thinkness - August 2003 Archives

August 2003

Passionate defense of prostitution - From no less an authority than Heidi Fleiss. Of course, she gives an especially rosy picture of prostitution in a world where johns can afford to pay $5k for a 5-minute blow job. If everyone had that kind of money,... Posted in | 8 Trackbacks | 134 Comments

Psycho-sociolitics - The Voice ran a great story by Michael Gecan about four people who happened to be at Yale University at the same time -- Clinton, Rodham, Bush, and Dean -- and the sociology at Yale and how these different personalities... Posted in psychology & consciousness | 3 Trackbacks | 409 Comments

Cali's split GOP - So now Cruz Bustamante is apparently leading Schwarzenegger in the polls. And the CSMonitor says the main Republican problem is that support is split between different candidates: Schwarzengger and a few hard-line conservatives. So how does this fit in with... Posted in political currents | 2 Trackbacks | 426 Comments

Crack, damnit, crack! - The California governor game is weird. Really weird. I am looking over the tea leaves and I'm getting some strange encouragement. I might be reading into things way too deeply, but this is what I got: Schwarzenegger may win the... Posted in political currents | 2 Trackbacks | 163 Comments

General Stick-it-to-ya - Retired general who until recently worked in the Pentagon's Near East South Asia department says she lost faith in this administration when she saw how it was guided by 'groupthink': 'Groupthink. Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often... Posted in political currents | 1 Trackbacks | 217 Comments
Straight enough! - Brother responds [to previous post]: 'Thanks, doctor! Nice to see such a thorough response. I agree that BvG was a bad decision (as Alan Dershowitz put it quite memorably, the decision fails the simplest of bullshit-detector tests: the Other... Posted in political currents | 0 Trackbacks | 206 Comments

Set the sucky record straight - My brother takes issue with my post from July 29 when I mentioned the Bush v Gore decision. I said, 'Dean's got an element of domineering asshole in him. Hey, worked for Bush. [Along with that SCOTUS decision, their worst... Posted in political currents | 1 Trackbacks | 366 Comments

Have all the cigarettes in the world! - Small cigarette company Freedom Tobacco [naw, I've never heard of them, either] is offering a lifetime supply of cigarettes to any celebrity who agrees to endorse their brands. I guess the company figures the cost won't be so bad for... Posted in | 4 Trackbacks | 190 Comments

Thinkness rules! - A couple thoughts about new guidelines I'm building into the blog: First, I will always try to include a permanent link with any post. I use a fair number of links to NYTimes, LATimes, WaPost, and BoGlobe, all of which... Posted in | 3 Trackbacks | 221 Comments
Carte blanche for black gold - Goddamn, this is pissing me off. The LATimes has a good story highlighting this fairly recent Executive Order 13303, which basically voids all liability and rules that would apply to anyone taking oil out of Iraq. Voids ALL liability --... Posted in political currents | 1 Trackbacks | 163 Comments

The Matrix: here at last - The transhumanists are organizing. Police in Florida have launched a new database incorporating information from a bunch of different sources, and they happily decided to call it Matrix [take the blue pill!]. This could be one of those moments that... Posted in psychology & consciousness | 3 Trackbacks | 196 Comments
Scientific Americans - In a great story in the Chronicle Review, British philosopher of science David Papineau says, "Where Continental philosophy sets out to rival science, and North American philosophy aims to cooperate with it, contemporary British philosophy sits uneasily on the fence."... Posted in psychology & consciousness | 9 Trackbacks | 163 Comments

Society doesn't exist - Something I've been mulling over about libertarian-type thinking: "I don't care about the species, I care about individual people." -- Gregory Stock, futurist "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families."... Posted in political currents | 1 Trackbacks | 163 Comments

Bob Hope is wearing no clothes - Because he's the emperor. And the emperor ain't funny. Not even fucking close. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens still has a little bit of sanity left in him after all.... Posted in | 7 Trackbacks | 164 Comments