SNL: Boy Dance Party hosted by Bruce Willis in his first appearance as host in 25 years; no homo

Second U.S. nuke commander in a week is fired

Carey

Maj. Gen. Michael Carey has been removed from his job "due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgement, the Air Force Global Strike Command announced Friday via Air Force spokesman, Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick.

     Kodlick appeared to be playing the Pentagon version of 20 questions when he said that Carey has been under investigation for alleged “personal misbehavior,” but wouldn't spell out what prompted his firing.
     After reporters prodded him, Kodlick said the case didn't involve gambling, criminal activity, sexual misconduct or drugs. When he was then asked if hooch played a role in Carey's firing, he refused to comment.
     From Air Force Times:

     Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of Global Strike Command, decided to fire Carey following an inspector general’s investigation into Carey’s “personal misbehavior” during a temporary duty assignment this summer...Kowalski received “reports” of personal misbehavior from other service members who were traveling with Carey on the TDY trip...
     In addition to commanding 20th Air Force, Carey also served as commander of Task Force 214, U.S. Strategic Command at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo. He oversaw three operational wings of more than 9,600 people with control over 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

     Earlier this week, Vice-Adm Tim Giardina, second-in-command of the US Strategic Command, was fired by President Obama and is under investigation for illegal gambling activities after being accused of using counterfeit gambling chips in "a significant monetary amount."

The Vladimir Putin, Tony Abbott man-off

Vlad (left) vs. Tony

The Guardian's Ben Pobjie evaluates the compara­tive studliness of Australia's prime minister and Russia's president:

     ...Putin is renowned for his eagerness to flaunt his bare chest around the plains and forests of Europe, and there’s definitely a Rambo quality to the man when he starts thrusting his nipples at the wildlife. But he may have met his match in Abbott, a man whose desire to achieve the highest political office is exceeded only by his desire to burn the outline of his barely-contained genitalia into the brains of every citizen of Australia...
     So I think the man-off has to be awarded to Putin, but Abbott shouldn’t lose hope. He’s just a rookie, and he put up a very creditable fight. He’s still manlier than John Key and David Cameron put together, and with a little more training, a few more dead animals, and a slightly more developed streak of savage homophobia, I am confident that our new prime minister can one day be the most macho of them all.

Lewis Hamilton shaking Sebastian Vettel's hand: good sport or dirty boy?

This was broadcast by the BBC just after Lewis Hamilton qualified for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, when he walked out of the FIA garage in front of Sebastian Vettel, rearranged his package, grinned, then turned to shake Vettel's hand.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, buys four homes around his for $30m to safeguard his privacy, then attacks your ability to evade stalkers by removing Facebook's search opt-out

When he learned about a developer's plan to buy the property next to his Palo Alto house, build an outsized house on it and then market the home as being next to Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO promptly bought all four homes adjacent to his for $30 million to safeguard his privacy. He will lease them back to the current owners.
     As for YOUR privacy, Facebook this week cancelled your ability to exclude yourself from search results from strangers who might be searching for you on the social network.
     Also this week, Google announced that starting next month, it will share all your recommendations with everyone it thinks you know on Google+ and may use your name and your Google+ profile picture to do so. You can opt out of this.
     More about these latest privacy assaults and what you can do about them is on Forbes here.

Joe Bell, 48, killed by truck on walk to honor gay son, who hanged himself after relentless bullying at LaGrande, Ore., high school

KIVI, Boise, ID

Joseph Bell, 48, who decided to walk across the country speaking out against antigay bullying that caused his 15-year-old son, Jadin to hang himself earlier this year, now also is dead after being struck by a Farold inc., tractor-trailer driven by Kenneth Raven, 49.
     Raven was cited by the Colorado State Patrol for careless driving resulting in death  after the accident, along the shoulder of U.S. 40 in Kit Carson on Wednesday, ABC News reported.

Happy Halloween from Abraham Lincoln

Seen here with other illegal U.S. art...

New poll with sneakier questions suggests more homosexual behavior — and less acceptance of LGBs — than subjects have admitted in other studies

See PEW's summation of study here.

Nathaniel Frank, writing in Slate, looked at a new study from a team of researchers from Ohio State and Boston Universities using a survey technique known as the “veiled elicitation method” to correct for social desirability bias (the desire not to give socially unacceptable answers to survey questions.) The part of the study he found most arresting (as it was the only part he excerpted):

The veiled method increased self-reports of on-hetero­sexual identity by 65% (p<0.05) and same-sex sexual experiences by 59% (p<0.01). The veiled method also increased the rates of anti-gay sentiment. Respondents were 67% more likely to express disapproval of an openly gay manager at work (p<0.01) and 71% more likely to say it is okay to discriminate against lesbian, gay, or bisexual individuals (p<0.01).

Frank went on:

Should I care about what others think and feel if they behave properly? Here’s the thing: Feelings have consequences. Juries make life-altering decisions based on them; police officers who pull triggers before they have time to correct for their biases end lives because of them; and gay kids who grow up with parents who profess tolerance but quietly exhibit disapproval or disgust wreak havoc with their kids’ lives—all because biases shape our lives more than we’re often willing to concede. And remember, the veiled survey method increased by 71 percent the likelihood that subjects said it was “okay to discriminate against lesbian, gay, or bisexual individuals.” That is, not just to stigmatize them but to actually treat them worse.

If these two NE legislators were still alive we wouldn't need Lee Terry and Deb Fischer

Via Buzzfeed from here. Remember, paranoics: a lot of homos are tied up together. Any number of websites will confirm this true fact.
     Nowadays, of course, homosexuals (especially ones with really nice legs) are being used by capitalists, sometimes to ruin the minds of Orthodox Church-led, baseball bat-wielding Russian youth trying desperately to beat back the incursion of nontraditional sexual orientations, because until the country let Elton John in, Russia had no such traditions.

Poor Maggie Gallagher just lost Betty Crocker

If Duncan Hines also goes over to the dark side, please keep an eye on Maggie, won't you?

Rachel Maddow on U.S. antigay movement's role in spate of new Russian antigay laws; newest proposal would remove kids in homes with a gay parent and put them in orphanages — really

Via JoeMyGod

The present and future of the Republican Party, kissing the ring tomorrow so everybody will know that they side with the parts of the American conserva­tive movement that have been traveling to Russia, egging them on to step up their campaign to destroy gay people's lives and rip kids out of their families and throw them into orphanages because — family values.
                                                                                                — Rachel Maddow

Oil Patch Dispatch: wheat farmer — not TX Pipeline company — discovered leak of 865,200 gallons of Bakken crude near Tioga, ND

Amy Dalrymple interviewed the North Dakota farmer who discovered that more than 7 acres of his land were soaked with pipeline oil. Pollution of underground water, officials think, was prevented by a layer of clay, a barrier Nebraska landowners in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline do not have.
     The complete oil spill story, from Dalrymple and Mike Nowatzi was published here.

     Steve Jensen, who lives in an area he describes as “spider webbed” with underground pipelines, said he began smelling oil a few days before he noticed the spill....
     ...Jensen questions why Tesoro didn’t detect that more than 20,000 barrels had leaked and would like to see better monitoring systems put in place.
     Tina Barbee, a Tesoro Logistics spokeswoman, said pipelines are monitored by a remote pipeline control center that monitors pressure and pumps. When asked if the monitoring center would have detected a leak, Barbee said that will be part of the company’s investigation.
     Tesoro Logistics also flies over pipelines to monitor them, Barbee said. She said she did not know the most recent aerial inspection of this pipeline.
     “It is consistently monitored, on average, weekly,” Barbee said.
     Jensen, who is a pilot, said the spill likely would have been visible from the air.

Randy Roberts Potts' NALT (Not All Like That) video

Potts is the grandson of TV evangelist Oral Roberts, whom the Internet probably would have made very nervous.

Rolling Stone: The hidden war against gay teens

Just in time for Coming Out Day comes this detailed, lengthy Rolling Stone examination of how private Christian schools are exploiting local laws to raise money while expelling kids for the crime of being not straight.

     ...Georgia, along with 11 other states (Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Iowa, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, New Hampshire, Louisiana and, most recently, Alabama), has adopted laws – sometimes referred to as "neovouchers" – to grant dollar-for-dollar tax credits to people who donate money to provide children with scholarships to private schools. In theory, such a plan has the potential to help a lot of students, but in practice, especially in deeply religious places like Georgia, it has also meant that millions of dollars have been redirected from public funds to privately run Student Scholarship Organizations, which can then funnel the money to schools with strict anti-gay policies. Because the money goes straight to the SSO and never actually enters the public coffers, it's free and clear of being considered a "public fund" – allowing church and state to technically be kept separate. All of which may sound fishy, but consider this: It's fully legal because the laws make it so. And, as the school-choice movement gains ground, it's certain that other states will soon pass similar legislation.
     It's unlikely, however, that any of these laws will be as freewheeling as Georgia's, where conservative Christian schools constitute the largest segment of private schools in the state. Georgia House Bill 1133, which introduced the Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit, is the only SSO legislation in the country that was formulated without requiring organizations to take family income into account when choosing who will receive a scholarship, nor does it keep track of who gets them. A 2011 amendment makes it a criminal offense to disclose who donates SSO money, how much they donate, or which schools receive these donations, making any knowledge about where the money goes so shrouded in mystery that the Society of Professional Journalists awarded HB 1133 the Black Hole Award, for "the most heinous violations of the public's right to know."
     Nevertheless, after the law went into effect, more than $230 million in tax credits have been awarded to taxpayers in Georgia who have made SSO donations. And since at least 115 private schools affiliated with SSOs in the state have explicit anti-gay policies or belong to associations that condemn homosexuality, it's clear that much of that money has gone to private schools that consider homosexuality not only a sin but also a perversion from which the rest of their students must be shielded. Meanwhile, two of the seven agencies that grant private schools accreditation promote an anti-gay sentiment...

 (Via ThinkProgress)

60 minutes to profile remarkable gay 15-year-old who won top 2012 Intel science prize

Also: The L.A. Times calls a different segment of the upcoming 60 Minutes episode featuring Jack Andraka, a "shameful attack on disabled"

Jack Andraka, a gay, now-16-year-old Maryland student, developed a test using a single-wall carbon nanotube which detects pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer and lung cancer in their early stages when up to a 50% survival rate is possible.
     His test costs three cents and takes five minutes. It is 168 times faster, 26,000 times less expensive and 400 times more sensitive than the current diagnostic standard.
     He sent his proposal to more than 200 professors at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins and got 197 rejection emails and one acceptance — from Dr. Anirban Maitra, Professor of Pathology, Oncology and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.



     This story brings up another issue: the predatory pricing of publishers of academic journals. Had the information Andraka initially needed been locked up behind a confiscatory paywall, he wouldn't have been able to succeed.
     A revolt is forming against these companies.

Mercury 7 Astronaut, Scott Carpenter, dead at 88; was 4th American in space, 2nd to orbit earth

     Carpenter died Thursday at a Denver hospice; no cause was released. Of the original U.S. astronauts, only John Glenn, 92, is still alive.
     He spent four hours and 56 minutes encircling the earth three times in his Aurora 7 capsule before splashing down off Puerto Rico on May 24, 1962, about 250 miles from his target site, an error for which he was blamed by some at NASA.
      Wrote Christopher Kraft, the flight director, in his memoir “Flight: My Life in Mission Control” (2001):

“He was completely ignoring our request to check his instruments,”  “I swore an oath that Scott Carpenter would never again fly in space. He didn’t.” 

     Carpenter’s chances of flying another NASA mission were ended by a motorbike injury that eventually caused him to leave NASA in 1967.
     At 5'10", Carpenter was one of the tallest Mercury 7 astronauts, none of whom could be over 5'11" because of the size of the capsule. He was married four times and was the only astronaut to become an aquanaut, spending a month living and working on the ocean floor, at a depth of 205 feet, in the Sealab project off San Diego in the summer of 1965.

Vatican misspells 'Jesus' on commemorative Pope Francis medal; wag says: 'Blame the Lesuits'

Four of the medals have already been sold to some very lucky purchasers.

Daily Nebraskan's Oliver Tonkin: a soccer fanatic fed up with FIFA's blind eye to deadly worker exploitation and homophobia

Tonkin

In an op-ed piece published today, Tonkin wrote:

     The governing body of international soccer and the World Cup, FIFA, is headed by the untimely reticent Sepp Blatter. He does an admirable job of feigning concern for the world when the media points it out to him. When Nepalese and Indian workers complete the $100 billion-plus of infrastructure to ready Qatar for the World Cup, up to 4,000 workers will have died. Thus far, 44 Nepalese workers have died in construction sites during this summer and we’ve got nine years to go.
     What about Russia? Well, that’s a bit less insufferable. However Russia, which draws its wisdom from tender remembrances of the Soviet legacy, has banned gay athletes from participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics. Further, they have prohibited Swedes from adopting Russian children, because of the possibility that some of the adoptive parents may be gay. Russia’s absurd anti-gay campaign is confounding and unethical. If I spend my money on something, I’m not going to support a fascist regime that oppresses human beings.

How GOP shutdown is hurting the people who grow and raise your food

Here are three problems:

1. Farm Service Agency offices can't document losses of thousands of cattle killed by early blizzard in South Dakota 
2. Lost access to Ag Department's reporting on grain, cattle and hog sales for futures trading
3. Farmers can't deposit checks from selling grain and livestock to pay bills because FSA must co-endorse those checks and local FSA offices are closed

A WWII vet weighs in on the 'epic battle' of GOP shut­down politicians like John Boehner and Steve King — who never wore a uniform

In fact, Rep. Steve King actively avoided the draft.

New Jersey Governor's race debate: Barbara Buono reminds Chris Christie that her gay daughter is not a 'political agenda'

The back and forth on gay marriage begins at 4:27; at 7:16 Buono stands up against Gov. Christie on behalf of her gay daughter.

$2 billion NSA Utah data center nearly unusuable after 10 fiery explosions/meltdowns

From Time:

Officials told the Wall Street Journal that 10 fiery explosions, known as arc-fault failures, have ripped apart machinery, melted metal and destroyed circuits. The repeated meltdowns have delayed the opening of the one-million square foot facility by 12 months.

From The Atlantic:

The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the construction of the facility, but the electrical work was contracted out to architectural firm KlingStubbin, which is itself a subcontractor of  Balfour Beatty Construction, DPR Construction and Big-D Construction Corp.

     A Forbes reporter describes how the NSA reacted when she took some photos of the data center from the outside.

Admiral who oversaw U.S. nuclear weapons at STRATCOM, near Omaha, sacked for using fake chips at Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, IA

Vice-Adm Tim Giardina, second-in-command of the US Strategic Command, is under investigation for illegal gambling activities.
     He already has been fired by President Obama and reassigned after being accused of using counterfeit gambling chips in "a significant monetary amount."

New frontiers in totalitarianism: Azerbaijan releases election results a day before voting started

The Azerbaijani Central Election Commission vote totals as
reported on its official smartphone app before voting started.
(meydan.tv)

From the Washington Post:

The data were quickly recalled. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008.

The government now says that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is ahead with about 85% of the vote.

Mr. Weiner visits Mr. Hannity on Fox

Short Takes: bad hackers winning; newest crackpot same sex parenting study; right-wing conspiracy behind gov't shutdown; UN started Haiti's cholera epidemic

Lawsuit says Home Depot looked for gay employees to fire after Finance Crisis

City of Chicago routinely denies prescription medications to the people held in its lock-ups, including HIV drugs

Some commanders not following Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's order giving gay troops marriage leave

Lincoln Journal-Star: How children deal with an announcement that a parent is gay

Ole Miss says there's "no evidence" that freshman athletes disrupted gay play, so it'll discipline entire audience

Bad Hackers are winning:

• Only one of 45 pieces of malware that stayed on NYT computers for four months was spotted by antivirus software
• 2/3 of infected computers repaired by the ClickAway chain have anti-virus software
• 11 commonly used security programs tested last year by Texas-based NSS Labs, most were found to be “not providing adequate protection,”
• Kaspersky, a security company, claims it encounters 200,000 new malware varieties per day, up from 25 daily in 1994

IOC again refuses to explicitly recognize LGBTs as protected group

Equality Matters summarizes what media outlets should know about the latest crackpot same-sex parenting study being flogged by NOM boosters

U.N. sued over cholera epidemic that it started in Haiti

The teacher of a murdered Californian gay student says she understands the motives of the killer and has laughed saying she would have given the victim a “good swift kick in the butt”
 
Russian LGBT film festival wins appeal against fines under ‘foreign agent’ law

There really is a right-wing conspiracy behind the government shutdown, especially involving the Koch Bros. and their organizations

Why Americans should hope that the 20-year Nobel Prize for Literature drought for U.S. authors continues

Congressional photo of the day: a constituent decides whether to buy what Aaron Shock is selling

Justin Beiber stupidly tweets shirtless picture of himself, not his trainer

Brian Williams now disguising the flogging of Comcast product as Nightly News reportage

For some time, ABC has been slipping clips of movies by Disney, its owner, into news reports to better explain them to viewers, or perhaps, to sneakily promote Disney product.
     Last night NBC jumped on the slippery slope which bottoms out in ABC's pit by pretending that a new service only available to Comcast (its owner) Xfinity subscribers was news worthy of a general interest broadcast and not an advertisement masquerading as editorial content.

Undercover cop arrested in NYC motorcycle brawl spied on Occupy protestors for years

"Al," who showed up at nearly every Occupy event in New York, turned out to be an undercover cop, 32 year-old NYPD detective Wojciech Braszczok.