I take it that you must have won a call-in contest on Wait Wait? Don’t tell me that Carl Kasell just goes around making random answering-machine messages.

Yes, I had to deal with a Hasselhoff-related “bluff the listener” round. My brother, on the other hand, managed to get a picture taken with Carl (and autographed by Carl, too) without having to demonstrate any special knowledge. It just doesn’t seem fair.

At the current rate of development of civilization, we will all be back in the middle ages, and part of some caliphate. Parts of Europe are struggling to get there as we speak. I don’t think they believe in wife swapping.

Who needs to swap ‘em when you’ve already got three?

I’m curious to know if the author tried to define the concept in general. He’s probably right to claim it is rather nebulous. Might even order the book to see what he says (not for salacious reasons – I’m sure there are plenty of far more saucy books and websites for that!)

So start your own blog, whydoncha?

So what matters isn’t the catalog of vices, it’s the demystification of the concept.

I take it that you must have won a call-in contest on Wait Wait? Don’t tell me that Carl Kasell just goes around making random answering-machine messages.

…unlike bilious blowhard Bill Bennett…

Good thing we don’t have any blow-hard-like behavior on this blog, where we’re free to check in for the latest developments in physics and receive complimentary and unlimited doses of Leftist political opinions.

And thank Evolution that we have a dedicated supporter of the Daily Kos — that gentile journal of sober, nuanced, and dispassionate thought — to identify for us the commentators that are truly bilious.

Judging how fun non-vanilla sex can be by going to a banal suburban swinger’s club is like passing judgment on fajitas after dinner at TGI Friday’s.

oxo, whatever it is exactly that you wish modern society was like, I am deeply thankful I don’t have to live in it. When was “modern society” so great? The 50’s? 19th century? Hunter-gatherer tribal period?

Now, just to be clear, I’m married, with no swapping or other addenda on the sex life. I works me job and pays me taxes, and have even been known to watch TV. But just Lost, Galactica and a little football, I swear!

But for many years I enjoyed life as a semi-pro hedonist. My motto was, “too much of everything is just enough.” Everything fun that I wanted to do, I did, until I had done it enough; I left no cards unplayed when I walked away from the table, which I didn’t do until I had won – which in my case meant finding True Luuuuuv ™ and deciding that I was ready for a change of pace.

I had a great time, and love the fact that there are still people out there living that kind of life. I despise anyone who thinks it is their right to impose their moral judgements on the rest of us.

Yeah, you can take it too far. I got kinda lucky. There’s nothing good or liberating about a heroin addict, or a poor girl forced by poverty into prostitution or degrading pornography, and there’s certainly nothing good about a Hummer with DVD players and air conditioned seats. Slothful stoners who pull bong hits before getting out of bed are wasting their lives, fine, true…

But each of us is living our own life and we deserve the freedom to live it how we want, and if that includes a little depravity, then anyone who doesn’t like that can just stuff it.

Do you really want to be on your deathbed and have nothing to look back on but work, TV shows and a bunch of regrets?

Live the life you dream about, have fun, do something a little dangerous but be careful, and take a little time to annoy the uptight control freaks – you get bonus points for that.

Hedonism, on the other hand, can be incredibly fun. And since most of those cardinal sins are now promoted as virtues (accumulation of wealth and property, abundance that leads to never having to actually do anything, increased objective selfishness, lies and deceit as the markers of political and media success), we need to relish the inclusion of greater diversity of virtuous vices. Is it not more virtuous to gamble with your own money rather than that of your shareholders and/or mutual fund contributors??? Is it not more wise to engage directly and publicly in the realms of various adult entertainment environments, than to sit closeted in a public bathroom (cough cough) or one’s own home hidden from view paying for content provisions??? And might it be more wise to be one’s own pharmacological resource than trust the vast corporate structure that puts profit (see new virtues above) well ahead of safety and public health??? Vice starts to sound like wise.