My friend Jo Jo ran into someone that was dealing in skulls:
http://chicagoist.com/2007/05/02/skeletons_inside_jojos_closet.php

The story was well, weird. But Jo Jo attracts that kind of thing I guess...

I read *every* issue of MD and that cover scared even me.

Still - despite all the steroid freaks and the fact that most of the magazine is supplement ads there is good content in that mag. The research digest sections of MD are a huge help - they give synopses of various medical studies pertinent to body building.

And I was pretty happy when they added a monthly drug-free training column. Now it they'd just do a vegetarian body builder section I'd be all set...

ugh - that should have read "wouldn't be committing suicide"

@60
Well for that matter any job is at best quasi consensual. Most of us are still wage slaves of some sort. At the end of day, sex work is just another job - though one that some of us prefer to other ways of making a living.

Our society is pretty repressed and has a lot of weird shame around human sexuality. I doubt that sex work would go away in a healthier society - but I think it would certainly lose some of its seedier and more abusive aspects if people had better attitudes about sex. And people would be committing suicide when they are "found out."

The other problem with this is that those of us who collaborate with musicians use these kinds of services to share works in progress.

Just last night I was using a similar service to listen to an MP3 that I'm having a friend create for the sound track of a video I'm doing.

Quorn tastes great, but never agreed with my system.

What's wrong with Seitan? I'm a vegetarian body builder and managed to put on 25# of muscle on a vegetarian diet that features lots of veggie based proteins.

That said, I'd probably be a big customer for this frankenmeat should it ever come to pass, even if on a certain level it's a little freaky.

But really in the meantime, if you are sitting on the fence, start trying some decent vegetarian cooking - it exists and if you do it right you won't lack for protein (I take 150-200g protein a day). You might find it's not as hard as you thought...

There really are potential negative consequences here, and these go beyond the immediate victim.

When someone does something like this, it may have been foolish, but that doesn't change the fact that they need to seek medical attention immediately.

Anything that causes someone to hesitate, including fear of being laughed at, increases the odds of a serious or even deadly outcome.

People need to be able to believe that their medical professionals will act professionally, no matter what.

Same kind of nonsense was going on in Millennium Park in Chicago:
http://newurbanist.blogspot.com/2005/01/copyrighting-of-public-space.html

The scary thing is so many parents hover over their kids - but they are still unable to talk with them about sex and drugs in a open and sensible way. As a result we have HIV seroconversation rates skyrocketing in the current crop of early 20-somethings.

re: #28
I guess you could move to a country that doesn't prize freedom of speech and separation of church and state. There are lots of those...

This is America, and while it may be idealistic, I'd like think that "living in a free country" means something.

I don't lie awake at night worrying that someone might be having kinkier sex than me.

#7 posted by BrooksT and #19 posted by Daemon both are key points and deserve to be repeated.

First, obscenity law is the only law where you don't know if you've broken the law until you're been found guilty. The idea is to scare everyone into dropping out or being so tame as to be useless.

The community standards argument was used successfully in Utah - not by referencing internet traffic, but by looking at pay per view adult video consumption in SLC's hotels. Still, the idea of community standards still seems like mob rule. While the Fed's haven't gone after gay male adult materials, if they did, community standards would be interesting. Something that is no big deal in the gay community might totally freak the straight people in the physical community where they might live.

Laws that are this subjective, and penalized this heavily, are bad news all the way around.

I spent my lunch hour yesterday with a good friend who spent many years in prison for running an adult entertainment enterprise. He's continuously been in court for one case or another since his first bust for showing Jack Smith's "obscene" experimental art film, Flaming Creatures . That was like the early 70's. While he's always won his cases in the end, that didn't keep him from doing lots of time and spending millions of dollars. The Meese Commission years were particularly bad. He wrote a book on his experiences. It's a wild and rambling work, and totally worth a read. It's called The Destruction of the Moral Fabric of America

So - while America may be a top, as we all know, it's the bottom that is in control...

Well the problem is that things that were commercially viable no longer are - and some pretty damn good artists are suffering as a result.

Many were already on the edge, and some are just giving up on making music/art/video. I'm not talking about nobodies here - I'm talking about folks that are critically respected, but whose small margins have vanished in world where everything is "free." It's ironic that in many cases their fame has grown even as their ability to pay their bills has vanished. And then people wonder why they've given up and moved on to better paying occupations like bus driver or bar back.

I don't face these problems myself - I happen to be able to fund my creative work with a nice salaried IT position that lets me create on weekends without answering to anyone. But if my only talent was my art I would be totally screwed - and many of my dearest friends and heroes are in just this situation.

Weird. I did a photo shoot on Sunday. We were listening to Suicide's rehersal tapes for the first part of the shoot. When it came time to pick a new CD, the photographer and I both decided on the record she did that was produced by Gene Simmons - and told our W.O.W stories before getting back to work. The photographer knew her personally and thought the whole thing odd - to him Wendy seemed well and on her game right before she died.

I didn't even realize that we were coming up on the anniversary of her death... somehow I guess we knew though.

Some of us don't want to spend our lives creating innovative business models.

We just want to make music or videos or art and still be able to pay our bills...

I always knew America was a top.

--ahem---

re: #8 by pepik

Just realize if you send your rendition of 4'33", you still will need to pay mechanical royalties to the John Cage Trust.

I suppose the same would apply to a sample of said composition...

600 Volts is so meaningless - it the current that will kill ya...

I went to Disney World about 10 years back while at a trade show in Orlando. I was most looking forward to the Tiki Room and was pretty devastated to see how it had been revamped.

@#27 Spinobobot

The other problem with these feminist critiques is that they are heterosexist. For Gay Men, adult videos were (at least one point before this awful bareback trend) a vital tool in teaching and socializing safer sex practices in the middle of a deadly crisis.

In my own adult videos I only wear fake leather - and in interviews I make a point that I'm vegetarian. Working against the stereotypes, I've built a great physique without drugs or meat.

As a result, lots of guys have written asking how they can go meat free and still body build. By being a different kind of vegetarian - one that makes vegetarianism fun, sexy and attractive, I've done more for the cause than a lot of shrill ranting has ever done.

I'm hoping these women's experiences as vegan strippers have been equally positive.

@#20 posted by zikzak

Score:
zikzak - 1
World - 0

Nice one!

Death is probably the ultimate experience (and literally it might just be, but that's not my point).

While I'm enjoying my life, I'm still fine with the idea of one day experiencing whatever comes next...

People that have issues with sex work say it is exploitative. This is really a potential issue with with just about *any* kind of work. Otherwise people are just operating on their sexual hang ups and not dealing with the real problems.

Wow. I think I need to link to this every time some kid gives me grief for not having an IM client and not liking text messages. Well done.

Why am I still giggling? Oh well...

Anyhow Morrissey has an unexpected Mexican cult following:
http://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=article_veltman

And Morrissey has nothing to do with Emo anyhow - the original Rites of Spring version or its pop sell out mutant off spring.

Oh yeah - read Cannetti. That book rocks!

C'mon - what kind of training do you need to have to have to learn to put on the safety?

This is the first thing you learn when you are given a gun to hold - I learned it when I was like, eight years old (yes, I'm from Michigan...)

Given the number of stupid (but mostly innocuous) goof ups I've witnessed pilots make over the years, I'd chalk it up to this particular pilot's random incompetence, and nothing more.

And you wonder why your site is blocked in airports...

lol

The $30 is deceptive. This is a collection kit - the lab fees are extra and a lot more expensive.

Re: #18 AARONSTJ
Good write up - one additional note on phalloplasties is that they can cause complications that are life threatening. NYTimes mag just had a nice article on the topic of transmen at women's colleges a few weeks back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16students-t.html

It might pay to read up a little as this is a complex area and there are divisions in the trans community itself on key issues.

Well this is tricky territory. If you assume that mass organic is still really organic (and I'm not sure you can), then is it not better than mass conventional in terms of environmental impact?

The book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" gets into this a bit in its middle section.

There is a big difference. The participants *can* leave at any time. And frankly by showing the psychology and agony of this stuff I think it makes people *more* rather than less aware of the implications of things that happen when the US Government uses similar tactics on prisoners.

The idea that this form of expression is less acceptable because it allows people to get the wrong impression about something that isn't actually related is scary. Should we also get rid of shows that document what soldiers experience in SERE training because people might get the wrong impression?

I read the M.J. article a couple of weeks ago, and frankly I'd love to do this show if it didn't end up on national TV. Yeah, I'm a freak, but I enjoy testing my limits in this way and if other people want to do so I think it's their right. At a certain point liberal parentalism becomes just another form of big brother.

Whatever. I love my iRex Iliad and have read a ton of rather hefty books on it - and I also use it to carry around copies of the technical specs I need to read and mark up. While I don't expect to be ditching my library of real books any time soon, being able to have dozens of reference works, a bookshelf of classics, and all of my work documents with me when I'm on planes and trains is totally amazing. And the readbility and form factor is a zillion times nicer than PDAs, Laptops and phones.

Face it - not many people read anyhow. You can be dismissive of books, but when you look at the sad state of the publishing industry you'll see a bigger problem: books just aren't all the popular. So it's not shocking that there is little impetus to bring down the cost of these devices. So what. They're continue to live on for their niche market just like all kinds of other niche gadgets.

That said, the only thing that bums me out is that the potential of the HW platform of my device far outstrips the software written for it - this is kind of sad. With a bigger market you'd see the capabilities of epaper taken much farther I think.

re: 36
Yeah, I kinda wondered if Lexus liked having their car pop up as the next photo in this slide show... Probably some irony in there.

Last month my boyfriend, who is a veteran Marine and Gulf War vet, and I visited DC to see the sights. My background is very different from his - while he was serving as an NCO in the Marines, I was in ACT UP.

Still, both of us were really moved by the Jefferson memorial and the ideas of democracy contained therein - it was our favorite of all the places we visited. While Jefferson *was* a bundle of contradictions, his basic spirit was something both of us felt strongly about and we were both pretty moved. This was the democracy we both had fought for an believed in. Here was a founding father who felt that you don't just accept the status quo but that you always challenge and re-invent your government rather than fall back on "what our founding fathers intended."

What does this have to do with these students? Well, for whatever the reason they give me hope - and in them I see some resolution to the dissonance I see between our current government and the ideals we aspire to.

Bravo to all of them - someone has to remind us that democracy has real value and that politician's efforts to undermine real democracy are truly dangerous to the well being of our society.

I'm puzzled - I've not had TSA issue with my keychain mini multitool (2 screwdrivers, pliers, and wire cutter), even when I've had the extra screening.

I fly 2x a month on average and only once was I even questioned about it - and they had no issue when I showed there was no blade.

What multitools are being taken here exactly? I've had lots of BS interactions with the TSA, but this one is new on me.

From what I understand the pens they were given were for the computer touch screens - in many areas you had a choice of touch screen or paper ballot voting.

I'm always amazed at how what was considered paranoia in the 80's is reality today. People used to brand Mark Stewart (of The Pop Group and Mark Stewart + Mafia) as a kook for his dystopian songs about government surveillance like "As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade." A close buddy used to chide me for getting tattoos since the government could used them to track you - I rolled my eyes and while I agreed it was possible I refused to care.

Looks like an ugly suburban McMansion to me. Castle my ass.

I just took a friend to the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC. He is not an art guy. At all.

I just wanted to see one piece, but he insisted on checking the whole collection - and he groaned at each turn seeing things that seemed too simple to really be "art."

It was interesting going through the exercise of getting him to understand the contemporary collection that I wanted to view.

He finally got it (while viewing a piece where an artist carved the names of hundred of gay bashing victims in her skin, made blood prints of the names on index cards, and then hung the cards across a huge expanse of wall). But it took a lot of work and it only happened when he found a piece he could relate to.

I'm usually at a loss for words when explaining why certain favorite artists (like Mike Kelley or Thomas Hirschorn) are good. It's sort of like, if I have to explain it, it's no good.

Anyhow...

Why are so few vegetarian jokes actually funny? I mean it's like "ha ha you're a vegetarian - why don't you marry a carrot." I mean, really now...

Remember the title of Galliano's very first collection? It was "Afghanistan repudiates Western ideals." But that was long before 9/11...

>Selden, TX isn't that far from Crawford (about 60 miles, short distance for an airplane), where Bush's ranch is.

"Take me to your leader..."

Bwahahahaha....

Where did you find your K'ichee' language grammar books and dictionaries? I lost my Lonely Planet Quiche Maya Phrasebook years ago and it's long out of print. (And yes they really did have one once.) Would love to find a good replacement if you have recommendations.

When I was a poor student I got my favorite comics each week. Now I wait for the trade books for exactly the reasons described in the O.P. Life is busier for me, sometimes I'm gone for weeks - and without weekly trips to the store I cannot keep up. So I've basically stopped reading comics since I can never get the early issues of a series once I learn about it. So I just wait.

If I could download and catch up I'd probably be eager to get the story right when it came out, but that sort of anticipation needs to be created - and it's not being created for me since I'm just to busy and out of the loop to know.

Well the moral of the story is if you have a sex robot, at least be honest with your partner about it. If he/she cannot take it then perhaps they should be reminded of the Karmic Rule of Kink (KROK), "Dump the honest foot fetishist, and you will marry the dishonest necrophiliac."

Seriously, if your relationship is threatened by something silly like this, it's time to re-evaluate.

Is this proof that it's more entertaining to poke fun at carnivores than vegetarians?

Mildly offensive and not really worth it for humor value. I'm a fag that likes a good gay joke. This is just kinda lame.

A far better video statement about homophobia in gaming is the guy that played online as GayDude (or some name to that effect) and recorded the other players audio comments during play (as he generally kicked their asses). Scary and funny.