf couple unaware of own volume:

"Copulating deaf couple unaware of own volume"

"Do you remember me now Peter!?"

This is just some beautifully funny blasphemy :)

Passion of the Christ 2: Judgement Day

Gay Agenda Revealed Here For First Time!

Gay Agenda Revealed Here For First Time!:

"...And that delightful little crowd out of Topeka, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, has stepped up its 'God hates fags' activity, too. Now they're picketing military funerals. Phelps claims our soldiers are dying in Iraq because God is mad that Americans have failed to string up every faggot from a nearby tree.

(This is the same crowd that showed up in New Paltz a couple of years ago to spread its message of hatred. In New Paltz, as you might know, people have been shirking their duty in terms of killing homosexuals, leaving them to roam the streets and impose their well-dressed gay lifestyle on innocent babies.)

Certainly, we have it on good authority from the anti-gay pseudo-Christian leaders that the Gay Agenda includes killing off decent, moral people. According to Pat Robertson, 'Gays want to give people AIDS.' Also, 'Gays want to destroy Christians.'

James Dobson, who heads the Focus on the Family Blah Blah Blah Group, says the main item on the Gay Agenda is to 'abolish all 'age of consent' laws and recognize pedophiles as the prophets of a new order.'

Then there's the ethnic cleansing item that Dr. Laura Schlessinger claims is on the Gay Agenda: 'They want to permeate sperm banks with gay semen to perpetuate the gay gene,' says the good doc.

And of course, the subtext of the Gay Agenda is to destroy the sacred institutions of marriage and family. Tall order, but apparently you can't overestimate what a determined gay person can accomplish, especially if it's a lesbian in comfortable shoes.

...But I wanted to know the LARGER Gay Agenda. So I asked Ted. And Ted, being just so generously Ted-like, pulled the official Gay Agenda out of his back pocket and showed it to me. It was written on Homosexuals 'R' Us letterhead with a decorative rainbow across the top. Here's what it said:

Be left alone and not get the crap beaten out of us.

Do normal things, like get married and raise kids.

Hold down a good job and have health insurance for the whole family.

Grow old together and develop a bit of a paunch or big butt from a few too many marvelous dinners.

Stop having whom we share our bed with be of any interest whatsoever to anyone.

Urge those lovable homophobic pseudo-Christians to discover Jesus' true message."

Nike should make these.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | State-of-the-art shoes aid migrants:

"They call the act of crossing the 'brinco' - literally 'jump' in Spanish. And that is the inspiration for Werthein's crossing shoes, called Brincos.

The trainers are adorned with unusual items.

'The shoe includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night, and inside is included also some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing,' Werthein says."

I totally want to do this.

Ultimate life of ease: Retire on cruise ship: South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

"Ultimate life of ease: Retire on cruise ship

Did you ever wish you could toss in the towel and just cruise for the rest of your life? Would it be feasible, say, to retire and live year-round on a cruise ship?

Life on one certainly would be cushy.

On the premises, you would have restaurants and cafes, nightclubs, theater, movies, live music, casinos, shopping, driving ranges, tennis courts, swimming pools, a gym and spa, concierge service, round-the-clock room service, top-notch security, even doctors and nurses on call 24/7. Some ships even have X-ray facilities and operating rooms.

And, of course, the world at your doorstep.

The notion of living on a ship isn't new. In 1963, a woman lived full-time in a small cabin on the original Queen Elizabeth.

'Her family was delighted that she was always being looked after,' said Maureen Ryan, the 'lady assistant purser' at the time. Another seafarer, Rosemarie Roberts, lodged for about a dozen years on the now-defunct Royal Viking Line."

Killing for 'Murrka

The Arctic Beacon:

"Col. 'Dangerous' Dan Marvin, once asked to assassinate a military officer at Bethesda Naval Hospital holding damaging pictures of the JFK autopsy, has 'stuck it big time' to the Pentagon brass.

With a recent federal court victory this week revealing hit squads and assassinations are accepted military policy, Col. Marvin fought off a long and costly legal battle for libel concerning statements made in his controversial 2003 book, The Expendable Elite.

After hearing evidence, the jury quickly decided in Col Marvin's favor after only deliberating two hours, coming back with a decision that essentially quashed any attempts by the Pentagon in calling him a liar by what was printed in his book."

IRONY

You know, the racist, power-trippin' insano kind of irony.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Guantanamo actors held at airport:

"The actors who star in movie The Road to Guantanamo were questioned by police at Luton airport under anti-terrorism legislation, it has emerged.

The men, who play British inmates at the detention camp, were returning from the Berlin Film Festival where the movie won a Silver Bear award."

I'm going to church.

CNN.com - Court sides with church on hallucinogenic tea - Feb 21, 2006:

"The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God."

Minifig Famous People # 17: Dick Cheney on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Minifig Famous People # 17: Dick Cheney on Flickr - Photo Sharing!: "Minifig Famous People # 17: Dick Cheney"

Danish Cartoons

Warrenellis.com » That Danish Cartoon Thing:

"My perspective on the mess begins with the fact that these are shitty, stupid, evil-minded cartoons produced by obvious hacks for a conservative rag that would appear to embody everything bad about the word “conservative” simply by publishing the things. In a sane and ordered world, everyone involved in their publication would be taken behind a stables and hit in the face with a shit-shovel. Jyllands-Posten has a lousy reputation when it comes to ethnic tolerance, their intent to offend in the most racist and simple-minded way possible was quite clear in the commissioning of the cartoons, and their apology was mealy-mouthed at best. The test of free speech always lays in that which is hardest to defend. It really would be nice if maggots like these didn’t make the rest of us work so hard.

And after that I get really angry."

Nothing Personal

You Are A Cog.: Fuck With A Smile:

"Twice in one day I was told that I was “too blunt”.

...I replied to him, “I’m sorry if you’re upset by the way I phrase my e-mail or by how I make you feel.”

“Please keep in mind that I don’t have anything against you personally”, I explained.

“In other words”, I elaborated, “I’m not saying Fuck You.”

“I’m saying, Fuck This.”"

YES

PlumBlog: Social what?:

"I know this may be considered heresy to some in these circles, but I don't need a social network. I have a great social network already. It consists of a relatively small group of good friends and family.Of course there are the people I work too who I naturally socialize with as well. Beyond that I am not looking to connect with lots of new people all the time. Perhaps I should also point out that I test pretty far over on the 'i' (for 'introvert') scale on the Myers Briggs test.

What I do need and want is to connect or even socialize with knowledge, topics and information. I soak that stuff up. I may even occasionally want to converse a bit with the people behind the ideas and information I like, but that's secondary. What I want is to constantly discover new ideas, new restaurants, new places to go, new anti-oxidants... And then I want ways to remember and remix the stuff I discover and like for myself and for others too.

When we talk excitedly about social networks, I think we need to differentiate between social networks of people and social networks of ideas and information. They are different, they serve different purposes and the are (mostly) used by different people.

I really like the idea of social knowledge. I want to hook up to your topics and interest, not to you. Sorry, nothing personal."

"Be a mensch"

The Era:

"'Be a mensch,' my parents told me. Literally, a mensch is a person. But by implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.
The people now running America aren't mensches.

Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most characteristic moment was the final act — the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr. Cheney, more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very intelligence agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.

Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and sidelined State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about 'unknown unknowns' and going to war with 'the army you have,' ducking responsibility for the failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory — for Iran."

9/11 changed soup too.

Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.:

"'There's no more soup in the world,' says me. 'There is only post-9/11 soup.'
'It's true,' says Giblets. '9/11 changed everything - even flavor.'
'Five years ago this woulda tasted like delicious cream of mushroom,' says me. 'But now it tastes like the ever-present threat of terror.'
'There is the tangy zest of war and the aftertaste of militant Islam and the hint of paprika!' says Giblets."

Real World: Metropolis

Brilliant Comic Book Geekery. Via Robot Chicken and youtube.

'tis true: "Being an office hermit, hibernating in a cubical is often more debasing and emotional draining than stripping."

The Modernist [Terminal 1] Juliana Beasley interview by Veronica Zambetti:

"In Lapdancer (powerHouse), Juliana Beasley compiles images she took during her eight years as a stripper into a homage to dancers, their customers and admirers. She brilliantly peels aside the sex industry's seedy surface to show the tender, banal, profound and playful reality of trafficking in sexual fantasy. The Modernist's Veronica Zambetti, a former dancer herself, talks shop with Ms. Beasely.

Stripping can be tedious but thankfully at least it is lively. Being an office hermit, hibernating in a cubical is often more debasing and emotional draining than stripping.

There are lots of begrudged dancers who resent the clients and regret their choices, for me it was really a learning experience. I had some ugly moments, but I learned to realise that people are certain ways at certain times in their lives and it is important to be accepting.

Did you start off as not very accepting?

I tried stripping when I was younger and I didn't last long because I was coming in as an angry little feminist and looking at everything as if it were in a text-book.

Which is never wise since men are not going to polite in that environment. How did you stop judging your experiences ideologically?

I started accepting people for who they were, then I started seeing that the customers were there for a reason and it wasn't only for sex. There was something they weren't able to access in the other parts of their lives. Truthfully, there were a lot of customers I respect and care about as people.

Which isn't as odd as it sounds since sex is only the surface of these encounters.

Dancing is an usual relationship because it is not just about sex, it is about feelings and our universal need for human contact.

...Although, many people might pick up the book and think the customers are pathetic, I learned over the years that they suffered from a common problem. Perhaps, they spend their days without human contact in front of a computer or perhaps they don't fit the standards of what this society finds attractive enough or affluent enough. Another possibility is their own inability to value their relationships they have with their spouses. Coming to lap dance clubs might be the only chance they have to sit and talk with someone of the opposite sex without being brushed off. Obviously it comes with a price tag. I hope that the people who pick up my book are able to look beyond the voyeurism of the photographs, read some of the text and see the lure of fantasy as a universal problem. Facing the truth is hard to handle. Stripping is big business and makes more money than Broadway shows."