Four remarkable sites

These sites are all engaged in one epic struggle or another, and if they use the Web only because it's convenient, they nonetheless use it to the fullest. Two of them seek to increase our knowledge of interesting places (clui.org) and people (vivabush.com), making available in-depth research; the others aim to spread pornography--pictorial or political--to the greatest possible extent, and they do so either at their own peril (simplesexsite.com) or that of others (cato.org).

The Anti-Carthaginian Historical Society This institute has as its motto "Carthage must be destroyed." Although technically Carthage was razed to the ground in 146 B.C., Cato members insist that you can never be too careful in matters Carthaginian. Another major concern of Cato's: markets must be free. Iraqis are simmering in the afterglow of the uranium bullets used to enforce that notion, and will be for 2000 years; still, Cato insists it's a $13-million-per-year job to declare that people shouldn't get in money's way. While Cato members may be alone in their hatred of Carthage--and in some of their other curious passions ("Loaded Guns Can Be Good for Kids")--they have a lot of unsavory company for their "free markets" thing... so if you need to get some of that liquidity for yourself, you might try teleportation. And if mobility is simply not an option, why not invest in some company? The Center for Land Use Interpretation From the nation's sixth-largest beef-packing plant to the adjacent Pantex nuclear bomb assembly facility and beyond, you will find many startling gems in CLUI's searchable database of "unusual and exemplary land use sites." Each featured datum is described in language at once informative and mysterious, resolutely dry and hinting inexorably at the vastnesses within every surface.

SimpleSexSite Victor Sintron wanted to be an Internet porn king, so he put up a site. Two months later, he awoke to a conference call from five would-be brethren, who threatened to rip off his head and shit down his neck unless he shut down the site within minutes. The problem was that SimpleSexSite.com subverted all the mechanisms that make net porn lucrative. By creating a joystick game in which players won points for "shooting" free "teaser" jpegs--automatically sending Victor the links--our cyber-sleazebag quickly and legally amassed the largest porn collection on the Web. SimpleSexSite.com is now back up, but in disabled form, so that Victor remains compliant with his terms for living. With Web porn interests poised to go public on Wall Street, his story serves as a lens on the formative years of an industry. VivaBush.com VivaBush.com, un sitio Internet en Español "only," es rabidamente pro-Jorge Bush. Esta diseñado muy efectivamente para fomentar Latinos, Hispanicos y mojado-americanos que George W. Bush Jr. es Mas Macho en la carrera presidencial 2000 para la Casa de Los Blancos. VivaBush.com incluye endorsimientos de celebridades Latinas, como Walter Mercado, Agusto Pinochet, Ricky Martin y el culo de Jennifer Lopez, y las actividades "pro-Latino" de Bush, como tomar mucha cerveza, polvo blanco, viejas y su ranchos de organos de bebes Latino-Americanos. "El Hijo de Bush," adorado por millones de Hispanicos Tejanos y otra gente que padece de deficiencia mental, prueba con este sitio que Jorge tiene "World Wide Huevos."