tHE dAILY tRAVESTY----->
**ACTUNG!!** Those of you who
have active websites, please send me the URL. I am planning a rehaul of
the homepage and would like to include a list of Travesty
participants' sites (note: you are a participant whether you contribute or
just read). I will not link to your page unless you let me know it is
still maintained, i.e., I know some of you have sites that you haven't updated
in ages. Tucker Lieberman can ignore this message so long as he gets back
to me about 3.
Deal Reached on Nuclear Arsenals
[excerpted]
By EDITH M. LEDERER
.c The Associated Press
UNITED
NATIONS (May 20) - The five nuclear powers on the Security Council [The United
States, Russia, Britain, France, and China] agreed Saturday to eliminate their
nuclear arsenals, as part of a new disarmament agenda agreed to by 187
countries.
The agreement by the signatories to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty was reached after all-night deliberations and intense
pressure on Iraq and the United States to settle a dispute over Baghdad's
nuclear compliance.
Even though the agreement gave no timetable, and
delegates said it would take many years to achieve a nuclear-free world, it
marked the first public statement by the major nuclear powers of their
obligation to total disarmament.
"What
has always been implicit has now become explicit,'' said Mexico's Antonio de
Icaza. "Today's events signify an important landmark on which to build a nuclear
weapon-free world.''
The Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, which came into
force in 1970, and has only four holdouts - India and Pakistan which conducted
rival nuclear tests in 1998, Israel which is believed to have nuclear weapons,
and Cuba.
Delegates repeatedly stressed the importance of getting the
four holdouts to sign the treaty - and many concede that their ratification is
crucial to eventual nuclear disarmament.
The final document reaffirmed
"the importance of Israel's accession to the NPT'' and urged India and Pakistan,
despite their 1998 nuclear tests, to become parties to the treaty "as non-nuclear weapon states.''
The nuclear haves and
have-nots also agreed on other important steps: a moratorium on nuclear weapons
tests pending activation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, further
reductions of tactical nuclear weapons, increased transparency by the nuclear
powers on reporting information about their nuclear arsenals and making weapons
safer by taking them off
"hair-trigger'' alert.
They also agreed to
permanently and irreversibly remove plutonium and uranium from nuclear warheads,
and to negotiate within the next five years a treaty banning the production of
weapons-grade nuclear material.
AP-NY-05-20-00 1907EDT
Copyright
2000 The Associated Press.
May is National Masturbation
Month
i think the problem is people are not comfortable
with their sexuality enough, as well as society. if i say i masturbate, it
means that i can't "get any." if i have a significant other, and i
masturbate, then it must mean that my partner is not satisfying me. both
of these are untrue. people just have a hard time accepting themselves and their
sexuality. look at society in general... we have ads with attractive
people acting passionately towards another extremely attractive person of the
opposite sex. society has so many other aspects of sexuality to accept
before we can accept masturbation. homosexuality, bondage, even oral sex
is still considered slightly taboo. well, thats my two cents.