HSL: Hue vs. Saturation vs. Luminosity (brightness)

National Guard readiness officer stationed in Ashland, NE marries boyfriend 11 hours after DADT repeal

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that Gregory Smith, 48 (left), got married to John Burns, 39, an employee of Kawasaki's Lincoln rail car production unit, "in a state that recognizes gay marriage," which would be Iowa, specifically, Council Bluffs. Congratulations and best wishes from AKSARBENT. Oh wait — no bride, so congratulations and congratulations. Our apologies to etiquette goddess Letitia Baldridge, alumna of Omaha's Sacred Heart Convent.

Rondo Leewright, one of the greatest of St. Louis Blues singers, is dead at 65 of cardiac arrest

The fantastically talented biracial lead singer of the Soulard Blues Band and later his own group, Rondo's Blues Deluxe, was born in Brockton MA but raised by a black St. Louis area couple. He was described as a combination of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Joe Cocker.

Online gamers discover structure of AIDS-like retroviral enzyme in three weeks — after it stumped scientists for a decade

The enzyme, a Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (MPMV) retroviral protease, was accurately modeled by Foldit players in well under a month, and opens a window on developing antiretroviral drugs which may treat AIDS. According to the New York Times, the clever game, which crowd-sources the considerable spatial ingenuity of gamers and harnesses it to medical research, works like this,

Foldit begins with a series of tutorials in which the player controls proteinlike structures on a computer display. In the game, as structures are modified, a score is calculated based on how well the protein is folded. Players are given a set of controls that let them do things like “shake,” “wiggle” and “rebuild” to reshape the backbone and the amino acid side shapes of a specific protein into a more efficient structure.

Five billion medical claims will be analyzed by Health Care Cost Institute team to find a way out of unsustainable spiral of health care costs

For the first time, data from four of the largest U.S. health insurers, Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealth Group, plus government data from Medicare Fee For Service and Medicare Advantage will be analyzed (after being stripped of patient IDs) by a research team headed by Carnegie Mellon University professor Martin Gaynor.

The data includes information on more than 5,000 hospitals, a million health care providers and more than $1,000,000,000,000 in health care spending over the last decade.

Jon Stewart marks the end of DADT

"If you're watching the show from a military base, and your fellow soldiers seem from 2-10% happier today... there's a reason."

No, Rick Perry, Social Security is not a Ponzi Scheme

Mother Jones magazine

Pissed off penguin (and if your continent were melting wouldn't you be?)

AKSARBENT would take a dim of humans intimidating penguins were it not for the fact that by all accounts, Antarctic penguins aren't much worried by people.

J. Edgar trailer released

As for the gay element in the film (USA Today via Towleroad), Director Clint Eastwood said:

"I'd heard all the various controversies and gossip—that he wore dresses at parties. Everybody was saying, maybe he's gay because he'd never gotten married. But that's the way they did it back in the '40s. If a guy didn't get married, they always thought, Oh, there's something wrong with him....[Associate FBI director Clyde Tolson and he] were inseparable pals. Now, whether he was gay or not is gonna be for the audience to interpret. It could have been just a great love story between two guys. Or it could have been a great love story that was also a sexual story...It's not a movie about two gay guys. It's a movie about how this guy manipulated everybody around him and managed to stay on through nine presidents. I mean, I don't give a crap if he was gay or not."

Leonardo DiCaprio:

"What we're saying is that he definitely had a relationship with Tolson that lasted for nearly fifty years. Neither of them married. They lived close to one another. They worked together every day. They vacationed together. And there was rumored to be more. There are definite insinuations of—well, I'm not going to get into where it goes, but…If I were a betting man, I actually don't know what I would bet [regarding his sexuality]."

Al would have liked this...

Local readers of AKSARBENT well remember our late mutual friend, a master of deadpan sarcasm, practical carpentry, and an occasionally crazy aficionado of George Dickel.

Al, of Fortuna, California, was fond of awesomely loud shirts gayer than a tree full of parrots, (think early Arnold Schwarzenegger) and used to be a finance officer in the United States Air Force.

Though he had a keen interest in shirts, Al was indifferent to shoes and was once told by his boss at an Omaha social service agency to buy new ones, as he was beginning to take on the patina of a homeless person.

Al had a bifurcated mind which was 50% nuts and bolts (his dad ran a hardware store) and 50% whimsy (he once ran his own art gallery and published an arts newspaper.)

In the early 90s, Al was present during a discussion about a DADT news story in which various heads of the armed services were asked how they would react if a service member confessed he or she thought they might be homosexual.

Al's favorite response was from the representative of HIS branch of service, who said he would ask said service member to decide one way or the other and get back to him.

Today, another Air Force finance officer, Josh Seefried (aka "JD Smith"), who cofounded the 4300-member servicemember LGBT group Outserve, revealed his identify following the repeal of DADT.

Al would have delightedly toasted a successor who has the very job he once had, and who has rocked the boat, so to speak, as much as Josh has. But since Al can no longer tie one on, AKSARBENT will making two toasts in his absence.

U.S. Copyright law explained via Star Wars

Jane Lynch at the Emmys: TV is a liquid crystal wonderland — except for HBO, which isn't TV

Madmen vignette (at 4:17):
Jane Lynch, singing: Where what makes a good workplace environment is sexism, smoking and scotch!
Don Draper: Sweetheart, can you get us some coffee?
Jane Lynch: You're hilarious. I'm not a secretary, I'm the host of the Emmys
Pete Campbell: The Emmys? What you should be doing is learning how to type and firing the guy who gave you that man's haircut.
Jane Lynch: Well, a lot has changed since 1965; in fact women can marry other women... Hey Peggy...
Peggy Olson: Hi.
Joan Harris: Women with other women? Men must hate that...
Peggy Olson: Does that mean women don't have to sleep with men anymore to make it to the top?
Jane Lynch: No, you still have to do that... But, on the bright side, people can watch television on their phones... and if they want to, well, they can fast forward through the commercials.
Don Draper: You're gonna turn around, you're gonna walk out of here, we're gonna pretend like we never met you.
Jane Lynch: OK. And this haircut cost more than your house.

A Venn diagram no waitress wants to see

Especially when written on the tip line

Here Comes Trouble: Michael Moore's new book about his life before Roger & Me made him famous

At 18 he became allegedly the youngest elected public official in America by winning a seat on the Board of Education to get revenge on a sadistic teacher.

Moore had the following to say in an interview with the Financial Times:

“You have a Republican group of candidates that are certifiably insane. They think the country is as crazy as they are. It’s not. Granted, I think a good 50m people are probably certifiably nuts too but this is a big country. There’s over 200m voters. We can weather 50m idiots.”

The New York Times Book Review mentioned the time, in high school (when Elks Lodges still accepted only Caucasions), that Moore took the opportunity to use an Elk-sponsored essay contest about Abraham Lincoln to excoriate the organization in front of the Chief Elk.

The speech began, the author recalls, with the words “How dare the Elks Club.” It ended with: “And you can keep your stinkin’ trophy.” “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” and other national media outlets called for interviews. A rowdy star was born.

In the opening chapter, Moore described his efforts while out of the spotlight to get fit and the results:

“If you take a punch at me now,” he announces, the following will happen: “(1) You will break your hand. That’s the beauty of spending just a half hour a day on your muscular-skeletal structure — it turns into kryptonite; (2) I will fall on you. I’m still working on my core and balance issues, so after you slug me I will tip over and crush you.”

The Catholic boy that’s still alive inside Mr. Moore adds: “It won’t be on purpose, and while you are attempting to breathe, please know I’ll be doing my best to get off you.”

Mayor Suttle, American Lung Association to Near North Omaha residents: Screw you!

This Sunday, Omaha's Corporate Cup run, for the umpteenth time, snarled traffic and actually trapped hapless motorists unlucky enough to be between taped barricades on Florence and on 16th, unable to escape North since no streets between those points go through and stopped from a southern exit by more barriers.

Once again the organizers of the Corporate Cup Run (the American Lung Association, 8990 West Dodge Rd., Suite 226, Omaha, NE 68114, 402-502-4950) and Mayor Jim Suttle (402- 444-5000) have demonstrated that they don't give a rat's ass about people in Near North neighborhoods who don't like the imperious yearly invasion and the total disruption of their mobility.

If Suttle and the high-handed American Lung Association dared to inconvenience well-to-do West Omahans by barricading THEIR streets and quarantining THEIR residents, they'd be barricading themselves in their own offices from entitled yuppies screaming bloody murder.

The American Lung Association's contempt for the neighborhoods it disturbs by commandeering their roadways and blocking their access with 12,000 runners is so complete that it doesn't even bother to publish a route map with street closings and times on its website.

The Omaha Police Department, by blocking off ALL access between 16th and Florence for about a mile, including southern exits (no Northern streets go though at that point in the route) apparently believes that the rights of thousands of interlopers to completely lock down a neighborhood trump the rights of area residents to leave their homes during the American Lung Association's fundraiser. 
 
We'd like nothing better than to see residents greeting the tone-deaf participants with signs reading "Go play on the Interstate, jerks."

Christmas creep: Nordstrom draws a line in the pre-Labor Day Summer sand

USA Today notes the endless cascade of retailers jumping the starting blocks of the Christmas sales blitz by reporting that Costco's Christmas decorations were up before Labor Day (that would be Summer, AKSARBENT observes crossly.)

By the  end of September, Home Depot, Kmart, Sears and Walmart also will have holiday trimmings in stores.

Not so Nordstrom, which never decorates before the day after Thanksgiving. Spokesperson Pamela Lopez: "We believe in celebrating one holiday at a time."

Michele Bachmann on Jay Leno: Tonight Show host clearly not a fan of her position on gay marriage

Richard Adams, in his Guardian blog post entitled Michele Bachmann gets no laughs from Jay Leno wrote this:

Asking about the clinic run by her husband, Leno was even more dismissive: "That whole 'pray the gay away' thing, I don't get that."

"When I heard that I thought it was a mid-life crisis thing, 'prayer raises grey'," was Bachmann's lame attempt at a jokey reply, which drew only an annoyed grunt from Leno.

"You know what I'm saying," he said.

3 trailer: German director Tom Tykwer's new 2-men-1-woman love triangle drama

Oklahoma Gov. Fallin ignores 200,000 emails urging her to repudiate State Rep. Kern's accusation that gayness is a greater threat than terrorism

200,000 emails by HRC members and supporters to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and state legislative leaders, calling on them to speak out against State Rep. Sally Kern’s dangerous anti-LGBT remarks, have been met with stony silence. Kern recently called homosexuality a bigger threat to the United States than terrorism. The Human Rights Campaign said this:

“The silence of Governor Fallin and Oklahoma’s legislative leadership [Speaker of the House Kris Steele and Senate President Pro Tempore Brian Bingman] is deafening, particularly given the number of people we now see calling on them to speak out. Enough is enough. Sally Kern has a long track record of outrageously slandering LGBT Americans, ethnic and religious groups, and women. It’s time for Oklahoma’s leaders to stand up to her bigotry and hold her accountable for her remarks.”

     HRC is calling on its members and supporters to keep the pressure up on Governor Fallin, Speaker Steele and President Pro Tempore Bingman, and to rally friends and family to join in taking action. For the latest, visit www.hrc.org/callitout.

Short takes: Poverty jumps, Netflix revolt, Republicans try to keep DADT, Illinois law against recording police finds sympathetic judge

Census Bureau reports that the number of people in deep poverty is highest in 36 years

California Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and another committee member, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson have written a letter asking Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to delay the new policy allowing gays to serve openly in the military

A great roll-your-own budget PC for about $600. What to buy

Is copyright law becoming too draconian? Witness this year's introduction of the PROTECT IP Act and S. 978, which would make unauthorized streaming a felony

600,000 customers quit Netflix over price increase

Seventh Circuit appeals court judge Richard Posner seems to agree with Illinois' repressive law against recording police in public

Omaha's hail-pummeled "string of pearls" globe lights along Abbott Drive to be replaced by energy-saving LED lights; will still shine upward, contributing to light pollution, the bane of stargazers

University of Iowa apologizes for tweet referring to Michele Bachmann as a cougar

Iowa Democratic Senate majority in jeopardy; GOP Gov. Branstad entices Democrat in swing district to leave legislature; Iowa gay marriage could be undone

Iowa State Senator Swati Dandekar

Jason Clayworth of the Des Moines Register reports that Gov. Terry Branstad will appoint a Marion senator and Democrat, Swati Dandekar, to an $85,000 job at the Iowa Utilities Board, a move that leaves open a Republican-leaning seat and a chance for the GOP to lock up the Senate in a tie 25 to 25 split.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal and other leaders discussed the issue with their members today in a conference call. They have not conceded defeat, promising an aggressive challenge to retain the seat.

“It would certainly change the Senate,” said Senate President Jack Kibbie of Emmetsburg. “A lot of the conservative issues that came from the House died in the Senate.”

It means that Republicans could finally break the stalemate that has prevented them from passing some of their key initiatives.

One key issue: A constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

All 24 Republicans are in favor of the amendment and a few conservative Democrats are on board. Gronstal has said he will refuse to call the issue up but with a 25-to-25 split, he may no longer be able to hold the line, noted Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa.

Tom Osborne cancels TransCanada stadium ads during Husker football games

Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Nebraska. Photo: BeatBoxBadHabit, Flickr

UNL Athletic Director Tom Osborne has voided a contract negotiated by IMG Husker Sports Network last April for TransCanada stadium ads during Husker football games.

"I want to make it clear that the athletic department has no position, either pro or con, regarding the proposed Pipeline," Osborne said in a statement.

The stadium video ads elicited booing during recent games.

BOLD Nebraska, which is fighting the TransCanada Pipeline, launched an online petition earlier this week to get Osborne to drop the ads and was planning to purchse 1,000 foam “cornfingers” with anti-pipeline slogans that fans could hoist into the air when the TransCanada ads were displayed.

A TransCanada official told the Omaha World-Herald that company was disappointed with the decision to drop the ads, saying they were not political but aimed at glorifying Nebraska's traditional “pipeline” of great offensive linemen.

(Please excuse AKSARBENT for a moment while it visits the restroom to talk to Ralph on the Big White Phone.)

Although Bold Nebraska has called off the stadium protests, it isn't done with TransCanada's spin on the story.

It's crystal clear that TransCanada's become too toxic to handle. When college football's best fans start booing your ads (not even the other team), well, the actions speak for themselves.

     Of course, TransCanada's spin doctor Jeff Rauh was on hand to express the company's remorse that they can't "be a part of the community" anymore. Sorry guys, foreign companies who bully landowners and buy off elected officials aren't community members Nebraska wants.

     He promised that TransCanada would take the ad money and give it to non-profits in the state. Well if that's true, we want a list published of when they get their checks and how much they are getting. 

     Maybe TransCanada considers their astroturf group the Nebraska Energy Forum a non-profit and will give them more money for their misleading push polls? Or does Rauh mean real non-profits that actually contribute to our communities like the Center for People in Need?

     And even if TransCanada does try to donate money to real non-profits, will they accept it? The Huskers have already shown that they're steering clear of TransCanada's toxic cash. Will anyone else want money that's as toxic as the tar sands TransCanada wants to pump through the Ogallala Aquifer?

New poll: 53% favor government recognition of same­sex couples; figures about the same as last year's

Steve Tanis, left, and his partner of 13 years, Rich Garraputa, both from Greensboro, N.C., walk toward the North Carolina Legislative Building after a rally against a state constitutional amendment banning all domestic legal unions in North Carolina except those between a man and a woman, on Halifax Mall in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011. Ted Richardson /AP Photo

A new nationwide telephone poll by The Associated Press and the National Constitution Center reveals that 53% of 1,000 adults surveyed believe the government should give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, about the same as last year.

48 percent, said they would favor a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

57 percent said same-sex couples should be entitled to the same legal benefits as married couples of the opposite sex.

Anderson Cooper reviews the reel of Michele Bachmann falsehoods

Rachel Maddow: World Net Daily nutcase "training" FBI agents?

Possibly Gay U.S. presidents list: Clinton only #8

11 points: You find yourself involved in enough threesome, foursomes, ninesomes and dodecasomes and eventually you're going to cross swords with someone.

Who voted against gay marriage in North Carolina?

The North Carolina Senate has approved SB 514, sending to voters a constitutional amendment that would appear to forbid not only gay marriage but civil unions and domestic partnerships as well.

ThinkProgress observed:

Despite this supposed weakening of the language, the new bill does not seem to be all that accommodating:

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.  This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into  contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit  courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

If one-man/one-woman marriage is still the “only domestic legal  union” that will be recognized, how exactly does the additional language  leave room for domestic partnerships? Law professors have condemned it  as “vague and untested,” suggesting it may even “invalidate domestic violence protections” for unmarried couples.

Against placing constitutional amendment to ban all gay legal unions on ballot in North Carolina: Atwater, Berger, D., Blue, Clodfelter, Dannelly, Garrou, Graham, Jenkins, Jones, Kinnaird, McKissick, Nesbitt, Purcell, Robinson, Stein, Vaughan

For placing constitutional amendment to ban all gay legal unions on ballot in North Carolina: Allran Apodaca, Berger, P., Bingham, Blake, Brock, Brown, Brunstetter, Clary, Daniel, Davis, East, Forrester, Goolsby, Gunn, Harrington, Hise, Hunt, Jackson, Meredith, Newton, Pate, Preston, Rabon, Rouzer, Rucho, Soucek, Stevens, Tillman, Tucker

Absent: Hartsell, Mansfield, Walters, White

Here is how the North Carolina House voted on the same issue yesterday:




     

1295      SB514

DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE.    Sponsor: BRUNSTETTER Third Reading

Outcome: PASSED Time: Sep 12 2011  6:02PM

Total Votes: 117   Ayes: 75   Noes: 42   Not: 2   Exc. Absent: 1   Exc. Vote: 0

        
        
        
        

	Democrat	Republican
Ayes:	Representative(s): Brisson; Crawford; Floyd; Goodman; Graham; Hill; McGuirt; Owens; Pierce; Spear	Representative(s):  Avila; Barnhart; Blackwell; Blust; Boles; Brawley; Brown, L.; Brown, R.;  Brubaker; Burr; Cleveland; Collins; Cook; Current; Daughtry; Dixon;  Dockham; Dollar; Faircloth; Folwell; Frye; Gillespie; Guice; Hager;  Hastings; Hilton; Hollo; Holloway; Howard; Hurley; Iler; Ingle; Johnson;  Jones; Jordan; Justice; Killian; Langdon; LaRoque; Lewis; McComas;  McCormick; McElraft; McGee; Mills; Moffitt; Moore, T.; Murry; Pridgen;  Randleman; Sager; Saine; Samuelson; Sanderson; Setzer; Shepard; Stam;  Starnes; Steen; Stevens; Stone; Tillis (SPEAKER); Torbett; Warren, H.;  West
Noes:	Representative(s):  Adams; Alexander, K.; Alexander, M.; Bell; Bordsen; Brandon; Bryant;  Carney; Cotham; Earle; Faison; Farmer-Butterfield; Fisher; Gill;  Glazier; Hackney; Haire; Hall; Hamilton; Harrison; Insko; Jackson;  Jeffus; Keever; Lucas; Luebke; Martin; McLawhorn; Michaux; Mobley;  Moore, R.; Parfitt; Parmon; Rapp; Ross; Tolson; Wainwright; Warren, E.;  Weiss; Wilkins; Womble; Wray	Representative(s): None
Not Voting:	Representative(s): None	Representative(s): Bradley; McGrady
Exc. Absence:	Representative(s): None	Representative(s): Horn

Matt Baume: Marriage News Watch 9/11/11

A legal skirmish in the Prop 8 case sets the stage for a big victory down the line. Meanwhile, A-list celebs come together to tell the story of the Prop 8 trial. Marriage debate is slated for Monday morning in North Carolina, and Minnesota's newest anti-gay activist [Chris Plante] comes with some skeletons in his closet.

University of Iowa students ask for — and get — LGBT residence hall floor

School officials say they are open to the idea and say they plan to put it on the application for next fall. Students tried to get a floor this year, but only a handful signed up.

Rolling Stone: Koch Brothers funding GOP war on Democratic voters

Rolling Stone has taken note of new obstacles to voting, which include requiring voters to prove citizenship before registering, making it harder for groups to register new voters, repealing Election day voter registration, cutting short early voting periods, barring all ex-felons, and in six states controlled by GOP governors and legislatures, requiring voters to produce government-issued IDs at the polls. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such ID and among groups more like to vote Democratic, like the young and blacks, the numbers are, respectively, 18 and 25 percent.

Karl Rove Karl has apparently told the Republican National Lawyers Association that illegal voting is "an enormous and growing problem." In parts of America, he said, "we are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses."

The truth is that a major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter.. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only 7/100 of one percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud.

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

 In an update, Rolling Stone reported on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights hearing on this issue, held 9/8/2011 and entitled “New State Voting Laws: Barriers to the Ballot?”

AKSARBENT readers may view the webcast here.