today's amusement ---
The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

----------

1)  Der Spiegel -- The Republicans' Farcical Candidates -- A club of Liars,
Demagogues and Ignoramuses
2)  Hillary Clinton's Historic LGBT Speech Provides Hope and Change
3)  DADT repeal is working as planned
4)  Saudi Arabia -- Australian sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia
5)  Australia -- Labor divided after gay marriage backing
6)  Australia -- Hopes for gay marriage now rest with libertarian liberals



1)
Der Spiegel is the German equivalent of our TIME Magazine.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-800850,00.htm  German
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-800850,00.html  English

12/01/2011 08:39 AM
The Republicans' Farcical Candidates
A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses
A Commentary by Marc Pitzke

The US Republican race is dominated by ignorance, lies and scandals. The current
crop of candidates have shown such a basic lack of knowledge that they make
George W. Bush look like Einstein. The Grand Old Party is ruining the entire
country's reputation.

Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most
immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel
sexually harassed -- well, they shouldn't make such a big deal about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted
world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they've
been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate
to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what's still
the most powerful job in the world.

As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.

It's true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen,
and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and
embarrassments. Yet this time around, it's just not that funny anymore. In fact,
it's utterly horrifying.

It's horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly
ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of
Lincoln lore. Worse: They're ruining the reputation of the United States.

'Freakshow'

They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic,
ignorant, outrageous thing after another. They've shown such stark lack of
knowledge -- political, economic, geographic, historical -- that they make
George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to
cringe.

"When did the GOP lose touch with reality?" wonders Bush's former speechwriter
David Frum in New York Magazine. In the New York Times, Kenneth Duberstein,
Ronald Reagan's former chief-of-staff, called this campaign season a "reality
show," while Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan confidante Peggy
Noonan even spoke of a "freakshow."

That may be the most appropriate description.

Tough times demand tough and smart minds. But all these dopes have to offer are
ramblings that insult the intelligence of all Americans -- no matter if they are
Democrats, Republicans or neither of the above. Yet just like any freakshow,
this one would be unthinkable without a stage (in this case, the media,
strangling itself with all its misunderstood "political correctness" and
"objectivity") and an audience (the party base, which this year seems to have
suffered a political lobotomy).

Factually Challenged

And so the farce continues. The more mind-boggling its incarnations, the happier
the US media are to cheer first one clown and then the next, elevating and then
eliminating "frontrunners" in reliable news cycles of about 45 days.

Take Herman Cain, "businessman." He sat out the first wave of sexual harassment
claims against him by offering a peculiar argument: Most ladies he had
encountered in his life, he said, had not complained.

In the most recent twist, a woman accused Cain of having carried on a 13-year
affair with her. That, too, he tried to casually wave off, but now, under
pressure, he says he wants to "reassess" his campaign.

If Cain indeed drops out, the campaign would lose its biggest caricature: He has
been the most factually challenged of all these jesters.

As CEO of the "Godfather's" pizza chain, Cain killed jobs -- but now poses as
the job-creator-in-chief. Meanwhile, he seems to lack basic economic know-how,
let alone a rudimentary grasp of politics or geography. Libya confounds him. He
does not believe that China is a nuclear power. And all other, slightly more
complicated questions get a stock answer: "Nine-nine-nine!" Remember? That's
Cain's tax reduction plan that would actually raise taxes for 84 percent of
Americans.

Has any of that disrupted Cain's popularity in the media or with his fan base?
Far from it. Since Oct. 1, he has collected more than $9 million in campaign
donations. Enough to plow through another onslaught of denouements.

No Shortage of Chutzpah

Then there's Newt Gingrich, the current favorite. He's a political dinosaur,
dishonored and discredited. Or so we thought. Yet just because he studied
history and speaks in more complex sentences than his rivals, the US media now
reflexively hails him as a "Man of Ideas" (The Washington Post) -- even though
most of these ideas are lousy if not downright offensive, such as firing
unionized school janitors, so poor children could do their jobs.

Pompous and blustering, Gingrich gets away with this humdinger as well as with
selling himself as a Washington outsider -- despite having made millions of
dollars as a lobbyist in Washington. At least the man's got chutzpah.

The hypocrisy doesn't end here. Gingrich claims moral authority on issues such
as the "sanctity of marriage," yet he's been divorced twice. He sprang the
divorce on his first wife while she was sick with cancer. (His supporters'
excuse: It's been 31 years, and she's still alive.) He cheated on his second
wife just as he was pressing ahead with Bill Clinton's impeachment during the
Monica Lewinsky affair, unaware of the irony. The woman he cheated with, by the
way, was one of his House aides and 23 years his junior -- and is now his
perpetually smiling third wife.

Americans have a short memory. They forget, too, that Gingrich was driven out of
Congress in disgrace, the first speaker of the house to be disciplined for
ethical wrongdoing. Or that he consistently flirts with racism when he speaks of
Barack Obama. Or that he enjoyed a $500,000 credit line at Tiffany's just as his
campaign was financially in the toilet and he ranted about the national debt.
Chutzpah, indeed.

Yet the US media rewards him with a daily kowtow. And the Republicans reward him
too, by having put him on top in the latest polls. Mr. Hypocrisy, the bearer of
his party's hope.

"I think he's doing well just because he's thinking," former President Clinton
told the conservative online magazine NewsMax. "People are hungry for ideas that
make some sense." Sense? Apparently it's not just the Republicans who have lost
their minds here.

The Eternal Runner-Up

And what about the other candidates? Rick Perry's blunders are legendary. His
"oops" moment in suburban Detroit. His frequently slurred speech, as if he was
drunk. His TV commercials putting words in Obama's mouth that he didn't say
(such as, "Americans are 'lazy'"). His preposterous claim that as governor of
Texas he created 1 million jobs, when the total was really just about 100,000.
But what's one digit? Elsewhere, Perry would have long ago been disqualified.
But not here in the US.

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann has fallen off the wagon, although she's still
tolerated as if she's a serious contender. Ron Paul's fan club gets the more
excited, the more puzzling his comments get. Jon Huntsman, the only one who
occasionally makes some sort of sense, has been relegated to the poll doldrums
ever since he showed sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.

Which leaves Mitt Romney, the eternal flip-flopper and runner-up, who by now is
almost guaranteed to clinch the nomination, even though no one in his party
seems to like or want him. He stiffly delivers his talking points, which may or
may not contradict his previous positions. After all, he's been practicing this
since 2008, when he failed to snag the nomination from John McCain. If it ain't
broke, don't fix it.

As an investor, Romney once raked in millions and, like Cain, killed jobs along
the way. So now he says he's the economy's savior. To prove that, he has
presented an economic plan that the usually quite conservative business magazine
Forbes has labeled "dangerous," asking incredulously, "About Mitt Romney, the
Republicans can't be serious." Apparently they're not, but he is, running TV
spots against Obama already, teeming with falsehoods.

Good for Ratings

What a nice club that is. A club of liars, cheaters, adulterers, exaggerators,
hypocrites and ignoramuses. "A starting point for a chronicle of American
decline," was how David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, described the
current Republican race.

The Tea Party would take issue with that assessment. They cheer the loudest for
the worst, only to see them fail, as expected, one by one. Which goes to show
that this "movement," sponsored by Fox News, has never been interested in the
actual business of governing or in the intelligence and intellect that requires.
They are only interested in marketing themselves, for ratings and dollars.

So the US elections are a reality show after all, a pseudo-political counterpart
to the Paris Hiltons, Kim Kardashians and all the "American Idol" and "X Factor"
contestants littering today's TV. The cruder, the dumber, the more bizarre and
outlandish -- the more lucrative. Especially for Fox News, whose viewers were
recently determined by Fairleigh Dickinson University to be far less informed
than people who don't watch TV news at all.

Maybe that's the solution: Just ignore it all, until election day. Good luck
with that -- this docudrama with its soap-opera twists is way too enthralling.
The latest rumor du jour involves a certain candidate who long ago seemed to
have disappeared from the radar. Now she may be back, or so it is said, to bring
order into this chaos. Never mind that her name is synonymous with chaos: Sarah
Palin.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Rick
Perry's "oops" moment took place in South Carolina. In fact, it happened in
suburban Detroit.



URL:
   a.. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,800850,00.html
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
   a.. Photo Gallery: The Republican Campaign Circus
   http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-75798.html
   b.. Broken America: The Country of Limited Possibilities (11/22/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,799242,00.html
   c.. Execution in Texas: Governor Perry's Death Mission (09/12/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785821,00.html
   d.. Bush's Tragic Legacy: How 9/11 Triggered America's Decline (09/09/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785405,00.html
   e.. The Indecisive President: Obama's Weakness Is a Problem for the Global
Economy (08/09/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,779179,00.html
   f.. The World from Berlin: 'The Biggest Loser is the Average American'
(08/03/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,778178,00.html
   g.. Interview with Tea Party Co-Founder Mark Meckler: 'We Have Compromised Our
Way Into Disaster' (08/01/2011)
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,777705,00.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/2011/12/20793/

Hillary Clinton's Historic LGBT Speech Provides Hope and Change
Posted December 6th, 2011 by Wayne Besen
(Weekly Column)

Hillary Clinton's soaring speech on international LGBT issues was game changing.
An historic address of this magnitude was desperately needed to counter the
rising tide of backwards and barbaric nations that had recently been persecuting
LGBT people to distract from their glaring problems.

   "I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of
people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world
today," said Clinton to a packed auditorium of human rights activists who
gathered in Geneva for International Human Rights Day. "I am talking about gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given
bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one
of the remaining human rights challenges of our time."

The list of countries that recently declared war on sexual minorities include:
Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran, and Zimbabwe.  For the contemptible
despots who run these underachieving nations, fomenting homophobia makes
political sense. By turning homosexuals into bogeymen these rulers can conceal
their corruption and appear moral through the blessings of craven clergy.

If the worldwide attacks on LGBT people seem deliberate and coordinated, it is
because they very well may be. In author Jeff Sharlet's book, The Family, he
reveals that ambitious American evangelicals are working to surround The United
States, Canada, and Western Europe with fundamentalist regimes - using
homosexuality as a key wedge issue to gain power. Researchers Rachel Tabachnick
and Bruce Wilson have also documented that a radical and sprawling evangelical
group, The New Apostolic Reformation, has infiltrated many countries and
exported anti-LGBT hate.

It has been greatly disturbing to witness the war on LGBT people unfolding in
recent weeks. I had privately fretted that these AHEM's (American Hate Exporting
Movements) were further along in their dubious and dangerous designs than people
realized. I was also concerned that the American government would back off
challenging international homophobia in an election year. After all, the Obama
administration surely did not want to be browbeaten as anti-faith by phony
martyrs and their false claims of religious discrimination.

However, something drastic needed to happen to turn back the tide of violence
and discrimination that plagued these "loser nations." The U.S. had to make it
crystal clear that those exporting hate were not representing our government.
Instead, these zealots were operating a shadow foreign policy that undermined
America's interests.

President Barack Obama boldly stepped into this bloody vacuum and provided
desperately needed leadership and moral clarity. He issued an incredible
memorandum directing all agencies to "promote and protect the human rights of
LGBT persons." This was followed by Clinton's moving speech that was as notable
for its directness, as it was for its depth.

Usually in such addresses we get diplomatic drivel that satisfies no one and
accomplishes little. But today's actions by the administration and Clinton's
speech were different. The words were spoken with true vision and encrusted in
values. There was clarity and passion, and no one was left wondering where our
country stood on the rights of LGBT people.

This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international
leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American. It was stirring to
witness our country act decisively as force for moral good. There was no
patronizing that relegated the LGBT community to the role of liberalism's
unwanted stepchild. There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words
that sugarcoated the abuses - just the honest truth spoken from the heart.

   "It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of
their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about
how men and women should look or behave," said Clinton in her speech. "It is a
violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or
allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished."

The beauty of Clinton's talk was that it was highly educational. It forcefully
challenged the ignorant stereotypes and vicious lies disseminated by despots and
their American evangelical patrons.

   "Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality," Clinton said.
"And protecting the human rights of all people, gay or straight, is not
something that only Western governments do."

Needless to say, the leaders of AHEM's and anti-LGBT politicians went nuts.
"This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of
faith in this country," said failing presidential candidate Rick Perry, who
shocked people by putting a complete sentence together. Perry conveniently
failed to mention that Clinton and Obama are both people of deep faith.

The stunning events in Geneva mark the moment Barack Obama secured a national
LGBT vote for his 2012 re-election campaign. Today we felt hope - but more
importantly, we witnessed monumental change.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


3)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/dadt_repeal_is_working\
_as_plan033750.php
November 28, 2011 1:20 PM
DADT repeal is working as planned

By Steve Benen

About a month ago, Andrew Sullivan asked, "Now that DADT is over, can the
hysterics who warned it would destroy the military concede they were wrong?"

That would be nice. They were, after all, making all kinds of dire predictions,
all of which have turned out to be baseless. One military leader in particular
preferred to keep "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in place, but now concedes that the
post-repeal system is working just fine.

   Gen. James F. Amos, the top officer in the U.S. Marines, says he is "pleased"
at how smoothly the military branch has adapted to the repeal of don't ask,
don't tell - and top gay rights advocates agree.

   Amos, who had publicly opposed the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in
the military, spent the past week in Afghanistan holding more than a dozen
town-hall meetings with Marines, reports the AP, which had an exclusive
interview with the Marine commander.

   Not once during the sessions was he asked about the repeal, according to the
wire service.

   "I'm very pleased with how it has gone," Amos said.



For Amos to be gracious about this after opposing the president's policy only
helps reinforce how mistaken Republican warnings were.

Thomas Ricks recently noted a major on active duty who raised a similar point.

   At what point in time should journalists, bloggers, etc . hold those who made
wildly inaccurate predications on the lifting of the ban accountable? All the
retired generals and officers (LTG Mixon, Merrill A. McPeak and Col. Dave Bedey
for example) who predicted that soldiers would leave the military by the
thousands, or John McCain and other politicians describing how it would affect
us as a fighting force?

   At some point I feel that the public should be reminded of their predictions
so the next time they make predictions that are way off the mark, fewer people
will give them credence.



Some degree of accountability would be a refreshing change of pace, wouldn't it?

Granted, the official end of DADT only happened a few months ago, and I suppose
it's still possible that God will punish the United States for this
transgression with a series of meteors, but it's not too soon to say the right's
anti-gay critics, led in large part by John McCain, had no idea what they were
talking about. The dire predictions that said thousands of active-duty soldiers
would quit the armed forces and recruiting would become nearly impossible were,
we now know, entirely wrong.

----------

Comment received from a friend ---
If the United States Marine Corps can make such a progressive change, why can't
the Southern Baptist and the Catholic Church? And the Mormon theological
mythology.

My comment ---
Religion is the most addictive drug yet invented by humans.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/australian-sentenced-500-lashes-saudi-arabia-052845608.htm\
l
Australian sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia
AP - Wednesday 07 December 2011
SYDNEY (AP) - An Australian man has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in a
Saudi Arabian jail after being convicted of blasphemy, officials said Wednesday.
The 45-year-old man, identified by family members as Mansor Almaribe of southern
Victoria state, was detained in the holy city of Medina last month while making
the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj. Family members told Australian media that Saudi
officials accused him of insulting the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, a
violation of Saudi Arabia's strict blasphemy laws.

Australia's ambassador in Saudi Arabia has contacted Saudi authorities in a bid
for leniency, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. Consular officials are
providing support for the man and his family in Australia.

"The Australian government is universally opposed to corporal punishment," the
department said in a statement.

Almaribe was convicted of blasphemy on Tuesday and initially sentenced to two
years in jail and 500 lashes. The court later reduced his jail sentence.

Almaribe's son Jamal told The Age newspaper that his father was reading and
praying as part of a group when he was arrested.

Almaribe's son Mohammed said he feared for his father's well-being. "Five
hundred slashes on his back, and he has back problems. I wouldn't think he'd
survive 50," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

----------
My comment ---
You want to defend Islam? You want to defend other organized religions?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-04/labor-divided-on-gay-marriage-approval/371\
1332

--- videos at the URL ---
Labor divided after gay marriage backing
ABC NEWS - Sydney, Australia - December 04, 2011
The federal Labor Party remains divided over gay marriage despite yesterday
voting to change its policy to endorse it.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say Labor's new stance will cost votes, while
those in favour are angry at the compromise position which gives Labor MPs a
conscience vote.

They say it was done to ensure Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who opposes gay
marriage, was not embarrassed.

Labor backbencher Stephen Jones plans to move a private members bill in Federal
Parliament next year to change the Marriage Act, but the conscience vote means
it would likely be defeated.

Some say the best chance of success is to have it moved jointly by Labor, the
Greens and a moderate Liberal.

Labor MPs are now challenging the Opposition to give its MPs a free vote as
well.

"The Liberal Party will now have to ask itself very seriously 'what are we going
to do in response to this'," Labor frontbencher Stephen Smith said.

Mr Jones says he too hopes the Liberal Party will grant a free vote to its
parliamentary members.

"In 11 days time I'll be celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary," he said.

"I got married because I wanted to tell my family and my whole community that
this is the woman I love and I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life.

"I hope that by the end of this Parliament there will be thousands more
Australians who will be able to enjoy their anniversary with the person that
they love as well."

Finance Minister Penny Wong also says the ball is now in the Liberal Party's
court.

"It's now a matter for Tony Abbott, whether he will show his members the same
respect that the parliamentary party today has been shown," Senator Wong said.

Australian Workers Union head Paul Howes has their backs.

"We know there are many members of the Liberal and Nationals parties who support
same-sex marriage, some of which are in same-sex relationships but are not
granted the ability to do what Labor granted our MPs to do today," he said.

Vote fears
But there are mixed views within the party about the implications of Saturday's
decision to allow gay marriage.

Union leader Joe de Bruyn says the move towards same-sex marriage will cost
votes.

"Particularly in some of the traditional Labor electorates in suburban
Australia," he said.

Delegates from the Labor Right, like Tasmanian Senator Helen Polley, were simply
unhappy.

"Marriage is a term that can be used and has been used for centuries to describe
a relationship between a man and a woman," she said.

But Left faction leader Doug Cameron supports the change.

Senator Cameron disputes Mr de Bruyn's view that it will mean Labor loses seats.

"Absolute nonsense and silly political analysis from Joe de Bruyn. This will not
be a vote-changing exercise at the next election," he said.

"If someone is voting against the Labor Party on this issue they were never
going to vote for the Labor Party in the first place.

"This is about giving equality to our fellow Australians. This is about the
Labor Party being a reforming party."

Rallies
Video: Protesters rally for and against gay marriage (7pm TV News NSW)

About 5,000 people rallied across Sydney yesterday in celebration of the ALP's
decision to change the party platform on same-sex marriage.

Supporters said it was the first real step towards legalising gay marriage,
though they were disappointed with the conscience vote.

The crowd shouted chants such as "conscience vote, no way, we want equal rights
today".

Anthony Wallace from Equal Love said the party should have taken a stronger
stance to ensure the issue is passed by Parliament.

"It's a bit of back step now they've decided that they will push it, it's going
to go through for a conscience vote, it's kind of like they gave us something
and they've pulled half of it back," he said.

But Rodney Croome, a gay activist from Tasmania, told the crowd the movement had
come a long way, and whilst a conscience vote was not ideal, it was good that
the party platform has been changed.

A separate march of about 400 was also held in Sydney by people lobbying against
the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

They clapped and yelled "yes" when they heard the conference passed the motion
to allow a conscience vote.

Herminie Swainston, who was at the rally, pleaded with politicians not the
change the Marriage Act.

"I agree with fairness for same-sex couples so I'm glad that a whole lot of laws
have been passed to give fairness for things like compensation and inheritance,"
she said.

"But there's no need to change the Marriage Act."

Other issues
Labor will move on from that debate today, only to face more contentious issues.

Frontbencher Peter Garrett will move a motion against the Prime Minister's plan
to allow uranium exports to India, but after passionate argument, Ms Gillard's
push is expected to succeed.

A motion to phase out live cattle exports is expected to fail.

The conference winds up today.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


6)
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3711762.html
Hopes for gay marriage now rest with libertarian liberals
5 December 2011

Melody Ayres-Griffiths
Does the fight for same-sex marriage have an unexpected ally?

One might be disappointed that the Labor party voted to permit a conscience vote
on the issue of marriage equality at the weekend, but I would strongly urge
those who feel as though all is lost to consider that perhaps it is not the
defeat they might think it is. Australia may yet see marriage equality in the
very near future - due in no small part to the support of a number of
forward-thinking Liberal MPs.

After all, the right-wing of the political spectrum, which the Coalition
traditionally occupies, does not consist entirely of social conservatives and
Christian fundamentalists. Indeed, many inside of Tony Abbott's broader party -
and many of his MPs - fit the definition of a "fiscally-conservative
social-liberal" - also known as a libertarian. These libertarians - some of whom
are very powerful inside the Liberal party - may force Tony Abbott to allow his
MPs to hold a conscience vote of their own.

Libertarianism has at its core a fundamental belief that the rights of the
individual are paramount above the rights of religion, government or any other
organisation - that people are at liberty to do and say as they wish in so long
as this liberty does not impact negatively on the liberty of others. It is
straightforward to acknowledge that marriage equality is in fact then a very
libertarian notion.

Now, in the past, social conservatives (and homophobic pseudo-"libertarians")
have attempted to use a "loophole" by arguing that children raised by
homosexuals are at some sort of disadvantage and thus gay people do not have the
right to a liberty that harms others; however, modern studies have shown quite
plainly that this "danger" to the child simply does not exist in any widespread
fashion.

In Australia, it is already against the law to discriminate, bully or harass
homosexuals - and by extension their children - and this has led to a steady
decline of homophobia in schools and greater acceptance of same-sex
relationships amongst young people. Rather, it is arguable that teenage same-sex
attracted children are more likely to fall victim to self-harm because their
relationships will always be invalidated by their inability to marry.

So, with the once vaguely-rational "issue" of the "rights of the child" removed,
it has become very difficult for social conservatives to mount any convincing
argument with which to sway their libertarian colleagues. Feeble attempts at
"slippery-slope" arguments - typically involving paedophilia and zoophilia -
fall in a heap in the face of the simple common sense that children and animals
cannot give legal consent. Polygamy is similarly negated by the fact that by
definition only one individual can possess the ability to exercise the absolute
will of another, as granted by marriage.

And, as an individual already holds certain legal and moral rights and
responsibilities with respect to immediate family members, the risk of the
legalisation of incestuous relationships is non-existent.

It is due to the inability to mount a realistic argument against marriage
equality that, after the Liberal Party of Canada legalised same-sex marriage and
then lost the subsequent election, the Conservative Party of Canada upon forming
government was forced to hold a conscience vote regarding the repeal of the
prior government's amendments to the Marriage Act - a vote that failed, causing
the Conservatives to break a "crucial" election promise. (By the way: that same
party is still in power today, and has just become the ninth longest-serving
government in Canadian history.)

It is important to remember that, unlike Labor, although Coalition MPs can be
directed to vote as a bloc, an individual MP does not risk expulsion from Caucus
if they do not do as they are told by the Leader of the Opposition. This means
that despite Tony Abbott's conservative rhetoric, those more libertarian-minded
MPs can still stand for marriage equality at the time the numbers are counted
even if the public face of the Coalition is strictly against the notion up to
the last second before the vote is called; as happened in the Canadian
Conservative-led parliament.

It is also important to realise that it is unlikely that Tony Abbott will risk
fracturing the Liberal party by attempting to mandate any special privilege
toward his own position by threatening his libertarian colleagues - one of whom
is his chief rival, Malcolm Turnbull. He is almost certainly not going to put
his leadership on the line, nor risk disunity within his own party, over his
conviction that marriage is strictly meant to be between man and woman. A
conscience vote will permit him the luxury of being able to absolve himself of
criticism both from his libertarian members and his conservative-Christian ones.

But it could be a nail-biter. If Tony Abbott is smart, he will wait until the
last possible moment before making any announcement regarding a conscience vote
- even as late as the morning of the day the vote is held. If those who support
marriage equality are equally intelligent, they will mount pressure upon those
more socially-liberal Liberals and keep it there up until that very same moment.
The battle is still quite winnable - it happened in Canada and it could just as
easily happen here in Australia.

Melody Ayres-Griffiths is a Canadian Australian permanent-resident married to
her Australian wife under Canadian law.

----------

Lots of comments at the URL.

--------------------------------------------------

see also

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3257009.htm

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 29/06/2011 - Reporter: Heather Ewart   (29 June 2011)

The Labor Party is under increasing pressure to support same-sex marriage at its
upcoming national conference. However, many within the ALP still remain
unconvinced - including the Prime Minister. 7.30's Heather Ewart investigates.

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: If the Gillard Government were to embrace the cause of
gay marriage, would it hurt them electorally? According to one prominent
pollster, the answer's not at all.


VIDEO


Momentum's building among the grassroots of the Labor Party to allow same sex
marriage, even though the Prime Minister Julia Gillard is personally opposed.

It looks like the powerful NSW branch will join other states in recommending gay
marriage reform when it holds its conference on Saturday week.

But as national affairs correspondent Heather Ewart reports, federal Labor has
to decide whether the push for gay marriage is something a majority of
Australians support, not just progressives in its own ranks.

HEATHER EWART, REPORTER: These butchers at Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne's west
are lovers and business partners. They're in Julia Gillard's electorate and they
all barrack for the same footy team. But that's where any similarity ends. John
Dini and Steve Russell have been together for more than eight years and want to
take their relationship one step further.

Why do you two want to get married?

JOHN DINI, BUTCHER: Well, firstly because we love each other. Um, that's the
main reason. And, I mean, we've been together for so long. And, mostly because,
like any other couple, we want to be able to make that commitment in front of
our friends and our family.

JULIA GILLARD, PRIME MINISTER: It's my view that the Marriage Act should stay in
its current form and my view is unchanged.

JOHN DINI: We own this butcher shop together, we own our house together and my
name's not on any paper.

STEVE RUSSELL, BUTCHER: Legally, once you're married, everything automatically
goes to the spouse. But in our situation, I could write a will and it could be
challenged by anybody and he could be left with nothing. And I wanna know that
if something happens to me, then he's well looked after.

JULIA GILLARD: Now of course there's community debate about the Marriage Act. I
expect that that community debate is going to continue. I've made my view clear
and my view is unchanged.

HEATHER EWART: These street scenes in New York at the weekend, after it was
announced that same sex marriage would be legalised there, have inspired
supporters of reform in Australia.

JOHN ROBERTSON, NSW LABOR LEADER: There is a sense, I think, for some people
that this issue's time has come, and certainly I think it is appropriate that we
debate these issues within the Labor Party.

HEATHER EWART: So the real debate is not so much here in the community, as Julia
Gillard says, but within Labor ranks. One after another, State Labor branches
are urging the party's next national conference in December to endorse same sex
marriage. And some party heavyweights are already geared for battle.

JOE DE BRUYN, SHOP, DISTRIBUTIVE & ALLIED EMPLOYEES ASSN: A policy of homosexual
marriage will lose seats for Labor, particularly in Queensland where it needs to
pick up seats, and so I think that the wiser heads will prevail in December at
the conference.

MARK TEXTOR, POLITICAL POLLSTER: This is the problem with the Labor Party at the
moment: it's all about them and their political survival. They first should be
asking themselves: what is the right thing to do?

JOE DE BRUYN: This potentially would affect 10 or 15 seats around the nation
that Labor would lose and so it would mean that it has no chance whatsoever of
winning the next election.

JOHN ROBERTSON: I know Joe feels very strongly about this issue and he's
entitled to express that opinion. I don't think this is an issue that's going to
see us lose seats or lose an election. And on the same count, I don't think it's
an issue that's going to see us win seats or win elections either.

MARK TEXTOR: If you are a progressive party and you have at least two years
until an election is held, the first question you should ask yourself is again:
what is the right thing to do?

HEATHER EWART: Mark Textor was the opinion pollster for the Coalition at the
last federal election and is mystified as to why anyone would think same sex
marriage is a pressing issue out in the electorate.

MARK TEXTOR: I think Australians mightn't actively support gay marriage, but I
think they would accept gay marriage going through. Ronald Reagan's pollster
once said to me that there is no such thing as family values, there are only
those things that are important to families - love, a sense of belonging, a
sense of personal security. And if marriage consolidates the family unit, so be
it.

HEATHER EWART: Back at the butcher's shop at Hoppers Crossing, anecdotal
evidence would appear to back this up.

STEVE RUSSELL: We've had a lot of good positive response. Some people from
quarters that I was quite surprised about, actually. I thought, "Oh, OK, I
wasn't expecting that from you.

JOE DE BRUYN: Clearly there are some people who think this is not significant,
but there are many people out there who do believe it's a big issue.

MARK TEXTOR: I think instead of jumping at issue shadows, they should get on and
do it.

HEATHER EWART: For years, the national conference has patched together quick
backroom fixes on this issue, never really resolving it. But the momentum for
action is building, with the NSW State Labor conference on Saturday week
expected to add its voice to the calls for reform.

JOHN ROBERTSON: This is a personal issue for me, not a political one; one of my
kids is gay and I'd like them to have the same opportunity as the other
siblings. It's an issue that's not one I've arrived at based on polls or a focus
group, but a personal one as a parent.

HEATHER EWART: John Robertson is of course aware of Julia Gillard's opposition.

JOHN ROBERTSON: I don't think it creates any difficulties for this matter to be
debated in that fashion simply because Julia has made her views known.

JOE DE BRUYN: Julia went to the last election with an undertaking that she would
not change the law on marriage and therefore she has made an electoral
commitment to the people of Australia and I believe that she will stick with
that right through.

HEATHER EWART: But would a primeministerial change of heart really matter on a
reform that seems to be generally regarded in political circles as Labor
territory and true to its principles?

MARK TEXTOR: If you are unable to stand on those principles, unable to stand on
those principles that people think you believe in, then they start questioning
both your leadership credentials and indeed whether you believe in anything at
all.

HEATHER EWART: Julia Gillard might be put to the test before the December
conference, when the butchers from Hoppers Crossing and two other gay couples
meet her for dinner at The Lodge at a yet-to-be-specified date. All part of a
recent press gallery charity fundraiser, with advocacy group GetUp! winning the
bid and nominating the guest list this week.

Will you be trying to convince Julia Gillard?

STEVE RUSSELL: Oh, absolutely.

JOHN DINI: Of course. That's the whole point of going there.

STEVE RUSSELL: She better have a good argument. 'Cause at the moment I don't
think she's got a leg to stand on.



***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Rick Perry Attacks Gays in the Military
2) Song: Coming Out at Christmas
3) Tennessee Teen Jacob Rogers Commits Suicide Over Anti-Gay Bullying
4) What to expect from the anti-gay marriage brigade
5) Alabama GOP leaders have 2nd thoughts on immigration



1)
Rick Perry Attacks Gays in the Military, Obama's 'War on Religion' in New Ad:
VIDEO
http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/perrydadtad.html


Jesus of Nazareth Responds To Rick Perry's Anti-Gay Ad
http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/jesus-of-nazareth-responds-to-rick-perrys-anti-\
gay-ad.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


2)
Song: Coming Out at Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-TCj6IHUtU
London Gay Men's Chorus
Performed at The Barbican Hall, London. December 2006.
http://www.lgmc.org.uk/


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


3)
Out & About Nashville
http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/page/5
http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/article/5211
http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/article/5212


Former teacher says bullied student was ignored by administrators
Death sparks concern for other students

http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/article/5212

by Blake Boldt
Dec 8, 2011



Tennessee Teen Jacob Rogers Commits Suicide Over Anti-Gay Bullying
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz66JskjhBA&feature=youtu.be



The death of a Cheatham County teen has raised questions about anti-gay
harassment in Tennessee high schools.



Jacob Rogers, 18, committed suicide Tuesday night [ December 6 ] after
classmates had bullied him about his sexuality. Friends say that as a result he
had recently dropped out of school last month.



Before his death, Rogers wrote a series of status updates on Facebook that
indicated his intent to kill himself. "Taking everything in, I LOVE YOU ALL and
I'm very sorry. This is me, signing off," he said in one post. In another,
"Tonight's the night, I have that gut feeling. :/ Not dead yet, but I'm stuck in
limbo. :/."



According to a former Cheatham County High School teacher who contacted O&AN, a
combination of factors led to Rogers' death:



"The administration did nothing to try and stop this from happening. There's
never been any disciplinary action taken unless there was a fight. I wish I
could have reached out to him more, but he had such a mistrust of authority
figures because nobody tried to help. His family is poor, and he lived with his
grandmother because his father didn't approve of his lifestyle. He was so
delicate and fragile and he didn't get support. It's important to keep gay teens
from falling into a depression in these repressive communities."



Cheatham County Schools Director Dr. Tim Webb says the school was only aware of
one bullying incident involving Rogers. After being made aware of the incident,
the school spoke with the accused bullies.



As school officials address Rogers' death, the focus should be on the student
population, says Jonathan Cole, president of Tennessee Equality Project (TEP).



"I worry about the kids at the school and if there are counseling services to
give kids a chance to talk about this," he says. "We don't want to
sensationalize an event and have kids see this as a way out. We want to focus on
how we can prevent these types of things from happening."



Schools districts must adopt policies which prohibit bullying in order to
prevent future suicides, says Chris Sanders, chair of TEP's Nashville committee.



"If there are specific types of bullying such as anti-gay bullying," he says.
"they need to be addressed with specific policy changes that specifically
include sexual orientation and gender identity."



TEP has circulated a petition calling upon the Cheatham County School Board to
fully investigate the incident and form a policy that prohibits student
discrimination on any basis.



"It's important to talk as a community about what happened and how we can help,"
Sanders says. "We need to make sure that those with authority in Cheatham County
know that they must address the bullying in their schools."



A memorial service and candlelight vigil will be held at OutCentral Wednesday
night [ December 14 ] in Rogers' honor. Donations for a funeral are being
accepted at Sandman's Ink Shop in Ashland City (1102 N. Main Street; Ashland
City, TN 37015).



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/dec/04/anti-gay-marriage-bri\
gade?newsfeed=true
   a.. Comment is free
   b.. Cif belief
What to expect from the anti-gay marriage brigade
Campaigners will say same-sex marriage is a threat to the family, religious
freedom and civilisation itself

Comments (1252)
   a.. Jane Carnall
   b.. guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 December 2011 10.59 EST
   c.. Article history
On Wednesday 30 November the first UK campaign organisation against marriage for
same-sex couples was launched. With the Scottish government "minded" to pass
legislation for gay marriage and the UK government planning to consult next year
on similar legislation, we'll be seeing this and other organisations taking off
from now till equal marriage becomes law. In the US, where anti-marriage
campaigns flourish across 49 states, we've had a clear view of how these people
work, so what can we expect from them in the UK - and particularly in Scotland?

It's unifying. In the US, Baptist, Catholic, evangelical, Mormon and
Presbyterian churches unite to agree that same-sex couples shouldn't get
married: the alliance of Catholic and Protestant across sectarian barriers in
Scotland is like an Old Firm match ending in a group hug.

They're not homophobic. They'll make a point of saying so, that's how you know.

Allowing same-sex couples to marry redefines marriage. The ba's on the slates,
the penguins are out on parade, the definition of marriage is already changed.
Scotland for Marriage means marriage as a privilege from which some groups are
barred - just as Focus on the Family means some families aren't included. It's
as if they think there isn't enough marriage or family to go around.

The marriage of two men or two women is not real marriage because same-sex
couples can't have children. This theme is why so many anti-marriage groups call
themselves "pro-family" and it's remarkably consistent, from a Mormon
science-fiction writer in 2004 to a Catholic bishop in 2011, thousands of miles
apart and as divided in religion as two Christians can be, they none the less
agree: marriage is not about two people pledging to love, honour, and cherish
each other all their lives, marriage is about a man and a woman having children
together.

Marriage is one of the building blocks of society and same-sex couples marrying
are attacking the block! This is pure horror movie - lesbians and gays as
invisible monsters with glittery mouths, an alien threat to civilisation, and
the brave forces of the anti-marriage movement attacking the threat no one else
can see. In a variant of this, gay people are Nazis. (Really: this is more
widespread than you'd think.)

If same-sex couples get married, homosexuality will be taught in schools! This
chestnut is a perennial favourite. What would a GCSE in homosexuality look like?
There's a theory current in some US evangelical circles that the only way
someone "becomes" gay is if they're taught to be gay by the gay people who go
out of their way to spread gayness. The logic from this theory is that if only
all the lesbian and gay and bisexual people in the world could be stuffed back
into the closet, no one would ever become gay again. The kindest thing that can
be said about this theory is that it is not borne out by anything we know about
sexual orientation.

Allowing same-sex couples to marry is said to be an attack on religious freedom!
The line is consistently pushed that if it is legal for religious organisations
and ministers of religion to celebrate the marriage of a same-sex couple, it
will become illegal to refuse to do so. There is no instance of this ever
happening: the fears that it might seem to derive from T H White's totalitarian
anthill, "Everything not forbidden is compulsory".

After years of Christian campaigning on gay marriage, by 2007 young people in
the US were sure of one thing: Christianity is anti-homosexual. The deadline for
responding to the Scottish government's consultation on equal marriage is 9
December, the day before International Human Rights Day. You can respond via
www.equalmarriage.org.uk.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)
http://news.yahoo.com/ala-gop-leaders-2nd-thoughts-immigration-191341807.html
Alabama GOP leaders have 2nd thoughts on immigration
By PHILLIP RAWLS | AP - Friday 09 December 2011

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama Republicans who pushed through the nation's
toughest law against illegal immigrants are having second thoughts amid a
backlash from big business, fueled by the embarrassing traffic stops of two
foreign employees tied to the state's prized Honda and Mercedes plants.
The Republican attorney general is calling for some of the strictest parts of it
to be repealed.

Some Republican lawmakers say they now want to make changes in the law that was
pushed quickly through the legislature.

Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law, said he's contacting foreign executives
to tell them they and their companies are still welcome in Alabama.

"We are not anti-foreign companies. We are very pro-foreign companies," he said.

Luther Strange, the attorney general who's defending the law in court, this week
recommended repealing sections that make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to
fail to carry registration documents and that require public schools to collect
information on the immigration status of students. Both sections have been put
on hold temporarily by a federal court.

Two foreign workers for Honda and Mercedes were recently stopped by police for
failing to carry proof of legal residency. The cases were quickly dropped, but
not without lots of international attention that Alabama officials didn't want.

One of the groups challenging the law in court said the auto workers' cases
turned public opinion.

"Suddenly the reality of what the state has done hit people in the face," said
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Before 2011, Republicans tried repeatedly to pass an immigration law but were
always stopped by the dominant Democrats. That changed when Alabama voters
elected a Republican legislative super majority - the first since
Reconstruction. The result was a law described by critics and supporters as the
toughest and most comprehensive in the nation.

It requires a check of legal residency when conducting everyday transactions
such as buying a car license, enrolling a child in school, getting a job or
renewing a business license. After the U.S. Justice Department and other groups
challenged the law, the federal courts put some portions on hold, but major
provisions took effect in late September.

Alabama suddenly found itself at the center of the nation's immigration debate,
ahead of other states with tough laws, including Arizona, Georgia and South
Carolina.

Within Alabama, much of the debate is within the business community that helped
fund Republicans' new strength.

The Birmingham Business Alliance this week called for revisions in the law,
expressing worry that it's tainting Alabama's image around the world. The group
also said complying with the law is a burden for businesses and local
governments, but did not offer specific changes.

James T. McManus, chairman of the Alliance and CEO of one of the state's largest
businesses, the Energen Corp., said revisions "are needed to ensure that
momentum remains strong in our competitive economic development efforts."

In Thomasville, a town of 4,700 about 80 miles southwest of Montgomery, Mayor
Sheldon Day worries about recruiting industries.

He said about 25 foreign companies have visited the town to consider possible
plant sites since Thomasville recruited a Canadian steel company in July 2010.

"Up until a few months ago, nobody raised the immigration issue," he said. But
in the last few months, it's been brought up regularly. Day suspects competing
states are portraying Alabama as hostile to foreigners even though he says that
is not the truth. Based on the questions he gets from industrial prospects, he
also believes competing states are recounting stories from Alabama's civil
rights past.

"It's bringing back old images from 40 or 50 year ago," he said.

The governor says he's declined many national TV interviews about the law
because he doesn't want to fuel comparisons with what he sees as Alabama's long
gone past. "It's going to take us a long time to outlive those stereotypes that
are out there among people that Alabama is living in the '50s and '60s," Bentley
said.

The Republican sponsors of the immigration legislation promoted it as a jobs
bill that would run off illegal immigrants and open up employment for legal
residents. That was an easy political sale in a state suffering from nearly 10
percent unemployment. Even some Democrats voted for the law.

Since the law took effect, Alabama's unemployment rate has dropped a half
percentage point. Economists and state officials who compile the statistics say
it's too early to say whether to credit the immigration law.

But one of the sponsors, Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, said
neighboring states without a similar law haven't seen the same drop. "There is
nothing else to attribute it to," he said.

If there has been any damage, he said it's the fault of inaccurate portrayals in
the news media. He said the media ought to be reporting: "This law establishes a
safer, more secure environment for people to come here and invest their money."

Republican House Speaker Mike Hubbard of Auburn said no industrial recruiters
have complained to him about the law, and he will only support "tweaks" that
make it more effective without weakening it.

Some Democratic Party leaders have called for repeal, but the party is now so
weak in Alabama that the real debate is among Republicans.

The governor says the law is "very complicated" and needs to be simplified. He
hasn't recommended any specifics, but he says Alabama won't abandon its goal of
ensuring that only legal residents get jobs.

Strange, the attorney general, says his recommended changes "don't weaken the
law, they just make it easier to defend."

Beason, however, said Strange's proposals would weaken the law by repealing two
sections that allow private citizens to sue state and local officials to enforce
it. Beason said that's needed because some officials are already saying they
won't follow the law.

Other Republicans say the law is causing unnecessary problems for legal
residents. Senate Republican Whip Gerald Dial of Lineville said legislators hear
complaints from people about digging out documents to prove their legal
residency when renewing professional licenses and buying car tags.

"I made some mistakes in voting for this bill, and I want to step up and fix
them," he said.

----------

My comment ---
Nobody knows how to be a bigot like a Southern Baptist, or an SB clone.
Nobody knows how to lie and bear false witness like a Southern Baptist, or an SB
clone.
Go Jesus!

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Obituary Column-- Paul Varnell
2) Navy reinstates gay sailor
3) High court to review tough Arizona immigration law
4) Remember when Reagan met with Taliban leaders in the White House?
5) Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery'



1)
Sun Times
Chicago
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/9381435-452/gay-writer-saw-path-to-progre\
ss.html
Gay writer saw path to progress
By NEIL STEINBERG nsteinberg@... December 11, 2011

Back in the 1980s, when newspapers wouldn't identify the companions of
homosexuals in their obituaries, since it was against our style rules, I knew
exactly one gay man in Chicago: Paul Varnell.

We met in a church on Belmont Avenue. The Town Hall cops were holding a meeting
- outreach to the gay community - and a smirking night editor thought it might
yield a good story. C'mon, he said - big burly cops and gays. See what you can
do with it!

So I headed to Boystown. The grim reality of the meeting was a jarring contrast
to how it had been presented. The police had actually brought along a sex crimes
speaker, who dryly delivered a 1950s talk on rape - I guess in their mind they
equated gays with sex crime. The audience was unruly and aghast, and when the
time came for comments, they lambasted the officers.

"I've been mugged and I've been arrested," said Varnell. "And I'd rather be
mugged."

That's a great quote, clearly expressing the situation - our big problem isn't
crime, our big problem is you. But that's what Varnell did, for years, as an
activist and columnist for Chicago's gay publications.

"Think about being a gay columnist," I wrote in 2009, when he was let go from
his last paper due to budget cuts. "Many gay men can't bear to tell their
family, their closest friends, about their orientation, still, even to this day,
and not without reason given the various fears and hatreds they expose
themselves to. And here's Paul, parsing the details of his personal life, his
HIV-positive status, the issues facing the community.

"And not in a doctrinaire way - it's easy to serve a minority group by pandering
to it, by defending its every step and misstep. Paul is too smart for that, and
often wondered whether it was a false generalization to even speak of a gay
community at all."

"I am not sure that sexual orientation makes us a community," Varnell wrote in
2008. "I think I have more in common with the thoughtful heterosexual man who
likes music and art and literature than I do with a gay man who loves drag
queens, 'divas,' and hip-hop. As hostility to gays lessens and gay people's
defensive clannishness declines, other factors than sexuality will become more
important in our lives." One hopes.

That was his constant theme: the path of gays leads to assimilation within
society, not living apart in radicalized gay ghettos.

It seems fitting that he would die - of pneumonia Dec. 9, at age 70 - just as
the nation was reacting to a loathsome campaign commercial that Rick Perry, the
governor of Texas, aired in a desperate attempt to boost his sinking
presidential bid.

"I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian," Perry says, "But you don't need
to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country
when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate
Christmas in school."

"The bad news," Varnell wrote in 1994, "is that these people seem to hate and
fear us. The good news is that they seem to be a bunch of raving loonies,
without a clear grasp of what to do or what they are up against."

He was referring to an anti-gay conference in Colorado.

"Almost touchingly, they all seem to agree, as one speaker put it, that
homosexuality, 'destroy[s] the souls and the lives of those who embrace it.' And
somehow they fail to realize that the ordinary lives of millions of happy,
productive gays and lesbians daily undermine those perceptions in the minds of
most people. They really do not understand why we have made the political,
social, and cultural progress we have. Lacking an explanatory model for our
progress - or indeed for the last thirty years of social change - they
floundered around for a way to reverse it."

"This suggests," Varnell continued, "that what would work best for us is an
approach that emphasizes sharing our common humanity rather than attacking the
mainstream and portraying ourselves as an aggrieved, victimized and petulant
minority. It is, after all, the homophobes who are the sad, isolated, troubled
little clot of obscurantists."

True then, truer now, more so each day.

-------------------------------------------------

"The Good News"
www.barna.com report from September 24, 2007 --->
A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/94-a-new-generation-e\
xpresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity
Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is
"anti-homosexual."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------

2)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/gay-sailor-reinstated-navy.html
photo at URL
Navy reinstates gay sailor [Updated]
December 12, 2011
A Navy linguist discharged under the now-repealed policy banning gays from
serving openly has been reinstated and will report soon to the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, his attorneys announced.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jase Daniels, 29, was discharged in 2007 after he was
featured in a story in the Stars & Stripes newspaper about gay military
personnel. He was sworn back into the Navy on Monday.

Daniels, a Hebrew linguist, served a year in Kuwait before being discharged. He
will be a student at the Defense Language Institute, studying Farsi, which is
spoken in Iran and Afghanistan.

[Updated at 2:08 p.m., Dec. 12: He served in Kuwait under his given name, Jason
Daniel Knight, which he later changed to Jase Daniels.]

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network,
said the reinstatement of Daniels "underscores that all qualified and needed
service members are now officially welcomed back into the ranks."

Daniels was one of three plaintiffs in a 2010 case challenging the "don't
ask/don't tell" policy filed by the Washington law firm of Morrison & Foerster.
Reinstatement bids by the other two plaintiffs, an Air Force major and an Air
Force staff sergeant, are still pending, their lawyers said.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------

3)
http://news.yahoo.com/high-court-review-tough-arizona-immigration-law-200542643.\
html
High court to review tough Arizona immigration law
By MARK SHERMAN | AP - Monday 12 December 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court stepped into the fight Monday over a tough
Arizona law that requires local police to help enforce federal immigration laws
- pushing the court deeper into hot, partisan issues of the 2012 election
campaign.
The court's election-year docket now contains three politically charged
disputes, including President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and Texas
redistricting.

The debate over immigration already is shaping presidential politics, and now
the court is undertaking a review of an Arizona law that has spawned a host of
copycat state laws targeting illegal immigrants.

The court will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several
provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while
enforcing other laws, question a person's immigration status if officers suspect
he is in the country illegally.

The case is the court's biggest foray into immigration law in decades, said
Temple University law professor Peter Spiro, an expert in that area.

The Obama administration challenged the Arizona law by arguing that regulating
immigration is the job of the federal government, not states. Similar laws in
Alabama, South Carolina and Utah also are facing administration lawsuits.
Private groups are suing over immigration measures adopted in Georgia and
Indiana.

"This case is not just about Arizona. It's about every state grappling with the
costs of illegal immigration," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said
following the court's announcement Monday.

Fifty-nine Republicans in Congress, including presidential candidate Michele
Bachmann, filed a brief with the court backing the Arizona law.

The immigration case, like the challenge to Obama's health care overhaul, pits
Republican-led states against the Democratic administration in an argument about
the reach of federal power. The redistricting case has a similarly partisan
tinge to it, with Republicans who control the state government in Texas facing
off against Democrats and minority groups that tend vote Democratic.

In the immigration arena, the states say that the federal government isn't doing
enough to address a major problem and that border states are suffering
disproportionately.

The issue has been widely discussed by the Republican candidates for president.
They have mostly embraced a hard line to avoid accusations that they support any
kind of "amnesty" for the some 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be
living in the U.S.

Newt Gingrich was most recently criticized by his opponents for saying he would
grant legal status to some with longstanding family and community ties, and
Gingrich has since endorsed the South Carolina law that allows police to demand
a person's immigration status. That law is among the four state laws that have
been challenged by the administration.

Brewer signed the Arizona immigration measure into law in April 2010. The
administration sued three months later to block it from taking effect.

In April, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco upheld a federal judge's ruling halting enforcement of several
provisions of the law. Among the blocked provisions: requiring all immigrants to
obtain or carry immigration registration papers; making it a state criminal
offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job and allowing police
to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.

In October, the federal appeals court in Atlanta blocked parts of the Alabama
law that forced public schools to check the immigration status of students and
allowed police to file criminal charges against people who were unable to prove
their citizenship.

Lawsuits in South Carolina and Utah are not as far along.

The administration argued that the justices should have waited to see how other
courts ruled on the challenges to other laws before getting involved. Still,
following the court's announcement Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney
said, "We look forward to arguing our point of view in that case when the time
comes."

Spiro, the Temple University immigration expert, said the court easily could
have passed on the Arizona case for now. "They could have waited for the more
extreme case to come from Alabama, which really outflanked the Arizona law,"
Spiro said.

He predicted the court would uphold the police check of immigration status but
perhaps not the measure making it a crime to be without immigration documents.

Arguments probably will take place in late April, which would give the court
roughly two months to decide the case

Justice Elena Kagan will not take part case, presumably because of her work on
the issue when she served in the Justice Department in the Obama administration.

The case is Arizona v. U.S., 11-182.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------

4)
Remember when Reagan met with Taliban leaders in the White House?
http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2009/04/20/remember-when-reagan-met-with-taliban-l\
eaders-in-the-white-house/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------

5)
http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-executes-woman-convicted-sorcery-132159048.ht\
ml
Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery'
AP - Monday 12 December 2011
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi authorities have executed a woman convicted of
practicing magic and sorcery.
The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place Monday,
but gave no details on the woman's crime.

The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of
the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people
into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.

The paper said a female investigator followed up, and the woman was arrested in
April, 2009, and later convicted in a Saudi court.

It did not give the woman's name, but said she was in her 60s.

The execution brings the total to 76 this year in Saudi Arabia, according to an
Associated Press count. At least three have been women.

----------

My comment ---
I find it hard to believe the words of this "chief of the religious police".
Islam -- God help us. God be merciful unto us. God is love.
Guns. Lots of guns and ammo.
The American South.
Fracking.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

All this is enough to make one dizzy.

1) Twin Boys, One Transgender, Become Brother and Sister
2) Clear Channel to Replace San Francisco's Only AM Progressive Talk Station
With Glenn Beck and Fox
3) Non-porn players rush to grab .xxx websites
4) Vermont frat asks members: Who would you like to rape?
5) Ohio landlord fights 'White Only' pool sign ruling
6) We Will Stand: Defending Voting Rights
7) When tech goes wrong: Man who wins $57m on slot machine told it's a software
error, offered $100
8) Giant plumes of methane bubbling to surface of Arctic Ocean
9) Exclusive: American Airlines' $30 million London town house
10) Woman dies in freak NYC elevator accident



1)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/identical-twin-boys-transgender-brother-sister/stor\
y?id=15142268#.Tuj9FWHa5I4
Twin Boys, One Transgender, Become Brother and Sister
--- picture at URL ---
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Dec. 13, 2011

As early as age 4, Wyatt Maines asked his mother, "When do I get to be a girl?"
And he told his father he hated his penis.

Wyatt always liked girl's clothes and movies, while his twin brother Jonas
played with traditional boy toys.

Born identical twins, the siblings share the same DNA, but their gender
identification took divergent paths. Now, at age 14, they are brother and
sister, as Wyatt's transition to Nicole is well under way.

Nicole is 5-feet, 1-inch tall and 100 pounds; her twin brother is 5-feet,
6-inches and weighs 115 pounds -- and they are best friends.

Their story -- marked by tearful emotions, bullying at their first school and
eventually a lawsuit and a move to a different town -- was chronicled in the
Boston Globe on Sunday.

Their parents, Wayne and Kelly Maines, said they brought their transgender
daughter into the spotlight in the hopes that their story might shed light on
the struggle of others.

"We sat down with our kids at the breakfast table when they were 9 and talked
about fear, hate, evil and freedom of speech before sending them to school,"
their father, Wayne Maines, 52, wrote in an email to ABCNews.com.

"I was very angry and sad to have to talk to our small children in this manner,"
he said. "We also told them to keep their heads-up, be proud and take care of
each other and their friends. I am very proud of them both because they have not
forgotten that lesson and they continue to help others whenever it is safe to do
so."

Maines, who is director of safety and environmental management at the University
of Maine in Orono, said his "biggest concern" was the safety of his son and
daughter after the Globe ran its front-page story.
A hunter and a political conservative, Maines told the newspaper that he at
first had trouble calling Nicole by the name she adopted in fourth grade: "I was
grieving," he said. "I was losing a son."

But Nicole said, "The thought of being a boy makes me cringe."

"It is important for people to understand some of the challenges we and other
families are dealing with at home, at work and in our communities," Maines
wrote, declining to do a full interview.

"We need to watch for a little while to see how this recent step out in the
world impacts their safety and ability to function normally at their new
school," he said.

He has warned his daughter since she began speaking out before advocacy groups
and even at the Maine State House, to watch her back.

A report by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force paints a bleak picture of life as a transgender person in
the United States. The 2011 survey, "Injustice at Every Turn," found that
discrimination is pervasive in "nearly every system and institution."

Transgender youth, in particular, are at disproportionate risk for depression,
suicide, substance abuse, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, according to
the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.

And unlike in the Maines twins, many children do not get the vital support of
their own parents and end up homeless.

ABC's "20/20" recently profiled homeless teens, including 13-year-old June, of
Portland, Ore., who is transgender. She faced bullying from her brothers and
said she feels like an outsider in her own home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


2)
http://www.truth-out.org/clear-channel-replace-green960-san-franciscos-only-am-p\
rogressive-talk-station-glenn-beck-other-rwer
Clear Channel to Replace San Francisco's Only AM Progressive Talk Station With
Glenn Beck and Fox
Monday 5 December 2011
by: Brad Friedman, The Brad Blog
The only progressive AM radio talk station, Green960-KKGN, in one of the
nation's most liberal cities, San Francisco, is being taken off the AM dial by
radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications, Inc. --- a media conglomerate now
owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC --- at the beginning of the 2012
Presidential election year.

Adding insult to injury for progressives in the Bay Area, the 960 slot on the
dial is being replaced by Clear Channel with the likes of Glenn Beck, Fox News
Radio's John Gibson and other radical Rightwing talkers, according to a press
release [PDF] issued by the media giant last week, touting, in somewhat
Orwellian terms, their "goal of expanding talk radio in San Francisco."

"We saw the opportunity to expand our footprint in this crucial arena as we head
into an election year and a population increasingly engaged in local, state, and
national events and activism," says Clear Channel's San Francisco Director of
Operations Don Parker in the release.

The expansion will amount to moving Green960's current schedule of progressive
talk shows off the AM band, and on to FM's HD2 radio ghetto where it will become
a largely automated "robo-station," according to several radio insiders familiar
with the station and Clear Channel's plans for it. The station which was
formerly Green960 will have the catchy new name "FM Progressive Talk 103.7-2" at
its new home, if listeners can find it.

The new Rightwing format taking its place on 960 will be known as KNEW, which is
currently at 910 on the AM dial featuring a number of Fox News Radio programs.
The 910 position will then be filled with a new talk format being developed by
Clear Channel called "San Francisco's Talk 910 KKSF," which will also include
some Fox News Radio veterans.

One bright side for progressives in San Francisco, the popular Randi Rhodes, who
is syndicated nationally by Premiere (Clear Channel's syndication arm) will
continue in her current live Noon to 3p PT slot on the new KNEW-960. She'll also
remain in the same live slot in the progressive line up on the HD2 band, though
few are likely to hear her there, as very few Americans actually own an HD radio
receiver.

Rhodes tells The Brad Blog there could be a potential upside to the format
change which will leave her progressive voice, as well as Bill Press' in the
pre-dawn hours, sprinkled in among the far Rightwingers.

"I never want to see Progressive voices lose ground, but hopefully we can build
on the new HD channel," Rhodes told us via email on Friday. "It does look like
the beginning of the end of 'conservative format purity' has started. That's a
change in the industry that I've been fighting for for a long time and I'm happy
to be part of it."...

Other hosts currently featured on Green960, including the popular talkers
Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, and Mike Malloy declined to comment publicly
for this story. Their shows are still carried by other Clear Channel stations
around the country, including in cities where Clear Channel owns both a
Rightwing and a progressive talk station in what has led to a less than
competitive market for the two formats in many major markets.

In many of those cities, the progressive station is usually carried on a weaker
signal and broadcasters and their syndicators have pointed out that there is
often little, if any, marketing done to promote the progressive stations. Such
was the case on San Francisco's Green960 prior to last week's announcement,
according to a number of insiders who spoke to The Brad Blog off record.

Unfortunately, many that we've consulted with for this article either work for
Clear Channel or still rely on them to broadcast their programs so they chose
not to speak on the record, though some did.

According to their website, Clear Channel has "more than 850" stations reaching
"more than 110 million listeners every week." Wikipedia says that "Clear Channel
is the largest owner of full-power AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations and
twelve radio channels on XM Satellite Radio, and is also the largest pure-play
radio station owner and operator."

After passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as signed by President Bill
Clinton, media goliaths like Clear Channel were allowed to buy up multiple,
often competing stations in the same market and allowed leases by the FCC for
multiple frequencies on our publicly-owned airwaves in each city.

The law was sold by legislators and lobbyists on the premise that it would
increase competition in the market place. The net effect has been the exact
opposite as progressive stations have not been allowed to compete for audiences
on an honest and level playing field against Rightwing talk stations owned by
the very same companies in the very same market.

Former syndicated radio host Peter B. Collins, whose nationally syndicated show
was once carried by Green960, now hosts a regular podcast version of the show at
PeterBCollins.com. He's also a Bay Area radio veteran and explained that, with
consolodation following the Telecommunication Act, there now remain just four
major players in the San Francisco market, "Cumulus, CBS, Entercom and Clear
Channel and they control, between the four of them, about 80% of the radio ad
dollars in the market place."

He also notes that San Francisco's KGO, another staple AM talk station in the
Bay Area, has similarly announced a major overhaul late last week that the trade
industry publication Talkers Magazine described on its website Friday as a "San
Francisco Earthquake!"

"It's the End of KGO as we know it," Talkers' website blared over the weekend,
describing the layoffs of all but one of KGO's talk show hosts as the station
moves from talk to the more inexpensive all-news format. Collins was, until the
shake-up, also a frequent guest host on KGO.

The changes will leave Rhodes as the only progressive talker on AM radio during
daylight hours in one of the nation's most liberal cities.

"The combination of these moves by two different companies (KGO is owned by
Cumulus) really eliminates what little diversity there was in AM talk in San
Francisco," Collins told us over the weekend. "By taking off the progressives
from 960 and eliminating the centrists, libertarian and liberal views heard on
KGO, it means that AM talk in San Francisco is now 90% conservative. And that's
a dangerous development."

He adds that while he believes the moves are more business than politically
related, "I think it's very unfortunate that it's happening in an election
year."

In describing what Clear Channel's removal of progressive talk from the AM
airwaves in San Francisco may mean for the progressive format nationally,
Talkers offered a curious explanation on their website.

"Obviously it is a setback for the struggling format, simply because of the loss
of a major market," they wrote. "Some observers will point to this situation as
an example of the format's inherent weakness by saying it can't even make it in
San Francisco - one of the most liberal regions in the nation. However others
will note that it is harder for a radio format targeted to a political
orientation to make it in an area heavily populated by like-minded people
because it doesn't serve a [sic] unfilled need. Radio, being a niche medium,
often works best in an area where the targeted audience is in the minority and
it thus serves to galvanize a critical mass necessary to support a format. That
is likely the case in San Francisco."

So progressive talk is reported to have not worked in progressive San Francisco
because it didn't serve an unfilled need? If that were the case, wouldn't there
be Progressive Talk Radio stations all over, say, Kansas and Utah?

Oddly enough, the reason that Right-leaning media frequently cite for the lack
of progressive radio elsewhere, for example in heavily Republican markets like
Kansas and Utah, is that there is no interest in having progressive talk in such
"Conservative" markets. So Talkers seems to be having it both ways here.

Bay Area radio vet Collins says that, in truth, "Industry hasn't really
experimented with progressive talk in any aggressive way. And yet they have
gotten behind Michael Savage and Glenn Beck and others like them who have a
history of being angry or unstable. The people who put that on may not buy that
message themselves, but they think people will listen to it."

They also aggressively promote those programs in markets where they air, while
failing to do the same with progressive shows, even those like Stephanie
Miller's whose morning show often outpaces Laura Ingraham's, an extreme
Rightwinger and regular Fox News Channel guest host, in the ratings in markets
where they are broadcast live head-to-head. And yet, Miller's show is carried by
just 36 affiliate stations, while Ingraham's is carried by more than 300.

Clear Channel, our public airwaves and public interest obligations

Emmy award-winning former Los Angeles TV news producer Sue Wilson (an occasional
guest contributor on media issues at The Brad Blog over the years), whose
documentary film Broadcast Blues focuses on, among other things, the dangers of
Clear Channel's dominance in the radio market following the passage of the
Telecommunications Act, noted yet another change by the company over the
weekend. In Sacramento, the state capitol in very progressive California, where
there has been no progressive AM talk stations on the public airwaves for years,
more Rightwing radio was quietly added to the airwaves.

She charges, on a Facebook page linked from her FCC watchdog website,
OurPublicAirwaves.com, that last Wednesday, the company "pulled a fast one on
its listeners in Sacramento" by replacing an FM rock station with simulcast
programming from talk station KFBK, the station which launched, and still
carries, Rightwing talker Rush Limbaugh.

Wilson writes that the move "means that hard right-wing talk will fill another
50,000 watts of OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES in the Sacramento region, ranging from Lake
Tahoe to Santa Rosa. It means our region now gets four stations promoting
pro-corporate 'conservative' hate speech, but zero stations promoting any
opposing ideas."

She says this means that "Limbaugh can tell millions that Occupy Wall Street
protestors are 'Pure, genuine parasites,' and 'smug, stupid idiots' whose
parents will need to 'housebreak 'em all over again'" while Sean Hannity
"defends UC Davis cops use of pepper spray [and] can tell millions that Occupy
protesters are 'Lunatics Of The Left Wing'", while at the same time on KFBK's
sister station KSTE Rightwinger Michael Savage "calls occupiers 'vermin'".

"[There is n]obody there to counter this propaganda," she charges.
"'Conservative' talk radio supporters will tell us that this is all about free
speech, and if we don't like it, we should just change the channel."

"They are right," Wilson says, "it is about free speech. OUR free speech. Where
is OUR opportunity to get an alternative message out to our community on OUR
PUBLIC AIRWAVES?"

She goes on to say that no matter the politics, stations are granted FCC
licenses for use of the public airwaves in exchange only for serving in the
public interest.

"How is a hard right corporate power grab serving YOUR public interest?," she
rhetorically asks. "Answer: It is not."

Politics aside?

In 2008, Bain Capital LLC, a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by
current Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, purchased the Clear
Channel conglomerate in a leveraged buyout.

Clear Channel's removal of progressive talk from San Francisco's airwaves at the
beginning of a Presidential election year when Romney is seen by many to be the
GOP's likely nominee is bound to raise eyebrows and renew progressive concerns
about media consolidation under the 1996 Telecom Act.

Collins, however, doesn't see a conspiracy behind the shakeup in San Francisco.
"I just don't think the decisions were about politics," he says. "But, it's very
easy to see that there's an industry bias against Liberals and a basic industry
presumption that Liberals can't be successful in talk radio."

"The real failure of this was to promote progressive talk in the same manner as
conservative talk is promoted," he says.

Indeed, it's not just the corporate radio industry that seems disinclined toward
supporting and promoting progressive programming. In 2006, Collins released a
memo from ABC Radio Networks instructing affiliates who carried programs
syndicated by Air America (the progressive radio network which declared
bankruptcy the same year) to black out all ads from some 90 major corporate
sponsors, including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Visa, Exxon Mobil,
Cingular, McDonald's, and even the U.S. Postal service and the U.S. Navy. All of
them, the memo reads, "do not wish to air on any Air America affiliates."

After the memo [PDF] was posted online by the non-profit media watchdog Fairness
& Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the New York Times noted that the
"advertisers’ avoidance of Air America’s liberal programming seems pointed
when contrasted with the commercial success of right-wing talk radio programs
like those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity."

No reason was given in the memo for the major corporate advertisers shunning of
Air America programming, and none offered comment in response to the NYTimes,
which pointed out that "H-P, Wal-Mart, Visa, Microsoft and McDonald’s [were]
among sponsors of Fox talk shows, including Mr. Hannity’s and Bill
O’Reilly’s."

As to where listeners can find Green960's programming as of January 3rd next
year --- other than via Clear Channel's I Heart Radio smart phone app --- it
won't be easy. At least not on the way to and from work, where Rightwing talk
radio will still be plentiful and featured on several stations in the Bay Area.

While Collins notes that the HD2 band was originally meant as commercial
broadcast radio's answer to satellite radio, "there's not been a big embrace of
HD."

"It's in a bunch of Volkswagens," he says, "and other than that, nobody's got
'em."

----------
My comment ---
All it takes to stop "free" speech is money. Just buy the station and change the
format.
Conservatives know how to do this quite well.
It is a lot easier to be stupid than to be smart.
It is a lot easier to tell lies than to tell the truth.
People generally don't want to hear the truth.
Living in a fog seems to bring comfort.
----------
See also
The accidental truth-teller: Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, and race in America
Monday, December 12, 2011
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Inconvenient-truth-teller-Glenn-Beck\
-the-Tea-Party-and-race-in-America.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


3)
http://news.yahoo.com/non-porn-players-rush-grab-xxx-websites-053725759.html
Non-porn players rush to grab .xxx websites
By Glenn Chapman | AFP – Tuesday 13 December 2011
Colleges, museums and well known groups have rushed to grab online addresses in
the ".xxx" domain to prevent porn purveyors from using their names in the
Internet's new red light district.

Public sales of .xxx addresses began last week after ICM Registry gave
companies, groups, actors, porn stars and other well known people or groups
opportunities to secure websites related to their names.

Well-known colleges were among those quick to stake claims to .xxx websites,
paying $200 for a decade of exclusive control over addresses based on their
names.

Despite painful budget woes in the California State college system, the
University of California, Berkeley, paid $1,200 for six .xxx web addresses based
on name variations for the school and its Golden Bears football team.

UC Berkeley also opted to pay an annual fee of $102 to maintain a "calbears.xxx"
website it did not intend to use, according to college spokesman Robert Sanders.

While the university football team is referred to as the Cal Bears, the name did
not meet trademark requirements for sidelining an address for a decade for $200,
he explained.

"Basically, we're trying to safeguard the university's name and its trademark
from being used by people in a manner we would find inappropriate," Sanders told
AFP on Tuesday.

"We wouldn't want to be associated with the industries that might use these
kinds of sites," he added.

The state university in Kansas said it regretted spending it also believed
necessary: almost $3,000 for a range of .xxx addresses from the school's name to
"KUgirls.xxx" and "KUnurses.xxx" -- all to safeguard its online image.

Florida-based ICM Registry is overseeing the top-level domain (TLD) geared for
adult entertainment and reported that it is seeing nearly a million visits daily
to buy.xxx website showing where the addresses can be purchased.

A check of website name indexing service WHOIS Lookup showed that .xxx addresses
"reserved from registration" included UCBerkeley, Stanford, MOMA, Louvre, Sony,
CocaCola, Vatican, and AFP as well as GirlScouts and BoyScouts.

Lifetime rights to a trademarked brand .xxx could have been purchased during a
30-day "sunrise period" prior to general availability last week, according to
ICM spokeswoman Loren Pomerantz.

"These names are not being 'blocked,' they are simply being bought up so as not
to be purchased by anyone else," she told AFP.

"Prelaunch, governments were able to submit names to be reserved," Pomerantz
continued. "They typically included politicians and culturally sensitive names."

Web addresses are sold through registrars such as Go Daddy and Network
Solutions, and names not qualifying as trademarks are doled out the same ways
that .com, .net, .edu and other domain addresses are purchased.

"Since there is no categorization of names that are purchased, and they are done
through dozens of different registrars, there is no way to know who has bought
what for what price," Pomerantz said.

Some popular web addresses such as gay.xxx were sold at auction. The gay.xxx
address sold for several hundred thousand dollars, according to ICM.

San Francisco was among .xxx Web addresses being held for auction, since city
names don't qualify as trademarks.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was among the groups that
bought .xxx addresses with apparent plans to attract support for its cause, ICM
said.

The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board
in March approved a petition to add .xxx to the list of "generic top level
domains," those endings that include .com, .net, and .org.

ICM chief executive Stuart Lawley estimated between $10 million and $20 million
were spent on the campaign, which began in the year 2000.

He depicted the .xxx domain as "win, win, win" since it creates an online
district clearly marked for those intent on finding or avoiding adult content
and which automatically scans websites for viruses or other malicious codes.

The sites are also designed with tags to be easily identified by parental filter
features in commonly used Web browsers, according to Lawley.

The risque online neighborhood was opposed by some adult industry firms that
feel they are compelled to buy new website addresses to avoid others
capitalizing on their names and by conservative groups opposed to porn.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/vt-frat-asks-members-rape-173159238.html
Vermont frat asks members: Who would you like to rape?
AP – Wednesday 14 December 2011
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A University of Vermont fraternity suspended over a
survey that asked members who they would like to rape is getting a visit from a
representative of the fraternity's national headquarters.
The national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization says in a statement that is has
instructed the chapter to cease all operation, pending further investigation. It
says that any behavior that demeans women is not tolerated.

The national fraternity representative is in Burlington on Wednesday.

University officials say the survey question was "incredibly offensive and
inappropriate." They are investigating where the survey came from, who saw it
and how it was used.

Officials say a student reported the survey to the university over the weekend.
School officials contacted the national fraternity and police to determine if
any crimes have been committed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-landlord-fights-white-only-pool-sign-ruling-220303214\
.html
Ohio landlord fights 'White Only' pool sign ruling
By LISA CORNWELL | AP – Tuesday 13 December 2011
CINCINNATI (AP) — A landlord found to have discriminated against a black girl
by posting a "White Only" sign at a swimming pool wants a state civil rights
commission to reconsider its decision.

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission found on Sept. 29 that Jamie Hein, who's white,
violated the Ohio Civil Rights Act by posting the sign at a pool at the duplex
where the teenage girl was visiting her parents. The parents filed a
discrimination charge with the commission and moved out of the duplex in the
racially diverse city to "avoid subjecting their family to further humiliating
treatment," the commission said in a release announcing its finding.

An investigation revealed that Hein in May posted on the gated entrance to the
pool an iron sign that stated "Public Swimming Pool, White Only," the commission
statement said.

Several witnesses confirmed that the sign was posted, and the landlord indicated
that she posted it because the girl used in her hair chemicals that would make
the pool "cloudy," according to the commission.

Hein, of Cincinnati, hung up when The Associated Press called her for comment
Tuesday. A message was left at her lawyer's office.

The commission's statement said that its investigation concluded that the
posting of such a sign "restricts the social interaction between Caucasians and
African-Americans and reinforces discriminatory actions aimed at oppressing
people of color."

Commissioners were scheduled to hear Hein's request for reconsideration at a
meeting Thursday in Columbus, commission spokeswoman Brandi Martin said.

If the commissioners uphold their original finding, the case would be referred
to the Ohio attorney general's office, which would represent the commission's
findings before an administrative law judge, Martin said.

Penalties in the case could include a cease-and-desist order and even punitive
damages, but the administrative law judge would determine any penalties, Martin
said.

It still would be possible for the parties to reach a settlement before
resorting to legal action, she said.

Any decision by the administrative judge could be appealed to Hamilton County
Common Pleas Court in Cincinnati, Martin said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
We Will Stand: Defending Voting Rights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHhpTyDYXfM
Friend,

Last week, NAACP issued a call for voting rights in the streets of New York, at
the United Nations and across the nation through the media. The far right is now
on the defensive about their attack on voting rights. In collaboration with
NAACP, we have put together a video about the impact of the voting right attacks
on communities of color. Please take a moment to watch and spread the message to
everyone you know.

In the rural South, many people of a certain age have no birth certificate
because they were born to a midwife. For them, the barriers to getting a state
issued ID without a birth certificate are tremendous. Others are dependent on
rides to the polls provided by church-organized Sunday voting drives, which have
been shut down in some states.

In 2012, we will work with NAACP to ensure every American has the ability to
vote. Across the country, community activists are joining us in that effort. As
our video shows, South Carolina doctor Brenda Williams has spent countless hours
and thousands of dollars helping her patients clear the financial and legal
hurdles associated with satisfying the state's new strict voter ID law.

Dr. Williams is a hero in her community – but she cannot do it alone. It is
going to take the efforts of people like you to help strengthen our front line
and ensure our right to vote in 2012 and beyond. I urge you to take this
opportunity to make this movement your own and stand on the right side of
history. Please take a moment to watch this story and share it with your
friends.

We would like to make sure that everyone has a voice!

Best,

Robert Greenwald

----------
One of the comments found at the YouTube ---
It's hard to believe Republicans have any credibility in our land today. That
they can so blatantly attempt to suppress votes without shame is galling.
When did loving, caring Americans suddenly become a teeming mass of heartless,
selfish ghouls? I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, but if I were looking for a
party to fall into step with, the GOP frightens me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


7)
http://news.yahoo.com/tech-goes-wrong-man-wins-57m-slot-machine-073803435.html
When tech goes wrong: Man who wins $57m on slot machine told it's a software
error, offered $100
By Trevor Mogg | Digital Trends – Tue, Dec 13, 2011
It wouldn’t matter whether it was at the gambling mecca of Vegas, or, as in
the case of Behar Merlaku, at a little-known casino in the tiny Austrian town of
Bregenz – if the bells and lights on the slot machine I’m on start ringing
and flashing, telling me I’ve won $57 million, then of course I’ll be
planning my retirement.
But when Swiss national Merlaku went to claim his jackpot, owners of the casino
simply said there’d been a “software error” and that the 26-year-old was
therefore not entitled to the big money prize.

Instead they offered him $100 and a free meal, which, hardly surprisingly, he
rejected. Admittedly, it appeared that the top prize was for a five-slot match,
whereas Merlaku had only managed to match four-slots, but with the machine’s
screen and accompanying racket telling him he’d won, why wouldn’t he believe
it?

So upset was Merlaku that he has decided to launch a lawsuit against the casino,
claiming it should honor the ‘win.’ The incident took place earlier this
year, while the legal action will begin next month.

The Daily Mail reports the lawsuit as likely being the biggest ever claim of its
kind – and one which will be closely watched by gaming operators the world
over.

In an interview on Austrian television, Merlaku said that the jackpot had come
up loud and clear. “There was music and the sum I had won – nearly 43
million euros – was displayed on a screen.”

He added, “I was so overjoyed and in my head I began calculating what I could
do with all this money.”

A few months ago, Merlaku told the Austrian Times, “I will fight for this
until my death. I don’t accept it. I can’t sleep anymore and I constantly
think about the injustice I’ve experienced.”

In the coming months the hopeful gambler will find out whether a supposed
software glitch is a good enough reason to prevent him from getting his hands on
the money. If, on the other hand, he does win, he won’t be the only one
hitting the jackpot, with his lawyers no doubt pocketing a tidy sum for their
trouble.

The Bregenz establishment is run by Casinos Austria, which operates casinos in
more than 15 countries.

[Image: Richard Goldberg / Shutterstock]

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


8)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/giant-plumes-methane-bubbling-surface-arcti\
c-ocean-163804179.html
Giant plumes of methane bubbling to surface of Arctic Ocean
By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow – Wednesday 14 December 2011
Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of plumes of methane gas, some 1,000
meters in diameter, bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Scientists are
concerned that as the Arctic Shelf recedes, the unprecedented levels of gas
released could greatly accelerate global climate change.

Igor Semiletov of the Russian Academy of Sciences tells the UK's Independent
that the plumes of methane, a gas 20 times as harmful as carbon dioxide, have
shocked scientists who have been studying the region for decades. "Earlier we
found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of meters in
diameter," he said. "This is the first time that we've found continuous,
powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter.
It's amazing."

Semiletov said that while his research team has discovered more than 100 plumes,
they estimate there to be "thousands" over the wider area, extending from the
Russian mainland to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.


"In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than
100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and
injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed," Semiletov said. "We
carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields
of a fantastic scale — I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a
kilometer or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere —
the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal."

----------

My comment ---

Is it time to start praying / preying yet?

----------

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:

• New billboard depicts Virgin Mary holding a pregnancy test

• Armed gang steal millions from Dubai royal family

• New stratolaunch plane will take people into Earth's orbit

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-----------


9)
My comment ---
American Airlines supports our civil rights.
I'm glad the top brass were smart enough to buy this property when it was cheap.
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-american-airlines-30-million-london-town-house-1\
43724394.html
Exclusive: American Airlines' $30 million London town house
By Rhys Jones and Chris Wickham | Reuters – Wednesday 14 December 2011
LONDON (Reuters) - Buried deep in American Airlines' Chapter 11 bankruptcy
filing is a striking asset -- a town house in one of London's most expensive
residential streets that property experts say could be worth up to $30 million.

The five-bedroom house in London's high-end Kensington district is a throwback
to the airline's expansion two decades ago and stands a 10 minute walk from the
former home of Princess Diana, with gentry and diplomats as neighbors.

UK regulatory filings show the house has been used as a residence for senior
executives, including the current chairman and chief executive Thomas Horton,
since the airline bought it in the early 1990s.

Listed as "London Residence LON6526," the five-floor house is one of eight owned
properties declared by parent company AMR Corp when it asked for protection from
creditors on November 30, sagging under $30 billion of liabilities.

The plush residence in Cottesmore Gardens -- recently named Britain's 10th most
expensive address by property firm Zoopla --

could become a thorn in the airline's side as it fights its way through
bankruptcy. Corporate restructuring usually involves sacrifices by staff,
retirees and creditors.

Robert Mann, an airline consultant with RW Mann & Co, who is a former fleet
planning executive at AMR, said the ownership of the house is far from the
biggest problem the airline is facing but added it would raise eyebrows and
should probably be sold.

"As part of an overall debt-clearing exercise, yes it probably should be sold
and leased back if they really want to stay there. If you can realize 17 million
bucks, you ought to do it."

Confirming ownership of the house, American Airlines said it is used by the
senior official in charge of its international business "and for corporate
functions from time to time."

Contacted last week, it initially declined to say whether it planned to keep the
house, but in response to further Reuters queries said its ownership of the
property was being reviewed.

"AMR can confirm that it's a property it purchased in the 1990s when property
values were lower," the airline said.

"However, as we work through our Chapter 11 reorganization, we are focused on
achieving a competitive cost and debt structure and will, of course, review our
use and ownership of this and all our real estate as part of that process."

A union representing 30,000 workers at American Airlines and American Eagle
expressed outrage over the property.

"In the current economic downturn, many Americans have lost their houses. In
this bankruptcy, AMR's executives should lose their house," said James C.
Little, president of the 200,000-member Transport Workers Union of America,
which is on the airline's creditors' committee.

"However, the typical pattern for this company is workers keep it afloat through
concessions, bring in outside work and boost productivity while managers pocket
hundreds of millions in bonuses and live posh lifestyles. This would have been
Marie Antoinette's favorite airline."

Many large companies own or rent property for executives posted overseas, though
AMR's filing lays considerable stress on efforts to cut costs before filing for
bankruptcy.

In its request for Chapter 11 protection, AMR said it had already shed billions
of dollars in cumulative annual costs over the past 8 years to cope with the
"relentless pressures of ever intensifying competition and rising fuel prices."

The airline said it had pursued "every effort short of Chapter 11 to reform its
cost structure."

DISCREET ENCLAVE

Lined by cars such as Porsches and Range Rovers, Cottesmore Gardens in west
London is a quiet side street.

The airline's house would be worth between 12.5 million pounds and 16 million
pounds if it came to the market today depending on the internal state of repair,
said Kit Allen, a director of house sales at property consultancy Savills .

A source at international real estate group Knight Frank said the house could
fetch as much as 20 million pounds.

"This is a very discreet enclave that is ideal for high-profile residents
wanting to live in relative anonymity," said the source, who asked not to be
named.

The street houses a private school and the most recent electoral records show
the Cottesmore Gardens set includes an earl, the former chief executive of one
of Europe's largest companies and a prominent former investment banker.

Disgraced Canadian media tycoon Conrad Black was a neighbor until 2005 when he
reportedly sold for 13 million pounds.

A Reuters reporter who visited the property on December 1, found no one at home.
A few steps lead up to imposing black double doors below a renovated facade in
immaculate condition.

The property appears to be a normal family home, with a high-spec kitchen in the
basement and a living room, complete with chandelier, on the first floor.

AMR Corp filed for creditor protection after failing to win a deal with pilots
to pare labor costs.

Employees were notified on the day of the bankruptcy filing that future retirees
can no longer get a lump sum distribution because the pension plan is
underfunded.

The airline has started rejecting leases for aircraft and is trying to relieve
itself of two real estate leases including one for a terminal at Chicago Midway
airport.

Apart from the group's Texas headquarters, its credit union and a handful of
reservation offices, nearly all the airline's offices and airport facilities are
leased rather than owned.

*** My comment --- Successful businesses own their properties, just like
successful churches -- or at least they own some rental income properties. What
a good investment they made in buying the London property. Now they can sell it
and make a huge profit. That's the way things work in our capitalism. ***

(Additional reporting by Kyle Peterson in Chicago, Paul Hoskins and Tom Bill in
London; Writing by Chris Wickham and Tim Hepher; Editing by Janet McBride)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


10)
Woman dies in freak NYC elevator accident
http://news.yahoo.com/woman-dies-freak-nyc-elevator-accident-173201242.html
AP – Wednesday 14 December 2011
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman was killed in a freak elevator mishap Wednesday at a
Madison Avenue office building, police and fire officials said.

The accident happened at around 10 a.m. in a 26-story office tower near Grand
Central Terminal that has been the longtime home of advertising agency Y&R,
formerly known as Young & Rubicam.

Officials said the woman was stepping onto the elevator on the first floor when
either her foot or leg became caught in the closing doors. The car then rose
abruptly, dragging her body into the shaft and killing her, officials said.

The elevator then became stuck between the first and second floors. Two people
who were on the elevator were taken to a hospital to be evaluated for
psychological trauma but weren't physically injured, Fire Department officials
said.

Investigators with the fire department, the police department and the city's
buildings department were on the scene in midtown Manhattan. The name of the
victim was not immediately released. Fire and police officials said she was 41.

A spokeswoman for Y&R, which announced just days ago that it planned to vacate
the building for a new headquarters, confirmed that there had been a fatality
but said she couldn't yet provide additional information.

The company is among a number of tenants in the building.

Officials initially said they thought the elevator had fallen two floors.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  Officer: Soldier in WikiLeaks case trained to keep it secret
2)  Supporters of Accused WikiLeaks Source Rally as Hearing Continues
3)  "Inappropriate Relationships" and Gay Marriage
4)  Anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts
5)  The 10 Greediest Americans of 2011
6)  Parting Glances - Truth stranger than fiction - by Charles Alexander
7)  Finally Time to Wave Goodbye to Newt Gingrich
8)  Newt Gingrich: Being gay is a choice for some
9)  If One Man Can Take Down Lowe's and Kayak, What's Next?
10)  The Fracking Industry Has Bought Off Congress



EXTRA
something calming ---
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/sting-a-winter%E2%80%99s-night/preview-of\
-the-concert/874/
A Winter's Night ...Live from Durham Cathedral

------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/12/13/proud-lesbian-mom-confronts-the-homophob\
ic-mayor-of-her-town-video/
Proud Lesbian Mom Confronts the Homophobic Mayor of Her Town (VIDEO)
December 13, 2011
By Mitchell S. Gilbert

------------------------------------------------------------

http://rabbirami.blogspot.com/2011/12/taking-christ-out-of-christopher.html
http://rabbirami.blogspot.com/


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
---------



1)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2011-12-18/wikileaks-bradley-manning\
-gay-soldier/52044080/1
Officer: Soldier in WikiLeaks case trained to keep it secret
December 18, 2011
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - An intelligence officer who worked with the Army
specialist accused of giving U.S. secrets to the WikiLeaks website said Sunday
that the soldier was considered to have an especially high understanding of
enemy threats in Iraq and had to be trusted to keep the material he saw private.

The description of Pfc. Bradley Manning from one of his officers came at the
beginning of the third day of a military hearing to determine whether he should
be court martialed. He is accused of giving WikiLeaks a trove of government
material while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010,
including Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, State Department cables and a military
video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 11 men.
Capt. Casey Fulton testified for the prosecution that Manning had a "top secret"
security clearance, enabling him to view a wide range of classified material.
None of the material posted on WikiLeaks was classified higher than "secret."

Fulton said Manning was regarded as having a better understanding than other
analysts of enemy threats in Iraq. She said analysts such as Manning, known as
all-source analysts, were trained to synthesize intelligence from a wide array
of intelligence sources.

Fulton said analysts are trained not to disclose classified information and are
not allowed to burn classified information onto CDs for personal use. But she
said it was impossible to supervise them 100 percent of the time.

"You have to trust that they'll safeguard the material the way that they've been
taught," she said.

Fulton also said that sometime before April 2010 when WikiLeaks released a video
featuring an Apache helicopter attack, she saw a similar clip on a workstation
computer in Baghdad. She said Manning later showed her that the WikiLeaks clip
and the one Fulton had seen were the same. Manning is suspected of leaking the
video.

The hearing began Friday at Fort Meade outside Washington and could run several
more days. The Army says it may take several more weeks for the commander of the
Military District off Washington to decide whether Manning will be
court-martialed.

Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington may choose other courses, including administrative
punishment or dismissal of the 22 counts against him, including aiding the
enemy. He also could add more charges based on evidence produced at the hearing.

Manning, who turned 24 Saturday, could face life in prison if convicted.

The Obama administration says the released information has threatened valuable
military and diplomatic sources and strained America's relations with other
governments. Manning's lawyers counter that much of the information that was
classified by the Pentagon posed no risk.

Among the first issues to arise during weekend testimony was whether Manning's
sexual orientation is relevant to the case against him. His attorneys maintained
that his status as a homosexual in the military before the repeal of "don't ask,
don't tell" contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred
him from having access to sensitive material.

The defense revealed that Manning had written to one of his supervisors in
Baghdad before his arrest, saying he was suffering from gender-identity
disorder. He included a picture of himself dressed as a woman and talked about
how it was affecting his ability to do his job and even think clearly.

Maj. Matthew Kemkes, one of Manning's lawyers, asked Special Agent Toni Graham,
an Army criminal investigator, whether she had talked to people who believed
Manning was gay or found evidence among his belongings relating to
gender-identity disorder. The condition often is described as a mental diagnosis
in which people believe they were born the wrong sex.

Graham said such questions were irrelevant to the investigation.

"We already knew before we arrived that Pfc. Manning was a homosexual," Graham
said.

Prosecutors objected several times to the questions. Kemkes responded that if
the government can argue that Manning intended to leak secrets, "what is going
on in my client's mind is very important."

Manning's appearances over the last two days in the Fort Meade courtroom marked
the first time he has been seen in public after 19 months in detention. The
Oklahoma native comes to court in Army camouflage fatigues and wearing
dark-rimmed glasses.

Manning sat calmly in the courtroom Saturday without appearing to react to the
testimony, even when centered on his troubled mental state and homosexuality.
Manning listened intently and regularly took notes.

The case has spawned an international support network of people who believe the
U.S. government has gone too far in seeking to punish Manning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://www.truth-out.org/supporters-accused-wikileaks-source-rally-hearing-conti\
nues/1324227827
Supporters of Accused WikiLeaks Source Rally as Hearing Continues
Sunday 18 December 2011
by: Charles Davis, Inter Press Service | Report
Washington - Hundreds of people gathered Saturday outside a U.S. military base
where evidence against Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking
classified information to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, is being
presented before a military judge for the first time since Manning's arrest.

An U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Manning was arrested in May 2010 by U.S.
military police in Iraq when a government informant reported him to law
enforcement after he allegedly confessed to leaking to the public scores of
classified information containing evidence of corruption and war crimes.

He has been charged with aiding "the enemy" through the disclosures, a charge
that carries the possibility of death, though prosecutors says they are seeking
a life sentence.

"Bradley shouldn't be doing time for the Pentagon's war crimes," chanted
approximately 300 supporters outside the gates of Maryland's Fort Meade, home of
the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), as dozens of police and a helicopter
circling above looked on.

The rally, one of 50 taking place across the world, coincided with Manning's
24th birthday and the second day of court hearings aimed at determining whether
evidence against him is sufficient to proceed to trial. According to Manning's
counsel, David E. Coombs, the hearings are expected to conclude before
Christmas.

Manning is accused of leaking video evidence of a 2007 massacre outside Baghdad
in which at least 18 people, including two Reuters journalists, were killed by
U.S. troops in what many consider a war crime.

He also reportedly leaked hundreds of thousands of State Department cables
exposing U.S.support for dictatorial regimes, the Obama administration's
responsibility for a missile strike in Yemen that killed dozens of women and
children and the cover-up of child rape by private U.S. military contractors in
Afghanistan.

Exposing America's "dark underbelly"

"He did the right thing," said Michael Patterson, a 21-year-old Alaska native
and veteran of the Iraq war. A former U.S. Army interrogator, Patterson credits
Manning - and the "Collateral Murder" video of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad in
particular - with finally turning him against a war he once supported.

Rather than making him a traitor, he said, Manning's actions demonstrated his
commitment to upholding a "soldier's honour".

Manning knew his commanders would be unwilling to act on the evidence of war
crimes he witnessed, said Patterson. "So he went outside the influence of the
government and gave it to an entity that was for the public good. And now you
have a revolution in the Arab world and you have a revolution in the United
States."

Despite White House claims that the disclosures threatened U.S. national
security and the lives of U.S. informants named in diplomatic cables, a State
Department review conducted earlier this year concluded that they had caused no
serious damage.

At the rally, protesters from around the country - including more than 40 from
the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York - waved signs and chanted slogans
proclaiming Manning a hero who was being prosecuted not for endangering America,
but for exposing the dark underbelly of the American empire.

"When truth and justice are in jeopardy, it is the job of the solider to stand
up and fight for a peace that transcends," said Lieutenant Dan Choi, a prominent
activist who was discharged from the military for being openly gay. "Bradley
Manning did that and he should be free."

"He is not the one on trial," Choi added. "The United States of America is on
trial."

Though charged with aiding the enemy, Manning - based on online conversations he
reportedly had with the informant who turned him in - explained that he was
motivated by a desire to inform the American people about what was being carried
out in their name.

"If you had free reign over classified networks. and you saw incredible things,
awful things. what would you do?" Manning reportedly asked.

"I want people to see the truth, because without information, you cannot make
informed decisions as a public," he wrote.

Manning's imprisonment

Manning's case has become an international cause c�l�bre not just because of
what he allegedly disclosed, but also because of the way he has been treated in
captivity.

For the first 10 months of his imprisonment, Manning was denied almost all
contact with the outside world and held in solitary confinement 23-hours-a-day,
contrary to the recommendations of mental health professionals and despite the
fact he had not yet been to trial, much less convicted of a crime.

In March, the chief spokesman for the U.S. State Department, PJ Crowley,
resigned after publicly remarking, "What is being done to Bradley Manning is
ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Human rights group Amnesty International also denounced Manning's pre-trial
detention conditions as "inhumane", criticism that ultimately led him to be
transferred from Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia to Kansas's Fort
Leavenworth, where supporters say his treatment has improved.

But the Obama administration continues to steadfastly refuse requests by the
United Nations' special rapporteur on torture to meet with Manning as part of an
investigation into his treatment at Quantico.

That fact led more than 50 members of the European Parliament to send a letter
to President Obama and other top U.S. officials late last month demanding that
U.N. access to Manning be allowed in light of reports that he "has been
subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and other abusive treatment
tantamount to torture".

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, meanwhile, filed a petition on Dec. 16
with the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals demanding that lawyers for
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be allowed full access to the proceedings
against Manning.

Many observers speculate that Manning's harsh and unusual treatment is both an
attempt to intimidate other would-be whistle-blowers as well as an effort to
intimidate Manning into testifying against Assange, who is currently the subject
of a U.S. grand jury investigation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
---------


3)
http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=135822023
"Inappropriate Relationships" and Gay Marriage
   a.. Blog Post by: Kevin Winge
   b.. December 18, 2011 - 9:19 AM
You just can't make this stuff up.

Republican State Senator Amy Koch resigns as Majority Leader of the Minnesota
Senate and announces she is not seeking reelection next year because of an
"inappropriate relationship" with a male staff member. Koch, the proponent of
all things Republican - like a constitutional amendment to ensure gays and
lesbians can't marry - turns out to not be the best spokesperson for the
sanctity of marriage. Unless, of course, you don't find it hypocritical that a
married woman, with a child, can have an "inappropriate relationship" while
denying others the right to marry.

With events like the Koch scandal, it is becoming increasingly clear that net
year's constitutional amendment is not about preserving marriage. If it were
about preserving heterosexual marriage, let's take a vote on outlawing behavior
like "inappropriate relationships." If it is about the sanctity of heterosexual
marriage, let's have a constitutional amendment outlawing divorce.

Let's be clear, the constitutional amendment next year is about denying rights
to a group of people based on sexual orientation while allowing heterosexual
hypocrites to enjoy all of the privileges that come with marriage including,
apparently, the occasional "inappropriate relationship" on the side. Aren't you
tired of the hypocrisy, Minnesota?

I am.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
---------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-donors-pay-off-kmart-layaway-accounts-221000605.\
html
Anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts
By MARGERY A. BECK | AP - Thursday 15 December 2011

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter,
wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to
afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the
counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager
at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then
looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was
going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help:
Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the
Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's
clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s
had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed
out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash
register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said
she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with
it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to
"remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything
like it.

"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell
her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held
nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan,
Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items
for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a
few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.

The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart
executives said.

"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of
the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.

The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart
spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen
some layaway accounts paid off.

Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or
spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to
compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of
the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four
decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold
onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay
off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's
assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway
at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't
have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone
with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and
was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."

"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right
time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.

Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last
10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.

"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because
you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff
said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid
all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest
grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to
use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's
layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six
customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's
inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's
Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'"
store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let
her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing
the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in
the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she
learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.

"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would
have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and
gave her a kiss."

___

Associated Press writers Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa; Matt Volz, in
Helena, Mont.; and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
The 10 Greediest Americans of 2011
http://www.nationofchange.org/10-greediest-americans-2011-1324167294
Sam Pizzigati, List: You don't have to make millions to rate as an all-star
greedster. You do have to be ruthless, self-absorbed, and insensitive to others.
Here's my list of the 10 greediest Americans of 2011. Starting with #10: Michael
T. Duke, Wal-Mart CEO Duke takes home his millions - $18.7 million in the
company's latest fiscal year - by squeezing workers.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
http://www.pridesource.com/section.html?section=op-partingglances

Between The Lines 12/22

Parting Glances

Truth stranger than fiction

by Charles Alexander




I've been told about a well known TV preacher who had an unexpected visit from
none other than the True Ghost of Xmas Past.




I'm omitting his name and church affiliation because, the true truth is, you
probably know who he is. He's loud. Not too bright. He cheats on life when he
can.




If reading this spoils your holiday, I'm sorry. Come visit me. (A gift's not
necessary, but thoughtful nonetheless.) Sit on my knee. We'll sing Jingle Bell
Rock. I'll offer hospitality of hot apple cider, and dust off last year's
plastic mistletoe.




Our preacher, so I'm told by reliable Fox News sources, hadn't been drinking
when his ghostly visit occurred -- at least not drinking spirits to excess --
when he fell into a stupor. Half awake. Half asleep. His normal self. Hearing
voices that seemed to echo across distant years. One by one seeing squinty-eyed
images . . .




. . . Costumes of other times. Sad plantation music. Haunting suffragette
voices. Sounds of endless cattle cars slowly moving through darkly, airtight
nights. He tossed. He turned. But couldn't look away . . .




"Preacher! Preacher! Hear me! You who profess to love the sinner, hate the sin.
It's midnight. I am the True Ghost of Xmas Past. I bring haunting images of
oppression that you and your kind conjured into being, for lack of love,
charity, compassion. See these, thou son of perdition. Tremble!"




And looking up at his whitewashed condo wall with it's 24-karat gold-framed sign
that says simply, Jesus Saves!, this is what the preacher saw and heard, so I'm
told.




"See these heavy, clanking chains. I and my kidnaped brothers endured
backbreaking hardships, because you and your self-righteous followers said the
Bible endorses slavery. That black is the mark of Cain. That Jesus is lily
white. Whiter than snow. My bleeding stripes made your race top dog. For shame!"




Said another, "Touch my weary, wrinkled face. For decades you self-righteous
clowns denied me the right to vote. My civil rights. Suffer not a woman to speak
in church your Good Book says. Woman is made from Adam's generous rib. Keep her
quiet. Her place is in the home. Be fruitful. Multiply. Be obedient chattel,
daughter of sinful Eve."




And still another, "I'm the guy who supports my family. I work hard to raise my
kids. You conned me into feeding your greedy ministry. Give ten percent or more,
you mooched me. With my money you buy a house, three cars, a private plane.
Jesus says, 'The poor you have with you always.' Goddamn it! Ain't that your
gospel truth!"




And last, a many-voiced chorus sadly echoing. "Your version of faith says we
killed your God. Your centuries of evil lies made genocide of our millions
possible. Your burning hatred fanned Auschwitz's fiery furnaces. Who have you
found to hate today? What group to boxcar and bully to death? To damn eternally?
Pray tell, if you dare."




And so awakening the TV preacher cried, "Blame the devil. Don't blame me. Peace
on earth. Goodwill to all. Amen." (And promptly fell back to sleep. And snored.)



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


7)
http://news.yahoo.com/finally-time-wave-goodbye-newt-gingrich-191800163.html
Finally Time to Wave Goodbye to Newt Gingrich
By K.C. Dermody | Yahoo! Contributor Network - Sunday 18 December 2011

COMMENTARY| Is it finally time to wave goodbye and good riddance to GOP
presidential candidate Newt Gingrich? According to the Washington Post, Bert
Brandenburg, executive director of the nonpartisan Justice at Stake campaign,
summed it up well with his comment. Brandenburg said the candidate is "racing
toward a cliff" after his latest assault on activist judges.


Gingrich is famous for spewing hateful and questionable remarks, as in his
comments that caused a stir in the Middle East when he called Palestinians an
"invented people." According to CBS News, Palestinian official Nabil Abu Rdeneh
called the comments "unfortunate" and called Gingrich "ignorant."


His latest attack may have effectively ended his campaign, with the left and
right surprised at how far the Republican candidate will go. According to the
Washington Post, Gingrich told reporters if he were to become president he
would, "abolish whole courts to be rid of judges whose decisions he feels are
out of step with the country."


The former Speaker of the House must have developed a God complex over the years
if he thinks that's going to fly with the majority of American citizens. He
seems to think he is above in our Constitution, not to mention the laws of
morality and human decency. We already know he thinks nothing of cheating on his
wives, divorcing his second wife as she was battling cancer, and now it's
revealed he has no respect for the document that our country is based on.


The judges that Gingrich would like to be rid of are the ones that are in favor
of gay marriage or against prayer in school, and he says they are "activists"
who should be thrown out. Just because they are not in line with his own skewed
beliefs, does not mean they should be impeached.


Judicial experts, and that even includes conservatives, as reported by the
Washington Post, have questioned the constitutionality of Gingrich's stance. The
document allows impeachment as a way to remove bad judges, not just the ones he
doesn't agree with.


Earlier this year, he called the House Republican plan for Medicare "right-wing
social engineering," causing discord within his own party, but his latest
assault will likely be the final straw for his political aspirations.


It's high time we see this man out the door. And quickly. He would not only be
an ineffective president, he could potentially take this country down to unseen
depths and disparity. At minimum, Newt is a bad person and a horrific leader.
Good riddance.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


8)
December 15, 2011 5:39 PM
Newt Gingrich: Being gay is a choice for some
   By Brian Montopoli
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich suggested Thursday that being
gay is a choice. At least for some people.


Asked if people can choose to be gay, Gingrich told the Des Moines Register
editorial board that he does not "believe in genetic determinism, and I don't
think there is any great evidence of genetic determinism."


He said that certain people may choose to be gay if they have certain genetic
traits and are raised in a certain environment.


"I think people have a significant range of choice within a genetic pattern," he
said. "I believe it's a combination of genetics and environment. I think that
both are involved. I think people have many ranges of choices."


Gingrich's appears to be saying people can choose to be gay if they have certain
"propensities" and genetic and environmental characteristics. Asked if people
can choose to be straight, he responded, "Look, people choose to be celibate."


"People choose many things in life," he said. "You know, there is a bias in
favor of non-celibacy. It's part of how the species recreates. And yet there is
a substantial amount of people who choose celibacy either out of religious
vocation or for other reasons."


Video of the comments, via Think Progress, is above. The portion discussed above
starts at the 5:00 mark.


Earlier in the interview, Gingrich was asked if he saw a correlation between the
civil rights and gay rights movements. He called the parallel "ludicrous" and
"offensive," saying no one is trying to segregate gay Americans. The former
House speaker added that his position reflects "a 3,000 year tradition that is
very deep in our culture for very profound reasons."


"I think there's an enormous difference between an inescapable fact of
race...and a question about culture," he said. "A question about 'what are your
values?' I think marriage is between a man and a woman. That's a value
proposition."


"There's a big difference between saying that you are going to have an
acceptance of people's lifestyle and saying you now are going to normalize that
as the standard for the whole country," he continued, before reiterating his
support for reinstating the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.


Gingrich, whose half-sister Candace Gingrich-Jones is gay, earlier this week
said he supported sending a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage
to the states.

----------

Gingrich on gay as a choice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szCXgnq9hUs&feature=youtu.be



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


9)
http://news.yahoo.com/one-man-down-lowes-kayak-whats-next-150955327.html
If One Man Can Take Down Lowe's and Kayak, What's Next?
By Scott Goodson | Forbes - Sat, Dec 17, 2011

Scott Goodson is the founder of StrawberryFrog, the world's first cultural
movement agency. His first book, Uprising exploring the phenomena of movements
will be published by McGraw Hill soon.



"Forget anarchy. Today' protests, revolts and riots are self-organizing,
hyper-networked-and headed for a city near you," as the latest edition of WIRED
puts it.



Mohamed Bouazizi, the fruit vendor in Tunisia-the ground zero Upriser in
2011-sparked a MASSive global wave of individual uprisings. But while the impact
of his selfless act is still being felt in the Middle East, and increasingly
other regions in the world, the true potential of movements is still gathering
momentum, for good or for bad.



Take for example the case of David Carlton. According to the New York Times
today: "This same David Carlton is the person who has maligned the television
show "All American Muslim" - a reality series on the Learning Channel about five
families in Dearborn Mich.-as a front for an Islamic takeover of America and
pressured advertisers (Lowe's Home Improvement and Kayak) to pull their
commercials."



Here is an example of one man, his smartphone, and the incredible power of the
individual to change the game especially among those corporations who are
sensitive to negative publicity in the social media space.



The NY Times goes on to say: "What makes the attack on "All-American Muslim"
more disturbing - and revealing - is that it was prosecuted by just one person,
a person unaffiliated with any established organization.a person who effectively
tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry."



There are of course movements against movements-such as Mark Ramirez's movement
against the Anti- All-American Muslim movement.



"Movements are at once the symptoms and instruments of progress," said Walter
Lippmann.



For over a decade I have been convinced that movements propelled by individuals,
and "movement marketing' in the case of brands and companies, is the new way
forward for anyone trying to influence public opinion with scale and
credibility, sell products, earn customer loyalty, solve social problems and,
quite possibly, change the world.



Admittedly, this bold statement raises a lot of questions. What do popular
movements-which have, through history, given us many of our cherished freedoms,
our finest heroes, our basic human rights-have to do with the crass and
superficial business of selling stuff? And what makes anyone think they can
plan, calculate around something as spontaneous and authentic as a movement? And
by the way, people have been starting movements forever-so what makes them so
important at this particular moment in time.



The current movement-mania is being fueled by several factors, the most obvious
is technology. Bill Wasik, writes a fascinating piece entitled "Crowd Control"
in next month's Wired Magazine, which I highly recommend. WIRED MAGAZINE JAN
2010: "Let's start with the fundamental paradox: Our personal technology in the
21st century-our laptops and smartphones, our browsers and apps-does everything
it can do to keep us out of crowds." Who wants to go to packed stores when you
can click and buy a few boxes sending them towards your home simply and easily
via Amazon? And yet. "On those rare occasions where we want to form a crowd, our
tech can work strange, dark magic."

As we have seen in the Middle East and elsewhere, modern movements can be a
force for good, for change, for a new generation of thinkers. In business,
brands have sparked positive movements and generated market share at the same
time. For example: Tom's Shoes, Livestrong by Nike, and the Levis' Go Forth
movement by Wieden + Kennedy.



Cultural Movements, as we have shown at my own agency StrawberryFrog, can also
be a most effective marketing strategy for brands as they globalize and maximize
"generation-c" - the new generation of connected individuals.



Take for example Mahindra, one of the most powerful companies in India. Earlier
this year, they developed and sparked a mass movement to drive positive change,
and introduced a globally-relevant zeitgeist with the motto: RISE. What started
in India is now going global. Watch the TV commercial below. It is intended to
inspire youthful people to think outside the box, accept no limitations and use
their ingenuity to come up with technological innovations and ideas that can
make the world a better place.


Mahindra Rise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yASJcveJ9rU
There are those who accept things as they are. And those who Rise to change.

As Sonal Jhuj, put it quite correctly: "A movement isn't an advertising
campaign. It's a way to collect and arm your network to work towards a common
goal. And you can't do it, unless you believe in it just as much. Which is why
Mahindras can lead the 'rise' movement but perhaps not all Indian companies can.
Something about the history of the company, its people, its ethos and most
importantly Anand Mahindra, gives birth to the movement. It is therefore a
credible movement that cannot be easily replicated by another brand.



Knowing how to master the power of movements-how to identify, crystallize,
curate and spark a movement- is now within reach of everyone with a smartphone.
Movements are on the rise. For good or for bad, they will only continue to grow
and evolve.



In this week's New Yorker Magazine, there is yet another example of the impact
of movements. David Remnick has written a memorizing piece on what is happening
in Russia, entitled "The Civil Archipelago." He looks at the new generation and
their desire for an uprising in Russia, portraying activists such as the Khimki
Forest Movment and Noize MC, who has staked his reputation on a movement against
corruption. Remnick ends his piece by saying that compared to Tunisia, the
chance for an uprising is "far more difficult to conceive." He however
continues: "Sergei Kavalyov, (81 years old) a biophysicist who was Sakharov's
protege in the Russian human rights movement says that "while all the groups and
movements...could not really be called civil society, they did give him grounds
for mild optimism."



And then there is TIME. This week TIME Magazine named you, the protester, its
person of the year. It celebrates the philosophy of Cultural Movements as much
as this piece explores the phenomena of movements.



Why "person of the year"? Why now? Why is this so important?



"History often emerges only in retrospect. Events become significant only when
looked back on. No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set
himself on fire in a public square in a town barely on a map, he would spark
protests that would bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and rattle
regimes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Or that that spirit of dissent would spur
Mexicans to rise up against the terror of drug cartels, Greeks to march against
unaccountable leaders, Americans to occupy public spaces to protest income
inequality, and Russians to marshal themselves against a corrupt
autocracy.Protests have now occurred in countries whose populations total at
least 3 billion people, and the word protest has appeared in newspapers and
online exponentially more this past year than at any other time in history. "
Read more.

Join the discussion about this phenomenon online at UPRISING. And on UPRISING
MOVEMENTS.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


10)
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/270-37/8974-the-fracking-industry-has-bo\
ught-off-congress
The Fracking Industry Has Bought Off Congress
By Scott Thill, AlterNet

18 December 11

Thanks to our morally bankrupt political system and the Supreme Court's ruling
on Citizens United, the fracking lobby's power of the purse is huge.

Environmentalists and other well-adjusted citizens of Earth, I've got some good
news and some bad news. The good news is that, thanks to illuminating
documentaries like Josh Fox's Gasland and determined pressure from activists in
and out of the mainstream, the toxic ravages of hydraulic fracturing, known as
fracking, are no longer the shale gas sector's dirty secret. The bad news is
that, thanks to the United States' morally bankrupt political system and its
Supreme Court's reality-defying ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission, the fracking lobby's power of the purse is greater than it has ever
been.

--- click on URL to continue ---

--------------------

My opinion ---
Fracking will eventually end our clean water
Fracking = Death
For a short term profit

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  Escondido, California: Funeral home rebrands itself to attract Latinos
2)  Letter to the Editor regarding # 1 -- Longing for good old American culture
3)  Reply to the # 2 letter -- No Mexicans in heaven?
4)  Minnesota:  Archbishop (bitchup) issues "marriage prayer" for Catholics to
recite at mass
5)  YouTube:  Louis CK learns about the Catholic Church
6)  Barna Group -- six major trends
7)  Paul Winter Solstice Concert 2011
8)  The Winter Solstice
9)  Pat Robertson Blasts SNL Tebow Skit: 'There's an Anti-Christian Bigotry'
That's 'Disgusting'
10)  Southern California teen sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing gay
classmate



A much needed serious proposal from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=f1c2660f-54b9-4193-86a4-ec2c39342c6c


1)
North County Times (San Diego County)
Escondido, California

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/escondido/escondido-funeral-home-rebrands-itse\
lf-to-attract-latinos/article_affd9966-e77d-516b-89a3-e03393c09c02.html

ESCONDIDO: Funeral home rebrands itself to attract Latinos
By DAVID GARRICK dgarrick@... | Posted: Sunday, October 30, 2011 8:00 pm
| (47) Comments

McLeod Mortuary, which has operated in Escondido for nearly five decades,
earlier this year became the first business in the city to rebrand itself to
appeal to the city's rapidly growing Latino population.
The East Valley Parkway business has changed its name to Funeraria del Angel
McLeod. It offers 24-hour wakes because they're traditional in Latino families,
and has added a kitchen to better serve Latinos, who typically have more
expensive, elaborate funerals.

Community and business leaders predicted last week that McLeod's rebranding
could be the start of a trend, with florists, dry cleaners, plumbers and other
local businesses possibly following suit.

"This is the first Escondido business to rename itself to avoid being
intimidating to Latinos," said Councilwoman Olga Diaz, a Latino. "It seems like
it would make sense for other businesses to consider changes."

Others questioned whether the strategy would work, warning that Latinos are
savvy consumers who will need more than a new name and cosmetic changes to feel
that a business is committed to serving them and their community.

And while McLeod officials say the changes have brought them more Latino
customers, they also said several longtime white customers have defected to
other funeral homes.

--- click on URL to read the rest of the story ---

One of the comments at the URL --->
I feel sorry for you racists folks here. Say anything you want about Hispanics,
but it's really you who are ruining Escondido.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/escondido/escondido-funeral-home-rebrands-itse\
lf-to-attract-latinos/article_affd9966-e77d-516b-89a3-e03393c09c02.html?mode=com\
ments

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


2)
Follow-up letter to the North County Times --->


http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/letters/letters-nct-nov/article_6cbaface-d0f\
a-5c27-aee7-3a8cabfff7c7.html
LETTERS: NCT, Nov. 11, 2011
By Readers of the North County Times | Posted: Friday, November 11, 2011 12:00
am | (179) Comments


Longing for good old American culture

I will not support or use any business that changes their name to cater to
Latinos ("Funeral home rebrands itself to attract Latinos," Oct. 31). This is
the United States of America ---- use a "Made in America" name.

I do not understand these illegal immigrants. They come here to take advantage
of our American culture, our businesses. And they want us to learn their
language, to do business their way, to support them. They are dragging us down
and taking our jobs. Even now, we are a country of the rich and the poor, as in
Mexico. I do not want a Latino-American culture. I want the good old American
culture that made our United States so strong.

Also, I do not support free education for illegal immigrants. For every illegal
immigrant we send to school, an American is denied an education. And illegal
immigrants are favored for a place in colleges. And jobs. I do not want our
leaders of tomorrow to be illegal immigrants who swear their allegiance to
another country.

They should go back to their own country and work to make their own country
better. We send them money.

Betty Huston

Vista

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


3)
Reply for Betty Huston --->


http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/letters/letters-nct-dec/article_bdc601fe-d49\
4-50a7-84e8-a31b4c6c2811.html

LETTERS: NCT, Dec. 14, 2011
By Readers of the North County Times | Posted: Wednesday, December 14, 2011
12:00 am | (101) Comments

No Mexicans in heaven?

Betty Huston (Nov. 11) objects to Latinos having their own funeral parlors with
Spanish names. Here's a solution: We must pass a law against Latinos dying. This
will eliminate the need for Latino funeral parlors, and allow America to
maintain the ethnic purity of our wonderful Anglo parlors.

This will permit Betty the peace of departing this world in purity, leaving all
her Latinos neighbors behind to claim all the things she decides not to take
with her when she goes to meet Saint Pedro. But poor Pedro will soon start
wondering why the Mexicans have stopped immigrating into heaven. Oh, I get it!
There will be no Mexicans in heaven. And Saint Pedro is gonna have to change his
name, too!

In the meantime, however, in order to maintain the name purity of her "good old
American culture," we will have to move Betty out of Vista. And out of San Diego
County, too.

Adios. Oops! Bye-bye.

J. Howard Crews

Fallbrook

----------

My comment ---
Seems like there are a lot of Southern Baptist (and clone) transplants in North
San Diego County.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


4)
In Minnesota, Catholics are preying --->

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/12/minnesota-catholic-bishop-issues-prayer.htm\
l

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/135672633.html
Archbishop issues "marriage prayer" for Catholics to recite at mass
Posted by: Rose French, Updated: December 15, 2011 - 12:14 PM
In an effort to promote the passage of the marriage amendment to the state's
constitution, Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt wants Catholics to recite a
special prayer during mass.

He's also urging area Catholics "to embrace Fridays as a particular day of
prayer and sacrifice for the success of this most current struggle to defend
marriage with our civil constitution. Without such deliberate prayers and
sacrifices, our efforts will be in vain. But with God, all things are possible."

"Much rides on the success of our struggle to defend marriage," according to
Nienstedt, who made the comments in a letter posted on the archdiocese's
website.

It's the latest effort by Minnesota church leaders urging Catholics to support
passage of the proposed amendment, which calls for a ban on gay marriage.

This fall, the state's Catholic bishops took the unusual step of directing
parish priests across the state to form committees to help get the marriage
amendment passed by voters in November 2012.

Here's the "marriage prayer" the archbishop is asking Catholics recite during
mass:

   Heavenly Father,

   Through the powerful intercession of the Holy Family, grant to this local
Church the many graces we need to foster, strengthen, and support faith-filled,
holy marriages and holy families.


   May the vocation of married life, a true calling to share in your own divine
and creative life, be recognized by all believers as a source of blessing and
joy, and a revelation of your own divine goodness.


   Grant to us all the gift of courage to proclaim and defend your plan for
marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman in a lifelong, exclusive
relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity, open to the conception
of children.


   We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, who is Lord forever and ever. Amen.

----------

Rose French writes about religious and spiritual matters for the Star Tribune.
Before arriving in the Twin Cities this fall, she covered religion for the
Associated Press in Tennessee, where she wrote about the Southern Baptists,
United Methodists, Gideons and other religious groups and issues.
E-mail Rose with your thoughts or questions.

----------

My comment ---
Have you seen those "come home" ads on TV from the Catholic Church?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


5)
Louis CK learns about the Catholic Church
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
www.barna.org

Every December, a tradition at Barna Group is to compile some of the most
important trends of the year. We invite you to check out the six major trends
that our team explored in 2011. Thank you for the privilege of helping to raise
your cultural awareness. We look forward to serving you in 2012.

- David Kinnaman, president, Barna Group

http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/545-top-trends-of-2011-millennials-\
rethink-christianity
Top Trends of 2011: Millennials Rethink Christianity


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


7)
Paul Winter Solstice Concert 2011
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/16/143834363/a-paul-winter-solstice-concert-2011
For more than a quarter-century, saxophonist Paul Winter has celebrated the
longest night of the year with a concert. For the 22nd straight year, NPR
presents Paul Winter's annual Winter Solstice Celebration, held at the Cathedral
of St. John the Divine in Upper Manhattan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_John_the_Divine,_New_York


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


8)
The Winter Solstice
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/winter-solstice-2011_n_1156526.html
Winter Solstice 2011: On December 22, Pagan Celebrations Mark The Shortest Day
Of The Year (PHOTOS)
The Huffington Post   Jahnabi Barooah
12/19/11

In 2011, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere will occur on Dec. 22,
2011 at 12:30 a.m. EST. Officially the first day of winter, the winter solstice
occurs when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. This is the
longest night of the year, meaning that despite the cold winter, the days get
progressively longer after the winter solstice until the summer solstice in
2012.
The winter solstice is celebrated by many people around the world as the
beginning of the return of the sun, and darkness turning into light, The Talmud
recognizes the winter solstice as "Tekufat Tevet." In China, the "Dongzhi"
Festival is celebrated on the Winter Solstice by families getting together and
eating special festive food.

Until the 16th century, the winter months were a time of famine in northern
Europe. Most cattle were slaughtered so that they wouldn't have to be fed during
the winter, making the solstice a time when fresh meat was plentiful. Most
celebrations of the winter solstice in Europe involved merriment and feasting.
In pre-Christian Scandinavia, the Feast of Juul, or Yule, lasted for 12 days
celebrating the rebirth of the sun god and giving rise to the custom of burning
a Yule log.

In ancient Rome, the winter solstice was celebrated at the Feast of Saturnalia,
to honor Saturn, the god of agricultural bounty. Lasting about a week,
Saturnalia was characterized by feasting, debauchery and gift-giving. With
Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity, many of these customs were
later absorbed into Christmas celebrations.

One of the most famous celebrations of the winter solstice in the world today
takes place in the ancient ruins of Stonehenge, England. Thousands of druids and
pagans gather there to chant, dance and sing while waiting to see the
spectacular sunrise.

HuffPost Religion has compiled photos of winter solstice celebrations from
previous years from different cultures. Check them out below. Do you celebrate
the winter solstice? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section.

----------

My comment ---
December 22, 2011 at 12:30 a.m. EST
December 21, 2011 at 11:30 p.m. CST
December 21, 2011 at 10:30 p.m. MST
December 21, 2011 at 09:30 p.m. PST

----------

See also
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/origin-stonehenge-rocks-discovered-15481478\
6.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


9)
http://news.yahoo.com/pat-robertson-blasts-snl-tebow-skit-anti-christian-0118043\
89.html
Pat Robertson Blasts SNL Tebow Skit: 'There's an Anti-Christian Bigotry' That's
'Disgusting'
The Blaze - December 19, 2011

Televangelist Pat Robertson doesn't mince words when it comes to faith and this
time is no exception. The outspoken faith-keeper blasted Saturday Night Live's
recent skit of Denver Bronco's quarterback Tim Tebow on Monday, calling the
parody a "disgusting" attack on Christianity.

"There's an anti-Christian bigotry that is just disgusting and I think Saturday
Night Live did a parody of that, had Jesus come in," Robertson said.

Robertson even went on to suggest that if SNL had done a similar parody mocking
Muslims, there would be "bodies on the street."

Mediaite adds:

   "If this had been a Muslim country and they had done that, and had Muhammad
doing that stuff, you would have found bombs being thrown off!"

   "And bodies on the street!" interjected co-anchor Terry Meeuwsen. "And bodies
on the street!" Robertson repeated. "And we think it's okay."

   "Tebow is an example, and I think he is a wonderful human being," Robertson
said. "We need more religious faith in our society. We're losing our moral
compass in our nation and this man has been placed in a unique position and I
applaud him. God bless him."

Watch Robertson rage against SNL's Tim Tebow skit below courtesy of CBN:
http://news.yahoo.com/pat-robertson-blasts-snl-tebow-skit-anti-christian-0118043\
89.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


10)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/southern-calif-teen-set-to-be-sentenced-t\
o-21-years-in-prison-for-killing-gay-classmate/2011/12/19/gIQA92bt3O_story.html
Southern California teen sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing gay
classmate
By Associated Press, Published: December 19, 2011
VENTURA, Calif. - A teen who fatally shot a gay junior high classmate in the
back of the head during a computer lab nearly four years ago was sentenced
Monday to 21 years in state prison, capping an emotional case that focused
attention on how schools deal with sexual identity.

Brandon McInerney, 17, dressed in a white T-shirt and blue pants, didn't speak
at the hearing, but his lawyer said his client was sorry for killing 15-year-old
Larry King.

"He feels deeply remorseful and stated repeatedly if he could go back and take
back what he did, he would do it in a heartbeat," Scott Wippert said.

--- click on URL to read the rest ---

My comment ---
I wonder what Pat Robertson has to say about this.

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Winter -- December 21
Spring -- March 21
Summer -- June 21
Fall -- September 21

Be Happy.

1) Conservative Mississippi Mayor Reveals He is Gay.After Visiting Gay Sex Shop
on City's Dime
2) Illinois Sheriff can't quit station wagon sex
3) Lesbian Partner Denied Hospital Visitation
4) Republicans Worship a Nazi Jesus
5) Gingrich To Gay Man: Vote For Obama
6) Nearly 1 in 3 Will Be Arrested by Age 23
7) Independent thinking can be a lonely endeavor


1)
http://news.yahoo.com/miss-mayor-reveals-gay-visiting-gay-sex-shop-142405501.htm\
l
Mississippi Mayor Reveals He is Gay.After Visiting Gay Sex Shop on City's Dime
The Blaze - Sat, Dec 17, 2011

A conservative Mississippi mayor has said he is gay after an audit showed he had
the city pay for a wide range of personal expenses, including a visit to a gay
sex store in Canada.

Southaven Mayor Greg Davis revealed publicly for the first time Thursday that he
is gay, and said he has struggled to keep his sexuality from affecting his
public role as mayor of Mississippi's third-largest city.

"At this point in my life and in my career, while I have tried to maintain
separation between my personal and public life, it is obvious that this can no
longer remain the case," Davis told the Commercial Appeal, a Tennessee-based
publication. "While I have performed my job as mayor, in my opinion, as a very
conservative, progressive individual - and still continue to be a very
conservative individual - I think that it is important that I discuss the
struggles I have had over the last few years when I came to the realization that
I am gay."

Davis, a Republican, has been under criminal investigation for allegedly
misusing $170,000 in city funds on both his city-issued and personal credit
cards. According to the Commercial Appeal, an audit revealed he used city money
to pay for thousands of dollars worth of liquor, expensive dinners, and a $67
charge at Priape, a Toronto store described by its website as "Canada's premiere
gay lifestyle store and sex shop."

He told the newspaper he doesn't remember what he purchased at the store, but
said he visited it on a recruitment trip for the city.

Davis, who is divorced with three daughters, made an unsuccessful bid for
Congress in 2008, running on a family values platform. He was first elected
mayor in 1997, and said it's too early for talk about whether he'll resign in
light of the disputed expenses. He said he plans to take time off through the
holidays to spend time with his family.

"The only apology I would make to my supporters if they are upset is the fact
that I was not honest enough with myself to be honest with them," he said. "But
I have lived my life in public service for 20-plus years, and in order for me to
remain sane and move on, I have got to start being honest about who I am."

----------

Picture and video at the URL.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://jalopnik.com/5869791/illinois-sheriff-cant-quit-station-wagon-sex
By Wes Siler
Dec 20, 2011 3:30 PM

Illinois Sheriff can't quit station wagon sex
"Two guys don't usually do this stuff at home," justified a man caught engaging
in a sex act with the local sheriff, as to why they were performing said sex act
in a 1994 Ford Escort station wagon parked behind an Irish bar.

Local police found their Sheriff, Keith Kellerman, 48, in the station wagon with
J. Ian Stennett, 31 at 1:15am on Friday morning, reports BND.com. Stennett's
pants were allegedly unzipped and his shirt undone. In Missouri, being in the
presence of another man who has his fly down qualifies as a sex act. The men are
also said to have admitted to "making out."

The couple were cited with public indecency before being driven to their
respective home by a designated driver.

Kellerman has been The Law in Pinkneyville, a town of 25,000 near St. Louis,
since 1998. He began his career in law enforcement working in a correctional
facility after receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1992.

Unfortunately, details of how two large men managed to actually "make out" in a
'94 Escort wagon are not available. We're betting it was a bit awkward as well
as chilly, lows in Pinckneyville are currently in the 40s.

----------

Picture of the car at the URL.
It must have been cold, with the snow and ever'thang.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


3)
http://www.bilerico.com/2011/12/lesbian_partner_denied_hospital_visitation.php
Lesbian Partner Denied Hospital Visitation
Filed By Bil Browning | December 20, 2011

Looks like Rolling Hills Hospital staff in Franklin, Tennessee didn't get the
memo from the Obama administration that they can't deny partners of LGBT
patients visitation rights.

   Rolling Hills Hospital in Franklin denied multiple requests by Val Burke to
visit her partner, who is currently a patient in the hospital's residential
facility. Staff members excluded her from the room since she was not a legal
spouse or family member.

   "I went to visit her at the appropriate visiting time and was turned away,"
she says. "We have been living together for three years now, but that didn't
matter to them either. The rest of her family is out of town, so she didn't have
any one visit her."
   ...
   Hospital administration were made aware of the incident and addressed this
policy with staff on Monday, according to Chris Sanders, chair of [Tennessee
Equality Project]'s Nashville committee.

   "(This) is a very troubling report and it reminds us of the importance of this
rule change that recently went into effect," he says. "When we are at our most
vulnerable, we need to be able to choose who visits us in the hospital."

While the administration instructed the department of Health and Human Services
to "ensure" that hospital who participate in Medicaid and Medicare conform to
the new policy (Rolling Hills does), the question now becomes this: Does the new
regulation have any teeth? Will this hospital have to make recompense?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/295-164/8992-republicans-worship-a-n\
azi-jesus
Republicans Worship a Nazi Jesus
By Loren Adams, TPJ Magazine

19 December 11

How you view God is how you see man. An individual's concept of "God" determines
how one treats others. The same principle applies for a culture, nation or
movement. If one envisions a vengeful, wrathful superior being, wrath and
retribution are levied against "others" outside the "chosen." The religion
justifies prejudice with all its ugly manifestations: verbal abuse, theft,
deceit, injustice, violence, and the ultimate - "final solution." Religion was
the foundation for Nazism which gave birth to Holocaust.

This is another law of human nature oft overlooked - which coincides with
Voltaire's cardinal truth: "People who believe absurdities will soon commit
atrocities."

It is a massive cult gripping America spinning it to hell. The current gridlock
has its roots in right religion. Remove the religious right's powerful influence
over America, a measure of sanity may return. Imagine a world without religion,
as found in John Lennon's lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say

I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say

I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will live as one

I am not stating all religion is bad, because it's in human nature to invent
such philosophical mindsets as a security blanket for an torrid unexplainable
existence. I'm just saying the distorting of Jesus' image and words is the
sacrilege that destroys individuals and nations - or, for that matter, the
perversion of other revered theological figures.

America's religious right loathes the concept of a Jesus who speaks of humility,
meekness, generosity, compassion and sacrifice. Somehow these virtues
de-masculinize the Messiah. And Republicans loathe a feminized Jesus, because
humble characteristics are feminine, in their view.

Nazis had the same distorted reasoning in that the Jesus of the Gospels didn't
fit their ideology. So they had to mold "God" into their own image, culminating
in a Holy Bible re-write of 1938, approved by the Fuhrer, which were loaded with
anti-semitic passages.

Republicans worship a Nazi Jesus, not the Christ of the Bible. They picture a
Jesus bearing a sword riding a white horse to slay millions of unbelievers.
Revelation is where they lay claim to the view, but the Gospels' depiction must
be discarded in order to arrive. A judgmental "God" justifies a judgmental
following. Thus, it's condoned to hate and kill gays, Muslims, aliens, liberals,
and all others not of their belief-system.

Jesus' Number One principle must be suspended in order for them to condone
bigotry: "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love
others as you do yourself."

But in their view, this cardinal command must be set aside for the End Times
prophecies to be completed - when a wrathful, vengeful "God" re-appears to
annihilate the billions. This eschatological element is what drives America's
religious right to insanity and what is driving America off the cliff - since
the religious right is such a significant segment of society. The culture war is
here and now, and it has its roots in religion - albeit counter to Jesus'
teachings.

America's religious right needs to return to its "first love."

----------

See also
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/9018-why-the-republican-crack\
up-hurts-america
Why the Republican Crackup Hurts America
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
21 December 11

---

Lots of comments at the URLs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


5)
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/12/gingrich-to-gay-man-vote-for-obama.html
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Gingrich To Gay Man: Vote For Obama
Newt Gingrich had an interesting reaction when questioned by a gay Iowan.
   "I asked him if he's elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How
are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama," said Scott Arnold, an
associate professor of writing at William Penn University." Arnold, a Democrat,
said he came to the event at Smokey Row coffee house with an open mind. But he
wanted to ask Gingrich about how he would represent him as president after
reading past comments the former U.S. House Speaker as made about gay and
lesbians.
You heard it from the GOP itself, folks. If you want to see equality for LGBT
people, vote for Obama.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


6)
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/316-20/8990--nearly-1-in-3-will\
-be-arrested-by-age-23

Nearly 1 in 3 Will Be Arrested by Age 23

By Donna Leinwand Leger, USA Today

19 December 11

Nearly one in three people will be arrested by the time they are 23, a study
published Monday in Pediatrics found.
"Arrest is a pretty common experience," says Robert Brame, a criminologist at
the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and principal author of the study.

The new data show a sharp increase from a previous study that stunned the
American public when it was published 44 years ago by criminologist Ron
Christensen. That study found 22% of youth would be arrested by age 23. The
latest study finds 30.2% of young people will be arrested by age 23.

Criminologist Alfred Blumstein says the increase in arrests for young people in
the latest study is unsurprising given several decades of tough crime policies.

"I was astonished 44 years ago. Most people were," says Blumstein, a professor
of operations research at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University who
served with Christensen on President Lyndon Johnson's crime task force.

Now, Blumstein says, youth may be arrested for drugs and domestic violence,
which were unlikely offenses to attract police attention in the 1960s. "There's
a lot more arresting going on now," he says.

The new study is an analysis of data collected between 1997 and 2008 by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual surveys conducted over 11 years asked
children, teens and young adults between the ages of 8 and 23 whether they had
ever been arrested by police or taken into custody for illegal or delinquent
offenses.

The question excluded only minor traffic offenses, so youth could have included
arrests for a wide variety of offenses such as truancy, vandalism, underage
drinking, shoplifting, robbery, assault and murder - any encounter with police
perceived as an arrest, Brame says. Some of the incidents perceived and reported
by the young people as arrests may not have resulted in criminal charges, he
says.

Localities handled many minor offenses more informally 40 years ago than they do
now, criminologist Megan Kurlychek says. "Society is a lot less tolerant of
these teenage behaviors," she says.

The high rate of arrest among youth is troubling because the records will follow
them as adults and make it harder for them to get student loans, jobs and
housing, says Kurlychek, an associate professor at University at Albany-SUNY who
studies juvenile delinquency. "Arrests have worse consequences than ever for
these juveniles," she says. Arrest records "follow you forever. The average
teenager who steals an iPod or is arrested for possession of marijuana - why do
we make that define their lives?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


7)
San Mateo Daily Journal
San Mateo, California
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?type=opinions&title=Independen\
t%20thinking%20can%20be%20a%20lonely%20endeavor&id=224339&eddate=12/10/2011

Independent thinking can be a lonely endeavor
December 10, 2011, 02:49 AM
By Keith Kreitman, Daily Journal correspondent

A conclusion I came to many years ago is the price of independent thought is
loneliness. If one has independently arrived at opinions that do not conform to
conventional wisdom or the surrounding culture, one could become, not only
rejected, but also very lonely. And for most of the past 30 years, I have been
very lonely.

Especially with political opinions. Since I've looked only for intelligent and
patriotic candidates, irrespective of political parties, I apparently have
confused some into believing I was a supporter of one political party or another
when, actually, I have worked for members of both major parties. It still amuses
me that one reader was writing 11 letters exposing me as a Socialist at the same
time I was working my buns off trying to get a Republican, Tom Campbell, elected
governor of the state of California.


My point is, I have not won any popularity contests with my view that Ronald
Reagan's election was one of the two major tragedies of the last half of the
20th century, the other being our Vietnam intervention.


I can bypass his impeachable violation of American law by selling arms to Iran
and many more poor moral judgments, but not the initiation of the decline of
America with his woolly-headed implementation of conservative political and
social ideological fantasies.


Or the cowardly economists and columnists, fearing the national obsession for
Reagan and the kissing of the hem of his saintly robes, universally
characterizing the negative economic developments as "the last 30 years" which,
of course should read "since Reagan's election in 1980." But, perish the thought
of tarnishing the golden shield of the king and his ideological roundtable of
deluded conservatives.


If anyone knows of a case where any writer, actually, has written "since the
election of Ronald Reagan," please forward to me and I will apologize.


Further, for 30 years, I have been writing about the growing vast disparity of
income and net worth and the wasting away of the middle class, concealed as more
wives needed to enter the workforce, the need for multiple breadwinner jobs and
the borrowing on credit cards necessary to keep the families afloat. For me, the
most devastating development is I received no reader communication at all that
either disagreed or agreed with me and I came to the conclusion the middle class
was more engrossed in entertainment to even notice what was happening around it.


I was right. It wasn't until the economic bubble burst that the sleeping giant,
the middle class, awoke to find for the most part it was too late. The vast
majority of the nation's wealth is already in the hands of perhaps only 1
percent of the population and we already have a quasi-oligarchy, a plutocracy,
pulling the economic and political strings of the nation and still growing in
unprecedented wealth and power while the rest of the population continues to
sink. The national economy suffers as there is less and less middle-class
discretionary spending to keep our consumer-based economy afloat.


And so, the concept of the 99 percent of the rest of us was born.


Of course, that movement has been ridiculed and more and more members are being
beaten up and arrested. But despite Newt Gingrich's now famous bon mot, "Go home
and get a job after you take a bath" (to a background of great laughter cheering
and applause) and the "hardy, hahr, hahr" laughing programs on the Fox News
network, the revolution is growing and is unstoppable as the middle class
continues to hang on.


How will this all play out in the 2012 election? Depends upon how successful the
Republican governors and state legislatures are in their ongoing programs of
making it harder for the lower economic classes to vote. I would say about
50/50. But that will not end the rebellion. It only has the potential of making
it more violent as many of the 99 percenters become more frustrated (Remember
there are still 300 million guns available in our unhappy land).


But now, with the reality of the national economic condition finally being
voiced by a naive president, who apparently has finally realized that one cannot
deal on a fairness basis with oligarchs, plutocrats and uncompromising,
unyielding conservatives, in a compelling and monumental speech in Osawatomie,
Kan. last week, summarized the true economic condition and decline of the
country.


Yes, it is, truly, "class warfare," but he didn't start it.


But with this speech, best of all, I don't really need to carry the ball alone
anymore.


So maybe, this time, with his recognition of how far we have wandered from
social and economic fairness, I may not end up feeling so lonely anymore.

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Question --

What is the Latin translation for "I will wash"?
Lavobo ?   And what would be the pronunciation?
I'm referring to that part in the Mass where the priest washes hands.  Her's or
His -- doesn't matter.
Just "I will wash", etc.
Getting ready to celebrate the holy of holy virgin birth.

----------

1) A Christmas Letter to My Gay Son
2) Mark Morford -- Dead men sell no heretical iPhones -- Every notable death
begets an invitation.
3) Daddy's boy -- Mitt Romney likes to say that his father was his greatest
influence
4) Progressive Journalism for Positive Action
5) Heroic football player stops potentially lethal teacher attack
6) Why We Shouldn't Use the Word 'Tranny'
7) 11 Things You Should Never Put on Your Resume
8) 'Tis the season to steal -- Shoppers walk out of stores without paying for
Christmas gifts and goodies for themselves



1)
A Christmas Letter to My Gay Son
Randi Reitan
Mother and gay rights activist

Posted: 12/23/11

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-reitan/a-christmas-letter-to-my-gay-son_b_11\
64176.html?ref=gay-voices
My dear Jacob,

As I was going through a box of keepsakes, I came across a Christmas list you
had written when you were a young boy. On the list were things we could easily
find in stores, and I always enjoyed finding them for you, wrapping them up and
putting them under our tree. You were always so appreciative and opened them
with great joy. The joy Papa and I felt was even greater.

There is only one gift I want to give you this year. I have wanted to give it to
you for many years. I have tried in every way possible to find a way to give it
to you. It would bring me the greatest joy of all.

How do I give you equality? How do I give you back the years you have missed
"not being equal" in this world?

Your high school and college years should have been ones where you dated and
went to proms and dances with someone you were attracted to and wanted to spend
time with as a couple. You should not have had to spend those years working for
your equality. You should not have had to defend your dignity. You should not
have had to miss out on the simple pleasures of a young teen and a young adult.

There is no way I can give you back those years, those times when you should
have been having fun, enjoying life, and growing from those experiences.

You had a passion for justice even as a child. I remember when you were 4 and
refused to eat supper until I had actually written the check for Save the
Children. You were the watchdog in your kindergarten classroom after you felt
your teacher was wrong to rip up a child's painting in front of the class in her
effort to teach them to write their names on their papers. On that day you spoke
truth to power so eloquently as you confronted your teacher after school.

As soon as you came out to us, you wanted to start a gay/straight alliance at
your high school. We worried for your safety, but even more for the isolation it
might have brought as you worked to make it happen. You reached out to students,
teachers, and the administration and created your school's first gay/straight
alliance. When you were in college and heard that there were students being
kicked out of colleges simply because they were gay, you founded the Soulforce
Equality Ride to confront that terrible wrong.

Each of those times you taught me to take action and not be silent in the face
of injustice. You have led me, and you have taught me throughout your life.

Maybe that is why it is so hard for me to face Christmas each year and not be
able to wrap up the one gift I most want to give you. As a mother, it is such a
part of my being to want to nurture and love my children. It is the mother in me
that wants to protect and provide for you. It is the mother in me that is
hurting so much when I am helpless in being able to give you the one gift I have
wanted to give you since the day you told us you were gay.

I want to give you equality. I want to wrap it up in a beautiful box, and I want
to put it under our tree right now. I want to see you open it on Christmas Eve
and with great joy live with it all your days.

I love you,
Mama


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


2)
Mark Morford
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/archive/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/21/notes122111.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/21/notes122111.DTL&ao=a\
ll
Dead men sell no heretical iPhones
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Every notable death begets an invitation.
Every time a person both famous and groundbreaking, both pioneering and a little
bit incendiary exits this earthly plane -- sometimes too early, sometimes
unfairly, sometimes without, it seems, having enough time to finish their grand
or devious work -- we who like to follow such energies often turn our faces up
to the gods of fate and time and utter the same entreaty:

"Who, pray who, can possibly replace X? Who is the next who can possibly give us
the same energy, verve, wild imagination as Y? Is it even possible? Was X so
unique as to never really be replaceable? Is the culture at large not tangibly
diminished by Y's departure?"

We cry out, mostly seriously and only semi drunkenly, "Who is the next Steve
Jobs? Where will we find another of the notorious intellectual fire of Chris
Hitchens? What of someone precious and rare like the humble revolutionary Vaclav
Havel?" On it goes.

The answers hover and resist. Meanwhile, the losses often feel palpable and
disorienting, particularly if you enjoyed these beings' creations, particularly
if you were on their same political, creative or intellectual side, particularly
if you felt the world shift -- largely for the better -- due to their weird and
wonderful contributions.

How do we parse and move? Is the human experiment like a roiling body of water
-- remove what seems like a vital cup, and the rest merely floods in to fill the
space in an instant, blindly churning onward? Or are we more like a grand and
gnarled tree -- billions of leaves grow and die in perfectly inconsequential
cycles, but every now and then an entire branch cracks away and the whole tree
suddenly feels weaker, less healthy, as we scramble to shore up and fertilize
and pray?

It matters, of course, on how you see it. And them.

Hitchens, for one, was a wicked and sly hybrid, one part cruel contrarian
jackass, one part brilliant social commentator, one part chain-smoking bourgeois
atheist, one part insufferable Iraq war-supporting hawk, all parts rare in
literary kind and intellectual breed.

Ironically, his loss is felt most profoundly over here on the left (where he and
his scathing opinions mostly resided), so bereft are we of fearless critics who
speak truth to power and possess real scholarly fire, despite how Hitchens would
surely be loathe to be lumped in with either Dems or Repubs, given the high
milquetoast quotient, the lack of scholarly scythe in both parties. Can there be
another like him? More importantly, do we have the proper ingredients to make
one?

Steve Jobs' contributions to the world have already been gloriously
over-documented, but are nevertheless simply stunning, made obvious every time
you use a smart phone, click a song file, tap your finger to the screen, move a
mouse over an icon or appreciate refined industrial design in just about any
commercial product anywhere.

Some argue that, with Jobs' passing, Apple's golden era is now over. I don't
think that goes far enough. I think it's far more accurate to say that the
golden era for sleekly sophisticated consumer tech as a whole is over, is now in
danger of entering a terminally bland, clunky phase. After all, who's going to
replace someone so radically innovative, obsessive, prescient? Who has the
nerve, the vision, the fanatical design zeal, with the power to match?
Zuckerberg? The Google boys? Zynga? As if.

And Vaclav Havel? Well now. Here was a type of quiet revolutionary and
humanitarian simply not to be found anywhere else in global politics in this
lifetime. Slight, humble, artistic, a poet's soul and a playwright's sense of
the tragicomic scale of the human drama, infusing "truth and love" into politics
... all in a savvy and culturally lucid national leader? Good luck. Try the
Green Party, hippie.

Again, maybe the real question isn't if there can ever be another like any of
these three radicals and innovators; each was a product of his time and place,
the context and timbre of the age, and hence whomever comes next won't look much
like any of who came before. This much we know.

It's the larger question that's more urgent and troubling: Do we as a society
still have sufficiently rich soil, sufficient heat and intellectual sunlight to
allow such creative powerhouses to rise in the first place?

Consider: Some argue we are at an extremely low, unproductive point in human
intellectual history, relatively speaking, a time when radical, independent
thinkers are not only scarce but beaten down and demonized, dramatic
breakthroughs are increasingly sporadic and our most celebrated leaps forward
seem to be when some pasty geek invents a new way to socially network a pair of
sweatpants.

More cynically still: The U.S. educational system in particular has sunk like
Snookie's dingbat pout from a place of high global esteem to one of the most
mediocre in the civilized world. Math skills are embarrassingly low, science is
being deserted, high school and college graduation rates have plummeted. We just
don't make smart people like we used to.

Add to this the fact that the GOP as a whole and the Tea Party in particular
have seen to it that science, intellectualism, books, sex, spirituality,
independent thought, higher education and decent taste in footwear are all
considered elitist boogymen to be eradicated from the dumbed down American mind
like fleas from a mangy dog. Not exactly fertile ground for radicals and
revolutionaries to take root.

Or is it? Because then you pull back. Then you realize that maybe now, when all
seems lost, when it seems we're at the lowest points in developmental history,
this is maybe the most perfect opening of all for radical re-thinking to kick
into gear. Maybe only when the darkness falls can you finally appreciate the
exceptional lights.

Or maybe it's more like the slingshot effect; the culture pulls back and back,
tighter and tighter into the void of religious intolerance, willful ignorance
and Tea Party illiteracy, only to (eventually, finally, hopefully sometimes
very, very soon) release all that pent-up tension in one massive heave forward,
as a new way, idea, visionary rockets through the dumb like a knife through
butter-shaped Rick Perry. Hey, it worked for Obama.

In other words, maybe the ground really is more fertile than ever. Maybe the
spirits of Hitchens, Jobs, Havel, et al, live on, are ready to spring forth
anew. You think? Do they ever fully disappear? After all, the wise ones and
mystics believe the soul never fully passes, the energy just recycles into new
beings and new innovations, the pulse continues, an endless river of
consciousness permeating and informing everything across the dimensions.

Right? Doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't that sound electric and alive and
eternally possible? Let's go with that. Because the alternative is just too
lethally boring to contemplate.

----------

Reference --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel

http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


3)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/daddys-boy.html
Daddy's boy?
by digby
Mitt Romney likes to say that his father was his greatest influence.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



4)
Progressive Journalism for Positive Action

http://www.nationofchange.org/ethnic-media-take-sober-look-us-intervention-iraq-\
1324571048
America Media / News Analysis
Published: Thursday 22 December 2011

"In the wake of the end of the Iraq war, U.S. ethnic media are taking a sober
look at the last nine years of American military intervention in Iraq, and the
meaning of the war in each of their communities."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



5)
http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Heroic-football-player-s\
tops-potentially-lethal-?urn=highschool-wp10312
Thu Dec 22 11:03am EST

Heroic football player stops potentially lethal teacher attack
By Cameron Smith

----------

My comment --
I better not say it.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lance-bass/why-we-shouldnt-use-the-word-tranny_b_1\
168078.html

Lance Bass
Why We Shouldn't Use the Word 'Tranny'
Posted: 12/23/11


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


7)
http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113810-11701-4-11-things-you-sho\
uld-never-put-on-your-resume?ywaad=ad0035&nc
11 Things You Should Never Put on Your Resume


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


8)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tis-season-steal-172713254.html

'Tis the season to steal
Shoppers walk out of stores without paying for Christmas gifts and goodies for
themselves
By Sarah Skidmore, Associated Press Retail Writer | AP - 23 December 2011

More than spirits are being lifted this holiday season.

During the four weeks leading up to Christmas this year, an estimated $1.8
billion in merchandise will be shoplifted from U.S. retailers, according to The
Global Retail Theft Barometer, a survey of retailers worldwide. That's up about
6 percent from $1.7 billion during the same period last year.

"They shoplift for Christmas gifts, they steal for themselves, for their
family," says Joshua Bamfield, executive director of the Centre for Retail
Research and author of the survey.

Sticky fingers are common during the holidays. The crowded stores and harried
clerks make it easier to slip a tablet computer into a purse or stuff a sweater
under a coat undetected. But higher joblessness and falling wages have
contributed to an even bigger rise this year. People steal everything from
necessities (think food) to luxuries they can no longer afford (think
electronics or Gucci purse).

"It's really a question of need versus greed," says Joseph LaRocca, senior
adviser of asset protection for the National Retail Federation trade group.
"People will rationalize what they are stealing: 'Oh, I'm feeling the economy. I
lost my job.' But it's hard to make the argument you need a $900 handbag."

Experts say the economy's influence is largely a cop-out. They say shoplifters
are stealing for myriad reasons this holiday season that have nothing to do with
economic turmoil. Some do it for a rush or thrill. For others, it's about
filling a void. Still others are trying to relieve anxiety, boredom or
depression - all emotions that are particularly common during the holidays.

"Shoplifting is generally a crime of opportunity- and opportunities abound at
the holiday," says Barbara Staib, a spokeswoman for the National Association for
Shoplifting Prevention, a nonprofit that provides shoplifting prevention
education programs. "The stressors that come with the holiday will certainly
help them rationalize their need for bad behavior."

Shoplifting is surprisingly common. An estimated one in 11 Americans shoplift,
according to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention. It bases its
information on academic research and information from those who are ordered or
choose to enter its counseling programs for shoplifters.

About 75 percent of shoplifters are adults - equally men and women - while kids
make up about 25 percent of them. More than 70 percent of shoplifters say they
did not plan ahead to steal and they acted spontaneously.

A report from the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation showed
that there were 1.06 million shoplifting offenses in 2010 known to law
enforcement nationwide, up from 875,191 such offenses in 2006.

It adds up to billions of dollars in losses for retailers.

Theft of all kinds - including shop lifting, organized retail crime, employee
theft and vendor fraud - cost retailers more than $119 billion worldwide in the
12 months ending in June, up nearly 7 percent from the same a year earlier.
That's the biggest increase recorded by the Global Retail Theft Barometer since
it began the survey in 2007.

In the four weeks leading up to Christmas, retailers in the U.S. are expected to
lose $5 billion in theft and other crimes. About 36 percent of those losses come
from shoplifting. Employee theft represents about 44 percent. Vendor theft and
administrative error make up the remainder.

Several major chains declined to discuss their efforts to thwart the growing
theft in stores by shoppers and employees. But the National Retail Federation
says big merchants are spending about $11.5 billion a year to fend off losses.

They're trying to improve their technology, such as surveillance methods and
tagging of merchandise with security devices. They also are working with
competitors and law enforcement agencies more than ever by sharing more
information, such as what criminals are taking and how they are targeting
individual merchants.

Retailers' efforts are important, prevention experts say, because theft not only
costs them, but society as a whole. Theft drives up retailers' costs and those
are often passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on everything from
blueberries to blouses.

"I think one of the things we have to remember is shoplifting is a crime," says
Staib, with the prevention group. "Shoplifting is not just an economic issue,
it's a social issue."

Shop owner Travis Maynard, who has been on both sides of the shoplifting fence,
agrees.

As a teenager running with a bad crowd, he used to steal regularly - Visine to
cover up his drug use, condiments to finish off his sandwich and even a
flowering tree as a gift for his mother. Then he got caught stealing a Misfits
CD at age 16 and changed his ways.

Maynard, 31, now watches for shoplifters at Lime Tiger Studio, a shop in
Murfreesboro, Tenn., where he sells antiques, vintage clothing and other items.
He says he knows the tricks and is on high alert when someone is lingering too
long in a certain spot.

"For someone to come in and pretend to be a patron of my business and steal, to
me it's the most disgusting thing someone could do," Maynard says. "It's one of
the highest levels of dishonesty."

      ***   My comment -- You mean like Wall Street bankers?   ***

____

Sarah Skidmore reported from Portland, Ore.

Follow AP retail coverage at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Retail

----------

My comment --
This doesn't surprise me at all.  What with the example of shoplifting trillions
of dollars downtown up there on top.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Home Heating units -- DON'T get the new 95% super efficient system
2) Taylor Lautner 'People' Magazine Coming Out Cover A Fake
3) Hackers blamed for anti-gay business messages
4) Stunned community looks for justice after gay teen's suicide
5) Cardinal Francis George Called On To Resign Over KKK-Gay Pride Comparison
6) Widely discredited "ex-gay" movement exported from U.S. to Caribbean
7) Bill Maher Takes Heat Over Tim Tebow Tweet
8) The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning's critics



1)
Home Heating units ---
If you're getting a new home heating system, in this case "gas forced air", stay
away from those new 95% super efficient systems that have a 2 inch PVC pipe for
the exhaust that goes out the side of your house.

1)  These 95% efficiency systems have a dehumidifier to bring it up from 80%
efficient to 95% efficient.  Your skin will crack -- you'll then need to spend
more money to get a humidifier system added.  Optional equipment, of course --
$1,000.  And of course this dehumidifier cannot be turned off because it is a
part of the exhaust system.

2)  The exhaust going out through that PVC pipe on the side of your house will
sound like a jet engine.  And smells like gas fumes.  It better not be anywhere
near your neighbor's windows, and especially not near their door.

Better to stick with the 80% efficient models (about $1,500 - $2,000 less), with
the exhaust going out the old way -- up through the old six inch exhaust pipe
through the roof.

Now I am going to have to spend another $7,000 to have this brand new
unacceptable 95% efficient thing removed and replaced with the less expensive
model.  It heats just as well, with much less noise.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
---------------


2)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/taylor-lautner-people-mag_n_1170880.htm\
l

picture at URL

12/27/11 09:42 AM ET
Taylor Lautner 'People' Magazine Coming Out Cover A Fake
As many hearts were broken as they were mended Monday night when a People
magazine cover featuring "Twilight" heartthrob Taylor Lautner coming out was
officially ruled a fake.

An alleged "teaser" image of the supposed January 7 issue of the entertainment
and lifestyle magazine turned up on the Internet and instantly went viral as
many believed the teen star was announcing that he is gay.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


3)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017083942_apwaantilgbtmessage.h\
tml
Friday, December 23, 2011
Hackers blamed for anti-gay business messages
The Clack County Chamber of Commerce is blaming hackers for email messages sent
from the group's main account saying that gay, bisexual and transgendered
businesses aren't welcome in the county.

Associated Press
Vancouver, Washington
The Clack County Chamber of Commerce is blaming hackers for email messages sent
from the group's main account saying that gay, bisexual and transgendered
businesses aren't welcome in the county.

The Columbia reports (http://bit.ly/vfjkrG) that the local LGBT advocates
denounced the organization.

Chamber director Izad Khormaee says someone gained access to the email account
and sent the "vicious" messages.

The emails were sent Wednesday and one called gay businesses "immoral." Another
said gay businesses have "no place in Clark County."

Rep. Jim Moeller, a gay Democratic lawmaker from Vancouver, says he talked
Khormaee and believes the emails were not sent by the Clark County Chamber of
Commerce.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


4)
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111226/NEWS01/312260023/Stunned-community-lo\
oks-justice-after-gay-teen-s-suicide
Stunned community looks for justice after gay teen's suicide
Cheatham County teen Jacob Rogers, who took his own life, was a target for
bullying
December 26, 2011
Written by Tony Gonzalez | The Tennessean
ASHLAND CITY - Jacob Rogers loved attention.

The Cheatham County teenager told over-the-top jokes, goofed off in photos and
dressed in daring costumes for Halloween.

He had energy nobody seemed to match. And when he got his friends laughing, he
didn't let up. He once coerced a pregnant friend - already past her due date -
to hop off the couch and model a pair of high heels, runway style.

But he also sought a different kind of attention: help in working through
depression, substance abuse and family issues that tormented him.

In his death by suicide this month, Jacob lost control of the attention he'd
receive. His life, a swirl of complexity and turmoil, became, in death, a much
simpler story of a gay student bullied so badly that he chose to end his life.

That story, or some grain of it, belonged to Jacob, too. It just wasn't his
whole story. And yet it spread with gas-fire suddenness, fueling commentary from
gay activist groups and bloggers and even a talk radio personality in Seattle. A
local movement put school officials on an island of criticism, and angry
community members shut down a town meeting called to discuss suicide prevention.

With each passing day, a gap seemed to widen between who Jacob was in life and
who he became in death.

Nobody denies that bullies got to Jacob during his four years at Cheatham County
Central High School.

He was openly gay and wanted to be comfortable saying so. But maybe more than
others, Jacob became an almost daily target for name-calling, said friend
Kaelynn Mooningham, 18.

"It was like every day, every class," she said.

Jacob didn't hide who he was. He wore tight-fitting clothes and shared outfits
with girlfriends, Mooningham said. He also obsessed over Lady Gaga, dressing up
as the pop star, making sketches of her and listening over and over to her gay
anthem, "Born This Way."

"Jacob was Jacob and that was it," said schoolmate Joney Williams, a junior. "I
think he just wanted to do his thing. I don't think Jacob was on this big
mission to change the world or to change how everybody thought about him. I
think he just wanted people to leave him alone."

When Jacob began to tell relatives he was gay, around age 14, the conversations
did not surprise or alienate family members, said maternal grandmother Sandra
McDonald.

Nor did the disclosure fully define him.

McDonald and sister Denise Johnson - Jacob's great aunt - fondly recalled
Jacob's interest in cooking, which started back when he was about 6, when he was
given an Easy-Bake oven he'd begged for.

Longtime friend Maricela Zamudio, a senior, said Jacob thought of attending a
cosmetology or art school.

He was a creative illustrator, singer and dancer who could turn routine backyard
activities into adventures, Zamudio said. He raved about the mystique
surrounding an antique wooden bedframe and cloudy mirror in his bedroom.

Jacob lived with his grandmother on his father's side of the family, Norma
Rogers, who could not be reached.

Zamudio said the two were extremely close.

"Whenever we went to hang out with him, it was always Jacob and Norma," she
said.

He prepped meals for her, cleaned and ran errands. The teen's willingness to
live with and help his grandmother was obvious to everyone.

"He was just a tender, loving soul," Johnson said.

Yet Jacob's family life was not without strife. His biological mother's move out
of Tennessee this year weighed heavily on his heart. At least once, he savagely
criticized his parents on his Facebook page. And he wrote about family in the
notes he left behind before shooting himself on Dec. 7, said Sgt. Travis Walker,
who investigated the death.

"There was a lot of things going on in the young man's life," Walker said.

Jacob missed as many school days as he attended in his last semester. He
struggled to make good grades, and a diploma seemed out of reach.

McDonald said Jacob resisted the option of dropping out to instead pursue a GED.
She said strong bonds with friends at school kept him coming back.

Yet in the building, he'd sometimes spend as much time with counselors as he did
in class.

He'd overcome an eating disorder but wrestled with drugs and alcohol, friends
said. And he'd begun to deal with the adult world, encountering complications
with health insurance after his 18th birthday. Some of those issues were
mentioned in writings he left behind.

What those writings, which officials declined to make public, did not include
was any mention of bullying.

"None," Walker said. "Zero."

Blame poisons community
But those who believe Jacob was bullied to death have their evidence, too. And
they are determined to make Jacob's death a rallying cry to bring change to
Cheatham County.

Friends and family question whether faculty did enough to protect Jacob, and if
the district's bullying policy leaves too much leniency for students who do
harm.

Hundreds signed a petition to toughen the bullying policy, and more than 1,700
people have signed a similar online petition started by the Tennessee Equality
Project, a gay rights group.

In public meetings, other students have told stories of ridicule and abuse.

In an interview, Justin Philalack, a 2009 graduate, said he hid that he was gay
while he was at the school.

"The guys that were out and gay, they were always ridiculed," he said. "To me, I
never saw any punishment."

School officials, suddenly under intense scrutiny, defended their bullying
policy. Director of Schools Tim Webb said a revision in the past year mandated
reporting of incidents. The rules cover all the bases now, he said.

Webb does not anticipate further changes, but he knows petitions and another
recent meeting were geared toward revisiting the policy through the school
board.

None of the six county school board members returned calls seeking comment.

In Jacob's case, officials found just one report of bullying in the year since
Webb and Principal Glenna Barrow took their positions.

"We know rumors and speculation of previous bullying," Webb said. "We are still
looking into that."

He insisted that Barrow and the counselors went "above and beyond" to help Jacob
with his many challenges. Citing confidentiality laws, he declined to discuss
specifics.

"Is there bullying that's going on? Absolutely," Webb said. "But I don't buy
into the idea for one minute that Cheatham County schools are less tolerant than
another rural school system in the region or the state."

Webb is researching anti-bullying programs to bring additional staff training
and student curriculum into the school.

Zamudio, who supported her friend when he'd expressed suicidal thoughts before,
was hesitant to criticize officials.

"The school actually did a lot," she said. "He came in multiple times telling
(counselors) he had troubles in his life. Obviously they could have brought in
more help."

Disagreements over blame have played out in dramatic ways.

A school counselor was left in tears after being kicked out of Jacob's funeral,
according to multiple people who attended. Elsewhere in town, animosity has
surrounded those associated with school staff.

The community dialogue was literally silenced one night, when tensions cut short
a community talk led by the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network.

Members of the network had spent parts of four days in the high school helping
students, teachers, kitchen staff and school bus drivers cope with their grief
and learn the warning signs of suicide.

Scott Ridgway, executive director of the network, brought similar information to
the community meeting, hosted at the same local funeral home that handled
Jacob's burial. He discussed the complexities of suicide and grieving. He also
spoke on behalf of the school and the emotion he'd seen in devastated staff
members.

But his comments applauding the district bullying policy, "went over like a lead
balloon," McDonald recalled. She said people were upset to hear the school
defended, and that the meeting was organized as a lecture.

Ridgway said the anger directed toward him was unusual, but not unprecedented
for such an emotionally charged moment.

"There was a sense that some of these folks that attended, they wanted to
pinpoint and point fingers," he said. "That's not the way the meetings are
supposed to happen."

Ridgway said focusing on blame can blur lessons that might prevent future
tragedies.

"We've got to convey that anybody takes their life for a number of reasons, not
just one," he said. "It's easier for students to blame someone versus looking at
the big picture."

Voices seek change
Jacob remains somewhere in that picture, often sketched with one simple stroke
by people who never knew him.

And the simple story proved powerful. After a trio of gay blogs put out a call
for help, almost $10,000 in donations more than covered the cost of the teen's
funeral.

Closer to home, students invoke his name in their efforts to root out bullies,
change policies and form a new group for all students to talk about their lives.

"I think Jacob sparked all this," Williams said. "But it's not just about Jacob
anymore. It's about all of us. All of us need a voice. All of us need to stand
up."

The raw emotions unleashed by the tragedy are also being harnessed by leaders of
local gay rights groups. A cross-section of support groups hosted a town hall
meeting last Tuesday

"We don't just want this to end, this energy," Nashville-based civil rights
attorney Abby Rubenfeld told a group of about 30. "We want to do something in
Jacob's name."

Recalling the frustration of the community meeting a week before, organizers
gave kids and parents free rein to open up about the bullying they'd seen and to
air grievances about their schools.

Williams passed around her petition demanding a stiffer bullying policy and
students learned how to form groups to promote tolerance.

Chris Sanders, chairman of the Tennessee Equality Project's Nashville committee,
gave step-by-step directions on how to request changes through the school board.

"What we want to see happen is citizens of Cheatham County engage their elected
school board for the policy change they want," Sanders said in an interview. "We
will advise on . best practices. In the end, it's up to the citizens of Cheatham
County."

Those in attendance spoke in the heated language of a "revolution" they said was
needed in the rural county, where abuse could no longer be tolerated.

Personal horror stories piled up, leading to talk of legal actions and federal
investigations.

With plans for further research, the group scheduled another meeting for Jan.
12.

"The snowball is really rolling because these parents are so scared their child
is going to be next," said Johnson, the teen's great aunt. "They're going to
take Jake's place."

Clues remain elusive
Even when life settles down, Jacob's friends and family may never fully know
what was happening inside the mind of the high school senior.

The boy's grandmother - like many others - has tried to look back, to examine
what she'd said and how she might have helped. A lot of people have revisited
and sometimes agonized over the last things they heard him say.

"You go back and try to read," McDonald said. "He texted the day before. There
was nothing off-color - nothing disturbing."

Zamudio cut Jacob's long blonde hair that week, and felt something wasn't right.
But her friend had talked of troubles before.

"I didn't really do anything," she said. "I feel guilty about that."

On his Facebook page that last night, in a message left for anyone to read,
Jacob wrote an apology to those who knew him. And then he wrote: "This is me,
signing off."

Those words have carried on and multiplied. As the teen's name became familiar
in households across the country, strangers arrived at his page, then sent his
statements onward to still more people, often attaching their own emotional
pleas to end bullying.

Those who did know him write messages there too, describing how he sticks in
their minds.

They'll always have their pictures of Jacob Rogers. And those who didn't know
him, they'll have theirs, too.

Reach Tony Gonzalez at 615-259-8089 or tgonzalez@...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=10453&MediaType=1&Category=26
Cardinal Francis George Called On To Resign Over KKK-Gay Pride Comparison
By On Top Magazine Staff
Published: December 24, 2011
       Cardinal Francis George, the head of the Catholic Conference of Illinois
and the Archbishop of Chicago, is being called on to resign for comparing gay
rights activists to the Ku Klux Klan.

       George on Sunday told Fox Chicago that he agreed with Our Lady of Mount
Carmel's concerns about a new Gay Pride parade route in Chicago which would pass
in front of the Roman Catholic church's doors. The church has asked the city to
force organizers to alter their plans.

       "I go with the pastor," George said. "He's telling us that he won't be
able to have services on Sunday if that's the case. You don't want the gay
liberation movement morph into something like the Klu Klux Klan, demonstrating
in the streets against Catholicism."

       George defended his stance when the host called it "a little strong."

       "It is, but you take a look at the rhetoric. The rhetoric of the Klu Klux
Klan, the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people. Who is the enemy? Who
is the enemy? The Catholic Church." (The video is embedded in the right panel of
this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)

       An online petition launched Friday by Truth Wins Out calls George's
remarks "outrageous."

       "This outrageous comparison of the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan was
so degrading and hurtful that apologizing will not be sufficient," the
Change.org petition reads. "George's only road to redemption is handing in his
resignation. If he has a shred of dignity and a shard of class he will
immediately step down."

       An archdiocesan spokeswoman told the Chicago Tribune that the cardinal's
words could be "misinterpreted."

       "Whether it was the best choice of analogy I don't know. Taken out of
context the meaning can be misinterpreted. I would suggest people read the whole
interview."

       Nearly 3,000 people had signed by petition as of Saturday morning.

       Last year, George opposed Illinois' civil unions law, which is now in
effect.

       "Marriage is what it is and always has been, no matter what a legislature
decides to do; however, the public understanding of marriage will be negatively
affected by passage of a bill that ignores the natural fact that sexual
complementarity is at the core of marriage," he wrote.

Related Content
   a.. Gay Navy Kiss Condemned By Tea Party Nation
   a.. Lady Gaga, Conan O'Brien Labeled 'Losers' For Marrying Gay Couples
   a.. Cardinal Francis George Fears Gay Pride Parade 'Could Morph Into Klu Klux
Klan'
   a.. Bruce Jacobs Apologizes For Anti-Gay Remarks


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


6)
http://sdgln.com/news
http://sdgln.com/news/2011/12/22/widely-discredited-ex-gay-movement-exported-car\
ibbean
Widely discredited "ex-gay" movement exported from U.S. to Caribbean
Paul Canning - LGBT Asylum News
December 22nd, 2011
The widely discredited "ex-gay" religious movement has expanded beyond its
American origins throughout the world.
Despite its evident shrinking in the U.S., with reports that the oldest ex-gay
group Exodus International is on the verge of "social and financial oblivion"
and widespread mockery of "therapy" operators like Michelle Bachmann's husband,
in the rest of the world it is growing.

Reports emerged in October of over 200 "ex-gay clinics" in Ecuador, some of
which activists had managed to get closed after the torture they were practicing
was exposed. It also emerged that the Hong Kong government is paying for
so-called Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy (SOCT) for LGBT citizens.

In Uganda, it is U.S. "conversion therapy" Christianist evangelists who have
been behind those pushing the "Kill The Gays" bill. Because of them the idea
that "the gay" can be cured is widely believed throughout Africa.

Now the same lies pushed by the same American "ex-gay" propagandists are finding
an audience in the Caribbean.

A full page ad published in the leading Trinidad newspaper Sunday Express titled
"What you should know about homosexuality" has outraged local activists. They
are calling for any further ads to be blocked by local media standards bodies.

Wrote local activist Brendon O'Brien in a letter to the newspaper:

They looked at this ... and thought it was okay to publish? Not that something
is wrong with publishing a religiously slanted ad, but one that openly
discredits a community, questions their movement towards rights and even, in a
sense, undermines their actual existence is definitely a problem. And this tried
to do just that, and in a respectful and pseudo-scientific way as well. The
publisher should have seen this and seen that it would've caused a problem.
A similar ad was published in Jamaica's newspaper on World AIDS Day. The blog
Gay Jamaica Watch pointed out that the false statements in these ads "would only
justify the stigmas that people who experience same-sex attraction are not
"normal" but are all sexual defiant, mentally unstable, promiscuous and
self-selecting."

That Jamaican advertisement was followed up by a symposium Dec. 10 organized by
the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship and attended by many leading Jamaicans,
including two judges of Jamaica's Supreme Court and the Attorney General, and
with American and British Christianist speakers. This event was aimed squarely
at fighting the growing movement for decriminalization of homosexuality on the
island, and throughout the Caribbean. That movement can now count the support of
the head of Jamaica's Anglican church, who has called for the repeal of the
colonial era anti-sodomy laws.

Writes Jamaican activists Maurice Tomlinson:

"During the nearly 7-hour symposium, the presenters extolled the virtues of
Dominionism - the belief that countries must be governed by a conservative
Christian understanding of biblical law - and cautioned (actually, more like
threatened) Jamaican Christians that if they don't organize a counter-offensive
against the militant gay agenda sweeping the world, their beloved country will
be overrun by aberrant ideas "hellbent" on destroying marriage, children, and,
of course, Christianity."
Tomlinson reported that "the entire proceedings were tightly controlled" and
organizers tried to stop anyone offering a correction when false information was
presented.

Tomlinson is one of those taking Jamaica's anti-gay law to the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights. The law in Belize is also being challenged as
unconstitutional.

Says veteran Trinidadian activist Colin Robinson of the apparently co-ordinated
anti-gay Caribbean efforts:

"The region is in the cross-hairs of religious groups in the North who think
their battles for Christian Dominion ought to be waged on the bodies of
Caribbean gay and lesbian men and women, just like they have done on the corpses
of our Ugandan brothers and sisters."
But Robinson also pointed out that:

"In Trinidad, however, just like happened when Phillip Lee from His Way Out
Ministries came a year ago, what's happening is that heterosexual people,
especially young ones, are mobilizing to say: 'This is wrong and harmful, and we
will stand against it.' They are doing a much better job than we are of creating
advocates for GLBT rights."
LGBT Asylum News urges action today for LGBT asylum seekers and asks activists
to encourage friends and contacts to visit website for details or to check on
any updates to this story.

To read the original story or to check for updates, click HERE.

Related articles

   a.. Jamaica's sodomy law gets first legal challenge (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
   b.. Jamaican first winner of David Kato award (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
   c.. Jamaican bloggers discuss ban on pro-gay TV advert
(madikazemi.blogspot.com)
   d.. Video: In Caribbean, challenges mount to 'buggery' laws
(madikazemi.blogspot.com)
----------

My comment ---
Nobody knows how to lie and bear false witness like a Southern Baptist, or an SB
clone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------



7)
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201112/comedian-takes-heat-over-tim-tebow-t\
weet
Bill Maher Takes Heat Over Tim Tebow Tweet
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:41 am
Written by: Ben Maller

Even in defeat, Tim Tebow creates controversy -- this time in Tinseltown.

HBO's Bill Maher created a firestorm over the Christmas weekend with a scathing
reaction to Tebow's subpar performance in Buffalo. Shortly after Tebow threw
four interceptions in the Broncos' lopsided defeat to the Bills, Maher turned to
his Twitter page to poke fun at the very religious NFL star. (And a warning:
Maher's tweet includes harsh language and divisive references.)

"Wow, Jesus just [screwed] #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere ... Satan
is tebowing, saying to Hitler "Hey, Buffalo's killing them," Maher tweeted.

Maher, a proud atheist who supports legalizing pot, same-sex marriage and is a
board member for PETA, upset a number of conservatives, according to
Entertainment Weekly. Eric Bolling of Fox News responded to Maher by calling him
"disgusting vile trash," among other things.

Tebow didn't bother responding to Maher, but plenty of his fans did. Some called
for a mass cancellation of HBO subscriptions over the offensive tweet. "Real
Time with Bill Maher," is scheduled to return to the premium cable channel on
January 13, 2012.

The comedian has roughly 872,000 followers on Twitter. Believe it or not, that's
100,000 more than Tebow's number of Twitter minions.

As for Tebow's Broncos, they'll win the AFC West title and the No. 4 seed with a
win over the Chiefs or a Raiders loss to the Chargers this weekend.

       Bill Maher has long been outspoken about his dislike of organized
religion.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S77CUFQPPg


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


8)
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/the_intellectual_cowardice_of_bradley_mannings_c\
ritics/singleton/
Saturday, Dec 24, 2011

By Glenn Greenwald
The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning's critics
(updated below - Update II - Update III)

After imprisoning Private First Class Bradley Manning for eighteen months, the
U.S. Army last week finally began the preliminary stage of his court-martial
proceeding, and that initial process ended on Thursday. Manning faces over 30
charges; the most serious - "aiding the enemy" - carries a death sentence
(though prosecutors are requesting "only" life in prison for the 24-year-old
soldier). The technical purpose of this week's hearing was to determine if there
is sufficient evidence to warrant a full court-martial proceeding; the finding
(that there is such evidence) is a virtual inevitability. Manning's counsel, Lt.
Col. David Coombs, spent the week challenging the Army's evidence, suggesting
that his client may have suffered "diminished capacity" by virtue of his gender
struggles and emotional instability, and finally, forcefully arguing that the
leaks were an act of political conscience and that the Army has severely
"overcharged" Manning in an attempt to coerce incriminating statements against
WikiLeaks (Kevin Gosztola and The Guardian were at the hearing and have recaps
of what happened over the last week; my general view of Manning was set forth in
an Op-Ed in The Guardian last week, and my specific view of the gender defense
is here).

For the moment, I want to make one narrow point about Bradley Manning. I've made
it before but it was really underscored for me by a debate I had on an Al
Jazeera program Thursday night regarding Manning with Daniel Ellsberg and the
neocon activist Cliff May, who vigorously defended the Obama administration's
treatment of Manning (the video of our segment is embedded below; it was
preceded by a short interview of P.J. Crowley):

Ever since Manning was accused of being the source for the WikiLeaks
disclosures, those condemning these leaks have sought to distinguish them from
Ellsberg's leak of the Pentagon Papers. With virtual unanimity, Manning's
harshest critics have contended that while Ellsberg's leak was justifiable and
noble, Manning's alleged leaks were not; that's because, they claim, Ellsberg's
leak was narrowly focused and devoted to exposing specific government lies,
while Manning's was indiscriminate and a far more serious breach of secrecy.
When President Obama declared Manning guilty, he made the same claim: "No it
wasn't the same thing. Ellsberg's material wasn't classified in the same way."

One problem for those wishing to make this claim is that Ellsberg himself has
been one of Manning's most vocal defenders, repeatedly insisting that the two
leaks are largely indistinguishable. But the bigger problem for this claim is
how blatantly irrational it is. As Ellsberg clearly details in this Al Jazeera
debate, he - Ellsberg - dumped 7,000 pages of Top Secret documents: the highest
known level of classification; by contrast, not a single page of what Manning is
alleged to have leaked was Top Secret, but rather all bore a much lower-level
secrecy designation. In that sense, Obama was right: "Ellsberg's material wasn't
classified in the same way" - the secrets Ellsberg leaked were classified as
being far more sensitive.

To the extent one wants to distinguish the two leaks, Ellsberg's was the far
more serious breach of secrecy. The U.S. Government's own pre-leak assessment of
the sensitivities of these documents proves that. How can someone - in the name
of government secrecy and national security - praise the release of thousands of
pages of Top Secret documents while vehemently condemning the release of
documents bearing a much lower secrecy classification?

Nor is there any way to distinguish the substance of the two leaks. While the
Pentagon Papers exposed the lies from American leaders regarding the Vietnam
War, the WikiLeaks disclosures have done exactly the same with regard to the
Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, and a whole litany of other critical events.
Here is what Ellen Knickmeyer, the Baghdad Bureau Chief for The Washington Post
during the Iraq War, documented about the Iraq War logs Manning is accused of
releasing:

   Thanks to WikiLeaks, though, I now know the extent to which top American
leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the
world, as the Iraq mission exploded.

Is that not exactly what makes so many people view the Pentagon Papers leak as
noble and just? Even some of Manning's fellow soldiers in Iraq have hailed the
WikiLeaks leaker as a hero. Beyond that, the diplomatic cables and war logs
released by WikiLeaks revealed falsehoods and improprieties from the U.S.
government (and other governments around the world) in a wide range of areas:
its involvement in the covert war in Yemen; lies told by the U.S. Government
regarding horrific, civilian-slaughtering incidents in Iraq; and, in general,
numerous acts of abuses, deceit and illegality regarding much of what was done
under the War on Terror rubric: exactly as the Pentagon Papers did.

Nor, if the U.S. Government's evidence is to be believed, can there be any doubt
about the similarity in motives between the two leakers. Just as Ellsberg
repeatedly explained that he could not in good conscience stand by and have the
world remain ignorant of the government lies he discovered about the Vietnam War
(a war he once supported and helped plan), so, too, did Manning repeatedly state
that these leaks were vital for informing the world about the depths of
brutality, corruption and deceit driving these wars (including one war to which
he was deployed as a soldier) - all with the goal of triggering what he called
"worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms." In the purported chats he had,
Manning described how the intense worldwide reaction to the video of an Apache
helicopter shooting unarmed civilians and a Reuters journalist in Baghdad "gave
me immense hope"; that's because: "i want people to see the truth. regardless of
who they are. because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as
a public." That is as pure an expression as possible of exactly what motivated
Ellsberg as well.

Just as Ellsberg came to realize the evil of the war of which he was a part and
felt compelled to act to expose it even at the risk of his own liberty, so, too,
did Manning (in the chat logs Manning purportedly said: "im not so much scared
of getting caught and facing consequences at this point. as i am of being
misunderstood"). The Army Private also explained in the chat logs that he began
to realize how heinous the Iraq War was when he discovered that "insurgents"
being rounded up and imprisoned by the U.S. Army were doing nothing more than
issuing "scholarly critiques" of the Malaki government's corruption - only to
find that his Army superiors ignored his discovery when he brought it to their
attention. Both Ellsberg and (allegedly) Manning then did the same thing: turned
over the information they discovered to a third party to select the parts that
should be published to the world (The New York Times for Ellsberg and WikiLeaks
for Manning).

What's really going on here in this Manning v. Ellsberg comparison is pure
intellectual cowardice. At this point - four decades after it happened - most
people are unwilling to stand up and publicly condemn the Pentagon Papers leak.
In progressive circles, it has long been entrenched dogma that Ellsberg's leak
was just and noble and that the Nixon administration's efforts to prosecute
Ellsberg were ignoble. Ellsberg has hero status, and deservedly so: he risked
his life, literally, to expose to the world just how systematic and deliberate
was the U.S. Government's deceit about the Vietnam War and how heinous was the
war itself.

As a result, very few people are willing to condemn what he did (even the neocon
May, in this Al Jazeera debate, was afraid to say that what Ellsberg did was
wrong). So in order to condemn Manning - and, as importantly, if not more so, to
defend the Obama administration - it's necessary for Manning's critics to
contrive distinctions between the Pentagon Papers leak and the WikiLeaks
disclosure: of course I approve of what Ellsberg did - all Decent People do -
but what Manning is accused of doing is radically different and just awful: he
must be punished.

The clear reality, though, is that those who condemn Manning now and want to see
him imprisoned for decades are the direct heirs of those who, in the early
1970s, wanted to see Dan Ellsberg imprisoned for life. Those who now condemn
both Ellsberg and Manning - like those who support the executive power abuses
and secrecy of both the Bush and Obama administrations - are authoritarians to
be sure, but at least they're sincere and consistent in their views; it's those
who support one but condemn the other who are incoherent at best.

As Ellsberg himself makes clear, everything that is being said now to condemn
Manning - everything - was widely said about Ellsberg at the time of his leak.
Back then, Ellsberg was repeatedly accused of being a traitor, of violating his
oath, of endangering America's national security, of aiding its enemies, of
taking the law into his own hands; he was smeared and had his sanity
continuously called into question. Had it not been for the Nixon
administration's overzealous attempts to destroy him by breaking into the office
of his psychiatrist - the primary act that caused the charges against Ellsberg
to be dismissed on the grounds of government misconduct - there is a real
possibility that Ellsberg would still be in a federal prison today. He's viewed
as a hero now only because the passage of time has proven the nobility of his
act: it's much easier to defend those who challenge and subvert political power
retrospectively than it is to do so at the time.

As the Walkely Foundation recognized last month when awarding WikiLeaks and
Julian Assange Australia's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize: "the secret cables
[] create[d] more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a
lifetime." Those who want to see Manning punished and imprisoned for decades are
driven by exactly the same mentality as those who wanted to see Ellsberg in
prison back then: a belief that the U.S. Government has the right to use secrecy
to hide its acts of deceit and illegality, and that those who expose such acts
to the world are the real criminals. Just as the Obama administration's
obsessive persecution of whistleblowers has its roots in the secrecy-worshipping
mentality of the Nixon administration - in her New Yorker article on the war on
whistleblowers, Jane Mayer quotes Gabriel Schoenfeld as saying: "Obama has
presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history-even more so
than Nixon" - those demanding Manning's punishment are, in every sense, the
Nixonians of today. Manning's critics are made from the same authoritarian cloth
as those demanding Dan Ellsberg's scalp in 1971. They should at least be honest
enough to admit that, and stop contriving blatantly false distinctions between
the two cases.

* * * * *

One unanswered question surrounding the charges against Manning has long been
this: who, exactly, is "the enemy" Manning is accused of aiding? On Thursday,
military prosecutors supplied the answer: Al Qaeda. Apparently, by disclosing to
the world the U.S. Government's bad acts undertaken in secrecy, one is legally
"aiding Al Qaeda." Gosztola, in his recap of the proceedings, details how
dangerous that theory is to basic journalism, as did Law Professor Kevin Jon
Heller back in March.

* * * * *

The New Yorker's George Packer emailed an objection to an item I wrote on
Thursday, and I posted Packer's objection as an update along with my own
response; there is now additional information about the objection voiced by
Packer, and this morning I posted it as a final update to that column.

* * * * *

The Al Jazeera segment is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=53Fs13hbPr4

UPDATE: There is one other glaring irony that should be noted here. If Manning
is indeed the WikiLeaks leaker, then he did not only reveal critical truths to
the world, but also achieved enormous good: exactly the results the purported
chat logs reflect that Manning sought. Even the harshly anti-WikiLeaks former
NYT Executive Editor, Bill Keller, credits the release of the diplomatic cables
with helping to spark the Arab Spring by exposing the true depths of the
region's dictators, including in Tunisia. By highlighting atrocities committed
by U.S. troops in Iraq, the diplomatic cables prevented the Malaki government
from granting the legal immunity Obama officials were demanding in exchange for
keeping troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline and thus helped end the Iraq
War. Ironically, it's often the very same people who most vocally celebrate the
Arab Spring and the end of the Iraq War who simultaneously support the
imprisonment of an individual who helped bring those events about (the WikiLeaks
leaker), while cheering for a government (the Obama administration) that propped
up many of those Arab dictators and tried desperately to extend the Iraq war.

If he is the WikiLeaks leaker, history will judge Manning as kindly as it has
Ellsberg - and will view his persecutors just as unkindly as Nixon officials are
viewed today for what they tried to do in the face of the Pentagon Papers leak.



UPDATE II: In deciding which problem is larger - excessive secrecy or excessive
disclosure - consider this year-end list from Electronic Frontier Foundation
entitled: "2011: The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark," which details just some of
the most extreme secrecy abuses of The Most Transparent Administration EverT.
Jay Rosen once said: "The watchdog press died; we have [WikiLeaks] instead"; one
could just as accurately say: meaningful transparency died; we have Bradley
Manning instead.



UPDATE III: Here is a good report from Al Jazeera's Listening Post from this
week on U.S. media coverage of the Manning story, featuring interviews with Amy
Goodman, FAIR's Peter Hart, former CIA agent Roy McGovern and myself:

--- click on URL, scroll down the page to the second video ---

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In MatthewsPlaceForum@yahoogroups.com, "James Martin" <martinjg@...> wrote:
>
> Question --
>
> What is the Latin translation for "I will wash"?
> Lavobo ?   And what would be the pronunciation?
> I'm referring to that part in the Mass where the priest washes hands.  Her's
or His -- doesn't matter.
> Just "I will wash", etc.
> Getting ready to celebrate the holy of holy virgin birth.
>
> There is a difference between classical and ecclesiastical Latin.  The first
was spoken in the first century, the latter in the fourth century.  The spelling
is "lavabo" from lavare, the first of three Latin conjugations.  I prefer the
classical pronunciation of "luh-wah-boh", with the last two vowels long. 
Ecclesiatical Latin, such as heard in "The Passion of the Christ" pronounces is
as "luh-vah-boh".  I won't mention how English has changed the original Latin
pronunciations of its letters!

I have observed many times how difficult it is for monoliguists to pronounce
foreign languages.  It takes practice to get it right.

1) The Top 12 Gay Political Stories Of 2011
2) Help TWO Stand Up To Bullies and Fight Back -- full page ad in this Sunday's
Chicago Tribune
3) 11th Circuit rules fundie's religious bigotry doesn't trump science and
education
4) Quote of the Day -- Christian right exports
5) Republicans Try to Impose Selfishness on American People
6) The Wealth Gap Between Congress and Voters Is Growing



1)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/26/the-top-gay-news-stories-2011_n_1158089\
.html

Michelangelo Signorile mike.signorile@...

  12/26/11
The Top 12 Gay Political Stories Of 2011

January 2011
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asks the California Supreme Court to weigh in
on whether or not proponents of Prop 8, which banned marriage for gays and
lesbians in the California Constitution, have standing to challenge federal
Judge Vaughn Walker's historic 2010 decision ruling Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Ten months later, in November, the state court issues its opinion that the
proponents indeed have standing. Legal dream team Ted Olson and David Boise now
await a decision by the 9th Circuit on standing and on Prop 8.


February 2011
The Justice Department releases a memo announcing that it believes the Defense
of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and that the Obama administration will not
defend Section 3 of the law, which had been ruled unconstitutional by a federal
judge in 2010.

Attorney General Eric Holder writes sexual orientation should be subject to a
more "heightened standard of scrutiny" when it comes to discrimination.


April 2011
Republican House leaders announce that former Solicitor General Paul Clement
will defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court on behalf of Congress now that
the Obama administration won't be defending it. But later that month, the large
pro-gay law firm King & Spaulding, where Clement worked, dropped the case after
outrage from LGBT legal advocates and its own employees.

Several days later Clement resigned, joined a smaller, conservative firm, and
took the DOMA case.


May 2011
Legislators in Minnesota approved a bill to bring an anti-gay marriage amendment
to the state's ballot in November of 2012. The bill had been pushed for years by
Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann when she was a
Minnesota legislator.

Throughout 2011, Bachmann takes credit for bill on the campaign trail.


June 2011
New York becomes the 6th and most populous state to make marriage legal for gays
and lesbians. The New York Legislature passes a marriage equality law, which
Governor Cuomo signs immediately, during a late Friday night session.

Earlier in the week hope was almost lost on the bill, which required several
Republicans to cross party lines. Activists credit Cuomo with rounding up the
crucial votes.


July 2011
California Governor Jerry Brown signs SB48, a historic bill, the first of its
kind and breaking ground for other states, which mandates the teaching of LGBT
history and the contributions of LGBT figures like Harvey Milk in public
schools.

Conservatives fail in mounting an effort to repeal the law at the ballot box,
but continue to work other channels to try to invalidate it.


August 2011
The Obama administration gave a boost to bi-national gay and lesbian couples
when it announced that Immigration and Naturalization Service would prioritize
deportations differently, giving a lower priority to foreign citizens who have
family in the U.S. -- and including gay couples in the definition of what
constitutes a family.

Though deportations continue -- and DOMA prevents married gay bi-national
couples from legally staying together in the U.S., unlike heterosexual couples
-- it was welcome news for many.


September 2011
After months of implementing its study and training troops, the Pentagon
officially ends the ban on gays serving openly in the military, following the
law to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" passed by Congress and signed by President
Obama late last year.

Republicans in Congress try to stall or stop repeal throughout 2011 but efforts
fail.


September 2011
The North Carolina legislature votes to place a ban on marriage for gays and
lesbians in the state's constitution on the ballot for May of 2012.

North Carolina is the only state in the South without such a ban. Getting it on
the ballot is the last major effort of antigay State Senator James Forrester
before his death in November.


October 2011
Gay rights pioneer, Frank Kameny, died at the age of 86.

He was fired from his job as an astronomer for the Army Map Service in 1957 for
being gay. In 1961, Kameny brought the first civil rights case based on sexual
orientation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though the court declined to hear the
case, Kameny maintained a lifelong effort to remove legal and social barriers
for members of the LGBT community.

After a half-century of activism, Kameny was present when President Obama signed
a memorandum extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees; he
was in the audience in December 2010, when President Obama signed legislation
repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell.

In 2009, Kameny received a formal apology from the federal government for his
firing. His papers, including the 1961 Supreme Court petition, are archived in
the Library of Congress.


November 2011
Congressman Barney Frank, the senior openly gay member of Congress who has been
a member of the House for over 30 years, battling antigay lawmakers and pushing
for gay rights, announces he will not run for reelection.

Frank says that he will write books and articles and still weigh in on LGBT
rights.


December 2011
President Obama issues a directive tying aid to foreign countries to their
policies on LGBT rights, saying it should be a factor all government agencies
take into consideration.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives a groundbreaking, passionate speech to
world leaders at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, pressuring
governments around the world to recognize that LGBT rights are human rights.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://www.truthwinsout.org/

http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/2011/12/21152/

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=gow5fgcab&v=001HMt6LRUvA5imh4\
kF6ant8QdPgWQNjqqVl2-Qno7j1my5-BOFUPKvHQy0f2PMKFknMn15W2XI9Ho8nGySZUpG7WZuo9d1eK\
vJ2M4pKe9F8_o%3D

December 29, 2011
Help TWO Stand Up To Bullies and Fight Back

Thanks to you, pressure is mounting on Chicago Archbishop Francis George after
he foolishly smeared the LGBT Community by linking it to the KKK.

With your help, TWO's petition calling on George to resign already has more than
4,000 signatures!

Today, Nearly 500 students at St. Norbert's College, in De Pere, Wis., have
signed an online petition asking the college to replace George as its
commencement speaker. If you have not yet signed both petitions, please do so
and forward them along to friends and family members.

To keep up the increasing pressure and expose George's lies, TWO is placing a
full-page ad in this Sunday's Chicago Tribune headlined, "Hey, Cardinal Francis
George, Gay is not like the KKK." The ad debunks the misinformation disseminated
by the Archbishop about the LGBT community.

If you are like me, you want to stand up to bullies like George and fight back
against the defamation, smears, slander, and lies regularly hurled against LGBT
people. Our partners, our spouses, and our children deserve better than to be
compared to the Ku Klux Klan. Let's do something about it!

Please help us fund this ad today with an end of year tax-deductible
contribution to Truth Wins Out. Only though your generosity and support can we
continue to be a strong voice for fairness and equality.





Truth Wins Out

Post Office Box 96

Burlington, VT 05402



Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
Email: wbesen@...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


3)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/21/1047313/-11th-Circuit-rules-fundies-rel\
igious%C2%A0bigotry-doesnt-trump-science%C2%A0and-education
Wed Dec 21, 2011 at 08:09 AM PST

11th Circuit rules fundie's religious bigotry doesn't trump science and
education
by Scott Wooledge  http://www.dailykos.com/user/Scott%20Wooledge

Jennifer Keeton failed in 11th Circuit Federal Appeals Court last week in her
attempt to coerce Augusta State University (ASU) of Georgia into awarding her a
master's degree the school contended she was refusing to earn.
Keeton, a psychology student, refused to do coursework associated with LGBTQ
population, which rendered her unable to participate in the required practicum
of one-on-one counseling. She was ordered to participate in a remediation plan.
From the ruling (pdf) in Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley:


   Rather than completing the remediation plan, Keeton filed this action pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. � 1983, alleging that requiring her to complete the remediation
plan violated her First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights. Along
with her verified complaint, Keeton also filed a motion for a preliminary
injunction that would prevent ASU's officials from dismissing her from the
program if she did not complete the remediation plan.

So, rather than do the coursework, she filed a lawsuit, with the help of the
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). According to Southern Poverty Law Center, ADF
"trains other attorneys 'to battle the radical homosexual legal agenda' in free,
week-long National Litigation Academies, whose participants commit to 'provide
450 hours of pro bono legal work on behalf of the Body of Christ.'" ADF
President Alan Sears claims that the ultimate goal of the gay-rights movement is
to "silence" Christians.
It was Plaintiff-Appellant's contention that Keeton's views on LGBT people were
protected as religious freedom and she was not obliged to consent to ASU
presenting her with materials that were challenging to her worldview. The ruling
includes this background (emphasis added):


   In her brief, Keeton describes herself as a Christian who is committed to the
truth of the Bible, including what she believes are its teachings on human
nature, the purpose and meaning of life, and the ethical standards that govern
human conduct. She holds several beliefs about homosexuality that she views as
arising from her Christian faith. She believes that "sexual behavior is the
result of personal choice for which individuals are accountable, not inevitable
deterministic forces; that gender is fixed and binary (i.e., male or female),
not a social construct or personal choice subject to individual change; and that
homosexuality is a 'lifestyle,' not a 'state of being.'"
   ASU's officials became aware that Keeton held these beliefs when she expressed
to professors in class and fellow classmates in and out of class that she
believed that the GLBTQ population suffers from identity confusion, and that she
intended to attempt to convert students from being homosexual to heterosexual.

   Keeton also said that it would be difficult for her to work with GLBTQ clients
and to separate her views about homosexuality from her clients' views. Further,
in answering a hypothetical posed by a faculty member, Keeton responded that as
a high school counselor confronted by a sophomore student in crisis, questioning
his sexual orientation, she would tell the student that it was not okay to be
gay. Similarly, Keeton told a fellow classmate that, if a client discloses that
he is gay, it was her intention to tell the client that his behavior is morally
wrong and then try to change the client's behavior, and if she were unable to
help the client change his behavior, she would refer him to someone practicing
conversion therapy.

These may well be Jennifer Keeton's views and she certainly has a Constitutional
right to hold and express them.
But they are very far from the mainstream views of the medical or psychiatric
profession, and also of the psychological profession which she is seeking to be
an accredited member. Keeton's faith in "conversion therapy" is among the most
glaring antithetical views she holds. The American Psychological Association
passed a resolution in 2009 by a vote of 125-to-4, saying psychologists should
not tell patients they can "become straight" by therapy or any other means. APA
added "efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and
suicidal tendencies."

It is an unfortunate reality that one can lead a student to the class, but one
cannot make them learn. Keeton was always free to take the courses and
completely disregard all the science and studies that inconveniently
contradicted her Christian Fundamentalist worldview. She was free to chew her
gum, play with her Blackberry, doodle on her notebook and pass the time
disengaged and uninterested, as many, many a college students do with required
courses that they'd rather not have to sit through. And having passed the
course, degree in hand, there was little that could compel Keeton not to totally
disregard the lessons she's been "forced" to endure. She could have gone on to
be an ineffective, and even destructive and harmful counselor to LGBT people in
crisis with few mechanisms in place to stop her.

But she and Alliance Defense Fund staked out a position that she had the right
to the degree, while not complying with the established curriculum that ASU
required of her. The very act of requiring she merely be exposed to the
knowledge base of her chosen profession was an affront to her religious freedom,
they contended.

The court didn't see it that way. They concluded:


   Just as a medical school would be permitted to bar a student who refused to
administer blood transfusions for religious reasons from participating in
clinical rotations, so ASU may prohibit Keeton from participating in its
clinical practicum if she refuses to administer the treatment it has deemed
appropriate. Every profession has its own ethical codes and dictates. When
someone voluntarily chooses to enter a profession, he or she must comply with
its rules and ethical requirements. Lawyers must present legal arguments on
behalf of their clients, notwithstanding their personal views. Judges must apply
the law, even when they disagree with it. So too counselors must refrain from
imposing their moral and religious values on their clients.

The ACLU, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of ASU, has this to say:

   As this decision makes clear, while we're all entitled to our own religious
beliefs, schools like ASU can mandate that counseling students adhere to
professional standards and not use their religion to discriminate against
students who come to them for help. This is especially important for LGBT
students in crisis, who may have already faced rejection and judgment from their
community, and who may not have any other trusted adult to talk to.
Georgia? This doesn't make up for Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain, but it helps.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


4)
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/12/quote-of-day-frank-mugisha.html
Friday, December 23, 2011
Quote Of The Day - Frank Mugisha
"Many Africans believe that homosexuality is an import from the West, and
ironically they invoke religious beliefs and colonial-era laws that are foreign
to our continent to persecute us. The way I see it, homophobia - not
homosexuality - is the toxic import. Thanks to the absurd ideas peddled by
American fundamentalists, we are constantly forced to respond to the myth -
debunked long ago by scientists - that homosexuality leads to pedophilia.

"For years, the Christian right in America has exported its doctrine to Africa,
and, along with it, homophobia. In Uganda, American evangelical Christians even
held workshops and met with key officials to preach their message of hate
shortly before a bill to impose the death penalty for homosexual conduct was
introduced in Uganda's Parliament in 2009. Two years later, despite my
denunciation of all forms of child exploitation, David Bahati, the legislator
who introduced the bill, as well as Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem and
other top government officials, still don't seem to grasp that being gay doesn't
equate to being a pedophile." - Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities
Uganda, writing for the New York Times.

----------

One of the comments posted at the URL ---
The tragic thing is that evangelicals like Scott Lively (and countless other
fundamentalist missionary types) have real blood on their hands in deaths and
persecutions of minority people in these African countries where they pander to
the governing and church elites to suppress minority human rights.

Frank Mugisha has exactly hit the nail on the head in stating that homophobia is
a toxic  American import.  (And one that has deadly human consequences.)

Satan is alive and well in the American evangelical community!  Praise the gawd
of hypocrisy and pathological obsession with gay sexualtiy!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)
http://www.truth-out.org/republicans-try-impose-selfishness-american-people/1325\
081042
Republicans Try to Impose Selfishness on American People
Wednesday 28 December 2011
by: Leo Gerard, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed

In the iconic Christmas film, "It's a Wonderful Life," an angel offers the
beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown
named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.

The banker's town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair.
The people's town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class
families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

The film's happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to
rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so
many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion.
They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the
banker, Henry Potter, with his "every man for himself" philosophy to triumph. In
the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to
disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.

A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers', uses the savings of
its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool
their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. At one
point in the film, George Bailey explains this concept to frightened depositors
who are trying to withdraw their savings during the panic that led to bank runs
in 1929.

Bailey urges the townspeople who had crowded into the building and loan office
to withdraw only what they need, not empty their accounts. "We have got to stick
together," he tells them, "We have to do this together." A building and loan
doesn't function without trust and cooperation.

It works well for Bedford Falls. The mortgages it provides help working people
move out of the Potters Field slums and into Bailey Park, where homes well kept
by their owners increase in value. Despite the success, Potter condemned this
practice, saying it was based on "high ideals without common sense." He
criticized the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan for granting a taxi driver a
mortgage after Potter's bank had rejected his application. Potter scoffed at
such practices, asking if the building and loan was a "business or a charity
ward."

This is exactly what Republicans do. They describe beloved American programs
like Medicare and Social Security as charities - using the euphemism
"entitlements." Like mortgages from the Bailey Building & Loan, Medicare and
Social Security are not charities. They're the American people depositing and
pooling their money for the benefit of the American community.

The GOP tries to destroy programs like these that aid the middle class, the vast
majority of Americans - the 99 percent - while Republicans protect tax breaks
and special perks for the rich - the one percent, the Henry Potters.

This time last year, Republicans demanded extension of tax breaks for the 1
percent, contending tax breaks stimulate the economy.

For the past three months, however, Republicans have fought extension of payroll
tax cuts, contending a break benefiting 160 million middle class Americans did
not stimulate the economy.

All year, Republicans have demanded an end to programs the middle class created
to aid the majority, the 99 percent. The GOP wants to reverse the new banking
regulations that were passed in an attempt to prevent another economic collapse
caused by risky Wall Street practices. The GOP tried to to rescind the
healthcare reform law that prevents insurance companies from terminating
coverage when beneficiaries get sick and prohibits the practice of refusing
coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Influential Republicans this year have called for repealing laws forbidding
child labor, laws guaranteeing minimum wage and laws protecting the environment.
They've demanded elimination of federal funding for organizations like the
Public Broadcasting System that educates preschoolers, Head Start, which
provides opportunity to poor children, and Planned Parenthood, which uses 97
percent of its funds to provide general, obstetrical and gynecological medical
care to women, many of whom are rural and poor.

Republicans have decided to be the party of Henry Potter, the "meanest man in
the county," a man about whom George Bailey's father said: "he's a sick man,
frustrated. Sick in his mind, sick in his soul, if he has one."

Like Potter, Republicans deride compassion and community as character defects.

In the Republican world, where greed is good, it was appropriate for Henry
Potter to keep the $8,000 in Bailey Building & Loan money that George Bailey's
uncle, Billy Bailey, accidently handed him.

Republicans are attempting to impose that selfish belief system on the selfless
American people, people like the citizens of Bedford Falls who rush to the
rescue of neighbors.

It won't work, just like it didn't in "It's a Wonderful Life." Republicans will
fail in their attempt to make America Pottersville because the 99 percent
believe avarice is a sin, not a value. The GOP will fail because greed is not
the American way.

----------


Leo Gerard

Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW), was
elected in October to his second four-year term since first taking office in
2001 after the retirement of former president George Becker.

Gerard serves on the AFL-CIO's Executive Council (www.aflcioi.org), where he
chairs the AFL-CIO's Public Policy Committee. He serves on the U.S. National
Commission on Energy Policy, and is a charter board member of the Apollo
Alliance (www.apolloalliance.org), a non-profit public policy initiative for
creating good jobs in pursuit of energy independence.

Gerard is a founding partner in 2006 with the Sierra Club of the Blue Green
Alliance (www.bluegreenalliance.org), which today includes the Natural Resources
Defense Council and four other unions dedicated to expanding jobs in the green
economy. He also helped create the Washington-based Alliance for American
Manufacturing (www.americanmanufacturing.org), a unique non-partisan, non-profit
partnership forged to strengthen manufacturing in the U.S. that's made up of
America's leading manufacturers and the USW.


----------

One of the comments posted at the URL ---
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



6)
http://news.yahoo.com/wealth-gap-between-congress-voters-growing-120257197.html
The Wealth Gap Between Congress and Voters Is Growing
By Dashiell Bennett | The Atlantic Wire - Tue, Dec 27, 2011
Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have separate reports today
about the widening wealth gap between members of Congress and the people they
represent. Almost half of all Congresspeople are millionaires and their median
net worth has climbed to $913,000, compared to $100,000 for the rest of America
households. According to the Post, that number drops to $725,000 when excluding
home equity (and adjusting for inflation), but the same median figure for
American families is just $20,500. And that gap has only grown wider in recent
years.

Related: GOP Congressman Scraping By on Only $400,000 After Taxes


The biggest reason for the disparity is the sheer cost of running for office,
which is both a full-time job and an expensive undertaking. The average
successful House race costs $1.4 million to stage (the average Senate campaign
is almost $10 million), and candidates are allowed - and often need - to donate
as much as they want to their own effort. The costs of advertising and travel
make it increasingly difficult for anyone who doesn't already have money to get
their name out there. There have also been concerns raised recently about the
ability of politicians to profit from their position, both through contacts made
and the ability to trade stock based on privileged information.

Related: The Net Worth of Congress Rose 23.6% Since 2008


Even putting aside the questions of influence and corruption, the biggest
concern is that those who elected to Congress are more out of touch with the
world of their constituents than ever before. How can they be expected to look
out for the interest of citizens when the biggest issues facing them -
unemployment, health care, wages - are unknown to most of those who are supposed
to be looking out for them? Or worse when addressing those issues directly
contradicts their own interest, as when millionaires are asked to vote on a
"millionaire's tax"? The biggest political movement of the last year, Occupy
Wall Street, has been devoted almost exclusively to addressing the gap between
rich and poor, but it's hard to see how any change becomes possible when that
gap is greatest among those in a position to do something about it.


***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Documentary -- Making "The Boys in the Band"
2) Appealing to Evangelicals, Hopefuls Pack Religion Into Ads
3) Death Penalty For Gays: Ron Paul Courts The Religious Fringe In Iowa
4) Advocates: More gay-friendly senior housing needed
5) 'Synthetic' marijuana is problem for US military


1)
Making "The Boys in the Band"
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/70121616
Making the Boys
2009 -- 90 minutes
Revered by some for breaking new ground and reviled by others for reinforcing
stereotypes, The Boys in the Band was the first gay-themed film to reach a
mainstream audience. This documentary paints a vivid picture of how it got
there. Through interviews with Tony Kushner, Edward Albee and more -- plus
wonderful period footage of Hollywood's gay past (think Roddy MacDowell and Sal
Mineo) -- the film reveals The Boys in the Band's enduring legacy.

*** Must see documentary.  The historical stuff -- the entire documentary -- is
well worth the watch. ***

One of the comments posted at the Netflix URL ---
Making the Boys offers a birds eye, objective view of a landmark film and where
it fits within the overall history of the gay rights movement. Whether viewed as
an explosive milestone or embarrassing pariah, Crowleys work has always been
filled with truth and this filmed journey of the cultural conversation
surrounding it is fascinating. The fact that an entire generation is unfamiliar
with the movie or the play and can only trace their cultural roots from Splash
is both funny and sad, good and bad. Boys in the Band was not a touchstone of
AIDS activism, gay marriage or any such larger issues but these events certainly
touched those involved. By subtly showing its contextual relevance, the docs
focal point facilitates a digest of gay history that many have missed. But
beyond such lofty accomplishments, from insider gossip to the where are they now
summary, the documentary provide good juicy fun about the making of the subject
film.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/us/politics/republican-hopefuls-pack-religion-\
into-ads-in-iowa.html

December 27, 2011
Appealing to Evangelicals, Hopefuls Pack Religion Into Ads
By JEREMY W. PETERS
DES MOINES - There is Rick Perry, a stained-glass window and a large illuminated
cross over his right shoulder, looking more preacher than politician. An aerial
shot of a soaring church steeple zooms into focus a few seconds later. Then -
blink and you'll miss it - a picture of Mr. Perry, the Texas governor, with his
arm around Mike Huckabee flashes on the screen.

In more overt ways than ever, Republican candidates vying for support from Iowa
caucusgoers are turning to religious language and imagery in their
advertisements, seeking to appeal to the Christian conservative base that will
play a pivotal role in determining the victor here.

Gone are the suggestive and supposedly subliminal images of campaigns past, as
when Mr. Huckabee caused a stir in 2007 after releasing a commercial that
appeared to show a cross floating in the background.

The new, more pointed religious references reflect how campaigns are scrambling
for support among evangelicals who are still divided over whom to support as the
caucuses near.

"At this point in the game, the candidates in the G.O.P. primary don't have the
time or the money for subtlety," said Mark McKinnon, a Republican media
strategist. "They will light a fire and stand by a burning bush in order to send
a signal to evangelicals, 'I'm one of you, vote for me.' "

Mr. Perry has released four commercials in which Christianity is a theme. "We
grew up in small towns, raised with Christian values," his wife, Anita Perry,
says in one spot running in Iowa now. "And we know Washington, D.C., could use
some of that."

A former patient of Ron Paul, who practiced as an obstetrician before going into
politics, says in one commercial, "It's not hard for someone who is a Christian
and who truly believes to stay on the right path, and I think that's the kind of
person Ron Paul is."

And an ad in which Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, offer their Christmas
greetings pivots first to a sketch of a nativity scene and then to a church.

Politicians have long employed coded language in their messaging to religious
conservatives, a practice often derided as dog-whistle politics for its ability
to stir emotions among those who are in-the-know while passing undetected over
others. Sarah Palin has often referred to her support from "prayer warriors," a
term known among evangelicals as those who engage in battle with Satan.

The 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign used billboards with faint images of crosses. And
at the Republican National Convention that year, the lecterns on stage were made
of two-tone wood that appeared designed to resemble crosses. The Bush campaign
insisted it was a coincidence. Where some people see a rusty water stain, after
all, others see the Virgin Mary.

But what is different this year, media strategists and analysts said, is the
extent to which the candidates are distributing such unambiguously religious
messages so widely.

"Have those messages been used in previous elections? Certainly," said Kenneth
M. Goldstein, president of Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group. "But
they would end up in a mail piece, a phone call, a talk show radio ad. Now we're
seeing a much broader, shotgun approach on broadcast television."

Some campaigns are going to great lengths to develop and hone these ads. The
commercial with Ms. Perry features a shot of the red brick church in which she
married Mr. Perry in Haskell, Tex., underscoring the governor's commitment to
traditional marriage.

And the ad Mr. Perry has received the most criticism for this election, in which
he says "there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in
the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school,"
was specifically written and staged by the governor's media team to appeal to
Christians who feel the Obama administration is hostile to public expressions of
faith. The scene, a verdant, bucolic hillside, was meant to invoke a meditative
setting suitable for prayer.

The ad with the church steeple and the split-second shot of Mr. Huckabee (who
said Tuesday that he was unaware his image was being used) ran only over the
holidays and in select Iowa markets. The Perry campaign bought time during
programs it knew would appeal to the audience it is trying to reach, like
football and "The Sound of Music," what Ray Sullivan, Mr. Perry's communications
director, called "family friendly TV."

Not all candidates have been so overt. Mitt Romney, whose Mormon faith is viewed
by many evangelicals as heretical, has only opaquely referred to being a
lifelong member of his church in his advertisements. Rick Santorum has opted to
highlight in his newest commercial other aspects of his biography that resonate
with evangelicals, like his authorship of legislation that was intended to curb
late-term abortions and the fact that his children have all been home-schooled.

Such unabashed appeals to evangelical Christians underline not only how intense
the battle is for their support but how fractured and unsettled that part of the
electorate remains less than a week before the caucuses.

"In 2008, there wasn't another candidate who was explicitly targeting the
Christian evangelical vote," said Arthur Sanders, an associate provost at Drake
University who studies media and the electoral process. "Whereas this time you
have Perry, Santorum," Michele Bachmann and, "to a lesser extent Gingrich. And I
think that increases the baldness with which they're willing to target that
audience."

----------

Lots of comments at the URL.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


3)
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/ron-paul-hired-anti-gay-activist-to-ru\
n-iowa-campaign.php
Death Penalty For Gays: Ron Paul Courts The Religious Fringe In Iowa
Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin December 28, 2011, 3:32 PM

Ron Paul has faced a torrent of criticism in recent weeks over newsletters
printed in his name during the 1980s and 1990s which contained racist,
anti-semitic, and homophobic content. He is also on the hook for accepting the
support of fringe right-wing groups. While Paul dismisses these concerns, his
campaign seems to have no problem working with and enjoying the support of
anti-gay extremists, including one supporter who has called for the
implementation of the death penalty for homosexual behavior.

Paul's Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Rev. Phillip
G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws
members from Iowa, putting out a press release praising "the enlightening
statements he makes on how Ron Paul's approach to government is consistent with
Christian beliefs." But Kayser's views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds
of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he
recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even
advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of
Biblical law.

"Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology
just," he argued. "But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be
executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative. Biblical law
would recognize as a matter of justice that even if this law could be enforced
today, homosexuals could not be prosecuted for something that was done before."

Reached by phone, Kayser confirmed to TPM that he believed in reinstating
Biblical punishments for homosexuals - including the death penalty - even if he
didn't see much hope for it happening anytime soon. While he said he and Paul
disagree on gay rights, noting that Paul recently voted for repealing Don't Ask
Don't Tell, he supported the campaign because he believed Paul's federalist take
on the Constitution would allow states more latitude to implement fundamentalist
law. Especially since under Kayser's own interpretation of the Constitution
there is no separation of Church and State.

"Under a Ron Paul presidency, states would be freed up to not have political
correctness imposed on them, but obviously some state would follow what's
politically correct," he said. "What he's trying to do, whether he agrees with
the Constitution's position or not, is restrict himself to the Constitution.
That is something I very much appreciate."

Kayser's allegiance to the Paul campaign may reflect who the campaign has chosen
to sell Paul to the churches. Mike Heath, who became Ron Paul's Iowa state
director this fall, has spent his career on the Christian right. In Iowa, Heath
has focused on outreach to the religious community in the state, where Paul has
made an effort to target evangelical voters.

Heath spent 14 years running the Christian Civic League of Maine (which has
since changed its name). As a prominent figure in Maine, Heath slowly alienated
the Christian right in the state with his extreme tactics. In 2004, for example,
he launched a witch hunt to out gay members of the Maine legislature, asking
supporters, according to the Portland Press Herald, to "e-mail us tips, rumors,
speculation and facts" regarding the sexual orientation of the state's political
leaders, adding, "We are, of course, most interested in the leaders among us who
want to overturn marriage, eliminate the mother/father family as the ideal,
etc." The result was that his own organization suspended him for a month.

"He's a well-known conspiracy theorist about the 'gay agenda,'" says Travis
Kennedy, chief of staff for the House Democratic Office in Maine, who says Heath
was a big figure around the capital for many years. Heath made more enemies than
friends, says Kennedy, whose "offensive and aggressive" tactics put off even his
allies on the Christian right. In 2007, Heath played a big part in opposing a
sexual orientation anti-discrimination ballot measure which ultimately passed by
a wide margin. On Heath's new job in Iowa, Kennedy said, "I'm not surprised he'd
be hired in a state far away from Maine. He has a pretty poor reputation around
here."

From 2008-2010, Heath served as chairman of the board of Americans for Truth
About Homosexuality. AFTAH is a fringe, anti-gay organization and has been
listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for promoting false
information. For example, the organization and its founder, Peter LaBarbera,
have published false reports about LGBT people, including allegations that they
live shorter lives and that they are prone to pedophilia. LaBarbera disputes the
SPLC's label.

"Peter LaBarbera is among the most fringe elements of the anti-gay industry in
America today," Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
wrote in an email to TPM. "You'd be hard pressed to find another group that is
so singularly focused on telling lies about LGBT Americans."

It's unclear if Ron Paul ascribes to some of Heath's anti-gay beliefs. Paul's
newsletters do contain several quotes smearing gay Americans as well as the AIDS
epidemic. Recently, a disenchanted former Paul aide described an instance when
Paul refused to use the bathroom of a gay supporter. But whatever Paul's
beliefs, Heath's work on his campaign is another strike against a candidate with
a history of associating with fringe elements of the right.

Neither the Paul campaign nor Mike Heath responded to requests for comment.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


4)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-29/gay-seniors-housing/5226929\
0/1
Advocates: More gay-friendly senior housing needed
Associated Press, December 29, 2011

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At age 62, Donald Carter knows his arthritis and other
age-related infirmities will not allow him to live indefinitely in his
third-floor walkup apartment in Philadelphia.

But as a low-income renter, Carter has limited options. And as a gay black man,
he's concerned his choice of senior living facilities might be narrowed further
by the possibility of intolerant residents or staff members.
"The system as it stands is not very accommodating," Carter said. "I don't
really want to see any kind of negative attitude or lack of service because
anyone . is gay or lesbian."

Experts say many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors fear
discrimination, disrespect or worse by health care workers and residents of
elder housing facilities - ultimately leading many to go back into the closet
after years of being open about their sexual orientation.

That anxiety takes on new significance as the first of the 77 million baby
boomers turns 65 this year. At least 1.5 million seniors are gay, a number
expected to double by 2030, according to SAGE, the New York-based group Services
and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.

Recognizing the need, developers in Philadelphia have secured a site and initial
funding for what would be one of the nation's few GLBT-friendly affordable
housing facilities. They hope to break ground on a 52-unit, $17 million building
in 2013.

Anti-discrimination laws prohibit gay-only housing, but projects can be made
GLBT-friendly through marketing and location. And while private retirement
facilities targeted at the gay community exist, such residences are often out of
reach for all but the wealthiest seniors.

Census figures released last week indicate about 49 percent of Americans over 65
could be considered poor or low-income.

Gays are also less likely to have biological family to help out with informal
caregiving, either through estrangement or being childless, making them more
dependent on outside services. And that makes them more vulnerable, SAGE
executive director Michael Adams said.

"They cannot at all assume that they will be treated well or given the welcome
mat," he said.

Cities including San Francisco and Chicago also have projects on the drawing
board. But the first and, so far, only affordable housing complex for gay elders
to be built in the United States is Triangle Square-Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Open since 2007, the $22 million facility has 104 units available to any
low-income senior 62 and over, gay or straight, according to executive director
Mark Supper. Residents pay monthly rent on a sliding scale, from about $200 to
$800, depending on their income. About 35 units are set aside for seniors with
HIV/AIDS and for those at risk of becoming homeless, Supper said.

The Triangle's population is about 90 percent GLBT and it has a waiting list of
about 200 people. The project's developer, Gay & Lesbian Elder Housing, plans to
build a second facility in Southern California in the next 18 months, Supper
said.

But what took so long for the need to recognized? Chris Bartlett, executive
director of the GLBT William Way Center in Philadelphia, noted that advocates
spent the better part of two decades devoting their energy to programs for those
affected by HIV or AIDS, which were decimating the gay community.

While AIDS remains a priority, Bartlett said, the crisis mentality has passed
and allowed the community to focus on other things. He said he looks forward to
the Way Center providing social services at the planned Philadelphia senior
housing facility, in a sense repaying those who led the gay liberation movement.

"Don't we owe it to them . to ensure that they have an experience as elders
that's worthy of what they gave to our community?" Bartlett said.

The Philadelphia group has been trying to get its project off the ground for
about eight years but has been stymied by location problems, a tough economy and
stiff competition for federal housing tax credits.

Rejected once for the credits, developers recently reapplied and hope for a
different answer this spring, said Mark Segal, director of the Dr. Magnus
Hirschfeld Fund, which is spearheading the project. It's planned for a thriving
section of the city affectionately known as the Gayborhood.

"I'm extremely optimistic," said Segal, also publisher of the Philadelphia Gay
News.

However, Adams said the real solution lies not only in building more facilities,
but in cultural competency training for staffers at existing elder programs. The
Philadelphia Corporation on Aging, the private nonprofit that serves the city's
seniors, began offering such seminars to health care workers a couple of years
ago, said Tom Shea, the agency's director of training.

"They're going to be seeing a diverse slice of the aging population in
Philadelphia . and we need to be sensitive to all their needs," Shea said.

Adams suggested that discrimination faced by today's GLBT elders could diminish
in the decades ahead, since he said opinion research shows that younger
generations are less likely to harbor anti-gay biases than older generations.

"So we hope that the passage of time will provide part of the solution," he
said. "But of course, today's LGBT elders can't wait for that."

Jackie Adams, 54, of Philadelphia, said being diagnosed with AIDS many years ago
meant she never thought she'd live long enough to need elder housing. But now
Adams, who was born male and lives as a female, is part of a local initiative
focused on GLBT senior issues.

On a limited income after losing her job as an outreach worker for those with
HIV, Adams said affordable, GLBT-friendly senior housing is badly needed. She is
not related to Michael Adams.

"I would be incomplete if I had to go from wearing stockings and dresses to
(work boots) and jeans," Adams said. "I would like to be able to live in a
community where I could fully be me."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


5)
http://news.yahoo.com/synthetic-marijuana-problem-us-military-082100931.html
'Synthetic' marijuana is problem for US military
By JULIE WATSON | AP - Friday 30 December 2011

SAN DIEGO (AP) - U.S. troops are increasingly using an easy-to-get herbal mix
called "Spice," which mimics a marijuana high, is hard to detect and can bring
on hallucinations that last for days.
The abuse of the substance has so alarmed military officials that they've
launched an aggressive testing program that this year has led to the
investigation of more than 1,100 suspected users.

So-called "synthetic" pot is readily available on the Internet and has become
popular nationwide in recent years, but its use among troops and sailors has
raised concerns among the Pentagon brass.

"You can just imagine the work that we do in a military environment," said Mark
Ridley, deputy director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, adding,
"you need to be in your right mind when you do a job. That's why the Navy has
always taken a zero tolerance policy toward drugs."

Two years ago, only 29 Marines and sailors were investigated for Spice. This
year, the number topped 700, the investigative service said. Those found guilty
of using Spice are kicked out, although the Navy does not track the overall
number of dismissals.

The Air Force has punished 497 airmen so far this year, compared to last year's
380, according to figures provided by the Pentagon. The Army does not track
Spice investigations but says it has medically treated 119 soldiers for the
synthetic drug in total.

Military officials emphasize those caught represent a tiny fraction of all
service members and note none was in a leadership position or believed high
while on duty.

Spice is made up of exotic plants from Asia like Blue Lotus and Bay Bean. Their
leaves are coated with chemicals that mimic the effects of THC, the active
ingredient in marijuana, but are five to 200 times more potent.

More than 40 states have banned some of its chemicals, prompting sellers to turn
to the Internet, where it is marketed as incense or potpourri. In some states,
Spice is sold at bars, smoke shops and convenience stores.

Sellers based in the United States and Europe advertising the incense on the
Internet did not respond to emails or calls seeking comment.

The packets often say the ingredients are not for human consumption. But they
are also described as "mood enhancing" and "long lasting." Some of the sellers'
Web sites say they do not sell herbal mixes containing any illegal chemicals and
say they are offering a "legal high."

Service members preferred it because up until this year there was no way to
detect it with urine tests. A test was developed after the Drug Enforcement
Administration put a one-year emergency ban on five chemicals found in the drug.

Manufacturers are adapting to avoid detection, even on the new tests, and skirt
new laws banning the main chemicals, officials say.

"It's a moving target," said Capt. J.A. "Cappy" Surette, spokesman for the Navy
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.

The military can calibrate its equipment to test for those five banned chemicals
"but underground chemists can keep altering the properties and make up to more
than 100 permutations," Surette said.

Complicating their efforts further, there are more than 200 other chemicals used
in the concoctions. They remain legal and their effects on the mind and body
remain largely unknown, Navy doctors say.

A Clemson University created many of the chemicals for research purposes in
1990s. They were never tested on humans.

Civilian deaths have been reported and emergency crews have responded to calls
of "hyper-excited" people doing things like tearing off their clothes and
running down the street naked.

Navy investigators compare the substance to angel dust because no two batches
are the same. Some may just feel a euphoric buzz, but others have suffered
delusions lasting up to a week.

While the problem has surfaced in all branches of the military, the Navy has
been the most aggressive in drawing attention to the problem.

It produced a video based on cases to warn sailors of Spice's dangers and
publicized busts of crew members on some of its most-storied ships, including
the USS Carl Vinson, from which Osama bin Laden's was dropped into the sea.

Two of the largest busts this year involved sailors in the San Diego-based U.S.
Third Fleet, which announced last month that it planned to dismiss 28 sailors
assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.

A month earlier, 64 sailors, including 49 from the Vinson, were accused of being
involved in a Spice ring.

Many of the cases were discovered after one person was caught with synthetic
pot, prompting broader investigations.

Lt. Commander Donald Hurst, a fourth-year psychiatry resident at San Diego's
Naval Medical Center, said the hospital is believed to have seen more cases than
any other health facility in the country.

Doctors saw users experiencing bad reactions once a month, but now see them
weekly. Users suffer everything from vomiting, elevated blood pressure and
seizures to extreme agitation, anxiety and delusions.

Hurst said the behavior in many cases he witnessed at first seemed akin to
schizophrenia. Usually within minutes, however, the person became completely
lucid. Sometimes, the person goes in and out of such episodes for days.

He recalled one especially bizarre case of a sailor who came in with his sobbing
wife.

"He stood their holding a sandwich in front of him with no clue as to what to
do," he said. "He opened it up, looked at it, touched it. I took it and folded
it over and then he took a bite out it. But then we had to tell him, 'you have
to chew.'"

An hour later when Hurst went back to evaluate him, he was completely normal and
worried about being in trouble.

"That's something you don't see with acute schizophrenic patients," he said.
"Then we found out based on the numbers of people coming in like this, that OK
there's a new drug out there."

Hurst decided to study 10 cases. Some also had smoked marijuana or drank
alcohol, while others only smoked Spice.

Of the 10, nine had lost a sense of reality. Seven babbled incoherently. The
symptoms for seven of them lasted four to eight days. Three others are believed
to now be schizophrenic. Hurst believed the drug may have triggered the symptoms
in people with that genetic disposition. His findings were published in the
American Journal of Psychiatry in October.

He said there are countless questions that still need answering, including the
designer drug's effects on people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or
traumatic brain injuries.

What the research has confirmed, he said, is: "These are not drugs to mess
with."

----------

My comment ---
Has anyone done any studies as to why so many people want to get high?
How about an escape from all the realities of living in a corrupt world? -- one
which offers few avenues toward success for young people.  A college degree now
gets one mountains of debt, while the rich get richer.  Better go join the armed
forces.  Learn how to use a gun.  Etc.

Happy New Year.

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: Death Penalty

This won't fly; but I'm not surprised that there are more than a few kooks who'd
like to try to make it happen, and it's crucial that we stay vigilant -- lest
they gain more influence in the public square.  Lev. 20:13 is part of the Mosaic
Covenant, which was a deliberately temporary covenant -- not the teachings of
Christianity.  God made this covenant with the nation Israel -- not with the
rest of us.

----- Original Message -----
   From: James Martin
   To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;@...
   Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 2:42 PM
   Subject: [MatthewsPlaceForum] NEWS -- 2011.12.30.Friday
   Lots of comments at the URL.

   ----------------------------------------------------------

   3)
  
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/ron-paul-hired-anti-gay-activist-to-ru\
n-iowa-campaign.php
   Death Penalty For Gays: Ron Paul Courts The Religious Fringe In Iowa
   Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin December 28, 2011, 3:32 PM

   Ron Paul has faced a torrent of criticism in recent weeks over newsletters
printed in his name during the 1980s and 1990s which contained racist,
anti-semitic, and homophobic content. He is also on the hook for accepting the
support of fringe right-wing groups. While Paul dismisses these concerns, his
campaign seems to have no problem working with and enjoying the support of
anti-gay extremists, including one supporter who has called for the
implementation of the death penalty for homosexual behavior.

   Paul's Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Rev. Phillip
G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws
members from Iowa, putting out a press release praising "the enlightening
statements he makes on how Ron Paul's approach to government is consistent with
Christian beliefs." But Kayser's views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds
of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he
recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even
advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of
Biblical law.

   "Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology
just," he argued. "But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be
executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative. Biblical law
would recognize as a matter of justice that even if this law could be enforced
today, homosexuals could not be prosecuted for something that was done before."

   Reached by phone, Kayser confirmed to TPM that he believed in reinstating
Biblical punishments for homosexuals - including the death penalty - even if he
didn't see much hope for it happening anytime soon. While he said he and Paul
disagree on gay rights, noting that Paul recently voted for repealing Don't Ask
Don't Tell, he supported the campaign because he believed Paul's federalist take
on the Constitution would allow states more latitude to implement fundamentalist
law. Especially since under Kayser's own interpretation of the Constitution
there is no separation of Church and State.

   "Under a Ron Paul presidency, states would be freed up to not have political
correctness imposed on them, but obviously some state would follow what's
politically correct," he said. "What he's trying to do, whether he agrees with
the Constitution's position or not, is restrict himself to the Constitution.
That is something I very much appreciate."

   Kayser's allegiance to the Paul campaign may reflect who the campaign has
chosen to sell Paul to the churches. Mike Heath, who became Ron Paul's Iowa
state director this fall, has spent his career on the Christian right. In Iowa,
Heath has focused on outreach to the religious community in the state, where
Paul has made an effort to target evangelical voters.

   Heath spent 14 years running the Christian Civic League of Maine (which has
since changed its name). As a prominent figure in Maine, Heath slowly alienated
the Christian right in the state with his extreme tactics. In 2004, for example,
he launched a witch hunt to out gay members of the Maine legislature, asking
supporters, according to the Portland Press Herald, to "e-mail us tips, rumors,
speculation and facts" regarding the sexual orientation of the state's political
leaders, adding, "We are, of course, most interested in the leaders among us who
want to overturn marriage, eliminate the mother/father family as the ideal,
etc." The result was that his own organization suspended him for a month.

   "He's a well-known conspiracy theorist about the 'gay agenda,'" says Travis
Kennedy, chief of staff for the House Democratic Office in Maine, who says Heath
was a big figure around the capital for many years. Heath made more enemies than
friends, says Kennedy, whose "offensive and aggressive" tactics put off even his
allies on the Christian right. In 2007, Heath played a big part in opposing a
sexual orientation anti-discrimination ballot measure which ultimately passed by
a wide margin. On Heath's new job in Iowa, Kennedy said, "I'm not surprised he'd
be hired in a state far away from Maine. He has a pretty poor reputation around
here."

   >From 2008-2010, Heath served as chairman of the board of Americans for Truth
About Homosexuality. AFTAH is a fringe, anti-gay organization and has been
listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for promoting false
information. For example, the organization and its founder, Peter LaBarbera,
have published false reports about LGBT people, including allegations that they
live shorter lives and that they are prone to pedophilia. LaBarbera disputes the
SPLC's label.

   "Peter LaBarbera is among the most fringe elements of the anti-gay industry in
America today," Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
wrote in an email to TPM. "You'd be hard pressed to find another group that is
so singularly focused on telling lies about LGBT Americans."

   It's unclear if Ron Paul ascribes to some of Heath's anti-gay beliefs. Paul's
newsletters do contain several quotes smearing gay Americans as well as the AIDS
epidemic. Recently, a disenchanted former Paul aide described an instance when
Paul refused to use the bathroom of a gay supporter. But whatever Paul's
beliefs, Heath's work on his campaign is another strike against a candidate with
a history of associating with fringe elements of the right.

   Neither the Paul campaign nor Mike Heath responded to requests for comment.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

found on the 'net --->

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an
environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive,
gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the
most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular
practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion
and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to observe religious or secular
traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling
and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted (earth)
calendar year of 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice
of other cultures (or planets).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


One column ---

http://www.bilerico.com/2011/12/a_big_gay_thank_you_to_republicans.php#more
A Big Gay Thank You to Republicans
Filed By Guest Blogger | December 30, 2011 10:45 AM

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Patrick J. Hamilton is an interior designer in
Manhattan, where he helped create "NYC Designing Men: It Gets Better". His
interior projects have been featured on HGTV, HouseBeautiful.com and Apartment
Therapy, and he recently participated in "Design on a Dime", the annual
fundraiser for New York's Housing Works.

Dear Republicans, Teabaggers and the Right-wing Religious Conservatives:

This gay man thanks you. Because of you, I am a deeply changed man. Renewed,
invigorated, inspired, politically and socially active. I have become more
engaged in my community, one from which I often felt disenfranchised in the
past. Your acts and actions have done me some serious good.

But before you go get all smug, high-fiving your cronies and raising your hands
to heaven in exultation, let me elaborate.

I have often said you learn far more working for a bad boss than for a good
one... you learn what does not motivate, how not to lead, what not to do, and
how not to do it. And that is exactly how this year's lessons have been learned:
by what you did poorly, by what you should be ashamed of, by what fools you made
of yourselves, and by the hypocrisy and lack of compassion you've displayed
along the way. That is how I have learned, that is how I have grown. But yes,
thank you. Because for me, growth and good have come of it.

The Republican Politicians
Thank you for pushing legislation in our schools that turns a blind eye to the
struggles of our LGBT youth. With the passage of "Don't Say Gay" and the removal
of LGBT language in bullying protection (when it's even passed at all), I have
come to discover the Trevor Project, GLSEN, The Ali Forney Center and the
Tennessee Equality Project - a few of the many wonderful organizations that work
diligently and passionately to ensure protection for our next generation.
Because news flash: all youth make up our collective next generation, not just
the straight ones.

Thank you for making me smarter about gay history, and our pioneers like Harvey
Milk and Frank Kameny. Because of your fights to remove gay history from the
civil rights discussions in our nation's classrooms, I've made a commitment to
learn about our nation's gay heritage, about those not-too-many generations
before who dedicated their lives to a world more equal, pioneers who lived a
struggle that you, dear Republiticians, seem hell-bent on recreating.

Through the Republicans who have campaigned so hard against marriage equality on
the "sanctity of marriage" platform, yet have proven themselves to be serial
adulterers, divorcers, bathroom stall toe-tappers, closet cases and rent-boy
buyers, I've learned that the worst sin of a politician is not simple human
failing, but hypocrisy in the face of it. Thank you for clarifying that view as
I consider candidates in 2012.

These acts of hypocrisy give me more respect for politicians who run openly or
openly support restoring or preserving rights for all citizens, regardless of
who those citizens call lover, partner, husband or wife.

Thank you for proving your party is also not worth donation or support when, in
the wake of the announcement that political pioneer Barney Frank would be
stepping down, the pages of public sites were flooded with despicable and
ignorant comments about sodomy and AIDS. How does such a reaction warrant my
loyalty? It does not. Why would I support this "party", reveling in a leader's
departure, amid lies and pure stupidity? I will not.

Thank you for helping me find a better candidate. Because of your fights against
marriage equality, I have become a lifelong fan of New York Governor Andrew M.
Cuomo, whose work not only passed the legislation, but whose political know-how
helped unify the presence and strength of gay rights groups.

Thank you, Rick Santorum. Because of you, I discovered Dan Savage, who's used
social media and Google to take back the power of voice from politicians and
Faux newsers. Because of you, Rick Santorum, I spearheaded a video contribution
to Savage's life-changing It Gets Better project, adding a chorus of over 5000
views to the millions of voices, clicks and shares of support created by Mr.
Savage when our leaders provided none. Or worse.

Thank you for work to ban or punish gay men and women from or for serving in the
military. Because of those biased and bigoted views, I have been driven to the
work of Jeff Sheng, whose gorgeous documentary photos represent the shame and
fear of those already risking their lives for our collective freedom and
domestic safety. Sheng's work, without revealing anyone's identity, puts a face
on the issue in a way none of your homophobic tirades ever could, and you have
crystallized my view that full repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is the only
honorable option for those serving in wars you sent them to. This door of
respect for our troops and vets, opened wider to me because of DADT, has also
led me to wonderful organizations for ALL our Vets - the Wounded Warrior
Project, Brides Across America, Decorate a Vet, 100,00 Jobs Mission - all
private efforts, all inspiring, none created at the governmental level.

Thank you for being so focused on stripping the reproductive rights from women
and battling your boss on what constitutes healthcare that you have let the
light waver and the funding dwindle from AIDS, still a battle, and a growing
issue in several segments of the population. That ignorance has led me to the
lives and writings of AIDS advocates like Mark S. King, the grassroots efforts
of Dab Garner, and recommitting my beliefs in, and redirecting my energies and
charitable giving to AIDS charities like The Alpha Workshops, Housing Works and
DIFFA.

The Religious Right
And it's not only politicians to thank... it's the public faces of conservative
religion in our country. So thank you, Tim Tebow, for presenting a religion that
so publicly espouses God when the spotlight allows, yet prevents you from
lending your voice to the It Gets Better campaign. Thank you, Westboro Baptist
Church, for casting your sad web of hate across a wider plain this year,
revealing the atrocity you dare call a "church" to Americans outside the gay
rights fight.

Thank you, Bradlee Dean, Rock "Minister" of You Can Run But You Can't Hide, and
your deep-pocketed political supporters. Your insidious comments on our radio
airwaves and in our classrooms about "suitable punishment for homosexuality"
introduced me to those working so hard in Minnesota for equality, and
nationwide, working to overturn the Citizens United ruling allowing corporations
unlimited political donation. It led me to a simple Target boycott, but expanded
into broader thinking and a clearer understanding of how our political system
works.

It's also introduced me to remarkable "ordinary" people who have become
champions of rights... "Boycott Grandma" Randi Reitan and her family top that
list, but it has grown into a lively and lovely network of folks I'm proud to
call friend, many who've added "Equality" or "Ready to Rumble" "Freedom Fighter"
or "Second Class Citizen" to their names on Facebook to demonstrate their
personal conviction; I've seen no such conviction from career politicians.

It also introduced me to Mike Thompson, the new head of GLAAD, and reacquainted
me with this and other gay organizations that have never been more focused,
productive or poised to make change. For the first time in my life, I am making
monthly donations to the Human Rights Campaign - flawed or not, the HRC is now
receiving money you will not be seeing in your campaign coffers.

Thank you for showing me that lackluster (and slipping) global opinion of the US
is very often well-founded, as we remain in the Dark Ages and far behind the
world on issues of LGBT equality. As the UN passed global sanctions against
gay-based discrimination, we argue on comment threads about whether the
premeditated murder of a 15 year old boy is or isn't a hate crime because the
shooter was threatened by the victim's sexuality. As Poland elected the first
transgender lawmaker this year, trusting her to enact and interpret law,
conservatives here in America maliciously tore apart the performance and life of
Chaz Bono for participating in a dance entertainment program.

It is because of such "religious" views that made me actively seek out
organizations that keep faith in perspective, leading me to the documentary, For
the Bible Tells Me So, its director Daniel Karslake, and the work of Faith in
America which is working to strip hatred from the teachings of faith. It's all
also made me read more about the separation of church and state, a vital
distinction you not only seem to forget but apparently want to dissolve as part
of your 2012 campaign platform planks.

The national genuflect-jinks of Tebow, and the homophobic slurs tossed about by
(among others) sports "heroes" has made me find all the more respect for world
sports stars like gay-friendly Ben Cohen and uber-masculine, totally-out Anton
Hys�n who have had amazing sports careers and work to reverse the stereotypes,
danger and discriminations in the world of professional sports. That also led to
the discovery of Changing the Game: The GLSEN Sports Project, a remarkable group
channeling all that is good about sport to change minds on and off the playing
fields, leveling them all in the process.

The Right Wing Media
Thank you, pundits and blowhards, for proving that citizens still maintain the
greatest ability to fuel the dialogue and make change, and do it with courage
and grace. Amid all the inactivity of the past legislative year, where you
worked with more vigor to deny, disband and destroy than craft, shape or change,
not one piece of inspiration came from within your ranks. The inspirational
moments came from citizens who dared question the status quo, and who did it
with quiet conviction, humility, candor, and without ever losing their inner
calm or making exclusionary statements or accusation.

I think of the words and moments that moved me this year, and they came from
Zach Wahls, lauding his two mothers for the fine young man they created from
within a same-sex household. They came from Elijah, the little son of a lesbian
couple, in a whisper to Michele Bachmann, "My mommies don't need fixing." They
came from a gay veteran who confronted the campaigning Mitt Romney on his DADT
stance when Romney interrupted the vet's breakfast. And when inspiration did
come from a politician, it came from Democratic City Commissioner Joel Burns
whose moving contribution to the It Gets Better conversation did more to
motivate me in one video clip than your collective majority has done in the past
four years.

These moments also proved to me that quiet acts go further than grand standing.
While you were throwing tea party rallies, press conferences, and filibusters,
the Administration passed legislation allowing hospital visitation rights to
unmarried couples of all orientation, giving gay men and women back a bit of the
dignity that moments of health crisis so often rob them of. So, thank you for
reaffirming my longstanding ideal that those who shout the loudest very often
have the least to say.

Your lack of inspiration has also led me to find my own, and I found it in a
cadre of bloggers, web writers, columnists and advocates like Joe Jervis of
Joe.My.God, Bil Browning of the Bilerico Project, Andy Towle of Towleroad, Mel
White, David Mixner, Justin Spring and others. Their words bring deep
perspective to issues you regularly reduce to stereotype and lie. But thank you,
again! Without the vacuum you have created, I would not have been driven to find
such wisdom and wit with which to fill it.

The Gay Republicans & Moderates
And a special thank you to the Log Cabin Republicans' Manhattan chapter. When I
sincerely asked for your help in understanding your position - one that has long
seemed oxymoronic to me - I was verbally taunted and assaulted on their Facebook
page by their members, then blocked and banned from question or comment. Thanks
for affirming that you deserve - and will get none - of my support.

I do understand there are Republicans who dare cross party lines; marriage
equality in New York state would not have passed without you. I also understand
there are many good men and women of Faith among us. I thank all of you for very
different reasons. I speak here of the extremes, the damaging, the
narrow-minded, that use their party or faith for acts of exclusion and hate
(under the guise of political or "moral" conviction).

So, dear Republicans, because you have kept your hearts so tightly shut and cast
a blind eye, you have helped open mine. Because you have been so careless with
your responsibilities, I have become more aware of my own. Because you have been
so irresponsible with the faith we have placed in you, I have met wonderful
people who have inspired, enlightened humored and supported me, and worked for
my right to an equal life as a gay American. None of them were politicians.
Perhaps they should be.

So, a big gay and sincere thank you, to the zealots, bigots, teabaggers and
hardcore religious right. You have made me a better man. I'll see you at the
polls in 2012, hopefully for the last time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------

Happy New Year!

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  After Gay Teen's Suicide, Christian Right Backs 'License to Bully'
2)  RuPaul in New Hampshire: 'This country was founded by a bunch of men wearing
wigs'
3)  Billionaire gives $5 million to pro-Gingrich group
4)  GOP Candidates Condemn Same-Sex Marriage In New Hampshire Debate
5)  The Science of Sarcasm? Yeah, Right



1)
http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2012/01/03/after-gay-teens-suicide-c\
hristian-right-backs-license-to-bully
After Gay Teen's Suicide, Christian Right Backs 'License to Bully'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 10:58 AM
Anti-gay conservatives are working overtime to explain away the suicide of young
Jacob Rogers. They dismiss all the name-calling and bullying at his high school.
Instead, they claim it was Jacob's own fault somehow. In its latest radio
report, David Fowler's F.A.C.T. concedes "it's wrong to bully people because of
their sexual practices" but blames Jacob's death on his own alcohol and drug
abuse and eating disorder. According to F.A.C.T., it's all "the rotten fruit of
the all-about-me individualist culture that comes when we deny the existence of
God and his image in us."

In correspondence with the Tennessee Equality Project, the state's main gay
rights group, state Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, claimed gay people commit
suicide at a higher rate than others and suggested Jacob's sexuality itself
drove him to kill himself. Ragan asked whether the suicide could have had "more
to do with his own proclivities and behavior than anything to do with schoolmate
bullies ..."

Blaming the victim is necessary to prevent Jacob's death from damaging chances
for passage of F.A.C.T.'s 2012 state legislative priority-a bill to make it
easier for young bigots to mistreat gay schoolkids. This legislation brought by
conservative Christians who oppose special protections for gay people actually
gives special protections to homophobic bullies.

"If made into law, FACT would give students a 'license to bully' that allows
them to hide their irrational biases behind an extreme religious belief," the
Equality Project's Chris Sanders says.

----------
from the comments posted at the URL ---
I don't pretend to know the mind of God, but I imagine He's looking down from
heaven and thinking, "What the hell is wrong with those people?"
----------
Lets ask George W Bush's "spiritual" advisor, the "Reverend I'm not GAY" Ted
Haggard. A true "Christian" man, much like the rest of these right wing phoney
manipulators of religion! Susan B. Anthony in 1896 said it best: "I distrust
those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it
always coincides with their own desires."
----------
I like Jesus, I have a problem with "Christians." Who would Jesus ostracize?
-----------------------------------------
See also
http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2012/01/05/gop-embarrasses-tennessee\
-again-license-to-bully-bill-goes-viral-on-internet


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


2)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rupaul-hampshire-country-founded-bunch-men-we\
aring-wigs-000641848.html
RuPaul in New Hampshire: 'This country was founded by a bunch of men wearing
wigs'
By Chris Moody | The Ticket - Saturday 07 January 2012
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- "I am not Ron Paul!" shouted RuPaul, the famous drag queen
(wearing men's street clothes), at the top of his lungs inside a cramped diner
here, a picturesque little restaurant that presidential candidates have visited
for years. "And I am not running for president of the United States!," he added.

--- click on URL to continue ---


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------



3)
http://news.yahoo.com/billionaire-gives-5-million-pro-gingrich-group-041512837.h\
tml
Billionaire gives $5 million to pro-Gingrich group
By BETH FOUHY | AP - Sunday 08 January 2012
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - A Las Vegas billionaire has contributed $5 million to an
independent group backing Newt Gingrich, breathing new life into the former
House Speaker's struggling campaign for the GOP presidential nomination and
casting renewed attention on the role of such groups in the 2012 contest.
A person familiar with the development said Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and
longtime donor to Republican candidates, made the contribution Friday to Winning
Our Future, a super PAC run by Gingrich allies. The person, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity and was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly,
said Adelson is expected to contribute as much or more to groups backing the
Republican nominee, be it Gingrich or one of his rivals.

Rick Tyler, a former top Gingrich strategist and spokesman for Winning Our
Future, declined to comment on the donation, which was first reported by The
Washington Post. Politico reported last month that Adelson was prepared to spend
$20 million to help Gingrich.

A 2010 Supreme Court decision easing restrictions on corporate and individual
spending laid the groundwork for these political action committees, or super
PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence
elections as long as they do not coordinate directly with a candidate's
campaign. The identities of those who contributed to super PACs in the second
half of 2011 won't be reported until the end of January.

Many donors' names will never be known. Some super PACs have established
nonprofit arms that are permitted to shield contributors' identities as long as
they spend no more than 50 percent of their money on electoral politics.
Crossroads, the giant conservative outfit tied to former George W. Bush
political adviser Karl Rove, operates both a super PAC and a nonprofit.

Crossroads and other Republican-leaning super PACs played a significant role in
the 2010 midterm elections, helping deliver the House to the GOP and boost the
number of Republicans in the Senate. The 2012 contest is the first to test the
influence of such groups in presidential politics.

No candidate has seen his fortunes affected by the emergence of super PACs more
than Gingrich.

Riding high in polls just a month ago, he became the target of a $3 million
advertising barrage sponsored by Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt
Romney run by several of the former Massachusetts governor's allies. The ads,
which pounded Gingrich for his ties to federal housing giant Freddie Mac and his
reversal on issues like climate change, sent his political fortunes plunging in
Iowa. Gingrich finished fourth in the state's caucuses last week.

Gingrich has vowed to carry on and is hoping to resuscitate his campaign in
South Carolina, which holds its primary January 21. Since Romney is heavily
favored to win the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, his rivals are looking to slow
his momentum when the contest moves south.

Several super PACs have already played a role in the Republican campaign. They
include Make Us Great Again, a super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Our
Destiny, supporting former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman; and the Red White and Blue
Fund, which helped revive Rick Santorum's campaign in Iowa and is running ads in
South Carolina.

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing President Barack Obama's re-election
campaign, has spent modestly during the Republican nominating contest and is
expected to step up its role in the general election.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://www.nationofchange.org/gop-candidates-condemn-same-sex-marriage-new-hamps\
hire-debate-1326043648
Sunday 08 January 2012

GOP Candidates Condemn Same-Sex Marriage In New Hampshire Debate


--- click on URL for column and video ---


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Science-of-Sarcasm-Yeah-Right.h\
tml
   a.. Science & Nature
The Science of Sarcasm? Yeah, Right
How do humans separate sarcasm from sincerity? Research on the subject is
leading to insights about how the mind works. Really
   a.. By Richard Chin
   b.. Smithsonian.com, November 14, 2011
In an episode of "The Simpsons," mad scientist Professor Frink demonstrates his
latest creation: a sarcasm detector.

"Sarcasm detector? That's a really useful invention," says another character,
the Comic Book Guy, causing the machine to explode.

Actually, scientists are finding that the ability to detect sarcasm really is
useful. For the past 20 years, researchers from linguists to psychologists to
neurologists have been studying our ability to perceive snarky remarks and
gaining new insights into how the mind works. Studies have shown that exposure
to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving, for instance. Children understand
and use sarcasm by the time they get to kindergarten. An inability to understand
sarcasm may be an early warning sign of brain disease.

Sarcasm detection is an essential skill if one is going to function in a modern
society dripping with irony. "Our culture in particular is permeated with
sarcasm," says Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of
California at San Francisco. "People who don't understand sarcasm are
immediately noticed. They're not getting it. They're not socially adept."

Sarcasm so saturates 21st-century America that according to one study of a
database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase
"yeah, right" was used, it was uttered sarcastically. Entire phrases have almost
lost their literal meanings because they are so frequently said with a sneer.
"Big deal," for example. When's the last time someone said that to you and meant
it sincerely? "My heart bleeds for you" almost always equals "Tell it to someone
who cares," and "Aren't you special" means you aren't.

"It's practically the primary language" in modern society, says John Haiman, a
linguist at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Talk is
Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution of Language.

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists
who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects
exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to
understand sarcasm.

That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College
students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company's customer
service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when
the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm "appears
to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of
anger," according to the study authors.

The mental gymnastics needed to perceive sarcasm includes developing a "theory
of mind" to see beyond the literal meaning of the words and understand that the
speaker may be thinking of something entirely different. A theory of mind allows
you to realize that when your brother says "nice job" when you spill the milk,
he means just the opposite, the jerk.

Sarcastic statements are sort of a true lie. You're saying something you don't
literally mean, and the communication works as intended only if your listener
gets that you're insincere. Sarcasm has a two-faced quality: it's both funny and
mean. This dual nature has led to contradictory theories on why we use it.

Some language experts suggest sarcasm is used as a sort of gentler insult, a way
to tone down criticism with indirectness and humor. "How do you keep this room
so neat?" a parent might say to a child, instead of "This room is a sty."

But others researchers have found that the mocking, smug, superior nature of
sarcasm is perceived as more hurtful than a plain-spoken criticism. The Greek
root for sarcasm, sarkazein, means to tear flesh like dogs.

According to Haiman, dog-eat-dog sarcastic commentary is just part of our quest
to be cool. "You're distancing yourself, you're making yourself superior,"
Haiman says. "If you're sincere all the time, you seem naive."

Sarcasm is also a handy tool. Most of us go through life expecting things to
turn out well, says Penny Pexman, a University of Calgary psychologist who has
been studying sarcasm for more than 20 years. Otherwise, no one would plan an
outdoor wedding. When things go sour, Pexman says, a sarcastic comment is a way
to simultaneously express our expectation as well as our disappointment. When a
downpour spoils a picnic and you quip, "We picked a fine day for this," you're
saying both that you had hoped it would be sunny and you're upset about the
rain.

We're more likely to use sarcasm with our friends than our enemies, Pexman says.
"There does seem to be truth to the old adage that you tend to tease the ones
you love," she says.

But among strangers, sarcasm use soars if the conversation is via an anonymous
computer chat room as opposed to face to face, according to a study by Jeffrey
Hancock, a communications professor at Cornell University. This may be because
it's safer to risk some biting humor with someone you're never going to meet. He
also noted that conversations typed on a computer take more time than a face to
face discussion. People may use that extra time to construct more complicated
ironic statements.

Kids pick up the ability to detect sarcasm at a young age. Pexman and her
colleagues in Calgary showed children short puppet shows in which one of the
puppets made either a literal or a sarcastic statement. The children were asked
to put a toy duck in a box if they thought the puppet was being nice. If they
thought the puppet was being mean, they were supposed to put a toy shark in a
box. Children as young as 5 were able to detect sarcastic statements quickly.

Pexman said she has encountered children as young as 4 who say, "smooth move,
mom" at a parent's mistake. And she says parents who report being sarcastic
themselves have kids who are better at understanding sarcasm.

There appear to be regional variations in sarcasm. A study that compared college
students from upstate New York with students from near Memphis, Tennessee, found
that the Northerners were more likely to suggest sarcastic jibes when asked to
fill in the dialogue in a hypothetical conversation.

Northerners also were more likely to think sarcasm was funny: 56 percent of
Northerners found sarcasm humorous while only 35 percent of Southerners did. The
New Yorkers and male students from either location were more likely to describe
themselves as sarcastic.

There isn't just one way to be sarcastic or a single sarcastic tone of voice. In
his book, Haiman lists more than two dozen ways that a speaker or a writer can
indicate sarcasm with pitch, tone, volume, pauses, duration and punctuation. For
example: "Excuse me" is sincere. "Excuuuuuse me" is sarcastic, meaning, "I'm not
sorry."

According to Haiman, a sarcastic version of "thank you" comes out as a nasal
"thank yewww" because speaking the words in a derisive snort wrinkles up your
nose into an expression of disgust. That creates a primitive signal of
insincerity, Haiman says. The message: These words taste bad in my mouth and I
don't mean them.

In an experiment by Patricia Rockwell, a sarcasm expert at the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette, observers watched the facial expressions of people
making sarcastic statements. Expressions around the mouth, as opposed to the
eyes or eyebrows, were most often cited as a clue to a sarcastic statement.

The eyes may also be a giveaway. Researchers from California Polytechnic
University found that test subjects who were asked to make sarcastic statements
were less likely to look the listener in the eye. The researchers suggest that
lack of eye contact is a signal to the listener: "This statement is a lie."

Another experiment that analyzed sarcasm in American TV sitcoms asserted that
there's a "blank face" version of sarcasm delivery.

Despite all these clues, detecting sarcasm can be difficult. There are a lot of
things that can cause our sarcasm detectors to break down, scientists are
finding. Conditions including autism, closed head injuries, brain lesions and
schizophrenia can interfere with the ability to perceive sarcasm.

Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, for example,
recently found that people with frontotemporal dementia have difficulty
detecting sarcasm. Neuropsychologist Katherine Rankin has suggested that a loss
of the ability to pick up on sarcasm could be used as an early warning sign to
help diagnose the disease. "If someone who has the sensitivity loses it, that's
a bad sign," Rankin says. "If you suddenly think Stephen Colbert is truly right
wing, that's when I would worry."

Many parts of the brain are involved in processing sarcasm, according to recent
brain imaging studies. Rankin has found that the temporal lobes and the
parahippocampus are involved in picking up the sarcastic tone of voice. While
the left hemisphere of the brain seems to be responsible for interpreting
literal statements, the right hemisphere and both frontal lobes seem to be
involved in figuring out when the literal statement is intended to mean exactly
the opposite, according to a study by researchers at the University of Haifa.

Or you could just get a sarcasm detection device. It turns out scientists can
program a computer to recognize sarcasm. Last year, Hebrew University computer
scientists in Jerusalem developed their "Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm
Identification." The program was able to catch 77 percent of the sarcastic
statements in Amazon purchaser comments like "Great for insomniacs" in a book
review. The scientists say that a computer that could recognize sarcasm could do
a better job of summarizing user opinions in product reviews.

The University of Southern California's Signal Analysis and Interpretation
Laboratory announced in 2006 that their "automatic sarcasm recognizer," a set of
computer algorithms, was able to recognize sarcastic versions of "yeah, right"
in recorded telephone conversations more than 80 percent of the time. The
researchers suggest that a computerized phone operator that understands sarcasm
can be programmed to "get" the joke with "synthetic laughter."

Now that really would be a useful invention. Yeah, right.


Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Science-of-Sarcasm-Yeah-Right.h\
tml#ixzz1invOIB00


----------

One of the comments at the URL ---
I always recognize sarcasm immediately. I find that it is mean spirited and
comes from hateful people. I like truth and telling it like it is straight up. I
am not a naive person.  I will soon be 70 and have seen a lot of this world.
There is no intellectual justification for deliberate, hateful speech.

Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Science-of-Sarcasm-Yeah-Right.h\
tml#ixzz1invrOHT9



----------

The comments about cultural differences, may be more comments about the
complexity of language. As an American in Paris I find learning the language
much more difficult than I thought it would be (what do you call someone who
speaks only one language? A polyglut? No, an American). And recognizing sarcasm
may be the most difficult type of fluency. So are the French more polite than
Americans? Oh, sure.

Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Science-of-Sarcasm-Yeah-Right.h\
tml#ixzz1invvltd7


----------

Unintended satire -- but cute --
Pure Michigan: Saugatuck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_aQqSHTW9Y


***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Great Chinese State Circus - Swan Lake
2) Gay marriage 'improves health'
3) Holier-than-thou Rick's got to go
4) The Homosexual Agenda -- Indoctrinate and eliminate



1)
Great Chinese State Circus - Swan Lake
http://www.nzwide.com/swanlake.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sMc-p19FIk
spectacular and graceful

----------

Humans are capable of so much.
So much grace.
So much destruction.


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------------


2)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16203621
15 December 2011

Gay marriage 'improves health'
Legalising same-sex marriage may create a healthier environment for gay men, say
US researchers.

The number of visits by gay men to health clinics dropped significantly after
same-sex unions were allowed in the state Massachusetts.

This was regardless of whether the men were in a stable relationship, reported
the American Journal of Public Health.

A UK HIV charity said there was a clear link between happiness and health.

Research has already suggested that gay men are more likely to suffer from
depression and suicidal thoughts than heterosexual men, and that social
exclusion may be partly responsible.

'Lasting repercussions'
Same-sex marriages are legal in six US states, with Massachusetts the first to
allow them in 2003.

Researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health surveyed
the demand for medical and mental health care from 1,211 gay men registered with
a particular health clinic in the 12 months prior to the change, and the 12
months afterwards.

They found a 13% drop in healthcare visits after the law was enacted.

There was a reduction in blood pressure problems, depression and "adjustment
disorders", which the authors claimed could be the result of reduced stress.

Lesbian women were not included in the study as there were insufficient numbers
to give a statistically meaningful result.

Dr Mark Hatzenbuehler, who led the study, said: "Our results suggest that
removing these barriers improves the health of gay and bisexual men

"Marriage equality may produce broad public health benefits by reducing the
occurrence of stress-related health conditions."

A spokesman for the Terrence Higgins Trust, a UK-based sexual health and HIV
charity, said: "There is a known link between health and happiness.

"It's no surprise that people who are treated as second class citizens tend to
have low self esteem, which in turn makes them more likely to take risks.

"Whether this is drugs, alcohol abuse, or unsafe sex, treating gay men unequally
has lasting repercussions for their health."


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-------------


3)
http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20220108holier-than-thou_ricks_got_\
to_go_pol_politicized_church_sex_abuse_scandal/srvc=home&position=3

Holier-than-thou Rick's got to go
Pol politicized church sex abuse scandal
  By Margery Eagan
Sunday, January 8, 2012

Yesterday (Saturday) morning, while Rick "Faith, Family, and Freedom" Santorum
was preparing for another I'm-holier-than-you-are day in New Hampshire, I was
sitting in a Cambridge Street Holiday Inn conference room. It was packed with
survivors and advocates celebrating the 10th anniversary of the uncovering of
Boston's horrific Catholic Church sex abuse crisis.

Two times in a half hour the name Rick Santorum, the self-proclaimed uber
Catholic, was mentioned. Two times he was politely and genteelly booed.

I loved it.

This was a mostly Catholic gathering. There were nuns, ex-nuns, ex-altar boys,
and middle-aged and elderly people. And many in the crowd couldn't stomach
Santorum for one big reason. Just as the depths of this sex abuse deprivation
were revealed, Rick Santorum, in 2002, went on the record to blame the rape of
children in and around Boston on "cultural liberalism." He's never said he was
wrong.
Think about that obnoxiousness before you vote, New Hampshire.

Let me add. The website www.BishopAccountability.org lists bishops and priests
credibly accused of abuse, which means priests with multiple accusers or with
cases settled by the church. More than 60 such priests were accused by hundreds
and hundreds in New Hampshire.

Perhaps Rick Santorum blames New Hampshire's "cultural liberalism" for those
assaults, too, though liberal is hardly a word I'd use to describe the Granite
State. It is not clear what he blames for priestly attacks on teenagers and
children in Ireland, throughout Europe, parts of Africa, South America and most
recently Haiti.

Perhaps in his loathsome world view, it's cultural liberalism gone wild 'round
the world!

Unfortunately for Santorum, however, the corrupt church hierarchy that knew of
and then covered up these many crimes was not made up of cultural liberals but
cultural conservatives. Like Santorum, the pope, most bishops, Bernard Cardinal
Law and John B. McCormack (Law's accessory and until September the bishop of
Manchester, N.H.) oppose premarital sex, sex between married couples using birth
control, any kind of gay sex, of course, and abortion.

Here's the Santorum twist. You know the term cafeteria Catholic, used most often
to describe those Catholics who disagree, in good conscience, with the church's
endless anti-sex stands.

It turns out that Santorum, despite his uber Catholic posturing, is a cafeteria
Catholic in reverse. Or maybe I should call him an "all about sex" Catholic
because he only agrees with the church's doctrines on matters sexual.

Look at his record. He's for the death penalty and a foreign policy macho hawk
(both against Catholic teaching). He's opposed to illegal immigration and social
justice for the poor (both big time against Catholic teaching from the Vatican
and the American church).

I'm not sure how he can reconcile his stand against birth control (because of
his church's teaching) while proclaiming readiness to bomb Iran back to the
Stone Age (despite his church's teaching). But that's what he does - and still
does his holier-than-thou shtick. Yet what really got me this weekend, hearing
retold the brutal stories of small Catholic children molested, is how Rick
Santorum both belittled and politicized their suffering.

I wished they booed him louder at the Holiday Inn yesterday. I hope New
Hampshire sends this creepy guy packing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


4)
This is the mindset of Southern Baptists and other bigots.
They also "believe in" creationism.  They caused the need for civil rights in
the 1960's.  They prevented women from voting until the passing of the 19th
Amendment in 1920.

--->

http://www.traditionalvalues.us/SNDApetition1.aspx?pid=pp1
http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/news/article.php?article=7386
http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/

Dear Pro-Family American,

The Radical Homosexuals infiltrating the United States Congress have a plan:

Indoctrinate an entire generation of American children with pro-homosexual
propaganda and eliminate traditional values from American society.

That's why I need you to act quickly to protect our nation's youth.

I'm helping lead the fight to defeat the radical homosexuals but I need your
help.

Please join me by taking a public stand AGAINST this outright assault on our
nation's youth by signing the Protect our Children's Innocence Petition below!

For the Family,

Eugene Delgaudio
Public Advocate of the U.S.

http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/

Standing for traditional values.



Protect our Children's Innocence Petition
Whereas:   Schools should be institutions of learning, dedicated to the unbiased
and unpoliticized pursuit of knowledge equally for all students; and

Whereas:   The mis-named "Student Non-Discrimination Act" actually DOES
discriminate by creating special protected classes of students; and

Whereas:   More accurately-named the "Homosexual Classrooms Act," the "Student
Non-Discrimination Act" targets children with homosexual propaganda far over
their heads in an attempt to sexually confuse and corrupt; and

Whereas:   Government should have NO AUTHORITY to force the Homosexual Agenda on
the American people, much less their children;

Therefore:  As your constituent and a concerned pro-family voter, I strongly
insist you oppose the so-called "Student Non-Discrimination Act," and make every
attempt to see it defeated.

----------

My advice as always:  Do NOT write to this bunch of self-righteous achievers. 
They will use your words against truth.

----------

The same people caused this need ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHhpTyDYXfM
We Will Stand: Defending Voting Rights

----------

Some good stuff ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pwN-yiho4M
Gay Marriage Renault Twingo ad

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I wish I could say that all this is fiction. --->


1) Complication Consolidated into a Cartoon
2) Psalm Before the Storm as South Carolina Evangelicals Get Set
3) Mississippi Governor Pardons 210, Including Murderers, Rapists
4) Court: Oklahoma can't enforce Sharia law ban
5) 'Doomsday Clock' moves 1 minute closer to midnight
6) US fires 1st drone in Pakistan in 6 weeks; 4 dead
7) Outrage over 'human zoo' on Indian islands
8) Pope Benedict XVI: Gay Marriage A Threat To 'Future Of Humanity'



1)
http://www.gocomics.com/matt-bors/2012/01/09
Matt Bors by Matt Bors


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


2)
http://news.yahoo.com/psalm-storm-c-evangelicals-set-110128369--abc-news.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/psalm-before-the-storm-as-s-c-evang\
elicals-get-set/
Psalm Before the Storm as S.C. Evangelicals Get Set
By Matt Negrin | ABC News - Wednesday 11 January 11 2012

If Rick Santorum wants to prove that his near-victory in Iowa wasn't a fluke,
then South Carolina is the state where he can try to give Mitt Romney another
run for his money.
Evangelical voters were key to Santorum's success in Iowa, and the same will
probably be true, if not more so, in South Carolina Jan. 21. While leaders in
the evangelical community in South Carolina have made clear that Santorum has
grabbed their attention, they have cautioned that those conservative voters are
still making up their minds, particularly among him, Newt Gingrich and Rick
Perry.

"A lot of people are really, really interested in Santorum than they've ever
been because of what happened," said Hal Stevenson, a board member of the
Palmetto Family, a conservative group in the state. "I think it's like night and
day."

The economy remains voters' top concern pretty much everywhere, and South
Carolina is no exception. But underneath, religious voters have no plans to
abandon their values in choosing a candidate, according to pastors at a handful
of medium and large evangelical churches.

Those Republicans are the voters whom Romney has had trouble converting. Given
his history on gay rights and abortion, Romney, a Mormon, isn't as obvious a
choice for many evangelicals as are the other three conservatives. Politically,
family and religious leaders acknowledge that Romney could emerge as the victor
in South Carolina if the primary is a rerun of 2008's contest, when the more
centrist Sen. John McCain won as conservatives split their vote among other
candidates.

"I've heard one member of my congregation explain it like this: 'I'm tired of
voting for the least of several evils,'" said the pastor of a 300-member
evangelical Lutheran church, who requested anonymity so he could speak candidly.

Describing Romney, the pastor explained the front-runner's hurdle in South
Carolina: "I think the seed of the trouble is essentially in the fact that
people in my congregation think he's more moderate than they are, and they don't
want to see big government policies, you know, continue."

The latest polls show that Romney does indeed stand to win the South Carolina
primary, as long as his conservative rivals stay in the game. In a CNN/TIME/ORC
poll last week, Romney held a commanding lead with 37 percent of the vote.
Santorum was in second, but with 19 percent, and Newt Gingrich was just behind
him, with 18 percent.

All signs point to the South Carolina primary being hard fought. Restore Our
Future, a so-called super PAC that supports Romney, is spending $2.3 million on
ads in the state; and Winning Our Future, a super PAC that backs Gingrich, plans
to spend $3.4 million on ads.

Prominent evangelicals met in Texas after the Iowa caucuses to try to settle on
a conservative candidate to support, fearing that Romney would benefit from a
fractured split. Neither Santorum nor Gingrich are likely to drop out of the
race before Jan. 21, though; Santorum is trying to ride his wave from the Iowa
caucuses as far as it will take him, and Gingrich told ABC News Monday that
South Carolina is "my must-win state."

Santorum was propelled in Iowa in part by an endorsement from Bob Vander Plaats,
an influential Christian leader, who told ABC News last week that he has been
making a flurry of calls to South Carolina in an effort to rally like-minded
"pro-family" leaders behind the former Pennsylvania senator.

Some pastors said that while they try to keep politics out of their sermons,
conversations about the Republican primary abound in their communities more so
than in previous years.

Dan Mathewson, a religion professor at Wofford College who has observed the
evangelical community in South Carolina for years, said that while Republican
voters might normally seek to coalesce around a winning candidate in the
primary, evangelicals this year are struggling to find a natural fit. He noted
that Santorum, a Catholic, has expressed values that resonate with evangelicals,
and that the community has shown that it's suspicious of Romney's beliefs.

"Our church will be extremely involved in the primaries, no doubt," said Ed
Carney, the pastor of Riverland Hills Baptist Church, in Columbia, which has
about 4,000 members. "From a political standpoint, we'd prefer there be more
jobs, and, I think, that's going to be a major emphasis this year."

Brad Atkins, the president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, stressed
that many evangelicals consider issues such as abortion "major" concerns, and,
without naming Romney, said that candidates who have murky histories on
positions like that will have trouble persuading religious voters that they're
sincere.

"There was a sense early in our nation's history that we were one nation under
God," Atkins said. "Sadly, the older our country has gotten, the more we've
gotten away from those core beliefs."

----------

see also  http://news.yahoo.com/santorum-communist-clan-113600418.html

see also 
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battle-broods-romneys-clan-santorums-campaign-kid\
s/story?id=15296099#.Tw3YpWHaLTo


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


3)
http://news.yahoo.com/mississippi-governor-pardons-210-including-murderers-rapis\
ts-003141488--abc-news.html
Mississippi Governor Pardons 210, Including Murderers, Rapists
By Steve Osunsami | ABC News - Tuesday 10 January 2012

In a stunning goodbye, exiting Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour pardoned 210 state
inmates, just moments before he left office this morning.  Nearly all the orders
were "full, complete and unconditional" pardons. A few were suspended sentences,
mostly for medical reasons.

Mississippi's Secretary of State released the long list this afternoon.

The timing was perfect for the Barbour administration to avoid discussing the
issue. Calls to Barbour's people were answered by the staff of newly sworn-in
Gov. Phil Bryant. Bryant's office respectfully declined comment.

While it's difficult at first glance to know the back-story of each and every
pardon, what's most striking is the number of pardons for violent crimes -
nearly a dozen for murder, and two for statutory rape. Both men and women were
pardoned, most of them convicted on drug, DUI, burglary and armed robbery
charges.

Barbour was already under fire for pardoning five prisoners who were assigned to
cook and clean at the governor's mansion in Jackson. Four of those men were
convicted of murder, and 40-year-old David Gatlin had just been denied parole
just two weeks before. In years past, the governor has explained that it is
tradition to pardon prisoners assigned to the mansion.

Gatlin was sentenced to life in prison for killing his estranged wife in 1993,
and shooting Randy Walker, her male friend, in the head. Walker survived, and
his wife Crystal Walker told Jackson's Clarion Ledger that they're now both
afraid for their lives.

"On parole he'd at least have to check in and have some supervision," she said
Sunday. "Now he could live beside us, or we could run into him at Walmart.
You're always looking over your shoulder."

Barbour remains popular in Mississippi, and even critics say it was his right to
issue the pardons, and he probably had his reasons. Barbour will be forever
credited with helping Mississippi quickly and efficiently recover from Hurricane
Katrina, in stark contrast to the recovery efforts in neighboring Louisiana.

----------

See also
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/mississippi-governor-pardons-210-i\
ncluding-murderers-rapists/


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/court-oklahoma-cant-enforce-sharia-law-ban-011240179.html
Court: Oklahoma can't enforce Sharia law ban
By Robert Boczkiewicz | Reuters - Tuesday 10 January 2012

DENVER (Reuters) - A federal appeals court upheld an injunction against a
voter-approved ban on Islamic law in Oklahoma on Tuesday, saying it likely
violated the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against religion.

A three-member panel of the Denver-based U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled unanimously that the rights of plaintiff Muneer Awad, a Muslim man living
in Oklahoma City, likely would be violated if the ban on Sharia law takes
effect.

The decision upholds the ruling of a lower federal court.

"While the public has an interest in the will of the voters being carried out
... the public has a more profound and long-term interest in upholding an
individual's constitutional rights," the appeals court said in a 37-page written
decision.

The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomed the
ruling, calling it "a victory for the Constitution and for the right of all
Americans to freely practice their faith."

Oklahoma's "Save Our State Amendment," which was approved by 70 percent of state
voters in 2010, bars Oklahoma state courts from considering or using Sharia law.

The lawsuit challenging the measure was brought by the American Civil Liberties
Union on behalf of Awad, who is director of the Oklahoma chapter of CAIR.

A federal judge in Oklahoma City issued a court order in November 2010 barring
the measure from taking effect while the case is under review, finding a
substantial likelihood that Awad would prevail on the merits.

The Council said the Oklahoma amendment is among 20 similar proposed laws
introduced in state legislatures nationwide.

Defenders of the amendment say they want to prevent foreign laws in general, and
Islamic Sharia law in particular, from overriding state or U.S. laws.

But foes of the Oklahoma measure, also called State Question 755, have argued
that it stigmatizes Islam and its adherents and violates the U.S. Constitution's
First Amendment prohibition against the government favoring one religion over
another.

State Senator Anthony Sykes, one of the measure's sponsors, called the decision
an attempt "to silence the voice of 70 percent of Oklahoma voters. At some point
we have to decide whether this is a country of, by and for the judges, or of, by
and for the people."

Opponents also say it could nullify wills or legal contracts between Muslims
because they incorporate by reference specific elements of Islamic prophetic
traditions.

(Editing by Mary Slosson and Paul Thomasch)

----------

My comment ---
What State Senator Anthony Sykes means is that our Southern Baptist lifestyle is
the only one going to be accepted here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)
http://news.yahoo.com/doomsday-clock-moves-1-minute-closer-midnight-230621633.ht\
ml
'Doomsday Clock' moves 1 minute closer to midnight
AP - Tuesday 10 January 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) - A group of scientists that tracks the likelihood of a global
cataclysm says the world is moving closer to doomsday.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that it has moved its
"Doomsday Clock" to five minutes to midnight.

The group says inadequate progress on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and
continuing inaction on climate change are the reasons for the change.

The clock had been set at six minutes to midnight for the past two years. It was
previously set at five minutes to midnight from 2007-2010.

The group says in a statement that two years ago, there was reason for optimism
"that world leaders might address the truly global threats we face. In many
cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


6)
http://news.yahoo.com/us-fires-1st-drone-pakistan-6-weeks-4-044850572.html
US fires 1st drone in Pakistan in 6 weeks; 4 dead
By LOLITA C. BALDOR and RASOOL DAWAR | AP - Wednesday 11 January 2012

BANNU, Pakistan (AP) - An American drone strike killed four Islamist militants
in Pakistan, the first such attack since errant U.S airstrikes in November
killed two dozen Pakistan troops and pushed strained ties between the two
nations close to collapse, Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday.

The attack Tuesday took place in North Waziristan, an al-Qaida and Taliban
stronghold close to the Afghan border that has been pounded by U.S. strikes, the
officials said. Three of the dead were Arab fighters, said the officials, who
didn't give their names because they were not allowed to be named in the media.

The late-night missile launch broke the longest pause between strikes since the
drone program began in earnest in 2009.

American officials say there had been no promise by Washington to avoid drone
operations since the deadly Nov. 26 airstrikes along the Afghan border, but that
the lull was part efforts to tamp down tensions with Pakistan, seen by many U.S.
officials as key to a negotiated peace in Afghanistan.

After the American strike, Islamabad shut down vital supply routes into
Afghanistan and forced the U.S. to vacate Shamsi Air Base in southwestern
Baluchistan province. The U.S. used the base to service drones that targeted
militants in the tribal regions close to Afghanistan.

While there has been some level of Pakistani acquiescence to the drone program,
the attacks are extremely unpopular with the public, and their scope and
frequency has been a source of friction between the two countries.

It was unclear whether the U.S. had given any indication that it would resume
strikes, or whether the fresh attack would hamper American efforts to rebuild
cooperation with Islamabad and reopen its supply routes.

The missiles struck a house around two kilometers from Miran Shah, the main town
in North Waziristan, shortly before midnight locals said. "It was an unusually
big bang. Since it was extremely cold I didn't leave the house, but could see a
house on fire," said Qasim Noor, a 20-year-old college student. "In the morning,
we saw a modest mud house had been destroyed."

A U.S. official confirmed there had been a missile strike in the region.

An American investigation into the November airstrikes concluded that a
persistent lack of trust between the U.S. and Pakistan, and a series of
communications and coordination errors on both sides, led to the attacks.
Pakistani officials have rejected that probe and there has been little public
sign that relations between the two countries are improving.

There were more than 60 drone attacks last year, significantly less than in
2010. The attacks have killed scores of militants, among them several mid- and
high-ranking commanders. American officials don't talk about the program in
public, but privately say it has been vital in countering the threat from
al-Qaida in one of its global hubs.

Human rights activists in Pakistan and abroad have reported significant civilian
casualties as a result of the strikes. The U.S. says the strikes are accurate,
but doesn't publicly investigate the allegations.

___

Lolita Baldor reported from Washington.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


7)
http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-over-human-zoo-indian-islands-114059047.html
Outrage over 'human zoo' on Indian islands
AFP - Wednesday 11 January 2012
Rights campaigners and politicians Wednesday condemned a video showing women
from a protected and primitive tribe dancing for tourists in exchange for food
on India's far-flung Andaman Islands.

British newspaper The Observer released the video showing Jarawa tribal women --
some of them naked -- being lured to dance and sing after a bribe was allegedly
paid to a policeman to produce them.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to
outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the
Jarawa is illegal.

The tribe, thought to have been among the first people to migrate successfully
from Africa to Asia, lives a nomadic existence in the lush, tropical forests of
the Andamans in the Bay of Bengal.

India's Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo promised to take action
over the incident, terming it "disgusting" on Wednesday, and the home ministry
has sought a report.

Survival International, which lobbies on behalf of tribal groups worldwide, said
the video showed tourists apparently enjoying "human zoos."

"Quite clearly, some people's attitudes towards tribal peoples haven't moved on
a jot. The Jarawa are not circus ponies bound to dance at anyone's bidding,"
said Stephen Corry, the group's director, in a press release.

In June last year, Survival International accused eight Indian travel companies
of running "human safari tours" so tourists could see and photograph the Jarawa.

The London-based lobby group called for tourists to boycott the road used to
enter the reserve of the Jarawa tribe, who number just 403 and are in danger of
dying out.

The Andaman and Nicobar tropical island chain is home to four other rare tribes
-- Onge, the Great Andamanese, the Sentinelese and the Shompens, each numbering
fewer than 350 members.

Another tribe called Bo died out in January 2010.

The Andaman police downplayed the video, calling it "old" and blamed the British
journalist for forcing the Jarawas to dance for the tourists.

"It is obvious that it is the videographer who is breaking the law of the land
and who is inciting the tribals to dance," senior Andaman policeman S.B. Deol
said in a statement.

The video can be viewed at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jan/07/andaman-islanders-human-safari\
-video

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/pope-benedict-xvi-gay-marriage_n_119451\
5.html

Pope Benedict XVI: Gay Marriage A Threat To 'Future Of Humanity'
1/9/12
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that gay marriage
was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined "the future
of humanity itself".

The pope made some of his strongest comments against gay marriage in a new year
address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican in which he touched on
some economic and social issues facing the world today.

He told diplomats from nearly 180 countries that the education of children
needed proper "settings" and that "pride of place goes to the family, based on
the marriage of a man and a woman."

"This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of
every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human
dignity and the future of humanity itself," he said.

The Vatican and Catholic officials around the world have protested against moves
to legalise gay marriage in Europe and other developed parts of the world.

One leading opponent of gay marriage in the United States is New York Archbishop
Timothy Dolan, whom the pope will elevate to cardinal next month.

Dolan fought against gay marriage before it became legal in New York state last
June, and in September he sent a letter to President Barack Obama criticising
his administration's decision not to support a federal ban on gay marriage.

In that letter Dolan, who holds the powerful post of president of the U.S.
Bishops Conference, said such a policy could "precipitate a national conflict
between church and state of enormous proportions."

The Roman Catholic Church, which has some 1.3 billion members worldwide, teaches
that while homosexual tendencies are not sinful, homosexual acts are, and that
children should grow up in a traditional family with a mother and a father.

"The family unit is fundamental for the educational process and for the
development both of individuals and states; hence there is a need for policies
which promote the family and aid social cohesion and dialogue," Benedict told
the diplomats.

Gay marriage is legal in a number of European countries, including Spain and the
Netherlands.

Some Churches that have allowed gay marriage, women priests, gay clergy and gay
bishops have been losing members to Catholicism, and the Vatican has taken steps
to facilitate their conversion.

In 2009, Benedict decreed that Anglicans who leave their Church, many because
they feel it has become too liberal, can find a home in Catholicism in a
parallel hierarchy that allows them to keep some of their traditions.

The Vatican has since set up "ordinariates," structures similar to dioceses, in
Britain and the United States to oversee ex-Anglicans who have converted and be
a point of contact for those wishing to do so. (Reporting By Philip Pullella;
editing by Tim Pearce)

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Must read -- Outrage at Video of Marines Urinating on Taliban Corpses: A
Veteran's View
2) Judge Halts Mississippi Pardons After Uproar
3) Republicans: The Single Greatest Threat to America
4) Supreme Court: Judges cannot get involved in church dispute -- in other
words, churches have special rights
5) Sign the Petition: Stop LGBT Discrimination in our Schools
6) The Real Effects of Technology on Your Health
7) Creating a new mindset!
8) One of the very few things on which I agree with Tony Perkins of the FRC
9) Pew Survey: Majority of Mormons Lean Republican; Half Cite Discrimination
Against Their Faith



1)
Absolutely must read ---
http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-video-marines-urinating-taliban-corpses-veterans-v\
iew-055500933.html
Outrage at Video of Marines Urinating on Taliban Corpses: A Veteran's View
By ALEX LEMONS | Time.com - Thursday 12 January 2012

Alex Lemons, a former Marine sergeant who deployed to Iraq three times --
including once as scout sniper -- reflects on the video of four Marines
urinating on the corpses of three dead Taliban in Afghanistan:

This is all very painful to me on so many different levels. Back in 2004 one of
my fellow snipers shot someone in a mosque in Fallujah. You will probably
remember it getting on TV. It was very confusing. I have tried stopping things
like this before or I've been a coward and let them happen. (See a graphic on
storming Fallujah.)

In my eyes, there are several discomforting or significant things about this
event:

-- If you aren't surprised and disgusted by this as a combatant, veteran or as a
civilian whose country has been at war for a decade, then maybe you need to take
a look in the mirror. Have you become this callous? (See pictures of the U.S.
Marines' offensive in Afghanistan.)

-- I'd like to know how many tours those grunts have been on. Do we know what
condition they are in mentally? Are any on medications?

-- This happened a lot in Fallujah II 2004 and I have a couple explanations.
There were a lot of kids who imitated things they saw or read in Vietnam War
films or literature. You always look back on the last war to explain your own.

Sometimes, Marines needed to take pictures and laugh about the death swirling
around them because if they took it seriously and grieved then they would not be
able to function and continue the fight.

Sometimes, Marines were simply brutal and took trophy photos or pissed or
defecated on bodies because it actually felt good after you had been fighting
someone for a hour or a day.

Maybe it was also the kind of fighting, insurgency, that produced experiences
like this. You fight ghosts (IEDs, booby traps, snipers, potshots, loudspeaker
recordings) and when you finally get one enemy grunt who isn't even in a uniform
you choose to take out all the frustrations of fighting an invisible enemy on a
lifeless but symbolic corpse. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal
Valley.)

-- Events like this have the power of a stone thrown into a calm lake. The
circumstances and people that created the rippling effects are irrelevant. We
don't know who the dead men are, if they had weapons or if they were simply
pushing that wheelbarrow around. It's too late to ask those questions outside of
a tribunal.

Anyone looking at the United States presence is going to hold this up as a
symbol for all our actions past, present and future. That might sound like too
high of a standard to measure ourselves against, but purportedly this is the
principle we stand for and fight on.

-- War is not a moral agent. "War is hell, shit happens and trophies get taken,"
is a copout from an irresponsible person. War doesn't make anyone do anything
because it is not a living thing.

People make war and they make choices in war. Most of these choices are made
along the lines of rules of engagement, other war conventions, and training.

The Marine Corps doesn't teach anyone to do this.

Choices were made and they were not good ones. This is what maintains our moral
high ground. It doesn't matter if the Taliban cut heads off and videotape them.
(See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

The whole point, as I was told since 2001, was not to become like them, or to be
comparable to them.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


2)
continuing from yesterday's report of former Mississippi Republican Governor
Haley Barber and his pardons
http://news.yahoo.com/judge-halts-mississippi-pardons-uproar-020954858--abc-news\
.html

*** video from ABC this morning at URL ***
Judge Halts Mississippi Pardons After Uproar
By Steve Osunsami | ABC News - Thursday 12 January 2012

As victims' loved ones ask why killers and rapists got pardoned by former
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour during his final hours in office, a Mississippi
state judge has temporarily halted the release of 21 of the 200-plus pardoned
inmates.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood had requested the injunction against the
inmates' releases, telling reporters he believes some of Barbour's pardons could
have violated the state constitution by failing to give sufficient public notice
that the convicts were seeking clemency.

The state constitution requires a public notice about an inmate's intention to
seek a pardon be published for 30 days before the governor can grant one.

Five former inmates, four of them convicted of murder and serving life
sentences, have already been released. The state's top lawyer is asking the
court to serve those former inmates notices underlining that their release may
be challenged.

(ABC News)

The news came as families of loved ones killed, raped or robbed by the men and
women set free are speaking out against Barbour's actions, saying they wish he
had spoken to them first.

"I have a lot of feelings," said Betty Ellis, whose daughter was killed by her
estranged husband, David Gatlin, in 1993.

Gatlin received one of the 210 last-minute pardons - nearly twice the number
issued since 1988. Some of the pardons were for prisoners assigned to cook and
clean at the governor's mansion. Four of those inmates were convicted murderers.

"I've been mad. I can't understand how a man that has children of his own could
do this," said Ellis, who marched to the state capital, Jackson, Miss.,
searching for Barbour.

Barbour, a Republican, released a statement Wednesday evening saying that 189 of
the 215 people pardoned were already out of prison.

"My decision about clemency was based upon the recommendation of the parole
board in more than 90 percent of the cases," the statement said, according to
WTVA-TV.

Thirteen on the 26 inmates released from custody were costly to the state
because of medical expenses and can be returned to custody if they commit
another crime.

Another three pardoned inmates were listed as receiving a suspended sentence,
according to the statement   All 16 are said to still be under the supervision
of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.  Information on the remaining 10
of the pardoned inmates wasn't included in the statement.

On the same night Ellis' daughter was killed in 1993, Gatlin shot Randy Walker
in the head and left him for dead. Walker said Barbour's move has given the
state "a black eye."

"This is going to make national news," he said.

He too traveled to Jackson, where he spoke with Gov. Phil Bryant, who'd been
sworn in just hours before Barbour had issued the pardons and left office.

Although Bryant told Walker that he would not have pardoned convicted murderers,
he said: "The constitution gives the governor that authority and that's his
decision to make."

That is little comfort for Walker's wife, Crystal Walker, who told Jackson's
Clarion Ledger that both she and her husband now fear for their lives.

"On parole, he'd at least have to check in and have some supervision," she said
Sunday. "Now he could live beside us, or we could run into him at Walmart.
You're always looking over your shoulder."

Barbour remains a popular leader in the state. He is credited with speeding up
the state's recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Barbour maintained that freeing
those who worked at the mansion was a Mississippi tradition to show them mercy.

But Mark Mayfield, a lawyer, said the public just didn't get it and neither did
he.

"Haley has done a lot of great things," Mayfield said today, "but I'm afraid
that in the large measure this will tarnish his image as he goes forward."

ABC News' Enjoli Francis and Sarah Amos, and The Associated Press, contributed
to this report.

Also Read
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/mississippi-ag-says-former-gov-may\
-have-violated-state-constitution-with-pardons/

----------

My comment ---
I love to listen to the comments made after an egregious move like this.
The involved parties -- in particular the governor -- defends himself.
Typical -- nobody knows how to lie and bear false witness like a Southern
Baptist, or an SB clone.

Haley boy, you done good.

----------

I've been told that Barbour actually hates Mississippi and couldn't wait to get
out.

Done in pure meanness.  Southern Baptists know what that means.

----------

See also
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0111/Did-Haley-Barbour-s-pardon-spree-go-too-f\
ar


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------



3)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-goodman/republicans-the-single-gr_b_881444.h\
tml
Republicans: The Single Greatest Threat to America
Sandy Goodman  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-goodman
Posted: 06/21/11 03:54 PM ET
The single greatest threat to the United States is not joblessness,
foreclosures, another recession or skyrocketing debt or health care costs. Nor
is it terrorism, China or declining influence abroad. No, the single greatest
threat to our country is today's Republican Party.

That's because the GOP is relentlessly pursuing a policy of the American public
be damned, so that next year Republicans can regain the national political
dominance they held from 2001 to 2006. Their sole, selfish aim is to complete
the transformation of the U.S. to a government of, by and for the rich and the
far-right.

Veteran reporter Robert Parry, a retired correspondent for the Associated Press
and Newsweek, accurately summed up that policy this way:

   Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the
White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using any means
available... Control as much as possible what the population gets to see and
hear; create chaos for your opponent's government, economically and politically;
blame it for the mess; and establish in the minds of the voters that their only
way out is to submit, that the pain will stop once your side is back in power...

   Republicans and the Right... are well positioned to roll the U.S. economy off
the cliff and blame the catastrophe on Obama. Indeed, that may be their best
hope for winning Election 2012.
George W. Bush's presidency, with Congressional Republicans in lockstep behind
him, made an excellent start on the destructive transformation of this country:
two unpaid-for wars (one based on lies); failure to prevent the worst terrorist
attack on the homeland or punish its instigators; waste of tens of thousands of
U.S. and foreign lives, and worldwide diplomatic failure.

At home, approval of torture, warrantless wiretapping and ineptness and
indifference in the face of Hurricane Katrina created a permanent stain.
Economically, Republican tax cuts created few jobs and increased the national
debt by 75 percent. What the Washington Post dubbed "executive grandeur" made
income inequality the worst since the 1930s Depression. Finally, the GOP's
failed stewardship of the economy resulted in a crisis that Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke testified was even worse than the Depression.

When national revulsion against Republican misrule drove Democrats into power in
2008, the GOP resorted to today's strategy. It became evident even before the
new Democratic president took office when the Republican Party's de facto
leader, Rush Limbaugh, declared: "I hope Obama fails." And since the
inauguration, Republicans have done everything in their power to assure that
failure, although it's meant misery for millions of Americans.

"I wish we had been able to obstruct more," says Senate Republican leader Mitch
McConnell who succeeded brilliantly in keeping his members in line in opposing
every important measure that's good for this country including presidential
initiatives for health care, financial regulation, economic stimulus and a dozen
executive appointments and even more judicial ones needed to keep government
functioning.

Given the frightening record of business and financial deception and fraud that
led to the economic crisis, who in their right mind could possibly oppose
increased regulation of business and enhanced protection for consumers? The
answer: almost all Republicans. Elizabeth Warren is too committed to consumer
protection to win the votes of Senate Republicans acting for their paymasters at
the chambers of commerce.

President Obama's new law extending health insurance to 30 million more people
is too good for working Americans. Beaten in their attempt to vote it down,
Republicans are now suing to kill it. Remember the GOP plan? It proposed health
insurance for one-tenth as many people. Is it any wonder that people in all
other industrial countries, where health care is a right, laugh at us.

American business hates government -- except when it needs government help.
Which is just about all the time. And it's just fine with Republicans whenever
business goes to the government for help. In fact, GOPers are almost always
corporate-friendly, as opposed to people-friendly. And they have a right-wing
Supreme Court majority that helps them buy legislation by equating money with
speech and corporations with human beings.

But heaven forbid the average citizen should try to get a government benefit, or
a job or more unemployment insurance or aid in taking back a home seized (often
illegally) by the bank, or getting health care for a gravely ill child with a
pre-existing condition. Republicans are happy to vote overwhelmingly against
him, ignoring the Constitutional command that government "promote the general
welfare."

Ronald Reagan, a president with rich friends and poor instincts, did this
country an unforgiveable disservice by encouraging Americans to hate and
distrust their government. Remember when he declared: "Government is not a
solution to our problem, government is the problem," and joked that: "The nine
most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and
I'm here to help." Contrast that with Reagan's almost religious reverence for
"the magic of the marketplace."

But my own life experience, like that of millions of Americans, tells me that in
important ways the government is more reliable than the marketplace. I spent a
good part of my career working for one of the largest, most triumphant examples
of American capitalism: General Electric. When I retired late in 1997, GE shares
were selling for $68.56; when GE CEO Jack Welch, the greatest corporate genius
of them all, quit 11 months later, those shares had dropped to $39.66. In 2009,
under his successor genius, they fell as low as $6.66. And they closed the other
day at $18.49 -- only about a quarter of what they were when I retired. Needless
to say, those shares formed a large part of my now badly-depleted retirement
assets. Fortunately for me, GE was one of a declining number of companies that
still provided an additional defined benefit pension plan for employes like me
-- something the company is now proposing to drop for new union hires.

In contrast to my GE stock disaster, Social Security hasn't missed a monthly
payment to me for more than 13 years, or to my wife in nine (imagine the value
of our Social Security stock portfolios if Republicans had succeeded in their
privatization scheme). Medicare enabled me to have spinal surgery, a hip
replacement, cataract operations in both eyes and radiation that cured my
prostate cancer; and my wife to have a hip and knee replaced, without breaking
us financially.

Maybe that's why I call Reagan a liar and a fool for his denunciations of those
benefits from our government to me and millions of others. And you should, too.
But Republicans regard him almost as a saint. And those same Republicans just
voted almost unanimously in Congress to kill Medicare and replace it with Rep.
Ryan's pathetic plan to replace single payer with cut-rate vouchers for
money-hungry private insurers. And they're now holding a critically important
increase in the debt ceiling hostage to measures that would weaken the recovery.

The Republican Bush administration destroyed our standing abroad and our economy
at home, and killed and maimed thousands of our young men and women for no good
reason. Since 2009, Democrats have done their best to clean up the Republican
mess -- something that unfortunately takes time. Republicans have fought those
national cleanup efforts -- and the vast majority of the American people --
every day. And they say they're proud of their obstruction. As for solutions,
they offer none, except for tax cuts like those that created record-low jobs
under Bush, and spending cuts that would cripple the government.

These policies failed before and would inevitably fail again, and might well
drive us into a real Depression. That's why the Republican Party is the single
greatest threat to the United States of America. It cannot be allowed to win in
2012.

----------

My comment ---
This is not satire.  But the next one, # 3, comes close.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



Churches -- theological mythologies -- have special rights.  They can be nasty
-- free of charge.

4)
http://news.yahoo.com/court-judges-cannot-involved-church-dispute-152559467.html
Court: Judges cannot get involved in church dispute
By JESSE J. HOLLAND | Associated Press - Wednesday 11 January 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held
for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for
employment discrimination.
But the court's unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the
distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the
government's protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious
employee, who can't.

It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the
existence of a "ministerial exception" to anti-discrimination laws - a doctrine
developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment's
guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the
reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these
institutions.

The case came before the court because the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission sued the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of
Redford, Mich., on behalf of employee Cheryl Perich, over her firing, which
happened after she complained of discrimination under the Americans with
Disabilities Act.

Writing the court's opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said allowing
anti-discrimination lawsuits against religious organizations could end up
forcing churches to take religious leaders they no longer want.

"Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving
the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its
beliefs," Roberts said. "By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes
the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group's right to shape its
own faith and mission through its appointments."

The court's decision will make it virtually impossible for ministers to take on
their employers for being fired for complaining about issues like sexual
harassment, said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

"Clergy who are fired for reasons unrelated to matters of theology - no matter
how capricious or venal those reasons may be - have just had the courthouse door
slammed in their faces," Lynn said.

But Douglass Laycock, who argued the case for Hosanna-Tabor, called it a "huge
win for religious liberty."

"The court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own
ministers and religious leaders," he said.

But since this was the first time the high court has ever considered the
"ministerial exception," it would not set hard and fast rules on who can be
considered a religious employee of a religious organization, Roberts said.

"We are reluctant ... to adopt a rigid formula for deciding when an employee
qualifies as a minister," he said. "It is enough for us to conclude, in this,
our first case involving the ministerial exception, that the exception covers
Perich, given all the circumstances of her employment."

Perich was promoted from a temporary lay teacher to a "called" teacher in 2000
by a vote of the church's congregation and was hired as a commissioned minister.
She taught secular classes as well as a religious class four days a week. She
also occasionally led chapel service.

She got sick in 2004 but tried to return to work from disability leave despite
being diagnosed with narcolepsy. The school said she couldn't return because
they had hired a substitute for that year. They fired her and removed her from
the church ministry after she showed up at the school and threatened to sue to
get her job back.

Perich complained to the EEOC, which sued the church for violations of the
disabilities act.

A federal judge threw out the lawsuit on grounds that Perich fell under the
ADA's ministerial exception, which keeps the government from interfering with
church affairs. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her
lawsuit, saying Perich's "primary function was teaching secular subjects" so the
ministerial exception didn't apply.

The federal appeals court's reasoning was wrong, Roberts said. He said that
Perich had been ordained as a minister and the lower court put too much weight
on the fact that regular teachers also performed the same religious duties as
she did.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also placed too much emphasis on the fact
that Perich's religious duties only took up 45 minutes of her workday, while
secular duties consumed the rest, Roberts said.

"The issue before us ... is not one that can be resolved by a stopwatch," he
said.

The court's decision was a narrow one, with Roberts refusing to extend the
ministerial exception to other types of lawsuits that religious employees might
bring against their employers. "We express no view on whether the exception bars
other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract
or tortious conduct by their religious employers," Roberts said.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote a separate opinion, argued that the exception
should be tailored for only an employee "who leads a religious organization,
conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals or serves
as a messenger or teacher of its faith."

But "while a purely secular teacher would not qualify for the 'ministerial
exception,' the constitutional protection of religious teachers is not somehow
diminished when they take on secular functions in addition to their religious
ones," Alito said.

----------

See also
http://news.yahoo.com/frc-applauds-supreme-court-ruling-hosanna-tabor-case-21141\
1790.html
and
http://news.yahoo.com/aclj-applauds-supreme-court-decision-protecting-church-aut\
hority-175409076.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


5)
Sign the petition
http://www.dccc.org/pages/bullying

PETITION: Stop LGBT Discrimination in our Schools
       Discrimination based on sexual orientation must come to an end, especially
in our schools.

       That's why Rep. Jared Polis introduced H.R. 998, the "Student
Non-Discrimination Act" to ensure that we end discrimination based on sexual
orientation in schools for good.

       The safety of American children should be a bipartisan priority, but from
the looks of it, right-wing special interests are already fundraising to block
this basic anti-discrimination measure.

       In fact, the arch-conservative publication The Weekly Standard sent out a
bigoted email calling gay Americans "sexual deviants".

       Help us fight back. Sign our petition right now calling for an end to
discrimination based on sexual orientation in our schools.




-------------------------------

http://www.faithinamerica.org/
Religion-based bigotry is the No. 1 impediment to equality and full human
dignity.

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--------------



6)
http://www.lifescript.com/health/everyday-care/environment/the_real_effects_of_t\
echnology_on_your_health.aspx

The Real Effects of Technology on Your Health
By Diane Wedner, Lifescript Medical Detective
Published January 10, 2012

All you laptop-using, touchpad-checking, two-thumb-texting, MP3-listening
grown-ups and kids beware: Those devices subtly change your back, eyes, ears and
brains. Lifescript's Medical Detective describes the damaging effects of
technology on our bodies and minds...

Technology has crept into every corner of our lives, from obsessive texting to
checking emails more often than a stockbroker eyeballs the Dow.

Sure, you're on top of Kim Kardashian's latest crisis, but smart phones, tablet
computers and gadgets "have an impact on [your body], even if you're dealing
with irrelevant information," says Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D., associate
professor of neurology, physiology and psychiatry at the University of
California, San Francisco.

Most of us absorb three times more information every day compared with 50 years
ago, according to University of California researchers. We spend 12 hours in
front of TV and computers - and that's just at home.

So is all this techno-toiling bad for us? That depends on the devices you use
and how often, medical experts say.

No one expects you to put down your smart phone and live like our ancestors did.
Researchers are conflicted so far, though, about whether the effects of media
are good or bad for our brains. They do agree that it's changing how we think.

Which in itself isn't alarming: "Throughout our lifespans, our brains always
change," Gazzaley says.

Lifescript called, texted and emailed experts nationwide to learn about the
effects of media on our health. Read on to learn how it might be changing you.
Effects of Technology on Health #1: Failing Memory
You drive while talking on the cell phone, text while listening in on a
conference call, surf your iPad while watching TV. Multi-tasking is the new
normal, and though it feels like we're more efficient, studies show it has the
opposite effect.

"Your performance level drops if you stop one activity to pick up another," says
Gazzaley, who conducts ongoing studies on the effects of media on our brains.

Multi-tasking participants had more difficulty filtering out irrelevant
information than those focusing on one task at a time. Multi-taskers also took
longer to switch tasks, juggle problems and wasted time searching for new
information when information they had was better and more reliable.

In fact, students from Columbia and Harvard universities retained facts better
when they knew they couldn't get them from a computer, according to a study
published in Science magazine in July 2011. If they knew they could get the
facts later online, they just remembered how and where to get it.

It gets worse as you age: Younger adults can retrieve the temporarily lost
memory more quickly than older adults, Gazzaley says.

Tech solution: So, how should we handle the daily barrage of information and
multitasking?

Gazzaley sets aside small amounts of times each day to "listen to music while I
email and talk to a colleague." Otherwise his door is closed, his phone is
turned off and he works uninterrupted. That's when "I can engage in high-quality
thinking," he says. Effects of Technology on Health #2: Emotional Instability
Most adults don't need 450 Facebook friends to feel validated. Teens, however,
are emotionally more vulnerable to the effects of rampant texting and online
sharing, psychologists and physicians say. Here's how:

Sleep deprivation: Teens need about 9 hours sleep each day, but often text late
into the night, says Sherry Turkle, director of the Initiative on Technology and
Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and professor of the
school's Social Studies of Science and Technology department. That means they
can't focus at school and cope well with social pressures.

Too much codependence: Modern teens are failing to separate from their parents
and become independent thinkers, a major developmental step for adolescents.
Blame cell phones and texting, says Turkle.

"Fifteen years ago, if a kid called his mother 10 times a day for advice, I
would be concerned," she says. "Today it's, 'What else is new?' It's become the
norm, but it's still an issue."

No alone time: Phones and social-media sites prevent teens from experiencing
solitude, setting them up to be lonely when they don't have a connection. As a
result, they often suffer from "fear of missing out," says Turkle.

"We're condemning a generation to not know how to sit in solitude," Turkle
says.Time spent alone helps teens better withstand periods when they're
disconnected from their digital devices and improves the sense of intimacy and
bonding that face-to-face - not virtual - social interactions provide.

Kids' parents don't set a good example either.

"They can't walk around the corner to the store with their child without a phone
attached to their ear," Turkle says. "It's modeling to kids that it's not OK to
be unconnected."

Tech solution: Parents should insist that family members turn off their phones
at dinner and spend time together, minus the media distractions, experts advise.

Effects of Technology on Health #3: Strained Vision
About 40% of optometrists' patients experienced eye strain due to computer
vision syndrome (conditions related to "near work"), while 45% complained of
neck and back pain associated with computer or handheld device use, according to
a 2008 survey by the American Optometric Association (AOA).

Many computer users assume awkward postures to position their eyes for better
performance, according to the association.

Close computer work can cause light sensitivity, dry eye, blurred vision, double
vision, fatigue and headache.Handheld devices force users to position the
equipment "closer than eyes want," says Jim Sheedy, Ph.D., director of Vision
Performance Institute at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. "You have to
exert more muscular effort to see at that distance and experience more symptoms
than other technologies."

Tech Solution: To avoid eye problems:


   a.. Limit time spent continuously in front of a computer. Look away from the
screen every 20 minutes for 20 seconds, the AOA recommends. For the ideal
viewing distance, set your monitor about 20-28 inches away from your body.


   b.. Adjust the top of your monitor at eye level, so you're looking down at the
screen by 10�-20� (4-5 inches). That way you'll avoid nodding your head up and
down, causing neck and back strain, Sheedy says. Laptops, especially, need to be
raised to "that sweet spot" where your eyes are looking down slightly.


   c.. Lighting above your head should be dim. The areas within your line of view
- the wall in front of you, for example - should be as bright as your computer
screen. Avoid sitting in front of an un-shaded window or with one behind you.
You can "embrace new technologies but organize your day so you spend more time
working at a desk, not on your lap," Sheedy says.

It helps avoid eye, neck and back strain.

Also, research suggests that men who work with laptops on their knees may damage
fertility. A study published in the November 2011 issue of the journal Fertility
and Sterility revealed that men who sat with their knees together and their
laptops on them raised their scrotum temperature by about 2�F in just 28
minutes. Earlier research showed that even that small rise in temperature can
destroy sperm.

Effects of Technology on Health #4: Hearing Loss
Can you hear me now?

Probably not well, if you blast music through ear buds for long stretches, says
Brian Fligor, D.Sc., M.S., director of diagnostic audiology at Children's
Hospital in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Wear and tear on ears is normal, resulting in some hearing loss in seniors. But
what you do early in life sets the stage for how well you'll hear as you age,
Fligor says.If you use poorly fitted ear buds, attend loud concerts frequently
or shoot guns for target practice, hearing loss can arrive even in your 20s.
Teens, in particular, crank up their MP3 players loudly to drown out traffic
noise, conversation and even other ambient music. About half of college students
in urban settings risk hearing loss.

Tech solution: To avoid hearing loss:


   a.. Make sure your earbuds fit snugly.


   b.. Limit your exposure to loud music (80% of maximum volume) to 90 minutes
per day, says Fligor, an unabashed loud-music guy himself. You may listen to
music at half the maximum volume all day without any risk. That level is
acceptable to most people, he says, if it's not competing with loud background
noise. "If I listen to cranked-up music for five minutes, then I give my ears a
break the rest of the day," he says.

Effects of Technology on Health #5: Muscle and Joint Pain
On average, we send and receive text messages 3,339 times a month, according to
a 2010 Nielsen Company survey.

In Britain, about 3.8 million thumb-typers complained of pain from similar
activities. Nearly 38% said they suffered from sore wrists and thumbs, the
result of repetitive movements, according to a 2006 survey by Virgin Mobile, a
British cell-phone company.But not all researchers believe the thumb fatigue
claims.

"That's an urban legend," says Peter W. Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of
environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington.

Typing on a computer is like "bingeing and gorging, while texting is like
snacking," he says. "It's intermittent, so you don't have the same cumulative
effect as working at a computer for 4-6 hours."

Tech solution: To minimize potential pain from texting, Johnson recommends:


   a.. Use both hands to avoid overburdening one appendage.


   b.. Avoid sending texts continuously because it may hurt your hand and neck
tendons, muscles and nerves over time, Johnson says. "If you feel pain from
texting when you go to sleep and wake up with it in the morning, it's time to
give it a rest," he advises. "Ligaments can take 4-6 weeks to heal when
damaged."


   c.. Rest your arms on a table to relieve your neck and shoulders.
Effects of Technology on Health #6: Heart Trouble
The longer you sit either in front of a computer or TV, the greater likelihood
you'll die earlier - even if you lift weights, jog or swim for 30 minutes a day,
according to an ongoing study by physiologist Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor
at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.

Women who remained glued to their chairs more than six hours a day were 37% more
likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than three
hours per day, according to an American Cancer Society study that followed
123,000 adults for 14 years.

It didn't matter if they were fat, thin or worked out daily, according to the
study published in the July 2010 issue of American Journal of Epidemiology.

So what's an office worker to do?

"Every chance you get, bend over to pick something up, walk or stand. Instead of
sitting when you're on the phone, walk up and down the stairs at work - just
move," Hamilton says.

--------------------------------------------------

Do You Have An Online Addiction?
The Internet, like a huge monster with mouth wide open, gobbles up time, money
and lives from those who have an online addiction. Do you find yourself giddy
with excitement over shopping, gaming or gambling online? Take the online
addiction quiz to find out.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


Your future is intimately tied to how you respond to the challenges of the
moment.

7)
http://www.lifescript.com/diet-fitness/tips/a/adversity.aspx?VID=101835&FromNL=1\
&sc_date=20120104T000000
Adversity
By John H. Sklare, Ed.D, Lifescript Personal Coach
Published January 04, 2012
Happy New Year! Each week in January I'll be addressing one of four subjects
from my Inner Diet program. Each represents the building blocks of a healthier
lifestyle, thinner body and happier, more active future. Week 1: Creating a new
mindset!

Adversity

When it comes to adversity, I'm reminded of an interesting story I once read.
I'm not sure who the author is, but the story specifically addresses the
different responses one can have to adversity. When all is said and done, each
of you controls your own future. Sure, we all have obstacles in our way and
crises in our lives, but it's how we react to these situations that sets the
stage for our future lives.

Plain and simple - we are who we are because of the choices that we make. In
this way, we are the architects of our lives and the creators of our destiny.
This is certainly true regarding our health and fitness. With that in mind, let
me offer you a short story that demonstrates this very well:


   A daughter complained to her father about her life and how things were so hard
for her. She didn't know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She
was tired of all of the fighting and struggling. It seemed that just as one
problem was solved, a new one always arose.

   Her father, a chef, took her into the kitchen. He filled three pots with water
and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots began to a boil. In one pot he
placed carrots, in the second pot he placed eggs, and in the third pot he placed
ground coffee beans. He let them sit and boil, without saying a word. The
daughter impatiently waited, wondering what her father was doing.

   In about 20 minutes, he turned off the burners. He fished the carrots out and
placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them a bowl. Then he
ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
   Turning to his daughter, he asked, "What do you see?" "Carrots, eggs, and
coffee," she replied. He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots.
She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and
break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg inside.
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. She smiled as she tasted its rich
flavor and smelled its wonderful aroma.

   She humbly asked. "What does it mean, Father?" He explained that each of these
three items had faced the same adversity, boiling water, but each reacted
differently.

   The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. But after being subjected to
the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

   The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid
interior. But after sitting in the boiling water, its inside became hard.

   The ground coffee beans were very unique, however. After they were in the
boiling water, they had changed the water.

   "Which are you," he asked his daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door,
how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"


I hope you found that story both interesting and thought provoking. I also
suggest the following: The next time you find yourself in a crisis, at your
wits' end or ready to toss in the weight-loss towel, think about this story and
be mindful of how you respond. Because at the end of the day, adversity is
unavoidable and your future is intimately tied to how you respond to the
challenges of the moment.

Wishing You Great Health,
Dr. John H. Sklare

Missed any of week 1 of Dr. Sklare's Inner Diet program? Find the first tip
here: Watch Your Thoughts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------



8)
One of the very few things on which I agree with Tony Perkins of the FRC ---
http://www.frc.org/frcinthenews/11jan2012/tony-perkins-on-fox-news
Tony Perkins on Fox News - January 11, 2012


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------

9)
http://news.yahoo.com/pew-survey-majority-mormons-lean-republican-half-cite-0501\
56570--abc-news.html
Pew Survey: Majority of Mormons Lean Republican; Half Cite Discrimination
Against Their Faith
By Huma Khan | ABC News - Thursday 12 January 2012

--- click on URL ---


***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

1) First Class Citizens
2) Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
3) Gay Parents Better Than Straight Parents? What Research Says
4) Globes Winner Calls Attention to Assaulted Dwarf
5) Republican Sponsor Of Bill To Require Drug Testing For Georgia Welfare
Recipients Arrested For DUI



1)
http://www.itlmedia.org/
First Class Citizens -- January 2012 -- the 20th anniversary season of "In The
Life"
First Class Citizens -- Inspired by Martin Luther King's vision of equality, we
look back at how LGBT rights intersect with the broader movement for civil
rights in this country. Revisiting the first gay rights protests, the gay men of
color who joined the Million Man March and our first... Watch Now  27:55

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui9SSePtDSA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


2)
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
http://rethinkingschools.org/archive/26_02/edit262.shtml
Volume 26, Issue 2 - Winter 2011/12
  By the editors of Rethinking Schools

http://rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml

"Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn't
matter what I do, how hard I try-that's my fate, too."
-11th-grade African American student, Berkeley, Calif.

This young man isn't being cynical or melodramatic; he's articulating a
terrifying reality for many of the children and youth sitting in our
classrooms-a reality that is often invisible or misunderstood. Some have seen
the growing numbers of security guards and police in our schools as unfortunate
but necessary responses to the behavior of children from poor, crime-ridden
neighborhoods. But what if something more ominous is happening? What if many of
our students-particularly our African American, Latina/o, Native American, and
Southeast Asian children-are being channeled toward prison and a lifetime of
second-class status?

We believe that this is the case, and there is ample evidence to support that
claim. What has come to be called the "school-to-prison pipeline" is turning too
many schools into pathways to incarceration rather than opportunity. This trend
has extraordinary implications for teachers and education activists. It affects
everything from what we teach to how we build community in our classrooms, how
we deal with conflicts with and among our students, how we build coalitions, and
what demands we see as central to the fight for social justice education.

What Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?

The school-to-prison pipeline begins in deep social and economic inequalities,
and has taken root in the historic shortcomings of schooling in this country.
The civil and human rights movements of the 1960s and '70s spurred an effort to
"rethink schools" to make them responsive to the needs of all students, their
families, and communities. This rethinking included collaborative learning
environments, multicultural curriculum, student-centered, experiential
pedagogy-we were aiming for education as liberation. The back-to-basics backlash
against that struggle has been more rigid enforcement of ever more alienating
curriculum.

The "zero tolerance" policies that today are the most extreme form of this
punishment paradigm were originally written for the war on drugs in the early
1980s, and later applied to schools. As Annette Fuentes explains, the resulting
extraordinary rates of suspension and expulsion are linked nationally to
increasing police presence, checkpoints, and surveillance inside schools.

As police have set up shop in schools across the country, the definition of what
is a crime as opposed to a teachable moment has changed in extraordinary ways.
In one middle school we're familiar with, a teacher routinely allowed her
students to take single pieces of candy from a big container she kept on her
desk. One day, several girls grabbed handfuls. The teacher promptly sent them to
the police officer assigned to the school. What formerly would have been an
opportunity to have a conversation about a minor transgression instead became a
law enforcement issue.

Children are being branded as criminals at ever-younger ages. Zero Tolerance in
Philadelphia, a recent report by Youth United for Change and the Advancement
Project, offers an example:

   Robert was an 11-year-old in 5th grade who, in his rush to get to school on
time, put on a dirty pair of pants from the laundry basket. He did not notice
that his Boy Scout pocketknife was in one of the pockets until he got to school.
He also did not notice that it fell out when he was running in gym class. When
the teacher found it and asked whom it belonged to, Robert volunteered that it
was his, only to find himself in police custody minutes later. He was arrested,
suspended, and transferred to a disciplinary school.

Early contact with police in schools often sets students on a path of
alienation, suspension, expulsion, and arrests. George Galvis, an Oakland,
Calif., prison activist and youth organizer, described his first experience with
police at his school: "I was 11. There was a fight and I got called to the
office. The cop punched me in the face. I looked at my principal and he was just
standing there, not saying anything. That totally broke my trust in school as a
place that was safe for me."

Galvis added: "The more police there are in the school, walking the halls and
looking at surveillance tapes, the more what constitutes a crime escalates. And
what is seen as 'how kids act' vs. criminal behavior has a lot to do with race.
I always think about the fistfights that break out between fraternities at the
Cal campus, and how those fights are seen as opposed to what the police see as
gang-related fights, even if the behavior is the same."

Mass Incarceration: A Civil Rights Crisis

The growth of the school-to-prison pipeline is part of a larger crisis. Since
1970, the U.S. prison population has exploded from about 325,000 people to more
than 2 million today. According to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim
Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, this is a phenomenon
that cannot be explained by crime rates or drug use. According to Human Rights
Watch (Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, 2000)
although whites are more likely to violate drug laws than people of color, in
some states black men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at rates 20
to 50 times greater than those of white men. Latina/os, Native Americans, and
other people of color are also imprisoned at rates far higher than their
representation in the population. Once released, former prisoners are caught in
a web of laws and regulations that make it difficult or impossible to secure
jobs, education, housing, and public assistance-and often to vote or serve on
juries. Alexander calls this permanent second-class citizenship a new form of
segregation.

The impact of mass incarceration is devastating for children and youth. More
than 7 million children have a family member incarcerated, on probation, or on
parole. Many of these children live with enormous stress, emotional pain, and
uncertainty. Luis Esparza describes the impact on his life in Project WHAT!'s
Resource Guide for Teens with a Parent in Prison or Jail:

   After [my dad] went to jail I kept to myself a lot-became the quiet kid that
no one noticed and no one really cared about. At one point I didn't even have
any friends. No one talked to me, so I didn't have to say anything about my
life. . . . Inside I feel sad and angry. In this world, no one wants to see
that, so I keep it all to myself. (See Haniyah's Story and Sokolower.)

Revising the Curriculum

As we at Rethinking Schools began to study and discuss these issues, we realized
the huge implications for curriculum. Many of us, as social justice educators,
have developed strong class activities teaching the Civil Rights Movement. But
few of us teach regularly about the racial realities of the current criminal
justice system. Textbooks mostly ignore the subject. For example, Pearson
Prentice Hall's United States History is a hefty 1,264 pages long, but says
nothing about the startling growth in the prison population in the past 40
years.

Mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline are among the primary forms
that racial oppression currently takes in the United States. As such, they
deserve a central place in the curriculum. We need to bring this all-too-common
experience out of the shadows and make it as visible in the curriculum as it is
in so many students' lives. As Alexander begins to explore in our interview, it
is a challenge to engage students in these issues in ways that build critical
thinking and determination rather than cynicism or despair, but a challenge we
urgently need to take on. Aparna Lakshmi, a Boston high school teacher, offers
an example.

'Accountability' and Criminalization

The school-to-prison pipeline is really a classroom-to-prison pipeline. A
student's trajectory to a criminalized life often begins with a curriculum that
disrespects children's lives and that does not center on things that matter.

Last spring Federal Policy, ESEA Reauthorization, and the School-to-Prison
Pipeline, a collaborative study by research, education, civil rights, and
juvenile justice organizations, linked the policies of No Child Left Behind and
the "accountability" movement to the pipeline. According to George Wood,
executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracy:

   By focusing accountability almost exclusively on test scores and attaching
high stakes to them, NCLB has given schools a perverse incentive to allow or
even encourage students to leave.

A FairTest factsheet cites findings that schools in Florida gave low-scoring
students longer suspensions than high-scoring students for similar infractions,
while in Ohio students with disabilities were twice as likely to be suspended
out of school than their peers. A recent report from the Advancement Project
noted that, since the passage of NCLB in 2002, 73 of the largest 100 districts
in the United States "have seen their graduation rates decline-often
precipitously. Of those 100 districts, which serve 40 percent of all students of
color in the United States, 67 districts failed to graduate two-thirds of their
students."

The more that schools-and now individual teachers-are assessed, rewarded, and
fired on the basis of student test scores, the more incentive there is to push
out students who bring down those scores. And the more schools become test-prep
academies as opposed to communities committed to everyone's success, the more
hostile and regimented the atmosphere becomes-the more like prison. (This
school-as-prison culture is considerably more common in schools populated by
children of color in poor communities as opposed to majority-white, middle-class
schools, creating what Jonathan Kozol calls "educational apartheid.") The rigid
focus on test prep and scripted curriculum means that teachers need students to
be compliant, quiet, in their seats, and willing to learn by rote for long
periods of time. Security guards, cops in the hall, and score-conscious
administrations suspend and expel "problem learners."

Schools without compassion or understanding occupy communities instead of serve
them. As our society accelerates punishment as a central paradigm-from death
penalty executions to drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen-the regimentation and
criminalization of our children, particularly children of color, can only be
seen as training for the future.

Linda Christensen describes the dangerous pull of high-stakes testing on even
the most seasoned teachers, and the powerful role of student-centered curriculum
as resistance.

Education Activists and the Pipeline

As teachers and education activists, many of us are active in the fight to save
and transform public schools-building campaigns to end standardized testing, to
protect our union rights, to prevent the privatization of the public school
system. At education conferences, there are often well-attended workshops on the
criminalization of youth or related topics.

But the movement to end the school-to-prison pipeline and the movement to defend
and transform public education are too often separate. This must be one
movement-for social justice education-that encompasses both an end to the
school-to-prison pipeline and the fight to save and transform public education.
We cannot build safe, creative, nurturing schools and criminalize our children
at the same time.

Teachers, students, parents, and administrators have begun to fight back against
zero tolerance policies-pushing to get rid of zero tolerance laws, and creating
alternative approaches to safe school communities that rely on restorative
justice and community building instead of criminalization. (See Haga.) A
critical piece of that struggle is defying the regimen of scripted curriculum
and standardized tests, and building in its place creative, empowering school
cultures centered on the lives and needs of our students and their families.

Some of the most exciting work with youth is being built around campaigns to
stop police harassment in schools and on the streets, stop gang injunction
legislation that criminalizes young people on the basis of what they wear or
where they live, and increase budgets for education and social services instead
of law and order. Youth provide leadership in these movements in ways that are
different from what we often see in classrooms. Learning from these campaigns
and making the critical connections to our own work will enable us to build a
viable, principled movement for public education.

Our resistance grows from classrooms that are grounded in our students'
lives-academically rigorous and also participatory, critical, culturally
sensitive, experiential, kind, and joyful. When combined with a determination to
fight the school-to-prison pipeline at every level, that resistance has enormous
capacity to build and sustain true social justice education.

----------
Lots of comments at the URL. Here's one ---
Anything, ANYTHING! to feed the Prison Monster born of 3 Strikes and the
Security Monster born of 9/11. Judges getting kick backs by sending juvies off
to detention in a country building more prisons than schools. As a species and
culture, we are dead and we don't give a f#ck, as long as it's someone else's
kid.

Speaking as an anthropologist, to allow this horror condemns the children of the
99% to hopelessness and fear. We are killing our own children. We are killing
their minds for the sake of Testing instead of teaching critical thinking. We
are killing their hearts by treating them all as "pre-criminals." We are killing
their spirits because the adults have themselves failed, and all the while the
teacher chorus sings the praises of more security because their own hearts and
minds have long since withered away any semblance of guilt, shame and
responsibility for their unified trashing of the American child. Education's
failure to think outside the box has condemned most children to the prison cell
of a harried mind. The horror is that the failure is not about incompetence, but
sinister negligence. Google: John Taylor Gatto; Charlotte Iserbyt.
----------
Here's another ---
Note: Private prisons can give campaign contributions and public prisons can't,
but they also increase costs by 20% to offset CEO salaries and bonuses and
shareholder profits and -- oh -- campaign bribes.
----------
My comment ---
Privatization is the capitalist pig's favorite tool. The privatizer gets rich,
the public gets screwed.
Why is not Obama aware of this and putting a stop to it?
Why are rich Republicans allowed to run / ruin country?
America is doomed. From within.
----------
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline

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--------------


3)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/gay-parents-better-than-straights_n_120\
8659.html
Gay Parents Better Than Straight Parents? What Research Says
1/16/12
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 01/16/2012 08:19 AM EST on LiveScience

Gay marriage, and especially gay parenting, has been in the cross hairs in
recent days.

On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire
audience that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised
in a home with lesbian parents and no father at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9),
Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat "to the future of humanity itself,"
citing the need for children to have heterosexual homes.

But research on families headed by gays and lesbians doesn't back up these dire
assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table
that straight parents don't.

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents
on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a
psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian
parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an
almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said.
"That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

And while research indicates that kids of gay parents show few differences in
achievement, mental health, social functioning and other measures, these kids
may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for
equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and
lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the
foster system, studies show. (Of course, this isn't to say that heterosexual
parents can't bring these same qualities to the parenting table.) [5 Myths About
Gay People Debunked]

Adopting the neediest

Gay adoption recently caused controversy in Illinois, where Catholic Charities
adoption services decided in November to cease offering services because the
state refused funding unless the groups agreed not to discriminate against gays
and lesbians. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities closed up shop.

Catholic opposition aside, research suggests that gay and lesbian parents are
actually a powerful resource for kids in need of adoption. According to a 2007
report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were
living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in
foster homes headed by gays and lesbians. (There are currently more than 100,000
kids in foster care in the U.S.)

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of
gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids
placed were older than 6 - typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25
percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted
across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster
system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians
had special needs.
The report didn't compare the adoption preferences of gay couples directly with
those of heterosexual couples, said author David Brodzinsky, research director
at the Institute and co-editor of "Adoption By Lesbians and Gay Men: A New
Dimension of Family Diversity" (Oxford University Press, 2011). But research
suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt
older, special-needs and minority children, he said. Part of that could be their
own preferences, and part could be because of discrimination by adoption
agencies that puts more difficult children with what caseworkers see as "less
desirable" parents.

No matter how you slice it, Brodzinsky told LiveScience, gays and lesbians are
highly interested in adoption as a group. The 2007 report by the Urban Institute
also found that more than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians in the U.S.
would like to adopt. That adds up to an estimated 2 million gay people who are
interested in adoption. It's a huge reservoir of potential parents who could get
kids out of the instability of the foster system, Brodzinsky said.

"When you think about the 114,000 children who are freed for adoption who
continue to live in foster care and who are not being readily adopted, the goal
is to increase the pool of available, interested and well-trained individuals to
parent these children," Brodzinsky said.

In addition, Brodzinsky said, there's evidence to suggest that gays and lesbians
are especially accepting of open adoptions, where the child retains some contact
with his or her birth parents. And the statistics bear out that birth parents
often have no problem with their kids being raised by same-sex couples, he
added.

"Interestingly, we find that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy,
[of birth mothers] make a conscious decision to place with gay men, so they can
be the only mother in their child's life," Brodzinsky said.

Good parenting

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples - both adopted and
biological kids - fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental
health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other
life-success measures.

In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University
sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim
Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two
heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.

"There's no doubt whatsoever from the research that children with two lesbian
parents are growing up to be just as well-adjusted and successful" as children
with a male and a female parent," Stacey told LiveScience.

There is very little research on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz
couldn't draw conclusions on those families. But Stacey suspects that gay men
"will be the best parents on average," she said.

That's a speculation, she said, but if lesbian parents have to really plan to
have a child, it's even harder for gay men. Those who decide to do it are thus
likely to be extremely committed, Stacey said. Gay men may also experience fewer
parenting conflicts, she added. Most lesbians use donor sperm to have a child,
so one mother is biological and the other is not, which could create conflict
because one mother may feel closer to the kid.

"With gay men, you don't have that factor," she said. "Neither of them gets
pregnant, neither of them breast-feeds, so you don't have that asymmetry built
into the relationship."

The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say children need both a father
and a mother in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which
compares children of single parents to children of married couples. Two good
parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is
better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you
do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said,
there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.

"Two heterosexual parents of the same educational background, class, race and
religion are more like each other in the way they parent than one is like all
other women and one is like all other men," she said. [6 Gender Myths Busted]

Nurturing tolerance

In fact, the only consistent places you find differences between how kids of gay
parents and kids of straight parents turn out are in issues of tolerance and
open-mindedness, according to Goldberg. In a paper published in 2007 in the
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Goldberg conducted in-depth interviews with
46 adults with at least one gay parent. Twenty-eight of them spontaneously
offered that they felt more open-minded and empathetic than people not raised in
their situation.

"These individuals feel like their perspectives on family, on gender, on
sexuality have largely been enhanced by growing up with gay parents," Goldberg
said.

One 33-year-old man with a lesbian mother told Goldberg, "I feel I'm a more
open, well-rounded person for having been raised in a nontraditional family, and
I think those that know me would agree. My mom opened me up to the positive
impact of differences in people."

Children of gay parents also reported feeling less stymied by gender stereotypes
than they would have been if raised in straight households. That's likely
because gays and lesbians tend to have more egalitarian relationships than
straight couples, Goldberg said. They're also less wedded to rigid gender
stereotypes themselves.

"Men and women felt like they were free to pursue a wide range of interests,"
Goldberg said. "Nobody was telling them, 'Oh, you can't do that, that's a boy
thing,' or 'That's a girl thing.'"

Same-sex acceptance

If same-sex marriage does disadvantage kids in any way, it has nothing to do
with their parent's gender and everything to do with society's reaction toward
the families, said Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, the author of
"Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans' Definitions of Family" (Russell
Sage Foundation, 2010).

"Imagine being a child living in a state with two parents in which, legally,
only one parent is allowed to be their parent," Powell told LiveScience. "In
that situation, the family is not seen as authentic or real by others. That
would be the disadvantage."

In her research, Goldberg has found that many children of gay and lesbian
parents say that more acceptance of gay and lesbian families, not less, would
help solve this problem.

In a study published online Jan. 11, 2012, in the Journal of Marriage and
Family, Goldberg interviewed another group of 49 teenagers and young adults with
gay parents and found that not one of them rejected the right of gays and
lesbians to marry. Most cited legal benefits as well as social acceptance.

"I was just thinking about this with a couple of friends and just was in tears
thinking about how different my childhood might have been had same-sex marriage
been legalized 25 years ago," a 23-year-old man raised by a lesbian couple told
Goldberg. "The cultural, legal status of same-sex couples impacts the family
narratives of same-sex families - how we see ourselves in relation to the larger
culture, whether we see ourselves as accepted or outsiders."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas.

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--------

http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/world-s-most-visited-sacred-sites.html

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1199/seniors.html

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-------------


4)
Globes Winner Calls Attention to Assaulted Dwarf
By Mike Krumboltz | Coverage of 69th Annual Golden Globes - Sunday 15 January
2012

At the end of his acceptance speech after winning the Golden Globe for Best
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion
Picture Made for Television, Peter Dinklage told viewers to look up a man named
Martin Henderson. "I want to mention a gentleman I'm thinking about in England,"
Dinklage said. He was refering to this man, a dwarf who was partially paralyzed
when a stranger picked him up and threw him onto the ground outside an English
pub.
The attack, which occurred late last year, has been widely condemned. Shortly
after the incident, Henderson told an English paper recently, "I was at the back
of the pub outside and the next thing I know I'm suddenly in the air and someone
has got hold of me," Henderson told The Sun. "A man just approached, lifted me
up and dropped me. He didn't say anything."

[ Related: Solving mysteries from the 2012 Globes ceremony ]

Henderson, who is an actor, says he has been unable to get work following the
assault. He's commented that the attack may have been inspired by an event in
which some members of the English rugby squad attended a "dwarf tossing" event
weeks before. No arrests have been made.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------



5)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/15/404716/republican-sponsor-of-bill-to\
-require-drug-testing-for-georgia-welfare-recipients-arrested-for-dui/?mobile=nc
Republican Sponsor Of Bill To Require Drug Testing For Georgia Welfare
Recipients Arrested For DUI
By Judd Legum on Jan 15, 2012 at 5:15 pm

A Georgia Republican who wants all welfare reciepients subject to drug tests
failed one himself after he ran a red light on Friday morning. The Atlanta
Journal Constiution has the story on State Rep. Kip Smith (R):
   Smith, whose given name is John Andrew Smith, first told the officer he had
not consumed any alcoholic beverages.

   "I asked him again, and he stated he had consumed a single beer at Hal's. I
noticed also that Mr. Smith's eyes were watery, and I asked him to exit the
vehicle, which he did," Kramer said in the report.

   Smith told the officer he'd had the beer 45 minutes earlier, and the officer
asked him to blow into a hand-held "intoximeter". The officer said the lawmaker
refused, stating he would prefer to go to a clinic or the hospital to get
tested.

   The officer said Smith finally agreed to blow into the device. The report
stated that Smith blew a .091., which is above the legal limit of .08.

Smith is a sponsor of Georgia House Bill 464, which would "require random drug
testing" for citizens on public assistance. In response to Smith's legislation,
State Rep. Scott Holcomb introduced a bill last month that would require all
state lawmakers to be subject to random drug testing.

Random drug tests for recipients of public assistance are very likely to be
found unconsitutional.

----------

From the comment section ---
We should have random drug and alcohol tests for all congresspeople, especially
for Speaker Boehner.

and

Imagine if he would have hit someone when he ran that light. It's the height of
hypocrisy.

----------

My comment ---
Nobody knows how to lie and bear false witness like a Southern Baptist.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) TV -- In the Life
2) from WBUR 90.9 NPR news station in Boston -- Mississippi Republican Governor
Haley Barbour pardoned 208 criminals
3) Wikipedia Blackout: Websites Wikipedia, Reddit, Others Go Dark Wednesday to
Protest SOPA, PIPA
4) California -- Granite Bay teen who committed suicide was bullied for being
gay
5) Political posturing in South Carolina
6) comment received on Monday's NEWS from a friend


1)
TV -- In the Life
This month's -- January 2012 -- 20th anniversary season of In the Life ---

First Class Citizens Inspired by Martin Luther King's vision of equality, we
look back at how LGBT rights intersect with the broader movement for civil
rights in this country. Revisiting the first gay rights protests, the gay men of
color who joined the Million Man March and our first... Watch Now    27:55

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
from WBUR 90.9 NPR news station in Boston

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/16/mississippi-pardons
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 10:00 AM EST

Listen to this Broadcast at
http://onpoint.wbur.org/media-player?url=http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/16/miss\
issippi-pardons&title=The+Pardons+That+Shocked+Mississippi&pubdate=2012-01-16&se\
gment=1&source=onpoint

The Pardons That Shocked Mississippi
Bob Oakes in for Tom Ashbrook

Mississippi Republican Governor Haley Barbour pardoned 208 criminals - murderers
on down - on his last day in office. We'll look at what moved Haley Barbour, and
the uproar now.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour made his name as a law-and-order governor in
the one of the most conservative states in the nation. But on his last day in
office, he shocked the South and pardoned more than 200 criminals.

Murders. Rapists. Drug Dealers. Most had already paid their debt to society.
Others got out of jail free. Now, they can all vote. And buy guns. The state
Attorney General says it's unconstitutional. But the criminals are already gone.

This hour, On Point: The uproar over Haley Barbour's last-minute pardons.

-Bob Oakes

Guests
Jessica Bakeman, reporter with the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

Bobby Moak, a Miss. state representative, he is a Democrat and the House
minority leader.

W. Martin Wiseman, director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and
Professor of Political Science at Mississippi State University.

Diane Roberts, a professor at Florida State University, she's the author of
Dream State: Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate
Daughters, Banana Republicans, and other Florida Wildlife.

From The Reading List
Slate "The theory behind executive pardons and commutations is that the letter
of the law sometimes conflicts with human decency. For instance, Barbour himself
was hailed a year ago by NAACP President Benjamin Jealous as a "shining example
of how governors should use their commutation powers" after he lifted the life
sentences of two sisters who had already served 16 years for robbing someone of
$11. "

Clarion Ledger "Four murderers and one robber that former Gov. Haley Barbour
pardoned last week are likely to return to prison, but officials from the
attorney general's office were still searching for them Thursday night."

USA Today You can find a full list of Gov. Barbour's pardons here.

----------

Don't miss the comments at the URL
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/16/mississippi-pardons.

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-----------


3)
http://news.yahoo.com/wikipedia-blackout-websites-wikipedia-reddit-others-dark-w\
ednesday-214444829--abc-news.html
Wikipedia Blackout: Websites Wikipedia, Reddit, Others Go Dark Wednesday to
Protest SOPA, PIPA
By NED POTTER | ABC News - Monday 16 January 2012

Do not try to look up "Internet Censorship" or "SOPA" or "PIPA" on Wikipedia,
the giant online encyclopedia, on Wednesday.

SOPA and PIPA are two bills in Congress meant to stop the illegal copying and
sharing of movies and music on the Internet, but major Internet companies say
the bills would put them in the impossible position of policing the online
world.

Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, now says his site will go dark for the day on
Wednesday, joining a budding movement to protest the two bills.

"This is going to be wow," Wales said on Twitter. "I hope Wikipedia will melt
phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!"

Other sites, such as Reddit and Boing Boing, have already said they would go
dark on Wednesday. And some of the biggest names online, including Google,
Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, have vocally opposed the proposed legislation.

PIPA, the Protect IP Act in the Senate, and SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act,
have been presented as a way to protect movie studios, record labels and others.
Supporters range from the Country Music Association to the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.

But the Internet giants say the bills could require your Internet provider to
block websites that are involved in digital file sharing. And search engines
such as Google, Yahoo and Bing could be stopped from linking to them --
antithetical, they say, to the ideal of an open Internet.

"If you want an Internet where human rights, free speech and the rule of law are
not subordinated to the entertainment industry's profits, I hope you'll join
us," said Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing.

Wikipedia, the sixth most visited site in the world, said its English version
will be dark for 24 hours Wednesday, urging users to contact Congress. Other
joiners of the movement include Mozilla, which offers the Firefox Web browser;
the Wordpress blogging site; and TwitPic, which allows Twitter users to post
images online.

The House bill is on hold for now, and there are rumblings that both bills may
be toned down because of the vocal opposition. The White House over the weekend
said it had reservations about the approach the two bills take.

"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem
that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation
that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines
the dynamic, innovative global Internet," wrote three White House managers,
including Aneesh Chopra, the U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online
censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic
businesses large and small."

It has become a battle pitting Hollywood against Silicon Valley -- movie studios
and music publishers want to stop the theft of their creative work, but Internet
companies do not want to be cast as the police force.

"There isn't one technology company or venture capitalist who supports these
bills," said Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade
group for Internet firms, in an interview with ABC News.

"An 'Internet blackout' would obviously be both drastic and unprecedented,"
NetCoalition said in a statement. "We hope that the Senate will cancel its
scheduled vote on PIPA so that we can get back to working with members on how to
address the concerns raised by the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America]
and others without threatening our nation's security or future innovation and
jobs."

The heads of major Internet companies say they grant that music publishers and
Hollywood studios have a real problem: People are stealing their music and
movies, making digital copies that are as crisp and clear as the originals, and
offering them for download, often from overseas websites.

The music and film industries say they consider that a major threat, even a
decade after Napster made online file sharing a major issue.

"More than 2.2 million hard-working, middle-class people in all 50 states depend
on the entertainment industry for their jobs and many millions more work in
other industries that rely on intellectual property," Michael O'Leary of the
Motion Picture Association of America said in a statement. "For all these
workers and their families, online content and counterfeiting by these foreign
sites mean declining incomes, lost jobs and reduced health and retirement
benefits."

But the devil is in the details, said NetCoalition's Erickson.

"This bill reverses the policy that has been in place since the beginning of the
Web," he said, "that Internet companies shouldn't be liable, nor should they be
required to police or snoop on their users."


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-----------


4)
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/15/4188596/granite-bay-teen-who-committed.html

Granite Bay teen who committed suicide was bullied for being gay
By Cynthia Hubert
chubert@...
Published: Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012 - 4:30 pm
Slideshow
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/09/4174368/jeffery-fehr-victim-of-bullying.html
COMMENT: To be part of the discussion about the bullying of gay teens, go to The
Sacramento Bee page on Facebook. facebook.com/sacramentobee

On a blustery Saturday morning inside a Granite Bay church, nearly 1,000 people
gathered to say goodbye to Jeffrey Fehr. Men and women in dark clothing filled
every seat and stood along a back wall. Teenagers wearing shirts with Jeffrey's
image clustered in groups, crying and leaning into one another for support.

At a reception that followed his funeral, many spoke of a gifted young athlete
who was funny, kind and compassionate. They called Jeffrey an inspiration and a
mentor.

For Jeffrey's parents, Pati and Steve Fehr, the scene was stunning.

"So many people gained strength from Jeff," his father said, looking out at the
crowd. "The unfortunate part is that Jeff didn't realize it."

In the early hours of New Year's Day, Jeffrey hanged himself in the front
entrance to his family's home in a tony Granite Bay neighborhood. He was 18
years old.

Since that day, his parents have searched their hearts and minds for answers.
Though Jeffrey, who was gay, had recently ended a relationship and had been
treated for depression, they believe something more insidious put him on the
path toward suicide. They are convinced that a lifetime of taunts and bullying
contributed to his decision to take his own life.

"We will second-guess ourselves forever," his father said. "But we do know that
for years and years, people knocked him down for being different. It damaged
him. It wore on him. He could never fully believe how wonderful he was, and how
many people loved him."

Despite an increase in positive images of gay people in the mass media, from
contestants in reality programs like "Project Runway" to sitcoms like "Modern
Family," bullying of gay youths remains rampant. Nine out of 10 gay and bisexual
students report harassment at school, according to the Trevor Project, a crisis
intervention group. Gay and bisexual youths are four times more likely than
their heterosexual peers to try suicide.

"Society has come a long way toward reducing hatred and discrimination against
gays," said Israel Kalman, a school psychologist in New York and director of the
national Bullies2Buddies program. "But it will be awhile, if ever, before it
disappears entirely."


Alone in a crowd


Jeffrey Fehr and his two older brothers, Tyler and Ryan, spent their childhood
in a community of high-end homes and high expectations.

Tyler and Ryan starred on their sports teams starting in elementary school, but
Jeffrey was more interested in dancing and jumping on the trampoline. While
other boys played baseball at school recess, he climbed on the jungle gym with
girls.

As early as the third grade, Jeffrey was the target of taunts, family members
said. He had few friends and felt comfortable only when he was at home or on
vacation with people he trusted.

"He would come home from school and cry," said Tyler, 21. "He would say he felt
alone, that he wasn't accepted for the things he liked."

It was in the sixth grade that people first started calling him "fag," the Fehrs
said.

"It broke my heart that he was abused that way," his mother said. They talked
about how they could fix things.

Jeffrey's parents sent him to counseling, tried to build his confidence and
encouraged him to pursue his interests, including art, theater and dance. Later,
they got him treatment for depression.

His parents hoped high school would be a more welcoming place for Jeffrey. But
his first two years were "pure hell," they said.

"He would literally hang his head when I dropped him off," his father recalled.
"It was just awful for him."

One day as Jeffrey walked through the cafeteria, a student upended his lunch
tray and laughed as others joined in, he told his parents. Another time, someone
painted the driveway next to the Fehr home with gay slurs directed at Jeffrey.
Day after day, he endured calls of "you're so gay" and similar taunts.

Granite Bay High principal Michael McGuire acknowledged that Jeffrey "had some
struggles" during his freshman and sophomore years, and said a counselor and
assistant principal worked to help resolve them.

"Although there were some issues with other students, none rose to the level
where school discipline was involved," McGuire said.

Bullies rarely respond to disciplinary tactics anyway, said Kalman, who travels
the country teaching educators and parents about the problem. The focus, he
said, should be on the youngster who is being bullied.

"I teach the practice of the Golden Rule," Kalman said. "When you're bullied,
don't get upset about it. Treat the bully like a friend, like you want to be
treated, and the bullying will stop."


Finding acceptance


Jeffrey seemed to adopt that approach late in his sophomore year. He told his
family he was gay, and came out on Facebook. "We told him that it was OK, that
we loved him unconditionally," his mother said. "We were proud of him for
embracing who he was."

After that, Jeffrey seemed to "blossom," she said. He joined the high school
cheer squad, whose members previously had been all girls, and found a community
that adored him. As a senior he was the team's captain, and mastered
handsprings, backflips and other feats. Later he joined an elite competitive
team.

"Cheer gave him a lot of acceptance, because it was something he was really good
at," said fellow squad member Shayla Chock, 16.

Jeffrey's body grew strong and muscular, and at 6 feet, 3 inches tall he towered
over his teammates. He flashed a brilliant smile and had a posse of close
friends, mostly girls a couple of years younger than he.

"Jeff loved everyone with everything he had," said his pal Carly Flajole, also
16. "He always wanted everyone to get along, without drama. He was a leader."

Bri Larson, who coached him for four years, said Jeffrey was a "phenomenal"
performer known for his skills, vibrant personality and ability to motivate.

"These are qualities that you just can't teach," she said. "Jeff was special. He
was like a son to me."

Jeffrey had many young fans, but the taunting never quite went away. Friends
recalled ugly words shouted in student sections at games, and adults who said
they wouldn't let their sons do something as "girly" as cheering. If others
whispered about Jeffrey's sexuality or teased him, the girls told them to stop.

"He seemed to brush everything off," said his friend Megan Hurley, 16. "None of
the comments made him want to change who he was. From the outside at least, it
seemed like nothing penetrated him."


Lingering questions


But inside, said family and friends, the years of harsh words may have created a
wound that never quite healed.

Jeffrey's downward spiral seemed to begin after he graduated from Granite Bay
High last year and started college. He was unsure about his academic path and
his future, his parents said, and talked with anger about the "suburban
fishbowl" that expected him to "conform to society's standards." He never
complained about bullying at college, but he made few new friends.

Life outside of school had him on an emotional roller coaster. His elite coed
Power Cheerleading team earned a trip to a world competition, but Jeffrey
wondered aloud whether he was good enough to make a top college squad. He was
smitten with a young man in Southern California, but the relationship was on and
off.

Still, in the weeks before he died, nothing about Jeffrey's behavior rang alarm
bells to friends or family members. He seemed relaxed on Christmas Eve, when his
friend Shayla dropped by with a homemade gingerbread cookie. He was thrilled
with the new iPhone his parents bought him.

Three days after Christmas, against the wishes of his mom and dad, Jeffrey drove
to Los Angeles to see his love interest. He took off early on a Wednesday and
called his parents later that day. He told them all was well.

On Friday, Dec. 30, his parents got a call from Jeffrey as they were driving
with Tyler to Palm Desert for the holiday weekend. He told them his relationship
was ending but "we are going to be good friends," his mother recalled. "He
wasn't happy, but he was accepting."

He was heading back to Granite Bay.

Jeffrey's parents urged him to get the family dog, Riley, from the kennel, and
make plans with friends. But he turned down an offer to visit the mall Saturday
and never picked up the dog. He was alone on New Year's Eve.

Shortly after midnight, his mother called to wish him a Happy New Year and got
no answer. "I didn't think anything of it. I figured he'd found something to
do," she said.

At 10 a.m., she texted him.

"Are you awake yet?"

No response.

For the next hour, the family called and texted over and over. His brother
checked Jeff's Facebook page. The last entry was at 10 p.m. the previous night.

"New Years is stupid," it said.

As the minutes ticked by and messages went unanswered, his parents began to
panic. Around noon, Pati Fehr called Shayla. Could she and her mom swing by the
house to check on Jeffrey?

The girl's mother found him hanging from a rope in the home's front entrance.
Sheriff's deputies said he probably died around 5 a.m. that day.

Now his loved ones are left to try to make sense of what happened, and to wonder
whether the abuses he suffered indirectly led to his death.

"We have so many questions that will never have answers," his father said. "But
I do know that something was taken away from Jeff because of all those years he
was bullied. He carried around that pain."

Perhaps his breakup was "the last straw" for a young man who never felt fully
accepted, his friends and family members said.

Last Saturday, inside a reception hall with his son's image smiling from video
screens, Steve Fehr fought tears as he spoke. He asked those gathered to
"embrace diversity, be tolerant and do not bully."

"A bully might say something and forget about it in 10 seconds," he said. "But
people like Jeff never forget those words."


Read more here:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/15/4188596/granite-bay-teen-who-committed.html#sto\
rylink=cpy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


5)
Political posturing in South Carolina ---



The Caucus


Romney Makes Appeal to S. Carolina Evangelicals
By NICK CORASANITI
Mitt Romney tries to overcome suspicions many Christian conservatives have of
him.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/romney-makes-appeal-to-s-carolina-\
evangelicals/?nl=us&emc=politicsemailema4

---------------------

New Pro-Santorum Ad Touts His Conservative Credentials

By JEREMY W. PETERS
The pro-Santorum super PAC -- the Red, White and Blue Fund -- released its
latest ad on Friday, which will run as part of a $600,000 purchase of commercial
time.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/new-pro-santorum-ad-touts-his-cons\
ervative-credentials/?nl=us&emc=politicsemailema4

--------------------

Romney Moves to Blunt Santorum Surge in South Carolina
By MCHAEL D. SHEAR
Mitt Romney's camp may be worried about the potential for a Santorum surge
again.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/can-santorum-be-a-force-in-south-c\
arolina/?nl=us&emc=politicsemailema4

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
comment received on Monday's NEWS from a friend ---

James,

You wrote


   My comment ---
   Privatization is the capitalist pig's favorite tool. The privatizer gets rich,
the public gets screwed.
   Why is not Obama aware of this and putting a stop to it?
   Why are rich Republicans allowed to run / ruin country?
   America is doomed. From within.

I am in total agreement with your view. Our nation has turned into a police
state.

I went down to San Diego yesterday to march with the Veterans for Peace in the
big Martin Luther King parade. As I walked to the lineup field, the first thing
I saw was a group of teenage boys, about 12-14 years old, all wearing "Junior
Border Patrol" uniforms and patches.  What the hell are we doing teaching these
kids to be vigilantes against "illegals"!  Why are we teaching them to be
racists and xenophobes instead of compassionate, productive members of society.
How can our schools afford to sponsor such groups, but cannot afford music,
chorals, art, libraries, computers and pursuits that enrich the lives of these
young people.

That was only the beginning: There were units from police forces of at least a
dozen cities in the county, drill teams from high school Jr. ROTC, college ROTC,
all branches of the service; military bands from all branches, from Homeland
Security, even from the FBI.  Damn!  The FBI spied on MLK and the Southern
Christian Leadership, kept files on them, and leaked derogatory press releases
on them.  The police in Jackson, Birmingham, Selma and many Southern cities
turned dogs loose on them and beat them bloody.

Fortunately there were church groups, choirs and our lone liberal SD County
congressman (out of 5), Bob Filner, who is running for mayor of San Diego.

The Vets for Peace were joined by the Quakers, the Unitarian churches and half a
dozen Occupy groups, including a terrific Latino group called Occupy el Barrio,
all dressed in white shirts as they chanted, sang, held hands, and wore signs of
the profound quotes from Dr. King.  The crowd of viewers loved the dynamism and
testament to Dr. King which we all projected.

But there is a perfidious effort to turn this holiday into a tribute to the law
"enforcers" and the military, rather than a tribute to Dr. King.

Thank you for sending the article on the militarization of our schools.

----------

My comment ---
Why are we teaching them to be racists and xenophobes instead of compassionate,
productive members of society.

Because we are a country run by military/killer Christian mentality.

Different from military/killer Moslem mentality only because ____________.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/world-s-most-visited-sacred-sites.html

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1199/seniors.html

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church -- the Generals in Salt Lake will
not be amused that they have been underpaid
2)  Bernice King's gay-inclusive speech at MLK rally surprises LGBT participants
3)  Remember the words of Coretta Scott King, speaking of gay civil rights
4)  Magic Theater -- Jesus in India: A Biblical Prequel About History's Most
Famous Rebel
5) "Dr." Patrick Wooden: Gay Men Need Diapers -- This is one of many variations
of mental illness
6)  Money Flows to G.O.P. Backers of Gay Marriage



1)
Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church
By MATTHEW MOSK and BRIAN ROSS | ABC News - Tue, Jan 17, 2012

http://news.yahoo.com/mitt-romney-sent-millions-mormon-church-193106008--abc-new\
s.html
http://abcnews.go.com/

My comment on Mr. Romney ---
He is hesitant to release his income tax returns because he knows that the
Generals in Salt Lake will not be amused that they have been underpaid.

The 10% thing from the Levities.

----------

See also ---
http://news.yahoo.com/opposition-file-romney-hits-internet-likely-2008-mccain-09\
4643763.html
Massive opposition file on Romney hits Internet, likely from 2008 McCain
campaign
The Daily Caller - Wednesday 18 January 2012

----------

My opinion ---
Southern Baptists are not going to allow Romney to get the nomination.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



2)
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/01/bernice-kings-gay-inclusive-speech-at-mlk-ral\
ly-surprises-lgbt-participants/

http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/news/atlanta-news/4023-bernice-kings-gay-inc\
lusive-speech-at-mlk-rally-surprises-lgbt-participants

       Bernice King's gay-inclusive speech at MLK rally surprises LGBT
participants
       by Dyana Bagby
       January 16, 2012 18:53

       Bernice King took the stage today at Atlanta's annual Martin Luther King
Jr. rally and included gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people among the
various groups she said need to come together to fulfill her father's legacy.
       In a passionate, sermon-like speech about building unity, King said she
didn't care if people were Hindu, Buddhist, Islamist, were from the North side
or the South side, were black or white, were "heterosexual or homosexual, or
gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender" - that all people were needed to create
unity.

       LGBT people who attended the rally said they were shocked that King - who
has a long anti-gay past - actually acknowledged the community in a public
speech, but said they were also glad because it shows people can evolve.

       Rev. Maressa Pendermon, a minister with LGBT-inclusive Unity Fellowship
Church, said she at first intended to tune out King because of her anti-gay
past, but decided to pay attention one more time.

       For her father's vision to be realized we've got to come together across
boundaries and then she got in preacher mode. Then she said 'heterosexual or
homosexual,' and then backed up and said 'lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender.' We need all of us," Pendermon said.

       There's always room for growth," Pendermon said, describing her reaction
to King's words. "People grow and people change. Sometimes we don't let them. I
wasn't expecting that. And I was already ready to shut down but I challenged
myself to listen and I'm glad I listened."

       Pendermon and her church were part of a counter protest in 2004 at the
same intersection where today's rally took place. In 2004, King was an elder at
Bishop Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and the two led a march
of thousands through the streets of Atlanta to protest, among other issues, gay
marriage. She has also said that her father "did not take a bullet for same-sex
marriage."

       Craig Washington, a founder of the Bayard Rustin/Audre Lorde breakfast
where LGBT activists and allies gather before participating in the MLK march,
said he was "surprised  and actually excited" by King's words.

       It reminded me that people can and do shift attitudes. They do evolve," he
said. "What Bernice's turnabout ...spoke to is potential to change. We still
have to remember they too are human.

       I was like, 'What?' I clutched pearls. I sure did. I was not prepared to
applaud Bernice King today and she gave me something to applaud," Washington
said.

       Paulina Helm-Hernandez, the LGBT honorary grand marshal for today's march
and rally, said she also was surprised to hear King's inclusive words.

       "I thought it was great. First time I've ever heard her say lesbian, gay,
bi and trans out loud," she said. "She said homosexual at first and then
corrected herself. It takes a lot of grace to do something like that when you're
on a roll."

       Whether King was sincere and genuine with her words remains to be seen,
Helm-Hernandez said.

       "I feel like in coming years that will be telling what she said was
genuine. I hope so," she said.

       King was recently named CEO of the King Center after she left New Birth
following Eddie Long's sex scandal in which he was sued by young men who accused
him of coercing them into sexual relationships.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


3)
Remember the words of Coretta Scott King, speaking of gay civil rights
http://gay.americablog.com/2012/01/remember-words-of-coretta-scott-king.html

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Remember the words of Coretta Scott King, speaking of gay civil rights
By John Aravosis at 1/17/2012 08:00:00 AM
Retweet | Reddit | Facebook | Tumblr
A day late, but still worth revisiting since so few of our leaders ever care to
mention the rather salient point that Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's
wife, was on our side.


Make Room At The Table for Lesbian and Gay People


   Coretta Scott King, speaking four days before the 30th anniversary of her
husband's assassination, said Tuesday the civil rights leader's memory demanded
a strong stand for gay and lesbian rights. "I still hear people say that I
should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should
stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them
that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.'" "I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s
dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay
people," she said. - Reuters, March 31, 1998.
Homophobia is Like Racism and Anti-Semitism

   Speaking before nearly 600 people at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Coretta
Scott King, the wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Tuesday called on
the civil rights community to join in the struggle against homophobia and
anti-gay bias. "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of
bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their
humanity, their dignity and personhood," King stated. "This sets the stage for
further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next
minority group." - Chicago Defender, April 1, 1998, front page.
MLK's Struggle Parallels The Gay Rights Movement

   Quoting a passage from her late husband's writing, Coretta Scott King
reaffirmed her stance on gay and lesbian rights Tuesday at a luncheon
celebrating the 25 anniversary of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a
national gay rights organization. "We are all tied together in a single garment
of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be
what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that
homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and
must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy," King told 600 people
at the Palmer House Hilton, days before the 30th anniversary of the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. She said the civil rights
movement "thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion." Her
husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement, she said. -
Chicago Sun Times, April 1, 1998, p.18.
Mrs. King is Outspoken Supporter of Gay and Lesbian People

   "For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human
rights for gay and lesbian people," King said at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon
for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.... "Gays and lesbians stood up
for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla.,
and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these
courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could
find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions." - Chicago
Tribune, April 1, 1998, sec.2, p.4.
Sexual Orientation is a Fundamental Human Rights

   We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and
discrimination. I say "common struggle" because I believe very strongly that all
forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by
right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual
orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much
as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination. - Coretta
Scott King, remarks, Opening Plenary Session, 13th annual Creating Change
conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Atlanta, Georgia,
November 9, 2000.
We Need a National Campaign Against Homophobia

   "We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black
community," said Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,
the slain civil rights leader. - Reuters, June 8, 2001.
Justice is Indivisible

   For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination
against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group,
paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection
under the law.... I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in
pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said,
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." On another occasion he
said, "I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations
to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible." Like Martin, I
don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to
others. So I see this bill as a step forward for freedom and human rights in our
country and a logical extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights
reforms of the 1950's and '60's. The great promise of American democracy is that
no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice. -
Coretta Scott King, remarks, press conference on the introduction of ENDA,
Washington, DC, June 23, 1994

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://www.goldstar.com/e/52091
Jesus in India: A Biblical Prequel About History's Most Famous Rebel
Magic Theatre (Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street San Francisco, CA 94123)

Set as a contemporary parable that imagines a wild and experimental period of
activity during Jesus Christ's lost years, this play is about the world's most
famous rebel before he found his cause. Teenaged and wayward, Jesus of Nazareth
journeys to the east with his friend Abigail of Galilee toward a spiritual haven
full of Maharajas, music and some really good weed. Playwright Lloyd Suh's
latest work comes two years after the success of his quirky and affecting
American Hwangap.

Wednesday 25 January through Sunday 05 February, 2012.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


This is one of many variations of mental illness --->

5)
Wooden: Gay Men Need Diapers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOg2eg1eS1w
"Dr." Patrick Wooden

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/while-protesting-southern-poverty-law-cent\
er-aftah-proves-why-its-hate-group
While Protesting Southern Poverty Law Center, AFTAH Proves Why It's A 'Hate
Group'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on January 17, 2012 - 5:20pm
Today, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality's Peter LaBarbera and Liberty
Counsel's Matt Barber protested today outside of the headquarters of the
Southern Poverty Law Center, along with other anti-gay activists, over the
group's "thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional
Judeo-Christian morality." AFTAH, along with other anti-gay organizations, is
incensed that the SPLC classified them as "anti-gay hate groups."

One of the activists joining them was North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden, one
of the chief organizers for the North Carolina amendment to ban same-sex
marriage. Not that the SPLC needed further proof of AFTAH's demonization of gays
and lesbians, but while appearing on LaBarbera's radio show, Wooden told
LaBarbera that homosexuality would "most certainly mean the extinction of the
human race." He claims that the medical community is suppressing the truth about
the medical problems of homosexuals as it would make people "gag and no one
would want to be in a lifestyle like that," arguing that by the time gay mean
reach their middle ages they "have to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be
able to contain their bowels" because of "what happens to the male anus."

-
--- continue at the URL ---

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



6)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/nyregion/money-flows-to-gop-backers-of-gay-mar\
riage-in-new-york.html?_r=1

January 17, 2012
Money Flows to G.O.P. Backers of Gay Marriage
By DANNY HAKIM
ALBANY - Gay rights advocates from Wall Street to Hollywood poured donations
into the coffers of four little-known Republican state senators after the
lawmakers provided the decisive votes for same-sex marriage in New York last
June, according to new campaign finance filings released on Tuesday.

The support for the four senators, whose votes broke ranks with their party, is
seen by gay rights leaders as symbolically important for their movement
nationally, because in many states same-sex marriage could become law only with
support from Republicans, as well as conservative Democrats. Maryland, New
Jersey and Washington State are expected to consider same-sex marriage
legislation this year.

The four New York Republicans had been threatened with political retribution by
the state's Conservative Party, and now face possible challenges from both the
left and the right, but same-sex marriage supporters had promised to help them
politically if they supported the issue.

"It was essential to send a clear signal around the country that we will support
those who support equality, irrespective of party," said Brian Ellner, a senior
strategist for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. "We were able to
win marriage in New York with a bipartisan coalition of fair-minded elected
officials. We need to replicate that if we are to keep winning."

All four Republicans who voted for same-sex marriage sharply increased their
fund-raising in the six months after the marriage bill passed, in many cases
raising money from people they had never met. And Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a
Democrat who forcefully pushed the legislation, raised $6 million in six months
helped by fund-raisers that highlighted his support for same-sex marriage.

State Senator Roy J. McDonald, a Republican who is a Vietnam veteran from
Saratoga County, became a momentary folk hero for many gay people when he
blurted out that people who were unhappy with his support for same-sex marriage
"can take the job and shove it." He raised about $447,000 in the six months
following the vote, about 27 times more than he had raised in the same period in
2009.

Senator Stephen M. Saland, a Republican lawyer from Poughkeepsie whose decision
to support same-sex marriage became clear only when he rose to speak during the
vote, raised $425,000. For rank-and-file lawmakers in Albany, those are large
sums - both men raised more in the latter half of 2011 than did the Senate
majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican.

Senator Mark Grisanti, a first-term Republican from Buffalo, raised $325,000 in
the six months after the vote.

Michael McKeon, a 48-year-old California insurance executive who describes his
political stance as "just to the left of being far left," said he had never
supported a Republican in his life before hearing Mr. Grisanti's speech on the
Senate floor during the same-sex marriage debate.

"His speech was absolutely compelling, moving," Mr. McKeon said by telephone
from Los Angeles, where he has lived for 30 years after growing up in Lewiston,
N.Y. After the same-sex-marriage bill passed, Mr. McKeon returned to Lewiston to
marry his partner; while in the state, he met Mr. Grisanti, shook his hand and
handed one of his aides a check for $200.

"If Mr. Grisanti were running for president, I'd vote for him, even though he's
Republican" said Mr. McKeon, a volunteer activist for gay rights. "He stood up
for us."

Senator James S. Alesi of East Rochester, the first Republican to say he would
support same-sex marriage, had not filed his fund-raising report by Tuesday
evening, but said in an interview that he would report having raised $350,000 to
$400,000 during the same period. Mr. Alesi said more than half of his new
donations came from same-sex marriage supporters.

"I didn't vote for the money, but it's gratifying to know that support is there,
especially coming into an election year," he said. "It's more gratifying to me
when someone comes up to me and says, 'I appreciate your vote'; you can't put a
price on that."

The senators will need the help. Same-sex marriage opponents have promised to
target them when all state lawmakers face re-election in November.

"All the money in the world isn't going to buy them out of the fact that they're
about to lose an election," said Brian Brown, the president of the National
Organization for Marriage, which opposed the New York law and has said it will
spend heavily to oust the four senators.

"People are outraged by what they've done, and they are going to be held
accountable," he said.

Wealthy gay rights advocates also gave significant contributions to the Senate
Republican leadership, which opposed same-sex marriage, to acknowledge that the
conference had allowed the vote to take place. Three prominent Wall Street
executives - Paul Singer, Jonathan Pollock and Daniel Loeb - donated $350,000 to
the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

The donations to the individual senators came from a variety of prominent
figures in the political, philanthropic, financial and entertainment worlds -
from the Hollywood director J. J. Abrams to the producer Stephen Bing, from the
billionaire Robert Ziff to a former United States solicitor general, Theodore B.
Olson, a Republican who is leading a challenge to a same-sex marriage ban in
California.

Many of the same large donors also helped Mr. Cuomo, who will not be on the
ballot again until 2014, amass a formidable $14 million campaign treasury, in
part from celebrities including Calvin Klein, Don Henley and Rob Reiner, as well
as studio executives and business leaders.

Some of the contributions to lawmakers came from friends, associates and
supporters of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, a political independent
who strongly supported same-sex marriage and who last fall co-hosted a
fund-raiser for the four Republicans. Mr. Bloomberg had given $10,000 to each of
the four senators in July. This month, shifting his attention to the national
stage, he donated $50,000 to Standing Up for New Hampshire Families, an
organization set up to fight a proposed repeal of same-sex marriage in that
state.

Other contributions came in small amounts from donors across the nation - not a
usual source of money for upstate legislative candidates. One Texas woman sent
Mr. Saland $5, while a donor in Mississippi sent in $12.

For many of the donors, the motivation was personal.

"My son is gay and happily planning to marry soon," said Daryl Roth, a Broadway
producer who recently backed a revival of "The Normal Heart," a drama about the
early years of AIDS. Ms. Roth gave the legal maximum, $16,800, to Senators
Grisanti, McDonald and Saland, according to state records, as did her husband,
the real estate developer Steven Roth.

Randy M. Mastro, who as a deputy mayor during the administration of Rudolph W.
Giuliani helped push the city to carry out domestic partner policies, also gave
to some of the lawmakers. Mr. Mastro called same-sex marriage "the great civil
rights issue of our time," and his law firm, where Mr. Olson is a partner, is
active in several gay rights cases.

"Those Republican senators deserve a lot of credit for what they did," Mr.
Mastro said, adding, "They stood up to tremendous pressure in their own
political party, and I wanted in my own small way to thank them."

John Eligon contributed reporting.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  Tennessee Tea Party Demands Slavery Removed From Textbooks -- you just can't
make up fiction like this
2)  Anti-gay bill and Rep. Richard Floyd's remarks draw fire in Nashville
3)  How conservatives lie about government
4)  How to Be a Better Homosexual (good satire)
5)  Parents: Gay Tennessee teen took his life because of bullying
6)  Gay Teen Thanks Lady Gaga but Kills Self; Parents Performed Exorcism on Him
7)  GLSEN Study Finds Anti-Gay Bullying and Uncomfortable Teachers in Elementary
Schools
8)  Castro lambasts US Republican primary as idiotic
9)  Africa leaders must respect gay rights: UN's Ban
10)  Taliban POWs convinced of victory, says leaked US report on Afghanistan
11)  Susan G. Komen Loses Support After Planned Parenthood Decision



EXTRA --
Do you believe this is true?  --->
'Scared the Hell Out of Me. It Was a Great Wake-Up
Call (Although I Wasn't Really Asleep)'
- Russell H., from Wichita, Kansas
Over 10 Million Americans Have United to View This Powerful Warning to Prepare
for a 2012 Economic Crisis! I Strongly Suggest You Take the Time to Join Them by
Launching a Private Airing of This Broadcast Below . . .
"Aftershock"
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/aftershockb/video97.cfm?PROMO_CODE=DE31-1  (long --
about 30 minutes)



1)
My comment ---
I wish I could say this is fiction.  It is not.

---

http://www.care2.com/causes/tenn-tea-party-demands-slavery-removed-from-textbook\
s.html
Tennessee Tea Party Demands Slavery Removed From Textbooks
   a.. by Judy Molland
   b.. January 21, 2012
--- click on URL ---

See also
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jan/13/tea-parties-cite-legislative-de\
mands/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------



2)
Chattanooga Times Fee Press
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jan/25/anti-gay-bill-and-rep-richard-floyds-\
remarks-draw-/?breakingnews
Anti-gay bill and Rep. Richard Floyd's remarks draw fire in Nashville
by Andy Sher   Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

NASHVILLE - The father of a young gay college student, whose 1998 murder in
Wyoming spurred national discussion about hate crimes, said today that Tennessee
and several other states have "become a bully pulpit in more ways than one."

Dennis Shepard, who son was killed in Wyoming due to, according to court
testimony, his sexual orientation, said two pending bills dealing with gay
issues "disturb me" and he urged state lawmakers to work instead "toward an
all-inclusive law toward hate crimes."

Shepard's comments came at a news conference at Legislative Plaza where he spoke
out specifically against a bill that seeks to create a religious exemption in
the state's anti-school bullying law and another measure known as the so-called
"Don't Say Gay" bill. The amended bill says teachers can only discuss "natural
reproduction" with students in grades K-8.

On another front, Shepard was critical of recent remarks made by Rep. Richard
Floyd, R-Chattanooga, who has introduced legislation barring transgender persons
from using public restrooms and store dressing rooms if they do not fit the
gender listed on their original birth certificate.

Floyd created a stir when he told the Times Free Press earlier this month that
"I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my
daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there - I don't care
if he thinks he's a woman and tries on clothes with them in there - I'd just try
to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry."

Shepard said the various bills and talk "about stomping transgender and other
gays. That does encourage it [harassment]. What it does is say nobody's going to
do anything. And as I mentioned ... it creates a policy of it's open season. I
can do whatever. And that's what happened to Matt."

Earlier, Floyd said he's received any number of threatening emails and phone
calls - as well as expressions of support - in the wake of his comments.

"They get upset about somebody else, but the emails and phone calls I've got
with the verbiage and the violent threats and even worse, if anybody threatened
them with that kind of violence, you want to talk about violence, evidently they
support violence."

He said "the word 'stomp' is very mild compared to what I heard. I guess it's
the pot calling the kettle black."

Floyd said "this is America. They have every right in the world to do whatever
they want to do as long as they don't threaten anyone else ... That's their
perfect right."

Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, originally sponsored the Senate version of the bill at
Floyd's request. After Floyd's remarks, Watson yanked the bill. Floyd said he
has been unable to find another Senate sponsor.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


3)
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/how_conservatives_lie_about_government/

Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012 5:00 AM Pacific Standard Time
How conservatives lie about government
From Social Security hysteria to "Obamacare" madness, right-wing propaganda is
increasingly divorced from reality
By Michael Lind

One benefit of the prolonged campaign for the Republican presidential nomination
has been the revelation that most of the 20 or 30 percent of Americans who
describe themselves as conservatives live in a fantasy world.  In their
imaginations, Barack Obama, a centrist Democrat with roots in Eisenhower
Republicanism rather than Rooseveltian liberalism, is a radical figure trying to
take America down the path of "European socialism." The signature healthcare
reform of Obama and the Democratic Congress, modeled on Mitt Romney's
insurance-friendly Massachusetts healthcare program and closely resembling a
proposal by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, is described as "statist,"
"socialist" or "fascist" (as though Hitler came to power with the goal of
providing subsidies to private health insurance companies).
How can otherwise sane people believe such lunacy?  The answer is that members
of the right-wing counterculture are brainwashed - that is the only appropriate
term - by  the apocalyptic propaganda ground out constantly by the conservative
media establishment. A perfect example is a recent essay by Philip Klein, a
senior editorial writer of the Washington Examiner, the right-wing newspaper
owned by the billionaire Philip Anshutz:  "The Welfare State Is Destroying
America."

Klein begins, typically, with the fall from grace of America under the sinister
Franklin Roosevelt, who presided over the establishment of Social Security: "But
Roosevelt was dead wrong that the program would help the nation avoid deep debt.
Social Security and the entitlement programs that followed its legacy of seeking
to protect citizens from the 'hazards and vicissitudes of life,' turned out to
be fiscal disasters."

In the real world, of course, today's national debt has nothing to do with
Social Security, whose trust fund has a surplus that will last for decades, with
the precise date of the trust fund's exhaustion depending on the rate of general
economic growth. True, the federal government has to raise the tax revenue to
repay the money it borrowed from the trust fund - but then, the federal
government has to repay all of its creditors, domestic and foreign.  What's
wrong with that?

As if to concede that there is no Social Security crisis in the near future,
Klein engages in three intellectually dishonest maneuvers typical of right-wing
propagandists. First, he talks about medium-term and long-term problems as
though they were present-day emergencies. Second, he blurs the distinction
between Social Security's long-term fiscal challenges, which are minor, and
those caused by rising healthcare costs, in order to make Social Security seem
worse off than it is in reality. Third, he implies that "the growing debt
burden" of the United States is primarily caused by Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid, ignoring tax cuts, wars and the effects of a near-depression:

   With health care costs rising and the population aging, America's
welfare-state obligations are bringing the country to its financial knees. If
left unchecked, the growing debt burden will not only trigger runaway inflation
and stifling taxes, but it will also threaten national security.

By now readers of the Washington Examiner must assume that Franklin Roosevelt
and Lyndon Johnson deliberately designed Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
to be paid for by federal borrowing.  Why shouldn't Klein's audience leap to
that false conclusion?  After all, Klein has not mentioned the funding streams
that pay for these programs:  payroll taxes (Social Security), payroll taxes and
general revenues (Medicare) and general revenues (Medicaid).

If Klein were honest with his readers, he would point out that the main causes
of federal deficits in the last generation have been the Reagan and Bush tax
cuts, plus the fiscal aftereffects of the Great Recession, in the form of
falling tax revenues and increased spending on unemployment insurance and
stimulus programs.  But that would distract from the false impression that Klein
is seeking to convey.

So far in this classic of polemical literature, "The Welfare State Is Destroying
America," Philip Klein has relied solely on rhetoric.  In the next few
paragraphs he uses a few numbers, all of which have been cherry-picked to paint
a picture of imminent national economic collapse, and all of which are
misleading.

Here is misleading argument No. 1:

   Spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare alone currently
account for 46 percent - or nearly half of - federal spending, excluding
interest payments. Over the next 25 years, that percentage will explode to 66
percent, or close to two-thirds, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Ooh, scary!  These numbers may frighten readers, but they are meaningless. The
only number that conceivably would matter would be the overall
federal-state-local spending as a share of GDP, which in the U.S. is well below
the average for industrial democracies that are just as competitive and
prosperous. Saying that the share of federal spending that is devoted to Social
Security and healthcare spending will grow over 25 years from 46 to 66 percent
does not support Klein's case that the welfare state will "destroy" America.
These are just irrelevant numbers, thrown out to impress the ignorant reader of
the Washington Examiner.

Misleading argument No. 2 follows:

   Numbers associated with the nation's debt crisis are almost too staggering to
comprehend. Last month, total U.S. debt surpassed $15 trillion. But a recent
analysis by Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff found that
when long-term entitlement obligations are considered, the true fiscal gap is
$211 trillion.

What Klein fails to point out is that Kotlikoff's calculation for unfunded
entitlement obligations is for the period between now and infinity. Even if
Kotlikoff and Klein used the briefer time span of, say, 2012-2100, there would
be no cause for alarm, because nobody is going to present the federal government
with a check for advance payment of all projected entitlement payments in the
remainder of the 21st century, due tomorrow.  In other words, saying the U.S.
has a "fiscal gap" is like saying that you are in danger of bankruptcy from a
"personal fiscal gap," because you could not pay off the entire house or car
mortgage today. As long as you can make the installment payments at a reasonable
interest rate, you, like the nation, are fine.

The abstract "fiscal gap" arises almost entirely from the minor projected
shortfall of payroll tax funding for Social Security and, more important, from
the estimated out-of-control growth of healthcare costs in decades to come. 
Change the variables, by means of new taxes for Social Security, benefit cuts or
control of excessive costs in the U.S. medical industry, and the Big Scary
Fiscal Gap disappears or shrinks dramatically, depriving right-wing hacks and
left-wing deficit hawks of a club used to beat Social Security and Medicare.

Does Klein tell his readers this? Of course not.  He's just throwing out
scary-sounding statistics to stampede the yahoos.

On to misleading argument No. 3:

   Greece, with an economy 1/50th the size of the U.S., is threatening the
economic standing of the rest of Europe because of its growing debt burden,
which hit 143 percent of its gross domestic product in 2010.

   The U.S. is on pace to match that dubious distinction in under 20 years,
according to the CBO, and to soar to 716 percent by 2080. Sustaining such debt
would require raising marginal tax rates to as high as 88 percent, the CBO has
told The Washington Examiner.

Shame on the CBO for misleading the public in this way. The experts of the CBO
know perfectly well that the United States is never going to have a national
debt of 716 percent of GDP or marginal tax rates of 88 percent.  Long before
anything like these absurd numbers were reached, policies would be changed to
cut costs in medical spending. Long-term projections like these are just scary
stories told to frighten the public into fiscal sobriety, in the same spirit
that a parent would tell an overweight child that if she or he kept eating, then
according to a straight-line computer projection, by the age of 40 she or he
would weigh 23 tons.

As it happens, the CBO's own rigorous work undercuts the apocalyptic narrative
set forth by conservatives like Philip Klein.  Here, from a CBO report of a few
years back (the long-term projections have not significantly changed),  is Box
2, "The Effect of the Aging of the Population on Spending on Medicare and
Medicaid."



*** click on URL to see charts ***
This one graph disproves practically everything American conservatives say about
the alleged unaffordability of entitlements. Note that the aging of the American
population alone would only raise the share of GDP spent on Medicare and
Medicaid slightly between now and 2082.  The projected increase is almost
entirely the result of excess cost growth in America's dysfunctional
medical-industrial sector and has next to nothing to do with aging. Now look at
Figure 4, "Projected Spending on Health Care as a Percentage of Gross Domestic
Product."

*** click on URL to see charts ***

Observe that the cancerous growth of healthcare costs occurs chiefly in private
sector healthcare spending - not in Medicare and Medicaid.  In other words, the
cost problem is one of the entire U.S. medical industry, private and public
alike.  It is not a problem caused by "entitlements."

Debating the solutions would take us too far from the subject, although it
should be noted that most other countries control healthcare costs by means of
"all-payer regulation" - that is, government-imposed price controls - not by
means of market competition, the right's unrealistic panacea, which no other
nation uses, for the reason that simple market economics does not work in the
healthcare sector.  For the purposes of this discussion, it is sufficient to
reproduce a final chart from the CBO report, Figure 5, "Federal Spending for
Medicare and Medicaid as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product Under Different
Assumptions About Excess Cost Growth."

*** click on URL to see charts ***

Note that if the excess cost growth problem is solved, then the nightmare
scenario never materializes, either in the near future or the distant future. 
Indeed, in the last few years, partly because of the loss of employer-based
healthcare by the unemployed, and partly because of reforms in medical
provision, healthcare cost growth in the U.S. has slowed.  If that trend
continues, then conservatives will no longer be able to claim that healthcare in
general (not just Medicare and Medicaid) will eat up half the economy in 2082. 
The right will have to use other arguments to discredit Social Security and
Medicare, like the hoary old claim that these programs are fascist or communist
- an argument that has never persuaded the growing number of American voters who
depend on Social Security and Medicare for their retirements and for protecting
their physical health.
Philip Klein concludes his Op-Ed about how the welfare state is destroying
America with further nonsense (you can't claim he isn't consistent).  Reciting
yet another right-wing myth, Klein asserts that because of Social Security and
Medicare, the bond markets in general and the Chinese government in particular
will stop lending America money and interest rates will skyrocket, destroying
the American economy, yadda yadda yadda:

   Just this past August, Standard and Poor's downgraded U.S. debt for the first
time in American history. Once bond holders abandon America, the nation will
either have to dramatically cut spending, raise taxes steeply, or print money to
buy up the debt - which would trigger massive inflation.

Where has he been since last August?  Even a senior editorial writer at the
Washington Examiner should be aware that the downgrading of America's credit
rating was followed by a rush of money into American bonds, not out of them, in
defiance of the predictions of the deficit hawks. Evidently the bond markets
think America is the world's safe haven and are not terribly worried about
long-term American entitlement costs.

   The growing debt burden is also a national security risk, because it reduces
America's leverage against nations such as China, which owns a substantial
amount of U.S. debt. And the fiscal crunch will force devastating cuts to our
military - far beyond anything contemplated today.

Somebody should tell Klein that China's export-oriented growth model depends on
keeping its currency undervalued and accumulating dollars, which it then uses to
buy dollar-denominated debt like U.S. Treasury bonds.  If China revalued its
currency, it would stop buying bonds to the detriment of its industries and to
the benefit of many American exporters.  If this were to happen, the U.S.
deficit would shrink and we would need less external financing.  Hurrah! In the
long run there doubtless will be increases in U.S. interest rates, but they are
unlikely to come about for the reasons that Klein and other apocalyptics on the
right predict.

As for the Pentagon, the chief threat to the future of the U.S. military is
neither the American welfare state nor the Chinese financial authorities, but
the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which prefers round after round
of tax cuts for the rich to the taxes that would permit the U.S. to fund both an
adequate military and an affordable welfare state.

Klein concludes inescapably:

   Thus, the conclusion is inescapable that, if America doesn't end the welfare
state as we have known it since 1935, it will end America as we know it today.

It may seem cruel to pick on Philip Klein, who is, after all, simply one of many
minor hacks in the right-wing media machine controlled by billionaires like
Anshutz and the Koch brothers.  But it is worth reading the right's propaganda
now and then, just to find out how it is that so many of our conservative fellow
citizens can have been so deceived.

Close
   Michael Lind's new book, "Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United
States", will be published in April and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.   More
Michael Lind


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/domenick-scudera/how-to-be-a-better-homose_b_12231\
41.html

Domenick Scudera
Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater and Dance department, Ursinus
College
How to Be a Better Homosexual
Posted: 01/25/2012 10:58 am

Apparently, I am not a very good homosexual.

I have had a real education this week. I started listening to Bryan Fischer, the
Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. He is very
smart and has provided me with an eye-opening education. He is teaching me about
what it means to be gay. I have learned things I never knew before. I am not
sure what his credentials are, but he talks about homosexuality quite often, so
it is obvious that he is an expert.

First, he has made it clear to me that the average homosexual has hundreds of
sexual partners, some as many as 500 or 1,000 in a lifetime. I did not know
this. He said that we homosexuals admit this in our own literature, but I
haven't read that literature. I feel so remiss! I am way behind. I am not
getting any younger, so it seems that if I want to be at least average, then I'd
better start sleeping around more. I figure if I find at least one new lover
each week for the next few years, I will be getting closer to filling my quota.
What have I been thinking these past 16 years, being monogamous? Precious time
has been wasted.

I also found out, thanks to Mr. Fischer, that I need to get some poppers. Using
poppers is the way that gay people stay sexually stimulated for more than one
sexual encounter in the same night. I did not know this. If I want to get closer
to 1,000 or at least 500 sexual partners, it is a good idea to get some poppers
so that I can maintain sexual activity with more guys per evening. And did you
know that the research says that 96 percent of us who engage in homosexual
behavior are using poppers? And that poppers are the main reason for the spread
of AIDS? They sound so dangerous! I am so out of the gay loop that I do not know
how one even goes about getting poppers. Can you order them online? Or will I
have to find a drug dealer on a street corner somewhere?

I also might need to reevaluate Nazism. I always thought that Nazis were
reprehensible, but I did not know that we homosexuals are closely aligned with
them. Why is it not more widely known that the Nazi party was started in a gay
bar and consisted largely of homosexuals? Thank goodness for Mr. Fischer. This
fact would have gone largely unnoticed if he had not brought it to the world's
attention. He also says that today's homosexuals are basically Nazis. I want to
be a good homosexual, so I better give this whole Nazi thing a second chance.

Mr. Fischer says that gay parenting is "inhumane." I do not have children, but
he reminded me that if I want to be a good gay, I need to start recruiting other
people's children early on. I have not done any gay recruiting before. How
embarrassing! He does not provide any information about how to recruit, but I
bet it is outlined carefully in the gay literature that I have failed to keep up
on. For now, I will start hanging around schoolyards so I can build trust with
some kids, and then I will slip in some gay recruitment techniques later.

I am a little confused about one thing, though. Mr. Fischer says that it is
God's design to have one sexual partner for life. I thought the Bible said that
Abraham, David, Jacob, and Solomon had had multiple wives and/or concubines. I
must be reading it wrong. I hope Mr. Fischer teaches a Bible study class so that
I can register. Also, I am gay, and I only have one sexual partner (currently),
and Mr. Fischer has made it very clear that being gay is against God's design,
so my monogamy does not make any sense.

Well, you can see that Bryan Fischer has really got my mind reeling! I am
totally reevaluating my whole approach to being gay. Maybe I was recruited
incorrectly when I was a child, or maybe my lack of knowledge of up-to-date
research is to blame for my lapse in good gayness. I want to be a better
homosexual, and that means more sex, drugs, Nazis, coercing children, and on and
on and on. I have my work cut out for me!

----------

My comment ---
A huge part of the problem is -- the people who should be reading this don't
read, and wouldn't understand it if they did.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/201959/2/Parents-Gay-Tennessee-teen-took-his-li\
fe-because-of-bullying
Parents: Gay Tennessee teen took his life because of bullying
12:27 PM, Jan 22, 2012
By Forrest Sanders
WSMV

GORDONSVILLE, TN - A Gordonsville boy's parents say bullying caused their son to
take his own life. Phillip Parker, 14, died this week. His parents said he was
constantly bullied for being gay.

More than 100 people gathered in Gordonsville on Saturday night, grieving the
loss of Phillip.


"He was fun, he was energetic, he was happy," said Gena Parker, Phillip's
mother.

To his many friends, Phillip was known as the boy who told everyone they're
beautiful.

"He kept telling me he had a rock on his chest," said Ruby Harris, Phillip's
grandmother. "He just wanted to take the rock off where he could breathe."

Phillip's family said they reported their concerns over their son's bullying to
Gordonsville High School on multiple occasions, but the bullying by a group of
students just got worse.

"I believe my whole family up in heaven's taking good care of him," said friend
Megan Redinger.

"I want to say I love him dearly," added friend Heather Hunt. "He'll never be
forgotten. He's always in my heart."

"That's my son," said Phillip Parker, Phillip's father. "I love him. I miss him.
He shouldn't have had to kill himself to be brought to life."

An official with Smith County Schools told Channel 4 they are now planning how
to handle a crisis situation with students Monday. Friends added they are
planning to set up a memorial fund in Phillip's name but haven't made the
arrangements just yet.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------


6)
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/gay-teen-kills-self-christi\
an-parents-performed-exorcism-him
Gay Teen Thanks Lady Gaga but Kills Self; Parents Performed Exorcism on Him
Submitted by Mark Berman Opposing Views on Jan 31, 2012
A gay California teenager killed himself after his Christian parents performed
an exorcism on him in an attempt to "cure" him, and when that didn't work they
kicked him out of the house.

The Daily Mail reports 19-year-old Eric James Borges killed himself on January
14 following his family issues, as well as the typical years of torment at
school.

He revealed the exorcism story in an "It's Get Better" video that he put on
YouTube in the weeks before his suicide, saying "'I was raised in an extremist
Christian household... My mother knew I was gay and performed an exorcism on me
in an attempt to cure me. My anxiety, depression, self-loathing and suicidal
thoughts spiked."

At a memorial service last week in the San Joaquin Valley, California, one
friend read from his suicide note:

My pain is not caused because I am gay. My pain was caused by how I was treated
because I am gay. To my friends you gave me life and love, never think this was
your fault...To Lady Gaga, you have been a fearless relentless proud LGBT
advocate.

Ironically, Borges interned at the Trevor Project, which is a group designed to
intervene and help gay kids who are thinking about suicide.

Here is his "It Gets Better" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=InWhEIaCFkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InWhEIaCFkg&feature=youtu.be
http://youtu.be/InWhEIaCFkg



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------


7)
http://www.autostraddle.com/glsen-study-finds-anti-gay-bullying-and-uncomfortabl\
e-teachers-in-elementary-schools-128840/
pictures and comments at URL
GLSEN Study Finds Anti-Gay Bullying and Uncomfortable Teachers in Elementary
Schools
Posted byJamie
on January 23, 2012

The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has released the first
study to survey both students and teachers about their experience in bullying
related to bias, homophobia and attitudes towards gender nonconforming
individuals. The study was conducted using 15 minute online surveys given to
1,065 elementary students in 3rd - 6th grade and 1,099 K-6th teachers between
November and December of 2010.
The study found that words such as "gay", "fag", "lesbo", "that's so gay",
"spaz" and "retard" are among the most common forms of biased language used to
harass students.  Troublingly, only 2 in 10 students have learned about families
with gay or lesbian parents -- although now that Rachel's gay dads will actually
show their face on GLEE that's sure to change, right?

Less than half of the teachers surveyed believe a gender nonconforming
individual (44% for male nonconforming, 49% for female nonconforming) would feel
comfortable at their school and less than half (48%) indicate they would feel
comfortable responding to questions from their students about gay, lesbian and
bisexual people. Even fewer (41%) would feel comfortable discussing transgender
people.

While this is far from the first study to consider bullying, GLSEN's study
specifically evaluates the bias and homophobia for elementary age children.
Senior Director of Research & Strategic Initiatives Dr. Joseph Kosclw explains,

..our report is one of the few that examines bias-based bullying at the
elementary school level and the first to examine incidence of homophobic remarks
and the negative experiences of children who do not conform to societal
standards in their gender expression from a national vantage point.

As we've seen, if you're being bullied and even the teachers don't have your
back due to bias or poor understanding of the needs of gender nonconforming
individuals, you're in trouble. Studies like this are key in establishing that
the problem at the root of bullying issues isn't just about discipline or
behavorial issues -- it's about education. Education of students, for one -- we
can hope that if more than 2 out of 10 children know that gay people exist and
grow up to raise children, "gay" can function more as a statement of fact and
less as an epithet. But education of teachers and caretakers for young children
is just as, if not more important. How can a teacher effectively address the
bullying of a transgender student if they don't even feel comfortable talking
with students about the fact that transgender people exist? When adults don't
have the knowledge necessary to defend students who are gender non-conforming or
of a different sexual orientation, the obligation to defend and explain falls on
the student themselves, and that's a failure of the system that's supposed to
care for and protect all students, even ones who aren't straight or cis.

In conjunction with the study GLSEN has developed  Ready, Set, Respect! GLSEN's
Elementary School Toolkit, to help teachers figure out how to ensure students a
safe and respectful learning environment.  The group will be hosting a webinar
on February 1st to review the findings of the study. Things such as this
toolkit, lessons teaching gender variance,  and teaching gay history will go a
long way towards confronting and understanding bullying in the classroom.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


8)
http://news.yahoo.com/castro-lambasts-us-republican-primary-idiotic-164004951.ht\
ml
Castro lambasts US Republican primary as idiotic
By PAUL HAVEN | Associated Press - Wednesday 25 January 2012

HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro lambasted the Republican presidential race as the
greatest competition of "idiocy and ignorance" the world has ever seen in a
column published Wednesday, and also took shots at the news media and foreign
governments for seizing on the death of a Cuban prisoner to demand greater
respect for human rights.
Castro's comments came in a long opinion piece carried by official media two
days after Republican presidential hopefuls at a debate in Florida presented
mostly hard-line stances on what to do about the Communist-run island, and even
speculated as to what would happen to the 85-year-old revolutionary leader's
soul when he dies.

Cuba has become an important issue as the candidates court Florida's influential
Cuban-American community in an effort to win the biggest electoral prize so far
in the primary season.

Castro said he always assumed the candidates would try to outdo each other on
the issue of Cuba, but that he was nonetheless appalled by the level of debate.

"The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized
and expansive empire is - and I mean this seriously - the greatest competition
of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been," said the retired Cuban leader, who
has dueled with 11 U.S. administrations since his 1959 revolution.

Castro also disputed international media accounts about the Jan. 19 death of
Wilman Villar, a 31-year-old Cuban prisoner, saying the man was not a dissident
and not on a 50-day hunger strike as human rights groups and the island's
opposition claim.

Castro reiterated the government's contention that Villar was a common criminal
sent to prison for domestic violence, and that he received the best medical
attention possible. Washington and several European governments have condemned
Cuba for his death, and Amnesty International says it was about to put Villar on
a global list of prisoners of conscience.

Villar has become a cause celebre for opponents of the Cuban government, but he
was not a well known figure, even among island dissidents, before his death.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney said during Monday's debate that Villar died
"fighting for democracy" and that his death highlighted the need to remain firm
on Cuba. Washington has maintained a near-50-year trade and travel embargo on
Cuba.

Another Republican candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said he would
authorize increased covert operations to bring down the Cuban government. And at
another moment of Monday's debate, Romney and Gingrich sparred over whether
Castro's soul would go to heaven or hell.

When asked what he would do as president if he found out Castro had died, Romney
said he would first "thank Heavens" that the bearded revolutionary had finally
"returned to his maker," to which Gingrich replied "I don't think Fidel's going
to meet his maker. I think he's going to go to the other place."

Castro didn't refer to the comments specifically in his opinion piece, saying
that he was too busy with other things to waste any more time analyzing the
Republican competition.

___

Follow Paul Haven at www.twitter.com/paulhaven/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
---------------


9)
http://www.africasia.com/services/news_africa/article.php?ID=CNG.e3279cd8102c477\
4e58ea43a6d69de60.d91
AFP
Africa leaders must respect gay rights: UN's Ban
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an unusually outspoken declaration on
Sunday, told African leaders they must respect gay rights, an issue that is
controversial in many African states.

"One form of discrimination ignored or even sanctioned by many states for too
long has been discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,"
Ban said at an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital.

"It prompted governments to treat people as second-class citizens or even
criminals," he added.

Homosexuality is outlawed in most African countries and discrimination against
gays and lesbians is rife on the continent, with South Africa being the only
country that recognises gay rights and same-sex marriage, at least on paper.

However, previous external criticism of restrictions imposed on homosexuals has
attracted angry responses from African leaders, who claim it is alien to their
culture.

Outgoing African Union chairman Tedoro Obiang Nguema, speaking before Ban's
remarks were delivered, complained about the external criticism the continent
receives.

"Africa should not be questioned with regards to democracy, human rights,
governance and transparency in public administration," he told the summit.

After Commonwealth leaders refused to adopt reforms to abolish homophobic laws
in 41 member nations, British Prime Minister David Cameron said last year he
would consider withholding aid from countries that do not recognise gay rights.

"Confronting these discriminations is a challenge, but we must not give up on
the ideas of the universal declaration" of human rights, Ban told the summit.

Gay rights in Africa, most notably in Uganda, made the news on several occasions
last year.

Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but a controversial bill that calls
for the death penalty for certain homosexual acts was re-introduced in the
Ugandan parliament late last year.

The proposed legislation envisages stiffer punishments -- including the death
penalty -- for anyone caught engaging in homosexual acts for the second time as
well as for gay sex where one partner is a minor or has HIV.

Gay rights activists have blamed an increase in homophobia in Uganda on
evangelical preachers, some of whom are close to the regime of President Yoweri
Museveni.

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a group of gay activists based in Kampala,
welcomed Ban's remarks.

"It holds a lot of weight that Ban Ki-moon has come to this meeting and
addressed this issue," SMUG advocacy officer Pepe Julian Onziema told AFP by
telephone.

"It makes a difference because it is an issue that the African Union has
ignored. We have pushed them on it but they have shut us out," he added.

The Ugandan government, however, said that while it did not condone
discrimination, it remained firmly opposed to homosexuality and continued to
view the practice as a crime.

"For as long as they are human beings we respect them but in terms of their
practice and orientation we strongly condemn it," Ethics and Integrity minister
Simon Lokodo told AFP.

While he said he was unaware of the specifics of Ban's statement, Lokodo said
the Ugandan government strongly rejects any moves it thinks would spread
homosexuality.

"We condemn in all strongest forms anyone who promotes or propagates these
practices."

Ban also told leaders that they should respect democracy, noting that the Arab
Spring revolutions that swept north Africa last year were "a reminder that
leaders must listen to their people."

"Events proved that repression is a dead end. Police power is no match to people
power seeking dignity and justice," he said.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


10)
http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-pows-convinced-of-victory--says-leaked-us-report-o\
n-afghanistan.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2012/0201/Taliban-POWs-convinced-of-victory-says-\
leaked-US-report-on-Afghanistan
Taliban POWs convinced of victory, says leaked US report on Afghanistan
A leaked internal US military report reflects optimism among Taliban detainees
in Afghanistan, who expressed confidence they'll retake control of Afghanistan
after NATO forces withdraw.
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent | Christian Science Monitor - Wednesday 02
February 2012

A classified US military report leaked to the media compiles interviews with
Taliban detainees who say their group is primed to regain control of Afghanistan
after NATO forces leave in 2014.
NATO officials have emphasized that the report does not represent the military's
analysis, only the views of Taliban prisoners still loyal to the movement. The
military's remarks, however, have not stopped many analysts from casting renewed
doubt on the success of the US-led military mission here.
"The document may provide some level of representative sampling of Taliban
opinions and ideals, but it is clearly a collection of insurgent detainee
commentary, and should not be considered an analysis or any type of
interpretation of campaign progress," says US Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings,
spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

The report had an easy time finding traction among critics of the war, who say
it indicates an Afghan mission on the brink of failure at a time of mounting
anxiety among many Afghans.

PHOTO GALLERY Talking to the Taliban

With the 2014 deadline looming and the insurgency still far from defeated, many
Afghans worry that it's only a matter of time before instability even worse than
the current situation grips the nation.

There have been a number of recent negative indicators. After years of a
property boom in Kabul, real estate prices have been in decline since President 
Obama announced the start of the drawdown in June. Last year, the United Nations
charted a record number of Afghan asylum seekers, and a number of investors have
expressed concerns about putting their money into local projects until the
future is clear.

Abdul Ghani, a poultry farmer in Kabul, says business has slowed in recent
months. This summer, he stopped midway through building a new chicken coop
because he didn't want to have too much of money tied down in investments here
in case the situation deteriorates.

"I don't want to invest more money into this project because no one knows what
will happen tomorrow," he says. "Across Afghanistan, business is decreasing, so
I don't want to put all my money into the poultry farm. In the event I need
cash, I can use this money to survive."

Still, a number of Afghans say that while the future remains largely unsettled,
there is no need for grave concern. In the decade since the Taliban ruled
Afghanistan, the country has grown and evolved in ways that will likely make it
difficult for a group like the Taliban to regain control.

"Maybe people are a little bit concerned about their future and they're careful
about their investments, but it doesn't mean that after the withdrawal of the
foreign forces [life] will fall apart in Afghanistan and the Taliban will take
over," says Abdul Majid Wardak, a member of parliament from Wardak Province.
"There has been a lot of work and we have our parliament and Constitution . and
no one will want to lose these achievements overnight."

----------

My comment ---
Having just watched the academy nominated documentary "Hell and Back Again",
this does not surprise me at all.
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/70167102

----------

See also
http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-poised-retake-afghanistan-nato-pullout-063452031.h\
tml

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


11)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/susan-g-komen_n_1247262.html
Susan G. Komen Loses Support After Planned Parenthood Decision
Laura Bassett
lbassett@...
Tuesday 01 February 2012

Stacey Tillman, a 47-year-old woman from Sandusky, Ohio, says she has donated
over $300 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure each year for the past nine years. The
issue is close to her heart, she says, because her aunt had breast cancer.
This year, however, following the news that Komen has pulled breast exam funds
from Planned Parenthood for political reasons, Tillman is sending her money
straight to the family planning provider instead.

"I donated $250 this morning, and then I'll see what I can do in a couple months
if I can get more," she told HuffPost in a phone interview. "I've had family
members in financial difficulty that have used Planned Parenthood for pap smears
and breast cancer screenings. They're getting my money now because they help the
needy and the people who fell through the cracks."

After partnering with Planned Parenthood for the past five years to provide
cancer screenings to low-income patients, Komen announced on Tuesday that it
would sever ties with the family planning provider because it is under
investigation in Congress. However, the groups that prompted that investigation
are anti-abortion advocacy organizations that have long criticized Planned
Parenthood over the fact that some of its clinics offer abortions.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) both criticized
and revoked their support for Komen on Wednesday. "I was perplexed and troubled
to see the decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cut off funding for
life-saving breast cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood because of a
political witch hunt by House Republicans. I truly hope that they will
reconsider this decision and put the needs of women first," Boxer said in a
statement.

"I have been a big booster of the Susan G. Komen organization, but not anymore,"
Speier said on the House floor.

One of Komen's own affiliates withdrew its support as well. The Connecticut
affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure said in a statement on Wednesday that
it "shares" people's frustration over the decision and that it will continue
funding Planned Parenthood of New England.

"The decision regarding the funding of Planned Parenthood was made by Susan G.
Komen for the Cure National Headquarters," the group posted on its Facebook
wall. "Susan G. Komen for the Cure Connecticut enjoys a great partnership with
Planned Parenthood, and is currently funding Planned Parenthood of Southern New
England. We understand, and share, in the frustration around this situation. We
hope that any investigation prohibiting Planned Parenthood from receiving Komen
grants is promptly resolved."

Komen has faced a massive social media backlash since announcing the decision,
with angry people flocking to its message boards and Facebook wall to announce
that they will no longer donate to the breast cancer charity.

Many commenters on Facebook have complained that Komen is scrubbing some of the
more negative comments from its wall, but a spokesperson for Komen said the
organization is only deleting the profane ones.

"We have not and do not scrub negative comments from Facebook unless they
include profanity," said Leslie Aun, vice president of communications for Komen.
"There have been some serious misrepresentations of our position, which is
unfortunate. The level of interest reflects the fact that people care deeply
about breast cancer and women's health issues."

The main sentiment among the thousands of people posting online seems to be that
regardless of one's position on the issue of abortion, it is wrong to politicize
women's health. According to a new analysis of online conversations about the
issue, only 26 percent of people believe Komen made the right decision. Nearly a
quarter of the people who expressed criticism of Komen's decision online said
they were going to pull their donations from Komen.

In contrast, Planned Parenthood has seen a huge influx of financial donations in
the 24 hours since Komen broke ties. While the organization has not officially
released the new donation numbers yet, a source close to the issue said they've
raised "hundreds of thousands" of dollars in individual donations during that
period. That, combined with a donation of $250,000 from Texas oil executive Lee
Fikes and his wife Amy for a "Breast Health Emergency Fund," could put the
family planning provider on track to match or surpass the roughly $680,000 it
received from Komen in 2011.

Planned Parenthood said it also saw a spike in people making appointments for
breast examinations Wednesday.

"The silver lining is that more people than ever are aware that Planned
Parenthood provides breast exams, and we're seeing more people calling us today
to make an appointment," Tait Sye, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, told
HuffPost. "Politics should not get in the way of women's health, and people
respond powerfully when they see politics interfering with women's health."

----------

My comment ---
Rightwingers -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew -- love to tell everyone else how
to live.  Their way only.
Theological mythology (their's only) is the rule.

----------

See also
http://news.yahoo.com/contraception-controversy-21st-century-170500526.html
Contraception Controversy? It's the 21st Century, Right?

See also
http://www.nationofchange.org/komen-foundation-halts-partnership-planned-parenth\
ood-1328113261
Komen Foundation Halts Partnership With Planned Parenthood

------------------------------

from the Southern Baptist political front, the Family Research Council ---

February 01, 2012
Dear  ________,

Yesterday, Susan G. Komen for The Cure -- an organization that is one of the
leading voices in the world in the fight against breast cancer -- announced that
it will discontinue grants to Planned Parenthood. This is a major victory -- not
only for an organization that can now focus on breast cancer unclouded by an
affiliation with the nation's largest abortion company -- but a victory for life
as well.

As you might imagine, Planned Parenthood and its allies are on the warpath. This
is not just a loss in hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly grants for the
abortion giant, but a major public relations defeat as well. Already under
investigation by Congress for improperly using public monies for abortions and
covering up sex trafficking, Planned Parenthood won't suffer this defeat
lightly.

That's why we need your help. Please email Susan G. Komen for The Cure and thank
them for discontinuing funding to Planned Parenthood. A strong showing of
positive support will only solidify the organization against the
already-in-progress backlash from Planned Parenthood.

Sincerely,
Tony Perkins
President

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Court overturns Prop. 8 in California, says state can't ban gay marriage
2) Faith-based tolerance on gay marriage
3) Blankfein to Speak Out for Same-Sex Marriage
4) Komen drops plan to cut Planned Parenthood grants
5) Komen's Ambiguous Apology
6) How 'Citizens United' Allows the Super-Wealthy to Buy Elections
7) Gingrich Blasts Obama's Birth Control Policy as 'Outrageous Assault' on
Religion
8) Rich Americans Ditch Home Ownership For Renting



EXTRA --
http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Boys-Next-Door/60024279
A 1985 movie, dated and jaded now, The Boys Next Door, that's not really a good
movie, but has a huge social message, including homosexual situations.  Starring
a young Maxwell Caulfield and Charlie Sheen.

On the eve of their high school graduation, two young men (Maxwell Caulfield and
Charlie Sheen) head for Los Angeles -- along the way they embark on a violent
murder spree that shocks the nation. They're not maniacs, nor are they hardened
criminals; they're just the "typical" boys next door. This crime drama from
director Penelope Spheeris (Wayne's World) is a startling look at crime amid
normalcy.

--------------------

1)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/court-overturns-prop-8-california-says-state\
-t-181451250.html
Court overturns Prop. 8 in California, says state can't ban gay marriage

By Liz Goodwin | The Lookout - Tuesday 07 February 2012

The 9th Circuit Court in California struck down the state's voter-passed ban on
gay marriage, ruling 2-1 that it violates the rights of gay Californians.

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the
status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially
reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex
couples," Judge Reinhardt wrote in the decision. The Court concludes that the
law violates the 14th Amendment rights of gay couples to equal protection under
the law. Gay marriage will still not be allowed in the state, leaving time for
Prop 8 defenders to challenge the decision.

The Circuit Court backed up District Judge Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled in
August of 2010 that the state of California has no "rational basis" to single
out gay men and women as ineligible for marriage. The group fighting for
Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 after thousands of gay couples had already
married, appealed Walker's decision arguing that it should be vacated because
Walker is gay and has a long-time same-sex partner. The 9th Circuit Court judges
denied this motion.

Walker's sweeping 2010 decision was called a "grand slam" by gay rights
advocates, who hoped it would convince the Supreme Court to decide that states
cannot outlaw gay marriage. But Reinhardt was explicit in his decision that his
court's decision is "narrow" and only relates to California, not to the entire
nation. In California, gay people had the right to marry for several months
before it was taken away from them by a majority of voters. This amounts to a
violation of equal protection because a right was specifically taken away from a
minority group, Reinhardt writes. But this argument would not apply to gay
people in other states.

The pro-Prop. 8 camp has said it will appeal the decision. The group can now ask
that all 11 members of the 9th Circuit hear their case, instead of just the
panel of three who decided against them on Tuesday.

----------

My comment ---
Celebrate lightly.  Watch what the rightwing does.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-marriage-20120205,0,2641047.\
story
Editorial

Faith-based tolerance on gay marriage
In a blog post, a Washington state senator and committed Christian explains her
vote for gay marriage.
February 5, 2012

Washington state is promenading down a controversial aisle that's familiar to
Californians after its Senate approved a bill last week legalizing same-sex
marriage. The lower house and the governor are expected to approve the bill as
well. But such civil rights victories can be fleeting, as Californians learned
after a court decision legalizing gay marriage was overturned by Proposition 8
in 2008. A similar battle is looming in Washington, where opponents plan to
gather signatures for a November ballot initiative declaring marriage to be
reserved for opposite-sex couples only.
It will be interesting to see whether Washington will ultimately join the six
other states (plus the District of Columbia) that allow gay marriage. As the
debate rages, it's worthwhile for people on both sides to take a close look at
one very thoughtful memo written by a very emotionally divided lawmaker.

State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen is a committed Christian who was a swing vote on
Washington's gay-marriage bill. When she finally decided to vote yes late last
month, she wrote a blog post explaining her reasons, which beautifully lays out
the case for why people of faith should set aside their personal prejudices in
the name of equality.

"I have very strong Christian beliefs, and personally I have always said when I
accepted the Lord, I became more tolerant of others," Haugen wrote. "I stopped
judging people and try to live by the Golden Rule. This is part of my decision.
I do not believe it is my role to judge others, regardless of my personal
beliefs. It's not always easy to do that. For me personally, I have always
believed in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. That is what I
believe, to this day. But this issue isn't about just what I believe. It's about
respecting others, including people who may believe differently than I. It's
about whether everyone has the same opportunities for love and companionship and
family and security that I have enjoyed."

Cynics will argue that Haugen, as a Democrat, made a political decision in line
with her party's ideology rather than a personal one. Yet she is a Democrat in a
conservative-leaning district, and her vote took courage. If one takes her at
her word, she is a lawmaker who has taken seriously her responsibility to guard
the rights of her constituents. She isn't the only one; Washington Gov. Chris
Gregoire, a Catholic, was a longtime opponent of gay marriage who changed her
views after years of internal debate, and is now an enthusiastic supporter. Yes,
we can all get along - once people of all faiths understand that there's nothing
morally upright about discrimination.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


3)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/blankfein-to-speak-out-for-same-sex-marri\
age/?pagemode=print
February 5, 2012, 8:02 pm
Blankfein to Speak Out for Same-Sex Marriage
By SUSANNE CRAIG

Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief of Goldman Sachs who has become a lightning rod
for Wall Street critics, might seem an unlikely advocate for same-sex marriage.
But his credentials - a public figure in a conservative industry - could make
him a powerful voice for that cause.

The Human Rights Campaign, a national organization that promotes equal rights
for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, has persuaded Mr. Blankfein
to be its first national corporate spokesman for same-sex marriage, an issue
that will come up for a legislative vote in several states this year, including
Washington and Maryland. Fred Sainz, an executive with the Human Rights
Campaign, said the organization sought Mr. Blankfein, in part, because he is "an
unexpected messenger."

"Lloyd Blankfein is not someone average Americans would think is going to
support marriage equality," Mr. Sainz said. "The green visor crowd is not
typically associated with socially progressive policies, and this is further
proof that a diversity of Americans are coming to the same conclusion."

With this national campaign, Mr. Blankfein is stepping onto a prominent and
politically charged stage - at a time when his public persona is suffering. In
recent years, he has been pilloried for outsize pay packages and rewarding the
type of risk-taking that led to the financial crisis.

Kathy Willens/Associated PressLloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman
Sachs, is stepping onto a prominent and politically charged stage.
As the tumult fades, industry watchers are wondering about his second act. Mr.
Blankfein, who has run Goldman since 2006, is one of the longest-tenured chief
executives on Wall Street, and speculation is mounting that he will hand over
the reins to a deputy this year.

Although he has long supported same-sex marriage, his move could be seen as a
public relations play, albeit one with unclear results. The affiliation with a
liberal organization could also alienate conservatives who do business with the
firm.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Blankfein declined to comment.

Paul A. Argenti, a professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of
Business at Dartmouth, says Mr. Blankfein's decision isn't likely to have any
positive impact on the reputation of the firm - or Mr. Blankfein.

"If you are a Goldman employee and you are gay or contemplating coming out, this
is great," he said. But for Goldman and Mr. Blankfein, the issue of same-sex
marriage has nothing to do with what Goldman Sachs does. "If Mr. Blankfein was
taking a radical stand on pay you could say wow, that's big. But equality is
simply not an issue you associate with Goldman."

Still, the campaign is sure to turn heads on Wall Street, which despite having
made progress on equality issues over the last decade, is still considered to be
a male-dominated, testosterone-driven place.

Behind the scenes, Mr. Blankfein has long been a supporter of same-sex marriage.
Last year, he signed a letter urging state lawmakers to vote for a bill
legalizing same-sex marriage and encouraged other chief executives to do the
same. He also called lawmakers directly on the matter. The New York Legislature
passed the law last summer.

Under Mr. Blankfein's guidance, Goldman has also pushed employment policies that
promote equality. It reimburses employees for the extra taxes they pay on
domestic partner benefits. In 2002, the company made headlines for offering
gender reassignment operations to employees.

At a dinner on Saturday in New York the Human Rights Campaign awarded Goldman
its corporate equality award.

Now, Mr. Blankfein is taking his support one step further by speaking out on the
issue.

"Most of the firms on the Fortune 500 list have all the right policies but when
you ask them to take a public stance 99 percent are not willing to do it," said
Todd G. Sears, a former Merrill Lynch stockbroker turned diversity advisor, who
runs an industry group called Out on the Street.

The Human Rights Campaign approached Mr. Blankfein in November through a gay
executive at Goldman, and he was immediately receptive to the idea, according to
people briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly. As part of a
national effort, Mr. Blankfein, wearing a crisp white shirt and red-patterned
tie, appears in 32-second Web spot intended to drum up support and donations.

"I'm Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, and I support
marriage equality," Mr. Blankfein says in the spot, which was recorded at the
bank's headquarters in downtown Manhattan. "America's corporations learned long
ago that equality is just good business and is the right thing to do."

For years, the organization has attracted a notable list of representatives,
including Barbara Bush, the daughter of the former President George W. Bush, and
the hockey player Sean Avery. Steve Tisch, a businessman and co-owner of the New
York Giants, took part in a campaign to legalize gay marriage in New York last
year.

But Mr. Blankfein's participation is part of a new national effort by the Human
Rights Campaign to enlist atypical advocates. One set of videos highlighted
prominent black Americans, a demographic with especially low support for
same-sex marriage. Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark and the comedian and actress
Mo'Nique were among the African-Americans who participated. Mr. Blankfein is the
first corporate chieftain to represent the organization.

----------

Lloyd Blankfein for Americans for Marriage Equality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cSv5bXC2ANg
Read the comments posted at this youtube.

----------

See also
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2012/01/mazel-tov-to-danny-odonne\
ll-and-his-new-spouse

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/komen-drops-plan-cut-planned-parenthood-grants-163643930.h\
tml
Komen drops plan to cut Planned Parenthood grants
By DAVID CRARY | Associated Press - Friday 03 February 2012

NEW YORK (AP) - After three days of controversy, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure
breast-cancer charity says it is reversing its decision to cut breast-screening
grants to Planned Parenthood.

"We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast
doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives," a Komen
statement said.

As first reported by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Komen had adopted criteria
excluding Planned Parenthood from grants because it was under government
investigation, notably a probe launched in Congress at the urging of
anti-abortion groups.

Komen said Friday it would change the criteria so it wouldn't apply to such
investigations.

"We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned
Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants," the
statement said.

----------

My comment ---
This is the best slap in the face to the rightwing imaginable.  Especially to
the "Family Research Council", the political mouthpiece of the Southern Baptist
church.

I wonder how much money (donations) Komen lost. I wonder how much money
(donations) Planned Parenthood won.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


5)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166076/komens-ambiguous-apology
Komen's Ambiguous Apology
Katha Pollitt on February 3, 2012 - 6:32pm ET
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation must have been totally unprepared for
the firestorm provoked by its announcement that it was severing its long
relationship with Planned Parenthood, which for at least five years had been
receiving grants to provide low-income women with breast exams and mammogram
referrals. Komen showed itself to be both dishonest and ridiculous: there was
its initial long silence over the decision, followed by a flurry of flimsy and
inconsistent explanations-first it was that Planned Parenthood was being
investigated by Representative Cliff Stearns; then it was a change in criteria
for funding. And what PR genius advised it to childishly delete negative
comments on its Facebook page? Result: Planned Parenthood was deluged with
donations to keep its breast care services going, including a $250,000 matching
grant from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; twenty-two senators signed a
critical statement; there were resignations among staffers and open rebellion
among volunteers. Andrea Mitchell's interview with Nancy Brinker on MSNBC was as
close to open distaste as that very polite journalist ever gets. Mitchell is
herself a breast cancer survivor, and the expression on her face as she
questioned Brinker was as if she were steeling herself to pick up a dead mouse.

The massive show of prochoice strength worked. Friday morning Komen released a
statement apologizing for its decision and acknowledging the unfairness of
cutting off PP because of the Stearns investigation: "We will amend the criteria
to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive
in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair." (Forget for the
moment that Brinker denied the investigation had anything to do with the ban on
PP). This is excellent news: Komen has in essence admitted that the Stearns
probe is politically motivated, which must sting recently hired senior VP for
public policy Karen Handel, who publicly favored defunding PP when she ran as a
Palin-endorsed candidate in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary.

But the rest of the statement is less clear. It continues:

   We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned
Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while
maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet
the needs of their communities.

This has widely been taken to mean Komen has backed down completely, i.e., will
return to making grants to PP. But look more closely: that is not what it says.
Komen says only that it will fund "existing grants"-that means, it will fund
grants it has already formally agreed to make. Well, it is legally required to
do that, isn't it? It can't rescind a grant on the basis of a rule made after
the grant was offered. The original banning always referred to the future, and
as to that, Komen says only that PP can apply for funding, not that Komen will
continue to make grants to it as it has for many years. Nothing prevents Komen
from altering its criteria in ways designed to exclude PP-for example, as
Brinker suggested to Mitchell, deciding against funding breast care outside of
mammogram centers.

And what about the bit about allowing affiliates "to make funding decisions that
meet the needs of their communities?" Does that mean affiliates will be free to
refuse to support PP, setting the stage for state and local anti-choice takeover
efforts? It's all rather unclear, and much too soon to declare victory and go
home. It could mean a lesson well learned-but it could be just spin. After all,
Handel, whoever hired her and whoever approved the original ban on PP are still
there.

Nonetheless, this is a real win for pro-choicers. We hear so much anti-choice
propaganda, we may not always remember that, actually, Planned Parenthood is not
sketchy and controversial out there in mainstream America. It is beloved.
Beloved. Note the relief- and gratitude-saturated testimonies like the ones
collected practically overnight by the social media activist Deanna Zandt at the
Tumblr site Planned Parenthood Saved Me. And it is beloved most of all by women
who care a lot about women's health-among whom Komen volunteers figure
prominently. Breast cancer activism began as a feminist cause, after all: the
initial impetus, back when Komen was founded in 1982, was the silence and shame
surrounding the disease, the lack of research funding and the general sexism
pervading treatment. Those are all feminist issues, and were structured as such
in public discourse at the time. It was like Our Bodies, Ourselves in action.

Komen miscalculated by thinking its base cares only about breast cancer: in
fact, those women in pink t-shirts and sneakers, raising their thousands upon
thousands of dollars a year for breast cancer research, understand quite well
that women's health means more than tumor-free breasts. If Komen understood that
but thought-and maybe still thinks-it can deceive those activists, or gradually
shed them and acquire a whole other, equally dedicated, base of anti-choicers,
it will dwindle and die. Anti-choicers are not interested in breast cancer
activism; they're interested in stopping abortion. They proved that by their
eagerness to deprive of breast care women for whom PP was the only available
option.

How things now stand: by Friday afternoon, PP was reporting that it has raised
$3,000,000 since the Komen story broke. Meanwhile, just in time for February,
Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Komen is partnering with Discount Gun Sales, a
Seattle distributor, to market a pink handgun. Because nothing says "pro-life"
like a Walther P-22 Hope Edition.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


6)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166094/how-citizens-united-allows-super-wealthy-bu\
y-elections
How 'Citizens United' Allows the Super-Wealthy to Buy Elections
Christopher Hayes on February 6, 2012 - 4:09pm ET

  --- video at URL ---
On Up With Chris Hayes this Saturday, Chris Hayes argued that the FEC's 2011
filings prove what we always expected to be true: "that the new Super Pacs exist
chiefly as an instrument for the extremely wealthy to funnel massive amounts of
cash into influencing the outcome of our elections." In this hour, he also
considers consumers' responses to working conditions at Apple's supplier
factories and a retired NYPD officer's views on the country's drug war.

-Erin Schikowski


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------



7)
http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-blasts-obamas-birth-control-policy-outrageous-ass\
ault-185849814--abc-news.html
Gingrich Blasts Obama's Birth Control Policy as 'Outrageous Assault' on Religion
By Amy Bingham | ABC OTUS News - Monday 06 February 2012

Newt Gingrich upped his attacks against President Obama on Sunday over his
administration's requirement that some religious hospitals offer co-pay-free
birth control under the new health care law.

Gingrich's comments come after a week of outrage from the Catholic Church and
his fellow GOP presidential candidates over the policy.

"This is a tremendous infringement of religious liberty," Newt Gingrich said on
NBC's "Meet the Press." "Every time you turn around the secular government is
shrinking the rights of religious institutions in America."

While the policy was proposed in August, the issue resurfaced last week after
Catholic churches across America read letters from the church's leadership last
Sunday condemning the administration's policy.

The letters came in response to a Jan. 20 announcement that Catholic hospitals
where the majority of employees are not Catholic will be required under the new
law to provide free contraception.

"The fact is what you're saying is there cannot be a genuine Catholic hospital,"
said Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism in 2009. "It will have to be
subordinated to a secular government."

Gingrich, also appearing today on CBS's "Face the Nation," added that the policy
proved that the Obama administration was at "war" with the Catholic church and
launching "the most outrageous assault on religious freedom in American
history."

The former House speaker said policies such as this prove that Obama is "so
unacceptable" that he will support his rival Mitt Romney in the general election
if the former Massachusetts governor is the Republican nominee.

"I believe President Obama is such a direct threat to the future of this country
that I will support the Republican nominee because I believe that President
Obama is a disaster," Gingrich said.

But with the primary season still raging on, Gingrich vowed that his campaign
was nowhere near over.

The former speaker finished a distant second behind Romney Saturday in the
Nevada caucuses, but said today on "Meet the Press" that he will be in "much
more favorable territory" by Super Tuesday, when his home state of Georgia goes
to the polls.

Gingrich vowed that "by the time Texas is over, we'll be very, very competitive
in delegate count."

Texas's primary is currently set for April 3, but a Supreme Court legal battle
over the Lone Star state's redistricting maps threatens to delay the primary
until later in the year.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


8)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-americans-ditch-home-ownership-170442133.html
Rich Americans Ditch Home Ownership For Renting
CNBC - Thu, Feb 2, 2012 12:04 PM EST

Patrick Lee went from homeowner to home renter this year.

It may sound like a downgrade, but the New Yorker didn't make the switch because
he couldn't keep up with payments or because he lost his job. Instead, Lee was
nervous about the state of the housing market.


So in March he sold the Manhattan apartment he bought in 2008 for about the same
price he paid and moved - along with his wife and child - a few steps away into
a luxury, two-bedroom rental unit in a brand new building.

Lee wouldn't disclose what he's paying, but similar two-bedroom apartments in
the building usually rent for $11,000 a month.

"I wanted to protect ourselves from prices going down," says Lee, who is a
managing director at a major bank. "I didn't want to be an owner anymore."

Lee has company. Demand for luxury rental units has increased as wealthier
individuals who can afford to buy are deciding not to, according to brokers and
real estate analysts in affluent areas of the country such as New York City,
Chicago and San Francisco.

"More affluent Americans are opting to rent as oppose to buy," says Jack McCabe,
an independent real estate analyst and CEO of McCabe Research and Consulting in
Deerfield Beach, Fla. "Within the last year, so many people have seen their
family and friends get burned in real estate. They don't see it as being a risk
free investment as they used to."

And they're paying top dollar to rent.


In Manhattan the demand for high-end rentals has never been hotter. In the third
quarter of 2010 there were 200 new leases signed for rentals charging $10,000 a
month and up, more than double the 89 leases signed the year before, according
to Jonathan Miller, CEO and president of New York City-based real estate
appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel.

What's considered luxury in New York City? Currently on the market now at The
Corner, Lee's new address, are a couple of three-bedroom apartments ranging from
$14,800-$20,000 a month. At The Anthrop, another luxury building in Manhattan, a
3,331-square-foot four bedroom unit rents for $18,000.

Miller says that while high-end sales have picked up recently in Manhattan, the
increased demand for luxury rentals shows that more would-be buyers are
concerned and taking the "wait and see approach."

The demand is also being seen in Marin County, right across the Golden Gate
Bridge from San Francisco.

Last year, the phones at Foundation Rentals & Relocation office were ringing
constantly with high-end homeowners wanting to rent property that they couldn't
sell, but no one was interested in renting them.

Now the firm is getting calls from executives, especially in the technology
sector, looking to move into a rental.

"They're entrepreneurs. They would rather put their cash in their business,"
says Darcy Barrow, who founded the firm with her husband Christopher Barrow.

"And get a greater return," adds Christopher.

This year, the firm handled a rental house with an 8-car garage for $12,500 a
month. Another 6,500-square-foot, five-bedroom home is renting for $11,900. They
also have a 2,658-square-foot town house on the market, boasting views of San
Francisco for $7,000 a month.


"When I tell people I rent homes for $10,000, people ask, 'Why would anybody
rent at that price?,'" says Darcy. "They're accustomed to a certain lifestyle.
Just because they choose to rent, doesn't mean they're going to rent a two
bedroom."

In Chicago, Aaron Galvin, the broker and owner of rental agency Luxury Living
Chicago, says that he has rented 30 percent more luxury apartments in 2010 than
last year.

Luxury in Chicago means anything over $3,000 a month, and a building with
amenities like granite kitchen counters, stainless steel appliances and washing
machines and dryers in the unit, says Galvin.

A recent client sold a multi-million dollar home in the suburbs to move into a
rental building, waiting to buy a property until she got a feel for the
neighborhood.

"The cachet that came with owning seems to be gone now," he says.

The same is happening in south Florida.

Chris Wells, a broker working in the Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Coconut Cove area,
says he has seen "skepticism" from would-be buyers, who ultimately decide to
rent a home before making a purchase, easily spending about $8,000 to $15,000 a
month, because they are waiting to see if home prices continue to fall.

"In Florida, we're really not out of the recession yet," says McCabe, the
analyst. "There is no urgency to buy."

Lee says that he's the first of his peers to make the switch to renting. But
that doesn't mean they don't want to.

"I suspect a lot of people are underwater and can't get out," says Lee. "A lot
of people are just stuck."

He says he doesn't regret selling his apartment and moving to a rental,
especially since the building he lives in has all the amenities and handiwork of
his previous place. And he can rest easier knowing that if he has to relocate
for his job, he can leave without having the burden of trying to sell an
apartment.

"With so much uncertainty," says Lee, "It gives me a lot of peace of mind."

----------

My comment ---
The rich get richer.  Cleaver move -- since all financial hell is about to break
lose.
It's like throwing the dice.

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) One Town's War on Gay Teens
2) The right's stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left
3) A Sense of Community -- nonbelievers
4) Navy SEAL Commander Advised to 'Get the Hell Out of the Media'
5) After Rick Santorum's Sweep, How Worried Should Mitt Romney Be?



1)
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/328-121/9792-one-towns-war-on-gay-t\
eens
One Town's War on Gay Teens
By Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone

04 February 12

   In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme
anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back.

Every morning, Brittany Geldert stepped off the bus and bolted through the
double doors of Fred Moore Middle School, her nerves already on high alert,
bracing for the inevitable.

"Dyke."

--- click on URL to continue ---

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/06/right-stupidity-spreads-enab\
led-polite-left
[ picture at URL ]
The right's stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left
Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is
made by those too timid to properly object

George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 February 2012 15.30 EST

Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand
back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the
right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in
isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout
stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they
no longer possess a vocabulary.
Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the
exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian
study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed
that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence.
Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British
readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side
is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not
unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.

It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that
low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people
of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility,
trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities.
Understanding and accepting others - particularly "different" others - requires
an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.

But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education
and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust.
Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low
intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low
intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low
intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to
"rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the
maintenance of the status quo". Even for someone not yet renowned for liberal
reticence, this feels hard to write.

This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very
clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and
writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting
rightwing ideologies.

But what we now see among their parties - however intelligent their guiding
spirits may be - is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism.
On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that
there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it.
Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US,
that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy,
or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the
basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues,
David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that "conservatives
have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own
history, its own laws of economics". The result is a "shift to ever more
extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology" which has "ominous real-world
consequences for American society".

Lofgren complains that "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the
vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing
anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the
"low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office
holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they
peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry
low-information political base".

The madness hasn't gone as far in the UK, but the effects of the Conservative
appeal to stupidity are making themselves felt. This week the Guardian reported
that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as
scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level
of hostility and threats from other people.

These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party
elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed
interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The
regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an
assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate
change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord
Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers:
now the authentic voices of the working class.

But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted
with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank
laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire, triangulate and accommodate,
hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness". They
fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or to make
an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The
conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities
of liberalism.

Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information. But the
liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off,
yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It's turkeys all the way down.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

----------

My comment -- It's about time this is discussed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


3)
http://www.wholelifemagazine.com/blog/?p=3303
A Sense of Community
By Kara Bachman

Free-thought parenting can often be a lonely affair. Where those affiliated with
an organized religious faith often find a strong sense of camaraderie from their
involvement, those with free-thought leanings-i.e. atheists, agnostics, deists,
humanists and members of other non-theist groups-sometimes find themselves
feeling a bit isolated, and without a community to lean on.

Raising children is difficult under any circumstances. It is even more so,
however, for the parent who is not connected with an organized church tradition.
Many non-theist parents encounter questions such as:
. Does my child need to be exposed to other religious traditions? And if so,
what is the best way to accomplish this?
. Is it appropriate to send my non-theist child to a religiously oriented
private school?
. How do I teach my child to live among theists, and represent his/her viewpoint
effectively? How should he/she deal with those who are intolerant?
. How do I gain a sense of belonging for my child in lieu of a church
environment?
. How do I meet like-minded families, so my child can find understanding among
peers?
. If not through religion, then how do I impart to my child a sense of
spirituality?
. How do I find for my child non-theist role models in the larger culture?

Many non-believing, non-theist or Humanist families are unaware that resources
exist. But rest assured, they do! There is a rapidly increasing interest in
secular childrearing. Following is a list of helpful publications, groups and
websites that can answer questions, generate ideas and help form community for
families who identify themselves as being part of the growing freethought
movement.

. A tremendous starting point is a collection of essays, Parenting Beyond
Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, by Dale McGowan and
Michael Shermer. Barely a stone is unturned in these essays, written by everyone
from scientist Richard Dawkins to comedian Julia Sweeney, to magician and vocal
freethinker Penn Jillette. This collection includes pieces with a wide range of
views on parenting topics, and the essays range from the creative, to the
philosophical, to the practical. There is also a useful companion forum.

. Think Atheist" has a radio show, as well as an interesting parenting section
on their forum at ThinkAtheist.com.

. The American Humanist Association is developing a parenting section at their
website: Here you can find reviews of children's books for freethinking kids and
read research data on religious vs. non-religious parenting.

. Although technically considered to be an organized religious faith, the
Unitarian Universalist Church does not require theistic belief systems for
participation. Many freethinking families who want to introduce their children
to a church environment without compromising their principles find solace in the
sense of community afforded by the UU church.

. Check your local Meetup groups. Meetup.com abounds in secular parenting
groups, Humanist clubs, atheist and freethinker clubs, philosophy book clubs,
and even, occasionally, playgroups for freethinking parents and their young
children. You never know-a kindred spirit could be living right next door!

Hopefully, these resources can be used as a jumping off point in exploring what
lies out there on the web and elsewhere. Even without an organized faith, there
is no reason that the parenting journey needs to be a lonely one. And more
important, there is no reason why freethinking children should ever have to go
it alone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


4)
http://news.yahoo.com/navy-seal-commander-advised-hell-media-204338410--abc-news\
.html
Navy SEAL Commander Advised to 'Get the Hell Out of the Media'
By Huma Khan | ABC News - Tuesday -7 February 2012

A retired general today assailed the commander of the Navy SEAL raid that killed
Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he
argued should be kept under wraps.

Special Operations Commander Adm. Bill McRaven was confronted by retired Lt.
Gen. James Vaught, who said he didn't understand why the recent raids by the
Navy SEALs, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage
Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media.

"Since the time when your wonderful team went and drug bin Laden out and got rid
of him, and more recently when you went down and rescued the group in Somalia,
or wherever the hell they were, they've been splashing all of this all over the
media," Vaught, 85, said. "I flat don't understand that.

"Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam [Hussein] from the hole, we
didn't say one damn word about it," he continued. "We turned him over to the
local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole,
and he did so. And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut.

"Now I'm going to tell you, one of these days, if you keep publishing how you do
this, the other guy's going to be there ready for you, and you're going to fly
in and he's going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your
SEALs. Now, watch it happen. Mark my words. Get the hell out of the media," he
concluded, as laughter broke out at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial
Association in Washington, D.C.

Vaught commanded the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1979.
Eight service members died and four were injured in "Operation Eagle Claw" when
the helicopters on the mission collided in the remote Iranian desert. Vaught,
whose role made him the first commander of Delta Force, was not active duty
during the Hussein raid, which was also conducted by the Delta Force, the
secretive counterterrorism unit.

McRaven jokingly responded that he became a Navy SEAL because his sister was
dating a special forces member and because he was infatuated with John Wayne's
movie, "The Green Beret."

"The fact of the matter is, there have always been portrayals of SOF [Special
Operations Forces] out in the mainstream media," he said. "We are in an
environment today where we can't get away from it. It is not something that we
actively pursue, as I think a number of the journalists here in the audience
will confirm. But the fact of the matter is, with the social media being what it
is today, with the press and the 24-hour news cycle, it's very difficult to get
away from it."

He added that it was difficult to avoid media coverage in today's 24-hour news
cycle and that it could actually help Navy SEALs do their job better.

"We have had a few failures. And I think having those failures exposed in the
media also kind of helps focus our attention, helps us do a better job. So
sometimes the criticism . the spotlight on us actually makes us better," McRaven
said.

The Navy SEALs have received heavy media attention in the past year thanks to
the bin Laden raid and the rescue in Somalia. A movie titled "Act for Valor"
focusing on the elite special operations force is due for release next month and
Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is making a movie about the raid
that killed the world's most wanted man.

McRaven was in Washington, D.C., today talking about an expansion in the role of
special operations forces in Afghanistan. Special operations troops, McRaven
said, would likely be the last to leave the country and the Pentagon is even
considering a new special operations command, but that has not been decided yet.

"I have no doubt that special operations will be the last to leave Afghanistan,"
McRaven said. "As far as anything beyond that, we're exploring a lot of
options."

ABC News' Meg Fowler contributed to this report.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/rick-santorums-sweep-worried-mitt-romney-1\
31103312--abc-news.html
After Rick Santorum's Sweep, How Worried Should Mitt Romney Be?
By George Stephanopoulos | ABC News Blogs - Wednesday 08 February 2012

I put that question to ABC News' political contributor Matt Dowd this morning.
He summed up Mitt Romney's standing in the Republican race after Rick Santorum's
three state win like this:

"After Florida [Romney] thought he had gotten engaged and a wedding date was set
and the voters gave him his ring back and said 'We're going to flirt with this
guy from Pittsburgh for a while,'" Dowd said on "GMA." "I mean it's an amazing
turn of events for Mitt Romney. He thought he had this done."

Watch our analysis of the race here:

--- click on URL to watch the video ---

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) Ellen breaks silence on furor over J.C. Penney gig
2) Washington state lawmakers pass gay marriage bill
3) Church's lectures link evolution, creation
4) Netflix -- Zion Canyon: Treasure of the Gods: IMAX
5) Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
6) Are You a Stress Eater?


EXTRA -- found on another list ---
When MSNBC wants a Christian perspective on politics, they turn to Tony Perkins
of the Family Research Council, a right-wing hate group that falsely accuses
gays and lesbians of child molestation.

This year, Tony Perkins has appeared on MSNBC more often than Fox News. He's
been on Hardball so often that Chris Matthews is now introducing him as "my old
pal." And not once has a progressive Christian appeared on the air with him to
offer a rebuttal.

MSNBC has built its business on progressive viewers, and they need to hear that
we find it unacceptable to provide an unquestioning platform for the religious
right's hatred and fear-mongering.

That's why I just signed a petition urging MSNBC to stop inviting the Family
Research Council on the air to represent the views of people of faith. Will you
join me?

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2518/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9130&t\
ag=tafpg



1)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-ellen-jcpenney-idUSTRE81706W2012020\
8
Ellen breaks silence on furor over J.C. Penney gig
LOS ANGELES | Wed Feb 8, 2012 12:33pm EST

(Reuters) - Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres said she was "proud and happy" that
retail store J.C. Penney had stood by her in the face of a conservative anti-gay
campaign, and said there was no such thing as a "pro-gay bandwagon."

Breaking her silence on the furor, DeGeneres, one of America's best known gay
celebrities, also poked fun at the One Million Moms group who had urged J.C.
Penney to drop her as a spokeswoman because she is a lesbian and said they would
boycott the store.

"For those of you are just tuning in for the first time, it's true. I'm gay. I
hope you were sitting down," DeGeneres told viewers of "The Ellen DeGeneres
Show."

"They (One Million Moms) wanted to get me fired and I am proud and happy to say
that J.C. Penney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson," she
said.

The group, a division of the socially conservative American Family Association,
claimed that J.C. Penney was trying to gain a new target market by "jumping on
the pro-gay bandwagon" with its hiring of DeGeneres to revamp their clothing and
household brand.

"Being gay or pro-gay isn't a bandwagon. You don't get a free ride anywhere.
There's no music. And occasionally we'll sing 'We Are Family' but that's about
it," she said.

She also noted that the One Million Moms group "only have 40,000 members on
their (Facebook) page. So they're rounding up to the nearest million and I get
that."

DeGeneres, who has some 9 million followers on Twitter, said she preferred to
avoid talking about such matters on her show "and normally I try not to pay
attention to my haters, but this time I'd like to talk about it because my
haters are my motivators."

DeGeneres made her comments at a taping on Tuesday for the show that will be
broadcast on Wednesday.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant. editing by Elaine Lies)

----------

see also
http://news.yahoo.com/one-million-moms-jc-penney-fire-ellen-shes-173429894.html
---
see also
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/ellen-degeneres-jc-penney-bill-oreilly_\
n_1263473.html
---
see also http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/idUS272588300620120202

---
see also
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/ellen-degeneres-jc-penney-ceo-addr\
ess-jc-penney-controversy-201292

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


2)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-washington-gay-marriage-20\
120208,0,5884342,full.story
Washington state lawmakers pass gay marriage bill
From the Associated Press, February 8, 2012, 5:20pm

Washington state lawmakers voted to approve gay marriage Wednesday, setting the
stage for the state to become the seventh in the nation to allow same-sex
couples to wed.

The action comes a day after a federal appeals court declared California's ban
on gay marriage unconstitutional, saying it was a violation of the civil rights
of gay and lesbian couples.

The Washington House passed the bill on a 55-43 vote. The state Senate approved
the measure last week. And Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign
the measure into law next week.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Pedersen, a gay lawmaker from Seattle who has sponsored
gay rights bills in the House for several years, said that while he and his
partner were grateful for the rights that existed under the state's current
domestic partnership law, "domestic partnership is a pale and inadequate
substitute for marriage."

Pedersen cited Tuesday's ruling by the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals during his remarks on the House floor.

"The court addressed the question of why marriage matters directly," he said,
and read a section from the ruling that stated "marriage is the name that
society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults."

"I would like for our four children to grow up understanding that their daddy
and their poppa have made that kind of a lifelong commitment to each other," he
said. "Marriage is the word that we use in our society to convey that idea."

Several Republicans argued against the bill, saying that it goes against the
tradition of marriage.

Rep. Jay Rodne of Snoqualmie said that the measure "severs the cultural,
historical and legal underpinnings of the institution of marriage."

"This bill is really an exercise of raw political power," he said. "It
contravenes human nature and it will hurt families and children."

Two Republicans crossed the aisle and voted in favor of the bill. Three
Democrats voted against it. Democrats hold a 56-42 majority in the House.

Rep. Maureen Walsh, a Republican from College Place, said that the bill was a
matter of equality.

"Why in the world would we not allow those equal rights to those individuals who
are truly committed to each other in life?" she asked. She noted that her
daughter told her she was gay a few years ago.

"Nothing's different," she said. "She's still a fabulous human being. And some
day, by God, I want to throw a wedding for that kid."

Gregoire watched from the wings with the bill's sponsor, Democratic Sen. Ed
Murray of Seattle, a gay lawmaker who has spearheaded the domestic partnership
and marriage push in the Legislature.

"I'm happy," Murray said after the vote. "It's a great day for families across
the state. It's a great day for my family."

However, gay couples can't begin walking down the aisle just yet.

The proposal would take effect 90 days after the governor signs the measure but
opponents have promised to fight gay marriage with a ballot measure that would
allow voters to overturn the legislative approval.

If opponents gather enough signatures to take their fight to the ballot box, the
law would be put on hold pending the outcome of a November election.

Otherwise gay couples could wed starting in June.

Washington state has had domestic partnership laws since 2007, and more than a
dozen other states have provisions, ranging from civil unions to gay marriage,
supporting same-sex couples.

Gay marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Vermont and Washington D.C.

Lawmakers in New Jersey are expected to vote on gay marriage next week, and
Maine could see a gay marriage proposal on the November ballot.

Proposed amendments to ban gay marriage will be on the ballots in North Carolina
in May and in Minnesota in November.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled against California's voter-approved
same-sex marriage ban, known as Proposition 8.

The panel gave gay marriage opponents time to appeal the 2-1 decision before
ordering the state to allow same-sex weddings to resume. The judges also said
the decision only applies to California, even though the court has jurisdiction
in nine western states.

Lawyers for the coalition of conservative religious groups that sponsored
Proposition 8 said they have not decided if they will seek a new 9th Circuit
hearing or file an appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Washington state's momentum for same-sex marriage has been building and the
debate has changed significantly since 1998, when lawmakers passed Washington's
Defense of Marriage Act banning gay marriage. The constitutionality of that law
ultimately was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2006. But earlier that year,
a gay civil rights measure passed after nearly 30 years of failure, signaling a
change in the Legislature.

The quick progression of domestic partnership laws in the state came soon after,
with a domestic partnership law in 2007, and two years of expansion that
culminated in 2009 with "everything but marriage" expansion that was upheld by
voters.

In October, a University of Washington poll found that an increasing number of
people in the state support same-sex marriage. About 43 percent of respondents
said they support gay marriage, up from 30 percent in the same poll five years
earlier. Another 22 percent said they support giving identical rights to gay
couples, without calling the unions "marriage."

If a challenge to gay marriage law was on the ballot, 55 percent said they would
vote to uphold the law. And 38 percent said they would vote to reject a gay
marriage law.

The gay marriage bill also has the backing of several prominent Pacific
Northwest businesses, including Microsoft, Nike and Starbucks.

----------

My comment ---
Rightwing "christians" are busy in Washington State right now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


3)
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/faith_and_values/2012/02/10/churchs-lect\
ures-link-evolution-creation.html

Church's lectures link evolution, creation
Acceptance of Darwin doesn't preclude faith in God, minister says
By Meredith Heagney
The Columbus Dispatch Friday February 10, 2012 7:23 AM



The cartoon the pastor projected onto the screen depicted Charles Darwin and
Jesus Christ in a physical struggle, on the verge of strangling each other.

The Rev. Tommy Faris, pastor of University Baptist Church near Ohio State
University, is tired of the idea that you can believe in evolution or God but
not both.

Science and faith are compatible, he said Monday during the first in a series of
lectures on combining scientific and theological views.

Not everyone feels the way Faris does. And the rhetoric could ramp up this year
since controversial topics - the teaching of evolution, stem-cell research,
climate change - often draw attention during presidential campaigns.

Evolution was the topic of University Baptist's program Monday night. While the
scientific community is settled on the theory, some Christians find it troubling
because it doesn't give credit for creating the world and its species to God.

Lawmakers in at least four states are taking steps to hinder the teaching of
evolution in schools. A common tactic is to push bills that require the teaching
of various theories about the origin of life, meaning a district could require
teachers to talk about creationism alongside evolution.

Bills introduced in Indiana, New Hampshire, Missouri and Oklahoma are
challenging evolution's hold on science class. Other groups are trying to stop
them.

To Faris, it's all quibbling. Science and faith are both gifts from God, he told
the audience for the first program in the series "Believers Exploring Science
and Theology."

His congregation was one of 37 to receive a grant from the John Templeton
Foundation, based in Pennsylvania, to bring scientists into houses of worship.
In the coming months, speakers will address stars, ecosystems and
nanotechnology.

On Monday, Kerry Cheesman, a professor of biochemistry and genetics at Capital
University, presented a lively introduction to the theory of evolution -
specifically, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

He said Darwin was a man of faith himself and even took a Bible on his
round-the-world voyage on HMS Beagle, a trip that helped him form the basis of
his theories.

Evolution "in no way eliminates God as the creator of the species," Cheesman
said.

Faris presented the concept of theistic evolution, or the idea that evolution is
the process by which God's activity happens.

"Remember this: Science cannot prove there is no God," he said. "But if you're a
person of religion, you have to remember you can't prove the existence of God."

But theistic evolution ignores the account of creation in the Bible, said
Georgia Purdom, a research scientist and speaker at the Creation Museum in
Petersburg, Ky. Purdom holds a doctorate in molecular genetics from Ohio State
University.

The problem with Faris' view is that "God's word is supreme in the New Testament
and not supreme in the Old Testament," she said. "It's only going to be a matter
of time before other things, like the miracles of Christ, become questionable,
too, if we're taking man's authority over God's word."

It's the fundamentalist, conservative Christians who are at odds with science,
not most churches, said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American
Humanist Association. The group of secularists advocates for the separation of
church and state and a limited religious influence on public life.

Science debates will come up in the general election, he said, because President
Barack Obama and his Republican challenger are likely to be at odds on the
topics.

Information from Religion News Service was included in this story.

mheagney@...

----------

My comment ---
A Southern Baptist trying to enter into the 20th century.  He's got a hundred
years to go.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


4)
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Zion_Canyon_Treasure_of_the_Gods_IMAX/60000565
Zion Canyon: Treasure of the Gods: IMAX
1996  NR  38 minutes
Utah's breathtakingly beautiful national park, with its stunning slot canyons of
sandstone, glows in the IMAX format. Historical re-enactments illustrate the
area's colorful past -- a time when Spanish conquistadors encountered the
Anasazi and Paiute American Indian tribes. The legend of buried Spanish treasure
and rock climbing at Dead Horse Point State Park are part of the cinematic
expedition.

----------

My comment ---
The mis-informed who believe the Bible Creation myth will not like this creation
myth.
This is one of the most stunning national park videos I have ever seen.  It is
totally spiritual.  Creation spiritual -- without the bible.  The historical
re-enactments are excellent.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


5)
http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 26 January 2012 Time: 10:29 AM ET
There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may
simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public
controversy.

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold
prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle,
according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University
in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially
conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress
hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice,
Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any
factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.

Controversy ahead

The findings combine three hot-button topics.

"They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," said Brian Nosek, a
social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not
involved in the study. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and
racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it's
bound to upset somebody."

Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is
more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political
persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]

"The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most
challenging aspect of this," Nosek said, referring to the new study. "It's not
that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists."

Brains and bias

Earlier studies have found links between low levels of education and higher
levels of prejudice, Hodson said, so studying intelligence seemed a logical next
step. The researchers turned to two studies of citizens in the United Kingdom,
one that has followed babies since their births in March 1958, and another that
did the same for babies born in April 1970. The children in the studies had
their intelligence assessed at age 10 or 11; as adults ages 30 or 33, their
levels of social conservatism and racism were measured. [Life's Extremes:
Democrat vs. Republican]

In the first study, verbal and nonverbal intelligence was measured using tests
that asked people to find similarities and differences between words, shapes and
symbols. The second study measured cognitive abilities in four ways, including
number recall, shape-drawing tasks, defining words and identifying patterns and
similarities among words. Average IQ is set at 100.

Social conservatives were defined as people who agreed with a laundry list of
statements such as "Family life suffers if mum is working full-time," and
"Schools should teach children to obey authority." Attitudes toward other races
were captured by measuring agreement with statements such as "I wouldn't mind
working with people from other races." (These questions measured overt
prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter how egalitarian, do hold
unconscious racial biases; Hodson's work can't speak to this "underground"
racism.)

As suspected, low intelligence in childhood corresponded with racism in
adulthood. But the factor that explained the relationship between these two
variables was political: When researchers included social conservatism in the
analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains and
bias.

People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people of other
races.

"This finding is consistent with recent research demonstrating that intergroup
contact is mentally challenging and cognitively draining, and consistent with
findings that contact reduces prejudice," said Hodson, who along with his
colleagues published these results online Jan. 5 in the journal Psychological
Science.

A study of averages

Hodson was quick to note that the despite the link found between low
intelligence and social conservatism, the researchers aren't implying that all
liberals are brilliant and all conservatives stupid. The research is a study of
averages over large groups, he said.

"There are multiple examples of very bright conservatives and not-so-bright
liberals, and many examples of very principled conservatives and very intolerant
liberals," Hodson said.

Nosek gave another example to illustrate the dangers of taking the findings too
literally.

"We can say definitively men are taller than women on average," he said. "But
you can't say if you take a random man and you take a random woman that the man
is going to be taller. There's plenty of overlap."

Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might
appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.

"Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," Hodson
said, explaining why these beliefs might draw those with low intelligence.
"Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."

In another study, this one in the United States, Hodson and Busseri compared 254
people with the same amount of education but different levels of ability in
abstract reasoning. They found that what applies to racism may also apply to
homophobia. People who were poorer at abstract reasoning were more likely to
exhibit prejudice against gays. As in the U.K. citizens, a lack of contact with
gays and more acceptance of right-wing authoritarianism explained the link. [5
Myths About Gay People Debunked]

Simple viewpoints

Hodson and Busseri's explanation of their findings is reasonable, Nosek said,
but it is correlational. That means the researchers didn't conclusively prove
that the low intelligence caused the later prejudice. To do that, you'd have to
somehow randomly assign otherwise identical people to be smart or dumb, liberal
or conservative. Those sorts of studies obviously aren't possible.

The researchers controlled for factors such as education and socioeconomic
status, making their case stronger, Nosek said. But there are other possible
explanations that fit the data. For example, Nosek said, a study of left-wing
liberals with stereotypically na�ve views like "every kid is a genius in his or
her own way," might find that people who hold these attitudes are also less
bright. In other words, it might not be a particular ideology that is linked to
stupidity, but extremist views in general.

"My speculation is that it's not as simple as their model presents it," Nosek
said. "I think that lower cognitive capacity can lead to multiple simple ways to
represent the world, and one of those can be embodied in a right-wing ideology
where 'People I don't know are threats' and 'The world is a dangerous place'.
... Another simple way would be to just assume everybody is wonderful."

Prejudice is of particular interest because understanding the roots of racism
and bias could help eliminate them, Hodson said. For example, he said, many
anti-prejudice programs encourage participants to see things from another
group's point of view. That mental exercise may be too taxing for people of low
IQ.

"There may be cognitive limits in the ability to take the perspective of others,
particularly foreigners," Hodson said. "Much of the present research literature
suggests that our prejudices are primarily emotional in origin rather than
cognitive. These two pieces of information suggest that it might be particularly
fruitful for researchers to consider strategies to change feelings toward
outgroups," rather than thoughts.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas.
Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter
@livescience and on Facebook.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


6)
http://www.lifescript.com/diet-fitness/tips/a/are_you_a_stress_eater.aspx

http://www.lifescript.com/diet-fitness/tips/a/are_you_a_stress_eater.aspx?p=1

Are You a Stress Eater?
By John H. Sklare, Ed.D, Lifescript Personal Coach
http://www.lifescript.com/experts/john_sklare.aspx

Published February 08, 2012
Part 2 of my 8-part series on emotional eating begins by addressing the most
common issue that leads to diet disaster and weight-loss failure: Stress!

Stress eating is common among those who have difficulty controlling their
weight. It's actually been found to be the No. 1 issue that interferes with
weight loss. My research with my Inner Diet program also shows that a whopping
74% of all overweight people stress eat to some degree.

The bottom line for stress eaters? Until they deal with this issue, they're
unlikely to succeed at weight loss.

Simply put, these people habitually overeat in response to stress. It's an
emotional coping mechanism. They self-medicate themselves with unhealthy food to
reduce tension.

A bad day at work, an argument with your mate, dealing with unruly children or
the boredom of being stuck in the house all day are all examples of things that
can trigger stress eating.

As you know, however, the sad truth is that eating in response to stressful
situations always makes you feel worse, and then you eat even more. The end
result is a cyclical stress-eating pattern that causes extra stress, added
tension and more weight gain.

Unfortunately, stress is an unavoidable part of everyone's life. Physically,
stress presents itself in a variety of ways, including fatigue, neck and back
tension, upset stomachs and headaches, to name just afew. It can also lead to
serious health issues like obesity.

The reality is that stress is your body's invisible enemy and, as a result, it
has a powerful influence on your health, weight and eating habits.

You can't totally eliminate stress from your life. But you can learn how to get
stress eating out of your life.

To deal with stress, as well as the stress-eating behavior that typically
follows, I have two examples.

One simple stress-management technique is called Progressive Muscle Relaxation.
It involves alternately tensing and relaxing the various muscle groups
throughout your body.

You typically begin by sitting or lying down in a comfortable position, closing
your eyes, taking some deep breaths and then tensing and relaxing specific
groups of muscles in a predetermined and orderly sequence.

Most professionals suggest beginning with your hands and then moving to your
arms, shoulders, neck, head, torso, legs and finally your feet. This is a
tried-and-true technique for creating relaxation by reducing the overall
physical stress and tension in your body.

An example of how you can specifically address the emotional response
of stress eating can be found in the next example I call the Stress Eating
Challenge.

I've found that one of the easiest ways to identify the stress-eating danger
signs is simply increasing your awareness of exactly when it's about to happen.

Here's an example of how you can increase your awareness of stress eating which,
thereby, puts you in a position to cut it off at the pass and prevent it.
Whenever you're about to eat something, simply rate yourself on the following
three statements:

Stress Eating Challenge

     1) What is the amount of tension that I'm feeling right now?
None 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5 Excessive

     2) I feel if I eat right now, I will be less stressed!
Not At All 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5 Definitely

     3) How truly hungry am I?
Not At All Hungry 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5 Very
Hungry

If you rate yourself 3 to 5 on statements #1 & #2 and less than 4 on statement
#3, you're most likely on the verge of stress eating.

Since awareness is the key to change, this simple technique is often enough to
help you fend off a stress-eating episode. I've been suggesting
this technique for years and many people find it extremely helpful.

The fact that you must literally stop and ask yourself these three questions
before actually eating anything throws the spotlight of awareness on that moment
of truth when that critical decision to eat is made. This activity interrupts
your habitual knee-jerk reaction to stress, throws a spotlight on that moment of
truth and, as a result, gives you the opportunity to make a healthier choice.

And, as I always like to say, "If you can manage that moment, you can solve this
problem!"

As I mentioned earlier, you can't totally eliminate stress from your life, but
you can change the way you react to it.

Eliminating stress eating from your life will make you feel stronger and more
self-confident, as well as greatly improve your chances for successful weight
control.

Stay tuned for Part 3 next Wednesday, where I'll talk about the second most
common emotional eating trigger. Psychological Discomfort.

Wishing You Great Health,
Dr. John H. Sklare

Missed any of Dr. Sklare's series on emotional eating? Find the tips here:
Week 1: An Introduction to 6 Weight-Loss Obstacles

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ellen's traditional values ---
Honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be
treated, and helping those in need.
To me, those are traditional values, and that's what I stand for.

----------

My comment ---
The Southern Baptist church stood for slavery and no women voting.  Now the
third and final point in their unholy trinity is the focus:  Persons born with
homosexual orientation, those who don't know, and those who did choose.

----------

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2012/02/ellen_addresses_her_jcpenney_critics_0208.ph\
p
Ellen Addresses Her JCPenney Critics
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 . Video of the Day

Since the announcement that Ellen would be a new spokesperson for JCPenney,
there's been an outpouring of support. There have also been a handful of
critics. Ellen addressed them head-on in her monologue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2012/02/ellen-degeneres-prop-8-jc-penney.\
html
Ministry of Gossip
The gospel on celebrity and pop culture

Ellen DeGeneres thanks supporters in JCPenney kerfuffle [Poll]
February 8, 2012 |  9:59 am


Ellen DeGeneres used her TV monologue on Wednesday to express her gratitude to
those supporting her against criticism that JCPenney should not keep her as its
spokesperson. She also reminded people that, well, she's gay.

Hey, she is a comedian, people.

The traditional values organization One Million Moms "doesn't think that I
should be the spokesperson because I'm gay," DeGeneres said, and continued in
her trademark deadpan delivery. "For those just tuning in for the first time,
it's true. I'm gay. I hope you were sitting down. I hate to break it to you this
way."

FULL COVERAGE: Prop. 8

One Million Moms defines itself on its Facebook page as "an online activism
campaign which gives mothers an impact with entertainment media decision-makers,
and lets them know we are upset with the messages they are sending our children
and the values being taught."

A week ago, One Million Moms put out a statement asking that JCPenney remove
DeGeneres as its spokesperson, saying in part, "The majority of JC Penney
shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. ... By jumping on
the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and
in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been
faithful to them over all these years." The group asked supporters to make
personal phone calls to the company demanding it lose DeGeneres as its new face.

In thanking JCPenney and others who are supporting her, Ellen defined her own
traditional values: "I want to be clear. ... I stand for honesty, equality,
kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated, and
helping people in need. To me those are traditional values, and that's what I
stand for."

Among those supporting DeGeneres? Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, whom she thanked on
Twitter and also on the show.

"What is the difference between a McCarthy-era communist blacklist in the '50s
and the Million Moms saying, 'Hey, JCPenney and all you other stores, don't you
hire any gay people. Don't you dare.' What is the difference? ..." the news
anchor said Tuesday on "The O'Reilly Factor."

"This JCPenney thing is a witch hunt, and it shouldn't happen."

--- Watch the video and vote at this URL ---

My comment ---
The slaps in the face of the Southern Baptist church are getting better and more
numberous.
Nobody knows how to lie and bear false witness like a Southern Baptist, or an SB
clone.
One Million Moms is just another Southern Baptist political front organization.
You go girls!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



The bazillion moms is not going to like this latest ruling at all ---
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/02/10/422785/11th-circuit-rules-against-couns\
elor-who-condemned-gay-clients/?mobile=nc

11th Circuit Rules Against Counselor Who Condemned Gay Clients
By Zack Ford on Friday Feb 10, 2012 at 10:38 am

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

2-12-12 -- USA
12-2-12 -- just about everywhere else

Why is that?

Dates should always be complete and in order.  12-02-2012.  Everything in order,
with nothing left out.
To be more clear, how about 12 Feb 2012.

----------

About half the planet drives on the right side, while the other half drives on
the left.

Why is that?

----------

One thing for sure: shop at JCPenny.  DO NOT shop at Target.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



Total straight man sickness.  I knew the man killed his wife first time I saw
him on TV.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-11/powell-funeral/53049794/1
Family, teachers remember Powell boys

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


EDITORIAL
Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/fl-gay-marriage-editorial-gs-20120211,0,5145\
237.story
Supremes should OK gay marriage
February 11, 2012

Sooner, rather than later, the issue of gay marriage is going to wind up in the
United States Supreme Court. It took another step in that direction this week,
when a federal appeals court struck down California's ban on gay marriage.

There is a sense that the appeals court ruling, which essentially threw out the
ban known as Proposition 8, was too narrowly drawn to wind up as the ultimate
U.S. Supreme Court case. With more appeals expected, gay and lesbian couples
aren't expected to be allowed to legally marry in California anytime soon.

But the trend toward acceptance of gay marriage is clear, and eventually the
Supreme Court will get the right case to decide on the constitutionality of
same-sex marriage bans. And the Supreme Court should give it the final OK.

The federal court said California's ban served "no purpose ... other than to
lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California."

It is a sentiment that has gained considerable strength in recent years. Since
Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage, five other
states - New York, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Iowa, as well
as the District of Columbia - have followed suit. California is the only state
where gays won the right to marry only to see that right taken away.

We have also seen the military get rid of its discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell" policy. And last year a Senate committee voted to repeal the Defense of
Marriage Act that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The
bill did not get through the full Senate, but it created a dialogue about
justice and equal rights for all Americans, and again showed that the times,
they are a-changin'.

The change in Florida, unfortunately, has been a lot slower than elsewhere.

Florida was the last state in the country to eliminate a ban on gay adoption,
and that didn't happen until 2010. And Florida is still one of about 30 states
that have some kind of ban on same-sex marriage. In Florida, it was even written
into the state constitution in 2008 with the Marriage Protection Act.

Still, fairness and equal rights for all people, regardless of sexual
orientation, seems to be catching on. The California case might not be the right
one to bring the issue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, but in the near
future it is headed that way.

And then the Supreme Court should vote for fairness and equal treatment for all
people.

----------

My comment ---
This from a major newspaper in a conservative state!

I loved Santorum's comment talking to his flock -- "The 9th Circuit Court just
called you a bigot."
Yes, indeed they did.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/11/justice/georgia-gay-beating/   video at URL
Police arrest suspect in videotaped beating of gay man
By Moni Basu, CNN
February 11, 2012
Atlanta (CNN) -- One of three suspects in a videotaped beating of a gay man has
been arrested, Atlanta police said Saturday.

Christopher Cain, 18, was taken into custody around midnight and charged with
aggravated assault and robbery, said a statement from police spokesman Carlos
Campos.

Three men were seen in the video shouting anti-gay slurs as they beat, punched
and kicked Brandon White, 20. Police have identified two other suspects but they
have not yet been arrested nor have their names been released.

White was attacked February 4 outside a convenience store in a working class
neighborhood in southwest Atlanta.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed doubled to $10,000 a reward for information leading to
arrests.

Meanwhile Saturday, community leaders and neighborhood residents rallied outside
the convenience store in support of White.

"When you see something going wrong, you must do what you're doing here today,'
said U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

White did not report the attack at first but stepped forward after a video went
viral on the internet.

The video showed three men punching and kicking White after he stepped out of
the JVC Grocery and Deli. The men, believed to be members of a gang called Jack
City, yelled: "No f----ts in Jack City."

Later, the store's surveillance video showed White, dressed in a purple shirt
and black jeans with a cell phone to his left ear, exit the store along with
another man. As soon as they stepped outside, White was accosted by his
attackers.
The surveillance video captured eight men standing around watching, two of them
with video cameras in hand. One man lunged at White with a tire in his hands.

"If a straight person can walk to the store, I should be able to do the same
thing," White said. "I could have died that day. They are monsters. At this
point I am beyond mad."

He said he could not at first even bring himself to watch the video; he was so
humiliated and embarrassed.

But after its wide circulation, White decided to talk to the police.

"Once they put it out there they set themselves up,"said. "I feel I was
violated. The scars run deeper than anyone will know. The physical pain, I can
get over that. My thing is: Who's to say they won't come after me again? Who's
to say they won't kill me?"

FBI agents are also investigating the case to determine whether it meets
criteria for prosecution under the federal hate crimes statute. White said he
could not comment on that aspect of the investigation.

U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said her office is looking into potential
civil rights violations based on sexual orientation. Georgia does not have a
state hate crimes statute.

"The actions depicted in the video are appalling and unacceptable in our
community, and we encourage anyone with information about this video to contact
the FBI or Atlanta Police," Yates said.

Pittsburgh community residents said the corner where White was attacked is
notorious for violence. They called for the JVC store to be shut down and asked
for beefed up security.

Those who attended Saturday's rally said it was up to everyone to make sure this
kind of attack does not occur again.

"This is not a one day campaign. this is not a one week campaign, this is a
lifetime campaign," said Cleta Winslow, an Atlanta City Council member.

Last year, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released a study
that showed that hate crimes committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender (LGBT) and HIV-affected people were on the rise in America.

In 2010, the coalition reported a 13% rise in LGBT hate crimes and documented 27
murders, a 23% increase from 2009.

State Rep. Simone Bell, who is openly gay, told CNN affiliate WSB TV that she
hopes this case will pave the way for anti-hate crime legislation in Georgia.

CNN's Maria P. White contributed to this report.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------


http://autos.yahoo.com/news/cities-with-the-most-speed-traps.html
Cities with the most speed traps
By Colleen Kane | CNBC - Friday 10 February 2012

Number 1 -- Austin, Texas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/richest-cities-where-no-one-wants-to-move.html
Richest cities where no one wants to move
By Charles B. Stockdale and Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St.
February 9, 2012

Number 1 -- Newark, New Jersey

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


Generation to generation, everlasting life, world without end.  Etc., Etc.

"Science cannot prove there is no God," he said.
"But if you're a person of religion, you have to remember you can't prove the
existence of God."

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) It's time.
2) Washington state's governor signs gay marriage law
3) "Monsignors' mutiny" revealed by Vatican leaks
4) The right wing's holy warrior
5) The Right-Wing Id Unzipped
6) States with the most homes in foreclosure


1)
It's time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBd-UCwVAY


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


2)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-gaymarriage-washington-idUSTRE81C15\
L20120213
Washington state's governor signs gay marriage law
By Nicole Neroulias

OLYMPIA, Wash | Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:36pm EST

(Reuters) - Governor Christine Gregoire signed legislation on Monday to make
Washington state the seventh in the United States to legalize gay marriage, but
opponents vowed to try to prevent the law from taking effect.

Gregoire, a Democrat and a Roman Catholic, signed the measure to raucous
applause during a ceremony in the ornate reception room of the Olympia
statehouse, declaring, "This is a very proud moment. ... I'm proud of who and
what we are as a state." It was the latest victory for the U.S. gay rights
movement.

Six other states already recognize gay marriage - New York, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa - as does the District of Columbia.

The measure, which won approval from state lawmakers on Wednesday, remains
essentially on hold until at least early June, following a standard enactment
period that runs until 90 days after Washington's legislative session ends.

Opponents of the statute have vowed to seek its repeal through a ballot measure
in November that could delay enactment further or halt it entirely. The issue is
also likely to figure in the state's Republican presidential politics.

Still, the bill-signing marked another key victory for gay rights advocates
after a federal appeals court declared a voter-approved gay marriage ban in
California unconstitutional last week, and the New Jersey state Senate approved
a same-sex marriage bill earlier on Monday.

Several dozen protesters, including members of the group Knights of Columbus,
stood silently in the Capitol Rotunda overlooking the reception hall holding
signs with slogans espousing marriages of "one man, one woman."

Republican White House candidate Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic and an
outspoken foe of same-sex marriage, was making two stops in Washington state on
Monday to galvanize support for the Republican caucuses there on March 3.

He was to meet with Republican lawmakers in Olympia in the afternoon, then give
a speech in Tacoma on Monday night.

Anticipating the repeal campaign that lies ahead later this year, the governor
added, "I ask all Washingtonians to look into your hearts and ask yourselves -
isn't it time? ... We in this state stand proud for equality."

Democrats, who control both legislative bodies in Olympia, accounted for the
lion's share of support for the measure. The stage for swift passage was set
after Gregoire, who is in her last term of office, said last month she would
endorse the law.

Several prominent Washington-based companies employing tens of thousands of
workers in the state have supported the bill, including Microsoft, Amazon and
Starbucks.

Opponents were led by Roman Catholic bishops and other religious conservatives.

SIMILAR EFFORTS ELSEWHERE

Supporters of same-sex marriage are pushing similar statutes in Maryland and New
Jersey, whose Democratic-controlled state Senate in Trenton approved a gay
marriage bill earlier on Monday. Republican Governor Chris Christie has vowed to
veto it if it reaches his desk.

A referendum to legalize gay marriage in Maine has qualified for the November
ballot there.

Two of Washington state's leading proponents of gay marriage, state
Representative Jamie Pedersen and state Senator Ed Murray, hailed the work of
Olympia's legislature.

"Years from now, our kids will look back and wonder what all the fuss was
about," said Pedersen, who has four young children with his partner of 10 years.
Murray, who has said he will marry his companion of nearly 20 years, added, "My
friends, welcome to the other side of the rainbow."

In the meantime, opponents of same-sex matrimony have said they would seek to
overturn the legislation via one of two ballot measures -- a referendum for
repeal or an initiative defining marriage as the exclusive domain of
heterosexual couples.

If a repeal referendum qualifies for the November ballot, the gay marriage law
would be suspended until the certification of election returns in December,
before it is either repealed or goes into effect.

But qualification of a proposed initiative defining matrimony as restricted to
one man and one woman would not, in and of itself, prevent gay marriages from
proceeding under the newly passed statute starting on June 7.

It remains unclear whether gay weddings performed in the interim would be
nullified if an initiative were to pass in November.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)




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------------


3)
http://news.yahoo.com/monsignors-mutiny-revealed-vatican-leaks-140524856.html

"Monsignors' mutiny" revealed by Vatican leaks
By Philip Pullella | Reuters - Monday 13 February 2012

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Call it Conspiracy City. Call it Scandal City. Call it
Leak City. These days the holy city has been in the news for anything but holy
reasons.

"It is a total mess," said one high-ranking Vatican official who spoke, like all
others, on the condition of anonymity.

The Machiavellian maneuvering and machinations that have come to light in the
Vatican recently are worthy of a novel about a sinister power struggle at a
medieval court.

Senior church officials interviewed this month said almost daily embarrassments
that have put the Vatican on the defensive could force Pope Benedict to act to
clean up the image of its administration - at a time when the church faces a
deeper crisis of authority and relevance in the wider world.

Some of those sources said the outcome of a power struggle inside the Holy See
may even have a longer-term effect, on the choice of the man to succeed Benedict
when he dies.

From leaked letters by an archbishop who was transferred after he blew the
whistle on what he saw as a web of corruption and cronyism, to a leaked poison
pen memo which puts a number of cardinals in a bad light, to new suspicions
about its bank, Vatican spokesmen have had their work cut out responding.

The flurry of leaks has come at an embarrassing time - just before a usually
joyful ceremony this week known as a consistory, when Benedict will admit more
prelates into the College of Cardinals, the exclusive men's club that will one
day pick the next Roman Catholic leader from among their own ranks.

"This consistory will be taking place in an atmosphere that is certainly not
very glorious or exalting," said one bishop with direct knowledge of Vatican
affairs.

The sources agreed that the leaks were part of an internal campaign - a sort of
"mutiny of the monsignors" - against the pope's right-hand man, Secretary of
State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Bertone, 77, has a reputation as a heavy-handed administrator and power-broker
whose style has alienated many in the Curia, the bureaucracy that runs the
central administration of the 1.3 billion-strong Roman Catholic Church.

He came to the job, traditionally occupied by a career diplomat, in 2006 with no
experience of working in the church's diplomatic corps, which manages its
international relations. Benedict chose him, rather, because he had worked under
the future pontiff, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the Vatican's powerful
doctrinal office.

"It's all aimed at Bertone," said a monsignor in a key Vatican department who
sympathizes with the secretary of state and who sees the leakers as determined
to oust him. "It's very clear that they want to get rid of Bertone."

Vatican sources say the rebels have the tacit backing of a former secretary of
state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, an influential power-broker in his own right and
a veteran diplomat who served under the late Pope John Paul II for 15 years.

"The diplomatic wing feels that they are the rightful owners of the Vatican,"
the monsignor who favors Bertone said.

Sodano and Bertone are not mutual admirers, to put it mildly. Neither has
commented publicly on the reports.

WHISTLE-BLOWING ARCHBISHOP

The Vatican has been no stranger to controversy in recent years, when uproar
over its handling of child sex abuse charges has hampered the church's efforts
to stem the erosion of congregations and priestly recruitment in the developed
world.

But the latest image crisis could not be closer to home.

It began last month when an Italian television investigative show broadcast
private letters to Bertone and the pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the
former deputy governor of the Vatican City and currently the Vatican ambassador
in Washington.

The letters, which the Vatican has confirmed are authentic, showed that Vigano
was transferred after he exposed what he argued was a web of corruption,
nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to contractors at
inflated prices.

As deputy governor of the Vatican City for two years from 2009 to 2011, Vigano
was the number two official in a department responsible for maintaining the tiny
city-state's gardens, buildings, streets, museums and other infrastructure,
which are managed separately from the Italian capital which surrounds it.

In one letter, Vigano writes of a smear campaign against him by other Vatican
officials who were upset that he had taken drastic steps to clean up the
purchasing procedures and begged to stay in the job to finish what he had
started.

Bertone responded by removing Vigano from his position three years before the
end of his tenure and sending him to the United States, despite his strong
resistance.

Other leaks center on the Vatican bank, just as it is trying to put behind it
past scandals - including the collapse 30 years ago of Banco Ambrosiano, which
entangled it in lurid allegations about money-laundering, freemasons, mafiosi
and the mysterious death of Ambrosiano chairman Roberto Calvi - "God's banker."

Today, the Vatican bank, formally known at the Institute for Works of Religion
(IOR), is aiming to comply fully with international norms and has applied for
the Vatican's inclusion on the European Commission's approved "white list" of
states that meet EU standards for total financial transparency.

Bertone was instrumental in putting the bank's current executives in place and
any lingering suspicion about it reflects badly on him. The Commission will
decide in June and failure to make the list would be an embarrassment for
Bertone.

ITALIAN POPE?

Last week, an Italian newspaper that has published some of the leaks ran a
bizarre internal Vatican memo that involved one cardinal complaining about
another cardinal who spoke about a possible assassination attempt against the
pope within 12 months and openly speculated on who the next pope should be.

Bertone's detractors say he has packed the Curia with Italian friends. Some see
an attempt to influence the election of the next pope and increase the chances
that the papacy returns to Italy after two successive non-Italian popes who have
broken what had been an Italian monopoly for over 450 years.

Seven of the 18 new "cardinal electors" -- those aged under 80 eligible to elect
a pope -- at this Saturday's consistory are Italian. Six of those work for
Bertone in the Curia.

Bertone, as chief administrator, had a key role in advising the pope on the
appointments, which raised eyebrows because of the high number of Italian
bureaucrats among them.

"There is widespread malaise and delusion about Bertone inside the Curia. It is
full of complaints," said the bishop who has close knowledge of Vatican affairs.

"Bertone has had a very brash method of running the Vatican and putting his
friends in high places. People could not take it any more and said 'enough' and
that is why I think these leaks are coming out now to make him look bad," he
said.

POPE "ISOLATED"

Leaked confidential cables sent to the State Department by the U.S. embassy to
the Vatican depicted him as a "yes man" with no diplomatic experience or
linguistic skills and the 2009 cable suggests that the pope is protected from
bad news.

"There is also the question of who, if anyone, brings dissenting views to the
pope's attention," read the cable, published by WikiLeaks.

The Vatican sources said some cardinals asked the pope to replace Bertone
because of administrative lapses, including the failure to warn the pope that a
renegade bishop re-admitted to the Church in 2009 was a well-known Holocaust
denier.

But they said the pope, at 84 and increasingly showing the signs of his age, is
not eager to break in a new right-hand man.

"It's so complicated and the pope is so helpless," said the monsignor.

The bishop said: "The pope is very isolated. He lives in his own world and some
say the information he receives is filtered. He is interested in his books and
his sermons but he is not very interested in government."

(Editing by Jon Boyle and Alastair Macdonald)

----------


My comment ---
Back in the U.S.of A., in the "deep south", Southern Baptists would like to
bring back their slavery, and their no women voting.  Santorum is their man. 
Funny thing, being catholic and all.

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------------


4)
http://socialistworker.org/print/2012/02/13/the-right-wings-holy-warrior
The right wing's holy warrior
Nicole Colson documents the appalling beliefs of the darling of the Christian
Right.

February 13, 2012

THE SPOTLIGHT has lurched again in the Republican presidential primaries, but
it's still shining on a right-wing fanatic. It's just a different name this
week.

After an unexpected sweep in three contests held last week, Rick Santorum was
enjoying media attention as the latest really-really-conservative alternative to
the really-conservative frontrunner Mitt Romney.

As usual, the establishment press obsessed about the impact of the poorly
attended votes and caucuses on the Republican race and the upcoming general
election. That apparently left little to no time to dwell on less important
matters--such as the fact that Santorum has compared gay sex to bestiality, said
that rape creates "the gift of human life," and claimed that Barack Obama has
set the U.S. on the path toward executing religious people with the guillotine.

Such is the state of American politics that an unhinged zealot like Santorum is
considered a serious candidate for the presidential nomination of the first
party of U.S. capitalism. And the Democrats-while they will complain nonstop
about the bigotry of Republicans like Santorum from now until the November
election-have given ground to the GOP right, again and again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR A time last year, it seemed like Santorum would be a punch line in Election
2012, best known because of his notorious "Google problem"--the result of a
campaign by readers of sex columnist Dan Savage several years ago. (Visit
"Spreading Santorum" [1] if you don't know the definition yet).

Then Santorum--surging from behind, so to speak--managed a virtual tie for first
place with Romney in the Iowa caucuses (after a recount, Santorum was actually
declared the winner).

Santorum was overshadowed the rest of the month by Romney's victory in New
Hampshire, then Newt Gingrich's resounding win in South Carolina, and finally
Romney's equally strong victories in Florida and Nevada. That was supposed to
seal the deal for the "inevitable" Republican nominee.

Then on February 7, Santorum swept caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado--two
states Romney had won in 2008--and a nonbinding primary in Missouri.

What those three contests had in common with Iowa is that voter turnout was
low--which means the hard-core right-wing base of the party that thinks Romney
is "too much of a liberal" could have an outsized impact.

Of course, Romney isn't liberal at all--he's reactionary through and through, as
he's tried in every possible way to prove over the past weeks and months. But it
is true that the hard-core right of the Republicans have one of their own in
Santorum.

The former senator from Pennsylvania is--no surprise, of course--virulently
anti-gay. In an interview with the Associated Press in 2003 [2], Santorum, a
devout Catholic, declared that the abuse of children by Catholic priests was, in
effect, the result of gay men entering the priesthood: "In this case, what we're
talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with
post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds or
5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship."

In the same interview, Santorum referred to homosexual sex as "deviant." Not
only does he not think gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry or adopt
children, he believes that consenting gay adults don't have a legal right to
have sex in the privacy of their own homes--and that states should be able to
outlaw non-procreative sex acts.

Such sex acts, he declared, "undermine the basic tenets of our society and the
family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex
within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to
polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery."

The interview then descended into surreal territory as Santorum appeared to be
fixated on what he considers the slippery slope of deviancy and the moral threat
that gay sex poses to America's families:

   Santorum: Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of
marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on
one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what?
Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage
has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on
homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the
case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic
impact on the quality--

   Reporter: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog"
with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

   Santorum: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The
idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and
passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there
are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they
desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

DON'T WORRY, women. Santorum doesn't think you should have the right to control
your bodies either. He opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and
told Meet the Press in June [3] that not only should abortion be banned, but
that doctors who provide abortions to rape or incest victims "should be
criminally charged for doing so."

And if a woman becomes pregnant as the result of a rape? According to Santorum,
she should look on the bright side. In an interview with Piers Morgan [4] last
month, Santorum stated that were one of his daughters to be raped and become
pregnant, "I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this
horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way,
a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you."

Santorum is also against birth control--and has said that states should be able
to outlaw it.

Were he to become president, Santorum has pledged to cut off all federal funding
for contraception [5]. In October, Santorum told CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor
Shane Vander Hart: "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has
talked about before, is, I think, the dangers of contraception in this
country...It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is
counter to how things are supposed to be."

Birth control, Santorum told the Conservative Political Action Conference last
week [6], shouldn't even be covered by health insurance at all, given that it
only "costs a few dollars."

As ThinkProgress pointed out, "In reality, oral contraceptives or 'The Pill'
range between $35 and $250 for the initial provider visit, and the cost of a
monthly supply of pills ranges between $15 and $50 a month, which amounts to
between $180 and $600 a year depending on woman's medical coverage...Other forms
of birth control are far more expensive."

Santorum also ignores that fact that, according to the Guttmacher Institute [7],
funding from Medicaid, Title X and other government services providing birth
control for low-income women is a lifeline.

In 2006, one in four women who obtained contraceptive services in the United
States in 2006--including 50 percent of poor women who did so--received care at
publicly funded family planning centers. In that year alone, publicly funded
family planning services helped women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies,
which would likely have resulted in about 860,000 unintended births and 810,000
abortions.

Santorum seems to positively yearn for the "good old days" of back alley
abortions. At a recent campaign stop in Missouri, Santorum seemed sad as he told
the crowd [8], "Look at what's happened in...our tolerance of abortion. Fifty
years ago...60 years ago, people who did abortions were, you know, in the
shadows, [they] were people who people who were considered really bad doctors.
Now, abortion is something that is just accepted."

Given that women seeking access to an abortion are often forced to run a
gauntlet of Santorum-like zealots, and that doctors and clinic workers are
routinely harassed, assaulted and even put in fear for their lives, it's hard to
imagine how Santorum could claim abortion is "just accepted."

Good thing us women can have babies to keep us busy--it'll help keep our minds
off frivolous things like fighting for equal rights. According to Santorum,
women in combat would be too distracting to men. "When you have men and women
together in combat, I think men have emotions when you see a woman in harm's
way," Santorum told the Today Show's Ann Curry [9]. "I think it's something
that's natural that's very much in our culture to be protective."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

LIKE MANY Religious Right hypocrites, Santorum is quick to judge others, while
believing that the slightest criticism of his own views amounts to persecution.

Santorum claims that there's a "war" on religion in the U.S. But he took his
claims a step further recently when he said that Barack Obama has put America on
the path to beheading religious people.

Yes, really.

In Plano, Texas, responding to the Obama administration's requirement that
health insurers provide coverage for birth control, Santorum told the crowd
[10]:

   They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in
America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what's left is the
French Revolution...What's left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and
gentlemen, we're a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of
President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed
down that road.

Santorum's anti-woman and anti-gay stances go along with conventional Republican
attitudes toward the free market (very good) and "big government" (very bad). He
even went so far as to introduce legislation in 2005 that would have prevented
the National Weather Service from publishing weather data free for the public if
there were private-sector entities providing the same service for a charge.

And of course, Santorum--whose concern for the health and welfare of "unborn
children" knows no bounds--is for limiting welfare and other social programs,
and is wholeheartedly against government-funded health care.

Santorum is a hardline supporter of Israel and the "war on terror." He has
repeatedly talked about so-called "jihadism" and "Islamic fascism," declaring in
a 2006 editorial [11] that "the fight against Islamic fascism is the great test
of our generation."

Santorum was one of just two senators to vote against the confirmation of Robert
Gates as defense secretary during the George W. Bush administration--claiming
that Gates was too soft on "radical Islam" because he advocated talks with Iran
and Syria.

More recently, Santorum has tried to score points with the Republican base by
advocating a war on Iran--claiming that Barack Obama turned his back on Israel
by allowing Iran to seek a nuclear weapon. "We're throwing Israel under the bus
because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC," Santorum told a crowd in
Oklahoma City [12]. "We're going to say, 'Oh, Iran, we don't want you to get a
nuclear weapon--wink, wink, nod, nod--go ahead, just give us your oil.' Folks,
the president of the United States is selling the economic security of the
United States down the river right now."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IT'S ALL enough to ask: what planet is Rick Santorum living on? But probably
more to the point: How on earth could he possibly be considered a serious
candidate for president?

At one point in time, Santorum's views were considered extreme even for the
Republicans. But thanks to the strangely distorted political and media echo
chambers, and in the wake of the rise of the Tea Party movement, such right-wing
ideals are a kind of litmus test for a significant section of the Republican
electorate.

That's why Mitt Romney has continued pandering to the hardcore right wing
throughout his campaign. And it's why Neanderthals like Santorum, Newt Gingrich
and Ron Paul continue to "surprise the pundits" by doing well as the "true
conservative" alternative to Romney.

Santorum's reactionary politics are considered "mainstream" for the Republicans.
And thanks to the concessions and retreats of the Democratic Party, plenty of
those ideas have a grounding in the political mainstream as a whole.

The Obama administration provided a perfect example of the problem last week
when it capitulated to the Religious Right on the issue of mandatory health
insurance coverage for birth control--rather than make a principled argument in
favor.

Yes, Santorum's position on contraception is a despicable attack on any idea
that women should have the right to control their own bodies. But the reason
religious organizations will be able to deny their employees health coverage for
birth control is because of the spineless Democratic Party.

Despite his surprise wins, Santorum has very little chance of getting the
Republican nomination. Romney continues to have the support of much of the party
establishment, and he has a massive campaign war chest to use in the much bigger
primary elections coming up in the next weeks and months.

But in the meantime, the surge of Santorum will be used by conservatives to drag
the rhetoric of the 2012 campaign further to the right.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Published by the International Socialist Organization.
Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative
Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [13] license, except for articles that are republished
with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this
site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author
and SocialistWorker.org.

   1.. [1] http://spreadingsantorum.com/
   2.. [2]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm
   3.. [3]
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/12/243113/santorum-rape-incest/
   4.. [4]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/rick-santorum-daughter-abortion-rape
   5.. [5]
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/10/19/348007/rick-santorum-pledges-to-defun\
d-contraception-its-not-okay-its-a-license-to-do-things/
   6.. [6]
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/10/423018/santorum-birth-control-is-not-\
something-you-need-insurance-for-because-it-costs-just-a-few-dollars
   7.. [7] http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contraceptive_serv.html
   8.. [8]
http://jezebel.com/5883158/rick-santorum-pines-for-the-good-ol-days-of-unsafe-ba\
ck-alley-abortions
   9.. [9] http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46340313/ns/today-today_people
   10.. [10]
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/02/09/421882/santorum-obama-has-put-america-o\
n-the-path-of-executing-religious-people-by-decapitation/
   11.. [11] http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06250/719619-109.stm
   12.. [12]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmyenwrLKH8Ul8mm2krMaiMNt9ow
   13.. [13] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

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-------------


5)
http://www.truth-out.org/right-wing-id-unzipped/1329147417
The Right-Wing Id Unzipped
Tuesday 14 February 2012
by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis

Retired Republican House and Senate staffer Mike Lofgren spoke with Truthout in
Washington, DC, this fall. Lofgren's first commentary for Truthout, "Goodbye to
All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult," went viral, drawing
over a million unique views.

Although Mitt Romney used the word "conservative" 19 times in a short speech at
the February 10, 2012, Conservative Political Action Conference, the audience he
used this word to appeal to was not conservative by any traditional definition.
It was right wing. Despite the common American practice of using "conservative"
and "right wing" interchangeably, right wing is not a synonym for conservative
and not even a true variant of conservatism - although the right wing will
opportunistically borrow conservative themes as required.

Right-wingers have occasioned much recent comment. Their behavior in the
Republican debates has caused even jaded observers to react like an Oxford don
stumbling upon a tribe of headhunting cannibals. In those debates where the
moderators did not enforce decorum, these right-wingers, the Republican base,
behaved with a single lack of dignity. For a group that displays its supposed
pro-life credentials like a neon sign, the biggest applause lines resulted from
their hearing about executions or the prospect of someone dying without health
insurance.

Who are these people and what motivates them? To answer, one must leave the
field of conventional political theory and enter the realm of psychopathology.
Three books may serve as field guides to the farther shores of American politics
and the netherworld of the true believer.

Most estimates calculate the percentage of Republican voters who are religious
fundamentalists at around 40 percent; in some key political contests, such as
the Iowa caucuses, the percentage is closer to 60. Because of their social
cohesion, ease of political mobilization and high election turnout,
fundamentalists have political weight even beyond their raw numbers. An
understanding of their leaders, infrastructure and political goals is warranted.
Max Blumenthal has done the work in his book "Republican Gomorrah: Inside the
Movement that Shattered the Party." Blumenthal investigates politicized
fundamentalism and provides capsule bios of such movement luminaries as James
Dobson, Tony Perkins, John Hagee and Ted Haggard. The reader will conclude that
these authority figures and the flocks they command are driven by a binary,
Manichean vision of life and a hunger for conflict. Their minds appear to have
no more give and take than that of a terrier staring down a rat hole.

Blumenthal examines the childhoods of these religious-right celebrities and
reveals a significant quotient of physical and mental abuse suffered at the
hands of parents. His analysis of the obvious sadomasochistic element in Mel
Gibson's films - so lionized by the right wing - is enough to give one the
creeps. But the book is by no means a uniformly depressing slog: the chapter
titled "Satan in a Porsche," about fundamentalist attempts to ban pornography,
approaches slapstick.

According to the author, the inner life of fundamentalist true believers is the
farthest thing from that of a stuffily proper Goody Two Shoes. They seem
tormented by demons that those in the reality-based community scarcely
experience. That may explain their extraordinary latitude in absolving their
political and ecclesiastical heroes of their sins: while most of us might regard
George W. Bush as a dry drunk resentful of his father, Newt Gingrich as a
sociopathic serial adulterer and Ted Haggard as a pathetic specimen in terminal
denial, their followers on the right apparently believe that the greater the
sin, the more impressive the salvation - so long as the magic words are uttered
and the penitent sinner is washed in the Blood of the Lamb. This explains why
people like Gingrich can attend "values voter" forums and both he and the
audience manage to keep straight faces. Far from being a purpose-driven life,
the existence of many true believers is a crisis-driven life that seeks release,
as Blumenthal asserts, in an "escape from freedom."

An observer of the right-wing phenomenon must explain the paradox of followers
who would escape from freedom even as they incessantly invoke the word freedom
as if it were a mantra. But freedom so defined does not mean ordinary civil
liberties like the prohibition of illegal government search and seizure, the
right of due process, or the right not to be tortured. The hard right has never
protested the de facto abrogation of much of the Bill of Rights during the last
decade. In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile
and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out
at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of
people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a
like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.

Robert Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist, has done extensive testing to isolate
and describe the traits of the authoritarian personality. His results are
distilled in his book "The Authoritarians." He describes religious
fundamentalists, the core of the right-wing Republican base, as follows:

   They are highly submissive to established authority, aggressive in the name of
that authority and conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave
as their authorities decide. They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot
of hostility in them that they readily direct toward various out-groups. They
are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to think for themselves,
largely impervious to facts and reason and rely instead on social support to
maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have
thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in
their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times and are often
hypocrites.

There are tens of millions of Americans who, although personally lacking the
self-confidence, ambition and leadership qualities of authoritarian dominators
like Gingrich or Sarah Palin, nevertheless empower the latter to achieve their
goals while finding psychological fulfillment in subordination to a cause.
Altemeyer describes these persons as authoritarian followers. They are socially
rigid, highly conventional and strongly intolerant personalities, who, absent
any self-directed goals, seek achievement and satisfaction by losing themselves
in a movement greater than themselves. One finds them overrepresented in
reactionary political movements, fundamentalist sects and leader cults like
scientology. They are the people who responded on cue when Bush's press
secretary said after the 9/11 attacks that people had better "watch what they
say;" or who approved of illegal surveillance because "if you have nothing to
hide, you have nothing to fear;" or who, after months of news stories saying
that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, nevertheless
believed the weapons were found. Altemeyer said:

   Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so
right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed and so
dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would
march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as
a result.... And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe
and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they
are not going away.

Twenty to 25 percent is no majority, but enough to swing an election, especially
since the authoritarian follower is more easily organized than the rest of the
population. As for Altemeyer's warning that such personality types "are not
going away," the rise of the Tea Party after 2008 showed that he was a better
prognosticator than Max Blumenthal, who thought the radical takeover of the GOP
during the Bush presidency had "shattered the party."

Altemeyer cites clinical data to show us how certain people score high on
psychological tests measuring authoritarian traits and that these high scores
strongly correlate with right-wing political preferences. What Altemeyer is
lacking is a satisfactory explanation as to why a significant percentage of
human beings should develop these traits. We obtain some clues in Wilhelm
Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism," written in 1933 and unfortunately only
obtainable in a stilted 1945 translation full of odd psychological jargon. One
does not have to agree with Reich's questionable later career path and personal
eccentricities(1) to notice that his 1933 work is a perceptive analysis of the
character of the authoritarian political movements that were rising in Europe.
Anyone reading it then and taking it seriously could have predicted the new
totalitarian regimes' comprehensive repressiveness, extreme intolerance and,
within a few years, nihilistic destructiveness.

Reich appears to see fascism as the political manifestation of an authoritarian
psychology. Who are the authoritarians?

   Fascist mentality is the mentality of the subjugated "little man" who craves
authority and rebels against it at the same time. It is not by accident that all
fascist dictators stem from the milieu of the little reactionary man. The
captains of industry and the feudal militarist make use of this social fact for
their own purposes. A mechanistic authoritarian civilization only reaps, in the
form of fascism, from the little, suppressed man what for hundreds of years it
has sown in the masses of little, suppressed individuals in the form of
mysticism, top-sergeant mentality and automatism.

Here again we see the paradoxical nature of the authoritarian personality:
rebelling against authority while hungering for it - exactly as the contemporary
right wing fancies it is rebelling against big government while calling for
intrusive social legislation and militarism. In the midst of dire economic
circumstances, why do they expend inordinate energy brooding over contraception,
abortion, abstinence education, gay marriage and so forth and attempt to
transform their obsessions into law? Reich said:

   The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring
of sexual inhibition and sexual anxiety.... The result of this process is fear
of freedom and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression aids
political reaction not only through this process which makes the mass individual
passive and unpolitical but also by creating in his structure an interest in
actively supporting the authoritarian order. The suppression of natural sexual
gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural
aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which then is an essential
mass-psychological factor in imperialistic wars.

According to Reich, a patriarchal, sexually repressive family life, reinforced
by strict and punitive religious dogma, is the "factory" of a reactionary
political order. Hence, the right wing's ongoing attempts to erase the
separation of church and state, its crusade against Planned Parenthood, its
strange obsession with gays. Consider the following political platform, which
sounds almost as if it were taken from a speech by Rick Santorum:

   The preservation of the family with many children is a matter of biological
concept and national feeling. The family with many children must be preserved
... because it is a highly valuable, indispensable part of the ... nation.
Valuable and indispensable not only because it alone guarantees the maintenance
of the population in the future but because it is the strongest basis of
national morality and national culture ... The preservation of this family form
is a necessity of national and cultural politics ... This concept is strictly at
variance with the demands for an abolition of paragraph 218; it considers unborn
life as sacrosanct. For the legalization of abortion is at variance with the
function of the family, which is to produce children and would lead to the
definite destruction of the family with many children.

So wrote the V�lkischer Beobachter of October 14, 1931. As Altemeyer warns, they
are not going away: certain psychological constructs and the political
expressions they give rise to, persist over time and across cultures.

1. E.g., Isaac Newton's eccentricities and unpleasant personality did not
invalidate his mathematics. We are interested in the message not the messenger.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


6)
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/states-with-the-most-homes-in-foreclosure.html
States with the most homes in foreclosure
By Michael B. Sauter, Charles B. Stockdale, and Ashley C. Allen, 24/7 Wall St.
February 13, 2012

Five major U.S. banks accused of foreclosure abuses have agreed to a $26 billion
settlement with the government, the largest payout from banks arising from the
financial crisis. The amount, which will include aid from banks in the form of
loan forgiveness and refinancing, is intended to help homeowners avoid mortgage
default and foreclosure. Most economists believe this is a step in the right
direction, albeit only a small one.
Homeowners in at least 49 states represented in the agreement will benefit,
though some states have more homes in trouble than others. California, one the
hardest-hit states in the foreclosure crisis, will reportedly receive mortgage
relief of up to $18 billion. Based on Corelogic's national foreclosure report,
24/7 Wall St. identified the states with the highest foreclosure rates.

Many of the states with the highest foreclosure rates experienced the worst of
the housing crisis. However, analysis by 24/7 reveals that the primary driver of
higher foreclosure rates is a lengthy foreclosure process.

Nearly all of the states with the highest rates also have the longest
foreclosure periods. The average foreclosure process for the nation is 140 days.
The average foreclosure process for the eleven states with the highest
foreclosure rates is 220. As a result, many homes foreclosed in 2011 in these
states were actually at the end of a process that began more than a year ago.
New York, one of the states with the worst foreclosure rates, has an average
processing period of 445 days.

The reasons why the foreclosure processing period is longer in these states is
because it usually involves the court system. Judicial foreclosures are handled
by the court and usual include filing motions and seeking a final judgment from
a judge. Nonjudicial foreclosures, which tend to take less time to process, are
governed by state law and do not require court intervention. Nine of the 11
states with the highest foreclosure rates have a judicial-only foreclosure
process.



While some of the states with high foreclosure rates have had substantial
improvements in their economies, others continue to be hit hard. In Nevada and
Florida, two states with the highest foreclosure rates, homes lost roughly half
of their value over the past five years - and prices are still falling.
Foreclosures that began several years ago and that are still active cannot be
the only reason nearly 12% of Florida's homes with mortgages were in foreclosure
last year. Home prices in the state fell nearly 50% over the past five years,
unemployment remains extremely high, and 17.4% of people with mortgages in the
state were 90 days or more late on their mortgage payments.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed housing data provided by Corelogic to rank the states
that had the highest percentage of homes with mortgages that were in foreclosure
in 2011. Corelogic's report also provided the percentage of homeowners that were
delinquent on their mortgages for 90 days or more last year. In order to
highlight the conditions of these state economies and housing markets, we
included unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and home price
changes from Fiserv-Case Shiller.

Check out the five states with the most homes in foreclosure:

5. New York
2011 foreclosure rate: 4.6%
December, 2011 unemployment: 8% (23rd highest)
Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -13.6% (23rd largest decline)
Processing period: 445 days

New York's processing period for foreclosures is 445 days - by far the longest
among all states. This could explain why the state has such a high foreclosure
rate for mortgaged homes. And although New York's housing prices didn't decline
as much as in other states, the 13.6% decline since the third quarter of 2006 is
still quite large. Moreover, home prices are forecast to decrease among the most
in the country over the next year and drop nearly 6% by the third quarter of
2012.

4. Nevada
2011 foreclosure rate: 5.3%
December, 2011 unemployment: 12.6% (the highest)
Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -59.3% (the largest decline)
Processing period: 116 days

For Nevada, things aren't going well. Its already dismal economy and housing
situation are still getting worse. Nevada didn't experience a glut of
foreclosures last year because the state has a particularly lengthy foreclosure
process. Between the third quarter of 2006 and the third quarter of 2011, the
median home value in the state tumbled by nearly 60%. By the third quarter of
this year, Fiserv-Case Shiller projects home prices will fall an additional
13.9% - by far the worst drop in the country. Nevada has the worst unemployment
rate in the country, at 12.6%, and 13.4% of mortgage owners were delinquent on
payments for 90 days or more last year.

3. Illinois
2011 foreclosure rate: 5.4%
December, 2011 unemployment: 9.8% (7th highest)
Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -29% (7th largest decline)
Processing period: 300 days

Home prices in Illinois have dropped 29% from the third quarter of 2006 - one of
the largest declines in the country. It also takes 300 days to process
foreclosures in the state. And Illinois residents are not lining up to pay off
their mortgages either. The state's 90+ day delinquency rate for mortgage
payments is 9.2%, the fourth highest in the country.

2. New Jersey
2011 foreclosure rate: 6.4%
December, 2011 unemployment: 9% (13th highest)
Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -22.6% (14th largest decline)
Processing period: 270 days

New Jersey has one of the longest foreclosure processing periods in the country
at 270 days. The state also has a 90+ day delinquency rate of 10.6%, which is
the third highest rate in the country. On top of this, the state's housing
market is not expected to rebound for some time. In fact, home prices are
forecast to decrease an additional 3.9% by the third quarter of 2012.

1. Florida
2011 foreclosure rate: 11.9%
December, 2011 unemployment: 9.9% (6th highest)
Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -49% (3rd largest decline)
Processing period: 135 days

Florida's 2011 foreclosure rate for mortgaged homes is not only the highest in
the country, but it is almost twice that of New Jersey - the state with the
second-highest rate. As with many other states on this list, Florida has a very
long foreclosure processing period of 135 days. There is more to the state's
high foreclosure rate than just that, however. Home prices dropped 49% since the
third quarter of 2006, which is the third-largest drop in the country. The
state's unemployment rate of 9.9% is among the highest as well. Finally, the
state's mortgage payment delinquency rate is 17.4% - the nation's absolute
highest.

Click here to see more States with the Most Homes in Foreclosure

http://247wallst.com/2012/02/09/the-states-with-the-most-homes-in-foreclosure/?u\
tm_source=yahoo-re&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=the-states-with-the-most-homes-\
in-foreclosure&utm_campaign=YHOORE

***


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1)  Clooney, Pitt star in Prop. 8 play
2)  Santorum backs nullifying existing gay marriages
3)  My little missive to Rick Santorum
4)  Medical pot: San Francisco seeks tighter rules on edibles
5)  Gay Oakdale Marine’s Kiss Garners Major Attention
6)  'Glee' Suicide Episode Gives The Trevor Project A Spike In Web Traffic,
Phone Calls
7)  Sex Work Among Medical Students On the Rise?
8)  Ultrasound Zap May Be New Form of Birth Control
9)  Close your facebook account -- satire
10)  Will You Get Audited by the IRS?



1)
Watch the video of Saturday night March 3rd performance of the trial.
http://www.youtube.com/AmericanEqualRights
Clooney, Pitt star in Prop. 8 play


Buddies George Clooney and Brad Pitt are teaming up in a star-studded play based
on the historic ruling overturning California’s Prop. 8, banning gay marriage.
Pitt is the latest addition to the “8″ cast that also includes Martin Sheen,
Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, and George Takei.
The one-night only event is happening March 3 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in
Los Angeles, but it will also be streamed live on YouTube.
Pitt plays the controversial U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who
ruled in a 2010 case that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional. Supporters of the
proposition later challenged Walker’s impartiality because he was in a
long-term same-sex relationship.
Clooney and Sheen play lawyers for the plaintiffs. Christine Lahti and Jamie Lee
Curtis are plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, a lesbian couple together for
11 years and the parents of four boys. Matthew Morrison and Matt Bomer play
plaintiffs Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, a gay couple together for more than
ten years.
The dramatization is based on actual court transcripts and features the best
arguments and testimony from both sides.

The performance is a fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Rob Reiner, who is a board member, is directing the play.
“8″ was written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black
(“Milk,” “J. Edgar”). The play debuted on Broadway September 19, 2011
and featured stars Morgan Freeman, John Lithgow, and Ellen Barkin.
The preshow broadcast begins at 7:30 PT. Curtain is at 7:45 PT. It can be viewed
at www.youtube.com/AmericanEqualRights.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------------



2)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2012/03/03/MN3Q1N9EV9.DTL
Santorum backs nullifying existing gay marriages
Bob Egelko

Saturday, March 3, 2012

There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least
131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state
legalized same-sex marriage in July.

Rick Santorum says he'll try to unmarry all of them if he's elected president.

Once the U.S. Constitution is amended to prohibit same-gender marriages, "their
marriage would be invalid," the former Pennsylvania senator said Dec. 30 in an
NBC News interview.

"We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country," he said. "You have
to have one marriage law."

The comments didn't attract nearly as much attention as Santorum's recent
invocation of his Catholic faith to denounce government support for birth
control, prenatal testing and resource conservation - which, in the last case,
he attributed to President Obama's "phony theology."

But his declared intention to nullify past as well as future same-sex marriages
has reinforced his position to the right of the other Republican contenders,
even though each of them has also voiced fervent support for traditional unions.

Mitt Romney, who was governor of Massachusetts when the state's high court
became the first in the nation to declare a right to same-sex marriage in 2003,
backs a constitutional amendment to outlaw such marriages in the future, but
says he'd leave currently wedded couples alone. Newt Gingrich also wants an
amendment but hasn't said whether it would be retroactive.

Ron Paul opposes same-sex marriage but wants the federal government to stay out
of it - no federal benefits for gay and lesbian couples, no federal court
authority to overturn state laws like California's Proposition 8 and no
constitutional amendments overriding a state's prerogative to decide which of
its residents can marry.

'Bigoted, shameful'
Santorum's proposal for constitutionally mandated divorces would affect couples
like Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis of San Francisco, longtime partners who wed
in June 2008, five months before Prop. 8 banned same-sex marriage. The couple
later helped to found an organization called Marriage Equality USA.

"It's with profound sadness that I contemplate somebody running for the highest
office in the land on a platform of taking away anyone's marriage," Gaffney said
Friday.

Fred Karger, a longtime Republican political consultant and gay-rights activist
who is also running for president and will be on the Republican primary ballot
in California, said Santorum's comments on marriage were "the most destructive
of any Republican candidate by far, bigoted, shameful."

Santorum's stance was endorsed by the Family Research Council, which was
involved in an unsuccessful attempt to win passage of a constitutional amendment
during George W. Bush's presidency.

"Same-sex marriage is an oxymoron" because marriage can only be a male-female
relationship, said the council's Peter Sprigg. If the Constitution is amended to
include that definition, he said, states that had recognized same-sex marriages
would have to convert those relationships to civil unions.

Future conduct
Santorum's position is noteworthy because laws revoking individual rights are
usually drafted, or interpreted by the courts, to apply only to future conduct.

The issue arose in California when the state Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8, which
amended the state Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. The measure
declared that only marriage between a man and a woman would be ''valid or
recognized" in California. Its sponsors argued that the language barred the
state from "recognizing" 18,000 marriages of same-sex couples who had wed in the
months before Prop. 8 passed in November 2008.

But the court said Prop. 8 did not clearly inform voters that it would
invalidate existing marriages. Therefore, the justices said, the 18,000 couples
were entitled to rely on the rights they had gained in the court's May 2008
ruling, which briefly legalized same-sex marriage in the state.

Spelling it out
That doesn't rule out the possibility of a U.S. constitutional amendment like
the one Santorum favors, which would nullify existing same-sex marriages.

"You'd have to word it so it was perfectly clear," said Jesse Choper, a UC
Berkeley law professor who submitted arguments to the state's high court against
the retroactive application of Prop. 8. The amendment would have to declare that
"marriages that were once valid are no longer valid," he said.

Santorum, who once practiced law, hasn't said how he would draft a
constitutional amendment - or how he could get one passed even while opinion
polls suggest increasing public acceptance of same-sex marriage.

"Just because public opinion says something doesn't mean it's right," he said in
the NBC interview. "I'm sure there were times in areas of this country when
people said blacks were less than human."

A constitutional amendment requires approval by two-thirds of each house of
Congress and three-fourths of the states. Even when Republicans controlled both
houses in 2004, the Bush-endorsed marriage amendment failed to pass either
chamber, with a handful of states'-rights Republicans joining Democratic
opponents.

But Sprigg, of the Family Research Council, said the political climate could
change - and the prospects of a constitutional amendment increase - if the
courts spoke first.

"If you were to have some sort of sweeping decision ... which would essentially
impose same-sex marriage on every state in the country," he said, "I think that
would perhaps create a huge backlash."

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. begelko@....

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/03/MN3Q1N9EV9.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle


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3)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/01/DDRF1NDH8R.DTL
My little missive to Rick Santorum
Jon Carroll

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Dear Sen. Santorum: I have heard your cry to make religion more a part of the
government and, by extension, more a part of the law than it is at the moment.
And I have seen your ideas in action in the so-called "personhood" bills and
other bits of legislation that seek to prevent a woman from controlling her own
body.

And that is the essence of the problem.

When you say you want religion closer to public policy, you're not just talking
about any religion. You're talking about your religion, which is an insular form
of Roman Catholicism. If, say, the precedents of Shariah law were accorded some
deference in Supreme Court rulings, you might not be as happy with the
intermingling of church and state.

If the tales of Shiva, maker and destroyer of worlds, were somehow to become a
fundamental part of the curriculum in public schools, this development would, I
wager, cause you some distress.

The Hindu myths are not to be taken literally, although some people do. The
Bible stories aren't to be taken literally, but some people do. Do we really
want myths conflated with facts to guide our reasoning about pragmatic issues of
the day? Not me.

See, that's my problem, Senator. Your religion wants to tell me what to do and
what to think. It wants to run my life, even though I don't believe in the
stories and tenets of that religion.

You know the Big Government that all you guys rail against, the one that is
sapping our precious freedoms? Well, that ain't nothing compared with Big
Religion. So as a conservative, Senator, you would substitute one form of
tyranny for another? Am I getting that right?

You said that you almost "threw up" when you read John Kennedy's speech about
the meaning of freedom of religion. Then you lied about what the speech said,
even as you've lied about the Dutch government's euthanasia program. Maybe you
didn't know the truth. Recently you've been attacking education as unnecessary.
And yet education can help us arrive at the truth.

But you are a member of that good old faith-based community, are you not? How
can we, in the reality-based community, ever hope to understand the rightness of
your position? And how are you ever to understand our position, since you
already know what is right?

Discussion is fruitless; truth is as plain as the nose on your face. Truth is
all laid out for you like a banquet. Please, don't go anywhere where your views
might be challenged, because that would hurt the truth's feelings. Stay right
there and listen to the echo.

Clearly there should be morality in public life; there should be morality in
private life, come to that. You don't steal or kill or loiter with intent. You
don't need a religion to tell you that; the secular law does a fine job, as does
common sense and a host of cautionary television programs.

Morality is not the same as religion. As we have seen in recent scandals, there
are plenty of pious but immoral people. So when you say you want more religion
in American life, you're not talking about morality. Heck, anyone who has to beg
for as much money as you do probably left his moral compass on the kitchen table
a long time ago.

So what you're talking about is building a new society that is even more
hypocritical than the current one, even more misogynistic than the current one,
even more repressive than the current one. I think of a religious government as
meaning: more sermons, fewer bridges.

Honest to God, Senator, I do not need more lectures from you and your magic book
about how to run my life. And I certainly don't want the whole engine of
government shifted so that it accords with your theology. Give that baby a rest;
you're scaring the horses.

In other news: Peggy Ford, an internationally known clown and circus executive,
died a few weeks ago. She toured with Ringling Bros., became artistic director
of Make-A-Circus and then program director of the Circus Center, for whom she
created the Clown Conservatory. She will be missed.

On March 13, her friends, colleagues and students are holding a memorial for her
at Z Space (the former Theater Artaud), 450 Florida St. in San Francisco. There
should be juggling and pratfalls and ancient gags, all in tribute to Ford.
Tickets are $20, and are available at brownpapertickets.com. For information,
call Z Space at (415) 626-0453 or go to www.zspace.org. Y'all come.

Have your religion leave me alone, please. I'm happy with my belief system just
now.

Sir, you have shown today your valiant strain, and fortune led you well: You
have the captives that were the opposites of jcarroll@....

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/01/DDRF1NDH8R.DTL

This article appeared on page E - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle


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4)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2012/03/03/MN641NFD7I.DTL
Medical pot: S.F. seeks tighter rules on edibles
Kevin Fagan

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Candy drops distilled from real fruit. Gourmet chocolate bars. Carrot cake that
melts in your mouth.

Stop by the average medical marijuana dispensary, and these cannabis-infused,
professionally wrapped goodies and many more like them beckon from beneath glass
cases. That delights cannabis customers - but it worries local officials who
have to oversee the hazy world of medical pot, where the drug is legal under
state law but is still federally banned.

Once mainly the province of brownie-making hippies, pot edibles are now turned
out by trained chefs whose products are checked by special Bay Area laboratories
that assess marijuana quality. There are few state guidelines defining how pot
edibles can be made and sold, however, and a flurry of local attempts to do that
has done little to change the fact that the edibles industry largely regulates
itself.

Now, with federal prosecutors having begun a crackdown on medical marijuana
operations, San Francisco is trying to tighten its rules on pot sweets. The city
already has the most stringent guidelines in California, requiring that makers
become state-certified food handlers and follow sanitation guidelines. But this
winter it took a cut at restricting big-volume producers.

The result has been a quiet push-me-pull-you between pot-food makers and health
officials that could help determine the future of the edibles industry.

"Patients love having edibles that are dependable and safe, and come from places
they know are producing products they can count on - and that's what they're
getting right now," said Steph Sherer, director of the national Americans for
Safe Access medical cannabis advocacy organization.

S.F. letter on limits
Sherer said she thinks San Francisco should leave edibles production just as it
is.

"The city has a system that works and it is absolutely impossible to fully
appease the federal government, so why change?" she said. "No other city in
California is having this struggle over edibles right now."

In the latest attempt at edibles regulation, all 21 medical marijuana
dispensaries in San Francisco received a letter last month from the city Public
Health Department ordering them to sell only edibles made from pot grown by
their enrolled members. The medical pot industry hit the roof, fearing that
noncompliance would mean their department-issued licenses would be revoked.

At least a half-dozen large makers of cannabis edibles have been supplying
multiple dispensaries in the Bay Area since around 2010, when the industry
suddenly expanded beyond the casual homemade stuff.

Within days of receiving the letter, dispensaries started dropping the big
makers. The producers, dispensary owners and clients began complaining to every
local official who would listen.

'It was shocking'
"I don't think anybody has a problem with being regulated," said Stephanie
Tucker, spokeswoman for the Medical Cannabis Task Force, which advises the Board
of Supervisors. "However, under the current climate of a federal crackdown, it
was shocking for a letter like this to go out.

"The edible makers that we have had in our dispensaries are going above and
beyond to make the best products and become professional," Tucker said. "Nowhere
in state law does it say you cannot be a member of more than one dispensary, and
that should mean for edible makers as well."

The big advantage of having a single type of edible available at different
shops, advocates say, is that clients can count on a standardized product being
available no matter where they shop.

"Limiting my choices worries me," said Bruce Buckner, 59, who uses pot edibles
for relief from bladder cancer and Crohn's disease and cannot smoke because of
emphysema. "It's a very fine line between eating something that works or having
it knock you out. You try them, then stick with what works."

Buckner's chemotherapy appointments vary, he said, so he's unable to go to the
same dispensary each time he drives to a San Francisco clinic from his Sonoma
County home.

"If I can't get the same product no matter where I go, I'll be flying blind," he
said.

City's strategy
Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco director of environmental health, said he and his
staff generated the letter to try to protect the burgeoning trade from trouble
with the feds.

"What we totally did not anticipate was the proliferation of commercial vendors
making a diverse array of cannabis edibles," Bhatia said. "So we have concerns."

He said limiting dispensaries' edibles to those made with members' pot would be
more in line with the state law allowing individual collectives to distribute
medical marijuana. The backlash to the letter persuaded his department not to
make it a requirement, but Bhatia still thinks it's the right thing to do.

"We're trying to steer the dispensaries toward what we believe to be the legally
authorized cannabis practices," Bhatia said. "And there are gray areas."

Making changes
The owner of the Shambhala Healing Center in the Mission District began asking
all his edible suppliers this week to use only marijuana from his dispensary for
products he stocks.

"I can understand the city's concern over this," said the owner, who asked that
his name not be used because of the increased federal scrutiny of marijuana
dispensaries. "But if everyone does what I'm suggesting, I think all the
officials would love it."

That may not be so easy to pull off, said Jade Miller, a professional caterer
who runs one of the bigger manufacturers, Sweet Relief, which makes
cannabis-infused fruit drinks and candy.

"People say weed is just weed, but it's not," Miller said as she whipped up a
batch of cherry-flavored drinks that sell for $7 a serving. "To do this, you
need trusted growers who are very consistent."

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. kfagan@...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/03/MN641NFD7I.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle


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--------------




5)
http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-gay-oakdale-marine-kiss-garners-major-attention\
.html
Gay Oakdale Marine’s Kiss Garners Major Attention

snelsonkovr, CBS Local - Sacramento-Wednesday 29 February 2012
Images have been resized. Originals at CBS Local - Sacramento
OAKDALE (CBS13) – It’s a homecoming with a twist when a Marine sergeant
jumped into the waiting arms of his boyfriend and gave him a kiss that’s
making headlines.

Brandon Morgan grew up in Oakdale before joining the Marines. Now his mother
says because of the reaction to a picture of that kiss, her son’s safety is
her main concern.

“I didn’t think of it any way — whether it be bad or good or whatever.
It’s just like ‘Thank God he made it home safe,’” Angie Panelli told
CBS13 in a phone interview.

Morgan, 25, was returning from Afghanistan when he jumped into the waiting arms
of his boyfriend, Dalan Wells.

The military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian service members was officially
repealed last September.

Morgan said he’s proud of the attention the photo has generated.

“Apparently this photo has been dubbed the kiss seen or heard ’round the
world,” he said. “It’s breaking barriers. People feel more confident to
live their own life and be truthful to who they know they are.”

Reaction in Oakdale was mixed.

“He’s definitely served our country so he deserves that right,” one woman
said.

“I’m a Christian so I wouldn’t advocate it,” said another.

The picture has gone viral, with tens of thousands of hits and comments.
Reaction ranges from encouraging to cruel..

Angie appreciates the support but is concerned about backlash.

“You got people out there that are so full of hatred that,” she said.
“That’s what scares me and my husband the most is we don’t want him to get
hurt because of all this.”

Angie describes her son as brave with a big heart, and reminds the people she
calls “the haters” that her son is fighting for freedom.

People have the right to say what they want, she said. She just wants them to
think about what they say.

“I think he’s compassionate, loving and caring and any mother would be happy
to have a son like that.

----------

This article originally appeared in CBS Local - Sacramento

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


6)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/glee-suicide-storyline-trevor-project_n\
_1307872.html
'Glee' Suicide Episode Gives The Trevor Project A Spike In Web Traffic, Phone
Calls
--- click on the URL --- lots of videos and stuff here ---

Last week's controversial winter finale episode of "Glee" may have shocked fans,
but one lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth advocacy group has
seen a number of benefits as a result.

As Entertainment Weekly is reporting, The Trevor Project saw their web traffic
spike and their phone calls triple after the episode, which depicted former
bully Dave Karofsky (played by Max Adler) attempting suicide -- to the tune of
Young the Giant's "Cough Syrup" -- after being outed as gay to his classmates.

"What was great about the show is that they worked in conjunction with us so we
knew in advance that there was going to in all likelihood be an increase in
volume," Trevor Project co-founder Peggy Rajski tells EW. “What happened was
the volume went up about 300 percent, but we were ready."

Adding extra punch, of course, was "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe's public
service announcement, which also aired during the "Glee" time slot. "On average,
our site probably attracts about an average of 1,500 visits a day,” Rajski
said. “Tuesday we got 10,000. There’s the power of network TV.”

For his part, Adler praised the decision to bring back his character in such a
poignant way. "It was a complete rainbow of emotions when I read it," the
26-year-old actor told the Hollywood Reporter. "There's excitement of being able
to send a message like this into the world when people really need it and need
to be spoken to honestly. It comes with the fear of representing it honestly and
accurately."

Learn more about The Trevor Project here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
----------


7)
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/sex-work-medical-students-rise/story?id=15808597#.T\
04_68iDnTq
Sex Work Among Medical Students On the Rise?
By MIKAELA CONLEY (@mikaelaconley)
Feb. 29, 2012

Sex work among medical students is on the rise, claims a new editorial,
published in the journal Student BMJ. The UK-based publication noted that
students are likely seeking extreme measures to deal with their financial
hardship.

One in 10 students knows of another who participated in prostitution to pay
their medical student loans, according to the editorial.

"Mounting evidence suggests that more university students are engaging in
prostitution as a means to pay increasing tuition fees, growing debts, and high
living costs," Jodi Dixon, the author of the editorial, wrote. "With escalating
debts, students in the United Kingdom may view prostitution as an easy way to
get rich quick."

Dixon refused ABC News' request for comment.

The numbers are rising, she noted. In 2006, about 6 percent of students
reportedly knew a peer who participated in sex work. Now, those figures have
risen to just below 10 percent, according to the research.

Prostitution is not illegal in the UK, but soliciting for sex and brothels are
prohibited. Prostitution is banned throughout the U.S., except Nevada. In 2009,
Natalie Dylan of San Diego, Calif., made headlines for auctioning off her
virginity to pay for her master's degree in family and marriage therapy.

Dixon wrote that the media may also influence students' turn to prostitution to
pay the bills. She pointed toward a popular UK television show, "Secret Diary of
a Call Girl," which is based on the life of Brooke Magnanti, a research
scientist who worked in prostitution while gaining her doctorate in informatics,
epidemiology and forensic science.

Past surveys have noted that pole and lap dancing are the most popular type of
sex work of which students participate. Stripping is second and prostitution
came third, according to the report.

"[These are] very unfortunate choices that go against the ethical standards that
doctors are expected to uphold," said Dr. Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist and
author of the book, "Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn
Their Secrets." "Prostitution is worse and convictions for prostitution need to
be acknowledged by medical students when they apply for a license, hospital
positions, and so on."

While most would agree that prostitution isn't the best way to deal with school
debt, Lieberman, who has treated medical students who have contemplated
prostitution to pay back loans, said there are other, greyer, areas where people
can trade sex for money.

"Gold-digging is a seemingly more sophisticated pursuit that necessitates a lot
of denial, if not delusion," continued Lieberman. "The woman pretends she's
enjoying the man's company, and the man pretends she loves him for himself, not
his money. And websites that match 'sugar daddies' with 'sugar babies' are on
the rise as being favorite solutions for students who need or want more money."

Of course, many more students who are in significant debt do not seek out sex
work to pay it off. Students who have been sexually abused in the past or came
from a household where they watched "flagrant sexual encounters" are more likely
to rationalize the pursuit of sex work to pay the bills.

Parents are to blame for not instilling healthier attitudes toward sex, said
Lieberman, and the media is to blame for glamorizing "bad girls" and encouraging
young women to do the same.

But before putting too much weight on Dixon's commentary, Dr. Ted Marmor,
professor emeritus of public policy and management at Yale School of Management,
said there is too much "speculation" on very "thin evidence" to make such bold
proclamations about students and prostitution.

Nevertheless, financial guidance may assist students in curbing decisions to
seek out sex work to cover the costs. Even more importantly, students should get
"at the root of their problems through psychotherapy," said Lieberman.

----------

My comment ---
Psychotherapy will solve money problems?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


8)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/testicle-zap-future-birth-control/story?id=15472917\
#.T05BDciDnTq
Ultrasound Zap May Be New Form of Birth Control
By MIKAELA CONLEY (@mikaelaconley)
Jan. 31,2012

Do not try this at home.

A new animal study, published in the journal Reproductive Biology and
Endocrinology, revealed that a couple zaps to the testicles might be the future
of contraception.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that
zapping the testicles of rats with a therapeutic ultrasound machine, the type
normally used by physical therapists to treat muscle injuries, abolished the
germ cells that produce sperm. The best results were seen when the testes
underwent two 15-minute zap sessions.

"This caused rat sperm counts to fall far below the [equivalent] range seen in
normal fertile men, and this happened in just two weeks," said James Tsuruta,
lead author of the study and assistant professor of pediatrics in the
laboratories of reproductive biology at UNC Chapel Hill.

"This method dropped sperm counts 10-times lower than just using heat," said
Tsuruta. "It's going to be exciting to figure out how this exactly works: if
it's safe to use repeatedly, how long it lasts, and if it's reversible."

Of course, more research is needed to see whether the treatment could someday be
available to men, but researchers said the zaps show promise as a cheap,
reliable and reversible birth control option in the future.

Dr. Paul Turek, director of the Turek Clinic in San Francisco said the research
is a "nice feasibility or proof of concept study, [but], as with other studies
in medicine, it is always wise to remember that mice are not men."

Women have long been waiting for equality in the birth control realm. Research
studies have found that male hormone injections showed some promise in
contraception, but many experts say the failure rates are too high to create a
reliable contraception method from the research. And, over time, testosterone
injections may cause sterilization.

Oral contraception pills for men have also been tested, but nothing has proven
safe and effective for consumer use.

Experts say vasectomies continue to be the gold standard for permanent male
sterilization. Yet following a vasectomy, it usually takes 20 to 30 ejaculations
for a man to clear all viable sperm from the testicles, Dr. Ryan Terlecki,
assistant professor of urology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine,
wrote in an email to ABC News.

Terlecki cautioned that likewise, with this new method being studied, there may
still be an unacceptable "window of opportunity" for viable sperm.

"I would be hesitant to get too excited about the application of this to human
reproductive medicine," Terlecki wrote. "It is important to realize that 'less
sperm' does not equate to 'zero sperm.'"

There are also other issues to consider when researching this novel zap method,
according to Turek. Rat testes are like "lima beans, compared to the kiwi-sized
testicles of humans," he said.

"The laws of physics may differ a bit and if the beam misses a single area of
the 700 feet of sperm producing tubules in the human testicle, you may have a
sperm count," said Turek. "If you have a sperm count in humans, then the
possibility of fertility exists. The record low sperm count for natural
conception in my practice is 60 sperm (20 million/ml is normal)."

Researchers also must keep the safety of the sperm in mind. If the technique did
not eradicate sperm entirely, or if the sperm recovers down the road, in, say,
six months, conception is possible and the risk of birth defects and genetic
anomalies in the fetus would become a concern.

About 26 percent of U.S. men use one method or another to control fertility,
including vasectomies and condoms.

Even though about 70 percent of U.S. couples use some form of contraception, an
estimated one million pregnancies end in abortion each year in the U.S. About
half of all pregnancies are mistimed or unwanted, and Tsuruta, an assistant
professor of pediatrics, said he believes that every child who is born should be
wanted.

"The most direct path to reducing the rate of unwanted or mistimed pregnancies
is to have women and men sharing responsibility for family planning," said
Tsuruta. "One of the goals of research in male birth control is to provide men
with more options for controlling their fertility. "We are planning studies on
rats to work out issues of safety, reliability and reversibility, before testing
the method on men. Safety is paramount."
Despite the potential experts see in the zap, there is still much to be learned
about the procedure and any new, widely-available contraception method using the
technology is probably a long time away.

"I wouldn't expect a 'scrotal boombox' to hit stores any time soon," Terlecki
said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


9)
"I love how people are too stupid to realize its the Onion, the Onion does
their job so damn well."
CLOSE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sThcwmx3rs
My comment ---
The Onion might have a good idea here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------


10)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/audited-irs-202750185.html
Will You Get Audited by the IRS?

By Jim Wang | U.S.News & World Report LP – Wed, Feb 29, 2012 3:27 PM EST

Who loves the IRS? Probably very few of us.

The numbers probably diminish when you start asking the folks who have undergone
an IRS audit. I've been audited twice (the easy paper variety) and I still
appreciate the IRS (love might be too strong a word), but my tune would probably
change on a full-fledged audited with a revenue agent.

It'd be easy to cast the IRS as the villain, as a heartless entity seeking to
punish honest hardworking people, but at the end of the day, the IRS is
concerned about one thing: generating revenue. They don't make the tax laws;
they simply enforce and collect on them. With all the political talk about debts
and deficits, you'd think more politicians would laud the IRS for their efforts
to more accurate collect tax revenue ... right?

[See also: Tax Breaks for All]

Our tax system is heavily based on honesty. Despite the rise in electronic and
paper trails, a lot of our transactions are still conducted without any written
record whatsoever. When you buy something at the local bagel shop with cash,
that money may or may not be recognized when the shop does its taxes. The tip
you leave for that nice waiter or waitress might not be recognized. So the IRS
has a difficult task of trying to accurately collect tax revenue, and audits
just one of the mechanisms it uses.

[See 12 Money Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes.]

Audits are, for the most part, not random. The IRS published a page back in 2006
that explained how the IRS chooses which tax returns to audit. It comes down to
four categories:

Computer Scoring: The IRS uses two scoring functions to calculate the likelihood
that you under-reported income, based on models they've built using historical
data. This alone doesn't determine whether you will get audited, but a higher
score on either function means you're more likely to be examined (that's the
polite word for audited.)

Information Matching: Since the IRS gets your W-2s and 1099s, it can match them
up with your return to see if the numbers add up. A mismatch will trigger an
audit, usually a CP2000 paper audit.

[See also: How to Live on 50% Less]

Relationship-Based: If you have a relationship with someone, usually a company,
that is audited, you might be audited as well. For example, let's say someone
paid you and issued a 1099-MISC but their return was audited. You might face an
audit because you were issued a 1099-MISC.

Participating in Tax Avoidance: This is a version of the relationship-based
case, but one that bears separate discussion because it's becoming more and more
common as enforcement picks up. An example is the recent Justice Department case
against Swiss bank Wegelin & Co. that charged three bankers of tax fraud; you
might be audited if you have an account at the bank.

In my case, both audits were the result of information matching. In the first
case, I never received a 1099-INT from an online bank and the penalty was a few
dollars of interest. In the second case, information on a 1099-MISC was included
on a corporate tax return and then reflected on a Schedule K-1, but the IRS
expected it to be on a Schedule C, so there was no net additional tax there.

In both cases, it wasn't the IRS being mean... they were simply doing their job.

Jim Wang writes about personal finance at Bargaineering.com. When he's not
tackling money issues, he's usually looking forward to his next vacation and
writing about it at Wanderlust Journey.

***

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

1) The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro -- at the deYoung
2) Thank You, Rush Limbaugh
3) First Baptist Church Dallas expands
4) Lavender Scare: U.S. Fired 5,000 Gays in 1953 'Witch Hunt'
5) If You're Using 'Password1', Change It. Now.
6) When Your Bank Doesn't Want You
7) Wall Martians
8) Same-sex custody battle could change Florida law
9) God Hates Who? James Alexander Langteaux, Former 700 Club Writer Tells All
10) 'Growing Pains' star Kirk Cameron says homosexuality is 'detrimental and
destructive'
11) Catholic Church Withdraws from Maine Marriage Equality Fight



Thoughts ---
"Fundamentalism means never having to say 'I'm wrong'." ~ Unknown

Such as prostitute corporate media. Or the southern baptist church, the mormon
cult, or the catholic corporation.
It is not surprising at all that the king of pious fraud, the church, is tax
exempt. Not a chance of an audit.
Plus free fire and police protection.  They don't pay a dime.

----------


1)
MUST see at the deYoung Museum, San Francisco --->

On the main floor in the far northwest corner -- the most incredible art object
I have ever seen.
A Gothic Cathedral

The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro, 2007
Al Farrow (b. 1943)

Guns, bullets, shot steel, tooth, bone, and 15th century fabric

This sculpture incorporates motifs from European cathedrals and was created from
deconstructed funs, as well as bullets and shot pellets.  Farrow's use of guns
and ammunition comments on the historical connection  between religious
intolerance and warfare -- particularly during the medieval Crusades, which
sanctioned the violent conquest of the Holy Land.  Farrow believes that all of
the world's major religions have undermined their moral authority by claiming
that "God is on our side" when waging war.

Farrow's cathedral is transformed into a reliquary by the inclusion of a human
spine in the nave and a human tooth over the transept door -- both belonging to
the fictitious Santo Guerro ("Saint War").  The spine mounted for display,
recalls that many European cathedrals were built with funds derived from the
viewing of religious relics.  Farrow's bone-filled reliquaries suggest that it
is neither religion nor the human soul that is eternal, but rather the instinct
to make war.

----------

Reference -- These pictures do not show the piece well.  You have to see it in
person for the effect, the shock, the power.
http://alfarrowcathedral.com/
http://www.alfarrow.com/cathedral.html
http://www.alfarrow.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieo2M4nFAfk

----------

My comment --
This is Rush Limbaugh's dream of a cathedral.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-----------


2)
http://news.yahoo.com/thank-rush-limbaugh-173100985.html
Thank You, Rush Limbaugh
By Elizabeth Danu | Yahoo! Contributor Network - Mon, Mar 5, 2012

COMMENTARY | Rush Limbaugh has done a fine service to voters, highlighting the
view of many far-right conservatives that opposition will not be tolerated.
Uppity women will be put in their place quickly and ferociously. There was
little outrage from the top three GOP candidates. Outrage would have been the
appropriate response.


Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum distanced themselves from
Limbaugh's comments, according to the Associated Press. It would have been
foolish not to, whatever their views. The article points out Limbaugh's comments
could hurt the GOP in November. Despite criticism from a number of sources that
social issues are a distraction from more important concerns, Santorum continues
to focus on them, which means they continue to be in the forefront of the
discussion.


President Barack Obama did the right thing and called Sandra Fluke, whom
Limbaugh verbally trashed. According to the Huffington Post, he called to
express his support. Limbaugh's character assault on Fluke was appalling, and
Obama said as much.


Limbaugh eventually apologized, as decency demands. That is not why he did it,
however. His radio show lost some major advertising dollars from his outrageous
behavior, according to CBS News. Presidential candidate Ron Paul pointed this
out as the obvious reason for his apology, for personal gain. I wonder if
Limbaugh has any conscience about the impact his comments will have on voters in
November.


I'm sure there are many GOP voters who do not condone Limbaugh's behavior in any
way. Unfortunately, the extreme conservatism that this year's candidates are
claiming would indicate women's rights are trivial and that treating women as
trivial is acceptable. Whether this is actually the Republican stance or not,
the fact Limbaugh thought he could behave this way is cause for concern.


Limbaugh has a huge following. Who are all these listeners? Why is this guy
popular? If he will call a woman a "slut" and a "prostitute" for speaking up,
who's next? Will we go back to the days when racial slurs were acceptable? How
about homophobic language? Hate crimes?


Limbaugh has drawn intense attention to a fundamental flaw in the conservative
platform. Institutionalized sexism went out in the 1960s. Today's voters aren't
likely to vote it back in.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------


3)
First Baptist Church Dallas expands -- look at the pictures
http://ascendio.com/fbd/Photo-Gallery.aspx

The proposed $123 million campus

Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor -- "Mormonism is a cult"
http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-robert-jeffress-refuses-to-back-down\
-on-mormonism-is-a-cult-57933/


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------------



4)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/lavender-scare-us-fired-thousands-gays-infamous-cha\
pter/story?id=15848947#.T1g5FMiDnTo

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/lavender-scare-us-fired-thousands-gays-infamous-cha\
pter/story?id=15848947&page=1#.T1g5VsiDnTo
Lavender Scare: U.S. Fired 5,000 Gays in 1953 'Witch Hunt'
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
March 5, 2012

Joan Cassidy, 84, has the U.S. Navy in her blood. Her father and mother, a proud
Yeomanette, served active duty in World War I. Her brother and sister were in
World War II.

By 1953, Lt. j.g. Cassidy, then 26, was head of a Navy intelligence division
with highest-level security clearances.

But while serving in Pearl Harbor, she resigned from a promising career and
joined the Navy Reserve, forced to throw away her dreams because she was a
lesbian.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower that year declared homosexuals a threat to
national security and ordered the immediate firing of every gay man and lesbian
working for the U.S. government.

The State Department fired hundreds of gay men and women, calling them sexual
"perverts" who would be vulnerable to blackmail; 5,000 government workers,
including private contractors, were publicly exposed and sent packing.

"It was a witch hunt," said Cassidy, who lives in a senior housing complex in
Centreville, Md.

"I thought to myself, what if somebody goes digging around and finds out, I
would lose everything," she said. "I wanted it so badly, but it scared the
living daylights out of me."

Now, a new film, "Lavender Scare," explores this untold story, a dark chapter in
U.S. when the government worried "more about homosexuals than communists."    
http://www.thelavenderscare.com/

"We were supposed to be in touch with the Russians," said Cassidy, who was among
several other eyewitnesses interviewed in the documentary.

Based on the book by David K. Johnson, the documentary was produced and directed
by Emmy Award-winner Josh Howard, a former "60 Minutes" producer. It is his
first independent film.

The title of the film is a reference to the color lavender, which is often
associated with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

"There was a conspiracy of silence," Howard, 57, said. "Many had deals with the
government and resigned for medical reasons because they didn't want to talk.
The government didn't want to talk because people would question why their hired
them in the first place."

The documentary, which is expected to be ready for the film festivals this fall,
also includes one of the last interviews with Frank Kameny, a Harvard-educated
astronomer, who was one of the first gay rights activists and died in October.

Kameny, considered to be "grandfather" of the modern gay rights movement, was
working for the Army Map Service on classified missile projects in the hopes of
being an astronaut when he was fired.

Four years before the Stonewall riots in New York City, Kameny led pickets at
the White House in 1965 to protest the government firings. He petitioned the
Supreme Court, which ultimately refused to hear his case.

Only in 1995 was that order rescinded by President Bill Clinton, who also
instituted the controversial military policy, "don't ask, don't tell." Congress
voted to end the policy last year.

"Chilling stories like Joan Cassidy's underscore the fear that these people
lived with every day, afraid of losing their jobs, and all the people who never
tried to fulfill their dream because they knew they were not going anywhere,"
said Howard, who is gay.

Cassidy said she watched the "witch hunt" unfold as the Office of Naval
Investigation began its crusade to cleanse the civilian service of homosexuals.

She said many of her friends were called in: "They sat behind the big lights and
started grilling them, saying, 'We know you're a homosexual, because your
partner is in the next room.' She told us, 'You might as well confess.'"

Her moment of clarity came while looking out her window when she saw 15 to 20
Navy women -- "in those terrible gray, seersucker suits" -- and realized they
had been rounded up for firing.

"They had been identified as homosexuals," she said. "They had their heads held
high and their shoulders squared and it made me shiver."

Their parents would receive the dreaded letter: "We are sending your homosexual
child home," she said.

Up until that point, Cassidy never frequented lesbian bars, because it was too
dangerous. Gossip could destroy a career.

She had learned that she had been identified by an enlisted woman. "I had never
said a word to them," she said. "I don't know what it is that I did -- or how I
walked or held myself. But word spread quickly."

Lesbians were careful to only socialize at private parties, and often with gay
men for protection from scandal, women on one side and men at the other. She
remembers a time when they heard a knock at the door, and women scrambled to
change their seats.
"It was automatic," Cassidy said. "We'd be guy, girl, guy, girl, with our hands
on the guys and their arms all around us."

Progress has been made but, director Howard said, "There are still battles to be
fought."

President Obama is considering an executive order to create anti-discrimination
policies for private government contractors.

"That would be huge, particularly in these times of outsourcing," he said,
citing a UCLA Williams Institute study estimating that a half-million gay people
work in private companies who do business with the government. Thirty states
still have no anti-discrimination laws.

Howard said that learning this history is important, because the mass firings
set the stage for the homophobia that still persists today in schools and in the
workplace.

As for Cassidy, she would have stayed on in active duty. "I loved the Navy," she
said.

"There are so many people who have no idea what that time was like," she said.
"They have no idea of the kind of fear ... They made us feel as though we were
below consideration."

But Cassidy and Howard acknowledge significant progress in LGBT rights since the
McCarthy Era firings. Gay marriage is legal in seven states and the District of
Columbia.

Cassidy is now living proof of new societal attitudes. She and her same-sex
partner of 13 years were legally married in Washington, D.C.

The tragedy of what happened 59 years ago was, Cassidy said, "that every one of
us had joined the Navy because we were so proud of our country and wanted to
serve."


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-----------


5)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/if-you-re-using--password1---change-it--now-.html
If You're Using 'Password1,' Change It. Now.
By Stacy Cowley | CNNMoney.com - Thu, Mar 1, 2012 3:29 PM EST

The number one way hackers get into protected systems isn't through a fancy
technical exploit. It's by guessing the password.

That's not too hard when the most common password used on business systems is
"Password1."

There's a technical reason for Password1's popularity: It's got an upper-case
letter, a number and nine characters. That satisfies the complexity rules for
many systems, including the default settings for Microsoft's widely used Active
Directory identity management software.

Security services firm Trustwave spotlighted the "Password1" problem in its
recently released "2012 Global Security Report," which summarizes the firm's
findings from nearly 2 million network vulnerability scans and 300 recent
security breach investigations.

Around 5% of passwords involve a variation of the word "password," the company's
researchers found. The runner-up, "welcome," turns up in more than 1%.

Easily guessable or entirely blank passwords were the most common vulnerability
Trustwave's SpiderLabs unit found in its penetration tests last year on clients'
systems. The firm set an assortment of widely available password-cracking tools
loose on 2.5 million passwords, and successfully broke more than 200,000 of
them.

Verizon came up with similar results in its 2012 Data Breach Investigations
Report, one of the security industry's most comprehensive annual studies. The
full report will be released in several months, but Verizon previewed some of
its findings at this week's RSA conference in San Francisco.

Exploiting weak or guessable passwords was the top method attackers used to gain
access last year. It played a role in 29% of the security breaches Verizon's
response team investigated.

[Related: Smartphone Features You Don't Really Need]

Verizon's scariest finding was that attackers are often inside victims' networks
for months or years before they're discovered. Less than 20% of the intrusions
Verizon studied were discovered within days, let alone hours.

Even scarier: Few companies discovered the breach on their own. More than
two-thirds learned they'd been attacked only after an external party, such as a
law-enforcement agency, notified them. Trustwave's findings were almost
identical: Only 16% of the cases it investigated last year were internally
detected.

So if your password is something guessable, what's the best way to make it more
secure? Make it longer.

Adding complexity to your password -- swapping "password" for "p@S$w0rd" --
protects against so-called "dictionary" attacks, which automatically check
against a list of standard words.

But attackers are increasingly using brute-force tools that simply cycle through
all possible character combinations. Length is the only effective guard against
those. A seven-character password has 70 trillion possible combinations; an
eight-character password takes that to more than 6 quadrillion.

Even a few quadrillion options isn't a big deal for modern machines, though.
Using a $1,500 computer built with off-the-shelf parts, it took Trustwave just
10 hours to harvest its 200,000 broken passwords.

"We've got to get ourselves using stuff larger than human memory capacity,"
independent security researcher Dan Kaminsky said during an RSA presentation on
why passwords don't work.

He acknowledged that it's an uphill fight. Biometric authentication, smartcards,
one-time key generators and other solutions can increase security, but at the
cost of adding complexity.

"The fundamental win of the password over every other authentication technology
is its utter simplicity on every device," Kaminsky said. "This is, of course,
also their fundamental failing."


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-------------


6)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-doesnt-want-204701335.html
When Your Bank Doesn't Want You
By Linda Stern | Reuters - Thu, Mar 1, 2012 4:28 PM EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions between banks and consumers were at fever pitch
last fall, when Bank of America tried unsuccessfully to make a $5 monthly debit
card fee stick and consumer activists took to the parks and asked customers to
move their money on "Bank Transfer Day."

Now those tensions are rising again, but don't expect the banks to back down
like BofA did. It's not because consumers are any less upset: A report that the
megabank was simply considering new checking account fees was met with an
immediate press release from Consumers Union calling on Bank of America "to drop
its latest fee scheme."

And it's not because consumers aren't leaving when they are mad. Roughly 9.6
percent of customers switched banks during the past year, according to a survey
released on Monday by J.D. Power and Associates. This is up from 8.7 percent in
2011 and 7.7 percent in 2010. One-third of the customers at larger banks said
they were moving mainly because of fees.

[Related: Money saving tips you'll love]

Now, if there's new backbone in the banks, it's because they may be getting
better at figuring out when they have to raise fees, and which customers they
can afford to lose.

Put another way, the banks are coming to terms with the fact that there are some
customers they can't afford to keep. And if those customers find other financial
services to use instead of banks, so be it.

Those unprofitable customers may be a larger cohort than you think, and you may
even be one of them.

People who don't bring at least $100,000 to the table in investable assets,
loans and deposits will be largely unprofitable to banks once Dodd-Frank
financial reform rules are fully phased in, Todd Maclin, head of consumer and
business banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co, told investors at an event earlier this
week.

He said that roughly one in three customers has less than $5,000 in deposits and
investments and 80 percent of those folks will be unprofitable to banks that
can't charge as much as they once did for overdrafts and the like.

This is not necessarily the ethical/moral problem that some consumerists
suggest; it's more of a practical dilemma. After Dodd Frank, fees may be more
directly connected to the services that cost financial companies money. And
consumers may be billed directly for services they used to get free because
someone else was actually paying for them behind the scenes.

As banks and investment companies (JPMorgan and BofA do both) get better at the
kind of consumer data crunching that everyone else is doing, they'll know
exactly how much each customer brings them in profits and which ones are worth
hanging on to, and which services they need to charge for.

A young person without much money, but a big salary and nice prospects, would be
good to snag with online banking and investment advice. A wealthy customer who
only wants to use the neighborhood bank for free checking and bill pay? Not so
much.

Of course, consumers do have alternatives, so the giant banks don't have all the
power in those relationships. Small banks, credit unions and new automated
advisory services are going after depositors and investors with offers that
should have the big banks nervous. They may not want unprofitable customers, but
what customer wants to be a big profit center for their bank?

[Related: Bank of America Fees Up? Capitalism at Work, Get Used to It]

Here are some tips, and a short shopping guide for financial customers who are
in that under-$100,000 category.

-- Don't bundle big money. Most big financial institutions will give you free
checking (and probably a toaster, too) if you take out a $250,000 mortgage or
drop $100,000 into an investment account with them. But do you want to? Not if
you are overpaying for those big services just to save a few bucks a month on
your checking account.

If you like the convenience of an ATM on every corner and a great online
bill-pay application, you may be better off sucking it up and paying the monthly
bank fee.

-- Bundle little money. Many banks require a minimum monthly balance of $2,000
or so for free checking. If you can afford to tie up that much money without
getting interest for it, you could probably qualify for free checking and avoid
overdraft problems, too.

-- Seek upstart alternatives. Small community banks are hiring marketing front
companies to build online businesses for them: Companies like PerkStreet,
SmartyPig and Simple.com offer a variety of banking accounts, FDIC insured, via
Web portals. My colleague Lou Carlozo recently identified 10 banks offering free
checking accounts.

-- Use automated investment services. The thinking about how to build a solid
retirement portfolio has coalesced around this approach: A mix of stocks and
bonds in low-fee funds, rebalanced regularly. And you don't need a high-priced
banker or broker to do that for you; a computer can. Some companies that are
doing a decent job of managing portfolios on autopilot include FolioInvesting,
Marketriders, Betterment (which just dropped its fees) and Wealthfront, which
offers free advisory services for accounts under $25,000 and charges just 0.25
percent on accounts over that.

-- Complain, if you want. Of course, banks are supposed to deal fairly and
clearly with their customers, and if you feel like you've been wronged, you
don't have to just slink away. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said
Thursday that it is accepting consumer complaints about bank accounts at its web
site.

You can file a complaint, print it out, and - ahem - take that to the bank.

(The Stern Advice column appears weekly, and at additional times as warranted.
Linda Stern can be reached at linda.stern@...; She tweets at
http://www.twitter.com/lindastern.)

Additional reporting by John McCrank and David Henry; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)


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7)
Wall Martians
http://www.youtube.com/v/6RzcvFLPg1A


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8)
http://news.yahoo.com/same-sex-custody-battle-could-change-florida-law-141246936\
.html
Same-sex custody battle could change Florida law
By JAMES L. ROSICA - Associated Press | AP - Sunday 04 March 2012
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A custody battle in Florida between two lesbians could
fuel the growing national debate over the definition of motherhood.

It also might force state lawmakers to reconsider a 19-year-old law regarding
the rights of sperm and egg donors.

The women, now in their 30s and known in court papers only by their initials,
were both law enforcement officers in Florida. One partner donated an egg that
was fertilized and implanted in the other. That woman gave birth in 2004, nine
years into their relationship.

But the Brevard County couple separated two years later, and the birth mother
eventually left Florida with the child without telling her former lover. The
woman who donated the egg and calls herself the biological mother finally
tracked them down in Australia with the help of a private detective.

Their fight over the now 8-year-old girl is before the state Supreme Court,
which has not announced whether it will consider the case. A trial judge ruled
for the birth mother and said the biological mother has no parental rights under
state law, adding he hoped his decision would be overturned.

The 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach obliged, siding with the
biological mother and saying both women have parental rights.

At issue is the 1993 state law meant to regulate sperm and egg donation.
Scholars debate whether the constitutional right to procreate includes
outside-the-body technologies used to conceive.

Also at issue are constitutional questions about gay people's right to raise
children and claim equal protection under law. Another appellate court ruled
Florida's ban on gays being able to adopt unconstitutional in 2010.

The biological mother, however, isn't concerned about being a legal or social
pioneer, her lawyer said. She just wants her child back in her life.

"She hasn't seen her daughter in years, and it's been terribly, terribly
difficult for her," said Robert A. Segal, a family law attorney in Melbourne.

The birth mother's lawyer, Robert Wheelock of Orlando, did not respond to
written questions sent by email.

The battle over what defines motherhood is being played out on prime-time
television shows and in courtrooms across the country.

Lisa Miller, a Virginia woman who renounced her homosexuality, has been in
hiding with her daughter since 2009 after a court ordered that her former
partner, Janet Jenkins, be given custody.

The two entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000. Miller's own egg was
artificially inseminated and she gave birth. The Virginia Supreme Court
ultimately agreed with a Vermont judge's custody decision; the case raised
questions about one state's duty to recognize same-sex relationship rights
created by laws in another.

More recently, former North Carolina state Sen. Julia Boseman, the first openly
gay member of that Legislature, is suing for joint custody of a 2-year-old son
born to a woman Boseman had called her spouse.

In the Florida case, the women agreed to use "reproductive medical assistance,"
have a child and raise that child as a couple, court records show.

It's unknown why they later decided to separate, but "their separation does not
dissolve the parental rights of either woman, nor does it dissolve the love and
affection either has for the child," the appellate decision said.

The birth mother cites the state's law on sperm and egg donation, which says
that donors "relinquish all maternal or paternal rights," to argue that the
biological mother wasn't the child's parent.

The trial judge ruled for the birth mother, but said he didn't agree with the
law and told the biological mother, "If you appeal this, I hope I'm wrong."

The appellate judges reversed him 2-1 in a decision that found the biological
mother wasn't a "donor" as contemplated by the law because she and her partner
intended to be parents together.

"We can discern no legally valid reason to deprive either woman of parental
rights to this child," said the majority opinion by Judge Thomas Sawaya. He
ruled that the donor law was unconstitutional as applied in the case.

That law was passed 15 years after Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube"
baby, was born. But Judge David Monaco, in a concurring opinion, said the
statute "was not designed to resolve the problem of how to treat children born
by in vitro fertilization to a same-sex couple."

One of the original sponsors of that law agrees.

"I think it's unlikely we discussed this kind of fact situation," said Brian P.
Rush, a Tampa lawyer who served in the Florida House at the time as a Democrat.
"We were trying to facilitate assisted reproduction technologies ... and
eliminate litigation."

But in a blistering dissent, Judge C. Alan Lawson said the trial judge got it
right. A child can have only one mother, he wrote.

The court shouldn't recognize two mothers "unless we are also willing to
invalidate laws prohibiting same-sex marriage, bigamy, polygamy or adult
incestuous relationships on the same basis," Lawson said.

Moreover, allowing people to plead intent could allow any donor to "make an
after-the-fact claim" for parental rights, he said.

Monaco and Lawson agreed, however, that the Legislature needs to pass new law on
the science of human reproduction to reflect the times.

"We think we're solving problems with technology, but it just leads to more
problems," said Alan Williams, a health law professor at Florida Coastal School
of Law in Jacksonville. "Moral and ethical dilemmas arise that laws were never
made to deal with."

John Stemberger, president of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council,
says the appellate court's decision "redefines the legal nature of families in
opposition to Florida's law and constitution." Florida voters adopted a
constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2008.

Shannon McLin Carlyle, an appellate attorney who also is representing the
biological mother, said the majority didn't come up with a gay rights decision:
"It's a pro-parent decision."

"But it does solidify gay couples' right to retain a relationship with their
child," she said. "If it goes the other way, parenthood could be subject to risk
on the whim of the other partner."

Ultimately, the state Supreme Court may have to wrestle with Judge Monaco's
closing sentences: "We still ought to come to grips with what is best for the
child. Here, having two parents is better than one."

_____

Follow James L. Rosica on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jlrosica

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9)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-shepherd/god-hates-who_b_1310551.html?ref=gay\
-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices
God Hates Who? James Alexander Langteaux, Former 700 Club Writer Tells All
Posted: 03/ 5/2012 11:38 am

Phil Shepherd, The Whiskey Preacher

With the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the recent reversal of
Proposition 8, small steps have been taken to ratify equality for the greater
human community. Even in the midst of all the positive changes that are
progressing in our culture today in regards to equality for the LGBTQ community,
there is a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar industry fervently holding on to
their closet keys - hoping no one will escape from their industry's closet.
The world of Christian Television has done its due diligence in slandering the
name of the LGBTQ community with their proclamations of abomination and the
promise of a blistering hot hell awaiting their wicked souls, "where even the
worm dieth not." However, there is a dirty little secret that many Christian
Television networks don't want the general public to know. The secret: they
employ homosexuals. With their own version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Christian
Television networks across the board have been in bed with the LGBTQ community
since the beginning of their first broadcast.

However, there is one brave soul in the Christian television industry that is
putting his career and livelihood on the line. He is tired of people not asking,
he is tired of not telling the truth: he is gay and he loves Jesus. Award
winning producer, journalist, author, and former senior producer at multiple
Christian television networks including The 700 Club, James Alexander Langteaux
has decided enough is enough and he is finally going public about his attraction
to God and men with his new book "Gay Conversations with God - Straight Talk on
Fanatics, Fags and the God who Loves Us All" - due to be released April 1st.
That's right, you read that correctly. April Fools Day is the release date of
James' latest opus and this is no joking matter. "Gay Conversations with God"
has been eight long years in the making as James struggled with how "open" he
truly wanted to be in his tell-all memoir of God's inclusive love for him and
the rest of creation.

James, how long have you been in the world of Christian Television?

Way too long. The irony is I told God when I was 17 that I didn't ever want to
work in Christian television - or anything Christian for that matter. And that
is pretty much all I have done for almost 20 years. I think it was Anne Lamott
who repeated the old joke - "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your
plans."

James can you please tell us a little bit about you religious upbringing?

It's funny but my earliest memories involve waking up under pinball machines and
barstools in restaurants and pubs. Then at about age 7 my parents were swept up
in the Jesus People movement and my life took a massive hard right. Suddenly it
was all Pentecostal prayer meetings, late night alter calls and fire and
brimstone preaching, rules and regulations that would make Bob Jones' students
cringe - and enough vitriolic sermons that pounded the point home that God Hates
Homosexuals. They are going to hell. End of story. The only problem was I was
gay and yet I could feel God's tangible love for me. Now what do I do with that?

Your original title of your book was not Gay Conversations with God. What was
your original title of your book and why did you change it?

I remember when I felt a new book stirring (this was after writing two Christian
books for one of the more conservative Christian publishers) I sat at my
computer in the underground speakeasy we created in Los Angeles and suddenly
there was an explosion. The words just came pouring out and they were so
incendiary and unexpected that I began to shake, wondering if I may be
channeling Jesus, Truman Capote and Dr. Seuss simultaneously. This was to be the
book's Foreskin (a little more than Foreword) and the title "God Hates Fags -
and other bedtime bible stories" followed quickly on its heels and it seemed a
perfect compliment. I loved the shock value of that title. In fact, over the 8
years that it took for me to finally get this book into print I became very
attached to the title. But just before we went to press there was an all out
title fight with the distributor who insisted that we had to change the name.
They said it was going to potentially turn off buyers and bookstore owners who
didn't take the time to get the joke. Since the whole point was to get this
message out to as many as possible, I finally, begrudgingly relented. (sigh) I
still love the old title.

You mentioned earlier that you told God that you never wanted to be in Christian
Television - so how did you end up being a senior producer for The 700 Club?

Yeah, God really does have a sense of humor. I also told him I would never go to
a Christian school. So while at graduate school at Pat Robertson's Regent
University, the executive producer of The 700 Club taught a small class I ended
up taking. He knew I lived in the artsy neighborhood (read: gay neighborhood)
and he would occasionally joke and ask, "Did your boyfriend bring you into class
today?" Despite that I was buried deeply in the closet, I would do a faux lisp
and tell him, "Yeah, Shane is so good that way."

All the other students were vying for positions on the show, and since I didn't
want any part of Christian TV, my surliness may have made me stand out. Months
later, I was working on the crew of an NBC mini-series on Jackie O and had
determined to drop out of grad school and join the TV circus in L.A. I even
dared God to stop me if he didn't want me to go by presenting me with an
alternative offer. The very next day the executive producer called and asked if
I would be interested in a job on The 700 Club.

In your book Gay Conversations with God you tell of a story of a young man who
worked with you at The 700 Club that confessed to you that he was gay; how did
that confession shape your faith journey?

Well, ironically I was working late in my office, writing copy and questions for
some ex-gay guests who would be on our new Sunday show to share how Jesus had
set them free from homosexuality. I was already late for dinner with my
boyfriend when there was a knock at my door. It was a man from security and I
was sure that somehow they had found me out. I was going to be escorted out of
the building for being gay.

But the truth was this security man was actually a boy riddled with insecurity
and he admitted that although he was married, he was secretly gay. He told me
how he felt the need to share this with his wife in an effort to be transparent
and honest and to free him from the fear and shame. He was shaking as he told me
his story and all I could think was, "nobody here knows I am gay, why the hell
are you telling me?" I carefully told him that he was not alone and God was
madly in love with him, no matter what and nothing would ever separate him from
God's love.

I think I may have been rather convincing - but I myself was not convinced. I
found out later that his wife, who was also on staff, alerted the higher ups and
this man was given the boot. I knew then that I had to stay deeply hidden in the
closet so the same thing would not happen to me.

Did anyone else know that you were gay at the 700 Club besides this young man
that confided in you?

Actually, that same EP, the one who made gay jokes and seemed to be the least
safe person next to maybe Pat, one day took me to lunch and pretty much
awkwardly opened up the subject - giving me a giant welcome mat to share my
story. It was one of the most uncomfortable lunches I had to date and I was
squirming and sweating until he let me know I was completely safe. That was a
God moment - because the love and compassion coming from an unlikely source
allowed a deep friendship to open up and this man has been a best friend and
mentor ever since. That said, he made it clear that I needed to pray and fast
and pray fast in hopes that I could also be one of those ex-gays - the very ones
who often slyly hit on me with a casual dinner invitation after their appearance
on the show.

Did you ever feel like you were living a lie?

I was SO far in denial that I convinced myself that I wasn't gay. I just had
this inconvenient attraction to men - exclusively. But I sure the hell wasn't
gay!
Yes. I was living a lie, for a very long time.

How do you think your former colleagues and boss, Pat Robertson, will react when
they find out his former senior producer is coming out of the closet in such a
provocative way?

Well, after the uproar that resulted from Pat's comments of dementia being
grounds for abandonment in a marriage union, I'm not sure that really matters
much. (But Lord knows we have to protect the sanctity of marriage from those
crazy gays.)

According to some insiders, I was blacklisted after my first Christian book just
hinted at my "struggle" with same sex attraction. I imagine this crazy new book
will cause cardiac arrest in some of the staff for certain.

But I have to say I am seeing a glimmer of hope on the horizon in this God VS
Gay war. I recently met with a very influential head of a major ministry to let
him know of my new book and my being gay. It was a suicide mission because
another dear friend of mine who was a valued employee at this very same ministry
had been outed by a colleague not too long ago and he was fired immediately.

Because this little Christian ghetto is so tightly knit, the word spread to all
the other major television ministries and this talented friend could not get
work to save his life. It got so bad that one night he had to call me from Los
Angeles to ask me if I could buy him a hotel room to keep him off the streets.
It was a tragic display of how ignorance can really cost someone everything. And
in this case, it was everything. My talented, amazing friend had even considered
suicide at one point. The thought of that still brings tears to my eyes.

That being said - the meeting with the leader of that very same ministry went
surprisingly well. I don't believe this man will be attending any pride parades.
But I do know that I was able to share my journey with him and plant the idea
that God is in love with all of his kids, gay straight and somewhere in between.
And if God can love them - love US, then maybe he can too. Granted it was a tiny
little seed, but it gave me just a glimmer of hope.

Would you still label yourself as a Christian?

No. Not at all. I have done branding for years and Christianity has been made
into a terrible brand, unfortunately. A brand that doesn't look or smell
anything like the Jesus I know who loved the unlovable, embraced the prostitute,
and was willing to risk it all for the one lost sheep. Yeah. I want to follow
that guy. And I don't need a label to do it.

Why are you choosing to come out to the world now and what do you hope to gain
by it?

I see it as a Moses moment. "Let my people go!" (Pretty dramatic, huh?)

Truthfully, I have no choice. I have argued with God for so many years - asking
him to please pick someone else. I never wanted to be identified with this gay
thing. But it turns out God wants to be identified with this gay thing.

I have remained silent far too long. And some of God's most precious sons and
daughters have been beaten and bloodied beyond belief. Someone has to tell them
that they are loved, madly, passionately, exquisitely - no matter the price. And
there really is a price. Especially for someone who has made a living in the
Christian TV.

(I so wish I hadn't told God I would never work in Christian television. Why
didn't I tell him I would NEVER win the lottery?)

If you could say just one thing to a person struggling with their sexuality, a
person who is surrounded by religious oppression that tells them their sexuality
is wrong, what would you say to that struggling person?

I would first hug them if they would allow me to. I would let my heart be felt
before I said a word. And then I would look them in the eye and tell them that
if they are running from an angry God, a God who hates fags - I would tell them
that they need to stop running because that God simply doesn't exist. You don't
have to give God the finger, just give him your hand. And let him love you
beyond your wildest dreams. Transformation of any kind will only come from being
in a relationship with him - and if there is anything he wants you to change, HE
will let you know. I mean, he is Jewish, remember!

You can visit James' Website www.gayconversations.com to find where to buy "Gay
Conversations with God - Straight Talk on Fanatics, Fags and the God who Loves
Us All."

Follow Phil Shepherd on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philshepherd


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------------------------------


10)
http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/04/10576419-growing-pains-st\
ar-kirk-cameron-says-homosexuality-is-detrimental-and-destructive

'Growing Pains' star Kirk Cameron says homosexuality is 'detrimental and
destructive'
By Brandi Fowler, E! Online

03/04/2012

In a sit-down on Piers Morgan Tonight that aired Friday, former "Growing Pains"
star Kirk Cameron blasted gay marriage and homosexuality calling it "destructive
to so many of the foundations of civilization."

And that was just the beginning.

MORE: Heavens No! Kirk Cameron Attacks Stephen Hawking for Godless Views

When the 41-year-old outspoken Christian was asked about his thoughts on gays
tying the knot, Cameron said, "Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was
defined in the Garden between Adam and Eve. One man, one woman for life till
death do you part. So I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage. And I
don't think anyone else should either."
"So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don't."
And when asked if he thought homosexuality was a sin, Cameron went on to say, "I
think that it's unnatural. I think that it's detrimental, and ultimately
destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."

But, that wasn't all.

PHOTOS: A Brief History of Gays on TV

Morgan continued to discuss the topic with the father of six, asking Cameron
what he would say to one of his sons if he told him he was gay. And Cameron
admitted he wouldn't be so accepting.

"I wouldn't say 'That's great, son, as long as you're happy.' I'm going to say,
'There are all sorts of issues we need to wrestle through in our life. Just
because you feel one way doesn't mean we should act on everything we feel'."

Following the interview, Cameron's comments ignited a firestorm with gay rights
groups like GLAAD, which launched a campaign against the former teen idol,
encouraging its members to sign a petition against him to let him know he's "no
longer their idol."

MORE: Feud Alert (Again)! Piers Morgan Slams Madonna's Super Bowl Halftime Show

"In this interview, Kirk Cameron sounds even more dated than his 1980s TV
character," said Herndon Graddick, Senior Director of Programs at GLAAD.

"Cameron is out of step with a growing majority of Americans ... with an
increasing number of states recognizing marriage equality, Americans are seeing
that marriage is about committed couples who want to make a lifelong promise to
take care of and be responsible for each other and that gay and lesbian couples
need equal security and legal protections. That's not 'redefining' anything."


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--------------


11)
http://www.bilerico.com/2012/03/catholic_church_withdraws_from_maine_marriage_eq\
ua.php
Catholic Church Withdraws from Maine Marriage Equality Fight
Filed By Guest Blogger | March 05, 2012 10:00 AM

Editors' Note: Ned Flaherty is a Project Manager at Marriage Equality USA, where
he oversees the National Marriage Map and the Election 2012 projects. He writes
from Boston, Massachusetts, where same-gender marriages began 8 years ago.

The Roman Catholic church is taking no active roles in fundraising, staffing,
advertising, or campaigning against marriage equality in Maine.

Bishop Richard Malone, the sect's top-ranking official in Maine, said on Friday,
March 2 that his goal now is only to re-train the wayward 25% of Maine's 187,306
Catholics. He said that the church "doesn't want to impose a law or belief on
anyone," especially non-Catholic citizens, who comprise 86% of Maine residents,
and 77% of all Americans. Maine voters will decide by ballot in November whether
to write same-gender marriage into state law.

Historically, Roman Catholic officials have opposed virtually every regulation,
policy, and law proposed to protect LGBT people nationwide. Toward that end, the
church spent $1.9 million to repeal Maine's new marriage equality statute in
2009, after the legislature and governor had already enacted it.

Friday's historic retreat is the first of its kind for this religious sect, and
is profound.

Such changes are not made independently, and are always coordinated with higher
church officials. The Diocese of Maine, located in Portland, is a corporation
sole which reports to the Ecclesiastical Province of Boston, located in Boston,
Massachusetts, which includes the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
and Vermont.

The Catholic church's reversal on this year's campaign in Maine may help current
marriage equality efforts in 18 other states, especially New Hampshire, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Washington. In
Minnesota and North Carolina, the church has been lobbying to ban marriage for
all same-gender couples by amending those states' constitutions. Bishop Malone
gave no indication of when, whether, or how Maine's retreat on marriage equality
will affect similar campaigns in other states.

Within its own ranks, however, Roman Catholic officials are continuing to
reinforce Pope Benedict XVI's formal view of bisexual, lesbian, and gay
sexuality as "an intrinsic moral evil," "intrinsically disordered," and
"inherently evil."

Last month, the church assigned Rev. Kevin Martin of St. Michael Parish in
Augusta to operate a newly formed Maine chapter of Courage, the international
organization that claims to cure people of the sexual orientation that they are
born with. The cures are attempted using a mixture of firm hope, additional
prayer, new apparel, and/or life-long celibacy. Such reparative therapies have
been discredited and denounced by every major mental/medical health professional
organization as ineffective, painful, and dangerous to patients because of
higher death rates from suicide.

Despite withdrawing from the public debate, the church still bans marriage for
same-gender Catholic couples, according to its official policy and Bishop
Malone's recent 22-page letter [pdf].


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