From Der Spiegel…   This photo, taken just after the Nato leaders had their picture taken together in Bucharest, says it all…

Never mind the Kyoto treaty.  Never mind the war.  Never mind he keeps treating them like they’re all his frat house boys.  What’s probably pissing them off is how he’s fucked their banks fifty times over with our bad loans. 

Via Box Turtle Bulletin…  Now what the hell was this supposed to accomplish…?

We commented earlier on how the mainstream media omitted all mention of Major Alan Rogers’ orientation or of his efforts to overturn the military’s ban on open gay servicemen. We told you how the Washington Post ombudsman wrote a column to repair that deliberate exclusion. Now there’s a new twist.

According to the Washington Blade, Rogers’ profile on Wikipedia has been modified

The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.

And while the individual responsible isn’t known,

The IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, *Cathy Long.

The factual information has been reinstated in the Wikipedia entry.

* Long is the cousin that was unaware of Rogers’ orientation and thought it should be left out of the Post article.

Alan Rogers’ was a soldier and a gay man.  He was dedicated to equal rights for gay soldiers.  He kept his sexual orientation at least partly in the closet, so he could continue to serve.  That is the devil’s bargan Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell demands of gay soldiers.  He could have easily avoided the FUBAR that George Bush made of Iraq by coming out of the closet and getting his discharge.  He didn’t.  Whatever you think of Bush’s splendid little war, Alan Rogers’ was obviously proud of his service to the United States.  While in uniform, bearing arms for the sake of his country, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country.  The least his country could do, is be proud of him too.

And I think his country Is proud.  Even the piss ignorant jackasses who still believe in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Some of them anyway.  Probably not James Dobson or Sally Kern.  But I think even louts like Charles Krauthammer would salute this man’s memory, just as he was.  Maybe.  However, as you can see, it is still far too much to ask of the stars and bars in their comfortable air conditioned pentagon offices, that they be proud of All their fallen heroes.  

This is really sad…

Position vacant: £7 an hour. Person to drink beer

To customers perusing the notice-board in the village post office, the job advertisement must have seemed too good to be true. For £7 an hour, with all expenses paid, a man was required to visit a local pub and drink beer.

The assignment was to be carried out at at least twice a week at the Compass Inn in Winsor, Hampshire, in the company of an elderly gentleman.

The advert is genuine, and the four men who have applied for the position so far are to undergo trial drinking sessions in the coming week, though their potential employer is open to applications from new candidates.

It is an appeal from a desperate man. Until recently, Jack Hammond, 88, would drink four times a week with a neighbour in Barton-on-Sea. Then he moved into a nursing home a few miles away to be closer to his family. Forest Edge Care Home boasts a garden and easy access to shops; what it cannot offer Mr Hammond is a suitable drinking partner. All but one of his fellow residents are women. Which is how the advertisement came to be placed in the nearby village of Cadnam.

For some it is a sign of the times that an elderly gentleman lacks a companion with whom to visit the local pub, although it is increasingly common.

Mr Hammond’s wife died 12 years ago, and the upheaval of moving into a care home has left him feeling isolated. “It was a bit upsetting when I had to leave as I left all my friends back home,” he said.

Jeeze…I’m only 54 and I can already relate.  I moved to Baltimore and left all my friends behind in Washington because up here was where i was getting work, and I could actually afford the rents.  But at least I’m healthy enough I can drive down to Washington to see my friends regularly.  The day is coming, when all I’ll have is what’s within a short distance from where I make my bed.  But maybe by that time I’ll have voices in my head to keep me company.

People have had to buy sex since before the written word.  Here’s what it’s come to in our age: people are having to buy friends.  Except you can’t.

Better to go down dignified

With boughten friendship at your side

Than none at all. Provide, provide!

So said Robert Frost.  He was wrong.  You can buy sex but you can’t buy love.  You can buy a companion but you can’t buy friendship.  Hopefully Mr. Hammond has had enough love and friendship in his life that he can find all he needs now in a bought companion.  But the rest of us need to look at this and worry about what we are becoming.  It shouldn’t have to be like this.  In an age where advertisers can track our every desire and feed us up products we’re likely to want, just by tracking our web browsing habits, we are loosing our humanity.  How is it, that this guy was moved away from his friends into a nursing home located where it is, simply to be closer to his family, and nobody seems to have given any thought to his need for companionship?

Chris Perry, director of Hampshire Age Concern, often sees elderly men who lack a companion for their regular pub visits. “It is easy to become socially isolated at this age due to bereavement or from people moving away,” he said. “But this man needs to be commended for using his initiative for putting an advert in the window.”

And you need to feel ashamed, very, very ashamed, that he had to.  So it’s easy for people to become socially isolated at that age is it?  So you often see elderly men who lack companionship do you?  Then what fucking use is your goddamned Hampshire Age Concern?

Via Newscoma… 

I suspect someone is pulling their neighbor’s legs. 

I’ll endure lectures on how offensive this is… 

…from a lot of people, but not from the drooling moron who put this…

…on the cover of one of his books.  I suppose he finds this offensive too…

Via Atrios…

Survey: Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV
Some Teens Also Believe Mountain Dew Will Stop Pregnancy

ORLANDO, Fla. — A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

Fat chance. 

The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.

If you think this sort of thing isn’t what the people who are pushing Abstinence Only sex education intended you aren’t paying attention.  This is exactly what they want.  Remember, these are the same people who don’t want young girls vaccinated against the virus that can cause cervical cancer because…well…because people who have sex without their permission deserve to die horribly.  They Want kids to get HIV.  They Want kids to get pregnant.  They Want their bodies to shrivel with disease that could have been easily prevented.  And not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex.  No…no…no…  Not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex.  Because they hate them.  Because they hate the joy of life they see in them.  Because they hate humanity.  If people can’t be taught to hate their bodies, if they can’t be taught to feel shame for being human, if they won’t beg god to forgive them simply for existing, then they have to die.  It really is that simple.  If you think that bottomless hatred of humanity only exists in radical Islam you are not paying attention.

This isn’t good…

Group Claims Near Required Signatures To Put Gay Marriage Ban On Calif. Ballot

The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement.

Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline for turning in the petitions to county registrars is April 21.

Registrars are then required to take a random sample of signatures to verify.  If that sampling shows at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.

"The numbers are good, solid," Ron Prentice, a spokesperson for Protect Marriage told The Christian Examiner, a conservative Christian publication.

"We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in."

Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties.  Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.

Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.

It would just break my heart if the land of my birth did that to me.  I’ve noted before that the only reason I can travel freely around the United States is that I’m single.  If I had a spouse, there are many states in this so-called union that we simply could not set foot in because if one of us had a sudden health problem, or there was an accident, it would become a nightmare for both of us.  Even with a so-called durable power of attorney, we could be denied the right to simply be with each other in a hospital…even with a medical directives document…we could be denied the power to make medical decisions for each other should one of us become suddenly incapacitated.  Some state constitutional amendments, like Virginia’s are so stringently and thoroughly crafted to ostracize same sex couples from the protections of the law, that they can even be read to deny same sex couples the right to hold a joint checking account.

There are simply not that many people in this country who hate us enough to want to do that to us.  The problem, like it was for another hated minority group over in Europe back in the 1920s and 30s, is that the rest of the nation doesn’t care enough to tell them to stop it.  So when these amendments are put up to a vote, they stay home and allow hate to have its way.  These are the people who say later, "We heard the rumors, but we didn’t believe them…"

Once upon a time I planned to move back to California after mom passed away.  Then I got the job I do now, and my little Baltimore rowhouse, and I stayed in Maryland.  But even now I think sometimes that when my time to retire comes, if it ever does, I’d like to spend the last years of my life back there where I was born.  It’s a lovely state.  It would break my heart if the day ever came that I couldn’t even visit California again.

I have a book on my desk waiting for me to read, titled, The Lavender Scare, about the persecution of gay government employees during the height of the cold war.  So this story, via Talking Points Memo, caught my attention…

DoJ Investigators Probing Whether Goodling Fired Lawyer Due to Gay Rumors

The Department of Justice’s inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo’s tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant’s sexual orientation.

NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys’ committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.

And from NPR…

Justice Department e-mails obtained by NPR show that Gonzales’s senior counsel Monica Goodling had a particular interest in Hagen’s duties….

The Justice Department’s inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat."

Several people interviewed by the inspector general’s staff said investigators asked whether people drew a connection between the rumors and Hagen’s dismissal….

Someone who worked in Hagen’s office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen’s contract would not be renewed because someone on the attorney general’s staff had a problem with Hagen. The problem, it was suggested during the conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen’s sexual orientation.

One person at the meeting asked, "Is that really an issue?" But the decision had been made.

"To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat."  The party of hate.  It’s not always about cynical manipulation of people’s fears.  A lot of them really do hate us that much.