Truth Wins Out winter tour to include Des Moines and Lincoln

Wayne Besen

The 2011 winter tour of Truth Wins Out will stop in Lincoln February 7, 2011 at UNL at 7 pm in the Nebraska Union Auditorium. Details of other dates, including three in Des Moines, are here.

Press release, January 19, 2011:

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Author and activist Wayne Besen will kick-off an eleven state speaking tour this week to discuss the harm caused by programs that claim to turn gay people straight through prayer and therapy. At each stop, Besen will show a multi-media presentation pointing out the psychological damage caused by these unscientific religious programs.
     “The message of this tour is that you can’t ‘pray away the gay’ and LGBT people are fine just the way they are,” said Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out. “Organizations that claim they can change one’s sexual orientation are committing consumer fraud and harming a great number of people.”
     Truth Wins Out aims to educate local communities, counter misinformation, and help LGBT people find self-acceptance and freedom. Truth Wins Out organized the tour after the nation’s largest “ex-gay” organization, Exodus International, announced it would focus on youth in 2011.
     “We were outraged that Exodus would target vulnerable and desperate teenagers who need genuine love and self acceptance,” said TWO’s Besen. “The last thing young LGBT people need is scientifically bankrupt misinformation that tells them they are sick and sinful.”
     Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen will visit: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama.

     Truth Wins Out meets ex-gay conferences and symposiums on the ground where they are actively preaching disinformation. Across America, TWO joins its local partners and allies to hold media events and protest actions to counter the destructive messages the ex-gay ministries put forth. We work to ensure that the media and public are aware of the facts, prevailing psychological opinion and that they can hear the powerful stories of people who have been harmed by ex-gay groups.

The Thinking Atheist updates 'The Story of Suzie'

Originally released in 2009 in a more basic form by The Thinking Athiest, "The Story of Suzie" now has a leaner script, updated (and many brand new) graphics and HD resolution. Suzie, a devoutly religious girl free of critical thought, sees divine love and intervention everywhere.

Awesome Aussie TB Patient (The Fully Sick Rapper) turns lemons into lemonade

You can do a lot with the webcam in a Macbook, iMovie, Garageband, and 180 or so days of time on your hands caused by being quarantined with a rare form of multiple drug-resistant TB. And yes, this man DOES work in advert­ising. (Aussie+Adman+CoopedUpForMonths=WhatTheHellDidYouExpect?)


After 55 days...


After 150 days...


Canadian Broadcasting System story

It's official: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is the biggest liar in the U.S. House

Minnesota Public Radio (audio here) reports Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact's conclusion that Republican Congress­woman Michele Bachmann has made false statements more often than any public official. “We have checked her 13 times, and seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false,” Politi­Fact editor Bill Adair told Minnesota Public Radio.

He added that no other politician had been fact checked as often as Bachmann without saying something that was found to be true. “I don’t know anyone else that we have checked, more than a couple times, that has never earned anything above a false,” Adair said. “She is unusual in that regard that she has never gotten a rating higher than false.”

Michelle Bachman's Minnesota District

Some facts about Michele Bachmann, from wikipedia, of which you may not be aware:

• From 1995 through 2006, the Bachmann family farm has received $251,973 in federal subsidies, chiefly for dairy and corn price supports.
• She received her law degree from Oral Roberts University
• From 1988 to 1993, Bachmann was a U.S. Treasury Department attorney in the US Federal Tax Court located in St. Paul. According to Bachmann, she represented the Internal Revenue Service "in hundreds of cases" (both civil and criminal) prosecuting people who underpaid or failed to pay their taxes.

Michele Bachmann on light bulbs

Bachmann introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, to repeal the ban on conventional light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent light bulbs. She argued that the government has no business telling consumers what kind of light bulbs they can buy: "By 2012, incandescent light bulbs will be no more," and "Fluorescent bulbs are more polluting because of their mercury content. We are working on a light bulb bill. If the Democrats can hose up a light bulb, don't trust them with the country," Bachmann said.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association responded to Bachmann's environmental assertions by explaining that because a large percentage of power plants in the United States are fueled by burning coal, the reduced energy consumption of fluorescent bulbs typically results in a significant overall reduction of mercury emissions, as well as greenhouse gases. "That's not just the industry talking," said Mark Kohorst, "That's an accepted aspect of these products, and that's why they've been promoted so heavily." Julia Bovey of the Natural Resources Defense Council also commented that "There is 200 times more mercury in each filling in Congresswoman Bachmann's teeth than there is in a compact fluorescent light bulb. Although no known source has cited Bachmann quoting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) on their policy in handling broken fluorescent bulbs, the EPA has been quoted that it recommends the room be aired out and that contaminated articles should be thrown away.

MSNBC fires Keith Olbermann; Olbermann's goodbye on Countdown's farewell show; Maddow's reaction on Real Time with Bill Maher

Rachel Maddow reacts to Olbermann's firing on Real Time with Bill Maher.


Keith Olbermann signs off last edition of Countdown.

Rumors are rife; one says Olberman will be paid $30,000,000 to stay off TV for the remainder of his contract.

Privacy: wikileaks' Julian Assange(top) vs. facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

(unreasonablefaith.com via joe.my.god)

Today, the L.A. Times reports another facebook attempt to expose the private information of its users (including mobile phone numbers and home addresses) to corporate America by quietly expanding the scope of the data you agree to allow developers access to when you add an app.

(Note: Aksarbent wearily reminds its readers that to be named Man or Woman of the Year is not an honor or an accolade, as Time has said repeatedly. It is recognition of a person's influence or power without regard to how said person has wielded such clout.)

Miss America to gay wikileakerBradley Manning: Drop dead

Seventeen-year-old Teresa Scanlan of Gering, Nebraska (in that state's rural panhandle) became 2011's Miss America last Saturday night in Las Vegas.

The politically-charged question posed to her was asked by SFC Chad Momerak, Bismark, ND: "Everybody's talking about the Wikileaks. How do we balance people's right to know with the right to government security?"

Scanlan answered: "You know when it came to that situation, it was actually based on espionage, and that when it comes to the security of our nation, we have to focus on security first and then people's right to know, because it's so important that everybody within our borders is safe and so we can't let things like that happen and they must be handled properly and I think that was the case."

Accused WikiLeaker Bradley Manning, incarcerated in a military prison, faces the spectre of decades in prison for, among other things, leaking the video of U.S. helicopter pilots killing two Reuters journalists and wounding at least one child when they machine-gunned a group of pedestrians in Iraq.

Said video was not released by the Pentagon despite Freedom of Information Act requests to do so. Manning is also accused of releasing classified war logs in Afghanistan including one recounting

how a convoy of US Marines, hit by an explosives-rigged minivan outside the city of Jalalabad, escaped, then opened fire with automatic weapons as they tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, hitting almost anyone in their way – teenage girls in fields, motorists in their cars, old men as they walked along the road. Nineteen unarmed civilians were killed and 50 wounded.

Two hours later Americans returned to the scene of the bombing to conduct an "exploitation of the blast site with pictures/grid cords as well as debriefing ANP leadership on scene". Journalists on the spot gave a more detailed account. They said angry marines tore their cameras from their hands, insisting they delete the pictures they had taken of bullet-pocked vehicles on the roadside. Rahmat Gul, a freelance photographer working for the Associated Press, said two soldiers and a translator came up to him and asked: "Why are you taking pictures? You don't have permission." Then they deleted his photographs.

Later, Gul said, one of the soldiers came up to him and raised his arm, as if to hit him. Taqiullah Taqi, a reporter for the private Tolo TV channel, said the Americans told him through a translator: "Delete them, or we will delete you."

New poll: Iowans not amused by gay marriage: (52-41) or impeachment of judges: (55-38) or incoming Gov. Branstad: (46-41)

Public Policy Polling just surveyed 1077 Iowans about gay marriage, impeachment of Iowa's Supreme Court Judges, and their approval of Iowa's incoming governor. Here is the press release:

Majority of Iowans oppose gay marriage but also impeachment 

Raleigh, N.C. – After successfully campaigning to get three of them ousted from office by election last fall, Republicans in Iowa are now campaigning to get the remaining four justices who voted to legalize gay marriage in the state booted by impeachment.  But a majority of Iowans think that move inappropriate, despite the fact that a majority also do not favor same-sex marriage itself.

     52% think same-sex marriage should not be legal, as it is now in the Hawkeye State, with 41% supporting the new status quo. It is mainly Republicans driving the animosity.  82% of them think same-sex marriage should be illegal, but two-thirds of Democrats are on the legal side, with independents splitting just 46-44 toward it being illegal. 

     On the impeachment issue, however, Republicans are not as gung-ho as some of their state legislators are. Still twice (60%) as many of them favor impeachment as oppose it, but that is far below the 82-10 margin of Republicans who oppose same-sex marriage itself.  

      Overall, 55% of Iowa voters oppose impeachment, and only 38% support it. At 54-38 against, independents mirror the overall electorate, while Democrats’ 79-16 margin against impeachment approaches Republicans’ fervor against equal marriage rights. 

     “This is one of those classic issues where voters agree with Republicans but don’t want the party to overplay its hand,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.  “They’re on the same page with wanting same sex marriage to be illegal, but they think it’s going too far to impeach the judges who made the ruling to legalize it.”

     Despite defeating Chet Culver and returning to office by a 53-43 margin in November, Terry Branstad is no more popular than his predecessor. Iowans disapprove of Culver’s four-year record, 41-46, but they are also down on Branstad, 40-44.  The two post almost identical numbers with independents, and are equally polarizing across party lines.  

     Chuck Grassley is now the sixth most popular of 74 senators whose job performance ratings have been gauged by PPP in the last year, with a 54-31 approval mark. Junior colleague Tom Harkin is far below Grassley, but still quite healthy, at a 48-38 grade. 

PPP surveyed 1,077 Iowa voters from January 7th to 9th, 2011.

The survey’s margin of error is  +/-3.0%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

Virtual reality gets bitch-slapped by the material world

The practical fascist in me has decided that this security video alone provides enough evidence to compel the state to revoke this chick's driver's license from now until the sun burns out.

Shopping and F**cking to run 1/14-23/11 in Omaha

Lilyhorn/Martin Productions presents Shopping and Fucking, a 1996 play by English playwright Mark Ravenhill, in Omaha 1/14/11-1/23/11. Tickets are here.

The play, as described by the producers:

The lives of a gangster obsessed with "The Lion King," a junkie stockbroker trying to kick the habit, a teenage male prostitute with a death wish and two club kids dealing X crash head-on in this disturbing black comedy. WARNING: The play contains nudity, violence and very explicit sex.

From Wikipedia: When first produced, Shopping and Fucking received mixed reviews. Some were shocked by the play's sexually-violent content, which includes the pseudo-rape of an underage male by other males. Other critics were drawn to the play's black humour, and its mixture of Sadean and Marxist philosophies. Along with Sarah Kane's Blasted, it was a prime exemplar of British in-yer-face theatre of the 1990s.

     The sexual violence of Shopping and Fucking explores what is possible if consumerism supersedes all other moral codes. To this effect everything, including sex, violence and drugs, is reduced to a mere transaction in an age where shopping centres are the new cathedrals of Western consumerism.

     Aspects of consumerism and sexuality rampant in popular culture recur throughout the play: drugs, shoplifting, phone sex, prostitution, anal sex, and oral sex in the London department store Harvey Nichols.

     The characters' names (Mark, Robbie and Gary) are taken from the Manchester, England boy band Take That, and from the singer Lulu who collaborated with them on their hit single Relight My Fire.

Rachel Maddow: Tucson disproved right-wing fantasy that more guns make society safer

The numbers tell the story...

Pat Condell, Britain's most entertaining Atheist, bashes Islam and questions legitimacy of 'Islamophobia' in America

This is the first time I've seen Condell act as both Good Cop and Bad Cop. He trashes Islam as a supremacist, totalitarian religion (which it is and which Catholicism would also be if civil authorities hadn't reigned in its worst excesses.) Then he urges Muslim viewers to stop allowing the Council on Islamic-American Relations to besmirch their good name (as Condell just did by saying that the religion they embrace is predatory, supremacist, etc.)

Of course there are only so many times you can tell someone who doesn't want to hear it that a phobia is an irrational fear and that there's nothing remotely irrational about fearing Islam, especially if you happen to be female or Jewish or gay or all three.

     What is irrational is indulging Islam and pretending it's just another religion. That's more than irrational, it's downright stupid. It's as foolish as keeping a large predatory wild animal as a pet. Sooner or later you will be eaten and you will deserve it.

     People who oppose Islam are not Islamophobic, they are Islamorealistic. They've had years of abundant and consistent evidence and they see the religion for what it is — a supremacist, totalitarian ideology using its peaceful followers as a shield to exploit religious freedom for political ends...

     According to the F.B.I., there are 10 times more hate crimes against Jews and gays in America than there are gainst Muslims and the same thing applies in figures compiled by individual states.

     The biggest hate crime in America is the existence of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. If you're a Muslim-American who wants to live in peace and freedom and presumably that's why you're in American in the first place, these people are your worst enemy. They're parasites on your own identify. They don't represent you, they claim ownership of you. Everything they do and say reflects back badly on you, yet you are the only thing giving them a veneer of respectability. Without you these fanatics would be standing on street corners shouting at people.

     ...The Council on Islamic-American Relations has had a lot of mileage out of its phoney baloney islamophobia. It must be quite devastating for them to be confronted with the concrete proof that this thing is entirely imaginary when they've staked so much on it.

    It must be like the pope finding out there's no Holy Ghost...

Craig Ferguson tells Denis Leary aVERY embarrassing headphones story

[Transcribed story starts at 10:49] I got a story about the headphones, right?... I know this guy, right? He swears this is true. When he was a teenager... he would go home and he'd listen to the records with the giant headphones... So one day he goes home, he's in his parent's house, he's got the giant headphones on, he's a teenage kid, he closes his eyes, and he starts, you know, performing an act of self-massage. And then, when he's finished, he opens his eyes, he's had his headphones on the whole time, there's a sandwich and a glass of milk next to his bed...

David Nelson, Ricky's big brother, dies in L.A.; was last surviving star of 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'

David (left) and Ricky Nelson

David Nelson, last surviving star of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," the longest-running live-action situation comedy in the history of American television, died Tuesday at home in Century City of complications from colon cancer at age 74.
     Though overshadowed by his pop star brother, Ricky, David himself acted in movies such as "Peyton Place" and "The Big Circus" and was accomplished enough as a trapeze artist to have performed professionally.
     Nelson's nephew Matthew, whose father Ricky died in a DC-3 airplane crash on the last day of 1985 while touring, recounted to Randy Lewis of the L.A. Times his uncle's dedication to the Nelson family.

When my dad died, it happened so suddenly, but through his own grief David managed not only to take care of my grandmother (Harriet) - and it was just horrible for her - but he really protected Rick's kids," Matthew Nelson, 43, said Wednesday from aboard the cruise ship on which he and Gunnar are performing a show that pays tribute to their father's life and career. By extension, it also highlights David's role in the family.

     "David was the executor of the estate, and frankly the estate was really a mess at the time because of all kinds of things: divorce, debt, so many different things. It took a long time, and it was a long struggle for him to straighten things out," Matthew said.

     "I really got to see what kind of character he had when my father passed away," Matthew said. "He was the guy that stepped up to the plate and said, 'I'm going to do this for my brother and for his kids.' I'll always thank him for that."

     Nelson's final acting credit was as the father of Wanda ( Traci Lords) in "Cry-Baby," writer-director John Waters' spoof of the '50s.
     David Nelson is survived by his wife, Yvonne; sons John, Eric, James and Danny; daughter Teri; and seven grandchildren. Nelson's marriage to June Blair, with whom he had two sons, ended in divorce in 1975.

Palm Springs blowback to police entrapment and prosecutions: Police Chief Dominguez abruptly retires, D.A. Pacheco voted out of office

Palm Springs "White Party" attendees, not involved in police sting

Phil Willon, of the Los Angeles Times, reported on a June, 2009 Palm Springs sex sting conducted against gay males in the Warm Sands neighbor­hood. A co-founder of that neighbor­hood's association, Robert Stone, called the sting an egregious case of entrapment.

     Animosity had lingered against the mayor and those mem­bers of the gay-majority council who had stead­fastly defended Police Chief David Dominquez or remained silent. Dominguez suddenly retired after acknowledging that insultingly anti-gay remarks captured on tape during the sting were made by him.

"The whole council, the whole political leadership, will suffer for this," said Hank Plante, a former San Francisco television news anchor and political reporter who retired to Palm Springs with his partner a year ago. "What you heard a lot was what's the good of having a majority of gays on the council if they don't stick up for the community?"
     ...During the police sting, the undercover officer called out to men, prodded them to expose themselves and then spoke a trigger phrase — "Uncle Willy would like that" — to signal arresting officers.
     Police said the sting was triggered by numerous complaints from the Warm Sands neighborhood.
     "If you read the police report, it sounded like the residents were running down the streets with pitchforks," said Roger Tansey, a public defender representing six of the men arrested. "But I looked into it, and there were not complaints, not one anyone could show me."
     Worse, Tansey said, the Palms Springs Police has not, as far as he could determine, conducted a similar sting against heterosexuals, despite complaints about sex in public places.
     "What I believe is the Palm Springs Police Department intentionally targeted gays," Tansey said.
     Tansey said prosecutors charged the men with indecent exposure, an accusation usually reserved for flashing and other predatory acts on unwilling victims, instead of lewd and lascivious behavior. A indecent exposure conviction requires defendants to register for life as sex offenders.
     Former Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco's hard-line prosecution of the Warm Sands cases, which have yet to go to trial, rallied many in the Palm Springs gay community to pour money into his challenger's campaign in the June election. Pacheco lost to Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach by 8,400 votes.

CBS News reports on Bullying Intervention Program at University of Nebraska tested at Irving Middle School in Lincoln

In the wake of the enactment of a New Jersey law last week requiring schools to appoint anti-bullying experts and report bullying regularly, Tracy Smith of CBS' Sunday Morning profiled a school in Nebraska already working to counter classroom bullying.

7th graders Stephanie and Jacob used to be friends, but that all changed one recent Friday afternoon during 6th period English, when Stephanie began taunting Jacob.
     "She's like, 'Are you gay?'" Jacob recalled. "And I'm like, 'No.'"
     "The second time I asked him he said, 'I'm not gay,'" Stephanie said. "And then I said, 'Are you sure you're not gay?'"
     "And then she kept on responding, 'Well, you're gay, you're gay, you're gay!' said Jacob. "And I'm like, 'I'm not!'"
     "And he yelled it really loud!" she said.
     "And so she kept repeating that, repeating that, and then finally Ms. Baker looked over my way and I'm like, 'Well, she won't stop calling me gay.'"
     ...Hugh McDermott, the principal at Stephanie and Jacob's school, Irving Middle School in Lincoln, Neb., feels it's important to talk about bullying and its consequences.
     Compared to high-profile cases of bullying, much of the talk between students may seem like small potatoes. But McDermott says, "When it starts to affect how they feel, when it starts to affect how they are learning or not learning, then that's kind of important.
     "After a time, that can really wear on a kid," he said.
     It is so important that McDermott invited us to see what Irving is doing about it.
     "The extreme cases that happen nationally, we don't want any kids to get even close to those points of terrible acts," he told Smith.
     ...So McDermott allowed researchers from the University of Nebraska to study Irving Middle School students as part of their bully intervention program - an intensive, one-on-one, three-hour analysis using questionnaires, talk therapy and videos.
     The idea is to catch kids early, before behaviors and reputations take hold.
     ..."We've kind of honed in on middle school," she said, "because the research shows that bullying peaks during the middle school years. Kids are going from their nice, you know, safe, smaller elementary schools into middle school, where they're changing classes. They have lockers, they're more independent; puberty issues are hitting. Middle school seems to be a particularly vulnerable time for kids."
     Is there a bully profile? No, says Swearer. "We can't say, 'Well, they're impulsive and they're, you know, not that smart.' You know, there is no profile. So why some people bully and some people don't is very complicated."

Dave Heineman holds four reelection inaugural galas across Nebraska while other Republican and Democrat governors scale back festivities

Tuxedo-clad choir serenades Gov. Heineman and wife at one of four
reelection inauguration galas across Nebraska. Other Republican and
Democrat governors have cut back inauguration festivities in recognition
of economic hardships endured by constituents in a still-tough economy.

As other governors scale down inauguration activities, Dave Heineman reveled in a red-rose bedecked Marriott ballroom among $250-per­­-plate diners Friday night in Lincoln.

Heineman's cross-state reelection coronation on Friday ended at a “gala state dinner”for 500 at Lincoln's Cornhusker Marriott Hotel.

Said a tuxedo-clad Heineman before the evening feast: “There isn't a part of this job I don't enjoy.”

Paul Hammel of the Omaha World-Herald reported that Dave Heineman and guests dined on beef tenderloin, garlic-mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus.

Sunday, Heineman will attend a another celebratory dinner in Omaha for 1,000 people at the Qwest Center.

Elsewhere, Glenn Adams of the Associated Press reported that Republican Paul LePage was sworn in as Maine governor January 6th at a reception — not a banquet or ball — at the Augusta Civic Center. In keeping with the mood of economic austerity, LePage decided to skip an inaugural gala.

Blogger John Wagner reported in the Washington Post that  in recognition of the state's continuing economic challenges, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) will scale back his Jan. 19 inaugural activities compared to four years ago... the "black-tie optional" ball of 2006 has been replaced by a "business cocktail attire" gathering at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore.

In addition to purchasing $75 tickets (discounted to $50 for students and seniors), attendees of the Inaugural Celebration, as it's being billed, are also being asked to bring a canned or nonperishable food item for the Maryland Food Bank.

"It'll be somewhat scaled down for two reasons," O'Malley said in an interview Monday. "For one, these are austere times, and two, it's also a reelection. ...While it's important that we celebrate this milestone in our history, we also need to demonstrate an awareness of the difficulties that families throughout our state are facing."

Northern Trust launches marketing initiative targeting well-off gay singles and couples

Miami Herald columnist Steve Rothaus  reports that Northern Trust has announced its formal launch of a "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) and Non-Traditional Family Practice," which will begin by serving customers in South Florida.

     Northern Trust isn't the only bank reaching out to LGBT clients. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wachovia and many others also actively compete for gay investment dollars.
     "Regardless of advertising, the client should interview different investment firms to understand if the investment approach is right for them and if there's a connection with the people they'll be working with," said Gene Sulzberger, senior vice president at PRS Investment Advisory in Miami. "Don't rely solely on a company putting marketing dollars behind an LGBT campaign."

Jon Stewart: Owen Honors fired for being Bill Murray

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Letter to Atlantic from gay sailor defendsCapt. Honors and slams SLDN; Video interview

Josh [Joshua Green is a senior editor of The Atlantic],

My name is Eric, I was a gay sailor that served aboard the USS ENTERPRISE during the '06 and '07 deployments. I'm not sure exactly what information you need other than that I was never once offended by Capt. Honors choice of words of brand of humor. I have been making contact with many of my fellow gay service members that served aboard that time as well, in hopes that we can get the word out there that Capt. Honors never created an anti-gay work environment and that these slanders of calling him a homophobe and gay-basher are unjust. I have a copied a letter that I recently sent to the Service-members Legal Defense Network.

This letter is in reference to the SLDN's recent comments against Capt. Honors previously of the USS ENTERPRISE.

By making statements against him your organization has become a participant in the action that so many gay men and women face every day in the service, harsh and uninformed judgment.

In your hasty remarks against Capt. Honors, you forget those videos were for the eyes of USS ENTERPRISE sailors only. You are condemning a man on events that have happened over four years ago.

Every gay man or woman that has joined the military has done so knowing that they weren't walking into an environment that would be appealing to their sense of delicacy. Sexual orientation aside, every man or woman joining the military does so with the knowledge that the only way to get through is with tough skin.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has done so much for the recent repeal of the much hated "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy it is truly a shame to see you take such a biased stance against Capt. Honors.

As a gay man that served onboard the USS ENTERPRISE during both the '06 and '07 deployments I was never once offended by Capt. Honors' choice of humor.

I have begun to make contact with my fellow gay service members who were also on those deployments. We will band together to show our support for Capt. Honors.

I ask that you, at this time, retract your statements against Capt. Honors until the full investigation has been completed or you have attempted to discuss this issue and hear the thoughts of those who served him on the '06 and '07 deployments.

 

Douchebag Iowa Rep. Steve King: Babies in trash cans mean Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, 5th District, Storm Lake, Sioux City, Council Bluffs

Once again, Rep. Steve King proves that the Des Moines Register was correct when it called him an embarrassment to the state of Iowa.

A couple youtube comments:

Truly, the wit of an Oscar Wilde.
     To be fair, Rep. King does make a good point. Dumpster babies truly exhibit the kind of freedom that America was founded upon; they are unencumbered by the shackles of modern medicine (and taxes).
     Republicans are always striving to make American lives as rich and wonderful as those of dumpster babies.
—variousletters

Holy mutha fuggin Krist. What the hell? That is King's response? That becasue some babies were born in "trash cans" that 's his evidence that not everyone accesses health care at some time?
     And the Teatards eat this shit up. God, I don't know if Republicans are really this retarded or they're acting this retarded to get the Teatard vote.
—timm1720

Owen Honors replaced as skipper of Enterprise by Capt. Dee Mewbourne, 1987's 'Junior Intruder of the Year'

Captain Owen Honors, who has been relieved of his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise for making raucous shipboard videos played as introductions to closed-circuit "XO Movie Night" presentations, will perform administrative duties at Naval Air Forces Atlantic.

His replacement is Navy Cyber Forces Chief of Staff, Capt. Dee Mewbourne, whose Cyber Forces bio has already been deleted, though Google's cache of it is here.

Mewbourne appears to have been somewhat less popular aboard the U.S.S. Dwight Eisenhower than Honors was aboard the Enterprise.

In 2008, in her blog, Ruining Lives Aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Karisha Walker had this to say:

But I am comforted with the rumors that the Commanding Officer [Mewbourne] of USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), my beloved ship,  is about to be fired by the Admiral of our strike group. I think we are strike group 8 right now. We are Carrier Air Wing Seven for sure...I think. I don't know.   I just know that this place sucks, the ship runs off of moral and right now...there is NONE. People are doing drugs just to get away from this place. There are people getting DUI's to get away from this command. It is horrible the things people are doing to get away from here and I completely understand.

     ...Thanks you prick [the SMO, not Mewbourne]. No, I have not yet told the family I am away from that life has changed once again. That, thanks to the wonderful workings of the United States Navy but more specifically the Commanding Officer of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, I will spend my last three months slowly and torturously awaiting my 'release' from this forsaken place.

     Who really has a great time in a place that has robbed them of rank, leave, valuable time, and basically said 'sorry, no lube' on top of the 'we feel like fucking you over and there is nothing you can do about it.'

     The paperwork that is always 'in route' but never 'fixed, you can continue on your life as planned', the CO [Mewbourne] that is all about 'I don't care what we told you, I changed my mind and we want to keep EVERYONE' along with my department that is all about the skill sets I possess being 'Good to the very last drop.'

Video: unedited, uncensored Owen Honors videos published by Military Times; Was Captain Honors really a sexist homophobe, or was he railroaded?

Many gay bloggers have recently embedded the edited video released by the Virginian-Pilot of XO Movie Night introductions made by Captain Owen P. Honors, recently relieved of his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise. His remarks have been called homophobic. We at aksarbent, fell into that groupthink several posts ago, but no longer see it that way.

As a facebook supporter noted (below), the instance in which Honors used an epithet, "fag SWO boy," was in a scene with three characters, that, through video trickery, were all played by Honors himself. Is calling yourself "fag boy" primarily homophobic, or simply self-mocking?

We think Captain Honors is probably more accepting of gay people than, say, Jay Leno, David Letterman or Lorne Michaels, the czar of SNL, and that he is being railroaded.

Here are unedited versions of three videos which were combined, edited, censored and released by the Virginian-Pilot, followed by comments made on the facebook page supporting Captain Honors.

Military Times website. (Skip to 6:20 for XO movie night intro in video 2.)



Facebook comments:

Steve Schermerhorn: Relieving one of eleven Captains qualified to command a nuclear aircraft carrier of his command for "lewd" videos shown to over 5000 sailors as early as 2006 was not a reprimand for poor judgment. Look through the paper thin smoke screen. This was a political assassination. Captain Honors was taken out to clear a slot for a boot licker on the way up.

Mika Kiser: I was on the enterprise during that time and I can tell you without the hesitation that what captian honors did was a moral booster. We all looked forward to his videos and we all knew he was joking. What the navy is doing by reliving him is showing that the navy dosn't care about moral. What he did helped us all get through that deployment.

Beka Smothers: Dear Captain Honors-
I'm due to report to the USS Vinson middle of this year- i was wondering if you would come be my CO? You sound like an awesome leader, and from the looks of the comments below, your people love you because you took care of them, no matter what jokes you made. So i would be honored and blessed to serve under you, sir!!!

Fegelah Boychic: Captain Owen Honors is just another homosexual in the closet as been proven time and time again. Most military men who make fun of gays are in fact closet homosexuals and Honors (sic ) is amongst the finest . Honors looks and sounds like a typical Marines bottom - one who likes to get screwed repeatedly by the entire crew of the Enterprise.

Brandon Favela: And if he is? His sexuality isn't the issue. It's his leadership abilities. He's a good leader. I'm a beaner. I make beaner jokes. I have gay friends. They make fag jokes... Guess what, humor draws us closer and breaks down walls.... you jackass.

Matt Hassebrock: Someone want to explain to me how Captain Honors is "homophobic" when the videos he made were straight up GAY!?!?! He had guys taking showers together and pretending to give each other prostate exams! Where is the homophobia? When he was saying "fag", he was saying it to another digitally inserted video of himself. Essentially he called himself a fag and put the joke back on himself to get some laughs out of his sailors. He should be drinking hot coco from a CVN-65 mug in his Captain's chair like the badass that he is, not sitting behind a desk.

Beka Smothers: exactly, he intentionally made HIMSELF look like a fool to make other people laugh. sounds like a great leader to me. he did what he felt would boost morale, and according to the people on this page who served with him, it worked. so fuck what anyone else says, if they weren't there they can fuck off and shut up.

Lee Van Horne Sr: In the words of Carlos Mencia, "If you can take a dick, you can take a joke." Enough said.

Rachel Turner: To the woman who said this video was sexual harassment - are you kidding me?!! You're one of those females who give the rest of us a bad name. Put your big girl panties on and let us real women, who like to have fun and can laugh at nothing more than what amounts to a SNL skit, represent women in the Navy. I was a petite female aboard a ship where men greatly outnumbered women. I never once felt intimidated by my male shipmates. We worked hard but knew how to have fun and lighten up. Maybe you should too.

David Meyer: Having served at sea on two different ships I can tel you the Executive Officer has a great deal to do with the morale of the ship. Sometimes they are seen as the heavy-handed dictators just "bucking for command" but most of the time they are fine men and women who really want to make a difference for their crews, and in a time of war, humor is one of the best things they can do. The problem here is that politics have been allowed to infect the military. Truly sad. BZ Captain Honors. I would serve with you.

How to ski down Park Avenue

(Via Gothamist Via Laughing Squid)

January white sale: J. Lennon's white suit outsellsJ. Travolta's by $44,000 (not adjusted for inflation)

The white two-piece suit John Lennon wore on the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road has been sold to an anonymous bidder at an auction in Connecticut for $46,000, but the green 1972 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon owned by John and Yoko was snagged for $5,500 by Hank Gioiella.
     According to Autoevolution, the car was registered to Apple Records and was said to have been John’s favorite automobile because its practicality and modesty allowed him to travel virtually unrecognized." It was mostly used for city travel and commuting between John and Yoko's Dakota apartment and Long Island estate.

Compare and contrast: That other famous white suit, worn by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, was purchased in 1978 for about $2,000 by critic Gene Siskel and sold 17 years later for him by Christie's for $145,000. Roger Ebert said Saturday Night Fever was Siskel's favorite film; he saw it at least 17 times.

I got to inspect it once. It came with a shirt that buttoned under the crotch, so it would still look neat after a night on the dance floor. I asked Gene if he'd ever tried it on. It was too small, he said.

Fox News pigeon-holes happy-go-lucky penguin

Apparently the insanely homophobic conservatives are becoming too toxic even for Fox News (perhaps gay friendly 'tudes from the entertainment division are leaking into Fox's "news" operation.)

Or maybe the network is desperately trying to lower the geriatric demographic profile of the people who watch what it sells as news by pandering to younger degenerates and their morally loose, accepting straight friends.

Whatever.

We're just glaad to see the writing on the various (facebook?) walls which indicate that soon even Concerned Women of Amerika and the Family Research Council won't get a free skate on FOX. Poor freepers are gonna take this hard, but at least they'll have something else to blame on the International Gay Conspiracy/Agenda.

Nevertheless, we HAVE to draw the line when the breezy, superficial conservative Chatty Cathys (google THAT, kiddies) in Murdockville start impugning the sexual predilections of happy little penguins. (Well, we THINK they're happy, but it's possible they're tweaking.)

Clearly, the current crop of kinder, gentler, reactionaries at Fox News could use a timeout, lest they may feel free to (was going to say "move on" but I didn't want to further disturb the already disturbed) branch out to to insinuations directed at, say, the parrot community just because they (parrots) are festive, social, chatty and colorful.

This has to stop, Fox. You're on a slope even more slippery than the flightless bird catching all your current snark.

Pushback to antigay Jamaican 'Murder Music'; Boycotts, visa revocations, and sponsor withdrawals urged for Buju Banton, Beanie Man, Sizzla and Capleton

Southern Poverty Law Center's Winter 2010 Intelligence report features a comprehensive report by Leah Nelson about the almost unbelievable virulence of homophobia in Jamaica and its popular music as well as coverage of the Stop Murder Music's campaign to marshall a pushback in the U.S. against the most homophobic and powerful Jamaican pop stars.
     All eight of the original murder music singers, apart from Bounty Killer, that Stop Murder Music sought to embargo have now signed the Reggae Compassion Act, which says that signatories will not “make statements or perform songs” that incite hatred or violence.Beenie Man, Capleton and Sizzla became the first to sign, in 2007. Banton signed shortly thereafter, using his given name of Mark Anthony Myrie — then later denied signing.
     According to Stop Murder Music, more recent signatories, Elephant Man, T.O.K. and Vybz Kartel are the only signatories not to have violated the agreement. Since April of 2010, the visas of five artists known for murder music have been visas revoked, though the Department of Justice refuses to say exactly why.

Dancehall star Buju Banton was considered a musical prodigy in 1988 when, at age 15, he recorded what remains one of his best-known tracks, “Boom Bye Bye.” Even in the difficult-to-decipher Jamaican slang known as patois, its chorus evokes violence and dread: Boom bye bye / inna batty bwoy head / Rude bwoy no promote no nasty man / dem haffi dead. (“Boom [the sound of a gunshot], bye-bye, in a faggot’s head / the tough young guys don’t accept fags; they have to die.”)

...The top-rated of 86 YouTube videos of Banton performing “Boom Bye Bye” has been viewed an astounding 3,217,409 times since it was posted in 2007.

One 'murder music' video by Buju Banton has been
downloaded more than three million times.

...According to the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), Jamaica’s only organization promoting LGBT rights, mobs assaulted at least 98 gay men and lesbians between February and July 2007 alone. Last year, J-FLAG recorded six cases of “corrective rape,” in which men forced themselves on women thought to be lesbians.The Stop Murder Music campaign is an international movement with activists on nearly every continent who urge sponsors to pull funding from offending artists, pressure venues not to book them, and organize boycotts and protests when they perform. Supporters of the musicians “say we’re attacking these artists because they’re homophobic,” said British human rights activist Peter Tatchell, international coordinator of Stop Murder Music. “That’s not true. We’re attacking them because they’re inciting the criminal offenses of violence and murder.”

...Jamaica’s cultural homophobia has deep historical roots. The island’s fundamentalist brand of Christianity and its indigenous Rastafarian religion both condemn homosexuality in the strongest terms. Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Sizzla, Capleton and others in the murder-music pantheon espouse Rastafarian beliefs.

Anti-sodomy laws criminalizing sex between men remain on the books in Jamaica and other former British colonies in the Caribbean. As a result, gay men are essentially viewed as criminals, making it nearly impossible for them to bring complaints about violence to the police. Though consensual sex between two women is not illegal, murder music nevertheless includes lesbians in its wrath.

Dancehall group TOK’s track “Chi Chi Man,” about killing and burning gay men, was the Jamaican Labour Party’s 2001 theme song... The melody of the chorus, ironically, evokes the Christian hymn, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” The most viewed of 99“Chi Chi Man” YouTube videos had been seen 869,084 times as of mid-September.

In 2002, the People’s National Party took on the slogan “Log On to Progress” — a reference to the dancehall song “Log On” by Elephant Man (seen 473,400 times on its most popular YouTube video), which also features violent anti-gay lyrics: Log on, and step pon chi chi man / Log on from yu know seh yu nuh ickie man./ Log on and step pon chi chi man /Dance wi a dance and a bun out a freaky man. (“Log on, and stomp on a fag/ Log on, because you know you’re not a fag/Log on, and stomp on a fag/We dance and dance and burn up a fag.”)

In June 2004, J-FLAG co-founder Brian Williamson, one of the only openly gay public figures in Jamaica, was stabbed to death in his home. A Human Rights Watch worker who happened to be in the country reporting on HIV/AIDs was at the scene an hour later, watching in horror as a gleeful crowd gathered outside Williamson’s house. According to her report, the revelers laughed and called out “Let’s get them one at a time” and “That’s what you get for sin,” and also sang lines from “Boom Bye Bye.”

The Stop Murder Music campaign has had an effect on artists, especially in the United States and Europe, said Tatchell and J-Flag's Jason McFarlane. Major sponsors have withdrawn, and boycotts and rallies have increased fans’ awareness of the issue. Dozens of performances and tours have been canceled, hitting artists where it hurts most: in their wallets. Also, as of April 2010, five artists known for murder music had had their U.S. visas revoked — though the Department of Justice refuses to say exactly why...

Murder music is welcomed in some African countries regardless of Western opprobrium.

“The King of Dancehall stuck a sword of words into gay people,” enthused Uganda’s Daily Monitor after Beenie Man’s December 2009 performance in Kampala.

Happiest penguin and mostsuspicious polar bears of 2010

Video: Raunchy, homoerotic USS Enterprise TV shows made by Capt. Owen Honors exposed

Connie Reilly of the Virginian-Pilot reports that while Capt. Owen Honors was executive officer of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, he shot and edited (with government video equipment) and starred in videos narrowcast on closed circuit shipboard TV fwhich featured lewd conduct, simulated masturbation, rectal exams and antigay slurs. Honors is now the commander of the Enterprise.

The Navy, which now claims that the mostly years-old incidents are under investigation, appears to have stiff-armed Reilly and whitewashed the content of the videos in its description of them. In her story, Reilly noted the refusal or unavailability of every relevant principal in the U.S. Navy to address the issue (emphasis added):

Honors did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the Enterprise's then-commanding officer, Larry Rice, who was later promoted to the rank of the rear admiral and now works at the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Rear Adm. Raymond Spicer and Vice Adm. Daniel Holloway, who commanded the Enterprise carrier strike group during Honors' time as XO, could not be reached.

The Navy released a written statement late Friday in response to The Pilot's inquiries.

"The videos created on board USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 were not created with the intent to offend anyone," the statement said. "The videos were intended to be humorous skits focusing the crew's attention on specific issues such as port visits, traffic safety, water conservation, ship cleanliness, etc."

EastEnders plans gay dads storyline with Christian Clarke and Syed Masood

EastEnders will broadcast a gay surrogacy storyline, the first in a British soap opera. Albert Square couple Christian Clarke and Syed Masood will ask mother-of-three Glenda Mitchell (Glynis Barber) to help them become fathers by having their baby.
     EastEnders is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One in February 1985, according to Wikipedia. It currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the UK. Within eight months of its launch, it reached the number one spot in the ratings, and has remained, almost consistently, among the top-rated TV programmes in Britain ever since. The average audience share for an episode is currently between 35% and 45%.