I Know Why Tom DeLay Is Smiling

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See how YOUR Sexuality Rates!

Take the quiz, but don't take the pill.

Quiz and results are non-scientific and for entertainment purposes only. Thank goodness. For a minute I thought I was gay!

USATODAY.com - Sen. Judd Gregg wins $853,492 in Powerball

USATODAY.com - Sen. Judd Gregg wins $853,492 in Powerball

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg called a news conference for Thursday to announce that he's one of 47 Powerball players who matched five of the lottery's numbers, minus the Powerball number — winning him a total of $853,492.

Just Say No to Civil Union

The Stranger - Just Say No to Civil Union

Washington State’s official state motto is “al-ki,” Chinook for “by and by.” But those of us, gay and non-gay, who want to see the state end discrimination against same-sex couples and their kids can’t wait for the by and by. We have work to do now—in our own community, among allies and friends, with our fellow citizens, and with our elected officials, particularly state legislators.

The Ties that Bind

I've read about half of this, it's pretty damn good. Send it to your straight friends and enemies.

The Ties that Bind, 10/21/2005 - The Texas Observer

The proposed amendment will not make gay people straight, or stop them from falling in love and having children. What the amendment can do is make the lives of gay couples a bureaucratic hell, and plunge the state courts into a frenzy of civil suits, as the legal system attempts to sort out what constitutes a relationship “similar or identical to marriage.” There has never been anything like equality for gays in Texas, but it may soon be open season on them and their families, as the only right same-sex couples have ever enjoyed—the right to be left alone—is voted out of existence.

Pentagon Blames Schultz Scheduling on "Staff Error"

The Pentagon, after canceling at 6 a.m. Monday - nine hours before airtime on the day of the debut, - says it never meant to book progressive talker Ed Shultz on Armed Forces Radio to begin with. Instead a "staff member" sent out the e-mail in error. Schultz says they've been announcing this for weeks and only heard from Allison Barber after she received ridicule last Friday for her "scripted" coaching of the troops speaking to the president:

Stars & Stripes: Talk show host Ed Schultz nixed by AFN

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Schultz's views and recent comments played no factor in the decision.

'What we have here is a staff member who got ahead of the decision-making process,' he said. 'We're in the process of looking at additional programming, but there have been no decisions yet.'

Producers had been told by AFN in September that the first hour of the show was to begin airing overseas for troops on Monday.

But on Monday morning, producer James Holm said, he received a call from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber saying the show would not be put on the network until officials had more time to review the decision.

Whitman said AFN is in the process of reviewing its slate of radio shows, and said he expected officials would announce several changes in the near future. But he said the confirmation given to the Schultz show producers was premature, and no decisions about adding shows have been finalized.

Brokeback's Jake Gyllenhaal's Duds are Rounded Up

Buffalo altpress: Jake gets the boot, but his movie is terrific

So Gyllenhaal, who was at the (Toronto International Film) festival (the 30th annual) to promote his superb feature Brokeback Mountain, a perfect film about two male western ranch hands who fall in love with each other in 1960s America, had a deluxe suite at the Four Seasons. He was out in the city doing promotional things, and returned to discover that Reception had given his room to another guest. Some self-important VIP – a name was never mentioned – was handed Jake’s suite after demanding he be given his room ASAP. Hotel staffers actually went into Gyllenhaal’s space and packed up his clothing and toiletries and stored them...

There is no word yet whether he bunked up with Heath Leger, his fellow leading man in the highly anticipated movie.

On the Republican Agenda: Tax the Poor by Rewarding the Rich then Claiming Bankruptcy

Republicans award huge tax cuts to the richest of the rich and dole out corporate welfare. Republicans took America's savings - the surplus handed to them after eight years of prosperity - and divided it amongst themselves. Average Americans saved a few hundred dollars, but quickly saw that money evaporate in state taxes and oil profits. Now to pay for our American Rainy Day, the Republicans want to break the backs of the poorest of the poor. They want to pick the pocket of the the sick to keep precious tax cuts for the wealthiest.

We had a tax system that was doing just fine. Prosperity, savings, opportunity. But the money the wealthiest were making wasn't enough for them. They won't even pay for the war, instead charging our China Platinum Card and expecting our kids to pay it off.

Rob the poor to give to the rich. That's the Republican way.

House GOP Leaders Set to Cut Spending

House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership's own weakening hold on power.

Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief.

Marijuana Advocate for Alabama Governor!

AP: Marijuana advocate running for governor of Alabama

Loretta Nall, a 31-year-old mother of two, is running for governor of Alabama when she's not busy with her other duties: writing for Cannabis Culture magazine and serving as president of the U.S. Marijuana Party...

I've got this gut feeling that come November of next year, I stand a very good chance of being governor with the Republicans trying to out-Jesus each other and the Democrats trying to out-socialist each other,' she said...

Nall says Alabama's prisons are jam-packed because the state's drug policy is shortsighted. She says many of the people in prison for property crimes were stealing and robbing to support addictions to hard drugs, such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

Prison doesn't address their drug problems, but good drug treatment programs would. And over time, Alabama could reduce the $305 million appropriation for prisons, she said.

Stop the Drug War: Drug War Chronicle: Loretta Nall Enters Alabama Governor's Race

Nall's low budget campaign will feature a walking tour of the state. The idea has historical resonance in the South, where Lawton Chiles won the governorship in Florida after a similar months-long stroll. In Alabama in the 1980s, a politician named Fob James rode a bus complete with goats and chickens across the state. He was later known as Gov. Fob James.

Report: Cannabis Grows Brain Cells, Reduces Anxiety

Marijuana may live up to be 'the elixir of life' for brain cells

A study by University of Saskatchewan researchers suggests beneficial aspects of smoking marijuana at least among rats, who appear to have sprouted new brain cells ... benefiting from reduced depression and anxiety...

In other news... Benjamin Keener, owner of the Saskatchewan Keener Reception Beanery Company reported that his store was looted in the wee hours of the morning last Thursday. Captain Alastair Mounteman of the Saskatchewan Police Commission said the only clue found at the scene of the crime was a tiny discarded map of the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan. Developing...

At-Home Oral HIV Test Approved by FDA

I have to think about this for a bit, but this development is going to change the politics and etiquette of gay male sex. Will gay men keep these in stock next to the bed for men they bring home? Will it start being an acronym in gay hookup ads? Or will gay men not use them out of fear of the truth?

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | US approves home tests for HIV despite suicide fears

US approves home tests for HIV despite suicide fears

Check on saliva gives diagnosis in 20 minutes... The first rapid home test kit for HIV has been approved in the US... The new kit is as simple as a pregnancy test, and the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has decided that its usefulness in alerting people quickly and privately to their HIV status, so that they can avoid infecting others, outweighs any harm.

Coming Out is Essential

To me, National Coming Out Day is celebrated on the wrong day. National Coming Out Day should be celebrated on May 22, Harvey Milk's birthday.

Harvey Milk, Second Sight

Harvey Milk was a U.S. Navy veteran, a photographer, a Broadway producer, a hippie, a businessman, a politician, an activist by simply being himself, and a martyr. Harvey Milk is one of my greatest heroes.

Harvey Milk knew the power of being yourself. Coming out, to him, was essential to our survival. By staying closeted, we marginalize ourselves in the eyes of society. Being out makes us a simple matter of fact to our neighbors. When they vote and decide our place in society, our neighbors need to know us for who we are, not for who homophobes make us out to be.

...Gay brothers and sisters,...You must come out. Come out...to your parents...I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. ..come out to your friends...if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors...to your fellow workers...to the people who work where you eat and shop...come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene.

Coming out has its dangers, and Harvey Milk knew that. He knew that people exist who lash out at what they cannot comprehend, or what they fear. Harvey Milk was murdered in an act of political revenge. A riot broke out when the murderer received only a "manslaughter" verdict. The actions of the killer were viewed by many as a clear case of premeditated murder, not manslaughter.

White Night Riot:

Dan White loaded his pistol, put some extra rounds in his pocket and drove over to City Hall to exact revenge. He felt he had been bitterly betrayed by Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk when they agreed to appoint a political ally to political enemy White's resigned seat. He entered through the unmonitored side door and proceeded to Moscone's office, shot him in cold blood, and then, reloading his gun, he walked down the hall to Milk's office and blew him away, too.

Even after his death, Harvey begged us all to come out. In a statement he wrote to be made in the event he was killed, Milk said,

If a bullet should go through my head let that bullet go through every closet door.

Even Christian fundamentalist politicians like Monte Watkins have something to say about Harvey Milk in this fascinating article from The Texas Observer

I disagree with a lot of stuff. I did not agree when Harvey Milk, the homosexual Town Supervisor in San Francisco, was shot by someone who was supposedly a conservative. I totally disagreed with that. That is NOT the way to disagree. You have to be involved in a Godly manner - disagree, but disagree gently. You don't hurt people.

On this National Coming Out Day, remember Harvey. Coming out is essential to our lives. I came out to a new person at work today when I simply said, "my boyfriend and I ..." It was painless. Come out!

HRC : Coming Out Resources

Gay Life at About.com: Coming Out Resources

Coming out: A domino game - Joe Solmonese, president Human Rights Campaign

...Coming out can go all the way from the chat between airplane passengers to the inside of the voting booth on Election Day. On this National Coming Out Day, make a commitment to yourself to talk about it, every day. And before the year is out, talk about it to one friend, one family member, one coworker, and one neighbor on the plane before National Coming Out Day 2006.

Former DEA Agent Admits, "It's Not the Drug," It's the Drug War

Even a former DEA agent arguing to keep marijuana illegal admits, the drug is not the problem, it's the "delivery system." The only reason the delivery system is a problem is because the government has made the drug illegal.

Make the drug legal, local, and taxable, and the drug cartels will dry up. If it's not the drug, but the system created by the "drug war" that is the problem, why keep it illegal?

'It's not the drug, but the delivery system,' Stutman said. Hagar agreed and said that smuggling is funding terrorists and drug cartels with over $500 billion worth of drugs circulating around the world every year.

Democratic Mechanic: Dean to Overhaul Democrats

This is why I donate monthly to the Democratic Party. I think Howard Dean is taking absolutely the right approach to reform the party. Now if only elected Democrats in congress would follow his lead and grow some balls.

Newsview: Dean Aims to Overhaul Democrats

Dean is putting four or five DNC staff members in every state with orders to organize every precinct. One of the organizers' first mandates is to conduct four major events a year, one or two of which are mainly social.

Dean learned from his own campaign that it is critical to form relationships that turn into small communities and build into networks of people who feel part of a bottom-up operation with a purpose larger than themselves.

It's a long-term investment that runs counter to the political culture in Washington that, in the last years of the 20th century, has valued multimillion-dollar TV buys over grass-roots organizing.

'You've got to recruit people. You've got to ask them to do something,' Dean said. 'You have to treat them like a community.'

Nominate your friends to the Supreme Court

Bush completed an exhaustive search of twenty square feet and found his friend and crony, Harriet Miers, to nominate to the Supreme Court in order to shield him from court challenges on his presidency (torture, civil liberties, term limits?). Now at Dean's Democracy for America website, you can nominate your own friends to be your political safety net on the country's highest bench.

On the Republican Agenda: Disclosing an American Spy's Identity in Wartime for Politics

Scott McClellan also told us that Karl Rove had nothing to do with the treasonous leaking of a CIA agent's identity in an attempt for political gain. Now it looks like Rove may be targeted for indictment.

Selling out an American CIA agent for a day's worth of political talking points. Disgusting. Republican.

Conquering the Globe for God

George Bush Invaded Iraq for God

(Palestinian Foreign Minister) Nabil Shaath says: "'President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: 'I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.'"

This is not the first time Bush has been quoted saying this. In an article on Haaretz, Bush was quoted as saying to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas:

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.

The Washington Post followed up with the White House for a June 27, 2003 article, but clarification requests went unreplied.

"He's never made such comments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, which of course means it is completely true.

Bush has also been quoted as saying he is like a prophet, that God "speaks through" him.

We've handed the keys to the U.S. Military over to a complete religious nutbag. Way to go America! Way to go Republican Party!

New Metro Weekly Snapshots from the DC Eagle

DC Eagle (Saturday, October 1, 2005)
DC Eagle : Scene at MW/ Metro Weekly

Health Care Access is a Right

What kind of medical profession denies treatment to patients based on religious beliefs? Pharmacists who refuse to dispense medicine because of personal moral bigotry should be removed from the profession.

Drug store chains must guarantee no bigotry and stock all common medicines.

What if a patient who has limited access to a pharmacy - in a rural area like in Wyoming - needs life saving HIV drugs? The local pharmacist may turn the patient away because the pharmacist believes the patient is gay.

Star Tribune, Caspar, Wyoming

CHEYENNE -- Victims of AIDS could face discrimination under a proposed rule that would allow Wyoming pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions amid moral objections, an advocate for HIV and AIDS patients said Tuesday.

"It is so broad, that any pharmacist with any personal belief that is contrary to any particular drug is allowed to refuse to fill a legal prescription," said Pamela Reamer Williams, director of the Casper-based Wyoming AIDS Project. "Health care professionals are supposed to help. They're not supposed to judge."

Denying gays health care is perfectly acceptable to Jim Carder, Executive Director of the Wyoming Board of Pharmacy.

State pharmacy board Executive Director Jim Carder said the board wants to give a pharmacist the right to not fill a prescription but still "protect the patient" by requiring the pharmacist to say where the prescription could be filled. "Personal ideas come into what you do," Carder said, adding, "That's just the way life is."

There has been a public outcry against this idea - billingsgazette.com

CHEYENNE -- Just days before the Wyoming State Board of Pharmacy was to consider a rule change that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on personal objections, the board had received more than 100 letters objecting to the rule -- and not a single letter of support...

An AP review of state pharmacy licenses found at least 11 communities with only one pharmacy; because the records included some hospitals and clinics that had pharmacy licenses but did not offer retail services, several other communities may have fewer actual pharmacies than they had licenses.

"Personal ideas" like moral bigotry have no place in quality health care when patients rely on professional providers.


What's next, straight-only hospitals? Lung cancer patients left untreated because they should have known better than to smoke? When standards are so low that "personal ideas" dictate who lives and who dies, what kind of world are we living in?



Wyoming State Board of Pharmacy

James T. Carder
Executive Director
632 S. David St.
Casper, WY 82601
307/234-0294
fax 307/234-7226

http://pharmacyboard.state.wy.us/
E-mail: wybop@state.wy.us

"Outing" Reaching Critical Mass

Outing is everywhere:



Gay Community Still Divided Over 'Outing'

AP - 'It's not the gay thing that's the problem, it's the hypocrisy,' said Michael Rogers, creator of a Web log that has been at the fore of several recent outing campaigns. 'I'm going to be calling out the politicians who vote against us and work against the interests of the very community they come from.'

On the Offensive On the Web

Gay City News - "Boykin and Cannick have decided to start playing hardball with Christian fundamentalists who oppose gay rights in the African-American community. Their targets are the private lives of influential black clergymen who consistently attack the queer community arguing that homosexuality is anti-family and incompatible with a Christian life. Homophobic beliefs inform these ministers'? sermons, their writings, and the Sunday school programs they develop for youngsters in their congregations. Some of them have become public figures beyond their congregations, casting their lots with influential Republicans, including President George W. Bush, and warning that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by militant homosexuals."

By the Vatican:

AP - The agency said the new document would indicate that men with homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained even if they are celibate "because their condition suggests a serious personality disorder which detracts from their ability to serve as ministers."

In the Vatican:

The Washington Note - I visited the Vatican in early August and met a person who is deeply 'embedded' in the world of those who run Vatican City and who govern the global machinery of the Catholic Church.

According to this person's estimation, he guesses that a 'conservative estimate' of those cardinals and senior church officials who are gay is about 50%. Practicing, as opposed to just flirtatious, homosexuals at the highest levels of the church are probably about 30%.

When I asked whether homosexuals would be better served under Pope Benedict XVI than under John Paul II, he responded, 'Don't think that we will be any better served under a gay pope than a straight one.'

And here's a real understatement from JEWSWEEK about the Bush liaison to the Jewish community:

It is unclear who vetted Berkowitz, but the revelation of his homosexual connections probably was not part of his personal career planning.

Sex Consequences: Death by Ice Pick

Hollywood movies unrealistic when it comes to sex and pot

"The film which contained the most sex scenes was the 2001 comedy American Pie 2. There were seven episodes of unprotected sex in which the 'only consequences were social embarrassment' the study concluded.

The 1992 thriller Basic Instinct had six sex scenes, no birth control, and no public health consequences other than 'death by ice pick.'"

... "There is convincing evidence that the entertainment media influences behaviour."

...This is not a universally held view. Adam Smith, a writer with film magazine Empire said "Hollywood doesn't depict anything with any of its consequences. Its job isn't to be a social and moral guardian. It's fiction," he said.

Gay Teen Photo Esssay

By now you've probably heard that Time magazine has an article about The Battle Over Gay Teens (Subscription Req'd for article). Be sure to visit the photo essay. There are some really great photos.

Bush Left Behind

Pam at Pam's House Blend has found an interesting picture of Bush on the AFP Wire and has asked for a caption.

US President George W. Bush delivers remarks on the anniversary of the 'No Child Left Behind Act' to teachers, parents, and students 05 January 2004. Bush's administration broke the law as it resorted to illegal 'covert propaganda' in trying to sell its key education initiative to the public, US congressional investigators have found.(AFP/File/Paul Richards)

Here's my rendition:

Bush's War on Pot

RollingStone.com:

Bush's War on Pot

Forget meth and other hard-core drugs -- the administration would rather waste taxpayer dollars in an all-out assault on marijuana

"More than two decades after it was launched in response to the spread of crack cocaine -- and in the midst of a brand-new wave of methamphetamine use sweeping the country -- the government crackdown has shifted from hard drugs to marijuana. Pot now accounts for nearly half of drug arrests nationwide -- up from barely a quarter of all busts a decade ago. Spurred by a Supreme Court decision in June affirming the right of federal agents to crack down on medical marijuana...

"For (U.S. Drug Czar) Walters, it's all marijuana, all the time," says Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "He is reinforcing the atmosphere that marijuana is the drug we should care about, and that the government will do everything it can, including locking everyone up, if that's what it comes to."

Civil Union's Critics Argue From Opposite Directions

Civil Union's Critics Argue From Opposite Directions

"While some of the activists prepared to perform a skit, the White Wolves group appeared around the corner of the building and held up signs saying, 'Fags give rainbows a bad name' and 'AIDS turns fruits into vegetables.' In response, those at the rally held up signs saying, 'Equal Rights' and 'Our Love is Stronger Than Your Hate,' and started to sing.

John Pawelek, a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society: East in Manchester and chairman of Connecticut Clergy for Marriage Equality, strode to the lectern and said that those opposed to same-sex marriage 'have got to look at who's coming in behind you. These are racists, these are sexists, these are Nazis.'

The White Wolves crowd closed to about 150 feet before several state troopers stepped in to stem their progress. Several of the group shouted slogans.

In the skit at the rally, Rebecca Lewis and Emily Gallagher of New Haven pretended to be a couple seeking a marriage license at a town office; they were sent to the 'office of civil unions' but rejected the idea, reciting the ways that civil unions fall short of full marriage.

The White Wolves started a rhythmic anti-gay chant that overpowered the skit, but the state police quieted them down. Then members of the group tore apart a rainbow flag, punching and ripping the cloth and laughing. From a distance, Chris Bossi of Springfield, a Hartford native dressed in a pink shirt with 'Connecticut' on the front, blew soap bubbles at them.

'They endorse what we're against, and I think it's very telling,' Bossi said.

Jean Cormier of West Hartford went to the rally with her son, Bobby Cormier of Hartford. She said she was not an activist, 'but when it's your family being harmed and your family whose rights are being denied, I had to get involved. ... It kills me to see my straight son has all these advantages and my gay son is being denied all these rights.'

Those among the White Wolves said that not all of them belonged to the organization, founded in Stratford a few years ago and loosely affiliated with white supremacist groups around the country. One added, 'We're all members of the white race.' He declined to be identified, but said that he had grown up an orphan, 'and I'd rather have no parents at all than two mommies or two daddies.'"

Where Has The Militancy Gone?

Metroline - Where Has The Militancy Gone?

Over the years, we have seen PRIDE evolve from a militant protest to a corporate sponsored musical celebration of PRIDE, with speakers focusing on the more mainstream aspects of our community and its issues. So I need to ponder: Have the militant roots of PRIDE been lost in an effort by the LGBT communities to embrace a Homonormative image, and as such render themselves invisible?

HRC National Dinner Photo

Dress for Dinner



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Melissa Grant, right, makes final adjustments to the tuxedo jacket of her girlfriend, Jodi Kielman, before the beginning of the 9th annual HRC National Dinner held at the Washington Convention Center. The couple reside in Baltimore."