MsGuy

Zipper, your post works just fine. What a cutie!

Actually, there's a perfectly respectable, intellectually defensible school of thought that holds that, for a democracy to successfully operate, a voter need only have the minimum information necessary to determine two questions: 1) Am I satisfied (more or less) with how the guys currently running the show are performing. 2) If not, are the alternative folks on offer too horrible/scary/insane to seriously contemplate? The general argument is that if you can settle those two questions, you know enough, and making the effort to learn more is both unnecessary & a waste of time. Notice how neatly this theory accounts for both the appalling ignorance of the electorate and the otherwise inexplicable success of American democracy. My gut feeling is that the upcoming election will turn on how folks answer the second question.

In my mind's eye, he'll always be beautiful. ---- Let me see if I can make this link work on MER. Greg Gorman, the Hollywood photographer has this portrait in his book, As I See It. Cris looks to be in his thirties. Sorry I keep getting red x'ed. I wish I were better at this stuff. It's the only full frontal of Chris I can locate (shows all but it's arty enough not to be straight up porn ). I found the pic by image googling Chris Atkins; it's on the middle of page 9, if that helps. And the url is http://www.abekat.0catch.com/atkinsgorm2.jpeg if that's of any use. ---- Damn, now it's there. What did I do? ---- And it's gone again. WTF, this is frustrating. ---- The url auto-created a link just by pasting it in. Who knew it was so simple? And why does it work on its own but gives a red x in the insert image box?

I thought you were going to get some weed so you could interpret it for us. Or did that not work either?

For me, this foto of Chris Atkins embodies the Platonic ideal of twink. I have been straining my few remaining brain cells through a fine mesh but am unable to recall which magazine first ran this pic. Happily, I do still recall whacking myself dry "reading" the article. For the young-uns here, Chris starred in "The Blue Lagoon" and a number of other terrible movies. He never did learn to act worth a damn, which only goes to show that pretty really does count. Edit: I just noticed the crease across Chris's chest, which reminded me that he was the centerfold of that issue. Maybe it was one of those Teen Beat type mags.

A few days ago I read an article about costing out the iphone (or maybe one of its competitors). Of the 8 component chips that make the thing work, one was sourced to a US based outfit. The rest were sourced all over the place, one from Germany, one from China, one or two from Taiwan, one or two from Japan, & so forth. If you repatriated iphone assembly and slapped a "made in USA" label on it, most of the value added would still occur overseas. It's the kind of world we live in. My nephew is just back from Ho Chi Minh City where he's been riding herd on furniture suppliers for his boss. His company is thriving but most of the rest of the furniture industry here is in the process of collapse. I understand North Carolina (higher-end product) is in a world of hurt too. That's 2 for 2 for the only major furniture manufacturing regions in the US. The only US furniture operations that aint dying are converting (or already have converted) to assembling flat ware made overseas. High shipping costs for assembled furniture is the only reason they do that much. But foreign made furniture assembled here costs out at less than 1/2 as much as American made furniture. That's not conjecture and that's not spin, that's reality. In 10 years you won't be able to buy American furniture, other than ultra high-end hand crafted pieces. I'm not happy over this. My home town used to be a prosperous little manufacturing community, steel works, textiles and an assortment of light industries. Now its job base has been devastated by overseas competition. We even had to beg for state help to replace a Main Street bridge that fell in. But I don't know what to do about it.

What about a synagogue would you find inappropriate? I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, Klair, I honestly don't get it. Believers build their meeting places all over the place. Some spots churches are thicker than fleas on a yard dog. Why not two blocks from the Pentagon? I've been a straight up atheist living in the deep South for almost 50 years. I find much believer nonsense odd but their mania for building temples of every concievable sort in all kinds of odd places is nowhere near the top of my list of their objectionable behaviors. I do encourage my civil authorities to require adequate off street parking before issueing a building permit but I don't sense that your concerns lie in that direction.

Turn about is fair play. Sometimes you kill the bull, sometimes the bull kills you.

Oooo! I thought you'd never ask! Wait till you see me in my tux and red sequined cummerbund. Would matching red sequined knee pads be a little too over the top for a wedding?

Nope, we went to posting compliments to MsGuy. Pay attention and please stay on topic. (Really some people!)

OZ, not that you would have any particular reason to know, but I'm wondering if you could advise us whether the old time Thai sticks, whatever they might be, actually originated in Thailand.

If I understand all this correctly, I've just locked in my compliment by quoting it in my own post, so edit away as you please. I'd do a screen capture and hide it forever somewhere on my hard drive, to be brought out and treasured on special days, but I don't know how. And, as to how to magic up prior versions of a post as Matrix does, I don't even want to know. Leave me in blissful ignorance, please.

Comcast cable here. I got spreads from 15 to 26 download and 1.6 to 3.4 upload, depending on base. Lucky, my numbers from Los Angeles were 21.6 & 2.3. Go figure.

Sweet Jesus help me, but the spirit is moving me to knee walk up the center aisle and make my own confession to the congregation: I too have edited and fallen short of the glory of God. True, usually it was my weakness for idiosyncratic spelling and grammar and even incoherent passages (surely less than mortal sins!), but, often enough, I edited whole sentences that did not carry my true intent. And edited and edited and edited even unto the 6th & 7th time. Is there no end to my shame? Blessed Brethern, (I hold back nothing!) I have even erased entire posts that, after prayer and reflection, seemed aggressive & unnecessary. Bless you all, I feel much better now for having it all out in the open. Hi, my name is MsGuy, and I'm a serial editor. ---- Edited but only to state the above post is entirely unedited. Damn, it's hard to give this up. ---- 2nd edit: Fuck! There's at least two sentences above that badly need editing. Get thee behind me, Satan! ---- 3rd edit: OK, I edited the 2nd edit for spelling and punctuation ("that" for "the" & added the comma. Maybe I can just taper off gradually.

But only until the imposture comes to the attention of moderators, right? After that it's a matter of site policy. My first reaction was that there was a lot of room for mischief in permitting this kind of masquerade. See the elbowing above between Lucky and StevenDraker (& now Matrix!); consider the possibility that Matrix and I might have gotten into a similar fuss were I not by nature a timid and retiring sort. But after being schooled by Oz's humor & gentle, indirect guidance in the Zen of running an open board, I've come to see case can be made for letting this thing play itself out. Maybe I just need to have more faith in the self-corrective powers of the community. ---- PS, Lookin, I vote for Kramden & Woods. Emerson is entirely too high toned for the likes of me. And, as always, the rest of your post was right on point.

Zipper, why don't you post a bunch of candidate twink pics and let us help you sort them out. We may not achieve consensus, but we could surely narrow down the area of disagreement.

OK, you had me until that one. Some things are better left unsaid.

TY, my post lacked clarity. ["So what else is new," TY sniggers. "Hey, I'm doing my best," MsGuy whines,"Cut me some slack!" "Get on with it," TY snorts.] All I meant was that the Devil is in the details. Preset policy rules don't always work out as expected in a messy world chock-a-block full of clever furringers up to ever more creative mischief.

Hmm, that's an interesting mailing list you've gotten yourself on, Lurker. What have you been up to?

While I'm tickled pink to be grouped with such illustrious posters as AS & Lucky & the ever popular etc, I can not recall making any such claim. Of course, given the state of my brain cells, absence of memory is certainly no proof of absence of claim. For the record, I have no secret, special sources of information. Or none that I can currently recall. I've been meaning to post a denial since I first read your post, Matrix, but kept forgetting to do so. Did I mention that I'm also easily distracted?

Meaning that Daddy threads over here are kinda like BN threads over there?

As long as I get a little tongue, I'm good with either.

Got to ask: What the hell is that thing this kid is using as a dildo?

One could say the same for the pommel horse, yes?

Excuse me, but don't you mean Professor Vseslav Botkin's critical apparatus? The best modern scholorship, or at least Wikipedia , inclines to that view.