Couldn't be choreographed any better....

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fko9_gEJ3w8"]YouTube- The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas - The Movie Part 11[/nomedia]

Hell, I thought that is what teabagging was!!!! LoL

Neighbors Defend Gay Couple Against Church Group
 

Residents of a neighborhood in Toronto, Canada confronted a group of church members accused of preaching hate outside the home of a gay couple last weekend, reports CTV News. About a dozen members of the Highfield Road Gospel Hall were met with shouts of “Stay the hell out of my neighborhood” by about ten residents of Toronto’s Leslieville neighborhood.

The church group eventually departed.

As the church group prayed outside the home of a gay couple and condemned them as sinners, one of the local residents, Geoff Skelding, recorded a portion of the confrontation and later posted in online. Describing the video on YouTube, Skelding writes the group has been reading the Bible loudly in front of the couple’s house for 7 years. "They may have also driven another couple from the area as well by doing the same thing,” he writes. “Tonight most of our neighbors came out and were successful in getting them to leave. The people who go to that church don't even live in our area!"

I love my "sins" of the flesh. I like crisp, so burning a bit is tasty.

The Atlantic Magazine, August 25, 2010
 

I am going to refrain from giving an editorial on this piece of information. One thing I will say, " We are everywhere. Across all genders, classes, race, ethnicity, nations of origin, religions, philosophies, political parties, lifestyles, belief systems and in nature."

Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I'm Gay

By Marc Ambinder

Ken Mehlman, President Bush's campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.


Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.


"It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."


Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush "was no homophobe." He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called "the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now."


Mehlman's leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities -- such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party's platform ("Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country..."). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.


Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.


"It's a legitimate question and one I understand," Mehlman said. "I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can't offer support, at least offer understanding."


"What I do regret, and think a lot about, is that one of the things I talked a lot about in politics was how I tried to expand the party into neighborhoods where the message wasn't always heard. I didn't do this in the gay community at all."


He said that he "really wished" he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, "so I could have worked against [the Federal Marriage Amendment]" and "reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans."


Mehlman is aware that his attempts to justify his past silence will not be adequate for many people. He and his friends say that he is aware that he will no longer control the story about his identity -- which will simultaneously expose old wounds, invite Schadenfruede, and legitimize anger among gay rights activists in both parties who did not hide their sexual orientations.


Mehlman, who has never married, long found his sexuality subject to rumor and innuendo. He was the subject of an outing campaign by gay rights activist Mike Rogers, starting when Mehlman was Bush's campaign manager. Rogers's crusades against closeted gay Republicans split the organized gay lobby in Washington but were undoubtedly effective: he drove several elected officials, including Virginia Rep. Ed Shrock, from office, pushed out a would-be presidential campaign manager for George Allen well before Allen was set to run, slung rumors about Sen. Larry Craig's sexual orientation well before Craig's incident in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, and even managed to make homosexuality a wedge issue within the party's activist circles.


In 2006, Rogers caught up to Mehlman and asked him why he gave "so many confusing answers to social conservatives about your homosexuality," and followed up by asking whether Mehlman knew of a man who Rogers had claimed was Mehlman's secret partner. Mehlman denied to Rogers that he had given conflicting answers and said that the man in question was a law school classmate.


In several discussions I've had with Mehlman since he stepped down from the Republican National Committee in 2007, he never volunteered information about his sexual orientation, although charges that he presided over a resurgence in anti-gay sentiment were clearly an ongoing burden to him.


The disclosure at this stage of Mehlman's life strikes one close friend as being like a decision to jump off of a high diving board: Mehlman knows that there is plenty of water below, but it is still very scary to look down and make the leap. Mehlman likes order and certainty, and he knows that the reaction to his public confirmation cannot be predicted or contained.


Mehlman is the most powerful Republican in history to identify as gay.


Because his tenure as RNC chairman and his time at the center of the Bush political machine coincided with the Republican Party's attempts to exploit anti-gay prejudices and cement the allegiance of social conservatives, his declaration to the world is at once a personal act and an act of political speech.


"I wish I was where I am today 20 years ago. The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn't know. My friends didn't know. Anyone who watched me knew I was a guy who was clearly uncomfortable with the topic," he said.


During the Rogers crusades, many news organizations made attempts to confirm rumors and stories about Mehlman's sexuality. Republicans close to Mehlman either said they did not know, or that it did not matter, or that the question was offensive.


Mehlman once joked in public that although he was not gay, the rumors put a crimp on his social life. He admits to having misled several people who asked him directly.


He said that he plans to be an advocate for gay rights within the GOP, that he remains proud to be a Republican, and that his political identity is not defined by any one issue.


"What I will try to do is to persuade people, when I have conversations with them, that it is consistent with our party's philosophy, whether it's the principle of individual freedom, or limited government, or encouraging adults who love each other and who want to make a lifelong committment to each other to get married."


"I hope that we, as a party, would welcome gay and lesbian supporters. I also think there needs to be, in the gay community, robust and bipartisan support [for] marriage rights."


Ed Gillespie, a former RNC chairman and long-time friend of Mehlman, said that "it is significant that a former chairman of the Republiucan National Committe is openly gay and that he is supportive of gay marriage." Although Gillespie himself opposes gay marriage, he pointed to party stalwarts like former Vice President Dick Cheney and strategist Mary Matalin as open advocates for gay rights who had not been drummed out of the party. He acknowledged "big generational differences in perception when it comes to gay marriage and gay rights as an agenda, and I think that is true on the Republican side."


But, Gillespie said, he does not envision the party platform changing anytime soon.


"There are a lot of Republicans who are gay, there are a lot of Republicans who support government sanction of gay marriage, a lot of Republicans who support abortion on demand, a lot of Republicans who support cap-and-trade provisions. They're not single-issue voters." Gillespie acknowledged that the party had been inhospitable to gays in the past, and said that he hopes Mehlman's decision to come out leads the party to be "more respectful and civil in our discourse" when it comes to gays.


Mehlman said that his formal coming-out process began earlier this year. Over the past several weeks, he has notified former colleagues, including former President Bush. Once he realized that the news would probably leak, he assembled a team of former advisers to help him figure out the best way to harness the publicity generated by the disclosure for the cause of marriage rights. He is worried that some will see his decision to go public as opportunistic. Mehlman recently moved to Chelsea, a gay mecca in New York City. He refused to discuss his personal life with me, and he plans to give only a few print interviews on the subject.


Chad Griffin, the California-based political strategist who organized opposition to Proposition 8, said that Mehlman's quiet contributions to the American Foundation for Equal Rights are "tremendous," adding that "when we achieve equal equality, he will be one of the people to thank for it." Mehlman has become a de facto strategist for the group, and he has opened up his rolodex -- recruiting, as co-hosts for the AFER fundraiser: Paul Singer, a major Republican donor, hedge fund executive, and the president of the Manhattan Institute; Benjamin Ginsberg, one of the GOP's top lawyers; Michael Toner, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission; and two former GOP governors, William Weld of Massachusetts and Christie Todd Whitman of New Jersey.


Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award winning writer of "Milk," said, "Ken represents an incredible coup for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. We believe that our mission of equal rights under the law is one that should resonate with every American. As a victorious former presidential campaign manager and head of the Republican Party, Ken has the proven experience and expertise to help us communicate with people across each of the 50 states."


This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-im-gay/62065/

Native Americans in Arizona Vow to Deport All Non-Native Americans
 

http://glossynews.com/other-world-ga...ive-americans/
This is older news but I've not seen it here so I'm sharing it.


Tags: Apache, Arizona, Gov. Brewer, Hopi, illegal immigrants, Navajo
Posted by P. Beckert


Navajo Nation – The Navajo, Hopi, all Apache Nations and all other Native Americans who presently reside in Arizona have joined forces in an effort to show the haughty Arizona residents just exactly who has every right to be in that State.

Said Chief Standing Wolf, “it is not those of European decent who should be making the laws of this state, but we, the tribal people, who have been suppressed for too long. Our ancestors have been here for thousands of years, while the white man only came a few hundred years ago. Yet, it is the white man who wants to make ridiculous laws and keep everything lily white. We can no longer stand by and let this happen.”

Short of declaring war on the Arizona government, Chief Standing Wolf instead issued a warning “reverse your laws entitling only English-speaking people to inhabit Arizona. Only then will we back down and allow peace to again grace Arizona, but if you deny our fellow red and brown men their rightful place in this state, there will be bloodshed.”

Of course, Chief Standing Wolf was speaking in his native tongue, so the lawmakers in the State weren’t exactly sure what the message was.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/08/23...-legal-appeal/

Another victory for equality.

Thanks for sharing this Corkey :hamactor:

Police: Cab Driver Stabbed By Passenger Who Asked "Are You Muslim?"

A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Police say the passenger asked the driver, "Are you Muslim?" When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

The 43-year-old driver was able to lock the passenger in the back of the cab and call 911.

Both the driver and the passenger were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

As of late Tuesday, no charges had been filed.




http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top...e-you-muslim--

I read this Susan - I was so dismayed :(

The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS
 

The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS

By ADAM COHEN – Thu Aug 26, 3:45 am ET

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant.

It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism." (Read about one man's efforts to escape the surveillance state.)

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state - with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's - including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's pro-privacy ruling was unanimous - decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Link to story on Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201315000

How absolutely terrible about the taxi driver - I am so glad he lived and was able to lock the guy in the cab.

The gps tracking is insane. And yet another reason not to drive. I wish more of Texas had public transportation handy.

Anybody who carries a cell phone that is on is leaving a trail of exactly where they've been. In court, they have a rep of the phone company use a map to show the path of a person using cell phone tower triangulation. Gps on the car sucks too, but most people don't think to turn off their phones to protect their privacy.

Ex-Cop Pleads Guilty to Trans Beating

One month before his scheduled retrial, a former Memphis police officer pleaded guilty to beating the late Duanna Johnson, positioning himself to receive a two-year sentence rather than the 10 years he would have faced if convicted by a jury.

According to ABC24 in Memphis, Bridges McRae admitted to using excessive force against Johnson while booking her into the Shelby County Jail in June 2008 on a prostitution charge. The brutal beating was caught on surveillance tape.

“After watching video of the beating, all but one member of the jury wanted to convict Bridges McRae,” reports ABC24. “His April 2010 trial ended with a hung jury. A month before McRae was set to be retried his attorney’s reached a plea deal. Will Batts, Executive Director of The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center is happy McRae will serve time behind bars, but feels two years is a light sentence. “It’s incredibly senseless. It’s hard to imagine somebody watching that and not feeling horror.”

Months after the beating, Johnson was shot and killed outside her home. The murder remains unsolved.

The attorney for Johnson plans to file a civil suit on behalf of her family seeking money and policy changes.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_N...Trans_Beating/

Maybe a person will want McRae for his lover. Imagine a cop :fastdraq: in jail. He probably will get put in a secure location away from those that would like to get their hands on him though.

right?

in my heart of hearts i feel that this man has something to do with her murder. if he didn't directly do it himself, then he had a hand in it.

two years for what he did to her is not enough.

the fact that nobody is working to solve her murder? makes me wish he'd bunk with bubba for a few weeks.

no human being deserves what happened to Duanna Johnson. :candle:

Here's news coverage from when she was beaten, including interview footage with her. It's a scary world.



I wish her death had been / would be investigated. :(

Oh yeah. Living between two cities that are notorious for police brutality, most specifically against POC and TG and queer people brings this home. It will be very interesting to see the trial and outcome for the female-identified butch that was kid abducted and gang raped then left for dead in Richmond when it finally goes to trial. If the trial is held in Contra Costa county, I doubt these asses will facing much in the way of sentencing, even if they are convicted. Frankly, I want it to go into federal hands due to the kidnapping. But, the actual charges that will be tried have not been released yet.

Frankly, the cops really didn't give a flying fuck about what happened to this butch.

sadly, i'd have to agree.

Probably true. This kind of stuff makes me crazy!!

August 31, 2010
TRENDING: White House keeps lid on Obama, Bush talk
Posted: August 31st, 2010 01:21 PM ET

From CNN White House Producer Xuan Thai


President Obama called former President George W. Bush on Tuesday ahead of his Oval Office address Tuesday night.
Fort Bliss, Texas (CNN) – President Obama telephoned former President George W. Bush from Air Force One in advance of Tuesday night's prime time speech regarding the end of the combat mission in Iraq - but the White House isn't saying what the two men discussed.

Obama called his predecessor while flying to Fort Bliss to meet with military personnel Tuesday morning ahead of his Oval Office address. The two spoke for several minutes according to Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton. There were no details about the subject of their conversation and Burton said no read out of the phone call would be provided.

Fort Bliss, Texas (CNN) – President Obama telephoned former President George W. Bush from Air Force One in advance of Tuesday night's prime time speech regarding the end of the combat mission in Iraq - but the White House isn't saying what the two men discussed.

Related: Obama to tip his hat to Bush?

Obama called his predecessor while flying to Fort Bliss to meet with military personnel Tuesday morning ahead of his Oval Office address. The two spoke for several minutes according to Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton. There were no details about the subject of their conversation and Burton said no read out of the phone call would be provided.


Deputy National Security Press Secretary Ben Rhodes previewed Tuesday evening's Oval Office address with the traveling press saying Obama will speak about the broader context of the drawdown of 100,000 troops in Iraq, the enduring partnership between the U.S. and Iraq and the Iraqi's responsibility going forward.

According to the White House, troops at Ft. Bliss have served in every stage of the Iraq war from the initial invasion through today's new mission.


http://www.cnn.com/

Hummmmmm....

Commentary
 

Slate

CEO Crybabies

Corporate bosses are whining, even though they're reporting record profits.

By Daniel Gross

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010, at 12:56 PM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's hard out there for a CEO. There's a Democrat in the White House, and Washington is being ruled by a coalition of socialists and anti-capitalist thugs. There's uncertainty about taxes and policy. Business leaders are constantly being vilified for taking home huge paychecks without providing meaningful returns to shareholders, or creating jobs, or boosting wages. The newly passed financial reform bill requires CEOs of public companies to measure and report the ratio of their pay to that of their workers. Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwartzman is complaining that the Obama administration is like Hitler invading Poland.

With government and the media making life so difficult for CEOs, it must be nearly impossible to turn a profit. Right? Um, not really.

The headline number from the quarterly GDP report released by the Commerce department last Friday was the sorry 1.6 percent growth rate of the economy in the second quarter. But the release also provided detailed data on corporate profits. And while the GDP number was disappointing, the latter was impressive. Corporate profits, which stood at $1.5 trillion in 2007, fell sharply to $1.26 trillion and essentially stagnated in 2009. But since the Obama presidency started, the trajectory in quarterly profits has reversed. Quarterly profits (reported at an annualized rate) rose from $1.18 trillion in the 2009 second quarter to $1.42 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2009 to $1.64 trillion in the second quarter of 2010. In the second quarter of 2010, corporate profits were up 39.2 percent from the year-before quarter.

Corporate profits aren't just rising in absolute terms, they're rising in relative terms. Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are back up to nearly record highs. Check out this assemblage of quarterly GDP data for the last several years. If you divide line 17 (corporate profits with inventory and capital consumption adjustments) into line 1 (overall GDP), you can calculate corporate profits as a percentage of GDP—i.e., the chunk of the economy that corporations are keeping as profits. If companies and business were under assault, you might expect that this proportion would be falling. But as the chart here shows, that's not what is happening.


After hitting a low point in the fourth quarter of 2008, the measure has risen in every quarter and checked in at 11.25 percent in the second quarter of 2010—the highest level since the last quarter of 2006. In other words, the chunk of the economic pie being reserved for business owners and bosses has been rising sharply in the past couple of years, despite slow growth, and is generally back at the levels it was during the business-friendly Bush administration.
Why is corporate America doing well when so many powerful forces seem to be arrayed against it? Some sectors are benefiting from government policy. Banks are profiting from low interest rates and the ongoing federal subsidies and guarantees. Even as the industry squawks loudly about demonization and tough regulation, banks just reported their best quarter results in three years, according to the FDIC.
But CEOs deserve most of the credit for this turnaround. When the economy slowed dramatically in late 2008 and early 2009, they prepared for Armageddon: They slashed costs, restructured, made cold and swift decisions, and relentlessly pursued productivity and efficiency. The result: America's CEOs collectively re-engineered their businesses so they could produce profits with a lower volume of business. They've also continued—and intensified—their long-standing practice of beating the living daylights out of America's labor force. Despite Democratic control of Washington, labor has never been weaker. Organized labor continues its long decline. Union membership fell again in 2009 as percentage of work force, to 12.3 percent, down from 13.4 percent in 2000. And in an age of excess capacity and high unemployment, disorganized labor isn't doing so hot either. In the past year, employee compensation as a percentage of GDP has fallen a bit.

To review: Corporate profits have largely recovered to pre-crisis levels. A disproportionate share of economic growth is finding its way into the coffers of corporate America. CEOs are in an extremely strong negotiating position vis-à-vis their employees. And yet America's bosses think they are members of an oppressed minority.


Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com and follow him on Twitter. His latest book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, has just been published in paperback.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2265653/

CNN
 

I am not a fan of Castro nor many of our leaders here in the USA. I do think Castro shows some humility and humanity in admitting seemingly without reservation the injustices suffered by LGBTQ people living under his regime.

Also, see this link. http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/08/fidel-castro-i-take-responsibility-for.html ______________________________________________

Castro admits 'injustice' for gays and lesbians during revolution

By Shasta Darlington, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Cuba sent openly gay men to labor camps with no charges in the '60s and '70s

Fidel Castro acknowledges "persecution" of gays and lesbians during the Revolution

Castro says the U.S. embargo against Cuba encouraged his country to be creative

Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said he acknowledges the persecution of gays and lesbians during the Revolution in his country, according to a newspaper interview published Tuesday.

Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Cuba sent openly gay men to labor camps without charge or trial.

"They were moments of great injustice, great injustice!" Castro told journalist Carmen Lira Saade from the Mexican daily La Jornada. "If someone is responsible, it's me."

His comments came in the second installment of a two-part interview. The first half of the interview -- a wide-ranging, five-hour conversation at his home -- was published Monday.

"We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death, that we didn't pay it enough attention," Castro said of the way gays and lesbians were treated.

In 1979, Cuba decriminalized homosexual acts and more recently, there have been efforts to legalize same-sex unions.

The former leader, whose popular Revolution seized power in 1959, ruled the island nation until ill health forced him to transfer power to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2006.

In the La Jornada interview, Fidel Castro also talked about the impact of the five-decade U.S. embargo on Cuba.

"The biggest problem was always medicine and food, which is true even today," he said.

While the embargo prevented Cuba from trading with much of the world, it also encouraged the country to be more creative, Castro said.

"The fight, the battle that we had to carry out, led us to make greater efforts than we would have made without the blockade," he explained.

The United States imposed the embargo against Cuba in 1961 after Castro's government began seizing private land and nationalizing private companies, and Havana levied heavy taxes on American goods.


Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americ...=Google+Reader

IAMS Cat Food Salmonella Recall: Iams Indoor Weight Control with Hairball Care dry cat food
 

http://source-www.petco.com/assets/p...014250042B.jpgP&G VOLUNTARILY RECALLS A SMALL AMOUNT OF DRY CAT FOOD

Company Estimates Fewer Than 60 Bags Purchased


CINCINNATI, August 31, 2010 - The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is voluntarily recalling a small number of bags from a specific lot of one of its dry cat food products due to potential salmonella exposure.

No illnesses have been reported, and no other Iams pet food products are involved.

Only one code date is affected by this announcement:

Product Name Version Code Date UPC Code
Iams Indoor Weight Control with Hairball Care dry cat food 6.8 lb bag 02304173 (B1-B6) 1901403921

The company successfully traced and retrieved nearly all of the affected product and estimates that fewer than 60 bags from this production run may have been purchased by consumers.

This production run was sold through a single retailer in the following states: Illinois, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

Consumers who have purchased one of these few bags with the specific code date listed above should discard it. For a product replacement or refund, please call P&G toll-free at 800-862-3332 (Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM EST).

People handling dry pet food can become infected with salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with surfaces exposed to this product. Healthy people infected with salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. Rarely, salmonella can result in more serious ailments including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.

Pets with salmonella infections may have decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, pets may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever and vomiting. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your


http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/de...tmveterinarian. FDA Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts

Thank Peter, Paul & Mary for their support of marriage equality
 

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/thankyouppm

Thank Peter, Paul & Mary for their support of marriage equality!
Read their cease-and-desist letter telling NOM to stop playing "This Land Is Your Land"

During their recent “Summer for Marriage” tour the National Organization for Marriage played a Peter, Paul & Mary recording of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” during their rallies, without the permission of the artists.
Kathleen Perrin, a participant on the Courage Campaign's Prop8TrialTracker.com, contacted Peter Yarrow and told him. Yarrow called the use of the song by NOM “heartbreaking” and said that he would be contacting NOM asking them to stop. Please read the letter to Brian Brown from Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, surviving members of the group who performed as Peter, Paul & Mary (Mary Travers passed away in 2009).
Then take a moment to sign our "Thank You!" card to Peter, Paul & Mary for taking a stand in support of marriage equality.

Barak to Haaretz: Israel ready to cede parts of Jerusalem in peace deal

Ahead of start of direct peace talks in Washington, Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods will be part of a Palestinian state; a 'special regime' to govern holy sites.

By Ari Shavit

Ehud Barak has always vacillated between peace and security, dovishness and hawkishness, left wing and right wing. Even when he left south Lebanon, offered the Golan Heights to Hafez Assad and the Temple Mount to Yasser Arafat, he didn't do this as a bleeding heart. He always spoke forcefully, talked about the importance of sobriety. He always spoke about how Israel must survive in a jungle. It must do so even now, on the eve of the peace summit in Washington.

This time, however, Barak is surprisingly - even unusually - optimistic. Perhaps it is because he contributed quite a bit to the summit's unveiling. Maybe it is due to the fact that the summit is his political lifejacket. The defense minister believes in the 2010 peace summit even more than the principals taking part in it.

These past few weeks have been volatile, between the Galant document affair, the appointment of a new chief of staff, the meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah and the sit-down with Mahmoud Abbas. And perhaps more than anything else, Barak was feverishly preoccupied with trying to push Netanyahu across the Rubicon, trying to convince him that there is no choice, trying to convert Benjamin Netanyahu from Yitzhak Shamir to Menachem Begin. Did he succeed?

Up until the last minute, the man who has signed up to also take on the role of foreign minister doesn't know whether he succeeded or not. Perhaps this is why he has chosen to make unequivocal, remarkable statements to Haaretz.

Yet the last-minute-meeting that Barak held with Netanyahu prior to the premier's departure for the United States fueled his optimism. When Barak said what he said from his office at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, his sense was that there is a good chance that Netanyahu will surprise us.

Ehud Barak, is there any chance that you and Benjamin Netanyahu will succeed in reaching peace with the Palestinians now, the same peace which you did not succeed in achieving in 2000 and Ehud Olmert did not succeed in achieving in 2008?

"In the current reality that is encircling us, there are remarkable changes underway. Thirty years ago, the Arabs competed amongst themselves in spouting rejectionist slogans that were reminiscent of [the three "nos" at] Khartoum. Today the Arab states are competing amongst themselves in arguing over which peace initiative will be adopted by the international community. The same situation is taking place with us. When I returned from Camp David a decade ago, the most vocal critics of my "irresponsible" concessions were Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Take a look at where they are today. It doesn't mean that the task is a simple one. The gaps are wide and they are of a fundamental nature. But I believe that there is a real chance today. If Netanyahu leads a process, a significant number of rightist ministers will stand with him. So what is needed is courage to make historic, painful decisions. I'm not saying that there is a certainty for success, but there is a chance. This chance must be exploited to the fullest.

What are the principles of a peace deal that you believe can be agreed upon by the conclusion of the talks?

"Two states for two nations; an end to the conflict and the end of all future demands; the demarcation of a border that will run inside the Land of Israel, and within that border will lie a solid Jewish majority for generations and on the other side will be a demilitarized Palestinian state but one that will be viable politically, economically, and territorially; keeping the settlement blocs in our hands; retrieving and relocating the isolated settlements into the settlement blocs or within Israel; a solution to the refugee problem [whereby refugees return to] the Palestinian state or are rehabilitated by international aid; comprehensive security arrangements and a solution to the Jerusalem problem."

What is the solution in Jerusalem?

"West Jerusalem and 12 Jewish neighborhoods that are home to 200,000 residents will be ours. The Arab neighborhoods in which close to a quarter million Palestinians live will be theirs. There will be a special regime in place along with agreed upon arrangements in the Old City, the Mount of Olives and the City of David."

Does the terror attack near Beit Hagai prove the extent to which the current efforts for peace are useless?

"This is a very serious incident, the likes of which we haven't seen for a long time. The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service are acting with all their strength to get their hands on those who perpetrated the attack. There will be those who will say that this is the result of weakness and that Netanyahu must return from Washington because they are killing Jews. Yet in looking at the situation in a level-headed way, there is no doubt that this is an attempt to harm the start of the peace talks. So while we are steadfastly safeguarding our security and waging a determined campaign against the perpetrators, we cannot be deterred from working toward the success of the peace negotiations."

Here we go again.
 

Corkey, I don't get it. All I see when I click it open is an Disney animated redering of Peter Pan.

Okay, now I get it, another Oil Rig explosion in the Gulf. It should be pretty clear by now, big business and government many times gives "lip service" to environmental concerns. Pay the small monetary fines and back to business as usual.

More info on today's rig explosion-
 

White House responds to new Gulf Oil explosion

(NECN/CNN) - Federal officials are learning more about today's new oil rig explosion off the Louisiana coast. A large fire broke out on a rig about 100 miles off shore.

"We will continue to gather information as we respond," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water."

He said President Obama was in a national security meeting, and he did not know if the president is aware of the news yet or not.
The rig's owner, Mariner Energy, reports that all 13 of the rig's crew members were able to escape safely. They were all found floating in the water wearing "gumby suits" that stick close together.

Coast Guard commander Cheri Ben-Iesau says all crew members were airlifted to the hospital, and one person was injured, though Mariner Energy says there were no injuries.

While the Coast Guard initially reported an explosion on the platform, Mariner Energy says it was a fire. The company also says that the platform wasn't involved in any drilling operations at the time, and it doesn't look like anything has spilled so far.

Tags: barack Obama, White House, Fire, Robert Gibbs, oil spill, Gulf Coast , oil rig explosion

http://www.necn.com/09/02/10/White-H...45&feedID=4207

Oil platform explodes off La. coast, spreading oil

AP – By ALAN SAYRE, Associated Press Writer Alan Sayre, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago
NEW ORLEANS, La. – An oil platform exploded and caught fire Thursday off the Louisiana coast, spreading a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico. All 13 crew members were rescued from the water in their protective "Gumby suits."

It was the second such disaster in the gulf in less than five months. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform, 200 miles west of the site of BP's massive spill. Firefighting vessels were battling the flames.

The company that owns the platform, Houston-based Mariner Energy, did not know what caused the blast, which was reported by a helicopter flying over the area. Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Mariner officials told him there were seven active production wells on the platform, and they were shut down shortly after the fire broke out.

Photos from the scene showed at least five ships floating near the platform. Three of them were shooting great plumes of water onto the machinery. Light smoke could be seen drifting across the deep blue waters of the gulf.

The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Louisiana's Vermilion Bay. Its location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP's well spewed oil and gas for three months after the April rig explosion.

Responding to any oil spill in shallow water would be much easier than in deep water, where crews depend on remote-operated vehicles access equipment on the sea floor.

A homeland security update obtained by The Associated Press said the platform was producing 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration has "response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water."

Crew members were found floating in the water, huddled together in insulated survival outfits called "Gumby suits" for their resemblance to the cartoon character.

"These guys had the presence of mind, used their training to get into those Gumby suits before they entered the water," Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said.

Lithium Market To Reach 15 billion this year
 

Lithium ETF is the talk of the town this summer. There are better things to invest in than crude oil. A major breakthrough in battery technology is what we have been looking for. Contracts for Lithium mining seems to be the new boom. ETF.About.com. ETFtrends.com

This should cause quite a shit-storm
 

The smartest guy on the planet finally 'gets' it:

'God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

linkyloo

Now, if he could just convince everyone else. Instead, I envision lots of folks buying his book just to burn it, maybe even a call to burn scientists at the stake. Hey, if this country is going to go backward in time, we might as well go all the way back (by which I mean white folk history back, like to the early settlements and witch burnings. I realize that some of y'all were here long before that).

Oh yeah... this book will be burned. Great kindling for loonies! ARGH!!!

MsD:

I saw this on HuffPo and I'm so looking forward to the book being released. I'm happy it'll be out before classes start again so I can lose a weekend to the book. :)

At any rate, one thing that Hawking states is that the discovery of extra-solar planets shows that our conceit that Earth--or even our solar system--is somehow special and a sign that there's a creator is misplaced. It's very true. Something one hears quite a bit is that *because* the Earth is in the habitable zone of our local star it shows that a divine being *must* have created the planet since what odds are there that a planet would be in the particular orbit we are in.

Here's the thing, around any star--of any size--there will be some number of stable orbits. One or more of those orbits will be in the HZ which means that it will be both warm enough and cool enough for liquid water to exist on the surface. What orbit that will be is going to be determined by the size of that star, its luminosity and its color. Stars run from Blue - Red (In descending order of heat--Blue, Blue-White, White-Yellow, Yellow, Orange-Red, Red) and from Very Bright (luminous) Supergiants to Dwarf stars (also called main sequence stars), to white dwarf stars. The HZ for any one of these stellar types will be different. Our star--which is small and relatively cool (as these things go)--has a HZ at around 80 - 100 million miles (if we find that life got started on Mars then the HZ would extend to Mars' orbit at 140 million miles). A Blue Supergiant star (which would be about the size of our entire solar system if you can imagine that) would have a very different orbit (probably beyond the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud and possibly halfway to our nearest stellar neighbor four light years from here).

An intelligent species, living on a planet orbiting a blue supergiant, would likely think that there was something special about being 2 light years from their primary star--until they developed science and built space-based telescopes and started looking for planets outside their solar system.

I'm not saying there is no god--that's not for me to say although I don't believe that there is--and neither is Hawking. But what Hawking *is* saying is that there is nothing that requires a god for the universe to work. In a universe with gravity, you're going to get stars and you're going to get planets, after that all you need are enough stars, enough planets, and enough time--all of which the universe has in abundance. There are an estimated 100 *billion* galaxies in the observable universe and each one of these galaxies has hundreds of millions of stars, astronomers are finding that planets are not all that rare--about half of all stars have them--so there are, at least hypothetically, billions upon billions of planets and some of them are going to be in the HZ of their primary so life has at least a fighting chance to get booted up and that's just a matter of time (surprisingly little time, as it turns out. Earth may have had life starting as early as 500 million years after the planet formed and cooled).

Cheers
Aj

It is not a secret that I do believe in a God, Universal Power, One that manifests and expands through every living thing. I read about this forthcoming book earlier this morning and I will be reading it. Not to dismiss his thoughts nor to burn it. There are "believers" that do not minmize "God" to be only what my mind can phantom, comprehend.

Can you expand on that? What do you mean by 'gravity is god'. What would that look like?

(And I'm rather oversimplifying about gravity. Basically, in any universe with the four forces we have--gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear--you'll get stars and you'll get planets. All the forces are important and gravity certainly makes life as we know it possible and without it there would be no stars but gravity is, ironically, the weakest of the four forces)

Cheers
Aj