WannaGo

So, now it seems that maybe the trial wasn't as effective as the researchers had let on. Gee, who ever would have thunk it? The LA Times is reporting that: "...a secondary analysis of the results have suggested that the vaccine was not quite as good as people had believed, reducing infections by only 24%, which was not statistically significant, according to researchers who spoke with Science magazine. The first analysis included all 16,000 people who participated in the trial and produced the promising results. The secondary analysis -- which was part of the protocol and is considered normal for all vaccine trials -- excluded patients who did not follow the experimental regimen. When that was done, the results were less convincing, according to experts who have seen the data. Of course, no one in the public has seen all the data yet. Full details of the trial are expected to be made public Oct. 20 at a meeting in Europe, and the researchers say they are writing a paper to be submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine. Meanwhile, all those who fervently hope for an HIV vaccine can do is wait for further revelations."

If I only made one call a day, yes. But when I have to use the phone, it's rarely just one call. So, based on how many days I usually use my phone, I get unlimited calling for about $65/mo. I can live with that.

There was no bombing of the moon. That whole thing was actually filmed in a heavily guarded studio at Disney World. The truth was, some senior NASA officials went down to Costa Rica for a "conference" and ended up binging on booze, coke, Ecstasy and hookers for damn near a month. When they got the bill, they realized they'd put it all on their government credit cards. This was just the plan they came up with the cover the costs.

OK, this seems counter-intuitive, but suicide rates seem to peak when it is warm, not during the gloom of winter. That's been the case with studies in the UK, Taiwan and Greenland. The BBC interviewed a researcher in the UK study and she offered some plausible explanations: She said: "We felt overall that the most likely explanation was probably a psychological one where for some people you have an unusually high degree of irritability, aggression and impulsivity." She said it was possible that the effect was linked to levels of the mood-controlling chemical serotonin in the brain, which have been shown to dip in the summer months. Alternatively, the suicide rate may be linked to the tendency to consume higher levels of alcohol in hot weather. However, she said the finding was unlikely to be down to people being made miserable by seeing others enjoying the good weather, as the effect was specific to unusually hot days, rather than summer days in general.

On the one hand, I think this was a big mistake for the committee and cheapens the prize in general and Obama's win in particular. If only they had waited another year, to give some of his diplomacy time to pay off and for him to start making some decisions in Afghanistan that, hopefully, improve the situation there. A year from now, giving him the prize would have had some legitimacy. This is one of those situations when people try to help, but only end up hurting. On the other hand, I think I understand why the committee did it, and David Ignatius summed it up perfectly in the Washington Post: That’s what he’s being honored for, really: reconnecting America to the world and making us popular again. If you want to understand the sentiments behind the prize, look at the numbers in the Transatlantic Trends report released last month by the German Marshall Fund. Obama’s approval rating in Germany: 92 percent compared to 12 percent for George Bush. His approval in the Netherlands: 90 percent compared to 18 percent for Bush. His favorability rating in Europe overall (77 percent) was much higher than in America (57 percent)... ...The Nobel committee is expressing a collective sigh of relief that America has rejoined the global consensus. By the way Wino, I have to disagree about calling for troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are two very different situations. Afghanistan was a righteous war to begin with -- even if the previous administration totally fucked up the execution of it -- and is now one of those, 'you broke it, you bought it' deals. We have to stay in Afghanistan, help secure and rebuild the country and deny al-Qaeda a base from which to stage future attacks on the US and other nations. This isn't 'he has WMDs' bullshit...if we allow al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regain Afghanistan, then we will pay for it. IMHO.

You guys who live there, does this jibe with your experiences and conversations with the bar girls?

I had to go take a look at Stephanie Birkitt and Holly Hester...you're right...not too spectacular. Did he pay for one of them to go to college, or was there a third? Birkitt Hester

I'm not buying it. What he wrote seems pretty clear. From the Independent: "I got into the habit of paying for boys," he wrote. "All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire." The book, which won critical acclaim and sold 190,000 copies in France, was presented by Mr Mitterrand – then a popular television presenter – as an "autobiography which is half real and half dreamed". It remains to be seen whether the suggestion that his descriptions of sex tourism were not strictly autobiographical will allow him to save his career. The memoir includes lurid scenes in male brothels in Thailand and Indonesia where boys are presented to Western tourists. Nope, he meant what he wrote...that he enjoyed his sex tourism in Thailand. Fine, like I said before, if it was all between willing adults, who cares? But I hate when politicians and other public figures do this...they say, or in this case write, something that draws criticism, and then suddenly, it's "Oh, oops, no I actually meant something else." Christ, if you are going to live in the public eye, have the balls to stick to your convictions. If you said it, frigging own it. Tell anyone who doesn't like it to go off into a corner and self-copulate. This kind of thing was what disappointed me about Natalie Maines, from the Dixie Chicks, a few years ago after she popped off about Bush at that concert in London. When she started getting heat for it, she turned around and apologized...then later un-apologized, but by then it was too late.

Jeez...talking about life on the D list.

So, he's putting in 18 hours a week to get ready for his close-up in a girlie mag. Wow, just imagine what he could accomplish if he put that much effort into something that actually, you know, matters. Like seeing to it that his almost-mother-in-law never resurfaces in American politics anywhere...not even to run for state bear poop scooper.

I think I'd rather get stoned and try talking to my cat...again.

After going over all the plans that were available, and all the stranglehold contracts, I just went down to Wal-Mart, paid $29.99 for a no-frills Samsung and got on the AT&T GoPhone plan. I pay a $3 access fee only on the days I use the phone. There are no other charges, and that gives me unlimited calling and long distance. So far, working out ok.

For what it's worth, men commit suicide in Norway at more than three times the rate of those in Thailand (19.5 to 5.6). The rate's also a little more than 10% higher than that for men in the US. Got to be all that damn cold weather and snow.

Mine either...it's more a feeling of gratitude. But Letterman's has probably developed some rather refined taste by now.

Couldn't some pharmaceutical company just create a dopamine pill? That way, we could eliminate the whole annoying process of trying to find willing sex partners. It just seems like a whole lot of effort for a relatively brief return.

Definitely with you on BFF. Also sick of hearing "on the ground."

Bob, I saw that show you're talking about...I think it's called "The Smoking Gun Presents World's Dumbest..." or something like that. I like the TSG website, so when I saw that show advertised, I was kind of jazzed about it. Then I saw it...I was flabbergasted that somebody thought it was a good idea to have Tonya Harding commenting on other people's criminal behavior. Maybe it was supposed to be an irony thing -- after all, I believe the same show had Todd Bridges and Danny Bonaduce -- but every time she opened her mouth, I felt the urge to smack her across the knee with a pipe. Gotta disagree with you on the Amy Winehouse thing, though. Yes, she has turned herself into a trainwreck, there is no doubt about that. And yes, I am almost as sick of hearing about her as I am about every time Paris takes a crap or Britney walks her dog. However, Amy Winehouse, for all her other flaws, first gained attention for her talent. If you've listened to Frank or Back to Black, you know that she is a brilliant singer/songwriter. I know it's highly unlikely, but I'm hoping someday she will pull her head out of her ass and return to making great music.

Yeah, except Mark Wahlberg was carrying around a buttload of acting talent in those droopy drawers...who knew?

What caught my attention in what he wrote was that he referred to them as "boys," which of course leaves a certain impression, and that he enjoyed the "slave market" aspect of it. Prostitution between consenting adults is one thing -- and I see nothing wrong with it -- but between adults and kids or between adults and other adults who aren't necessarily so willing is something else entirely. However, Mitterand has now come out and said that all of his paid partners were "consenting adults." He also claims the whole sex tourism thing was a mistake and said of his book that it "in no way is it an apology of sex tourism ... even if one of the chapters is a journey through that hell, with the fascination that hell can provoke." C'mon, if this was just some straight up adult pay-for-play, he shouldn't start backpedaling, especially five years after the book was published. He can just tell anyone who has a problem with it to get stuffed. But, defending Polanski still probably isn't a good idea.

Oops. Frédéric Mitterrand admitted to paying for sex with 'young boys’ in Thailand Frédéric Mitterrand, France’s culture minister, was under pressure to resign after it emerged that he had admitted to paying “young boys†for sexual acts while on holiday in Thailand. The revelations in his 2005 autobiography “The Bad Life†have come back to haunt Mr Mitterrand after he emerged as one of the most vociferous defenders of Roman Polanski, the film director currently detained in Switzerland in connection with an outstanding conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in the US in 1977. In his book, Mr Mitterrand, the nephew of the late Socialist president François Mitterrand, wrote: “I got into the habit of paying for boys...All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously. “One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable.†Curiously, there was little outcry when the book was published in 2005. However, Mr Mitterrand’s tastes were brought to the fore on Monday by Marine Le Pen, daughter of the far-right National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, on a political chat show. More

Actually, I was just being immature...Letterman apologized to his staff.

This is great! I love it!

Yeah, I too fail to see why this is a scandal at all. I mean, if I understand it correctly, a rich and famous older man, surrounded by younger, presumably attractive women in the fast-living world of show business, beds a few of them. So? I'd be more surprised if he wasn't fucking his way through the roster. As long as no one was coerced, they're all big boys and girls just having a good time and trying to get ahead...or some head, whatever the case may be. I haven't seen any of them complaining about it, have you?

Gee, color me surprised.

I use "whatever" when I want to annoy my g/f. I disagree with "it is what it is" being on the list. I use that one not infrequently just to signal my basic philosophy of life...seems less pretentious than "que sera sera."