"what with the Supreme Court's getting itself out of the private lives of gay people"

Actually, the decision appears to be even better news than that. At least on my reading the majority decision (by Justice Stevens, IIRC) says that all private bedroom conduct between consenting adults is private and may not be criminalized. Thus many other acts covered by "sodomy" statutes are also covered, not just gay sex.

I can't wear a pancake on my head, I'm driving to Vermont. I think that gets you pulled over even there -- but it'd be a good incentive to buy local maple products.

woohoo! Rim jobs for everyone!

and I mean EVERYONE!

Rim jobs for William Rehnquist?

Are you volunteering for the Rehnquist rim-job? 'Cause I'm sure not.

I'd take him over Thomas, though. And Scalia -- that's one asshole that could use some loosening up.

for real, though, rimjobs are probably the grossest thing I'll never do but wanna.

"Oh, and Bush provided some much-needed comic relief by trying to pretend he knows how to solve Africa's problems."

Ouch! I'm no fan of the Bush "Administration"'s foreign policy, but most Africa experts say his State Department has more of a handle on Africa, and more genuine concern for the continent, than any recent presidency. And even Bob Geldof has praised Bush's Africa policy.

What's up with the serious discussion intruding on our rim-jobs?

Anyway, "even" Bob Geldof is not my idea of an authority on foreign policy. I'm with G on this one; that Bush story was either gallows humor or just the gallows.

Ten seconds of web-searching turns up:
Bush's and the G8's hypocrisy on Africa
http://www.counterpunch.org/engler06142003.html
Bush's Africa czar was pro-apartheid
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/0104kansteiner_body.html

I'm not saying Geldof is an expert on foreign policy or Africa policy, but he is certainly not someone one would expect to find supporting Bush on any matter without consideration. If you prefer to listen to a "Montreal area activist" (whatever that is) in Cockburn's loony rag, feel free.

Okay, not to be confrontational here, but I can't let that "loony rag" crack slide without comment. CounterPunch is one of the few mainstays of real investigative journalism and political analysis that we have left these days in the US. As The Nation and the nation drift rightward, Counterpunch has not stopped delivering insight, facts, and analysis about domestic politics, and first-hand accounts from foreign conflict areas which would otherwise never make the domestic press. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, CP is almost without peer these days. It's just stupid to dismiss a magazine like CP because some of its contributors come from outside your (right-wing normative) perception of the political spectrum.

On the Geldof question, vaguely-left-seeming celebrities and public figures have regularly attached themselves to the right at the slightest provocation. For many, Sept. 11th provided plenty of impetus. Dennis Miller, who is apparently going to work on the Bush campaign, is only the latest example. (Or was that a nightmare and have I woken up?)

Now, can we please get back to the rim-jobs?

Seriously: Why is everything on the Web about rim-jobs so stupid?

Saran Wrap?
http://www.sfsi.org/ask-us/ask151.html

Free hands for cheek-spreading?
http://www.sexuality.org/l/incoming/aanal.html

Stupid online polls about STDs?
http://gaylife.about.com/library/blshq004.htm?terms=analingus

Fight! Fight! (waves fists in air happily)

Please, though, gentlemen, let's keep it above the belt. Obviously Roger did not cotton to the "loony" crack about CP, and Roger, keep in mind that ol' PJ is a Hampshire alumn too, and thusly is likely to be affronted by being called "right-wing normative."

I love that all this is coming up in the Oolong posts. Incongruous to the point of perversity! :)

First off, you're right, slamming Cockburn without evidence is beneath the intellectual standard to which I hold myself. I have several reasons for looking askance on his efforts, but I'll not detail them at present.

As for calling me a right-winger -- hell, I've been called everything from a fascist to a Bolshevik. Such labels seem dismissive and not particularly useful, but if you want to put me in a box, I don't rightly care much what you write on it, as long as you leave me air holes. (Though I will say, with all respect, that a list that puts me -- and The Nation, Zeus forefend! -- on the "right" better have a lot of weight on the left or else the whole scale'll topple over... Reminds me of a joke at Hampshire, 'bout being a right-winger because I was a registered Democrat.)

Anyway... here's a few links on Bush and Africa.
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2891&catcode=11
http://democracy-africa.org/bushpolafr.htm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0707/p09s02-coop.html
http://www.useu.be/Categories/Sustainable%20Development/July0302BushAfrica.html

Many of my assessments come from my reading of The Economist, but since that is actually a conservative periodical, I won't cite it further, lest I be fed to the liberal lions.

I should apologize for unsolicited bitchiness as well. However, I will take this opportunity to expand on the particular shoulder-chip that was motivating my remark -- because I think Peter and Gus have both misunderstood it.

I didn't mean to call Peter a "right-winger," and in fact if you read what I wrote I don't think I did. He's clearly not that, at least not by most American standards. But this was the point I was trying to make -- that people's perception of the political spectrum in this country (and here I'm including Peter without knowing him well enough for this to be at all fair) is completely fucked-up (and -down and -sideways).

That was what I meant by "right-wing-normative" -- a perception of the possible political viewpoints whose center is skewed to the right, so that Counterpunch looks "loony" just by virtue of being to the left of The Nation. And I do maintain that The Nation has moved very noticeably *rightward* (which again is NOT the same as saying it's "on the right") over the last five to ten years.

(But Lou Proyect has some interesting things to say on this topic, suggesting that the magazine may not have "drifted" that far from its actual past:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/the_nation.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/tainted_nation.htm
)

The other key misunderstanding, directly above, is Peter calling my crankiness "the liberal lions." One of my great concerns about the issue I'm raising is that this country's perceptions of the political possibilities have shrunk to the point where people can no longer conceive of anything to the left of "liberalism." Seriously: I'm not a liberal.

And "being a right-winger because I was a registered Democrat" doesn't actually sound like a joke to me. I understand why someone who came from the US political mainstream (NB: another word for this is "center," not "left") would think it was funny that Hampshire people thought this, but for me that just means that Hampshire is one of very few places where some of the political possibilities remain open that have been foreclosed elsewhere in this fucked-up country.

By the way, Chomsky (among other lefties) tells everyone to read The Economist and the WSJ. That doesn't make you a bad person in my book. They're full of information and analysis you can't get anywhere else.

(End rant, repeat apologies for crankiness, add final gratuitous rim-job reference.)

So, um, Russell 'n' Robert are saying that Bush's plan is just going to screw Africa over because he's imposing patent protections on AIDS drugs: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2003/000156.html ? And then he's just employing the same ol' tired structural adjustment models? (Corp-focus is the last serious email list I'm actually on anymore...)

And when is this Administration going to develop a sound Antarctica policy?

Dude, Rajah, you weren't just bumping your gums about the bad information about rim jobs. (So to speak! I mean as figure of speech only. Eew. Gums and rim jobs.) That is some of the least-interestingly-written sex chat I have ever heard. Thank god for Em and Lo and Dan Savage. Who wants to read anything so straightforward?