lookin

It sure did when eight large bolts holding the new Bay Bridge together snapped last week while they were being tightened. Nuts. It looks like the fix, which has not yet been finalized, may delay the long-awaited Labor Day opening of the Eastern span connecting Oakland and Treasure Island. Although there is a school of thought that says even a hastily patched up new bridge might be safer than the seismically-deficient old bridge. The Caltrans engineers are presently mulling it over. Me? I'm planning to take the ferry.

For a world in desperate need of growth, this is the wrong direction. Europe will never thrive until it frees up its markets. America will throttle its recovery unless it avoids overregulation. China will not sustain its success unless it starts to liberalise. This is a crucial time to hang on to Margaret Thatcher’s central perception: that for countries to flourish, people need to push back against the advance of the state. What the world needs now is more Thatcherism, not less. If by 'flourish', the author means a superheated financial caste with billion-dollar bonuses, water and air chock full of industrial waste, and a low-paid uninsured workforce fighting for a possible glimpse of the economic pie, she might be just what the doctor ordered. The difficulty with such a worldview is that it makes no mention of the human values that, in my opinion, make life worth living: compassion, altruism, kindness, love, enlightenment, and much of what you'll find in the Golden Rule. How we have allowed "Free Markets", "Growth", and "The Economy" to so fully dominate the national discourse is, I must admit, beyond me.

The good news is that the site's a lot zippier since that error message appeared in place of the BoyToy splash screen, the Flirt4Free banner, and the login box. Looks like the programmers are narrowing down where the problem is. The BoyToy splash screen and the Flirt4Free banner both currently appear on the site's Home page and don't seem to be slowing down anything there. I noticed a few days ago that the login box on the site's Home page and the login box on the Forums page appeared different. Maybe that's where the problem is. It could also explain why I sometimes get a message that I don't have the right permissions when I try to post. It's as if the Forums page has trouble deciding whether I'm really logged in or not. As of now, the only place to log in is on the Home page. After doing so earlier, I did notice a brief 'hang' when clicking the box that takes me from the Home page to the Forums page, though it happened only once. My working hypothesis is that the programmers will find the problem swirling around the login process on the Forums page. I hope OZ will let us know what they discover. And if the site keeps vexing OZ, Perhaps he'll have to call in WOZ.

Here's a line that just now appeared at the top third of the Forum page, in lieu of the BoyToy banner, login box, and Flirt4Free banner: Fatal error: Call to undefined method general::getticker() in /home/boytoy/httpdocs/forum_top.php on line 76

I knew somebody here would have the skinny! Perhaps the gangsters could be persuaded to start sporting suspenders - delicate enough, of course, to prevent hanging oneself but robust enough to hitch up one's drawers.

As my personal shopper is also an ascetic, he charges nothing at all. To help make ends meet, he moonlights as a personal organizer for his clients and, so I'm told, has never owed a nickel in taxes.

You might then be interested in one of the characters referenced in AdamSmith's informative link: The Mark Twain novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court features a man who lives on a pillar in the valley of the hermits and repeatedly bends over at the waist . . . Twain's hero hitched the holy man to a sewing machine and used him to make linen shirts, though your proclivities may lead elsewhere.

It's been acting up for me too over the past few weeks, just as you say. It's mostly a case of 'stalling' when waiting for a page to load. It usually loads eventually, but not always. I haven't complained because, when I switch from Safari to Firefox, the page loads OK. Not sure if the programmers test the updates with various browsers but my guess is, for this last one anyway, they didn't. The other problem is getting booted when I hit the 'post' button. Something about not having permission for that action. I think RA1 has had a similar problem in the past, but it's a new one for me. As I'm planning to keep Safari as my browser, I've resigned myself to slow loading and posting problems until the next site update occurs. Until then, I probably won't be infesting the Board quite as much.

So if you're so smart how come you're always hungry?

Sorry, we were all out of Gym Bunnies so I brought you a nice Opera Queen instead.

Not so far, though I have managed to poke a few pansies.

We are not alone. Germany has the same list of concerns that we do. The problem is not only that the loss of privacy will be very difficult to regain, but that the will to hang on to what's left is so weak. We are now raising a generation that not only doesn't expect privacy, but perhaps has never known what it is or how to put a value on it. I wonder if the last half of the twentieth century, where I have spent most of my years, will someday be looked back on as 'the golden age of privacy'. I expect there will come a time when we damn well wish we had it again. I don't know if I'll be sentient when that time comes, and part of me hopes not. As I said earlier, this stuff makes be glad to be pushing seventy, rather than twenty.

Sent this to a Brazilian friend. He's still laughing.

This stuff makes me glad to be pushing seventy, rather than twenty. Nothing he says comes as a surprise. I only wonder why his article limits this technology to U. S. government and law enforcement. Does he think it won't fall into other hands? Or get pushed. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a drone! - Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle and Drone Association

Please pardon the highjack of the highjack, but this calls to mind an old drinking ditty. . . . . . . . . . . . . There once was a girl from the Azores Who had syph, crotch cricket, and sores! Not a dog in the street Would touch the green meat That hung in festoons from her drawers! . . . . . . . . . . . .

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

. Honestly, Paolo, nobody can afford to live here!

Thanks for keeping us updated, ihpguy, and please let us know what you decide to do. I'm glad you have - or soon will have - both options open to you.

In all senses of the word!

I'm not saying some Brazilians wouldn't do it. I'm just saying I wouldn't do it. And I bet not all Brazilians do it either. Not when there are so many other good things to eat. According to this World Bank survey, per capita income in Brazil is less than a third of what it is in the U. S. I'm no expert, but I can't see how they could be paying more for everything than we do. There must be some bargains somewhere.

The thing that always puzzles me about these comparisons is the tendency to use the cost of U. S. branded products in a foreign country. Personally, the last thing I'd eat in Brazil would be a Big Mac and the last thing I'd drink would be a Coke. I wouldn't buy spaghetti, or Levi's, or Nike's. I doubt the majority of Brazilians buy these things on a regular basis either. I have a friend from Brazil who visits family twice a year and his suitcase is always full of clothes and electronics that cost a fortune in Brazil. But, when he's there, he eats the same food his family eats and it's not expensive at all. He's told me how much it costs to fill his family's pantry, and it's a fraction of what it costs in the U. S. Same for another friend whose family lives in Mexico. I'm not saying I couldn't pay $3.50 for a box of spaghetti in Brazil, but why would I? It's not like I'm in Kansas any more.

I'll say! I'd have guessed too too kind.

Actually, a couple of us got here in 1959, but we tried to blend in.

What a good idea! I wonder what kind of moody black and white shots our Birthday Boy would take.

Among those of us who are gay And looking for someone to play, Our rational nudeness Trumps national rudeness And leads to a pretty nice day.