Leaderboard

American Ballet Theater just closed out a two-week fall season. Sigh.

Of course, of course. Man made totals are never the same as empirical totals, are they? Best regards, RA1

I'm with you. I'm not as widely read on this stuff as AdamSmith but, from what I have read, the folks who knew that nuclear weapons were likely possible and had the smarts to build them seemed to fall into several different camps. There were a very few who did not want to go down that path at all. There were those who figured we better do it before the Germans did. There were those who looked at it as a scientific exercise and could not resist seeing if they could turn theory into practice. And there were those who were interested in having and using the weapon. These latter folks either justified it on the basis that it would shorten the war and save lives, or else they didn't trouble themselves at all with the ethics of its use. I also believe that the borders between these groups were crossable and some did switch camps, especially as 'progress' was made on the scientific and engineering challenges. I think, by the time the Trinity test was conducted, there wasn't anyone who didn't want to see if the bomb would work. When word filtered out about the extent of the blast, some of these folks moved from one camp to another. And the path to the hydrogen bomb was similar, although not everyone lined up as they did on the path to the first weapon. My take was that the span of ethics for these scientists wasn't much different from the span of ethics for the rest of us, other than that they had much more insight as to the likely numbers of people who would be killed. The guy who draws me in is Leó Szilárd. He was the first person who conceived of the idea that a nuclear chain reaction could form the basis of a bomb, and got Albert Einstein to co-sign a letter to President Roosevelt urging that one be developed, which led directly to the Manhattan Project. From the beginning, he saw it as a demonstration weapon to show the Germans and the Japanese that they could not win the war. He was especially distressed that Truman actually decided to use it after Germany had surrendered. I can identify with him much more easily than I can with someone like Johnny von Neumann, another Hungarian and another fascinating character. But he seemed to relish his role as a macher and appeared little troubled by a hundred fifty thousand crispy corpses lying in the streets of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We humans seem to have this amazing ability to compartmentalize, and to dissociate ourselves from the human consequences of our actions, especially when our actions and their consequences are separated by space, by time, by distance of relationships, and by intermediaries who convince us that we are merely 'following orders'. I think it may be the unusual human who can keep track of the direct links between what we do one day and what tragic results may follow the next. And I doubt that scientists are necessarily more likely to have stronger ethical links than the rest of us.

The 14 underlying reasons? Best regards, RA1

today i succesfully booked appartment in rio. i have done it through flipkey, an affiliate of tripadvisor. it is very small studio at 105 $ a night. it is small, but it has queen size bad and a great location. it is practically on praca general osorio. 2 blocks to beach and rue amoedo. 56 days to go.

Good catch, Charlie. I had Owen's poem in mind when I composed my post. ---- Hunting and fishing clubs around the country have programs set up to provide outdoors opportunities for injured vets. No hoopla, no flag waving, just ordinary folks going out of their way to help give disabled vets the chance to get out & fish and hunt. Now that's the kind of honoring of vets I salute.

The article was written in spanish: http://www.revistavanityfair.es/articulos/yo-fui-amante-de-yves-saint-laurent/17678 http://www.revistavanityfair.es/articulos/yo-fui-amante-de-yves-saint-laurent/17678/page/2 http://www.revistavanityfair.es/articulos/yo-fui-amante-de-yves-saint-laurent/17678/page/3 http://www.revistavanityfair.es/articulos/yo-fui-amante-de-yves-saint-laurent/17678/page/4 http://www.vanityfair.fr/actualites/france/articles/la-collection-maudite-de-saint-laurent/1538 Pictures of Fabrice Thomas, who was the boytoy, chauffeur and personal assistant of Yves Saint Laurent during many years: http://www.revistavanityfair.es/galerias/ysl-una-historia-de-sexo-mentiras-y-pasiones/9225/mosaico/1/image/603038 http://www.vanityfair.fr/actualites/international/articles/yves-saint-laurent-fabrice-thomas-justice-dessins/320

OK, I see there's general agreement to pay the taxidermist for a full cape & shoulders mount. Now let's have a show of hands on the position of the head: traditional straight stare or tilted to his left like the deer?

Sometimes it's hard to untangle an honest effort to honor vets from an effort to brainwash young males on the glory of dying in some god-awful hellhole in furtherance of old man's notions of geopolitical strategy. Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori. Taken from a poem by the Roman poet Horace. To suffer hardness with good cheer, In sternest school of warfare bred, Our youth should learn; let steed and spear Make him one day the Parthian's dread; Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life. Methinks I see from rampired town Some battling tyrant's matron wife, Some maiden, look in terror down,— “Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war! O tempt not the infuriate mood Of that fell lion I see! from far He plunges through a tide of blood!” What joy, for fatherland to die! Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake, Nor spare a recreant chivalry, A back that cowers, or loins that quake

Veterans Day is pretty big here in Texas. I went to the car wash today and they were offering free car washes to veterans. Many restaurants are offering free meals, and we had a parade in Houston.

Duct Tape...1001 uses!

Such a lack of interest in Veteran's Day. I guess it's a sign of the times. When were soldiers last popular?

You stepped on one of my sore corns, AS. I have a clear memory of being irritated by that last comma even as far back as 9th grade English. It serves no purpose other than to interrupt the flow of the sentence. NONE, I tell you N-O-N-E!! So some dried up academic parroting the dicta of a 19th Oxford don he's spent the last 20 years studying in the most minute detail says that last serial comma is proper? Well I say to that. ----- Seriously, please explain the logic behind the comma.

Boywise, Istanbul is not the paradise ... but Istanbul is a nice city. Spent a long week end there Took the bus from airport to Place Taksim where most of the gay clubs and action are. Went to a small pleasant hotel in the area. Since I was looking at a map, many people asked me where I was going, where I was coming from and finally one even took me to the hotel. Turkish people are very friendly. Istanbul is an amazing city. People are very pleasant. Strange mixture of Europe and Asia, of strong and soft islam. Lots of places to visit, to see, to feel. Loved it ! Hagia Sophia (Holy Sophia) in particular was stunning. Incredible result of a former catholic cathedral which was transformed into a muslim mosque, one of the most difficult problem to solved was to have the mosque looking towards the Mecqua ... As for gay places, I started by Taksim square and Park since it is a well known pick up place. Around the square and in the park, on the Bosphorus side. Indeed some hustlers are clearly visible. I was approached by 2. Did not approach any for 2 reasons : - they were ugly - sorry, but there no different world. Poor face, poor body. Of course no English is spoken. One was more or less ok, but not at all my type. Of course I have no clue of how much they ask. - there is a large police station in the park and the park and the square are permanently (day and night) patrolled by policemen. There are stories on internet of people having approached a lad there and being arrested by the police, only because they were starting to speak and they were not turkish ... There are also stories of a guys having been followed a cute lad to the bushed in Taksim park and being attacked and robbed, or another story of a man having taken 2 guys back to his hotel to be first fucked then robbed. Gay activities are really underground is Istanbu, it seems. Many internet sites are not available: it is the case of gayromeo and, even if I had wished, I could not have taken a contact with one or two models who were there. Generally speaking, all turks are presenting themselves as only active, only only top. Only some queenie models seem to admit they can be passive. Other internet sites which are not available are porn sites, such as Seancody. Turkish Baths (Hammams) A policy to fight against cruising places seems to have been implemented since 2007 and most of too openly gay hammams were indeed closed. At the moment, there is not any gay exclusive Turkish hammam in Istanbul. But there are few bath houses the gay men would go very often. The owners and managers of them do not want to be displayed on gay websites and keep sending to the webmasters e-mails for that. Finding a list of these sites is not easy ... Following the advice from Maleire, and after having read some recent negative comments, I decided not to go to Aquarius. I managed to find one hammam. Very hard to find. Very old building (hammam opened in 1445). It is called Firuzawa Hamami on Cukur Kuma 6. I did not know what I was to find inside ... You enter the place, can rent a room or go to the general lockers, which I did, receive flip flops and a cloth. You undress and you go in the hammam, which is composed of a very hot place, with a large marble plate which is heated at rather high temperature, surrounded by small basins where hot and cold water can flow.. There is another room, a shower room, a "cold" room, and another room with a sauna. I was offered a massage which I accepted not knowing which type of massage it would be. I explained only that I needed it later. I wished to see what was going on before with other patrons ! Of course, in this hamman, no one really spoke English. However people are very much welcoming you. When I entered the hot part of the hammam, many people were already lying on the hot marble surface. One was being massaged with a hard on visible under his cloth. The employee soaped him and massage him everywhere, insisting on the crotch and the ass. Then I know which type of massage I wanted. The employee, at least in this particular case did not go all the way to the happy endind. I wonder if they go. Certainly not in public areas. No Rentboys in the place, but hot action in the cold room. All people wanking and sucking. Most patrons are between 30 and 50. I was surprised because most of the patrons had rather small dicks, even in full erection. It was well-known in Algeria where the colonizers who preceded the French, were the Turks. One tried to have me suck his dick, but I rarely suck and never in these places. On the other hand, I had a rather skilled sucker sucking mine while stroking his small tool. Compared to them, I was considered "huge".. I do not have the same sensation in Brazil ... The massage was hot, as planed. I left the place completely relaxed. staff was also very friendly when I left and told me to "come back tomorrow", which I did. It was even better.