The appeal of prostitutes to politicians is, in fact, identical to their appeal to "ordinary" men. On a psychological level, it doesn't matter if the women come from the Emperor's Club or a sleazy strip joint.

It doesn't matter if they cost $2,500 an hour or $40. The appeal of hookers lies in the temporary psychic relief they supply to men struggling with conflicts about guilt and responsibility.

Having studied the dynamics of sexual arousal for almost 15 years, and having treated dozens of men who find prostitutes irresistible, I have found that for the overwhelming majority of them, the appeal lies in the fact that, after payment is made, the woman is experienced as completely devoted to the man -- to his pleasure, his satisfaction, his care, his happiness.

The man doesn't have to please a prostitute, doesn't have to make her happy, doesn't have to worry about her emotional needs or demands.   more »

Sorry folks, but you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that we are greedy narcissists. We’re dyed in the wool consumers, we worship Mammon, and eliminating the cancer of capitalism is simply out of the question.

What’s that, our beloved sons and daughters? You’re worried that the air will be too polluted to breathe, the water too toxic to drink, the rain forests too sparse to act as the Earth’s lungs, and the resources too depleted to sustain you and the other sentient inhabitants of this planet?

You don’t believe “clean” coal, biofuels, and nuclear power will sustain the exquisite industrial civilization we will bequeath you once we’ve siphoned off the last drop of oil and departed for the big suburb in the sky?

Unfortunately, you’ll just have to suck it up, shut up, and deal with it! George Bush 41 made it abundantly clear that our “American Way of life is non-negotiable.”   more »

There's talk already of emergency measures, like making Christmas a weekly holiday, although this would require a level of deforestation that could leave Cheney with no quail to hunt.

More likely, there'll be a move to outsource shopping, just as we've already outsourced manufacturing, customer service, X-ray reading, and R & D.

But to whom? The Indians are clever enough, but right now they only account for $600 million in consumer spending a year.

And could they really be trusted to put a flat screen TV in every child's room, distinguish Guess jeans from a knock-off, and replace their kitchen counters on an annual basis?   more »

Let me give some anecdotes about the real Obama. In the left-liberal journal, The Nation, Christopher Hayes wrote a pro-Obama article, “The Choice.”

He recalled, “For the Chicago left, his primary campaign and his subsequent election to the Senate was a collective rallying cry...Young Chicago progressives felt...He is one of us and now he is in the Senate.”

And yet…. “That’s not, alas, how things turned out,” writes this supporter of Obama. “Almost immediately, Obama…shaded himself toward the center...His record places him squarely in the middle of Democratic senators (same).”

This is a typical story of a young idealist becoming corrupted by playing the game of bourgeois electoral politics.   more »

In its dying days, even Saddam Hussein’s own government was shocked. “The US administration is going to turn the whole world into people prepared to die for their nations,” Saddam’s vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, warned.

“All they can do now is turn themselves into bombs. If the B-52 bombs can now kill 500 or more in our war, then I’m sure that some operations by our freedom fighters will be able to kill 5,000.”

Ramadan even referred to “the martyr’s moment of sublimity” - an al-Qa’ida-like phrase that ill befitted a secular Baathist - and it was clear that the vice-president was almost as surprised as the Americans.   more »