Breaking News Events

[Tommi]

Check it out, Rob Reiner and supporters of gay marriage are hoping to get a million hits in support of the play on YouTube.

In case you missed the live broadcast last night, a recording of the Play “8” is now available for viewing online at http://www.youtube.com/AmericanEqualRights Click on Skip Ahead
It’s about 1h 32min in length. It will make you laugh and cry. It’s terrifically well done. Although the play is a reading, and the actors hold transcripts ffrom the trial, the performance is indistinguishable from a full production.
The play, written by Dustin Lance Black and directed by Rob Reiner, is an account of the Federal District Court trial to overturn Proposition 8, based on transcripts of the trial as well as interviews.

The cast includes Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Martin Sheen, Christine Lahti, Jamie Lee Curtis, Matthew Morrison, Matt Bomer, Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, Campbell Brown, Chris Colfer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cleve Jones, Rory O’Malley, George Takei, Yeardley Smith, Vanessa Garcia, Jansen Panatierre, James Pickens, Jr. and Bridger Zadina.

Detailed story at: http://lgbtpov.frontiersla.com/2012/03/01/breaking-afer-webcasting-8-live-this-saturday-with-brad-pitt-as-judge-walker/
__._,_.___
Enjoy!

[SoNotHer]

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/03/smithsonian-magazines-annual-photo-contest/100255/

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/smiths030112/s_s25_0people2.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/smiths030112/s_s06_ltered10.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/smiths030112/s_s14_ericana9.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/smiths030112/s_s07_0people8.jpg

[UofMfan]

NHL Stars Support LGBT Athletes, Combat Homophobia With 'You Can Play' Project (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/04/nhl-stars-psa-you-can-play-homophobia-lgbt-video_n_1320154.html)

[UofMfan]

AOL Suspends Advertising On Rush Limbaugh's Show (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/aol-suspends-advertising-on-rush-limbaughs-show?ref=fpb)

[UofMfan]

UPDATE: 12 ADVERTISERS DROP RUSH (http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/03/05/438178/10th-advertiser-bonobos-drops-limbaugh/?mobile=nc)

[Cin]

As the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United clearly showed, corporations and political spending are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech but apparently the First Amendment does not protect the right of actual people to protest.

Congress Votes to End Protest

Last week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would severely limit the First Amendment rights of protesters.

Now known as the “anti-Occupy law,” H.R. 347 makes it a federal offense to “enter or remain” in an area designated as “restricted.”

As RT.com (via the ACLU blog) put it:

Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country. The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene…

It also restricts access to buildings or grounds that are connected to a “special event of national significance,” or a National Special Security Event, which are so categorized by a simple stroke of the pen by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Daily Paul, a blog dedicated to Ron Paul, who was one of only THREE congressional members to vote against the measure, was so alarmed they simply asked: “Is this real?”

If President Obama signs the bill into law, it means that any person protesting a Romney or Santorum event (since they enjoy Secret Service protection) could potentially be arrested, fined, and incarcerated for a year.

It means that protest of national or global summits could be punishable under federal law. It means that government workers striking outside of government buildings or ‘special events’ could be thrown in jail. And it means that certain Occupy gatherings would be expressly forbidden.

H.R. 347 is the definition of authoritarianism. It is a serious and blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of every American citizen. And it should be repealed immediately.

Update: Conveniently, this bill would also undermine protest efforts at the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Congressmen Justin Amash (R-MI), one of the few to oppose the bill, has published this on his FB page:

Current law makes it illegal to enter or remain in an area where certain government officials (more particularly, those with Secret Service protection) will be visiting temporarily if and only if the person knows it’s illegal to enter the restricted area but does so anyway. The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect it’s illegal. (It expands the law by changing “willfully and knowingly” to just “knowingly” with respect to the mental state required to be charged with a crime.)

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/825466/congress_votes_to_end_protest/

[UofMfan]

Rush Limbaugh Advertisers Keep Leaving Show In Wake Of Sandra Fluke Comments (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/rush-limbaugh-advertisers-leave-show-fluke_n_1323358.html)

[Corkey]

According to Ed Schults it's up to 33

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/03/06/439229/jcpenney-drops-rush/

[Cin]

Doing Biden’s Bidding
by LAURA CARLSEN

Vice President Joe Biden landed in Mexico City last night and he’s left little doubt about his mission—to lock in the regional drug war. His visit comes at a time of mounting calls to end prohibitionist laws and the drug war model.

Biden will be in Mexico City all day Monday meeting with President Felipe Calderon and presidential candidates, then in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Tuesday, where he’ll meet with President Porfirio Lobo and have a “working lunch” with Central American presidents.

On a March 1 call with the press, a reporter asked whether the drug war would be on the agenda at the meeting with Central American presidents. Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Dan Restrepo, replied,

“The Obama administration has been quite clear in our opposition to decriminalization or legalization of illicit drugs. At the same time, we’ve also been very open–the President has said it on numerous occasions, in meetings with leaders and publicly–of our willingness, our interest, in engaging in a robust dialogue with our partners to determine how we can be most effective in confronting the transnational criminal organizations, and, in this case in Central America, the gangs that are adversely affecting people’s daily lives and daily routines.”

His message is that the administration that presides over the nation with the largest illegal drug market in the world and actively funds a global war to enforce ineffective prohibition policies will not consider any form of legalization. But it supports “dialogue.”

Can that position really qualify as dialogue? A dialogue on how to “be most effective in confronting transnational criminal organizations” must start from the recognition that the current U.S. strategy has increased violence, done nothing to reduce crime or illicit drug flows and had a devastating impact on “people’s daily lives and daily routines” in Mexico and Central America.

A real discussion on effective strategies has to include the option of legalization. The Obama administration seems determined to block that option, despite a growing number of calls for discussion on legalization that include former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia and current presidents Santos of Colombia and Perez Molina of Guatemala.

Biden is just the latest envoy in U.S. diplomatic offensive to bolster the drug war. On Feb. 27, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was in Guatemala with the same message. “The United States does not view decriminalization as a viable way to deal with the narcotics problem,” she told Perez Molina.

Pérez Molina recently called for decriminalization in the region and he reiterated his position at the meeting with Napolitano. “We are calling for a discussion, a debate. And we continue to insist… We want to open a debate to find a more effective way to fight drug trafficking.” The Guatemalan government has begun to lobby other Central American countries on the issue in anticipation of the meeting this week. Biden appears to have been charged on this trip with deterring any move toward legalization in the region and aligning nations in the war on drugs.

He has a tough road ahead of him. Latin American citizens and government leaders are openly protesting a model where their nations pay in blood and lives to fill U.S. defense contractor’s pockets and spread the Pentagon’s global reach–with few, if any, positive results. In Mexico, thousands filled the Central Plaza to draw the outlines of 60,000 dead in the drug war on the large esplanade in front of the National Palace and the citizen Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity is planning a summer caravan through the United States to protest U.S. aid for the drug war through the Merida Initiative.

The Mexican daily La Jornada published an editorial Feb. 24 calling for debate on decriminalization and commenting on a statement by Sec. of Foreign Relations, Patricia Espinosa, that the Mexican government is against decriminalization but would consider debate. It concluded:

“Perhaps if the debate on the decriminalization of drugs had been begun before adopting the present course regarding public security, the country would have saved countless lives, widespread social suffering, grave processes of institutional breakdown and astronomical monetary resources. In whatever form, it is urgent and impossible to postpone the analysis of alternatives to the failure of a drug policy that is one only of the police, the military and the judiciary. In that sense anyone who takes this position–though it may be late and contradictory–is welcome.”

Despite the praise that has been and will be lavished on Calderon for his drug war, for other countries, Mexico has become the example of why NOT to pursue a drug war strategy. When I asked President Perez Molina and President Lobo how they felt about winding up like Mexico, both sought to distance themselves from the Mexican experience. I had the opportunity to ask as part of a fact-finding mission on violence against women led by the Nobel Women’s Initiative and JASS that showed a huge increase in violence against women as militarization under the drug war has escalated.

Perez Molina answered that his country was in a different position: “Drug trafficking in Guatemala is different than in Mexico. We don’t see a war situation. The cartels have to maintain control of territory in Mexico but here it’s traffic, there isn’t occupation or control of territory. Here I don’t see the army in a war against the narco…” In other interviews he has also been reticent about allowing the level of U.S. intervention that the Mexican government has permitted.

Lobo recognized the risks and failures of the model but dodged the question of alternatives. “I don’t have the answer, people are dying, [drug-trafficking] pollutes us, and there is violence. There’s an increase in drug trafficking. The problem is, what’s the solution? Colombia put up a major fight and drugs keep flowing out. They have arms from the US and the money keeps flowing. In this we have to find a solution so this won’t end up being a war without end.”

Instead of sitting down with its neighbors to find a peaceful solution and truly assess whether the current strategy is working for anybody, the White House is sending a strong message to hold the line on the drug war. And Biden brings much more than his personal power of persuasion to the mostly closed-door conversations

It’s disturbing to see that the Obama administration has taken such a hard line against opening up debate on alternatives to the drug war. From here in Mexico, we see the costs so painfully close that the expected endorsements from Biden and company, far from being support, are a stubborn denial of reality. We can’t know what will happen in the private meetings, but statements before Biden’s trip emphasize support for the Calderon drug war and the commitment to continue the present model of security cooperation until the last day of his administration.

One wonders what will be said at the separate meetings with the presidential candidates. If the stated purpose is to repeat the U.S. commitment to respecting the electoral process and results, why not simply announce that publicly to all? Will Biden pressure the candidates to do the U.S.’ bidding on security policy, bringing to bear U.S. political and economic clout to assure continuance of the drug war?

Lopez Obrador announced he will deliver a letter to Biden stating, “We do not want to continue to favor military cooperation in the relationship with the United States, but instead place cooperation for development at the center.”

The U.S. has tremendous influence over Mexico and Central America, historically through aid and military presence, and even more now that free trade agreements have created even higher levels of economic dependence.

To use that influence to suppress debate on innovative and very possibly effective alternatives to the bloody drug war is bad politics and the opposite of the kind of “equal partnership and mutual respect” the Obama administration promised at the Trinidad and Tobago Summit in 2009. Part of the purpose of Biden’s trip is to prepare for the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena in April. At that summit, the hemisphere’s nations will be able to judge whether Obama’s presidency changed relations as promised three years ago.

If Biden’s trip focuses on locking in policies of drug war militarization and discouraging independent regional initiatives, the Obama administration will arrive in Cartagena having broken those promises and dashed hopes of a more just realignment of relations in the hemisphere.

[Cin]

03.06.12 - 10:34 AM
On Stealing School and Other "Crimes"

by Abby Zimet

The sad and surreal cautionary tale of Tonya McDowell, 34, a single homeless unemployed Connecticut mother convicted last week of "stealing" $15,000 worth of education in 2011 by enrolling her son in a good school he wasn't technically supposed to go to, and subsequently convicted of selling drugs to undercover officers who started to investigate her after she was arrested on the school charge - or, essentially, convicted of being the wrong color, class and gender in the wrong place, and lacking the external or internal resources required to overcome the many strikes against her. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison, reduced with a plea deal to serving five years. She will join over six million people - many incarcerated for non-violent crimes, the majority black men, including 50,000 in solitary confinement every day - under "correctional supervision" in America. The New Yorker takes a scathing look at the largely unexamined "storm that wretches suffer in," defying humanity and common sense, that is our prison system.

“You shouldn’t be arrested for stealing a free education. It's just wrong.” - McDowell

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/03/06-0

[Andrea]

Is this really a good way to spend money?

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/06/homeland-security-to-have-immigrant-exit-tracking-system-ready-within-weeks/ (http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/06/homeland-security-to-have-immigrant-exit-tracking-system-ready-within-weeks/)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security is finalizing its plan for a biometric data system to track when immigrants leave the United States and will present it to Congress within “weeks,” a top department official told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday....

Visa overstays have long been a concern of lawmakers and law enforcement. Some estimates suggest that as many as half of the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants have overstayed visas.

But finding illegal immigrants who, like El Khalifi, came to the United States before biometric data was collected and records were computerized around 2004 — and who overstayed visas but haven’t committed a crime — can be difficult, if not impossible....

[Tommi]

Peyton Manning's 14-year career with the Indianapolis Colts came to an end after owner Jim Irsay informed the four-time NFL MVP on Monday night that the team will release him, according to team sources.
http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnflexperts/132688231.jpg


http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2012/02/peyton-manning.jpg

[MissItalianDiva]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/moldova-chemical-castration_n_1323382.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D141460

CHISINAU, Moldova — Foreigners convicted of sexually abusing children in Moldova will be mandatorily castrated, according to new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Parliament approved the law by a majority after lawmakers said the impoverished nation was attracting pedophiles from the West. It will become effective July 1.

The new law states foreign and Moldovan nationals found guilty of pedophilia will be chemically castrated, while courts will rule separately on those found guilty of rape.

The move was immediately criticized by the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights group, which said chemical castration should involve consent, and offenders should be properly informed about procedure while the law should have been preceded by a public debate.

Valeriu Munteanu, a Moldovan Liberal Party lawmaker, said the measure was necessary after public outrage over several cases involving U.S. and West European nationals.

"The Republic of Moldova has been transformed in recent years into 'a tourist destination' for Western pedophiles and there have been cases where rapists have repeatedly offended even after they served prison time," said Munteanu, opening the debate.

The measure has broad support in Moldova, one of Europe's poorest nations, where many believe that the country has an international reputation as a top destination for sex tourists.

There have been nine convictions for child sex offenses in the country in the past two years – five of which were of foreigners from Western Europe. Child sex offenders risk prison sentences of up to 20 years and in some cases life sentences.

Chemical castration involves the administration of testosterone-suppressing hormones every three months, which are intended to curb sexual drive and male fertility.


The new legislation follows similar developments in other countries, which have been moving ahead with laws allowing mandatory chemical castration for sex offenders.

The Czech republic has mandatory chemical castration for some offenders, a matter which is decided by the courts, and Poland legalized the procedure in 2009 for offenders who rape minors or close relatives.

Russian lawmakers in October gave first-round approval to a bill that would impose chemical castration on repeat sex offenders in apparent reaction to a string of highly publicized pedophile scandals.

The Council for Europe in February called on Germany to do away with the practice of surgical castration, calling the procedure degrading to convicted criminals. In a report released in Strasbourg, France, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture acknowledged that the German procedure is voluntary and carried out only under extremely well-controlled circumstances. The committee also criticized the Czech Republic in 2009 for its use of surgical castration.

A spokesman for the committee on Tuesday called for "safeguards" against the potential arbitrary use of the procedure so that it would only be used with the agreement and full understanding of the offender.

"There should be free and informed consent before the commencement of treatment," said Johan Friestedt in a telephone call to The Associated Press. "There is a tendency to adopt such laws without much public debate."

Elsewhere, in Britain, Denmark and Sweden sex offenders are offered chemical castration drugs on a voluntary basis. In the United States, several states have laws allowing chemical castration.

In Turkey a draft proposed last year by legislators from the conservative, Islamic-rooted ruling party for the chemical castration of pedophiles and rapists received little support and has since been shelved.

In France, a bill brought before France's National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, proposing making chemical castration mandatory for those convicted of raping minors younger than 15 failed to pass a constitutional committee, and was dropped.

[Hollylane]

The problem with chemical or manual castration, is that it does not remove the desire to molest, rape, or otherwise victimize another individual. You can remove the penis, but the brain can still fixate on the control aspect, and it is my feeling, from my base of knowledge, that this would not prevent future assaults entirely.

[Andrea]

The problem with chemical or manual castration, is that it does not remove the desire to molest, rape, or otherwise victimize another individual. You can remove the penis, but the brain can still fixate on the control aspect, and it is my feeling, from my base of knowledge, that this would not prevent future assaults entirely.

I agree. Sexual assault is about power, not about sex. The molester would just another object.

Still, a part of me doesn't mind the idea of a male molester having his all mighty penis removed.

[Okiebug61]

If the Neighbor Hood Watch Captain has been any other race he would have been arrested on site. I don't get this at all.

http://news.yahoo.com/family-florida-boy-killed-neighborhood-watch-seeks-arrest-044537742.html

[Cin]

Sandra Fluke On The View (http://www.loop21.com/sandra-fluke-talks-limbaugh-obama-view?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theloop21+%28TheLoop21.com+Co mprehensive+Feed%29)

During her “View” appearance, Fluke also said she wanted to clear up two major misconceptions. Firstly, she pointed out that the policy she supports doesn’t involve taxpayers footing the bill for birth control but private insurance companies doing so. Secondly, she noted that Limbaugh isn’t the only media personality to disrespect her. She directed viewers to watchdog website Media Matters, which has compiled a list of media types, including Glenn Beck, who have disparaged Fluke.

“I think it is really important for us all to understand that this was not one person who went crazy and made 'funny,' outrageous statements,” Fluke said. “This is evidently a segment of our political commentators who think that it’s acceptable in today’s society to say these things about women.”

[LeftWriteFemme]

Moscow and Manchester in final bid to stop St Petersburg gay hate law


http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/moscow-and-manchester-final-bid-stop-st-petersburg-gay-hate-law060312

[clay]

:candle: :candle: :candle:
heartfelt prayers for all the victims of today's senseless shooting at a Psych Hosp in Pittsburg! When the story broke there was one fatality and seven people shot....what is this world coming to....sending love & prayers to everyone affected by this tragedy today! Holding that community in my thoughts and heart......SMH...I just don't understand...:(.
:candle: :candle: :candle:

[macele]

people like rush limbaugh, glenn beck, bill o'reilly, sean hannity, pat buchanan, etc etc ... it's power struggle (still living in the past. wishing the white man ruled over all.), greed, attention-seeking, mentally unstable, insecure, ... and they make a living at it. just not right.

bill maher is not different. he is just on the other side of the fence, ... he is just not republican.

all could easily be admitted to a mental institution, today! or, the jailhouse.

i don't watch any of these people. but obviously there are people who do. and sadly, there are people who will sponsor rush. very upsetting. very upsetting.

[Toughy]

If the Neighbor Hood Watch Captain has been any other race he would have been arrested on site. I don't get this at all.

http://news.yahoo.com/family-florida-boy-killed-neighborhood-watch-seeks-arrest-044537742.html

He had gone to a convenience store to buy some Skittles and was returning home when he was confronted by an armed man who was head of the local neighborhood watch.
The man hasn't been charged.

this just makes me nuts.............

[Toughy]

people like rush limbaugh, glenn beck, bill o'reilly, sean hannity, pat buchanan, etc etc ... it's power struggle (still living in the past. wishing the white man ruled over all.), greed, attention-seeking, mentally unstable, insecure, ... and they make a living at it. just not right.

bill maher is not different. he is just on the other side of the fence, ... he is just not republican.

all could easily be admitted to a mental institution, today! or, the jailhouse.

i don't watch any of these people. but obviously there are people who do. and sadly, there are people who will sponsor rush. very upsetting. very upsetting.

Bill Maher is nothing like those on the other side of the fence. That does a great discredit to Bill and minimizes the vile, mean, hateful, ignorant, rhetoric those men spew every day on several hundred radio stations across the country......we are talking HOURS of play time. Bill has a one hour, once a week tv comedy/talk show on HBO.

The radio talk show host from the left that is closest to those guys is Mike Malloy...Malloy is worth a listen at least once. He does rant and rave....

[macele]

hey toughy.

bill maher is no different. call it comedy or talk show, he says (and they say) things that are better left unsaid. he seems to discredit himself, ... doesn't need me for that. but that's only my opinion. and i agree, the limbaugh-likes get hours and hours more than maher. that says a lot about america.

have a good evening.

[UofMfan]

Limbaugh’s Sponsors Are Fewer & Farther Between: Updated List Of Advertisers For March 8 (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/08/limbaughs-sponsors-are-fewer-farther-between-updated-list-of-advertisers-for-march-8/)

[LeftWriteFemme]

Ellen Wins: One Million Moms Group Concedes JCPenney Fight


http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/03/08/Ellen_Wins_One_Million_Moms_Backs_Down_in_JCPenney _Fight/

[~ocean]

Limbaugh is old news , enough already ,he's DONE !!! bye bye Limbaugh :)

[Andrea]

Can someone explain to me why it is okay for a doctor to withhold medical information from a patient under any circumstances? Or maybe I am misreading this article?

http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/03/06/senate-approves-bill-on-wrongful-births/ (http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/03/06/senate-approves-bill-on-wrongful-births/)

[MissItalianDiva]

Dennis Hof is a douche...always has been and always will be so this does not shock me.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/08/moonlite-bunny-ranch-pitches-ad-campaign-to-limbaugh-video/

[Cin]

Can someone explain to me why it is okay for a doctor to withhold medical information from a patient under any circumstances? Or maybe I am misreading this article?

http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/03/06/senate-approves-bill-on-wrongful-births/ (http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/03/06/senate-approves-bill-on-wrongful-births/)

Well if you are misreading the article I am too. I don't get this at all. How can this become a law? It sounds like medical information about the fetus a woman is carrying can legally be kept from her by her doctor so she won't be able to make a decision to abort it. Talk about slippery slopes...

[Cin]

Yesterday was International Women’s Day.
Here is a look back at feminist victories of 2011. (http://www.truth-out.org/international-womens-day-celebrate-feminist-victories-2011/1331234277)

[Cin]

WAR ON WOMEN? All of the female Democratic state senators walked out of the Georgia Senate to protest bills put forward by the Republican male majority. (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/08/georgia-state-senators-walk-out-to-protest-war-on-women/)

[Toughy]

Well if you are misreading the article I am too. I don't get this at all. How can this become a law? It sounds like medical information about the fetus a woman is carrying can legally be kept from her by her doctor so she won't be able to make a decision to abort it. Talk about slippery slopes...

from the article:

Those are lawsuits that can arise if physicians don’t inform pregnant women of prenatal problems that could lead to the decision to have an abortion.

I read it the same way...Doctors can withhold info from a pregnant woman if that info could lead to an abortion. More anti-choice legislation.

[Toughy]

Dennis Hof is a douche...always has been and always will be so this does not shock me.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/08/moonlite-bunny-ranch-pitches-ad-campaign-to-limbaugh-video/

I see it as a very tongue-in-check (so to speak) poke at Limbaugh....it made me laugh.

[Toughy]

http://start.toshiba.com/news/read.php?id=18994630&ps=931&srce=news_class&action=1&lang=en&_LT=UNLC_NKNWU00L1_UNEWS&page=1

I love Doonesbury....can't wait to see the actual strips

[Cin]

Why we still put hundreds of thousands of people in steel cages for pot-related offenses. (http://www.alternet.org/drugs/154448/why_can%E2%80%99t_you_smoke_pot_because_lobbyists_ are_getting_rich_off_of_the_war_on_drugs/)

[MissItalianDiva]

I see it as a very tongue-in-check (so to speak) poke at Limbaugh....it made me laugh.

It was a very tongue in cheek move on Dennis Hofs part but he really is pushing the pitch which I find insulting. We all know the network will never approve and ad like that but it still disturbs me.

[Toughy]

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/154364/the_truth_about_drugtesting_the_unemployed

Pee on command to get your unemployment benefits.......

[LeftWriteFemme]

‘Gay Synagogue’ Finds a Home, Full of Ancient Assyrians


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/gay-synagogue-finds-a-home-full-of-ancient-assyrians/

[Trey339]

http://now.msn.com/now/0310-pope-against-gay-marriage.aspx?_p=b5ca8d0a-28cc-4273-82ba-f5cc53d57636&_nwpt=1


especially considering the source

[Corkey]

The rights of all LGBT are in question with this latest action of the PA legislature. All hands on deck!


The anti-LGBT constitutional amendment on marriage is back
and it is time to FIGHT!

Same concept as before, but even meaner this time around.

A vote on House Bill (HB) 1434 is scheduled for TUESDAY, MARCH 13 in the House State Government Committee. Now is the time to let your voice be heard.

HB 1434, proposed by Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, would not only amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to define marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman, it would invalidate any other type of legal union or one substantially equivalent. That means any discussion of civil unions or domestic partnerships would forever be off the table for consideration. Passage of this legislation will also forcefully terminate benefits currently provided to thousands of employees in municipalities or state owned schools or facilities that offer domestic partnership benefits.

Had enough? Then take the following steps ASAP:

1. Call members of the House State Government Committee TODAY and tell them NOT to support HB 1434.

2. Who are the Members of the House State Government Committee?

Majority (Republicans)
Daryl Metcalfe - Chairman (717) 783-1707 District: (724) 772-3110
Seth Grove (717) 783-2655 District: (717) 767-3947
Jim Cox (717) 772-2435 District: (610) 670-0139
Matt Gabler (717) 260-6142 District: (814) 375-4688
Lynda Schlegel-Culver (717) 787-3485 District: (570) 286-5885
George Dunbar (717) 260-6132 District: (724) 744-0305
Eli Evankovich (717) 260-6129 District: (724) 387-1281
Glenn Grell (717) 783-2063 District: (717) 795-6091
Marcia Hahn (717) 783-8573 District: (610) 746-2100
Rob W. Kauffman (717) 705-2004 District: (717) 264-3943
Jerry Knowles (717) 787-9029 District: (570) 668-1240
Timothy Krieger (717) 260-6146 District: (724) 834-6400
Mark Mustio (717) 787-6651 District: (412) 262-3780
Brad Roae (717) 787-2353 District: (814) 336-5154
Jerry Stern (717) 787-9020 District: (814) 695-2398

Minority (Democrats)
Babette Josephs - Chairman (717) 787-8529 District: (215) 893-1515
Tony Payton (717) 787-1354 District: (215) 744-7901
Greg Vitali (717) 787-7647 District: (610) 789-3900
Steve Samuelson (717) 705-1881 District: (610) 867-3890
Tim Briggs (717) 705-7011 District: (610) 768-3135
Angel Cruz (717) 787-1407 District: (215) 291-5643
Eugene DePasquale (717) 787-7514 District: (717) 848-9595
Florindo Fabrizio (717) 787-4358 District: (814) 455-6319
Eddie Day Pashinski (717) 783-0686 District: (570) 825-5934
Steven Santarsiero (717) 787-5475 District (215) 968-3975

Want to email them too?

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/email_list.cfm?body=H

3. Don’t know what to say when you call? Here are some points:

HB 1434 doesn’t create 1 job. Let’s stick to REAL issues.
HB 1434 COSTS. At a time when the state budget is tight beyond words, no-one is talking about the estimated $600,000-$1million it will cost taxpayers to advertise this amendment to voters should it pass the General Assembly. Where will that money come from?
Same sex marriage is already illegal in Pennsylvania. A constitutional amendment does nothing more to that status and is unnecessary and mean-spirited.
Passage of this legislation will forcefully terminate benefits currently provided to thousands of employees in municipalities or state owned schools or facilities that offer domestic partnership benefits.
Support for this type of hurtful legislation is waning nationwide and in Pennsylvania. The last time a constitutional amendment was introduced in the House of the General Assembly in 2006, there were 87 co-sponsors. HB 1434 was introduced with only 35 cosponsors. That’s a steep decline in support.
Pennsylvanians AREN’T calling for this amendment. Not one legitimate poll exists showing Pennsylvanians in favor of this amendment.
4. Attend the meeting of the House State Government Committee:

Tuesday, March 13 9:00 am

Room G-50, Irvis Office Building (NEXT TO THE CAPITOL BUILDING)


(Meet in the Capitol Rotunda at 8:30am.)

Please be respectful. However, please come prepared to pack the room.
Signs are welcome.


5. Call your representative TODAY (they may or may not be on the House State Government Committee) and enlist your friends and family to do the same. Don’t know who represents you, click here http://hq-equalityfederation.salsalabs.com/o/35029/getLocal.jsp

NOW is the time to let your voices be heard. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The General Assembly needs to be dealing with REAL issues not spending its time attacking LGBT people.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Priest who refused communion to lesbian removed from church


http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/03/11/priest-who-refused-communion-to-lesbian-removed-from-church/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Catholic Diocese drops homeless funding over director’s gay marriage views



http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/09/catholic-diocese-drops-homeless-funding-over-directors-gay-marriage-views/

[UofMfan]

Wisconsin Voter ID Law Ruled Unconstitutional (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/wisconsin-voter-id-law-unconstitutional_n_1339830.html)

[LeftWriteFemme]

White House to host first ever trans meeting


http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/04/27/white-house-to-host-first-ever-trans-meeting/

[UofMfan]

CNN's John Avlon On Advertiser Exodus From Limbaugh's Show: "This Is The Free Market Working Out" (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201203120005)

[LeftWriteFemme]

Palmer High School Yearbook Diversity Debate


http://www.krdo.com/news/30650129/detail.html

[Corkey]

Statement of Equality Pennsylvania on the dropping from Consideration of the Marriage Constitutional Amendment: THANK YOU!
Harrisburg: Equality Pennsylvania today thanks members of the House State Government Committee for dropping consideration of HB 1434, the mean-spirited and nonsensical amendment to the constitution on marriage.

At a time when Pennsylvanians are facing great uncertainty in their lives due to the economy as well as deep and unprecedented cuts to programs that support their health and welfare, how can any elected official in Harrisburg be serious about an issue that so few in the public count as either a threat or even a concern? Not only has poll after poll shown little interest from the public in talking about marriage at any level, most have shown a significant and growing acceptance of same-sex relationships everywhere.

Over the course of the last 6-12 months, five national polls (Gallup, PRRI, CNN/ORC, ABC/Washington Post and Pew) have shown growing and significant support for same-sex relationships. In fact, four of these polls showed over 50% support. In Pennsylvania, the findings are no different. Nearly a year ago, Public Policy Polling found that an overwhelming 65% of Pennsylvanians thought same sex couples should have all the legal rights that married heterosexual couples do. The last Franklin & Marshall College Poll noted that 50% of residents either strongly or somewhat favored giving same sex couples the right to marry. That's an 8% increase since 2009. And finally, for the first time since they began polling Muhlenberg College’s Institute of Public Opinion found that a majority of Pennsylvanians believed that same sex marriage should be legally recognized.

In 2012, this is not an issue. It creates no jobs. It comes with hidden costs. It forcefully terminates existing domestic partnership benefits of thousands of municipal and state employees. It takes even the discussion of granting civil unions or domestic partnership benefits off the table. And as polls show, it is out of touch with the point of view of most Pennsylvanians. We call on the Legislature to act on serious issues and to stay away from those that needlessly hurt citizens.

Equality Pennsylvania is committed to defeating the constitutional amendment and we believe in equal marriage rights for ALL people. Our mission is to be the preeminent LGBT advocacy organization for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and work collaboratively to establish a comprehensive network of individuals and organizations united in securing equal rights for the LGBT community (equalitypa.org)

Thank you all who called or emailed the PA Legislature.

[Martina]

http://synd.imgsrv.uclick.com/comics/db/2012/db120313.gif

[suebee]

Rick Santorum Tells Puerto Ricans To Speak English If They Want Statehood Link HERE (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2012/03/14/rick-santorum-puerto-rico-mitt-romney_n_1345728.html).

[EnderD_503]

Old news, but didn't see it posted and I thought it was great:

Members of the European Parliament Hold ‘Vagina Monologues’ to Stop Violence Against Women

In what seems to be a demonstrative statement to end violence against women, nine MEPs have taken the courage to perform Eve Ensler’s play, the Vagina Monologues, tonight (6 March) in the European Parliament.

“Violence against women is not a fair-weather topic. In times of economic crisis, domestic violence rises across Europe. I am delighted that we succeeded in mobilising a cross-party group of women MEPs to go on stage for this call to end violence against women,” said Franziska Brantner, one of the MEPs performing in the play.

The play, which takes place two days before International Women’s Day, underscores the message that violence against women is unacceptable and must be stopped.

One in three women in the world have either been beaten or raped - about one billion women. In Europe, 45% of women have been victims of violence, including sexual abuse, domestic violence, genital mutilation, sexual harassment, rape, forced sterilisation, and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The impact of domestic violence alone costs the EU an estimated €16 billion per year, amounting to €1 million every half hour, said V-Day, the global activist movement founded by Ensler that combats violence against women.

According to V-Day calculations, if the budgets for prevention of this violence were increased by just €1, it could save €87 in total costs of dealing with the problem.

The series of monologues was first performed in New York in 1996, in the basement of the Conelia Street Café. Five years later it was performed in Madison Square Garden by an all-star cast featuring Calista Flockhart, Jane Fonda, Melissa Ethridge, Oprah Winfrey and others.

The play is based on a series of interviews with women about the most intimate part of their body. It is a vivid and hilarious voyage into female sexuality, in all its complexity and mystery. Ensler is casting new light on real women’s stories of intimacy, vulnerability and sexual self-discovery. Over the years, she was able to convince numbers of well-known women to perform in the play.

Glenn Close once said, "You become part of her crusade. There's a core of us who are Eve's army."

Now Ensler has enlisted MEPs, including France’s Marielle Gallo, Belgium’s Isabelle Durant, Germany’s Fraziska Brantner, Austria’s Ulrike Lunacek and Portugal’s Ana Gomes.

The MEPs are using the event to pass a certain number of political demands including ensuring that appropriate EU funding continues for programmes to end violence against women, and making sure that the pan-European ‘victims package’ contains specific measures for victims of domestic violence.

The call for action also urges EU decision-makers to honour existing commitments and devise a European Strategy for preventing and combating violence, which will include appropriate accountability mechanism.

Their call is directed to the EU executive, which no longer sees the need to explicitly include the elimination of sexual violence against women in its policy objectives, said one of the performing MEPs, Kartika Tamara Liotard of the Netherlands.

"I suggest that the Commission reflects upon the many vaginas that are going to be affected by that," she said.

But beyond the good cause, the show in the European Parliament might well create a new way of doing politics. Isabelle Durant said: "Humour and tenderness are awesome political weapons to fight the violence done to women.”

Swedish MEP Cecilia Wilkström added that the play will trigger many reactions in the Parliament, “people will be both upset and moved but no one will be left untouched.”

http://www.euractiv.com/socialeurope/meps-hold-vagina-monologues-violence-women-news-511325

[Kobi]

The World's Most Ethical (WME) Companies designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business "ethically" and translate those words into action. WME honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, they exceed legal compliance minimums and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today.

This year, a record 145 companies made the list, which includes more than three dozen industries, from aerospace to wind power, with 43 of the WME winners headquartered outside the U.S.

Since the list's inception, 23 companies have made the list all six years including: Aflac, American Express, Fluor, General Electric, Milliken & Company, Patagonia, Rabobank and Starbucks, among others.

http://www.ethisphere.com/wme/

[Kobi]

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A former Rutgers University student who used a computer webcam to spy on a sexual tryst of his roommate, who later committed suicide, was found guilty of hate crimes on Friday in a case that put a national spotlight on gay bullying.

Dharun Ravi, 20, faces 10 years in prison on the most serious charge of bias intimidation against Tyler Clementi, 18, who committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge three days after learning his gay encounter was seen by webcam.

Ravi, who invited others to watch the feed from the camera mounted on top of his computer, was not charged with causing Clementi's death.

Ravi, an Indian citizen who has lived most of his life in the United States, will be sentenced on May 21 and remains free on $25,000 bail after surrendering his passport. He faces possible deportation.


http://news.yahoo.com/jury-reconvenes-rutgers-roommate-spying-case-153019438.html

[Kobi]

The Violence Against Women Act is a U.S. federal law signed into effect by President Bill Clinton in September of 1994, providing $1.6 billion to help investigate and prosecute violent crimes against women. In 2000 the act was reauthorized by Congress, as it was again in 2005. Now, once again, it's the focus of a fight.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/03/when-violence-against-women-becomes-political-game/49937/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Barry Humphries retires as Dame Edna and Sir Les



http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/barry-humphries-retires-as-dame-edna-and-sir-les/story-e6frewyr-1226303017672

[Tommi]

Skin Creams, Soaps and Lotions Marketed as Skin Lighteners and Anti-aging Treatments: May Contain the Toxic Metal, Mercury

Issue: FDA notified healthcare professionals and warned consumers not to use skin creams, beauty and antiseptic soaps, or lotions that might contain mercury. The products are marketed as skin lighteners and anti-aging treatments that remove age spots, freckles, blemishes and wrinkles. Adolescents also may use these products as acne treatments. Products with this toxic metal have been found in at least seven states.

Background: The products are manufactured abroad and sold illegally in the United States—often in shops in Latino, Asian, African or Middle Eastern neighborhoods and online. Consumers may also have bought them in another country and brought them back to the U.S. for personal use. Investigations in the past few years by FDA and state health officials have turned up more than 35 products that contain unacceptable levels of mercury.

Recommendations: Consumers are advised to check the label of any skin lightening, anti-aging or other skin product used. If there is no label or no ingredients are listed, do not use the product. If “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” “mercurio,” or “mercury,” are listed on the label, stop using the product immediately. If you suspect you have been using a product with mercury, stop using it immediately. Thoroughly wash hands and any other parts of the body that have come in contact with the product. Contact a health care professional or a medical care clinic for advice.


Consumer Update and News Release at:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm296261?source=govdelivery

[MsTinkerbelly]

Supreme Court declines to review case challenging San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy
By Scottie Thomaston

The Supreme Court today decided it will leave in place a Ninth Circuit decision that upheld San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy as constitutional. The policy was challenged as a violation of the first amendment’s free exercise clause along with its freedom of speech and association guarantees. From the Associated Press:


The policy says officially recognized campus groups can’t discriminate based on religion or sexual orientation.

A Christian fraternity and a sorority at San Diego State University sued in 2005, arguing that the policy violates their religious freedom. The groups are restricted to Christian members.

The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari (review) effectively leaves in place a gay-affirmative decision by the Ninth Circuit. Their ruling concluded:


San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy, as written, is viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose of the student organization program. Thus, the university’s policy does not violate Plaintiffs’ rights of free speech and expressive association. Moreover, the policy does not violate Plaintiffs’ rights to free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law. But the evidence raises a triable issue of fact as to whether San Diego State has exempted certain groups from the policy while not granting such an exemption to Plaintiffs. We therefore remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Along with ruling that the policy doesn’t violate free speech and expression the Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the lower court to gather evidence in an attempt to show that the college is allowing for exemptions from the nondiscrimination in some cases while denying it to this group. This selective enforcement complaint was mentioned but insufficient evidence had been brought to court to rule definitively.

Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly has more about what this means and where this decision will become precedent for future cases. :


No justices announced their disagreement with the decision not to hear the case. The decision is not a resolution by the Supreme Court of the legal questions raised that would serve as a precedent across the country; it does, however, mean that the Ninth Circuit decision stands as a precedent for all lower courts within the Ninth Circuit, which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

The Court had previously decided, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, that public colleges’ nondiscrimination policies which mandate allowing anyone into a group regardless of if they adhere to the beliefs of the group or not is constitutional. This case is different, because instead of asking the Court to decide whether a policy mandating admission of all people regardless of their viewpoint is constitutional, they asked them to decide:


[W]hether a state university can deny recognition to a religious student organization because the group requires its officers and voting members to adhere to its core beliefs, even though the same university recognizes secular organizations with identical membership policies.

The Ninth Circuit holds that these types of nondiscrimination policies are constitutional. The decision to deny cert is a win for anti-discrimination as well as another loss for the Alliance Defense Fund

[SoNotHer]

Amelia Earhart search: A new clue pulls in Hillary Rodham Clinton

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-03/229275480-20084030.jpg

By Amy Hubbard

March 20, 2012, 9:58 a.m.

A finger bone fragment, DNA samples, a photo showing a wheel protruding from water. Amelia Earhart disappeared 75 years ago, but the clues continue to surface. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is set to meet with historians and scientists as a new hunt is launched for the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will begin the search in June, according to the Associated Press, off the remote island of South Pacific island of Nikumaroro, in the nation of Kiribati.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared July 2, 1937, as they attempted to circumnavigate the globe at the equator. The trip began a month earlier, on June 1, from Miami. Earhart and Noonan flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Before takeoff there, Earhart made a statement that has become well-known: "I have a feeling there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it. Anyway, when I have finished this job, I mean to give up long-distance 'stunt' flying."

Along her journey, the 39-year-old pilot sent reports of the land, cultures and people she encountered, according to CentennialOfFlight.gov. She and Noonan landed on June 30, 1937, in Lae, New Guinea, having flown 22,000 miles, with 7,000 yet to go.

Earhart and Noonan next headed to tiny Howland Island, but they never reached their destination. After the pair vanished, President Franklin Roosevelt sent nine Navy ships and 66 aircraft to search; the cost was more than $4 million. No trace was found.

Over the decades, theories as to Earhart's fate have multiplied -- some people have speculated that Earhart and Noonan were U.S. agents captured by the Japanese before World War II. Some even said she lived on an island in the South Pacific with a native fisherman. Numerous attempts were made to find the wreckage. As recently as last year, divers in Papua New Guinea said they had found the plane. An ABC report at the time quoted one expert as saying the claim was "silly beyond description."

In 2010, there was a flurry of excitement over a possible finger bone fragment. But tests proved inconclusive. Now the Associated Press reports that a senior U.S. official has said a new analysis of a contemporary photo of a portion of the island of Nikumaroro shows what some people believe could be a strut and wheel of Earhart's plane protruding from the water.

The upcoming search for the wreckage of Earhart's plane is reportedly a public and private effort with a price tag of $500,000. Clinton will use the opportunity, according to the AP, to praise Earhart and her legacy.

Earhart, who has been called the most famous female aviator in history, was a nurse's aide in Toronto in 1918 when she attended a flying exhibition and became enamored with the idea of becoming a pilot. Earhart took her first flight, as a passenger, in California in 1920. According to the National Air and Space Museum, that clinched it. Earhart said of the flight: "As soon as I left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly."

Among her aviation records, she was the first woman to fly nonstop and solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She made the trip in May 1932. In August of that same year, she made the first solo, nonstop trip by a female pilot across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J. The flight took 19 hours and five minutes.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Madonna urged to cancel St Petersburg gig in August

American-Russian journalist Masha Gessen calls for St Petersburg boycott over ‘gay propaganda’ law



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/madonna-urged-cancel-st-petersburg-gig-august200312

[Kobi]

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.



Job Seekers Getting Asked For Facebook Passwords. (http://http://news.yahoo.com/job-seekers-getting-asked-facebook-passwords-071251682.html;_ylt=AhMTKM98rfzdhLdMsV5owoKr9HQA;_ ylu=X3oDMTRzZ3NiOXI1BGNjb2RlA2N0LmMEbWl0A0FydGljbG UgTW9zdCBQb3B1bGFyBHBrZwM4Y2I3MTBiMC02MzcyLTM3MzMt YTUxZC1lMGIxOGI5YzNhMDUEcG9zAzYEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3 RNaXhlZE1vc3RQb3B1bGFyQ0EEdmVyAzU4MGQ0NjIwLTcyODQt MTFlMS1iYWM1LTE2M2ViNDRiYmQzOA--;_ylg=X3oDMTM2cWZjNGFlBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDYTgzNTcyZTUtMDQ2Mi0zMjVhLWEzODktNjc2MWYyNT FhYWE3BHBzdGNhdANlbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50BHB0A3N0b3J5cGFn ZQR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3)

[AtLast]

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.



Job Seekers Getting Asked For Facebook Passwords. (http://http://news.yahoo.com/job-seekers-getting-asked-facebook-passwords-071251682.html;_ylt=AhMTKM98rfzdhLdMsV5owoKr9HQA;_ ylu=X3oDMTRzZ3NiOXI1BGNjb2RlA2N0LmMEbWl0A0FydGljbG UgTW9zdCBQb3B1bGFyBHBrZwM4Y2I3MTBiMC02MzcyLTM3MzMt YTUxZC1lMGIxOGI5YzNhMDUEcG9zAzYEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3 RNaXhlZE1vc3RQb3B1bGFyQ0EEdmVyAzU4MGQ0NjIwLTcyODQt MTFlMS1iYWM1LTE2M2ViNDRiYmQzOA--;_ylg=X3oDMTM2cWZjNGFlBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDYTgzNTcyZTUtMDQ2Mi0zMjVhLWEzODktNjc2MWYyNT FhYWE3BHBzdGNhdANlbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50BHB0A3N0b3J5cGFn ZQR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3)

I have no words..... this is sooooooooooooo out of bounds!!!

[Kobi]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Whitney Houston died of accidental drowning due to the effects of cocaine use and heart disease, a Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman said on Thursday.

The 48-year-old singer, who spent years battling addiction to drugs including cocaine, was found submerged in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills hotel room on February 12, the eve of the Grammy Awards.

An autopsy into Houston's death found that the cause of death was accidental drowning with atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors, Los Angeles County Coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said.

Harvey said toxicology tests also turned up marijuana, an anti-anxiety medication, a muscle relaxant and an anti-histamine in Houston's system.

Those drugs were not found to have contributed to her death, and no trauma or foul play were suspected, the coroner's office said. A final report was expected to be made public within two weeks.

http://news.yahoo.com/whitney-houston-drowned-cocaine-system-la-coroner-213436821.html

[Kobi]

DALLAS (AP) — At least five high-ranking executives with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity have resigned in the aftermath of the organization's decision to eliminate its funding for Planned Parenthood.

The departures include three officials from Komen's Dallas headquarters, as well as CEOs of affiliate groups in Oregon and New York City. The chairman of the foundation also stepped down from his post, though he will remain on the board. Although some cited personal reasons, the resignations suggest that Komen is still in turmoil, even after reversing course and restoring the money to Planned Parenthood.

http://news.yahoo.com/several-executives-leave-komen-controversy-212830497.html

[UofMfan]

Geraldo Rivera: Hoodie To Blame For Trayvon Martin’s Death (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/geraldo_rivera_blames_trayvon_martins_death_on_his .php)

"Guns Don't Kill People, Hoodies Kill People"

[MsDemeanor]

George Zimmerman was wearing a hoodie, too.

[Kobi]

New York Times – Wed, Mar 21, 2012

Debbie Schork, a deli worker at a supermarket in Indiana, had to have her hand amputated after an emergency room nurse injected her with an anti-nausea drug, causing gangrene. She sued the manufacturer named in the hospital’s records for failing to warn about the risks of injecting it. Her case was quietly thrown out of court last fall.

That result stands in sharp contrast to the highly publicized case of Diana Levine, a professional musician from Vermont. Her hand and forearm were amputated because of gangrene after a physician assistant at a health clinic injected her with the same drug. She sued the drug maker, Wyeth, and won $6.8 million.

The financial outcomes were radically different for one reason: Ms. Schork had received the generic version of the drug, known as promethazine, while Ms. Levine had been given the brand name, Phenergan.

“Explain the difference between the generic and the real one — it’s just a different company making the same thing,” Ms. Schork said.

Across the country, dozens of lawsuits against generic pharmaceutical companies are being dismissed because of a Supreme Court decision last year that said the companies did not have control over what their labels said and therefore could not be sued for failing to alert patients about the risks of taking their drugs.

Now, what once seemed like a trivial detail — whether to take a generic or brand-name drug — has become the deciding factor in whether a patient can seek legal recourse from a drug company. The cases range from that of Ms. Schork, who wasn’t told which type of drug she had been given when she visited the hospital, to people like Camille Baruch, who developed a gastrointestinal disease after taking a generic form of the drug Accutane, as required by her health care plan.

“Your pharmacists aren’t telling you, hey, when we fill this with your generic, you are giving up all of your legal remedies,” said Michael Johnson, a lawyer who represented Gladys Mensing, one of the patients who sued generic drug companies in last year’s Supreme Court case, Pliva v. Mensing. “You have a disparate impact between one class of people and another.”

The Supreme Court ruling affects potentially millions of people: nearly 80 percent of prescriptions in the United States are filled by a generic, and most states permit pharmacists to dispense a generic in place of a brand name. More than 40 judges have dismissed cases against generic manufacturers since the Supreme Court ruled last June, including some who dismissed dozens of cases consolidated under one judge.

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to give generic companies greater control over their labels, a rule change that could allow users of generic drugs to sue, but the agency said earlier this month that it needed more time to decide. “Congress can make this problem go away, and the F.D.A. could, too,” said Allison Zieve, the director of Public Citizen Litigation Group. “But we haven’t seen signs that either of them is paying much attention.” A spokeswoman for the F.D.A. declined to comment.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which was split 5 to 4 on ideological lines, has its roots in the Hatch-Waxman Act, the 1984 law that opened the floodgates to generic drugs. That law allowed companies to skip the lengthy process required to approve new drugs if they could prove that the generic drug was equivalent to its brand-name counterpart.

With few exceptions, it also required generic manufacturers to use the same labels — the lengthy list of a drug’s uses, dosages and risks — used by the brand names.

If a problem develops, the brand-name companies are responsible for changing the label, and the generic companies must follow their lead. As a result, the court’s majority ruled, generic companies cannot be held responsible for failing to alert patients to problems with their drug. The dissent, which was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that generic companies nevertheless have a responsibility to report problems to the F.D.A. and should be held liable for failing to warn patients.



full story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/generic-drugs-proving-resistant-damage-182006794.html

[AtLast]

George Zimmerman was wearing a hoodie, too.

Indeed he was.

I keep thinking about how so much was lost via the initial crime scene "non" investigation by the Sanford police. Now there are reports that the police reports were doctored after the fact with the supposed info about Zimmerman stating he stopped pursuing Trayvon and it was Trayvon that attacked him.

This is the very same police department that there was a cover-up within when the son of an officer beat the hell out of a homeless man.

Hopefully with a new investigation, things like where Zimmerman was prior to the incident is brought out in terms of his wet shirt and bloody nose and his not being tested for drugs or alcohol.

It is possible that he had been drinking or even in a physical altercation prior to his "guarding" the neighborhood (which is not really what neighborhood watch programs are about). And although this could be upsetting to Trayvon's family, I would want an independent autopsy done or review of the autopsy results. Ther could be evidence of Trayvon trying to defend himself such as bruises or abrations on his forearms. There could be other physical evidence that was just not looked into as these cops just took Zimmerman's word for a self-defense claim. The whole identification of the screams for help can be figured out by voice recognition programs.

Lots of work for the new prosecution team to take on and they are having to work with so many holes in the Sanford police not doing a complete crime scene work-up in the first place. But, competent investigators can do a lot in getting to the real facts and also figureing out why the police reports just don't mesh.

I know it is really hard for Trayvon's parents to be sitting there waiting for action on behalf of their son, but, I think that the collection, reconstruction and fact finding of the new tem has got to be done with great care and expertise in order to get justice for their son.

[UofMfan]

LeBron James Tweets Picture Of Miami Heat Wearing Hoodies In Solidarity With Family Of Trayvon Martin (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/lebron-heat-trayvon-tweet_n_1375831.html)

[LeftWriteFemme]

Black Transmen Advocacy Conference to make history in Dallas



http://www.dallasvoice.com/black-transmen-advocacy-conference-history-dallas-10105169.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Chick-fil-A Faces Hostile College Students & Drag Queens



http://www.edgeonthenet.com/news/international/news//131230/chick-fil-a_faces_hostile_college_students_&_drag_queens_

[LeftWriteFemme]

Muslim gay hate preacher banned from speaking at university



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/muslim-gay-hate-preacher-banned-speaking-university220312

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay Marriage Effort Attracts a Novel Group of Donors


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/gay-marriage-effort-is-attracting-a-novel-group-of-donors.html?_r=2&hp

[LeftWriteFemme]

Taiwanese court to hear same-sex household registration case

I think the grandparent is really cool



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/taiwanese-court-hear-same-sex-household-registration-case230312

[UofMfan]

Penn State Police Had Warnings About Sandusky in 1998 (http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/breaking/Penn-State-Police-Had-Warnings-About-Sandusky-in-1998-144077776.html)

[SoNotHer]

U.S. Forms Water Partnership to Boost National, Global Security

WASHINGTON, DC, March 22, 2012 (ENS) - "While wars over water are unlikely within the next 10 years, water challenges - shortages, poor water quality, floods - will likely increase the risk of instability and state failure, exacerbate regional tensions, and distract countries from working with the United States on important policy objectives," according to an assessment released today by the U.S. National Intelligence Council.

To mark World Water Day, which falls on March 22 each year, the National Intelligence Council released the unclassified version of its report on Global Water Security over the next 30 years, as requested by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2012/20120322_waterkenyacamp.jpg
A water distribution point at a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, October 2011 (Photo by S. Modola courtesy UNHCR)

Between now and 2040, the assessment finds, fresh water availability will not keep up with demand without more effective management of water resources. "Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate energy, posing a risk to global food markets and hobbling economic growth," the National Intelligence Council concludes. "As a result of demographic and economic development pressures, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will face major challenges coping with water problems."

"We assess that during the next 10 years, water problems will contribute to instability in states important to U.S. national security interests," the NIC reports. "Historically, water tensions have led to more water-sharing agreements than violent conflicts. However," the NIC states, "we judge that as water shortages become more acute beyond the next 10 years, water in shared basins will increasingly be used as leverage; the use of water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives also will become more likely beyond 10 years." Secretary Clinton today called the intelligence community's findings "sobering." "This assessment is a landmark document that puts water security in its rightful place as part of national security," Clinton told a news conference at the State Department.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2012/20120322_clintonhillary.jpg
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton introduces the U.S. Water Partnership (Photo courtesy U.S. State Dept.)

"It is also a call for American leadership in this area," she said. "Our domestic experiences with water and our technical expertise are valued around the world. And as countries become more water stressed or nations face water-related crises, they are increasingly turning to the United States for assistance. We hear this all the time at embassies everywhere. Local leaders meet with our ambassadors and ask, 'What did you do in the United States? How did you do it? Can you help us?'"

To help answer that call for leadership and to expand the impact of America's work on water, Clinton today announced the launch of a new public-private partnership, the U.S. Water Partnership, that gathers partners from the private sector, the philanthropic community, the NGOs, academics, experts, and government. "This approach will help catalyze new opportunities for cooperation," said Secretary Clinton. "The Water Partnership has built-in flexibility to address the world's changing water needs and to continue our work to find sustainable solutions."

A new U.S. Water Web Portal will provide a single entry point to American data, best practices, and training. This information will help empower people taking on these problems in their own communities, said Clinton. "It will help build international support for American approaches, technologies, companies, government agencies, our whole universe of experts standing ready to assist."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2012/20120322_waterpanic.jpg
Typhoon Sendong causes water panic in the Philippines. A cement-mixer truck brought in water for residents of this village to use for hygienic purposes. (Photo by The 700 Club Asia)

The U.S. Water Partnership will not depend on any one government agency or any one private organization to keep it going, said Clinton. "The State Department is proud to be a founding partner, but we also hope that the partnership will spawn many new projects that may or may not involve us."

"We believe this will help map out our route to a more water secure world," said Clinton, "a world where no one dies from water-related diseases; where water does not impede social or economic development; and where no war is ever fought over water."

The U.S. Water Partnership was inspired by Secretary Clinton's 2010 World Water Day speech in which she pledged to bring American diplomatic, scientific, private sector and development stakeholders together to address global water challenges "holistically." A series of consultative meetings held between January and September 2011 with representatives from all these sectors shaped the partnership.

Joining Secretary Clinton at the launch of the U.S. Water Partnership Representative Earl Blumenauer, who is proposing legislation to establish a federal Water Trust Fund to help local jurisdictions repair aging water systems and infrastructure. They were joined by many of the U.S. Water Partnership's 22 founding members: Africare, the Coca-Cola Company, Procter & Gamble, the Nature Conservancy, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Motor Company, Skoll Global Threats Fund, the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, World Resources Institute, Global Environment and Technology Foundation, Global Water Challenge, and Clean Water America Alliance.

Government officials were also on hand from the State Department, International Boundary and Water Commission, NASA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. The international community has achieved the target for water supply three years before the deadline, United Nations agencies announced earlier this month. USAID, the U.S. government and its partners in this effort have provided first time access for millions around the globe, said USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, but more work is urgently needed.

"Even as we celebrate the news that the world has successfully halved the number of people without access to water and sanitation, it is important to remember that significant disparities still exist between and within countries," said Shah. "We will continue to work closely with the many countries that have not achieved their individual country Millenium Development Goal target for water supply, especially in sub-Saharan Africa."

[Toughy]

Next week SCOTUS will hear arguments on the Affordable Health Care Act fondly known as ObamaCare:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/politics/far-reaching-implications-in-states-health-care-law-challenge.html

and another article about the Soliciter General who will argue the case..

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/politics/donald-verrilli-the-lawyer-who-will-defend-obamas-health-law.html?_r=1&src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fp olitics%2Findex.jsonp

[Kobi]

Tho various news sources are reporting Cheney received a heart transplant on Saturday, I will forego looking for a link and just hope the donor was a feminist, female, POC with libertarian leanings and the disposition of a Tibetian monk.

After all, we should always want the best for others.

:)

[SoNotHer]

http://world-wire.com/2012/03/16/lyme-disease-surge-predicted-for-the-northeastern-u-s/

I have had Lyme twice. I would suggest research and vigilance if you live in near deer, woods, in a high risk area or go camping.

Boom-and-bust acorn crops and a decline in mice leave humans vulnerable to infected ticks

MILLBROOK, NY, March 16, 2012 –/WORLD-WIRE/– The northeastern U.S. should prepare for a surge in Lyme disease this spring. And we can blame fluctuations in acorns and mouse populations, not the mild winter. So reports Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.

What do acorns have to do with illness? Acorn crops vary from year-to-year, with boom-and-bust cycles influencing the winter survival and breeding success of white-footed mice. These small mammals pack a one-two punch: they are preferred hosts for black-legged ticks and they are very effective at transmitting Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Acorns and mice

http://world-wire.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/CARY_LYME.jpg

“We had a boom in acorns, followed by a boom in mice. And now, on the heels of one of the smallest acorn crops we’ve ever seen, the mouse population is crashing,” Ostfeld explains. Adding, “This spring, there will be a lot of Borrelia burgdorferi-infected black-legged ticks in our forests looking for a blood meal. And instead of finding a white-footed mouse, they are going to find other mammals—like us.”

For more than two decades, Ostfeld, Cary Institute forest ecologist Dr. Charles D. Canham, and their research team have been investigating connections among acorn abundance, white-footed mice, black-legged ticks, and Lyme disease. In 2010, acorn crops were the heaviest recorded at their Millbrook-based research site. And in 2011, mouse populations followed suit, peaking in the summer months. The scarcity of acorns in the fall of 2011 set up a perfect storm for human Lyme disease risk.

Black-legged ticks take three bloodmeals—as larvae, as nymphs, and as adults. Larval ticks that fed on 2011’s booming mouse population will soon be in need of a nymphal meal. These tiny ticks—as small as poppy seeds—are very effective at transmitting Lyme to people. The last time Ostfeld’s research site experienced a heavy acorn crop (2006) followed by a sparse acorn crop (2007), nymphal black-legged ticks reached a 20-year high.

The May-July nymph season will be dangerous, and Ostfeld urges people to be aware when outdoors. Unlike white-footed mice, who can be infected with Lyme with minimal cost, the disease is debilitating to humans. Left undiagnosed, it can cause chronic fatigue, joint pain, and neurological problems. It is the most prevalent vector-borne illness in the U.S., with the majority of cases occurring in the Northeast.

Ostfeld says that mild winter weather does not cause a rise in tick populations, although it can change tick behavior. Adult ticks, which are slightly larger than a sesame seed, are normally dormant in winter but can seek a host whenever temperatures rise several degrees above freezing. The warm winter of 2011-2012 induced earlier than normal activity. While adult ticks can transmit Lyme, they are responsible for a small fraction of tick-borne disease, with spring-summer nymphs posing more of a human health threat.

Past research by Ostfeld and colleagues has highlighted the role that intact forest habitat and animal diversity play in buffering Lyme disease risks. He is currently working with health departments in impacted areas to educate citizens and physicians about the impending surge in Lyme disease.

For more information and how environmental conditions set the stage for disease risk:

Ostfeld, R. S. 2011. Lyme disease: The ecology of a complex system. Oxford University Press
Keesing, F., J. Brunner, S. Duerr, M. Killilea, K. LoGiudice, K. Schmidt, H. Vuong and R. S. Ostfeld. 2009. Hosts as ecological traps for the vector of Lyme disease. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences 276:3911-3916.
Ostfeld, R. S., C. D. Canham, K. Oggenfuss, R. J. Winchcombe, and F. Keesing. 2006. Climate, deer, rodents, and acorns as determinants of variation in Lyme-disease risk. PLoS Biology 4(6):e145.
Schauber, E. M., R. S. Ostfeld, and A. S. Evans, Jr. 2005. What is the best predictor of annual Lyme disease incidence: Weather, mice, or acorns? Ecol. Appl. 15:575-586

The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is a private, not-for-profit environmental research and education organization in Millbrook, N.Y. For more than twenty-five years, Cary Institute scientists have been investigating the complex interactions that govern the natural world. Their objective findings lead to more effective policy decisions and increased environmental literacy. Focal areas include air and water pollution, climate change, invasive species, and the ecological dimensions of infectious disease.

Learn more at www.caryinstitute.org

[DapperButch]

Originally posted by Kobi

Tho various news sources are reporting Cheney received a heart transplant on Saturday, I will forego looking for a link and just hope the donor was a feminist, female, POC with libertarian leanings and the disposition of a Tibetian monk.

After all, we should always want the best for others.

Yes, we should, Ms. fellow social worker. :winky:

In case others are interested: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/dick-cheney-heart-transplant_n_1377487.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D146364

(for some reason my quote button isn't working. Also, the smiley Kobi posted won't copy/paste)

[EnderD_503]

Muslim gay hate preacher banned from speaking at university



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/muslim-gay-hate-preacher-banned-speaking-university220312

It's great that they didn't allow him to speak. At the same time, it'd be nice to see similar bans happening on anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant speakers at universities. Or banning Christian anti-gay speakers from speaking at universities. As long as these sorts of bans and articles don't just set their targets on Muslims and immigrants as the perpetrators of homophobia vs. a "tolerant" West...which is what happens a lot of the times in these sorts of articles.

[Toughy]

fact sheet from CDC on lyme disease including info on the vaccine........

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-lyme.pdf

[Tommi]

James Cameron begins dive to deepest spot on Earth

(AP) – 26 minutes ago

HONOLULU (AP) — Director James Cameron has begun his solo journey to explore a place only two men have gone before — to the Earth's deepest point.

The director of "Titanic," ''Avatar" and other films is using a specially designed submarine to descend nearly seven miles to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, an area 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam.

He began the dive Monday at approximately 5:15 a.m. local time, according Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society, where Cameron is an explorer-in-residence. That is early Sunday afternoon on the U.S. East Coast.

"RELEASE, RELEASE, RELEASE!" were the last words Cameron uttered before beginning the dive, according to a Twitter post from the expedition.

The scale of the trench is hard to grasp — it's 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall. It was expected to take Cameron 90 minutes to reach the bottom aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called "Deepsea Challenger." Once there, Cameron planned to spend six hours collecting samples for biologists and geologists to study. The return trip to the surface was forecast to take 70 minutes.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4LQRL7Qe3Hu8WWlHtFX21uU314w?docId=bb88eb85a 46d4d8295cf6987f19d0524

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay and lesbian couples celebrate at mass 'wedding' at Cleveland's Galleria


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/03/gay_and_lesbian_couples_celebr.html

[Tommi]

Good morning,

Earlier this week, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, joined Attorney General Eric Holder in Arlington, Texas to deliver keynote remarks at the White House LGBT Conference on Safe Schools & Communities.

Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, delivers keynote remarks along with Attorney General Eric Holder at the White House LGBT Conference on Safe Schools and Communities at The University of Texas at Arlington, Tuesday, March 20th, 2012.

In speaking before an audience of over 400 teachers, students, parents, community advocates, law enforcement officers and officials, and elected officials, Valerie described the steps the Obama Administration has taken to ensure safety and security for all our young people - including LGBT students - in our schools and neighborhoods.

As she closed her remarks, Valerie told the story of Tempest Cartwright, a 12th grader from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, who experienced - but was able to overcome - bullying and whose story inspires us to continue to fight for safe schools and communities:

So in closing, I would share one more story from a leader who is here today. Because change doesn't begin in Washington. Change happens because ordinary people do extraordinary things ... people like Tempest Cartwright.

Tempest is from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma - she's 18 years old. When word first got around her high school that she was gay, she lost friends. Some people stopped talking to her at church. Other students called her hurtful words that no young person should ever hear. For a while, Tempest was depressed. But she refused to let bullies ruin her life. As she put it, "Their attitudes and assumptions need to change, not me. If I don't help that along, who will?

So today, Tempest is the president of her school's gay-straight alliance - an alliance that has more than quadrupled its membership since she became involved. It's not easy. In fact, it is hard. When her organization places posters around the school, they often get torn down. But she and other members keep putting them right back up. And every day, bit by bit, she changes the world around her. As she put it, "When people put me down, it inspires me to stand up."

Well, young people like Tempest should inspire us all to stand up, and keep standing up, for what is right. To stand up for the safety of our children and neighbors. To stand up for the belief that in America, no one should face bullying, harassment, or violence because of who they are, because that's not who we are.

Read Valerie's remarks as prepared for delivery. http://links.whitehouse.gov/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTIwMzIzLjYzNjU2NjEmb WVzc2FnZWlkPU1EQi1QUkQtQlVMLTIwMTIwMzIzLjYzNjU2NjE mZGF0YWJhc2VpZD0xMDAxJnNlcmlhbD0xNjg0NjE1MCZlbWFpb GlkPWpvaG4uc3BpcmtAZmRhLmhocy5nb3YmdXNlcmlkPWpvaG4 uc3BpcmtAZmRhLmhocy5nb3YmZmw9JmV4dHJhPU11bHRpdmFya WF0ZUlkPSYmJg==&&&101&&&http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/20/standing-safe-schools-communities

Since launching the White House LGBT Conferences, we've been in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Dallas/Ft. Worth to discuss issues such as Health, Housing and Homelessness, and Safe Schools and Communities. Stay tuned for announcements about future White House LGBT Conferences on issues including HIV/AIDS, Aging, and Families.

Best regards,

Gautam Raghavan
Office of Public Engagement
The White House

[LeftWriteFemme]

School District Told to Replace Web Filter Blocking Pro-Gay Sites


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/education/missouri-school-district-questioned-over-anti-gay-web-filter.html?_r=2&hpw

[SoNotHer]

Youth in Foster Care Get a Chance at University Education

by Joel Boyce, March 26, 2012

http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/causes/2923/2922965.large.jpg

The University of Winnipeg has recently announced the launch of its “Youth in Care Tuition Waiver Program.” Starting this September, the pilot program will see the tuition of 10 new students completely waived, and their living expenses fully covered. For students who might not have thought post-secondary education was in financial reach, this could be a game-changer.

The program is unique in Canada, in that it specifically caters to youth in foster care. According to the university’s press release, “There are more than 9,500 children and youth in care in Manitoba, the majority are First Nations and Metis, and it is estimated that less than 5% ever pursue a post-secondary education.”

Although my own parents were not well off, and I always knew I would have to work to pay my own tuition and books, I’m well aware of how fortunate I was to be provided with free room and board as I pursued my university education. Of course, one can’t forget about the emotional support and encouragement to pursue further education even if one’s parents don’t have the personal experience to give any detailed advice.

By contrast, it’s hard to imagine being in foster care, reaching the age of majority and being turned loose to fend for myself. At least, I don’t see myself doing so and still managing to figure out a way to get in, get through and pay for university — not while dealing with rent and groceries and the other basic requirements of daily life. At the very least, student loan debts would likely be substantial.

It’s worth noting to American readers that moving to a far-away university to live in residence is not the default option in Canada these days. In fact, a slim majority of the students in my generation do live at home. The percentage is almost certainly higher for students of the Univeristy of Winnipeg, which is uniquely situated right in the middle of the city’s downtown area. The limited student housing is quickly taken up by international and out-of-town students, while the majority of enrollees commute from somewhere within the city or its outskirts, where they (often) live with their parents.

Lloyd Axworthy, UW’s president and vice-chancellor, has seized on the university’s urban location as an opportunity to be a part of a community during his tenure at the university’s top post. Everything from community engagement, like community barbeques, free public art shows and musical performances, to increased accessibility via need-based bursaries, alternative entrance pathways and early intervention.

The Youth in Care pilot is only the latest in a long series of ongoing programs to improve equity of access for prospective students. The Opportunity Fund, for example, is a need-based scholarship that allows low-income students to earn university tuition credits as early as grade four, by staying in school and working hard. A high school graduate in this program can essentially have their first year paid for by staying focused during their primary and secondary studies.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/youth-in-foster-care-get-a-chance-at-university-education.html#ixzz1qJyDVbAq

[betenoire]

Funniest most batshit attack advert of the year!


DApjHZq9o7M

[Mike]

http://gma.yahoo.com/miss-universe-disqualifies-transgender-contestant-171310260--abc-news.html

[Toughy]

Which one is the real Zimmerman? His (black) friend Joe Oliver is the one offering these contradictory descriptions of Zimmerman's behavior.


This one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/joe-oliver-george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin_n_1378390.html?ref=mostpopular

George Zimmerman cried for days in remorse after shooting dead a black Florida teenager, a family friend of Zimmerman said on Sunday, offering a sympathetic portrayal of the man at the focal point of a national uproar.

<snip>

"He couldn't stop crying. He's a caring human being," Joe Oliver, 53, a former television news reporter and anchor in Orlando who has known Zimmerman for several years, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"I mean, he took a man's life and he has no idea what to do about it. He's extremely remorseful about it," Oliver said, relating stories told to him by Zimmerman's mother-in-law, a close friend of Oliver's wife.

or this one:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-25/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-friend-20120325_1_abc-news-arizona-iced-tea-joe-oliver

Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman, who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month, sparking a national outcry, thought the killing "would all blow over," a friend, Joe Oliver, told ABC News this morning.

"Because he was there and he knows what happened...he's been very confident - naively - that this would all blow over," Oliver said.

<snip>

Oliver told the Today Show that Zimmerman is "just now realizing not just how big this is for him, but how big this is for the country."

<snip>

he (Oliver) believes that it is Zimmerman screaming for help in the 911 call to police.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Supreme Court denies review of Seventh Circuit decision striking down anti-transgender law
By Scottie Thomaston

Wisconsin passed the “Inmate Sex-Change Prevention Act”, a law that maliciously targeted people who are transgender to deprive them of necessary life-saving and life-affirming medical care. Three people who were serving prison time sued for prisoner access to this medical care, for prisoners to continue receiving prescribed hormones and care from qualified doctors who would monitor their hormone treatment. The Act was challenged in federal court on the grounds that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment as well as the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs won in District Court and again at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court denied review today, meaning that their victory at the court of appeals will stand and the law is struck down.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Wisconsin’s appeal of a ruling that struck down the state’s effort to ban all hormone treatment and sex-change surgery for transgender prison inmates.

Three such inmates challenged the law in 2006, and a federal judge in Milwaukee granted a preliminary injunction to allow their hormone treatments to continue, then heard a full trial in 2007 before ruling in 2010 that Wisconsin’s 2005 Sex Change Prevention Act was unconstitutional on several grounds.

Chief U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert found that the law amounts to “deliberate indifference to the plaintiffs’ serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” because it denies hormone therapy without regard to those needs or doctors’ judgments. He found the law unconstitutional on its face and also in violation of the inmates’ rights to equal protection.

The statute reads:

The [Wisconsin Department of Corrections] may not authorize the payment of any funds or the use of any resources of this state or the payment of any federal funds passing through the state treasury to provide or to facilitate the provision of hormonal therapy or sexual reassignment surgery.

The Seventh Circuit’s opinion, which was upheld today, begins by recalling the findings of fact made by the District Court below. One of the first things the judges note is that experts testified that gender dysphoria is incredibly serious and requires the type of medical care denied to these patients under the Wisconsin law:

These experts explained that GID can cause an acute sense that a person’s body does not match his or her gender identity. Even before seeking treatment and from an early age, patients will experience this dysphoria and may attempt to conform their appearance and behavior to the gender with winch they identify.

The feelings of dysphoria can vary in intensity. Some patients are able to manage the discomfort, while others become unable to function without taking steps to correct the disorder. A person with GID often experiences severe anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders. Those with GID may attempt to commit suicide or to mutilate their own genitals.

The accepted standards of care dictate a gradual approach to treatment beginning with psychotherapy and real life experience [*554] living as the opposite gender. For some number of patients, this treatment will be effective in controlling feelings of dysphoria. When the condition is more severe, a doctor can prescribe hormones, which have the effect of relieving the psychological distress.

The defendant’s argument is a familiar refrain:

Defendants do not challenge the district court’s holding that GID is a serious medical condition. They contend that Act 105 is constitutional because the state legislature has the power to prohibit certain medical treatments when other treatment options are available. And defendants argue that Act 105 is justified by a legitimate need to ensure security in state prisons.

In other words, defendants argue that medical treatment should be given or denied based on legislative judgment, not a doctor’s considered expert judgment after that doctor reviews a patient’s case file. If legislators don’t think certain groups of people deserve certain care, whether or not it’s deemed medically necessary, those legislators should be able to ban it

[Kobi]

This gives new meaning to denial. :|


Associated Press Mar 27, 2012


Race can be a very uncomfortable thing to talk about. It is so uncomfortable for some conservative writers to talk about that they feel moved to call for everyone to stop talking by declaring racism dead. As vociferous as the outrage over Trayvon Martin's death has been, it's not really been a partisan story. The main national political angle has been over gun control -- Florida adopted Stand Your Ground after some efforts by the National Rifle Association -- but the heart of the story is a local one about race: whether a white Hispanic man was blinded by racist stereotypes and killed a black teenager, whether white law enforcement officers then looked the other way because of the race of the victim and shooter. Unlike some other national flare-ups involving race (the left's fixation on racist placards at Tea Party rallies in 2009, the right's fixation on alleged voter intimidation by New Black Panthers in 2010, or the Republican primary's fixation on birtherism in early 2011), no one in the Trayvon Martin case has been calling Republican politicians or Tea Partiers racist. But after President Obama briefly addressed the story last week, after a reporter asked him about it at a press conference, by saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," conservative pundits have seemed to sense that the Martin case is somehow benefiting liberals and Democrats who have been saying that, well, racism is still a problem in the United States of 2012. Conservatives must therefore argue that, no, it isn't. Racism is not even real.

Not only is racism dead, the only people who think it still exists are liberals. "Increasingly, racism -- and more generally the division of our country into racial and ethnic interest groups -- is all the Democrats have. The rest of liberal/leftist ideology is disintegrating all around them, as fragile and illusory as the welfare state itself," writes Pajamas Media blogger Roger L. Simon. He should know, he asserts, since he was "an ex-civil rights worker (South Carolina, 1966)." Liberals keep pushing the notion that racism exists not because they oppose it but out of a "yearning for the halcyon days of the civil rights movement when we all could feel righteous (or self-righteous) for battling the likes of Bull Connors or George Wallace... What we see now is an attempt -- conscious or unconscious -- to generate racism by false accusation, literally to manufacture it." Out of thin air! This non-existent racism.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich agrees. Obama's identification with Martin based on their shared race was "appalling," Gingrich said. "It's not a question of who that young man looked like ... Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn't look like him?" Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, considered a potential presidential candidate a year ago until he was quoted in the Weekly Standard reminiscing about how great the segregationist White Citizens Councils were, wasn't quite sure where to stand on Gingrich's comment in his appearance on Meet the Press this past Sunday. At first, Barbour said of Gingrich's comments, "Well, I wouldn't have characterized it that way. But look, he's right. Any child, white, black, brown, red or yellow that gets killed, it's a tragedy... Now there's -- he's absolutely dead right, there's no difference because of what race somebody is when something like this happens." But then later on the show, he backtracked a little, invoking famous lynching victim Emmett Till. He praised the mayor of Sanford, saying, "That's what leaders are supposed to do. Even if it's not proper at home to say, 'Guys, it's in our interest, it's the right thing for the city, the state, let's bring the F.B.I. in here. Let's bring the Florida State Police in here. Let's do whatever it takes to get all the cards on the table, face up, and then we'll figure out what to do.'" Barbour is admitting race might play a role after all -- not just in the crime, but in local public opinion, too.

This would put Haley Barbour at odds with a big swath of the conservative commentariat. The National Review's Jonah Goldberg argued Tuesday that black liberals who think racism is real are merely misinformed about black America. "If you go by Charles M. Blow of the New York Times, or Donna Britt in her NPR interview, or much of the blather on MSNBC, you’ll get the impression that the foremost problem facing young black men in America is violent white racism," Goldberg writes. Wrong! Goldberg exlpains:

The richest and most successful African-Americans spend a lot more time in elite 'white' America than they do in Compton or East St. Louis. And, my hunch is, they’re more understandably more worried about white men with guns than they are about guns in their kids’ private schools.

If they're only hanging out with rich white people, and they're "understandably" scared of white people with guns, does that mean rich white liberals are the real people you have to watch out for going on racially-motivated shooting spree? Perhaps they read his book Liberal Fascism and have seen the light that their liberal white friends are secretly Nazis? Alas, Goldberg does not elaborate. Instead he continues that this is black folks' version of the red-state-blue-state divide.

I also think it’s a lot easier for rich black liberals to have an “honest conversation” about white racism than it is for them to engage in an honest conversation about the other problems facing black America that have little to nothing to do with white racism.

Thankfully we have Goldberg to explain black life for them. Sure, black and white liberals alike might say that the problems Goldberg aludes to are the lingering effects of past racist practices like redlining. But no. His colleague Heather Mac Donald statistically proves racism isn't real. How can you quantify how widespread an attitude is? Murder statistics:

Most homicides are intraracial, but the chance of a black being killed by a white or Hispanic is much lower than the chance that a white or Hispanic will be killed by a black. Seventeen percent of what the FBI calls “white” homicide victims in 2009 were killed by blacks, compared to 8 percent of black homicide victims who were killed by “whites.”

Simon cites the same statistics and comes to a slightly different conclusion: since so many murders involve killers and victims of the same race, there are very few racist murderers. Or as he puts it, "By way of comparison, traffic deaths for the same year were 33,963. Obviously, you have much better chance of being killed by a Porsche than by a racist." So hooray! By the bar's lowest setting (how often are people killing each other because of race?) racism has been made to disappear. But that's not the end of it. By arguing that if the killed teen were white, and the shooter were black then the police would have investigated immediately, racism-manufacturing liberals are defaming law enforcement, Mac Donald argues:

But if such evidence of racial indifference does emerge, it would be not only shameful but also a great exception to the practice of police departments across the country. Far from showing a “reckless disregard for [black] lives,” in Sharpton’s words, it is the police and prosecutors who are the most reliable responders to black victimization, trying relentlessly to put together a case even when the witnesses to crime refuse to cooperate. Most police chiefs will say that they could solve every inner-city killing if the people who saw the crime or know the perpetrators came forward, instead of obeying the “no snitching” code.

Her sole evidence for the relentless efforts of police nationwide is that the rate of blacks being murdered has been cut in half since 1991. She does not point out that the murder rate for victims of all races has also been cut in half since then. Nor does she provide statistical evidence that more crimes would be solved if those dummies quit "obeying the 'no snitching' code."

Not everyone on the right is seizing the moment to declare the end of racism. For some it was already dead. Michelle Malkin writes that she hasn't had enough time to cover the Martin case, but says the left has "turned the horrible death of Trayvon Martin into a racial litmus test." Then she links to a 2010 post in which she declared racism dead. Back then, some Democrats said some Tea Partiers were racist. "[T]he Left never takes a break from falsely accusing the Right of fomenting hatred and violence through political speech," Malkin wrote. This was Democrats' tool to pass health care reform, she said. "If you can’t stand the heat, manufacture a hate crime epidemic."

Conservatives' declarations of the end of racism would be more compelling if they didn't have such strange ideas of what black people are like. There's Mac Donald's casual reference to "stop snitching." National Review's Victor Davis Hanson declared racism dead back in September, since white people were supporting Herman Cain. "In the current racial circus, the president of the United States, in addressing an assembly of upscale black professionals and political leaders, adopts the style of a Southern Baptist preacher of the 1960s," he wrote. Of course, it seems unlikely that Obama would, as Hanson charges, consciously steal from Southern Baptists, since their church's founding principle was an explicit endorsement of slavery. (The church did manage to apologize for explicitly endorsing segregation… in 1995.) Then there was Goldberg's January post mocking Mitt Romney for talking about the "streets of America," writing, "If he's street than I'm the shock collar for a vicious Mexican drug gang." Of course, the term is "shot caller," as anyone who has ever watched MTV knows. Shock collars are to keep the tiny toy poodles that people like Goldberg feed caviar and paté from yapping. (Is that a gross stereotype? My b.). And then there was Geraldo Rivera's argument for why racism didn't kill Martin, it was his sweatshirt and his race. "I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies," he said Friday. "I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was." On Tuesday, he apologized to anyone offended by his "crusade to warn minority families of the danger to their young sons inherent in gangsta style clothing; like hoodies." Alas, the hoodie-loving gangsta's shopping at JCrew.com did not heed his call, as the photo at right shows.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/03/conservatives-declare-racism-dead/50406/

[LeftWriteFemme]

NOM's Real Values

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/noms-real-values



Did NOM Hire Someone to Unsuccessfully Find ‘Victims’ of Gay Parents?


http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/did-nom-hire-someone-unsuccessfully-find-victims-gay-parents

[Tommi]

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2012 Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343

Statement by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on LGBT Health Awareness Week 2012

LGBT Health Awareness Week is an important time to highlight the progress our country is making to address the unique health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans, especially through implementation of the health care law, the Affordable Care Act.
Studies have shown that health disparities related to sexual orientation and gender identity are due in part to lower rates of health coverage and a lack of cultural competency in the health care system. The Affordable Care Act is already helping millions of Americans gain access to care by creating coverage options for people with pre-existing conditions, and under the law, beginning in 2014, every American will have access to health care through Affordable Insurance Exchanges, new competitive marketplaces where Americans will be able to purchase affordable coverage and have the same choices of insurance that members of Congress will have. These same benefits are or will be available to LGBT Americans across the country.
The Affordable Care Act also strengthens training for health care providers, devotes new resources to improving our primary care workforce, and increases funding for community health centers, where patients are served regardless of how much they can afford to pay. We know that members of the LGBT community may be more likely to be underinsured or uninsured, making the Affordable Care Act all the more important.

In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services continues to address the specific health concerns of LGBT Americans, including by working to incorporate data collection on LGBT populations into national health surveys, releasing rules requiring hospitals to allow same-sex partners the ability to visit each other in the hospital, and setting up an internal working group that ensures we are effectively coordinating policies to best address LGBT health needs across every agency in the Department.
Our Department is committed to improving the health of all Americans, including LGBT Americans, and we look forward to continuing this work during LGBT Health Awareness Week and beyond.
For more information on how the Department is working to improve LGBT Health and Well-being, visit http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/lgbthealth_update_2011.html.

Read the Departments recommendations for future LGBT Health improvements at http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/lgbthealth.html
Learn how health reform is giving LGBT Americans more control over their health care at http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/01/new-options-for-lgbt-americans.html

[Soon]

Esteemed lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich has died at age 82.

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Books/Adrienne_Rich_Dead_at_82/

[Andrea]

Police video of Zimmerman 'arrest'. No sign of the blood and grass stains purported to prove the shooting of Trayvon Martin was self defense.

http://www.news10.net/news/national/186868/5/Trayvons-father-Video-tells-different-story (http://www.news10.net/news/national/186868/5/Trayvons-father-Video-tells-different-story)

[UofMfan]

New Customs Rule Would Treat Same-Sex Couples As Families (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/28/customs-same-sex-couples_n_1386402.html)

[LeftWriteFemme]

US Supreme Court denies 'Boys Don't Cry' appeal



http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/27/2716692/us-supreme-court-denies-boys-dont.html#storylink=cpy

[LeftWriteFemme]

The Doctor Is Way Out

This column is not about Newt Gingrich. Nor is it about Chaz Bono. It’s not even about how the thought of them dancing together would make Rick Santorum’s head explode. No, this column is about a psychiatrist named Keith Ablow, who in recent months has taken the time to write about Gingrich and Bono from his unique perspective as a mental health professional.

According to his Web site, Ablow “serves as the FOX NEWS expert on psychiatry.”



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doctor-is-way-out

[Nat]

Honoring the Legacy of Cesar Chavez (http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/honoring_cesar_chavez)

On March 23, President Obama announced that Americans would celebrate March 31, 2012, in recognition of Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez, who made it his mission to "ensure respect, dignity, and fair treatment for farm workers," was a strong advocate for human rights and social justice -- for migrants, for workers, and for communities. His philosophy of nonviolence and his commitment to fighting discrimination and improving working conditions for migrant workers are key parts of the history of the civil rights and labor movements in the United States. They also serve as inspiration to activists and community leaders, here in the United States and around the world, who continue his work.

[AtLast]

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/03/29/31835/police-defend-officer-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-p/

Police defend officer who shot unarmed black teen in Pasadena after 911 call saying he had a gun

Pasadena Police arrested a 911 caller Wednesday, saying that the caller's false report that he was a victim of armed robbery is partly to blame for an officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager. The caller could be charged with manslaughter.

"If you have time to verify [that a suspect has a gun], then verify," says Phlunte Riddle, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Police. But Riddle says when police are in hot pursuit, with information that the suspect is armed, it’s a different story. And the 911 caller said he’d been robbed by two armed men.

From inside his patrol car, a Pasadena police officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade as the vehicle cut McDade off. Police say McDade made a motion to his waistband and approached the cruiser.

“The officers have to make a split-second decision, shoot or don’t shoot," says Riddle. "And the officers felt their lives were in imminent danger. ... There was no time.”

Riddle says shooting from a patrol vehicle is not a procedure taught in officer training. but she also says it’s happened before.

Meanwhile, the attorney for McDade's family, Caree Harper, says the man who made the report should face some type of felony charge even if he didn’t physically pull the trigger.

"That does not alleviate those officers from their duty to know when to shoot and know when not to shoot," Harper was quick to add. "They must independently justify their shooting. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, someone called us and said hey, there was two guys, two black guys with a gun. Come shoot them,' and then have the police cleared. I don’t think so!"

Harper says she’ll wait until the Pasadena Police Department finishes its investigation before she decides whether to file a federal lawsuit against the city.

[Kobi]

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/03/29/31835/police-defend-officer-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-p/

Police defend officer who shot unarmed black teen in Pasadena after 911 call saying he had a gun

Pasadena Police arrested a 911 caller Wednesday, saying that the caller's false report that he was a victim of armed robbery is partly to blame for an officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager. The caller could be charged with manslaughter.

"If you have time to verify [that a suspect has a gun], then verify," says Phlunte Riddle, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Police. But Riddle says when police are in hot pursuit, with information that the suspect is armed, it’s a different story. And the 911 caller said he’d been robbed by two armed men.

From inside his patrol car, a Pasadena police officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade as the vehicle cut McDade off. Police say McDade made a motion to his waistband and approached the cruiser.

“The officers have to make a split-second decision, shoot or don’t shoot," says Riddle. "And the officers felt their lives were in imminent danger. ... There was no time.”

Riddle says shooting from a patrol vehicle is not a procedure taught in officer training. but she also says it’s happened before.

Meanwhile, the attorney for McDade's family, Caree Harper, says the man who made the report should face some type of felony charge even if he didn’t physically pull the trigger.

"That does not alleviate those officers from their duty to know when to shoot and know when not to shoot," Harper was quick to add. "They must independently justify their shooting. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, someone called us and said hey, there was two guys, two black guys with a gun. Come shoot them,' and then have the police cleared. I don’t think so!"

Harper says she’ll wait until the Pasadena Police Department finishes its investigation before she decides whether to file a federal lawsuit against the city.


Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.

[AtLast]

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-31/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-911-20120331_1_voice-identification-expert-reasonable-scientific-certainty

Trayvon Martin shooting: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say

One quote from article-

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion.

Zimmerman claims self-defense in the shooting and told police he was the one screaming for help. But these experts say the evidence tells a different story.

[Corkey]

Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.


Officers are taught to shoot center mass, it has no race attached to it. Some are not great shooters some are excellent.
This is an explanation of the question.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Coming Out at 7 Years Old: How Should Parents Respond?

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/coming-out-at-7-years-old-how-should-parents-respond.html#ixzz1qnFU1ed2



http://www.care2.com/causes/coming-out-at-7-years-old-how-should-parents-respond.html?goback=%2Egde_63687_member_104773514

[Andrea]

Drones to be used for law enforcement: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/01/4382548/drones-coming-to-a-sky-near-you.html (http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/01/4382548/drones-coming-to-a-sky-near-you.html)

This feels really creepy and Orwellian. Am I going to look up through the kitchen window, while doing dishes, one day and find myself being watched?

[SoNotHer]

http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-ohio-teen-beaten-in-the-classroom-tells-his-story-video.html

Gay Ohio Teen Beaten in the Classroom Tells His Story (VIDEO)

by Steve Williams
February 3, 2012
9:00 am

http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/causes/2909/2908281.large.jpg

Readers may remember the shocking story of Zach Huston, a gay teenager who during class at Unioto High School in Chillicothe last year was beaten as the culmination of anti-gay bullying. A video of the attack went viral on YouTube. School authorities, however, seemed to blame Zach and not his attackers, reportedly asking “What can we do to change you?”

Now, Zach and his mother Rebecca Collins have together with the ACLU released a video discussing the escalating bullying Zach suffered and how the alleged inaction of the administration shocked and upset them.

Statements via the ACLU press release:

“Every child deserves a safe learning environment, free from violence and cruelty,” said ACLU of Ohio Legal Director James L. Hardiman. “The school had a responsibility to protect Zach, but looked the other way for over a year while he was verbally and physically bullied. Schools must proactively address bullying by engaging with students and teachers on the effects of harmful words and actions, or else risk even greater incidents of violence. This education must start at a young age in order to change the school’s culture, so this behavior is no longer acceptable.”

“This has been an ongoing nightmare for our family. No parent wants to see their child in danger, and it has been a constant fear that Zach or one of our loved ones would be harmed,” said Zach’s mother, Rebecca Collins. “Through Zach’s ordeal, I hope schools recognize they must take reports of bullying seriously and educate others on how it affects families.”

The ACLU of Ohio is now representing Zach’s family and is considering a wide range of legal options to ensure that the school and wider district never again allows this kind of thing to happen to a student. The ACLU, at the time the case first came to light, also sent a letter to school officials in an effort to establish a dialogue before formal legal action is filed.

To find out more about Zach’s story, click here.

As the video above highlights, there currently sits in Congress the Student Non Discrimination Act. The Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Col.) and in the Senate by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), would add to existing federal statutes and grant explicit protections against bullying on the grounds of perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

WwLs_KvoAvI&feature=player_embedded

If schools that receive federal funds fail to adequately combat and track incidents of anti-LGBT bullying, or if school administrators are found to have discriminated against LGBT children, then under the Student Non Discrimination Act their federal funding could be cut. The GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate survey of more than 7,000 LGBT middle and high school students from across the U.S. found that nine out of ten students experienced harassment at school because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that two-thirds said they felt unsafe in schools. LGBT youth are also at an increased rick of suicide-linked mental health issues, many of which are in turn linked to bullying and harassment in their daily lives.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-ohio-teen-beaten-in-the-classroom-tells-his-story-video.html#ixzz1qz1Vzt8k

[Toughy]

The threat of losing federal money was a very big stick once upon a time. It is fairly meaningless today. Just look at what Gov Rick Perry did in TX. He lost all his medicaid money for women's health over Planned Parenthood and did not care at all.

The Violence Against Women Act was also not re-authorized in 2012. Originally passed during the Clinton Administration in 1994, it was re-authorized in 2000 and 2005 with no problems.

[Quintease]

Oh no, the Gay Agenda has infiltrated Afghanistan! (http://www.queerty.com/u-s-soldier-flies-rainbow-flag-in-afghanistan-professional-homophobe-flips-out-20120403/)

[Hollylane]

BPA in Your Food? The FDA's Still Okay With That. (http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/fda-bpa-cans-food-dow-bayer)

—By Tom Philpott
| Wed Apr. 4, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Bisphenol A, a controversial chemical used in the lining of nearly all cans used by the food and beverage industry, got a reprieve from the government last week. Responding to a court order to decide on the Natural Resources Defense Council's petition to ban the stuff on the grounds that it causes harm even in tiny doses, the Food and Drug Administration rejected the petition and upheld its approval of BPA.

That's good news for some of the globe's biggest chemical companies. According to Bloomberg News, the global BPA market is worth about $8 billion, with about a quarter of total production going into cans. (The rest goes into polycarbonate plastics, which end up in everything from water bottles to DVDs.) Bloomberg adds that the three biggest suppliers of BPA to the American market are the chemical/steel giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp.—which is 70 percent owned by the Saudi government—the German chemical giant Bayer, and Dow, its US rival. Globally, reports the US Department of Agriculture, Bayer and Dow produce "the bulk" of BPA.



While their executives had reason to cheer the FDA's decision, consumers have reason to groan. The FDA's own research shows that BPA leaches from can linings into food, and a 2011 Harvard study found BPA at heightened levels in people who regularly consume canned soup.

BPA is what is known as an endocrine disrupter, meaning that it has a range of effects on human development at minute doses. And Friday's decision comes less than a month after the release of a major study of endocrine disruptors by a range of scientists, including some from the US Department of Health and Human Services, who found "strong evidence" that BPA negatively affects the prostate at low doses and "undisputed evidence" that it does so for mammary glands.

And that's not all. A 2008 study published in the Journal of American Medicine looked at urinary BPA levels in 1,455 US adults and examined health outcomes controlling for "age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, income, smoking, body mass index, [and] waist circumference." The result: the higher the BPA concentration in people's urine, the higher their incidence of cardiovascular trouble and diabetes. Of course, correlation is not causation—something besides BPA could have caused the increase in health troubles. But given that the scientists controlled for a range of obvious factors, and that that BPA has proven hazardous in the laboratory, those results give plenty of reason for alarm.

Now, it's true that there remains a good amount of uncertainty in the science of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which is relatively new. The FDA seized upon that uncertainty to justify its decision. "While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans," the agency wrote in a statement following the decision. But as Time's Bryan Walsh put it, "For most public-health advocates, chemicals like BPA should be guilty until proved innocent—and they feel there's more than enough data out there to cast doubt on BPA's innocence."

It's worth noting that alternatives to BPA are already out there and working, as my colleague Kiera Butler showed back in 2010:

In 1999, Eden Foods, which sells organic goods, began lining most of its cans with a plant-based oleoresin. CEO Michael Potter calls the switch a "no-brainer," even though the new cans cost 14 percent more. "I eat this stuff," he says. "And so do my kids." Canning trade rep [John] Rost dismisses oleoresins as impractical due to shelf-life concerns, but Potter says Eden hasn't had a single case of contamination. For high-acid foods like tomatoes, which can eat away at oleoresins, companies have turned to those paper-and-aluminum cartons already used to package certain soups. But Potter says he's not surprised that major food companies and canners are resisting the new options. "They have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in BPA," he says. "They do not want to change anything."

The FDA's scientists may truly believe that it's prudent public health policy to preserve a status quo in which Americans, including children and pregnant women, continue consuming BPA in everyday foods. Then again, it's an election year, and as this blockbuster New York Times story demonstrates, the Obama White House has not been shy about pushing the agency around for political purposes. And the companies that make BPA, as well as the major food and can-making companies that have come to rely on it, are no political lightweights.

[Nat]

Hopefully there are some law enforcement types on this site who can explain why shootings like this are shoot to kill versus shoot to disable. Never understood that.


I was always told to shoot to stop - which means generally aiming for the torso since it's the biggest target - that attempting to disable rather than stop a person was too big a risk - of lost time, of missing the person. And never to point a gun unless willing to shoot a person.

But those are just my local gun-nut cohorts, not cops.

Happily I don't own a gun.

However, I have shot handguns, rifles and shotguns. I had terrific aim with a rifle, but shitty aim with the handguns. Even with regular target practice, I don't think I could confidently/successfully shoot to disable on-the-spot, without time to brace myself or take perfect aim and with a moving target.

One thing that sucks is that tasers and pepper spray were supposed to reduce the need for lethal force, but instead they have been used in cases where lethal force would never have been used. I'm not sure if they have reduced the number of times lethal force was used.

BTW I didn't read the news story - just responding to the shooting-to-disable vs shooting-to-kill thing from the land-o-guns.

[UofMfan]

Denying Same-Sex Insurance Benefits Discriminates, Federal Judge Rules (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/same-sex-insurance-benefits_n_1405579.html)

[LeftWriteFemme]

Kearian Giertz, California Teen, Disqualified From High School Pageant For Pro-Gay Marriage Remark


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/kearian-giertz-california-teen-gay-marriage-pageant-disqualified_n_1405843.html?ir=Gay%20Voices

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay pride flag flies on US military base



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-pride-flag-flies-us-military-base060412

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay BYU students contribute to “It Gets Better”




http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/gay-byu-students-contribute-gets-better-183742903.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Boss’ pray day turns to payday for gay chef





http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/boss_pray_day_turns_to_payday_for_2a83ReI750393HXl AbErkJ#ixzz1qze8Cswt

[AtLast]

I'm hoping that Breaking News on April 10th is that a Grand Jury in Sanford FL indicts George Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin's family is on the way to justice for his senseless, racist motivated death. That child should just not be dead. He should be finishing his senior year at high school carrying out his goal to attend college and build a good life.

Another, Federal indictment for a hate crime would be icing on the cake!

[LeftWriteFemme]

Op-ed: LGBT Veterans Deserve Dignity



http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Oped_LGBT_Veterans_Deserve_Dignity/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Michigan Republicans Illegally Passed Over 96% of Bills Under 'Immediate Effect'



http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michigan-republicans-illegally-pass

[AtLast]

Michigan Republicans Illegally Passed Over 96% of Bills Under 'Immediate Effect'



http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michigan-republicans-illegally-pass

Love it that Maddow is reporting about this- hope it gets more attention.

[SoNotHer]

Lesbian Awarded $1.6M Over Boss Forcing Prayer for her Soul

by Steve Williams
April 5, 2012
4:20 pm

http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/causes/2928/2927068.large.jpg


A jury has ordered restaurateur Edward Globokar to pay $1.6 million in damages to a former employee after he began using work time to pray for her to be cured of being a lesbian. The New York Post reports jurors awarded chef Mirella Salemi $1.2 million in punitive damages and $400,000 in compensatory damages. Salemi quit her job at the Mary Ann restaurant on West Broadway, New York, after what she alleged was a sustained campaign of discrimination by Globokar. The Post reports the former owner of Mary Ann’s made her life a “living hell” by holding employee prayer meetings, some of which were reportedly designed to pray for her soul.

“He not only threatened her soul, but he also threatened her livelihood,” said Derek Smith of Derek Smith Law Group P.C. which specializes in sexual orientation and sexual harassment claims and represented Salemi in this case. “He thought praying might cure her of her sexuality, but she is someone who didn’t need to be saved.”

The verdict, handed down on March 6, noted that while Globokar included all employees in his forced prayer meetings and told all of them that they risked eternal damnation for not sharing in his beliefs, Salemi seemed especially singled out because of her sexual orientation. As Edge Boston notes, Globokar’s evangelizing over Salemi’s sexual orientation is interesting for the fact that the Mary Ann restaurant is situated on West Broadway in New York City’s TriBeCa neighborhood, an area that has earned a reputation as a prime “gay neighborhood.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/lesbian-awarded-1-6m-over-boss-forcing-prayer-for-her-soul.html#ixzz1rSF70N3x

[LeftWriteFemme]

Ministries preying on gay shame

Homosexual 'cure' is hell for many.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/ministries-preying-on-gay-shame-20120407-1wif0.html#ixzz1rOvuLR14

[clay]

Breaking News:CBS: Journalist Mike Wallace has died at 93.

[AtLast]

Breaking News:CBS: Journalist Mike Wallace has died at 93.

I feel for his family, but he was one of the most sexist news anchors through the years in terms of working with female journalists as equals. Maybe just one more man that was a product of his time. The field has lost a talented professional.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Older Gay Men and Lesbians Get a Drop-In Center of Their Own



http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/older-gay-men-and-lesbians-get-a-drop-in-center-of-their-own/

[LeftWriteFemme]

CSU Students Claim They Were Beaten By School's Football Players After Receiving Homophobic Slurs



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/09/csu-students-claim-they-w_n_1411668.html?ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices

[LeftWriteFemme]

Chinese parents call for anti-gay discrimination legislation


http://shanghaiist.com/2012/03/13/parents_call_for_anti-gay_discrimin.php

[UofMfan]

Ashley Judd Op-Ed Hits Back At Media Over 'Puffy Face' Accusations (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/ashley-judd-op-ed_n_1414322.html)

Ashley Judd Slaps Media in the Face for Speculation Over Her ‘Puffy’ Appearance (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html)

"Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women..."

[hpychick]

He has bowed out of the race! Yippie!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rick-santorum-calls-mitt-romney-concede-180027008.html

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has become the latest big-name financial supporter to back away from a group that pushes conservative and corporate priorities in U.S. state capitals.

The foundation said it would not award another grant to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the face of criticism of the council's involvement in voting laws and in "stand your ground" gun laws such as one under scrutiny in the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida.

ColorOfChange, a political group that advocates for black Americans, has led a public campaign to persuade corporations to distance themselves from ALEC. ColorOfChange's executive director is Rashad Robinson, who previously worked for a voting-rights group and a gay-rights group.

Civil rights advocates have said they are considering economic boycotts of companies that support so called "stand your ground" laws that permit civilians to carry and use weapons in cases of self defense. Corporate backers of ALEC were also singled out last year for the group's support of state laws requiring that voters show identification when they vote. ColorOfChange says the laws unfairly burden racial minorities and the poor.

Three companies that have said since January they are cutting their ties with ALEC are the Coca-Cola Co, Kraft Foods Inc and PepsiCo Inc. A fourth company, Intuit Inc, said it left ALEC near the end of 2011 but declined to comment further.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/gates-foundation-cuts-ties-conservative-group-191527119.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Homophobes need (gay) love too

And then came the headline that surprised exactly no one and delighted a great many, even as it openly terrified countless thousands across the deep south and also Utah and Kansas and pretty much the entire GOP. The poor dears.






http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/11/notes041112.DTL

[Corkey]

Zimmerman is in custody and will be charged with 2nd degree murder. MSNBC

[RockOn]

I came here to post about Zimmerman and I see my buddy, Corkey, has already made the post for me.

What is up with the 2nd Degree silly nonsense? Perhaps I am wrong ... I wasn't there but my take was he hunted that boy down, ignored law officials orders to back off. Geez, what a joke.

[Corkey]

I came here to post about Zimmerman and I see my buddy, Corkey, has already made the post for me.

What is up with the 2nd Degree silly nonsense? Perhaps I am wrong ... I wasn't there but my take was he hunted that boy down, ignored law officials orders to back off. Geez, what a joke.

They can not prove beyond a reasonable doubt Zimmerman set out to kill Treyvon with malice aforethought, which is the intent beforehand to kill. In Florida a Grand Jury has to be the one to indite for 1st degree murder. If the jury convicts Zimmerman of this 2nd degree charge he will get life. There is always the possibility the jury may use a lesser charge of manslaughter. I'm just glad he's been arrested and is off the streets and his weapon has finally been confiscated.

[RockOn]

Okay, I understand better. Thanks for the information and explanation.

I am glad Zimmerman is off the streets too.

See you! :)

[Ebon]

I came here to post about Zimmerman and I see my buddy, Corkey, has already made the post for me.

What is up with the 2nd Degree silly nonsense? Perhaps I am wrong ... I wasn't there but my take was he hunted that boy down, ignored law officials orders to back off. Geez, what a joke.

Yeah so did I. I'm glad he finally got arrested.

[MsTinkerbelly]

President Obama won’t sign a nondiscrimination executive order
By Scottie Thomaston

Yesterday, the news broke from the White House that the president refuses to sign an executive order that would prevent workers contracting with the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Everyone seemed hopeful when it was announced yesterday morning that the White House convened a meeting with organizations closely associated with advocating for the executive order, but shortly after that announcement, the meeting’s attendees broke the news.

This had been one of the president’s longstanding campaign promises, back in 2008 he said he would implement a federal contractor executive order to protect LGBT people. The campaign said they supported a nondiscrimination executive order for all federal employees and federal contractors:


Obama, in responding to the group’s 2008 presidential candidate questionnaire, also stated that his campaign had a “written non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.” He added that “[a]n Obama White House will implement a similar non-discrimination policy.” In it, Obama states that he supported such a policy for all federal employees and, in a separate question, for all federal contractors.

As the New York Times notes, this is a change from his so-called “we can’t wait” campaign, which was designed in part to mitigate the negative effects of non-passage of certain necessary legislation due to Republican intransigence. And given the pressing need for antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people, since anywhere from 15 to 43 percent of gay people and 90 percent of transgender people report being discriminated against or harassed at their workplace, one would think a step toward showing the LGBT community that we’re headed in a direction where in the future we won’t face so much hatred where we work or are attempting to work might be a step the administration would consider taking.

In defense of his position on this issue, the White House notes the president’s support for ENDA legislation:


White House spokesman Shin Inouye, in response to a request from Metro Weekly, wrote, “The President is dedicated to securing equal rights for LGBT Americans and that is why he has long supported an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit employers across the country from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

He added: “The President is committed to lasting and comprehensive change and therefore our goal is passage of ENDA, which is a legislative solution to LGBT employment discrimination — just as the President pressed for legislative repeal of DADT.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, of course, is not going to pass the Republican-controlled House. It is unclear even how many House or Senate Democrats would be on board with passage of this legislation. An executive order wouldn’t need to pass a majority of the House and get 60 votes in the Senate, it just needs one person’s signature. It doesn’t seem responsive to the current demands of our time to tell advocates that a piece of future legislation is supported and would be signed if it made it to the president’s desk. And while the order would not be quite as sweeping as the legislation, it would undoubtedly be an improvement over what people who are LGBT are facing in this country today. It would be a pragmatic step, a way to make a mark on antidiscrimination policy.

And with such a broad coalition of supporters – from progressive advocacy organizations to unions to LGBT organizations and non-LGBT organizations for racial minorities – one would think that politically this might not work out so well for the administration. Recently, 72 lawmakers had also pushed for the order.

This would have been a great step, including LGBT people in the campaign to get much needed administrative orders passed to change our living circumstances for the better, and showing that we can’t wait either.

UPDATE 1 (Scottie Thomaston): Today at the White House press briefing, Jay Carney was bombarded with eight minutes of tough questions about the executive order. Carney claims that they have a legislative strategy for ENDA that’s similar to the one they had for DADT.

[UofMfan]

North Korea Tests Rocket; Early Reports Say It Failed (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/world/asia/north-korea-launches-rocket-defying-world-warnings.html?_r=1&hp)

[LeftWriteFemme]

'Gay cure' group's London bus adverts banned



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17693947

[UofMfan]

Secret Service Agents Relieved Of Duty Following Colombia Misconduct Allegations (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/secret-service-agents-rel_n_1425108.html)

[SoNotHer]

Portland, Oregon: Doin' It Right

SustainableBusiness.com News

Portland, Oregon's Climate Action Plan is working - greenhouse gas emissions are now 6% below 1990 levels and down 26% per person, even though population has grown 26% over that time. Over the same period, US emissions rose 12%. Portland and Mutnomah County released a 2-year progress report on their 3-year Climate Action Plan, which began in late 2009.

"The same sensibility that makes Portland livable - trees, greenways, walkable neighborhoods, streetcars, and solar - has helped reduce carbon emissions 26% per person since 1990," says the report. Since 2009, over 1,000 homes have been weatherized, 1,400 homes and businesses have installed solar panels, 150,000 households compost food scraps at the curb, and the number of bicyclists has climbed 14%.

Emissions from homes are down 7% (26% per capita), and down 9% in commercial, industrial and multifamily sectors combined. At the same time, the number of jobs is up 12% since 1990. Energy intensity is down 17% per capita reflecting consistent progress in improving energy efficiency in buildings and industrial processes - the city has some of the world's greenest buildings. Check out its feebate program. Over 15% of Portland residents pay a little extra to buy renewable energy from utilties, the highest participation rate among cities of its size.

Compared to 1990, transportation emissions are down 1% (22% per capita) and vehicle miles traveled are at 1984 levels. As of 2010, gasoline sales are just below 1990 levels. Why the decline? Portland has increasingly complete and connected neighborhoods, says the report. Residents can more easily walk or bicycle to meet their daily needs. 10 miles of Neighborhood Greenways were added last year. Other reasons are low carbon fuels, better fuel efficiency of vehicles and regional transportation investments in light rail, bike routes and street cars.

"We're making solid progress on our ambitious Climate Action Plan goals, in part because we're creating a more connected city," says Sam Adams, Mayor of Portland. "Portlanders now have more low-carbon options to get to school and to work, more efficient ways to heat and power their homes and new ways to deal with household waste."

Portland and Mutnomah County's goal is to reduce carbon emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Portland was the first US city to adopt a plan to reduce carbon emissions in 1993.

In 2001, Multnomah County joined the City of Portland to adopt a joint plan - it set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2010. Recent developments will reduce Portland's footprint further. Its new solar highway.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23606

[Hollylane]

Portland, Oregon: Doin' It Right

SustainableBusiness.com News

Portland, Oregon's Climate Action Plan is working - greenhouse gas emissions are now 6% below 1990 levels and down 26% per person, even though population has grown 26% over that time. Over the same period, US emissions rose 12%. Portland and Mutnomah County released a 2-year progress report on their 3-year Climate Action Plan, which began in late 2009.

"The same sensibility that makes Portland livable - trees, greenways, walkable neighborhoods, streetcars, and solar - has helped reduce carbon emissions 26% per person since 1990," says the report. Since 2009, over 1,000 homes have been weatherized, 1,400 homes and businesses have installed solar panels, 150,000 households compost food scraps at the curb, and the number of bicyclists has climbed 14%.

Emissions from homes are down 7% (26% per capita), and down 9% in commercial, industrial and multifamily sectors combined. At the same time, the number of jobs is up 12% since 1990. Energy intensity is down 17% per capita reflecting consistent progress in improving energy efficiency in buildings and industrial processes - the city has some of the world's greenest buildings. Check out its feebate program. Over 15% of Portland residents pay a little extra to buy renewable energy from utilties, the highest participation rate among cities of its size.

Compared to 1990, transportation emissions are down 1% (22% per capita) and vehicle miles traveled are at 1984 levels. As of 2010, gasoline sales are just below 1990 levels. Why the decline? Portland has increasingly complete and connected neighborhoods, says the report. Residents can more easily walk or bicycle to meet their daily needs. 10 miles of Neighborhood Greenways were added last year. Other reasons are low carbon fuels, better fuel efficiency of vehicles and regional transportation investments in light rail, bike routes and street cars.

"We're making solid progress on our ambitious Climate Action Plan goals, in part because we're creating a more connected city," says Sam Adams, Mayor of Portland. "Portlanders now have more low-carbon options to get to school and to work, more efficient ways to heat and power their homes and new ways to deal with household waste."

Portland and Mutnomah County's goal is to reduce carbon emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Portland was the first US city to adopt a plan to reduce carbon emissions in 1993.

In 2001, Multnomah County joined the City of Portland to adopt a joint plan - it set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2010. Recent developments will reduce Portland's footprint further. Its new solar highway.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23606

That's right...Uh huh...:)

[UofMfan]

Prostitution Scandal: 5 Members Of U.S. Military Accused Of Misconduct At Same Hotel As Secret Service (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/14/prostitution-scandal-service-members-accused-of-misconduct_n_1425920.html)

[The_Lady_Snow]

Possible tornado hits Iowa hospital:(

[WingsOnFire]

That's right...Uh huh...:)

I knew there was a reason I like Portland :)

[Lady_Di]

Portland, Oregon: Doin' It Right

SustainableBusiness.com News

Portland, Oregon's Climate Action Plan is working - greenhouse gas emissions are now 6% below 1990 levels and down 26% per person, even though population has grown 26% over that time. Over the same period, US emissions rose 12%. Portland and Mutnomah County released a 2-year progress report on their 3-year Climate Action Plan, which began in late 2009.

"The same sensibility that makes Portland livable - trees, greenways, walkable neighborhoods, streetcars, and solar - has helped reduce carbon emissions 26% per person since 1990," says the report. Since 2009, over 1,000 homes have been weatherized, 1,400 homes and businesses have installed solar panels, 150,000 households compost food scraps at the curb, and the number of bicyclists has climbed 14%.

Emissions from homes are down 7% (26% per capita), and down 9% in commercial, industrial and multifamily sectors combined. At the same time, the number of jobs is up 12% since 1990. Energy intensity is down 17% per capita reflecting consistent progress in improving energy efficiency in buildings and industrial processes - the city has some of the world's greenest buildings. Check out its feebate program. Over 15% of Portland residents pay a little extra to buy renewable energy from utilties, the highest participation rate among cities of its size.

Compared to 1990, transportation emissions are down 1% (22% per capita) and vehicle miles traveled are at 1984 levels. As of 2010, gasoline sales are just below 1990 levels. Why the decline? Portland has increasingly complete and connected neighborhoods, says the report. Residents can more easily walk or bicycle to meet their daily needs. 10 miles of Neighborhood Greenways were added last year. Other reasons are low carbon fuels, better fuel efficiency of vehicles and regional transportation investments in light rail, bike routes and street cars.

"We're making solid progress on our ambitious Climate Action Plan goals, in part because we're creating a more connected city," says Sam Adams, Mayor of Portland. "Portlanders now have more low-carbon options to get to school and to work, more efficient ways to heat and power their homes and new ways to deal with household waste."

Portland and Mutnomah County's goal is to reduce carbon emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Portland was the first US city to adopt a plan to reduce carbon emissions in 1993.

In 2001, Multnomah County joined the City of Portland to adopt a joint plan - it set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2010. Recent developments will reduce Portland's footprint further. Its new solar highway.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23606


I keep wondering where to set down my roots, plant my asparagus~

Truly loved living in the PNW and am seriously considering Portland as a good place to live the good life. When I read things like this, the pro column gets a big healthy dose of YES!!!

[LeftWriteFemme]

Breaking down barriers so foster kids can find a family


http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/12/us/cnnheroes-wing-kovarik-gay-adoption/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

[Sachita]

Breaking down barriers so foster kids can find a family


http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/12/us/cnnheroes-wing-kovarik-gay-adoption/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

I think its sad that anyone can foster but you must be legally married to adopt. Don't get me wrong, I think fostering needs so many people.

[MsTinkerbelly]

ABC News profiles gay families: “IRS Makes Gay Parents ‘Lie,’ Shortchanging 2 Million Children”By Scottie Thomaston

ABC News profiles gay families and the harmful effects of the Defense of Marriage Act that can cause so much uncertainty and confusion. Noting that the federal government provides tax credits for families with children, but that gay and lesbian families lose out on that federal help at levels from $1,490 to $6,209, the piece quotes a group for LGBT families as saying:


“LGBT families raising kids have an unfair burden, simply because of what their families look like and who they love,” said Emily Hecht McGowan, director of public policy at the Family Equity Council.

A new report is calling attention to these problems with our system and the ways in which the problems hurt LGBT families, and particularly those with children. In many states where LGBT families are raising children a fourth of children are below the poverty line. The report argues LGBT families should receive equal treatment to heterosexual families:


A report released today, “Unequal Taxation and Undue Burdens for LGBT Families,” argues laws have not kept up with these families. Not only are they being treated unfairly by the federal tax codes, but their children are denied the economic benefits that are afforded all other American families.

The piece shows the stark reality LGBT parents face, and the anxieties they deal with every day. Aside from the monetary impact, laws like DOMA have a deep psychological impact. They make LGBT people feel unequal, or “not recognized” at all. The tax system is specifically designed to support and encourage families to thrive but it’s been failing LGBT families for years.

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta proposed new action on Monday to crack down on sexual assault in the military, seeking to boost prosecution of the crime and send a signal that the Pentagon aims to confront what has become a persistent problem.

Panetta, after a meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, said he would take steps to ensure that sexual assault cases are pushed higher up the chain of command for review and would try to establish special victims units in each of the military services to handle the offenses.

"The most important thing we can do is prosecute the offenders," Panetta said. "If we can do that, then we can begin to deal with this issue ... but more importantly send a signal that this is not a problem that we're going to ignore in the United States military."

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared with Panetta and endorsed the measures he proposed to lawmakers working on the issue, saying they would help address the problem.

"The crime of sexual assault erodes the very fabric of our profession," Dempsey said. "Our profession is built on trust and this particular crime erodes that trust. We've been hard at it for some years trying to make a difference and we haven't been able to make a difference."

Representative Jackie Speier, an outspoken critic of the Pentagon's handling of the issue, welcomed Panetta's commitment to trying to fix the problem but expressed skepticism that sexual assaults could be curbed without more radical steps.

Speier favors taking sexual assault cases out of the hands of the military's chain of command and putting them under the jurisdiction of a special office made up of military and civilian experts.

"You can't fix the system if you're not going to change the culture, maximize prosecutions and take it out of the chain of command," she said after the meeting with Panetta and other lawmakers.

Panetta's proposals would keep sexual assault cases within the chain of command but would ensure they were seen at a higher level, at a minimum by an officer at the rank of colonel with the power to call a special court-martial to hear the charges.

He also recommended members of the National Guard and Reserves be allowed to remain on duty after they are sexually assaulted so they can obtain treatment and support. Currently they are removed from active duty and lose those benefits.

Panetta's announcement followed the release last Friday of the Pentagon's annual report on sexual assault in the military, which showed the number of cases reported to military authorities in 2011 rose to 3,192, a 1 percent increase over the 3,158 reported in 2010.

Speier said the data showed that commander-initiated actions in sexual assault cases were down 23 percent, courts-martial were down 8 percent and convictions were down 22 percent between 2010 and 2011.

"So it's going in the wrong direction," she said.

While Panetta can force sexual assault cases to be heard higher up the chain of command, he needs congressional action to take the other steps he proposed.

Lawmakers said they were working to ensure the annual defense policy and spending bill - the National Defense Authorization Act - would include language for the steps Panetta requested, but Speier said she would press for her own proposals.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/panetta-offers-steps-curb-sex-assault-military-013019447.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

City Of Philadelphia Primed To Open LGBT Retirement Home

Full story here: http://www.queerty.com/city-of-philadelphia-primed-to-open-lgbt-retirement-home-20120416/#ixzz1sJboGcyS



http://www.queerty.com/city-of-philadelphia-primed-to-open-lgbt-retirement-home-20120416/

[dykeumentary]

City Of Philadelphia Primed To Open LGBT Retirement Home

Full story here: http://www.queerty.com/city-of-philadelphia-primed-to-open-lgbt-retirement-home-20120416/#ixzz1sJboGcyS



http://www.queerty.com/city-of-philadelphia-primed-to-open-lgbt-retirement-home-20120416/

And did you see that they are stopping the M and F stickers on bus passes?!

[Toughy]

And did you see that they are stopping the M and F stickers on bus passes?!

Huh???? what are you talking about???

[dykeumentary]

These stickers gave the whole bus, and the driver, an opportunity to discuss a rider's gender presentation. This happened a few times to me, humiliating.

http://phillyrage.org/2012/04/12/were-winning-septa-plans-to-remove-gender-stickers/


Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Philadelphians Win Historic Victory;
RAGE Announces SEPTA Concedes Gender Stickers Must Go by 2013

PHILADELPHIA – Riders Against Gender Exclusion (RAGE) is pleased to announce that, after a lengthy grassroots campaign by transgender and gender non-conforming Philadelphians and our allies, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) plans to remove the gender stickers from all monthly transit passes by 2013. A fare policy proposal will be submitted to SEPTA’s board of directors that includes this change beginning in the second half of 2013.

[AtLast]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/17/11251326-nbc-prostitutes-50-fee-for-two-agents-triggered-secret-service-scandal?lite

This is such bullshit! The Secret Service is funded by taxes and is is supposed to not only guard the safety of the president, but countless elected and appointed officials of the US government. Also, the spouses & children of officials.

And the big question is- were there under-age sex workers involved? It isn't like this was some small group of folks, it involves over 200 people (last count as of today) and was organized- fees collected, room arrangements made, etc. doesn't sound to me like this is the first time this has happened.

I have always viewed the Secret Service with great respect... but now... ?? I think this is going to be much bigger and more serious than was first expected.

I don't give a flying hooray about any adult engaging in sexual activity of any kind (other than without consent or with a minor), but do it on your own time and pay your own way to where ever to do it. And could this be involved with any other type of sex traffic activity?

[UofMfan]

Summitt Steps Aside (http://espn.go.com/)


"After 38 seasons, 1,098 wins and eight NCAA titles, Pat Summitt will step aside as head coach but will serve as an adviser for the Lady Vols."

[suebee]

Do you think that the fact that she's the first and only female officer AND she's gay might have anything to do with this? LINK (http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-officer-may-be-fired-after-stopping-beatdown,0,2795580.story)

[AtLast]

Summitt Steps Aside (http://espn.go.com/)


"After 38 seasons, 1,098 wins and eight NCAA titles, Pat Summitt will step aside as head coach but will serve as an adviser for the Lady Vols."

As I watch my brother-in-law travel down the path of Alzheimer's, my heart just goes out to Summitt in a big way.

She is and always has been something!

[AtLast]

Woman Recounts Quarrel Leading to Agent Scandal

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/americas/colombian-escort-speaks-about-secret-service-scandal.html

Wonder how many divorces there will be after this is all said and done?

[Kobi]

BALTIMORE (AP) — Two brothers accused of beating a black teenager while patrolling an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood are set to go on trial Monday in a case with similarities to the Trayvon Martin shooting.

The brothers, who are white and Jewish, have claimed self-defense, saying the teen was holding a nail-studded board. Local civil rights activists hope the Martin case will draw more attention to what they believe was racial profiling by neighborhood watch vigilantes.

Eliyahu and Avi Werdesheim are accused of beating a 15-year-old boy who was walking through a Baltimore neighborhood in November 2010. The brothers pulled up next to the teen in a vehicle, then got out and "surrounded him," according to charging documents. The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down.

The teen remembered the driver yelling, "You wanna (mess) with us, you don't belong around here, get outta here!" according to court documents, which do not identify which brother was driving.

While the teen struggled, a third man got out of a van and kneed the teen, pinning him to the ground. The teen told police that he stopped struggling and the third man continued to search him, while the teen insisted he didn't have anything on him.

Eliyahu Werdesheim told the Baltimore Jewish Times that he was acting in self-defense because the teen was holding the piece of wood. The teen picked up the board during the encounter, but put it back down, said J. Wyndal Gordon, an attorney for the teen's family. He said the family did not want to speak publically.

http://news.yahoo.com/md-neighborhood-watch-trial-set-against-fla-fury-140920015.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay Rabbis Approved In Israel, Conservative Judaism Makes Decision


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/gay-rabbis-approved-in-israel_n_1439936.html?ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices

[Reader]

Summitt Steps Aside (http://espn.go.com/)


"After 38 seasons, 1,098 wins and eight NCAA titles, Pat Summitt will step aside as head coach but will serve as an adviser for the Lady Vols."

Pat Summitt is and always will be a force to reckon with. Just a great woman.

[Andrea]

Is this yet another way to invade our privacy?

"Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson, reading through Section 31406 of the "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act" (MAP-21) bill that's currently making its way through Congress, made a nice catch: The bill calls for "Mandatory Event Data Recorders" to be installed in new vehicles starting in the year 2015.

Yes. If the bill becomes law, cars manufactured in the U.S. will have black boxes -- similar to the recording devices that are standard inclusions on aircraft."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2012/04/meet-the-bill-that-wants-to-put-plane-like-black-boxes-in-our-cars/256164/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2012/04/meet-the-bill-that-wants-to-put-plane-like-black-boxes-in-our-cars/256164/)

[Andrea]

Outrage as Egypt plans 'farewell intercourse law' so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives up to six hours after their death.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html)

[~ocean]

i respect other cultures... even tho i DONT agree w. them :))) just saying ... that is soo bizarr andrea

[Toughy]

Outrage as Egypt plans 'farewell intercourse law' so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives up to six hours after their death.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html)

sooooooooooooooooooo

those out there who think we should respect cultural practices that are different..............

what say you?

[AtLast]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jersey-autistic-boy-records-teachers-alleged-abuse/story?id=16209626#.T5p4JbN8B2A

[Andrea]

Outrage as Egypt plans 'farewell intercourse law' so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives up to six hours after their death.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135434/Outrage-Egypt-plans-farewell-intercourse-law-husbands-sex-dead-wives-hours-AFTER-death.html)

Thank all that is good.... This is a fake story. Sorry everyone.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Radio DJ tells father he should have daughter 'raped' straight


http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/radio-dj-tells-father-he-should-have-daughter-raped-straight280412?utm_source=New+email+sign-ups&utm_campaign=5e6b0e05c3-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

[Kobi]

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/30/tennessee-passes-abstinence-based-gateway-sexual-activity-bill/

[suebee]

Another beautiful young transperson lost to hate, and then lost again to racism and indifference.


LINK (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/30/1087705/-Transgender-woman-murdered-in-Oakland-Nobody-Cares-)

[Nat]

http://towleroad.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c730253ef0168eafd0abc970c-800wi

North Carolina Pastor Sean Harris: Parents Should 'Punch' Their Gay-Acting Children (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/north-carolina-pastor-sea_n_1468618.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003)

"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, 'Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,' you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in. And you say, 'Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.'"

[LeftWriteFemme]

Transsexual Woman Cited for Using Ladies Room


http://m.nbcdfw.com/nbcdfw/pm_108184/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=nIdkVX8I

[LeftWriteFemme]

California Bill Would Protect Patients From Harmful Ex-Gay Therapy


http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/04/23/469667/california-ex-gay-bill/?mobile=nc

[AtLast]

http://towleroad.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c730253ef0168eafd0abc970c-800wi

North Carolina Pastor Sean Harris: Parents Should 'Punch' Their Gay-Acting Children (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/north-carolina-pastor-sea_n_1468618.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003)

These right-wing-nut "Christian leaders" are so damn stuck on stupid- as well as being pathetic homophobes. And don't even get me started about ever "punching" a child! Of course, these are the exact people that abuse children in various forms in very high numbers.

So tired of these idiots!

[SoNotHer]

Boehner Doesn’t Want Gay Soldiers Having Equal Benefits

http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/causes/2937/2936397.large.jpg

The House leadership on Monday moved to intervene in a suit brought by gay and lesbian servicemembers as they challenge DOMA’s denial of spousal benefits. The intervention comes in the case of McLaughlin v. United States, where eight gay and lesbian servicemembers and their spouses are challenging that DOMA illegally discriminates against them on grounds of their gender and sexual orientation. The case also challenges three other federal statutes — Titles 10, 32 and 38 — that prevent the military from providing equal recognition, support and benefits for all military families.

Plaintiffs in the case include Chief Warrant Officer (CW2) Morgan, who has incurable stage IV breast cancer and who traveled to Washington to personally ask Speaker Boehner not to intervene in this case.

The Obama administration, per its assertion that DOMA Section 3 is unconstitutional, will not defend the ban in court and may even argue against DOMA’s denial of spousal benefits as the administration has done in several other cases. Within hours of the House leadership’s petition to intervene in this case, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, who support Plaintiffs in this suit, condemned the move. Said Executive Director Aubrey Sarvis:

Speaker Boehner’s request to defend this case in the wake of the ongoing harm done to military families by these discriminatory laws is reprehensible and callous. The Speaker has turned a deaf ear to the urgent pleas of CW2 Charlie Morgan and countless families like hers, who are living with the day-to-day realities of a military that has been forced to create two classes of service members. Speaker Boehner’s politically motivated ongoing defense of these unjust laws is hurting military families. It’s time to repeal DOMA and revise these antiquated laws that are preventing all military families from being treated with fairness and equality. There cannot be two classes of service members.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s spokespeople also condemned the move, reportedly saying:

“Without a vote or any specific authorization … [BLAG] is intervening in yet another case,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said.

“The men and women of the U.S. armed forces risk their lives for the country they love and don’t deserve to face prejudice,” Hammill added.

The House leadership represented by the bipartisan (though Republican controlled) Legal Advisory Group has now sort to intervene in 12 DOMA defense cases even after a number of federal courts have found Section 3 to be unconstitutional. House Speaker Boehner has also faced condemnation for his failure to disclose exactly where the funds, in excess of $1 million, used to defend DOMA have been taken from. Boehner has repeatedly said that funds have been taken from the Department of Justice budget, but this is something the DOJ has denied.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/boehner-doesnt-wants-gay-soldiers-having-equal-benefits.html#ixzz1tv1pU6w9

[SoNotHer]

First Russian is Convicted Under Gay Propaganda Ban

http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/causes/2937/2936868.large.jpg

by Steve Williams
May 4, 2012


LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev has become the first person to be convicted under St Petersburg’s gay propaganda band.

Reports the Washington Post:

Nikolai Alexeyev told the Associated Press that a city court in St. Petersburg fined him 5,000 rubles ($170) for breaching the law, which was controversially introduced by lawmakers in Russia’s second-largest city in February. He pledged to appeal the decision.

He said the judge has not presented the grounds for her decision, and that they will only be available next week. Calls to the court went unanswered shortly after the ruling. The law was approved in February and came into force in March. As noted above, this is the first time a citizen has been charged under the ban’s provisions.

A judge late last month however declined to invoke the penalty, specifically saying that the ban on “homosexual propaganda” was so broad and ill-defined it lacked a sufficient legal framework to make it enforceable.

Alexeyev, a former journalist, turned to LGBT rights promotion in 2005 and subsequently founded the gay rights advocacy group GayRussia. He has been a vocal opponent of the ban, saying that its wide ranging nature speaks to a larger climate of oppression Russia is currently suffering under.

The propaganda ban is of course purposefully broad though. It is designed to prevent open advocacy of LGBT identity in the public sphere, this under the guise of protecting children. Critics have pointed out that this would serve to ban gay pride events outright, in direct opposition to European mandates of freedom of speech and assembly.

Seventeen Russian protesters were arrested during a May Day march this week with police charging them under St Petersburg’s ban on homosexual propaganda and with failure to comply with police orders, all because they were trying to fly rainbow flags.

The Ryazan, Kostroma and Arkhangelsk regions have also banned so-called LGBT propaganda and there is now a push to enact a federal ban. It recently emerged that the propaganda ban is likely to have been inspired by a visiting US evangelical.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/first-russian-is-convicted-of-gay-propaganda.html#ixzz1u0bv4KRH

[Andrea]

Arizona bans funding of Planned Parenthood

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/05/us/arizona-planned-parenthood/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/05/us/arizona-planned-parenthood/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

I so wish I never had to visit Arizona again but my mother lives there and so I will, but under protest.

[Nat]

John travolta = being sued for sexually assaulting a masseur (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE84700920120508?irpc=932)

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON—House Republicans on Tuesday advanced their own version of an election-year bill to protect women from violence.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 17-15 along party lines to renew the 1994 Violence Against Women Act that protects abused women and which expired last year. The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a conflicting version last month.

The law historically has enjoyed bipartisan support. But this year, with the presidency and congressional majorities at stake and female voters a pivotal constituency, it's become the latest vehicle for gender politicking over an issue on which there's been little debate in less-polarized years.

Republicans say they want to tighten provisions in the Senate bill that would protect abused immigrants -- as well as taxpayer money doled out under the law.

Democrats say any effort to change the Senate version is just the latest shot in what they say is the GOP's "war against women."

"House Republicans are continuing their war on women by holding VAWA, Violence Against Women Act, hostage to their rigid right-wing ideology," Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said.

Full story: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/05/08/gop_takes_turn_crafting_women_anti_abuse_bill/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news

[Soon]

Obama Backs Gay Marriage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html)


WASHINGTON -- In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president's behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.

[DapperButch]

Obama Backs Gay Marriage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html)


WASHINGTON -- In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president's behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.

Obama video link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html?1336589752&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D159286

Biden's video link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/06/vice-president-biden-gay-marriage_n_1489235.html

[Hollylane]

Obama Backs Gay Marriage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html)


WASHINGTON -- In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president's behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.

I am incredibly proud of our President today.

[Kobi]

Obama Backs Gay Marriage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html)


WASHINGTON -- In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president's behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.



This is interesting news. Tho I am not quite willing to pat him on the back just yet. Is this genuine Obama or political savvy Obama?

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama said. Having grown up in the civil rights era, does this sound like familiar wording to anyone else?

And given the GOP is still waxing nostalgic for the return of days gone by, part of me wonders when the War on Women will be sharing time with the War on Queers.

Hard when optimism is sharing space with realism.

[DapperButch]

This is interesting news. Tho I am not quite willing to pat him on the back just yet. Is this genuine Obama or political savvy Obama?

"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama said. Having grown up in the civil rights era, does this sound like familiar wording to anyone else?

And given the GOP is still waxing nostalgic for the return of days gone by, part of me wonders when the War on Women will be sharing time with the War on Queers.

Hard when optimism is sharing space with realism.



Personally, I don't think it was a political move. I don't think it was a political move for two reasons.

One, a group I think Obama can expect will vote for him is the queers. Even if he is not every gay/lesbian/queer's favorite for President, I think he is the preferred choice over Romney. I don't think he worries about the gay vote.

Two, he only spoke on it after Biden came out with support. It has been said that Obama felt that he really didn't have much of a choice (however, I do understand that he was considering speaking on it at some point).

I am thrilled that he said it on the one hand, but the bigger part of me is worried it will lose him votes.

[~ocean]

i think ppl willaccept his decission and some will applaud his decission .. someone had to finally make one ..

[PumaJ]

Thank you, President Obama. I could care less what your motivation for finally speaking out in favor of gay marriage, is. I can tell you that when I came out at the age of 18, a few months after Stonewall, none of us were evening dreaming of a president making such a statement.

[Cin]

Obama voices his support for same sex marriage while the Washington Post uncovers story about Romney bullying a gay teen in high school. It also seems he was quite a prankster and tricked an English teacher with very poor vision into walking into a closed door.

Kind of a long article (I never found the actual WaPo article just lots of conversation about it):
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/10/politics/elections/romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-and-troubling-incidents/

Here's a couple of reporters, one an ex mormon, talking about the article in the Washington Post.
Bph6e-EDl48

A shorter version
C2mP2KgX0s4

[Gemme]

Targets Resembling Trayvon Martin Selling Out (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/trayvon-martin-gun-targets_n_1510080.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D160321)

This is absolutely disgusting.

A Florida entrepreneur said he had sold out of gun range targets depicting a faceless, hood-clad figure holding an iced tea and a bag of Skittles meant to look like Trayvon Martin.

"The response is overwhelming," the seller told Orlando's WKMG news team over e-mail. "I sold out in two days." The station did not identify the seller, and said it found the ad on a popular firearms auctioning website.

A cached version of the GunBroker.com webpage belonging to a seller named "hillerarmco" from Virginia Beach, Va., shows the paper targets being sold in packs of 10 for $8.

The description of the product reads:

Everyone knows the story of Zimmerman and Martin. Obviously we support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug. Each target is printed on thick, high quality poster paper with a matte finish! The dimensions are 12"x18" ( The same as Darkotic Zombie Targets) This is a Ten Pack of Targets.
A Twitter account with the same name has been discontinued. A Google search on "hillerarmco" shows a company called the Hiller Armament Company. The domain for Hillerarmco.com is no longer active.

Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer as he returned to his father's girlfriend's house after a trip to the convenience store. Martin was unarmed, but was carrying a bag of Skittles, a can of iced tea, and his wallet after he was shot by George Zimmerman, the watch volunteer. The shooting, and the local police's handling of it, have become major news stories and sparked national conversations around racial profiling and gun laws.

In the aftermath of the shooting, protesters calling for Zimmerman's arrest donned hoodies and waved Skittles at protests around the country.

According to WKMG, the seller said that that the "main motivation was to make money off the controversy." The seller said that he was a supporter of Zimmerman who thinks "he is innocent and that he shot a thug."

Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, told the news station that he felt the targets were offensive. "This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility," O'Mara said. "It's this type of hatred -- that's what this is, it's hate-mongering -- that's going to make it more difficult to try this case."

[Nat]

I have less and less faith in humanity.

[Hollylane]

Targets Resembling Trayvon Martin Selling Out (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/trayvon-martin-gun-targets_n_1510080.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D160321)

This is absolutely disgusting.

A Florida entrepreneur said he had sold out of gun range targets depicting a faceless, hood-clad figure holding an iced tea and a bag of Skittles meant to look like Trayvon Martin.

"The response is overwhelming," the seller told Orlando's WKMG news team over e-mail. "I sold out in two days." The station did not identify the seller, and said it found the ad on a popular firearms auctioning website.

A cached version of the GunBroker.com webpage belonging to a seller named "hillerarmco" from Virginia Beach, Va., shows the paper targets being sold in packs of 10 for $8.

The description of the product reads:

Everyone knows the story of Zimmerman and Martin. Obviously we support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug. Each target is printed on thick, high quality poster paper with a matte finish! The dimensions are 12"x18" ( The same as Darkotic Zombie Targets) This is a Ten Pack of Targets.
A Twitter account with the same name has been discontinued. A Google search on "hillerarmco" shows a company called the Hiller Armament Company. The domain for Hillerarmco.com is no longer active.

Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer as he returned to his father's girlfriend's house after a trip to the convenience store. Martin was unarmed, but was carrying a bag of Skittles, a can of iced tea, and his wallet after he was shot by George Zimmerman, the watch volunteer. The shooting, and the local police's handling of it, have become major news stories and sparked national conversations around racial profiling and gun laws.

In the aftermath of the shooting, protesters calling for Zimmerman's arrest donned hoodies and waved Skittles at protests around the country.

According to WKMG, the seller said that that the "main motivation was to make money off the controversy." The seller said that he was a supporter of Zimmerman who thinks "he is innocent and that he shot a thug."

Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, told the news station that he felt the targets were offensive. "This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility," O'Mara said. "It's this type of hatred -- that's what this is, it's hate-mongering -- that's going to make it more difficult to try this case."

@)#%$*@#)$* Q#W()$.....Sigh. Assholes.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Transgender community demands civil, not special, rights


http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/article3414880.ece

[Kobi]

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tu1yC.YUn4uPkls2.ZDlLA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/theticket/newsweek-obama-gay-president.jpg


http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/R8oVoKerKBelSpiQsmwDAA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/theticket/new-yorker-gay-marriage.jpg

It won't be nearly as controversial as Time magazine's breastfeeding cover, but Newsweek's May 21 issue declares Barack Obama the country's "first gay president."


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/newsweek-obama-first-gay-president-144158226.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

North Carolina governor worried how gay marriage vote makes the state look



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/north-carolina-governor-worried-how-gay-marriage-vote-makes-state-look120512

[CherylNYC]

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tu1yC.YUn4uPkls2.ZDlLA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/theticket/newsweek-obama-gay-president.jpg


http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/R8oVoKerKBelSpiQsmwDAA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/theticket/new-yorker-gay-marriage.jpg

It won't be nearly as controversial as Time magazine's breastfeeding cover, but Newsweek's May 21 issue declares Barack Obama the country's "first gay president."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/newsweek-obama-first-gay-president-144158226.html


WTF? How did he go from 'evolving on gay marraige' to the first gay president?

[LeftWriteFemme]

Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues


http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/top-gop-pollster-to-gop-reverse-on-gay-issues.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Cuban President's Daughter Marches for Marriage Equality

http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2012/05/13/cuban-presidents-daughter-marches-marriage-equality

[Gemme]

Same Sex Couple Banned From Prom (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/hope-decker-tiffany-wright-same-sex-couple-barred-from-prom_n_1515558.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec3_lnk2%26pLid%3D160710)

Hope Decker and Tiffany Wright, a same-sex couple at Lexington Catholic High School in Lexington, Ky., were barred from attending the school's prom because their relationship violated the Catholic church's position on homosexuality, the Herald-Leader reports.

Decker, 18, and Wright, 16, were told by school officials they could not attend the school event, despite having already purchased their dresses, because of the nature of their relationship.

"As a Catholic high school, we uphold every teaching of the Catholic Church," Lexington Catholic High School President Steve Angelucci told the Herald-Leader in an email. "The policies and procedures of our school reflect those teachings."

But Decker told LEX 18 that she believes the couple's treatment was based on more than just school rules.

"What I experienced in the Dean's Office was blatant homophobia," Decker told the station.

Wright told the station that, while they were upset at first, they soon decided to take action.

"I mean, we both cried and then I was like, this is ridiculous," Wright said. "There's gotta be something we could do about this."

So, instead of going home, the couple and their friends held their own prom in the school's parking lot with the help of some car stereos for music, WLKY reports.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Gay father wrongly accused of raping twin daughters after posting photo on Facebook (and authorities gave the girls to the nanny who made false accusations)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145135/Paul-Rusconi-Artist-accused-raping-daughters-tweeting-photo-cleared-authorities.html#ixzz1v4M2V0v4



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145135/Paul-Rusconi-Artist-accused-raping-daughters-tweeting-photo-cleared-authorities.html

[Gemme]

Gay father wrongly accused of raping twin daughters after posting photo on Facebook (and authorities gave the girls to the nanny who made false accusations)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145135/Paul-Rusconi-Artist-accused-raping-daughters-tweeting-photo-cleared-authorities.html#ixzz1v4M2V0v4



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145135/Paul-Rusconi-Artist-accused-raping-daughters-tweeting-photo-cleared-authorities.html

I read about this a couple days ago! How insane is THAT?

Luckily, he got them back but it took MONTHS for them to figure out he didn't do it.

[Kobi]

Being Catholic, I am used to the misogynistic doctrines and the idjiots who create and perpetuate them. But, stuff like this just makes me want to smack the jackasses upside the head with a very large crucifix


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Friday held out an olive branch to American Roman Catholic nuns, who are reeling from a stinging Vatican report that criticized them as being feminist and politicized.

"I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women (nuns) in your country," he said in an address to visiting U.S. bishops.

In a reference to the malaise felt by many American nuns after the report issued last month, he said he hoped that "this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the Church ..."

A month ago, the Vatican's doctrinal department, which the pope headed for many years before his election in 2005, issued a blistering report on the activity of the majority of American nuns.

It was issued after a Vatican investigation determined that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose 1,500 members represent some 80 percent of American nuns, had "serious doctrinal problems" and promoted "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith".

The report, which also criticized the LCWR for sometimes challenging bishops, shocked most American nuns and led to an outpouring of popular and editorial support for them and their work among the poor, and in schools and hospitals.

A Twitter drive in the support of the nuns attracted thousands.

The report said the LCWR had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

In his address to visiting U.S. bishops, the pope did not mention the scolding report and used much softer language in describing his view of religious life.

"The urgent need in our own time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel makes it essential to recapture a sense of the sublime dignity and beauty of the consecrated life ..." Benedict said.

Last month's report prompted much criticism of the Vatican attempt to rein in the nuns, who were seen by many as helping the image of the Catholic Church in the United States at a time when it was engulfed the scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests and accusations and bishops covered it up.

A New York Times editorial called the Vatican's report "a misreading of the very fine work in schools, charities, prison and impoverished neighborhoods being done by about 60,000 nuns across the nation".

The editorial, one of many to defend the nuns, said: "It would be a tragedy, far beyond the Church, if their fine work and their courageous voices were constrained."

American nuns and U.S. bishops have been at odds over several issues social issues. They supported President Barack Obama's health care reform which the bishops opposed it.

The Vatican named Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain and two other U.S. bishops to undertake the reforms of the conference's statutes, programs and its application of liturgical texts, a process it said could take up to five years.

[Talon]

Being Catholic, I am used to the misogynistic doctrines and the idjiots who create and perpetuate them. But, stuff like this just makes me want to smack the jackasses upside the head with a very large crucifix


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Friday held out an olive branch to American Roman Catholic nuns, who are reeling from a stinging Vatican report that criticized them as being feminist and politicized.

"I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women (nuns) in your country," he said in an address to visiting U.S. bishops.

In a reference to the malaise felt by many American nuns after the report issued last month, he said he hoped that "this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the Church ..."

A month ago, the Vatican's doctrinal department, which the pope headed for many years before his election in 2005, issued a blistering report on the activity of the majority of American nuns.

It was issued after a Vatican investigation determined that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose 1,500 members represent some 80 percent of American nuns, had "serious doctrinal problems" and promoted "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith".

The report, which also criticized the LCWR for sometimes challenging bishops, shocked most American nuns and led to an outpouring of popular and editorial support for them and their work among the poor, and in schools and hospitals.

A Twitter drive in the support of the nuns attracted thousands.

The report said the LCWR had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

In his address to visiting U.S. bishops, the pope did not mention the scolding report and used much softer language in describing his view of religious life.

"The urgent need in our own time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel makes it essential to recapture a sense of the sublime dignity and beauty of the consecrated life ..." Benedict said.

Last month's report prompted much criticism of the Vatican attempt to rein in the nuns, who were seen by many as helping the image of the Catholic Church in the United States at a time when it was engulfed the scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests and accusations and bishops covered it up.

A New York Times editorial called the Vatican's report "a misreading of the very fine work in schools, charities, prison and impoverished neighborhoods being done by about 60,000 nuns across the nation".

The editorial, one of many to defend the nuns, said: "It would be a tragedy, far beyond the Church, if their fine work and their courageous voices were constrained."

American nuns and U.S. bishops have been at odds over several issues social issues. They supported President Barack Obama's health care reform which the bishops opposed it.

The Vatican named Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain and two other U.S. bishops to undertake the reforms of the conference's statutes, programs and its application of liturgical texts, a process it said could take up to five years.

This means a great deal to me, personally, because my great aunt was a Franciscan nun. Thank you, Kobi. :candle:

[LeftWriteFemme]

Shorter University's 'Personal Lifestyle Statement' Which Bans Gay Employees Leads To Faculty Exodus


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/shorter-university-personal-lifestyle-statement-faculty-exodus_n_1528588.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Malawi to overturn homosexual ban, Joyce Banda says


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18118350

[Nat]

Westboro showed up at the McDonalds at Fort Hood (Killeen, TX) today (about 30 minutes from me).

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s720x720/575324_10150815062766510_165509211509_9932331_1169 954670_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/582527_409742009048483_151727944849892_1258839_629 857041_n.jpg

And this was the response:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/542941_409728452383172_151727944849892_1258812_103 3901181_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/150420_409801169042567_151727944849892_1258969_109 9810506_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/577492_409801215709229_151727944849892_1258971_122 0908784_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/546396_409801375709213_151727944849892_1258977_199 3849511_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/562110_409801395709211_151727944849892_1258978_203 7680360_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/538759_409801509042533_151727944849892_1258982_362 574589_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/559425_409774329045251_151727944849892_1258906_966 749787_n.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/556952_409774675711883_151727944849892_1258916_137 9163982_n.jpg

"Once the WBC people were getting ready to leave, all the military supporters followed them. The police had to escort the WBC group out of the area."

[*Anya*]

updated 5/18/2012 3:40:10 PM ET

All boomers need hep C test for liver, CDC says
msnbc.com news services

For the first time, health officials are proposing that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C.

Anyone born from 1945 to 1965 should get a one-time blood test to see if they have the liver-destroying virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in draft recommendations issued Friday.

The often undiagnosed virus is contracted through contact with blood from an infected person. While the risk of infection has dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, many older adults are still at risk, according to the CDC, which released the draft guidelines.


Baby boomers account for 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. The virus can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people don't know they're infected. According to the CDC, one in 30 baby boomers has been infected with hepatitis C.

CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives.

The virus causes serious liver diseases, including liver cancer - the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths - and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the United States.

The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions.

[Nat]

Risk factors for hep c per NIH.gov (because the blanket recommendation for an entire generation confused me):

Hepatitis C infection is caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). People who may be at risk for hepatitis C are those who:

- Have been on long-term kidney dialysis
- Have regular contact with blood at work (for instance, as a health care worker)
- Have unprotected sexual contact with a person who has hepatitis C (this risk is much less common than hepatitis B, but the risk is higher for those who have many sex partners, already have a sexually transmitted disease, or are infected with HIV)
- Inject street drugs or share a needle with someone who has hepatitis C
- Received a blood transfusion before July 1992
- Received a tattoo or acupuncture with contaminated instruments (the risk is very low with licensed, commercial tattoo facilities)
- Received blood, blood products, or solid organs from a donor who has hepatitis C
- Share personal items such as toothbrushes and razors with someone who has hepatitis C (less common)
- Were born to a hepatitis C-infected mother (this occurs in about 1 out of 20 babies born to mothers with HCV, which is much less common than with hepatitis B)

[Kobi]

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi, who in March was found guilty of invasion of privacy and hate crimes that resulted in the tragic suicide of his gay roommate Tyler Clementi, was sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail, as well as 300 hours of community service and counseling. He was also fined $10,000. He will begin his sentence on May 31.

Ravi, 20, did not speak, but inside the packed New Brunswick, N.J., courtroom, his mother, Sabitha Ravi, in tears, pleaded for mercy for her son. "The media was ripping him apart with their misleading facts ... He was absolutely devastated and broken into pieces,” she said, referring to her son as "kind-hearted and loving," reports the Newark Star-Ledger.

Ravi cried as his mother spoke.

In a case that received national attention, Ravi was also convicted of bias intimidation, witness tampering, hindering arrest and numerous other charges. All stemmed from his role in using a webcam to observe Clementi's date with a man in the dorm room on Sept. 19, 2010.

Ravi later Tweeted about what he'd witnessed and invited others to watch Clementi with the man, whose name has not been revealed. Prosecutors said Ravi was motivated by a hatred of gays, an allegation Ravi consistently denied.

"I do not believe he hated Tyler Clementi," Judge Glenn Berman told the court on Monday, according to ABC News. "He had no reason to, but I do believe he acted out of colossal insensitivity."

Clementi, 18, jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, after leaving a note on Facebook that read, "Jumping off the gw bridge. Sorry."

Refused a Plea Bargain
In the days leading up to Monday's sentencing, several prominent gay activists made public pleas for Ravi not to be sent to prison, reports ABC News.

But the man captured on the webcam with Clementi did not agree. His attorney, Richard Pompelio, read his victim-impact statement in court Monday. It said, "While I bear no anger towards Mr. Ravi, after much thought and many sleepless nights, I must say that Mr. Ravi should serve some type of confinement so that he can reflect on the serious harm he has caused. ... I do not believe that he has taken responsibility for his conduct, and to this day he seems to blame me for the actions he took."

Speaking in court as his wife cried, Tyler's father, Joseph Clementi, also said of Ravi: "He had no call to do what he did. Tyler never did anything to Mr. Ravi to cause him harm." Ravi's actions, said Joseph Clementi, were purely as a result of his seeing Tyler "as someone not deserving basic human decency and respect, because my son was different from him [and] because he was gay."

In her own message, Jane Clementi, Tyler's mother, called Ravi's actions "mean-spirited, they are evil and, most important, they are against the law." She also said, "The court needs to show ... this was not right, and it was not acceptable behavior, and it will not be tolerated."

Before trial, Ravi had rejected a plea deal that would have placed him on probation and required community service – and spared him any time behind bars or the threat of deportation to his native India. He chose instead to face a jury.

Molly Wei, another student who was with Ravi when he was eavesdropping on Clementi (and whose laptop was used to watch the intimate encounter), received leniency for her participation in the events. She was sentenced to perform 300 hours of community service, undergo counseling or training in cyberbullying and alternative lifestyles and work full-time.

Soon after Ravi's conviction, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also signed into law tougher anti-cyberbullying laws.

Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan said in a statement Monday afternoon that he planned to appeal the Ravi's sentence.

"The imposition of this term is insufficient under the sentencing laws of this state, the facts that were determined by a jury, and long-standing appellate precedent," reads the statement. "Consequently, this office will appeal the sentence."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20597273,00.html?xid=rss-topheadlines&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+people%2Fheadlines+%28PEOPLE. com%3A+Top+Headlines%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

[*Anya*]

Quote Kobi:

" Tyler Clementi's life was worth 30 days in jail, 300 hours of com. service and a fine? Really?"

Just in case you were really wondering what a LGBTQ life is really worth in our legal system.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Judge Judy Speaks Out In Support Of Gay Marriage On 'The View'


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/judge-judy-gay-marriage_n_1528182.html?ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices

[Talon]

updated 5/18/2012 3:40:10 PM ET

All boomers need hep C test for liver, CDC says
msnbc.com news services

For the first time, health officials are proposing that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C.

Anyone born from 1945 to 1965 should get a one-time blood test to see if they have the liver-destroying virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in draft recommendations issued Friday.

The often undiagnosed virus is contracted through contact with blood from an infected person. While the risk of infection has dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, many older adults are still at risk, according to the CDC, which released the draft guidelines.


Baby boomers account for 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. The virus can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people don't know they're infected. According to the CDC, one in 30 baby boomers has been infected with hepatitis C.

CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives.

The virus causes serious liver diseases, including liver cancer - the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths - and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the United States.

The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions.


I recently saw a documentary on this very subject...the disease being spread through blood transfusions..and how this affected vast amounts of people, who thought that the blood they were receiving was safe (similar to when HIV was passed on to patients).

[Lady Pamela]

It is a modern KKK alert!

Demand Atention be brought to this and stop it..by making this go viral on all your profiles or sites....With the message saying.....WE ARE ONE PEOPLE. UNITED WE STAND, DEVIDED WE FALL! ONE PEOPLE..NO MATTER COLOR, RELIGION, OR SEXUAL PREFRENCE!!!!! WE DEMAND AUTHORITIES TAKE A STAND NOW AND STOP THIS HATRED AND DEVISION AS PEOPLE!!!
EVERYONE SHARE THIS PLEASE!!!!

And send it to those in high places.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/2...cross-burning/


...

[LeftWriteFemme]

Theft Stalls, but Does Not Stop, a Project



http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/theft-stalls-but-does-not-stop-a-project/?hp

[Kobi]

According to NARAL, tomorrow the Senate Armed Services Committee will be voting on an amendment that will require the military to provide abortion services to victims of rape or incest - overturning a decades old federal ban on such health services.

Sexual assaults on women in the military have increased 64% in the last 6 years. The budget of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office increased from $5 million in 2005 to more than $23 million in 2010.

While it would be best for women to serve without the threat of sexual assault, having the option of an abortion, if needed, seems pertinent.

Good time to let your Congressperson know your thoughts on this.

[AtLast]

According to NARAL, tomorrow the Senate Armed Services Committee will be voting on an amendment that will require the military to provide abortion services to victims of rape or incest - overturning a decades old federal ban on such health services.

Sexual assaults on women in the military have increased 64% in the last 6 years. The budget of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office increased from $5 million in 2005 to more than $23 million in 2010.

While it would be best for women to serve without the threat of sexual assault, having the option of an abortion, if needed, seems pertinent.

Good time to let your Congressperson know your thoughts on this.

Somewhat ironic given the number of anti-choice bills the House (especially) has passed (or tried to pass) since the mid-term (2010) of so many "Teapublicans."

The idea of the presidency going to the GOP in November and possibly the Senate ending going to the GOP or nearly so scares the hell out of me just in terms of women's right/healthcare. Then there is the possibility of another Supreme Court nomination coming up. Bader-Ginsburg's cancer will catch-up to her (very unfortunately) and she is not a young woman. Sometimes I wonder if she will retire during the lame-duck session post general election so that she can be sure that Obama will make the appointment. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Romney wins. No way is going to last another 4-5 years.

Romney is gaining on Obama outside of women. It is time to mobilize and participate in this general election. So much is at stake.

[Andrea]

Target has come out with a line of Pride shirts. Does this mean I can shop there again? :cheer:

http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0 (http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0)

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s320x320/35521_466569413369121_122256581133741_1737793_2126 540425_n.jpg

[Girl Friday]

Author, Orson Scott Card, Calls Homosexuality a "Dysfunction" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/orson-scott-card-gay-marriage-amendment-one_n_1478936.html)


"Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people's desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles."

[dark_crystal]

Why are Americans becoming more liberal on homosexuality but not on abortion? (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/05/abortion_polls_gay_marriage_polls_why_are_we_becom ing_liberal_on_some_issues_but_not_others_.html?ti d=sm_tw_button_chunky)

According to the latest Gallup polls, public opinion on issues of sexual and reproductive freedom has become steadily more liberal. In 1977, Americans were evenly split on whether gay sex should be legal. Now they support its legality by a 2-to-1 margin. In 1996, the country opposed same-sex marriage by 68 to 27 percent. Now it’s a dead heat. In 2002, a 50-to-45-percent plurality said it was morally wrong to have a baby outside of marriage. Now a 54-to-42-percent majority says it’s acceptable. Birth control, as an issue of private morality, is a nonissue: 89 percent of Americans say it’s OK.

On issue after issue, the polls have moved to the left. But not on abortion. In 1995, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans identified themselves as pro-choice, while 33 percent identified themselves as pro-life. That gap closed within three years, zigzagged a bit, and by last year stood at 49 to 45 percent, a narrow pro-choice plurality. In this month’s poll, however, 50 percent of respondents call themselves pro-life. Only 41 percent call themselves pro-choice.

[Kobi]

From NARAL:

Just moments ago, the Senate Armed Forces Committee passed an amendment to allow our military women to receive abortion coverage in cases of rape or incest.

Today’s vote was vitally important. Right now, women in the military are patently denied coverage for abortion services—even in cases of rape or incest.

This amendment, introduced by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), was passed with bipartisan support and is a critical positive step towards over-turning this ban.

We applaud Senator Shaheen and the committee members for taking decisive action to provide women in the military with the coverage they need when facing rape or incest. The next step is for the full Congress to follow the committee’s lead.

Women serving in the armed forces defend and protect our country every single day, but the federal government has refused to do the same for them when it comes to their basic health needs in a time of crisis.

For years, the federal government has failed servicewomen by allowing this harsh and antiquated policy to stand. Every woman deserves access to the full range of reproductive health services—not just a select few Congress deems appropriate.

[DapperButch]

Target has come out with a line of Pride shirts. Does this mean I can shop there again? :cheer:

http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0 (http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0)

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s320x320/35521_466569413369121_122256581133741_1737793_2126 540425_n.jpg

NO! Although I can't even recall why it was us queer boycotted them. Was it giving money to the GOP or maybe they gave money to someone who supported the whole ex-gay thing? Can't remember, but it was something related to politics I believe.

[CherylNYC]

NO! Although I can't even recall why it was us queer boycotted them. Was it giving money to the GOP or maybe they gave money to someone who supported the whole ex-gay thing? Can't remember, but it was something related to politics I believe.

Target donated money to a Tea Party candidate in a local election in a midwestern state. (Maybe Michigan?)

[AtLast]

Target has come out with a line of Pride shirts. Does this mean I can shop there again? :cheer:

http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0 (http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0)

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s320x320/35521_466569413369121_122256581133741_1737793_2126 540425_n.jpg

Guess there is a profit to be made post Obama's pro-same sex marriage?

[Nat]

Why are Americans becoming more liberal on homosexuality but not on abortion? (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/05/abortion_polls_gay_marriage_polls_why_are_we_becom ing_liberal_on_some_issues_but_not_others_.html?ti d=sm_tw_button_chunky)

According to the latest Gallup polls, public opinion on issues of sexual and reproductive freedom has become steadily more liberal. In 1977, Americans were evenly split on whether gay sex should be legal. Now they support its legality by a 2-to-1 margin. In 1996, the country opposed same-sex marriage by 68 to 27 percent. Now it’s a dead heat. In 2002, a 50-to-45-percent plurality said it was morally wrong to have a baby outside of marriage. Now a 54-to-42-percent majority says it’s acceptable. Birth control, as an issue of private morality, is a nonissue: 89 percent of Americans say it’s OK.

On issue after issue, the polls have moved to the left. But not on abortion. In 1995, Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans identified themselves as pro-choice, while 33 percent identified themselves as pro-life. That gap closed within three years, zigzagged a bit, and by last year stood at 49 to 45 percent, a narrow pro-choice plurality. In this month’s poll, however, 50 percent of respondents call themselves pro-life. Only 41 percent call themselves pro-choice.

I think maybe they are taking the "may the fetus you save be gay" bumper stickers seriously

[Nat]

Target has come out with a line of Pride shirts. Does this mean I can shop there again? :cheer:

http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0 (http://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=pride+t-shirt&category=0)

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s320x320/35521_466569413369121_122256581133741_1737793_2126 540425_n.jpg

So we give them 13 bucks for a shirt that probably cost a tenth of that to produce - then they take the remaining profit and donate it toward people who think death penalty for gays is A-okay? No thanks.

They like gay money JUST FINE. And gay labor. And gay designers. But the profit they make - eh.

And they do offer same-sex partner benefits, which is better than my employer has to offer.

I know plenty of LGBT folks who think Target's the awesomest and don't care about the bs that happened with them. I see gay and lesbian couples heading to and from the local Target with regularity - and that's in a town where gay and lesbian couples are a rarity to see. But just the thought of giving that company a dime still feels like ashes in my mouth. I personally cannot bring myself to do it. Target was magic for me before that bs, and now it's lost all its sparkle.

[DapperButch]

Target donated money to a Tea Party candidate in a local election in a midwestern state. (Maybe Michigan?)

Thanks, Cheryl!

Andrea, I was just teasing, certainly I would never tell someone where they should/shouldn't shop in any serious manner. :)

[Nat]

Target donated $150k to a PAC for emmer's gubanatorial campaign in Minnesota (which is where Target is from). Emmer was not only anti-gay but very much in agreement with Arizona's policies against immigrants.

I remember this being pretty satisfying.
9FhMMmqzbD8

Did some more research and "up to $120k" of profits for the sale of these shirts will be donated to an equality organization.

A gay male friend from Minnesota did point out to me today that selling these shirts is pretty gutsy for Target at this time as there's an anti-marriage amendment currently being worked on in Minnesota at this time.

Sooo I think I am reversing my opinion on this - buying one of these shirts would:

1. Encourage Target to continue to be as pro-gay as they are
2. Ensure some organization working for our rights will receive almost as much as the donation made to Emmer's campaign.
3. Indicate to Target that LGBT folks spend money and they would be missing out on LGBT money when they treat our community as dismissively as they already did.

Based on the principle of approving of positive moves made by a corporation by purchasing merchandise that supports our community - since money speaks a different language when it's spent than when a place is entirely boycotted, I think I will buy one of these shirts while continuing to boycott other Target purchases. I can't find the YouTube on this type of activism but I did think it was a good idea - the opposite of a boycott - to spend money at companies for committing to doing the right thing as being an effective use of capitalism + activism.

I'm also more likely to shop at JCPenney's since they stood up against pressure to remove Ellen as a spokesperson despite anti-gay threats to boycott.

Also, the Obama campaign is now officially selling LGBT out for Obsma paraphernalia - and even though the designs aren't the best, I will likely purchase at least one of these items in support. Obama has had a lot of LGBT supporters despite his former disapproval of gay marriage and I want his campaign also to be able to count LGBT dollars among his supporters.

[Toughy]

From NARAL:

Just moments ago, the Senate Armed Forces Committee passed an amendment to allow our military women to receive abortion coverage in cases of rape or incest.

Today’s vote was vitally important. Right now, women in the military are patently denied coverage for abortion services—even in cases of rape or incest.

This amendment, introduced by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), was passed with bipartisan support and is a critical positive step towards over-turning this ban.

We applaud Senator Shaheen and the committee members for taking decisive action to provide women in the military with the coverage they need when facing rape or incest. The next step is for the full Congress to follow the committee’s lead.

Women serving in the armed forces defend and protect our country every single day, but the federal government has refused to do the same for them when it comes to their basic health needs in a time of crisis.

For years, the federal government has failed servicewomen by allowing this harsh and antiquated policy to stand. Every woman deserves access to the full range of reproductive health services—not just a select few Congress deems appropriate.

I am willing to bet it will never pass the House or the Senate. I'm too lazy to go find the Committee vote....how many and which Repubs voted for it. I am shocked any Republican voted to spend taxpayer dollars on abortion for any reason for anybody. Those that did vote for this will be 'taken to the woodshed' for it.

[Kobi]

I am willing to bet it will never pass the House or the Senate. I'm too lazy to go find the Committee vote....how many and which Repubs voted for it. I am shocked any Republican voted to spend taxpayer dollars on abortion for any reason for anybody. Those that did vote for this will be 'taken to the woodshed' for it.


I understand what you are saying. It's a wacky world out there. Here is the vote:


MOTION: To authorize the use of Department of Defense funds for abortion in cases of rape and incest.
VOTE: Passed on a roll call vote, 16-10.
In Favor: Senators Levin, Lieberman, Reed, Akaka, Webb, McCaskill, Udall, Hagan, Begich, Manchin, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, McCain-R, Brown-R, and Collins-R.
Opposed: Senators Nelson, Inhofe, Sessions, Chambliss, Wicker, Portman, Ayotte, Graham, Cornyn, and Vitter.

[DapperButch]

Nat -

I like the way you are thinking about this Target issue. Buy the shirts only. When I was reading your post and saw where you said that you were changing your mind on it I thought about how I still felt icky about shopping there. When I saw you say buy the shirts only, that made sense to me!

+1 to JcPenney's. The problem is that I don't like their clothing. I haven't been in one of their stores since I was a kid though (with mom...who, of course, calls it Penney's like many other women her age!), so I will have to go and see what else they carry.

[LeftWriteFemme]

A Company’s Stand for Gay Marriage, and Its Cost


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/business/replacements-limiteds-stand-for-gay-marriage-draws-repercussions.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1337985330-PcG3GOEuKWqbC7deWbZaXQ

[Andrea]

Thanks, Cheryl!

Andrea, I was just teasing, certainly I would never tell someone where they should/shouldn't shop in any serious manner. :)

No worries. I knew you were teasing me. :)

[Kobi]

SAN FRANCISCO—A judge in California has ruled that the federal law that prohibits recognition of same-sex unions is unconstitutional because it denies long-term health insurance benefits to legal spouses of state employees and retirees.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken also concluded Thursday that a section of the federal tax code that made the domestic partners of state workers ineligible for long-term care insurance similarly violates the civil rights of people in gay and lesbian relationships. Both laws were based on what she called "moral condemnation" of same-sex couples.

"Congress's restriction on state-maintained long-term care plans lacks any rational relationship to a legitimate government interest, but rather appears to be motivated by antigay animus," Wilken wrote in ordering the California Public Employees' Retirement System to allow current and former state employees to enroll their same-sex spouses and partners in the extended care plan.

Congress passed both laws that the Oakland, Calif.-based judge determined to be constitutionally suspect in 1996, when the gay rights movement was just beginning to push for the state and local benefits that come with marriage. She is the second federal judge in California this year to conclude that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the due process rights of legally married same-sex couples.

A San Francisco judge also declared the federal law unconstitutional in February in a separate case involving a federal court employee, who married during the brief period when same-sex marriages were legal in California, was not allowed to add her wife to her regular employer-sponsored health care plan. That ruling is under appeal and is scheduled to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September.

"Lesbian and gay couples are entitled to fair and equal treatment from the federal government," Elizabeth Kristen of Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, which sued the U.S. Treasury Department and California's pension plan two years ago on behalf of three same-sex couples. "Judge Wilken's ruling ensures that both same-sex spouses and registered domestic partners will be treated fairly with respect to the CalPERS long-term care insurance program."

Lawyers representing a House of Representatives committee that has taken on the job of defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court since the Obama administration said it no longer would did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Wilken said she would stay her decision in the event of an appeal.

The program to which the plaintiffs in the case Wilken decided are seeking access covers the cost of in-home care and other services for people who need help with basic daily tasks because of age, injury or chronic conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

In seeking to end their exclusion from the program, the same-sex couples had argued that state workers and retirees are allowed to enroll not only heterosexual husbands and wives, but siblings and step-siblings, nieces and nephews, in-laws and stepparents.



http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/05/25/judge_anti_gay_marriage_law_is_unconstitutional_13 37980244/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news

[Nat]

Nat -

I like the way you are thinking about this Target issue. Buy the shirts only. When I was reading your post and saw where you said that you were changing your mind on it I thought about how I still felt icky about shopping there. When I saw you say buy the shirts only, that made sense to me!

+1 to JcPenney's. The problem is that I don't like their clothing. I haven't been in one of their stores since I was a kid though (with mom...who, of course, calls it Penney's like many other women her age!), so I will have to go and see what else they carry.

Aside from a few items I've never had great luck with Penney's clothes fitting my body right. In one outfit, something will be too tight one place, too loose another, too low in one place, too high in another.

There's got to be something they sell that's alright. Maybe dishes (http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?GrpTyp=PRD&ItemID=1cde9a7&DeptID=70755&CatID=83487&SO=1&Ne=5+586+23+8+1031+904+18+1545&x5view=1&NOffset=0&shopperType=G&N=4294930728&Nao=105&PSO=1&bcCat=3&CmCatId=70755|83487)? :) Or how about those nice
Phoebe Accent Table & Floor Lamps (http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?GrpTyp=STY&ItemID=1429149&DeptID=71371&CatID=71774&SO=0&Ne=5+1028+1021+1031+1545&NOffset=2&N=4294953199&Nao=0&PSO=0&bcCat=3&cmAMS_T=XGN3&cmAMS_C=MERCHA&cmAMS_Z=XGN3TOPOFRESULTS&CmCatId=71371|71774)


Target still makes me feel icky too.

[AtLast]

SAN FRANCISCO—A judge in California has ruled that the federal law that prohibits recognition of same-sex unions is unconstitutional because it denies long-term health insurance benefits to legal spouses of state employees and retirees.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken also concluded Thursday that a section of the federal tax code that made the domestic partners of state workers ineligible for long-term care insurance similarly violates the civil rights of people in gay and lesbian relationships. Both laws were based on what she called "moral condemnation" of same-sex couples.

"Congress's restriction on state-maintained long-term care plans lacks any rational relationship to a legitimate government interest, but rather appears to be motivated by antigay animus," Wilken wrote in ordering the California Public Employees' Retirement System to allow current and former state employees to enroll their same-sex spouses and partners in the extended care plan.

Congress passed both laws that the Oakland, Calif.-based judge determined to be constitutionally suspect in 1996, when the gay rights movement was just beginning to push for the state and local benefits that come with marriage. She is the second federal judge in California this year to conclude that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the due process rights of legally married same-sex couples.

A San Francisco judge also declared the federal law unconstitutional in February in a separate case involving a federal court employee, who married during the brief period when same-sex marriages were legal in California, was not allowed to add her wife to her regular employer-sponsored health care plan. That ruling is under appeal and is scheduled to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September.

"Lesbian and gay couples are entitled to fair and equal treatment from the federal government," Elizabeth Kristen of Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, which sued the U.S. Treasury Department and California's pension plan two years ago on behalf of three same-sex couples. "Judge Wilken's ruling ensures that both same-sex spouses and registered domestic partners will be treated fairly with respect to the CalPERS long-term care insurance program."

Lawyers representing a House of Representatives committee that has taken on the job of defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court since the Obama administration said it no longer would did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Wilken said she would stay her decision in the event of an appeal.

The program to which the plaintiffs in the case Wilken decided are seeking access covers the cost of in-home care and other services for people who need help with basic daily tasks because of age, injury or chronic conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

In seeking to end their exclusion from the program, the same-sex couples had argued that state workers and retirees are allowed to enroll not only heterosexual husbands and wives, but siblings and step-siblings, nieces and nephews, in-laws and stepparents.



http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/05/25/judge_anti_gay_marriage_law_is_unconstitutional_13 37980244/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news

This as well as other CA decisions have been positive for our cause, yet, I always get annoyed with Judges making the decision- and then staying them! Yes, appeals will most likely be coming for decades (I honestly think the right will keep this up until an actual amendment to the federal constitution states that marriage is a genderless state of relationship and specifically state it is also between same-sex partners- which will certainly not happen in my lifetime), but the addition of these stays gives off the impression that there is doubt in the decision as well as continues to keep these important benefits from people.

[Kätzchen]

I have no doubt in my mind that this item of interest will largely determine who is seated with Presidential power in the up and coming election this fall. Check very closely how the text in this WSJ article is construed. Also take a close look on what it means for those who are married (the lovely little marriage debate of the century - Harsher Marriage Penalties).

* I rest my case *

(for the moment)


Preparing for the End of the Bush Tax Cuts

-BILL BISCHOFF

The Bush-era tax cuts—enacted in 2001 and 2003—are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Unless Congress acts, most taxpayers will see rate and other increases.
Here is what taxpayers should expect if it doesn't—with the caveat that anything could happen as the presidential election season heats up.
Higher Tax Rates for All

You might think only individuals in the top two brackets will face higher federal income taxes if the Bush cuts evaporate as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2013. But unless Congress takes action and the president (whoever that is) goes along, rates will go up for everyone.
President George W. Bush signs tax-cut legislation in June 2001.



Specifically, the existing 10% bracket will go away, and the lowest "new" bracket will be 15%. The existing 25% bracket will be replaced by the new 28% bracket; the existing 28% bracket will be replaced by the new 31% bracket; the existing 33% bracket will be replaced by the 36% bracket; and the existing 35% bracket will be replaced by the 39.6% bracket.
Higher Capital Gains and Dividend Taxes

Right now, the maximum federal rate on long-term capital gains and dividends is 15%. Starting next year, the maximum rate on long-term gains is scheduled to increase to 20% (or 18% on gains from assets acquired after Dec. 31, 2000, and held for over five years). The maximum rate on dividends will skyrocket to 39.6%.
People in the lowest two rate brackets of 10% and 15% currently pay 0% on long-term gains and dividends. Starting next year, they will pay 10% on long-term gains (or 8% on gains from assets acquired after Dec. 31, 2000, and held for over five years) and 15% and 28%, respectively, on dividends.
Harsher Marriage Penalty

The Bush tax cuts included several provisions to ease the so-called marriage penalty, which can cause a married couple to pay more in taxes than when they were single.
Right now, the bottom two tax brackets for married joint-filing couples are twice as wide as those for singles. This helps keep the marriage penalty from biting lower- and middle-income couples. Starting next year, the joint-filer tax brackets will contract, causing higher tax bills for many couples.
Currently, the standard deduction for married joint-filing couples is double the amount for singles. Starting next year, the joint-filer standard deduction will fall back to about 167% of the amount for singles.
All this means that many lower- and middle-income couples are facing higher tax bills due to a harsher marriage penalty.
Return of Phase-Out Rules for Itemized Deductions

Before the Bush tax cuts, a phaseout rule could eliminate up to 80% of a higher-income individual's itemized deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes and charitable donations. The rule was gradually eased and finally eliminated in 2010.
Next year, the phaseout will be back in full force unless Congress takes action and the president approves. So, if you itemize and have 2013 adjusted gross income above about $175,000 (or about $87,500 if you use married-filing-separate status), get ready for this phaseout rule to take a bite out of your wallet.
Return of Phase-Out Rule for Personal Exemptions

Another pre-Bush phaseout rule could eliminate some or all of a higher-income individual's personal-exemption deductions. (For 2012, such deductions are $3,800 each.) The rule was gradually cut back and finally eliminated in 2010. But it will be back next year barring action in Washington.
So you need to be ready for yet another bite out of your wallet if you are a married joint-filer with 2013 adjusted gross income above about $265,000.
If you are single, the magic number will be about $175,000. If you use head-of-household filing status, watch out if your 2013 adjusted gross income exceeds about $220,000.
Some Bush Tax Cuts Are Likely to Be Continued

Some elements of the Bush tax cuts have bipartisan support and will likely be continued beyond this year.
Examples include inflation-indexed alternative minimum tax, or AMT, exemption amounts, the ability to use nonrefundable personal tax credits to offset your AMT bill and the deduction for qualified higher-education tuition and fees.
The current versions of the child tax credit, earned-income credit, dependent-care credit and adoption credit also are more likely than not to be continued. The Bush tax-cut legislation liberalized these credits, and later legislation liberalized them even more.

[Gemme]

Aside from a few items I've never had great luck with Penney's clothes fitting my body right. In one outfit, something will be too tight one place, too loose another, too low in one place, too high in another.

There's got to be something they sell that's alright. Maybe dishes (http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?GrpTyp=PRD&ItemID=1cde9a7&DeptID=70755&CatID=83487&SO=1&Ne=5+586+23+8+1031+904+18+1545&x5view=1&NOffset=0&shopperType=G&N=4294930728&Nao=105&PSO=1&bcCat=3&CmCatId=70755|83487)? :) Or how about those nice
Phoebe Accent Table & Floor Lamps (http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?GrpTyp=STY&ItemID=1429149&DeptID=71371&CatID=71774&SO=0&Ne=5+1028+1021+1031+1545&NOffset=2&N=4294953199&Nao=0&PSO=0&bcCat=3&cmAMS_T=XGN3&cmAMS_C=MERCHA&cmAMS_Z=XGN3TOPOFRESULTS&CmCatId=71371|71774)


Target still makes me feel icky too.

That's because you have beautiful and long legs. As a short, pear-shaped woman, Penney's has helped me quite a bit with clothing options.

:)

I used to work for Target.

Years ago.

I've never liked the whole 'we'll donate 5% of your purchase' thing when they raise the prices more than 5% to compensate for that.

[Kobi]

I like picking up the WSJ now and then. I always find something out about the government I didnt know and probably didnt even want to know.

Friday, they had an article on the USDA. Did you know the USDA is in the mortgage business? The USDA Rural Housing Program provides mortgage loans to rural homeowners and guarantees loans made by banks to rural homeowners. It accounted for almost a third of all mortgages issued in 2010 in sparsely populated areas.

Overall it is a small player in the market holding or backing approx a million loans totalling 84.4 billion - less than 1% of the 9.4 trillion in US mortgage debt.

But, since the mortgage crisis began in 2007, the USDA loan volumes have tripled. The agency guaranteed 16.9 billion in loans in 2011 and issued 1.1 billion in direct loans.

The agency started making loans to farmers in 1949, then expanded to other rural residents.

They allow borrowers to finance up to 102% of a homes value. And, most borrowers are low and moderate income homeowners vulnerable to job losses and falling home values.

12% of its guaranteed loans and 17% of its direct loans are delinquent or in foreclosure.

At issue in this article was the debt collection practices of the USDA. By law, they can begin going after delinquent homeowners without a court process. They can take tax refunds, seize up to 15% of social security benefits, garnish up to 15% of take home wages, and tack on 28% to cover collection costs.

On guaranteed loans, they can and do go after leftover loan money after a foreclosed property has been sold for less than was owed - a practice commercial banks stopped.

They also will allow people to stop payments even up for a couple of years in hardship cases BUT they up the payments when they resume so the loan is still paid off in the contracted length of time.

Interesting.

[Nat]

I like picking up the WSJ now and then. I always find something out about the government I didnt know and probably didnt even want to know.

Friday, they had an article on the USDA. Did you know the USDA is in the mortgage business? The USDA Rural Housing Program provides mortgage loans to rural homeowners and guarantees loans made by banks to rural homeowners. It accounted for almost a third of all mortgages issued in 2010 in sparsely populated areas.

Overall it is a small player in the market holding or backing approx a million loans totalling 84.4 billion - less than 1% of the 9.4 trillion in US mortgage debt.

But, since the mortgage crisis began in 2007, the USDA loan volumes have tripled. The agency guaranteed 16.9 billion in loans in 2011 and issued 1.1 billion in direct loans.

The agency started making loans to farmers in 1949, then expanded to other rural residents.

They allow borrowers to finance up to 102% of a homes value. And, most borrowers are low and moderate income homeowners vulnerable to job losses and falling home values.

12% of its guaranteed loans and 17% of its direct loans are delinquent or in foreclosure.

At issue in this article was the debt collection practices of the USDA. By law, they can begin going after delinquent homeowners without a court process. They can take tax refunds, seize up to 15% of social security benefits, garnish up to 15% of take home wages, and tack on 28% to cover collection costs.

On guaranteed loans, they can and do go after leftover loan money after a foreclosed property has been sold for less than was owed - a practice commercial banks stopped.

They also will allow people to stop payments even up for a couple of years in hardship cases BUT they up the payments when they resume so the loan is still paid off in the contracted length of time.

Interesting.

That IS interesting to know. I already knew they provided loans because I was considering that kind of loan for the home I just bought. I ended up saving up enough of a down payment so I didn't need a USDA loan, but I was told about a year ago that a USDA loan was the best option if you're cash-poor but pay your bills, etc. The town I used to live in was too big to qualify, so some agent or other recommended I look in surrounding areas. After reading this post, I'm glad I didn't end up with a USDA loan, though "god willing and the creeks don't rise," I don't plan to go into default.

[Nat]

That's because you have beautiful and long legs. As a short, pear-shaped woman, Penney's has helped me quite a bit with clothing options.

:)

haha we can pretend that's why if you'd like. ;)

[UofMfan]

Cynthia Nixon Marries Girlfriend Christine Marinoni (http://omg.yahoo.com/news/cynthia-nixon-marries-girlfriend-christine-marinoni-150413354.html)

[Soon]

Cynthia Nixon Marries Girlfriend Christine Marinoni (http://omg.yahoo.com/news/cynthia-nixon-marries-girlfriend-christine-marinoni-150413354.html)

anyone else sickened by the comments?

[Nat]

Home Depot tells anti-gay hate group AFA what they can do with their petition (http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/06/home-depot-tells-anti-gay-hate-group-afa-what-they-can-do-with-their-petition/)

Executives at The Home Depot gave a cool reception to representatives of the anti-gay hate group American Family Association at the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Atlanta this week.

The AFA recently called for a nationwide boycott (http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/05/home-depot-promoting-the-gay-agenda-hate-group-afa-launches-boycott/) against The Home Depot because it says the home improvement retailer continues to “promote the homosexual agenda.”

AFA Executive Vice-President Buddy Smith, and Director of Special Projects Randy Sharp, said they were rebuffed (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1360542) by Home Depot Chairman Frank Blake and other company executives for challenging their “corporate endorsement” of marriage equality and LGBT rights.

[Nat]

anyone else sickened by the comments?

I just don't read the comments anymore unless I want to lose all faith in humanity

[UofMfan]

anyone else sickened by the comments?


How many times have I told you not to?


I just don't read the comments anymore unless I want to lose all faith in humanity


Exactly!

[LeftWriteFemme]

HISTORIC: Federal appeals court strikes down DOMA



http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/05/31/historic-federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-doma/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Brazil's new bill criminalizes homophobia


http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/brazils-new-bill-criminalizes-homophobia290512

[Corkey]

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/breaking-judge-revokes-george-zimmerman-bail-must-go-to-jail/news/2012/06/01/40438

Zimmerman's bail revoked, he has 48 hours to turn himself into authorities.

[Girl Friday]

Disney World 'Gay Days' To Be Protested By Florida Family Association Planes (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/disney-world-gay-days-florida-family-assocation_n_1563127.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=3146727,b=facebook)

"...same-sex revelry"

(pause)

:superfunny:

Same-sex revelry? I am sooooo putting that on my Gay Agenda. Hanging out at Disney with similarly-bodied or similarly-gendered people and enjoying myself. Dang if Disney doesn't have their work cut out for them though. If they want to have a day like that that includes everyone with cash enough to afford them, by the time they're done categorizing and pigeon-holing there won't be a free day left for the bigots to pay for the right to sing "It's a Small World".

Better Disney should just put up a big sign that says they reserve the right to refuse service to segregationists. Then everyone can relax and the bigots can go build their own Big Happy Non-Gay Park.

Any corporation who wants to waste their time flying anti-'mo banners over (possibly) the GAYEST place on the planet deserves to be kicked out of the Zealots And Nutjobs You-nion. (Yep. That's just Z.A.N.Y.)

[LeftWriteFemme]

The Gay Selma: Schools Ignore Gay Bullying at Their Own Peril


http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-05-30/news/lgbt-students-glsen-glaad-pflag-it-gets-better-tyler-clementi-dan-savage/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Church’s billboard says ‘I’m sorry’ to gay people in North Carolina weeks after state passes same-sex marriage ban

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/church-billboard-gay-people-north-carolina-weeks-state-passes-same-sex-marriage-ban-article-1.1087620#ixzz1wgphTqv5


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/church-billboard-gay-people-north-carolina-weeks-state-passes-same-sex-marriage-ban-article-1.1087620

[Kobi]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—Transsexuals have been lining up in Buenos Aires to be the first to take advantage of Argentina's groundbreaking gender-identity law. It allows people to change their names and sexes on official documents without first getting approval from a judge or a doctor.

No other country in the world allows people to change their official identities based merely on how they feel. Many other countries including the United States require people to undergo painful sex change operations or hormone therapy, and present psychiatric records showing they have a syndrome known as "gender identity disorder."

Argentina's gender identity law won congressional approval with a 55-0 Senate vote last month and went into effect Monday.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2012/06/04/argentinas_gender_id_law_takes_effect/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news

[LeftWriteFemme]

California Gay-Marriage Case on Path to Supreme Court

SAN FRANCISCO—The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined to rehear arguments over California's ban on gay marriage, which the court invalidated in February. The decision sends the case on a trajectory to the U.S. Supreme Court.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303830204577448483797182536.html?m od=googlenews_wsj