Today in 'GodDAMN are people ever fucked up!'

Here, and here.

Don't I just brighten your days?

RFID and MythBusters

I'm not normally one to get all paranoid about RFID, but the fact that this was effectively censored should scare you at least a little (you only need to watch the first 2 minutes)...

The philosophy of prostitution

I read an interesting comment (that I of course can't find any more) on the Stranger's blog ("slog") that I hadn't thought about before: What's the difference between making an adult film and prostitution? Seriously. You pay someone to have sex when you make an adult film. How is that different than prostitution? Just because you're not paying them to have sex with _you_? Does that mean if I pay someone to have sex with my friend, and my friend pays someone else to have sex with me, then it's not prostitution?

There are different kinds of hurt

*sniff*...

Eep?

Dude. Don't say bad stuff about the pill. I love the pill. The pill is one of the greatest inventions ever.

Abortion blog

Fascinating/amusing/scary blog by a woman going from finding out she's pregnant to actually getting an abortion. Wish there were a place I could offer support, although undoubtedly I'd be drowned out by pro-lifers who have nothing better to do than harass a scared early-twenties woman.

How American men will die

I have no particular thoughts on this. Just think it's interesting.

The Onion: Horrifyingly prescient

Note the date.

Gitmo

Do you know what the youngest age of someone at Guantanamo was when it opened?

11.

They were holding an 11-year-old at Gitmo. And I think he's still there.

God this country is fucked.

Want to be depressed?

Read this. Lays out very succinctly what a failure this administration has been in dealing with terrorism.

Poetry

Louis Theroux and the Phelps

Wow...want to take a serious trip through the looking glass? See what it's like inside the Westboro Baptist Church.

I take some solace in that they're essentially a doomsday cult where the children do not marry or reproduce, so they will eventually die out. But damn...it's surprisingly painful to watch that 21-year-old girl, who probably in other circumstances would have been kind and lovely, denied her right to an actual life.

Someone has been seduced by the devil, but it's not us. :(

Louis Theroux and the Brothel

I found this absolutely fascinating. Louis Theroux (whom apparently I should know but didn't) spends several weeks in the Crazy Horse brothel before it opens, getting to know the girls, seeing what life there is like, etc. (Obviously nsfw)

I don't know why I find it so fascinating. I mean, yeah, sex, titillation, etc. But the social dynamic is just so...unique. It's like a normal relationship viewed through a funhouse mirror.

(you can find the rest of the series in Related Videos)


Similarly, "Pleasure For Sale" is a Sundance award-winning documentary on some of the same stuff.

This month sucks

First Russert, now Carlin.

Goddamnit.

"The good die young, but dicks live forever." -- Lewis Black

"My Chest Is a Complicated Place"

Another cool essay on Nerve by the same girl who wrote the NYT piece a while back.

A whole essay about boobs: what's not to like? (Ok, fine, so technically it's about boobs and what's underneath, but details...)

The Steep Price of Our Forbidden Kiss

I don't post a lot of serious stuff here (at least not things I'm not about to angrily rant about), but this New York Times piece by a girl with cystic fibrosis touched me deeply. I've never read something so...familiar. Familiar because it speaks to what being young and chronically ill does to your life.

"Which giant, high-fructose-corn-syrup megacorps own your favorite hippie organic microbrands?"

...and you people wonder why I'm such a cynic.

Dirty, dirty teens

Gah!

Well, that's the last time _I_ fuck a 14-year-old...

(I know, I'm a horrible person)

When being a klutz is fatal

Eep?

"...He immediately withdrew the hand holding the brick, but was struck by an ill-timed case of butterfingers. He dropped the brick into the center of the assembly. He instinctively pushed the brick away from the assembly with his right hand, which immediately became enveloped in the blue glow that was now surrounding the plutonium.

At 9:55, Daghlian partially disassembled the experiment and went to the hospital to have someone look at his tingly, glowing blue hand."

The God Effect

...from the New York Times' list of the most important ideas of 2007.

In case you were wondering, it's shit like this that makes me pessimistic about the salvagability of the human race. We're all just selfish little animals at core. We need either the threat of divine retribution or the threat of social ostracism to induce us to be nice to each other.

What a fucking blight on the earth we are as a species, eh?

And speaking of being basically animals...

Also, from the same article: give up hope. Your happiness depends on it.

Finally, how sadly materialistic are we?