PHOENICIA

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
- Dan Quayle quotes

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"Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls."
- Dan Rather quotes

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"I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex."
- Erma Bombeck quotes

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"If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign."
- George W. Bush quotes

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"Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense."
- George H. Gallup quotes

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"The liberated man is not the one who is freed in his ideal reality, his inner truth, or his transparency; he is the man who changes spaces, who circulates, who changes sex, clothes, and habits according to fashion, rather than morality, and who changes opinions not as his conscience dictates but in response to opinion polls."
- Jean Baudrillard quotes

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"I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy - make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls."
- John Kerry quotes

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"Don't worry about polls, but if you do, don't admit it."
- Rosalynn Carter quotes

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"Opinion polls measure the public's satisfaction with its ignorance."
- Anonymous quotes

MORPHY'S LAW: Once you are the best in chess, then quit.

FISCHER'S POSTULATE: Once you are the best in chess, resign your title, make impossible demands, then quit.

KARPOV'S COROLLARY: Once you are the best in chess, if you start to lose, call for a timeout.

KASPAROV'S AXIOM: Once you are the best in chess, start a new organization and avoid the second best.

WALL'S COROLLARIES OF CHESS:

Every chess clock ticks faster than you think.

Your opponent's clock will always tick slower than your clock.

When you have forced mate in three, you have overlooked being mated in two.

Don't hope for your opponent's mistakes, rely on them!

A chess piece most likely to be broken or lost is the most difficult to replace.

Bad moves come in waves.

You always see a better move just after making a bad move.

A tournament director is always asked the rule he is least familiar with.

A person who resigns gracefully never intended to win anyway.

If you can't make a good move, make a confusing move.

Chess is only a hobby to those who can't play very well.

There are no inferior moves with inferior opponents.

Chess rating times good sportmanship is a constant.

The only missing move on a scoresheet is the one you can't reconstruct.

Chessplayers never die, they just lose their mating habits.

Needle your opponent with pins.

Prod your opponent with forks.

The hardest position to win is stalemate.

Chess is an art to those who can draw their games.

Rules to postal chess must be obeyed to the letter.

Chessboards are made by squares.

A king's castle is his home.

Chess ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Chess computers work better and are stronger if you plug it in.

Never lick a gift horse in the mouth.

When all else fails, knock over the board and chess set.

If you push a pawn far enough, it will fall of the table.

If at first you don't succeed, resign. No use being a damn foolish patzer.

Don't eat beans before a match.

At least scientists prove that sex is fun!

In fact it's great thing that they finally prove important problem like this.

Anyway I liked the way they proved it, it's not easy at all

Tartus in Syria likely option if Ukraine evicts fleet in Crimea.

Russia is stepping up its rhetoric about redeploying its Black Sea Fleet to the Mediterranean if Ukraine pushes ahead with plans to evict it from its home port base of Sevastopol in the Crimea.

"Undoubtedly, the withdrawal [of the Black Sea Fleet] from the Crimea will affect Russia's security in the south. New bases in the Mediterranean Sea could make up for the departure," Rear Adm. Andrei Baranov stated Monday according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Ukraine's pro-American President Viktor Yushchenko has been putting pressure on Russia's leasing of the Sevastopol base in the month since Russian forces occupied one-third of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus in a five day operation Aug. 8-12.

Mr. Yushchenko's policy has infuriated the Russians, who have dominated the Black Sea for almost a quarter of a millennium. Sevastopol is also a fabled fortress and hero city in Russian history that was only conquered after long, heroic sieges in the Crimean War of 1854-55, and against the British and the French, and in 1942 against the Nazis.

Russian navy ships celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol in the Crimea on May 11. Russia's current lease to operate the base expires in 2017. (Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

However, in 1954, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who was himself Ukrainian, transferred the Crimean Peninsula from Russia to Ukraine.

Russia's current lease to operate the Sevastopol base expires in 2017, but Mr. Yushchenko has demanded that the Russians file in advance all maneuvers and planned operations of the Black Sea Fleet with his government in Kiev, and the Kremlin looks unlikely to accept this demand.

Mr. Yushchenko also wants Ukraine to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance. The Ukrainian president also wants to charge Russia higher rent for the use of the base.

RIA Novosti said the Black Sea Fleet currently comprises 50 warships and patrol boats, and that it has 80 combat aircraft.

The most likely Mediterranean base for the Black Sea Fleet would be Tartus in Syria, which served as a maintenance port for the old Soviet navy during the Cold War. RIA Novosti said there had already been discussions in the Russian media about reactivating Tartus as an operating entrance for the Black Sea Fleet.

The news agency said that "about 10 Russian warships and three floating piers" were already based there. It said Russian engineers and construction crews were already at work enlarging the naval base at Tartus and that a new pier for the use of Russian warships was being constructed at nearby Latakia.

Syria was a strong Soviet ally for more than a quarter-century during the Cold War and it has been boosting military ties with Russia again in recent years.

A few weeks ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad visited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the Russian resort of Sochi and military cooperation was a leading issue on their agenda.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko speaks to the press in Paris on Sept. 9. Mr. Yushchenko wants his country to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance and also wants to charge Russia higher rent for the use of its base. (Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

If Russia were to base significant naval forces in Syria, that could have the effect of deterring or limiting Israel's ability to strike at targets in Syria because it might then run the risk of Russian retaliation.

Adm. Baranov did not restrict his comments to Syria and the Mediterranean. He also said Russia was still willing to continue its maritime naval cooperation with NATO forces. "I do not see why our relations with NATO should end over last month's events [in Georgia]," he said.

However, the Russian admiral also warned that Moscow was strengthening the Black Sea Fleet and that it was prepared to use its naval force to pressure Georgia to accept Russian terms to end the conflict in the Caucasus. "We are learning the lessons of the naval operation to force Georgia to peace," he said according to the RIA Novosti report.

September 18, 2007

SEATTLE --Officially, it's the South Lake Union Streetcar. But in the neighborhood where the new line runs, it's called the South Lake Union Trolley -- or, the SLUT. At Kapow! Coffee, a shop in the old Cascade neighborhood, 100 T-shirts bearing the words "Ride the SLUT" sold out in days, and another 100 are on order.

"We're welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood," said Jerry Johnson, 29, a part-time barista.

Some claim -- incorrectly, according to representatives of Vulcan Inc., the company that is developing the area -- that South Lake Union Trolley was the original name and that it was changed when officials belatedly realized the acronym.

The $50.5 million project should be completed with streetcars running in December. Underlying the lighthearted opposition, however, is resentment over changes in the old working-class neighborhood.

"There was a meeting with representatives from the city several years ago," Johnson recalled.

"They asked us, 'What we could do for you?' Most people raised their hands and said, 'Affordable housing,'" he said. "Then the people from the city huddled together -- 'whisper, whisper, whisper,' -- and they said, 'How about a trolley?'"

Since then, Cascade has been ignored in Vulcan brochures that lump the neighborhood together with Denny Park and Denny Triangle under the term South Lake Union. With the streetcar, said Don Clifton, a Cascade resident, "We learned how fun it is to change the name of things."

It's a Seat made for a Man, a Real Man! Place for Everything!
anyway i'm not real man when it's relating with seat like this

Contrary to popular perceptions about prostitution and violence, more than two-thirds of off-street sex workers who participated in a recent SFU study say they don’t experience violence while working.

Sixty-three cent of the study participants—who work in massage parlours, for escort agencies or independently out of their homes—have never experienced violent behaviour.

Those who did said the majority of incidents were related to a client’s refusal to pay or to wear a condom.

School of Criminology grad student Tamara O’Doherty, who conducted the study, says her findings suggest that the off-street sex trade is safer than it is for the 10–20 per cent of prostitutes who work at the street level.

"The lack of violence as shown in this study doesn’t reflect what many people typically fear about prostitution in general—that it is a dangerous profession," says O’Doherty, who surveyed 39 off-street sex workers and conducted in-depth interviews with 10 women involved in the sex industry.

The women were mainly Caucasian, aged 22–45, and earned an average of $60,000 annually working four days a week. Ninety per cent had some post-secondary education and more than a third had a university degree.

O’Doherty says the findings suggest that potentially violent men target street prostitutes.

That "should be no surprise," she says. "Street sex workers, forced to work in isolation with little or no protection from police, are ideal prey for violent men."

O’Doherty argues that exploitative working structures and the quasi-legal status of prostitution severely compromise sex workers’ safety.

Instead of protecting these vulnerable women, she says, "we have enacted laws that further marginalize and expose them to harm."

O’Doherty’s thesis supervisor, criminologist John Lowman, says the research is at odds with the Conservative government’s prohibitionist approach to prostitution.

"This research suggests that Canadian prostitution law exposes street prostitutes to extreme violence, while many women in the effectively legal off-street trade are working violence free."
By Marianne Meadahl

Did you know that rats make love about 20 times a day?

Sex is the best and safest way to relax, its effect is 20 times as strong as valium’s.

For every web page with “normal” content, there are five of them with pornographic content.

In terms of biochemistry, sex has the same effect on the body as eating too much chocolate.

Beards grow faster on men who have sexual intercourse on a regular basis.

Male bats have the highest homosexuality rate among mammals.

Formicophilia is a fetish that involves having small insects crawl over one’s genitals.

Ithyphallophobia is the fear of watching and thinking about erect penises.

There are men in Guam whose job is to travel across the country and sleep with virgins, who pay them for the privilege of giving them the first sexual intercourse....