this just made me smile. "It's not just that Americans are scandalously ignorant. It's that they seem to believe they have a democratic right to their ignorance. All over the country - at dinner tables, in focus groups, on call-in radio shows, and no doubt, occasionally on the floor of Congress - people are expressing outrage about how much we spend on foreign aid, without having the faintest idea what that amount is (1 percent). This is not a question of being misinformed. People are forming and expressing passionate views about foreign aid on the basis of no information at all. Or perhaps they think that the amount is a matter of opinion, like everything else. Populism, in its latest manifestation, celebrates ignorant opinion and undifferentiated rage. As long as you're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore, no one will inquire very closely into what "it" is and whether you really ought to feel that way." -Michael Kinsley, The New Yorker, 1994

ANY AMOUNT OF FOREIGN AID IS TOO MUCH FOREIGN AID YOU GODDAMN PINKO COMMIE BASTARDS.

OH MY GOD! I agree with Nate... What the fuck?????

it means you're free to be you, trace. ain't that great?

god bless america! whoops! forgot to be politically correct! goddess bless america! satan bless america! buddha bless america! allah bless america! i'd do more, but i'll have to look up a list of entities.

i used to be very patriotic, until i took a poli sci class. now i dislike the us very much. fuckers. i say more foreign aid, lots more. god damn america.

i want to move to scotland

Less corporate aid, more foreign aid I say. Actually, more Kool Aide!

more AstroGlide!

Izzat like AstroTurf? if so, more AstroGlide! Izzat like AstroPops? if so, more AstroGlide! Izzat like Astrology? if so, more AstroGlide!

Izzat like anti-wants to get smacked? If so, more anti-smacking!

Okay. Who else sees an attempt at censorship here? So far I've been emotionally and physically blackmailed as a direct result of my posts. COME AND SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM! I'M BEIN' REPRESSED! DID YOU SEE 'IM REPRESSIN' ME? fascist.

*laugh* No, I'm the socialist, remember, we discussed this? I'm just reminding you not to make inane commentary. So shoot me? Or please don't, actually.

i'm going to build a city under the ocean. and nobody can live there unless they've been decent to everyone else. i'll set up a news program that everyone else can watch, seeing everyone being nice. maybe they'll get better. or maybe they'll just turn the sound off and screw some more. (there's a big fire only 5 miles from where i work. 13 from home. hope it doesn't burn too much more...)

America stinks. I want to go someplace nice. Like europe.

I am sure Europe stinks just as badly

but we can't smell it over here. london is too metropolitan, but edinborough is lovely. sterling castle scares me, just a little bit. i played a concert there completely on autopilot. i knew things about it. but i'd never read about it. and i knew when to look up, so i'd see something important. i don't like deja vu very much. but i'll have to go back sometime.

London and Paris both reak ass, especially along the river fronts, theres too much human history there for it not to stink ass

The antarctic surely doesn't stink.

Anyone want to join me in Madagascar? I'd like to run off and be a hunter/gatherer there. It's much simpler, and in theory, I'd have to work much less to feed myself. Only problem is that I'm a white boy from the city - I'd probably be dead within a month or so. Still, it's gotta be nice being a simple hunter/gatherer.

Europe smells like Chanel No. 5 compared to Asia. But I quite like the mixed whiffs of ancient garbage, curry-cooking street vendors, and car exhaust. I don't think I'd like it at home though.

Wavy, I'm totally with you. Running away to hunter/gathererdom for the rest of eternity is my second greatest fantasy, after moving to london with only a backpack w/ one change of clothes and forgetting my name...

Talking about patriotism, I don't seem to have the Olympic gene and am totally unexcited about the five-ringed circus coming our way. However, this little story made me kinda happy to be Australian: Drag queens will appear in the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in what is being described as first open display of homosexuality at an Olympic ceremony. The revelation Wednesday by Olympics Minister Michael Knight set off a flood of calls to talk-back radio stations with some listeners denouncing it as endorsing a gay lifestyle. There was elation in Sydney's vibrant gay community which regarded it as another breakthrough in acceptance for homosexuals worldwide. "This is the first time gays have openly gone on display at an Olympics," drag queen performer Sally (Trevor) told Reuters. Knight said the drag queens, some wearing original gowns from "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," were solely in the October 15 closing ceremony as part of a segment celebrating Australian film. The Australian hit, which won the 1995 Oscar for best costume design, told the story of a group of drag queens on a bus journey through outback Australia.

I'm a fucking moron, can I hang out with you guys?

That's awesome! Olympic drag queens. A new event? Who knows. Anyway. That's very cool. I have a friend who's running in the Olympics. His name is Gabriel Jennings. and he's very cool, and he's from Stanford, and it seems like every time I see him we do something crazy like soaking pineapple in rum and setting it on fire. (Which was, by the way, also very tasty.) Anyway. Gabe is, as some might say, a good egg. Not a manx.

Yep. Nothing but fucking morons here, anyhow. I bet you'll fit right in. *evil grin* Here, just hold this stick of dynamite and smile. that's it. you'll be famous in no time.

Damn, that's a great intro, Shale. The book would start "'I'm a fucking moron, can I hang out with you guys?'. . . " and go on to cover your exploits on the BBS. By the way, have there been any books where the plot takes place on a BBS/IRC channel? I mean, it's a trendy enough idea to have been done, but I don't read that sort of stuff. Or rather, I probably would but don't seek it out.

Cat you didnt mention the medals.

madasgasgar. forget gardenburgers. forget magazines. forget tv. i can run around in my long pasty skinned hairy legs and not care who sees. i can wear my glasses instead of contacts. i can not worry about what my mom's going to think. i'll bring the canoe!

There's a book called Exegesis that's all email. I really liked it. It was primarily emails between a digital intelligence and the woman who created it. How 'bout this for a sticker: Equal rights for digital intelligences. There's nothing artificial about it! (stolen from Apparissus)

where is Aparissus? bring him when you come to portland!!!

i don't think there are any hunter/gatherers left on Madagascar. Being a H/G ain't like Survivor. Sure it sounds fun, but think about parasites, stinging flys, going hungry for long stretches of time, less of a chance you'll live to see 40...and no reggae music. Not to mention getting your asses kicked by the pastoralists and agriculturalists, with their noses in the air and bronze spear points, they think they're so clever...

fine. burst my balloon. i want to live in a place that's seemingly untouched. i want to be untouched. i'm young.

Well, it's not Madagascar. Extinction central. Try a mountaintop in Peru.

mmmm...mummies. maybe... do we (humanity) have to muddle with everything?

Apparissus is moving in with me in two days. The former roommate is leaving tomorrow. He's in Billings now, but will soon be a fellow Missoulian. He wouldn't let me go to Portland without him, I'm sure.

come visit!!

Actually, southeastern (coastal) Alaska or down a bit further south in B.C. would be an ideal place to be a hunter gatherer. The winters aren't too horrible - nothing that a few bearskins and lots of fat in your diet can't cure. The mosquitoes would be bad. You might be dinner for a hungry blackie, but as far as eating and surviving, it's choice real estate. I should probably attempt to live nekkid in the foothills around southeastern Idaho first - that'd get me nice and broken in... or broken..

If you're talking precolumbian H/G, nothing beats California.

I just saw some footage of the place in Australia where they're shooting the next "Survivor". They said it's the outback...phhttttt! There ain't no waterfalls in the outback. There ain't no trees either. The location looks like the back paddock of my place. What a bunch of weenies.

I couldn't think of a better place for this one. We Americans aren't the only crazy people in the world. http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9192148%255E26462,00.html

Naa,Lithuanians are even more nuts.

I had a "friend" who was of Lithuanian background,her parents were the best,I still think the world of them.Anyway she was a ho that would fuck the crack of dawn if she could get up that early,and she fucked my s/o 20 years ago.I've been married 27 years,I knew something was up when he bought us things out of guilt too close to Christmas,but I was so overwhelmed back then.Anyway,I just found out she's dead,died 4 years ago,pretty young,part of me feels bad for her and part of me hopes she died of AIDS or at least suffered.Anyway,her last name was that of a hot beverage that you drink,and it has caffine,then she named her son Travis with that last name,dumb cunt.I hope if there is a hell,she's there.

I paid $5.25 to get her obit,but no clues.

Some people just have no control. That is one line I have never and will never cross. To look is fine. To fantisize is fine. To act is a definate no no.

J,if its any consolation,the only guy i ever met in my life called Travis,was gay.