Monk

Classic conservative principles are timeless; immutable tenets that have inspired great changes in government over the last 400 years and spoken passionately and plainly to the needs and hopes of ordinary people. Since the end of World War II, those classical principles have informed a devastating critique of the welfare state, presenting a reasoned and logical alternative to statism and dependency. Conservatism has stood for human liberty based on the fundamental idea of natural law; that from his first breath, man is born free.

But conservatism has gone off the rails, becoming in some respects a parody of itself. A philosophy that is all about honoring and conserving tradition while allowing for change that buttresses and supports important aspects of the past, has been hijacked by ideologues who brook no deviation from a dogma that limits rather than expands human freedom. Conservatism has become loud, obnoxious, closed-minded, and puerile, while its classical tradition of tolerance and hard-headed rationalism has been abandoned in favor of emotional jags and a vicious parochialism that eschews debate for “litmus tests” on ideological purity.

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Until conservatives can practice some painful introspection, looking with a self-critical eye at the reasons for the debacles of 2006 and 2008, most in the movement will continue to delude themselves that simply reaffirming conservative love of small government, low taxes, and less regulation will be enough to convince a majority of Americans that they recognize their shortcomings and have changed their tune. There must be a reckoning with those who violate the very nature of conservatism by obstinately adhering to exclusionary, anti-intellectual precepts that have thrown classical conservatism over in favor of ranting, ideological tantrums.

-- Rich Moran for PajamasMedia.com

When Rush Limbaugh is considered to be your movement's leader and foremost voice, you know you're in trouble, and it's only healthy that you should be in trouble, as it shows that our country still has some good instincts.

Then there is the issue of hypocrisy. New Scientist has a study that draws a correlation between those states that more strongly profess religiously conservative values and those that consume more online pornography. One example:

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."

Religion may not be a bad thing, but its fundamentalist-activist strain seems to have a corruptive influence on politics and government. I like to think that America deserves to be ruled by a broader-minded tolerance, that freedom is about more than economic freedom, and that as a people we are more pragmatic than we are Christian fundamentalists - and that we are not "ditto heads".

Thinking about poker games, I decided to look for a little more action and googled up some strip poker, and I found one that has won my heart: YourOwnStripPoker.com (sticking to the simple draw poker rather than the Texas Hold 'Em option they give you). To get full nudity, you have to subscribe, costing only five bucks per month, and I have been feeling the temptation, though we're shy about using the credit card on the Internet, limiting ourselves to well-established operations, such as Amazon - especially wary of pornish sites.

It was such love at first site that I began to regret ordering that other poker game a couple of days ago. However, after stripping down a half-dozen girls, I have my doubts. Of course, it's smart that they would let you win, but I think you probably have to try hard to lose.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. It's not like I'm a serious poker player. This strip game is a pleasant enough diversion, and in some ways more satisfying that a regular poker game in which you only play for imaginary money or points, whereas strip poker gives one the animus of playing for something real. True, you can easily google up much more hardcore images, but there is an appealing sense of interactivity with the game that at least charms me.

For now, I'll probably stick to the censored freebies, and see how I feel about the more serious (and chaste) game that should come in the mail this week. And we'll take it from there.

I have to confess that I haven't paid any attention to the Olympics. However, to show myself a citizen of the world, I thought I should at least pay some tribute to the stiff beach volleyball competition:



Even I cannot help but admire the dedication of these athletes.

Porn hasn't really gone mainstream

I guess a lot of people must actually have real lives, hmph.

In an amusing coincidence sure to make religious right heads explode, it appears that those $600 tax refunds have fueled an increase in porn usage on the internet.

-- Ed Brayton at ScienceBlogs.com

It's nice to know that at least one sector of the economy is booming.

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Off to the library I go. Before I take off, I will leave you with this:



Since her breakdown, I know it's easy to wonder what all the fuss was about. But there is a reason why she was such a sensation. For my psychology friends, she was a Jungian archetype of the dream girl. Mmm, what a piece of ass she was...

(And I think I got the picture on this post working.)

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The dressage shows were among the stranger events Jonathan had taken me to. They had their rules, too. They'd take place in some very fancy house, really a mansion, usually down the peninsula, often with walled grounds you'd drive through on the way to the house. Jonathan would give the car to a valet, who would also take my coat. Without my coat, I'd be naked, except for boots and a leash and collar. Jonathan would take my leash and lead me to the chairs set up in a ring, usually in some gorgeous garden area. He'd take a seat and attach the leash to a little post set up next to it, and I'd kneel there, as all the other slaves were doing next to their little posts.

-- Carrie's Story by Molly Weatherfield

I am now taking the pleasure of my second reading of this gem of S/M erotica. It is in that top league with "Story of O", a porn novel that has full characters and a substantive storyline that it is worth coming back to again and again - a nice fantasy getaway, made all the cozier for its familiarity. There aren't many of these. I'm afraid all the best works are in French.

Anyway, in keeping with the overwhelming voices who want more porn from this blog, I am including a classy picture of a babe in bondage.

( WARNING: Nude Babe )

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Thank god, the courts have blocked the old Republican Congress's attempt to limit the Internet and keep it at the level of six-year-olds. Since we now have a Democratic Congress, I would like to think that we may be safe from this for a while, and that maybe the wild and free Internet will become deeply embedded enough in our culture that we will not have to worry about future legislative broadsides.

However, one has to worry about our Supreme Court resurrecting this. And, who knows, our Dubya, with Gonzalez's cringing assistance, might decide that he can cripple the Internet on his own with one of his mighty thunderbolts, an Executive Order.

But I'm feeling a liitle good about this. And fuck Donna Rice! She should stick to monkey business. What a tragic waste of dumb blonde!

( article )

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TIRUCHIRAPALLI, India -- Balaji, a Hindu priest, stood before the reclining god and offered a plate of coconut and bananas. His chest bare and his face adorned with red and yellow sacred paste, he set the food at the foot of a statue that Hindus regard as an embodiment of the powerful god Vishnu.

Following ancient tradition deep inside one of India's oldest and holiest temples, he chanted Vishnu's names 108 times to beseech health, wealth and good fortune -- not for himself, but for an Indian emigrant living in London who had purchased the prayer with her credit card on a Hindu Web site.

-- Kevin Sullivan for The Washington Post

Evidently, religion is getting so big on the Internet that it is even rivaling Internet porn. Just let me say, if you ever hear of Monk buying such religious services online instead of Internet porn, go ahead and hire a contract killer online to shoot me, because I have obviously lost all my will to live.

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WE'RE ALL PART of the pop culture world. Whether you think you are or not, whether you want to be or not, no matter how aloof and superior you feel, even if the Atlantic and Foreign Affairs are the only things you keep in your bathroom, you're as much a part of the celebrity culture as the booker on The View. Deal with it. As Gregory Peck said to David Niven in The Guns of Navarone, "You're in it now . . . up to your neck."

-- Larry Miller for The Weekly Standard

Oh, it's not so bad. This is in response to all the media hoopla over the death of the luxuriously busty Anna Nicole. Are we supposed to wallow in war, global warming, and New Orleans all the time? It's not like it would help. There is nothing wrong with a little celebrity gossip and sex to lighten the days. If the occasional nipple slip or the starlet getting out of a car in a miniskirt sans panties affords our primate-protagonist a little joy, so much the better.

( HOTNESS Alert: Nude Anna Nicole )

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