Help me eat steak, or donate to Animal Charities! Mood: cool Topic: Recreation
I am not sick or dying, but I have a dream. The Make-A-Wish people won’t help me, but you can! I want to go to the Big Texan resteraunt in Amarillo Texas and take a crack at eating a really big steak. 72oz. to be exact, plus shrimp, salad and potato. If I finish it all, it is free... if not, I have to pay. The problem with that is... I am really freaking poor!
That’s where you my internet friends come in. Donate a buck to help me eat the monster steak. I think I can do it, and if I can all money collected will go to local animal charities. But if I can’t I need your help to cover the monster check. Donate a buck and tell others. Send words of encouragement, tell me I am stupid. Help me gorge on the big steak!
I will even send out a link so you can see me tackle this on live webcam! Come on, you can do it, help me eat steak!
Last year the Steak was $72 according to the website (but they wont give you a current price online as it changes daily), my goal is $120. All money given in excess of what I need will automatically go to local animal charities. I won’t keep a cent other then to pay for that big mucking steak in the event of failure.
Research that makes you say -DUH! Mood: incredulous Topic: Funny Stuff
Why people have sex: It feels good
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Wed Aug 1, 7:36 AM ET
WASHINGTON - After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It's more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.
College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex — they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and "it feels good," according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.
Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: "I was attracted to the person."
Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.
"It's refuted a lot of gender stereotypes ... that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love," said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study's co-author. "That's not what I came up with in my findings."
Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, "the more we look, the more we find similarity," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn't part of Meston's study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.
Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women — ranging in age from 17 to 52 — to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from "It's fun" which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to "I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease" which ranked on the bottom by women.
Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.
"None of the gender differences are all that great," Meston said. "Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner."
But this is among college students, when Meston conceded "hormones run rampant." She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.
Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.
"Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added," Meston said.
Lucy Komisar of the Tax Justice Network—USA (taxjustice-usa.org) spoke at the Conference on Taming the Giant Corporation last week about "Closing Down the Tax Haven Racket." Her words were so compelling that the rest of this column is devoted to excerpts from her presentation:
"The tax haven racket is the biggest scam in the world. It's run by the international banks with the cooperation of the world's financial powers for the benefit of corporations and the mega-rich…. [M]ost Americans, including progressive activist Americans, don't know what I'm going to tell you. And that's part of the problem.
"Tax havens, also known as offshore financial centers, are places that operate secret bank accounts and shell companies that hide the names of real owners from tax authorities and law enforcement. They use nominees, front men. Sometimes offshore incorporation companies set up the shells. Sometimes the banks do it. Often someone will use a shell company in one jurisdiction that owns a shell in another jurisdiction that owns a bank account in a third. That's called layering. No one can follow the paper trial.
"Offshore is where most of the world's drug money is laundered, estimated at up to $500 billion a year, more than the total income of the world's poorest 20 percent. Perhaps another $500 billion comes from fraud and corruption.
"Those figures fit with [International Monetary Fund] numbers that as much as $1.5 trillion of illicit money is laundered annually, equal to two to five percent of global economic output.
"Wall Street wants this money. The markets would hurt, even shrivel without that cash. That's why Robert Rubin as Treasury Secretary had a policy, as Joseph Stiglitz told me, not to do anything that would stop the free flow of money into the US. He was not interested in stopping money laundering because the laundered funds ended up in Wall [Street], maybe in Goldman Sachs where he had worked, or Citibank, where he would work.
"Attempts to find laundered funds are usually dismal failures. According to Interpol, $3 billion in dirty money has been seized in 20 years of struggle against money laundering -- about the amount laundered in three days.
"The other major purpose of offshore is for tax evasion, estimated to reach another $500 billion a year.
"That's how corporations and the rich have opted out of the tax system.
"They have sophisticated mechanisms. There's transfer pricing. A company sets up a trading company offshore, sells its widgets there for under market price, the trading company sells it for market price, the profits are offshore, not where they really were generated.
"Two American professors, using customs data, examined the impact of over-invoiced imports and under-invoiced exports for 2001. Would you buy plastic buckets from the Czech Republic for $973 each, tissues from China at $1874 a pound, a cotton dishtowel from Pakistan for $154, and tweezers from Japan at $4,896 each!
"U.S. companies, at least on paper, were getting very little for their exported products. If you were in business, would you sell bus and truck tires to Britain for $11.74 each, color video monitors to Pakistan for $21.90, and prefabricated buildings to Trinidad for $1.20 a unit.
"Comparing all claimed export and import prices to real world prices, the professors figured the 2001 U.S. tax loss at $53.1 billion.
"Or a company sets up subsidiaries in tax havens – to "own" logos or intellectual property. Like Microsoft does in Ireland, transferring software that was made in America, that benefited by work done by Americans, to Ireland so Microsoft can pay taxes there (at 11%) instead of here (at 35%). Why is Ireland getting the benefit of American-created software? It's legal. We need to change the law.
"When logos are offshore, the company pays royalties to use the logo and deducts the amount as expenses. But the payments are not taxed or are taxed minimally offshore where they are moved…. When Cheney ran Halliburton, it increased its offshore subsidiaries from 9 to at least 44.
"Half of world trade is between various parts of the same corporations. Experts believe that as much as half the world's capital flows through offshore centers. The totals held offshore include 31 percent of the net profits of U.S. multinationals.
"The whole collection of tax scams is why between 1989 and 1995, of US and multi-national corporations operating in the United States, with assets of at least $250 million or sales of at least $50 million, nearly two-thirds paid no U.S. income tax.
"In 1996-2000, Goodyear's profits were $442 million, but it paid no taxes and got a $23-million rebate. Colgate-Palmolive made $1.6 billion and got back $21 million. Other companies that got rebates in 1998 included Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Pfizer, J.P. Morgan, MCI Worldcom, General Motors, Phillips Petroleum and Northrop Grumman. Microsoft reported $12.3 billion U.S income in 1999 and paid zero federal taxes. (In two recent years, Microsoft paid only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion pretax U.S. profits.)
"During the 1950s, U.S. corporations accounted for 28 percent of federal revenues. Now, corporations represent just 11 percent.
"Those unpaid taxes can buy a lot of politicians and power. When Nixon needed money to pay the Watergate burglars, he got it from some corporate offshore bank accounts.
"The system has given the big banks and corporations and the super-rich mountains of hidden cash they use to control our political systems.
"The offshore system must be dismantled.
"So why isn't the progressive movement doing something about this? This is a case where some people in Congress are ahead of the activists. There are a handful of Democrats like Senators Levin (MI), Dorgan (ND) and Conrad (ND), like Rep. Doggett (TX), who are speaking out and introducing legislation. But there is no movement behind them. And while Obama has signed onto the Levin Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, Clinton, Biden and Dodd have not."
Ms. Komisar spreads out the proposed strategies at taxjustice-usa.org. One or more are structured so that you can play a part in furthering them toward adoption.
As she concluded: "Let's get the country to tell the corporations that the taxes they are dodging is our money."
The Snickers Ad Controversy Mood: incredulous Topic: Observations
I support Gay rights. I believe gay people have the right to a loving caring relationship with each other. I think they have the right to get married and should receive all the benefits other married couples receive.
That being said I really wish Glaad would get a life about this superbowl ad. Even though I support gay rights. I consider myself non homophobic. Even so I definatley sort of cringe inside at the thought of kissing another man, just as I cringe at the thought of kissing a woman I am not attracted too. This is a normal reaction for a straight person. I can not help the fact that I am not attracted to guys any more then a gay guy can help the fact that he is.
The ad is very, very funny. The fact that these two rednecks feel a need to prove their manhood in no way is an insult to gay people. In fact it is more a comment about straight men feeling the need to prove that they are straight.
But now, because of complaints Snickers has pulled this funny ad.
Ann Coulter is a frekin' nut job. Mood: energetic Topic: Politics
Ann Coulter is a freakin' nut job.
I just read Godless, the Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter. (Yes, I read both left and right wing books, but reading Al Franken or Molly Ivins is a lot more fun then reading O'Reilly, Hannity, or Coulter. I do it anyway, so I see both sides of the issue) I will write about O'Reilly's Culture Warrior later.
I am not going to go into the crazy mean spirited attacks she made against the Jersey Moms (Widows of men killed in 9/11 who are against the war in Iraq). Everyone already knows about that and it was covered to death when the book first came out.
I won't get into how she thinks all liberals want to do is kill people, or tax them to death. (Although her logic is very faulty, apparently we want to kill everyone)
What I want to talk about are her views on science. Among the crazy claims in the book is that women are genetically unable to understand math and science. Some study said so and she accepts it as fact. She then goes on for three chapters about how liberals have science all wrong. How creationism and intellignet design are fact and evolution is fiction, how silicone implants never caused sickness and how stem cell research could never help anyone. (These are actually her views)
So my question is simple. If women are not good at science then how can any sane person trust her conclusions. I mean she is a woman. At least I think she is.
Dear Republican Friends Mood: happy Topic: Politics
Now that the Democrats will hold congress I just wanted to reassure you on a few points.
1) We will not be putting Sadam back in power, nor will we go soft on the war on terrorism and even though you got us into the war in Iraq by lying to us, we will not cut and run. We might even catch or kill Osama (you remeber him don't you, the guy we actually should be after)
2) There will not be naked gays dancing in the streets in front of your house. I know you are threatened by gay people and don't want them to get married becasue it might start "raining men". It wont happen. Unless you already live in a neighborhood where gay people are dancing the the street, then things will probably stay the same.
3) Taxes might go up... but only on the rich people who should be paying more anyway. 90% of us will not see our taxes change at all. What this means to most of us is an increase in services (Maybe they will even fund the no child left behind act)
4) There will not be free abortions on demand. There wont be forced abortions. There wont be door to door abortions. I promise.
5) There may be a universal health care system and an increase in the minimum wage. We may get our right of Habeus Corpus back and we may be treated like citizens in our own country again... these are good things.
Hang in there, if we fuck it up as bad as you did you will be back in power before you know it. (We wont though)
Live on Air America Radio regarding Clinton slapping down Chris Wallace on Fox Sunday! Mood: happy Topic: Politics
I ws on the Randi Rhodes show today responding to President Clinton slapping down Mike Wallace on Fox Sunday.
I was going to post a link to the video of Clinton's interview on You Tube, but Fox already made them remove it. If you saw the interview you know Clinton did a hell of a job, but Fox is already trying to spin it as an ex-president out of control.
Anyway, Air America added my conversation to there highlights page. Click here to here it.
Air America is an important radio station. It brings you the truth about what is really going on in our currently very troubled world. You can listen to Air America live anytime by clicking here.
Abominations Unto The Lord Mood: mischievious Topic: Religion I have several gay friends. They are good people and deserve to be treated with respect. I am tired of people telling me that what they do is against the christian gods law. Especially since they are... absolutley correct. The bible does indeed say that a "Man shall not lie with a man as a man lies with a woman, for such is an abomination unto the lord."
It says that. Right there in black and white. It's in the book of Leviticus and it actually says it not once but twice...
So there it is. Your one true gods holy writ. It's bad to be gay. An abomination even.
Here are a few other abominations unto the lord (all from Leviticus)....
1) Eating Shellfish and Pork are abominations.
2) Wearing clothing with more then one kind of fabric is an abomination (Cotton Mixes included).
3) Working on the sabbath is an abomination.
4) Charging intrest on a loan to someone of the same nationality is an abomination.
5) You can not eat meat from a cow and that same cows milk at the same meal, for such is an abomination.
6) Women on there period are unclean. Those who have sex are unclean, even when married.
This is not a complete list (I'll post more later)... there are many more. This is in your bible Christians, you can not deny it. I read both the NIV and King James versions of Leviticus.
If you christians are going to persecute one abomination, please take the time to persecute them all.Especially the no interest one... I am paying way to damn much on my loans.
Why this matters to me - I am straight. However I like women of all colors and races. I have dated several black women. Until as recently as 2001 there were several states that still have laws prohibiting marriage, and even dating, between blacks and whites.
People should worry about what goes on in their own bedroom, not the bedrooms of others!
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