Tops and Masculine Guys get HIV Like Everyone else, but blacks get it thinking is not so

Young black men who have sex with men (MSM) get infected with HIV nearly five times more often than MSM from other races, even though they don't have more unprotected sex. The discrepancy has long mystified public health experts but a new study by investigators at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere now offers a possible explanation for it.

The study found that young black MSM -- a group that includes openly gay and bisexual men, as well as those who have sex with men but do not identify themselves as gay or bisexual -- select partners and judge these partners' HIV status in a specific way. These men show a clear preference for masculine men, while also equating masculinity with lower HIV risk. This dynamic, the researchers say, can help explain why young black MSM contract HIV more often than their counterparts from other races.

The results are based on interviews with 35 black men ages 18 to 24 who have sex with men. The most notable findings include an overwhelming preference for masculine partners, accepting masculine partners as dominant in the sex act and leaving to them decisions about condom use, perceiving masculine men as low risk for HIV and feminine men as high risk.

"There may be no difference in HIV prevalence between masculine-looking and feminine-looking men, but because black MSM perceive masculine men as lower risk, their sexual encounters with such men may make HIV infection more likely," said investigator Jonathan Ellen, M.D., a pediatrician and teen health expert at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

In other words, even though young black MSM have unprotected sex just as often as others, they may be having unprotected sex in riskier ways with partners whose HIV status they often miscalculate, the researchers explain.

The findings offer new insight into how black MSM judge risk based on perceptions of masculinity and can help inform public health campaigns to reduce new HIV infections in this disproportionately affected group. The findings, the researchers say, can also guide safe-sex conversations between primary care physicians and patients.

eScience News...


http://www.actup.org

Bar Harbor-area sports reporter raises local eyebrows and finds welcoming arms

At the interview, the editor pointed to my glittery face and asked who I had been dressed as the night before. I smiled, “Puck.” He nodded, likely thinking I was talking hockey and not the fairy from Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'. Despite any prejudice on my part towards a small town paper, I got the job. My boss hired me with the knowledge that I am a transgender person and that my preferred pronoun is “he.” Because of my boss’ steadfast heralding of my correct pronoun, I have found safety and comfort in the office. On my behalf, he has had to explain to confused parents, coaches, and coworkers what exactly I am. Out of the office, I have met raised eyebrows and confused faces. On any given day, I am read as both ‘she’ and ‘he.’ Bathrooms are a constant challenge, and I find tremendous difficulty in locker rooms. I was recently stymied at a swim meet by the configuration of their pool room. People on their way to the poolside were forced to enter through either the men’s or women’s locker room. I held tightly to my press credentials and stood in the hallway for so long that an attendant tapped me to ask if I needed help. I shook my head and hurried into the men’s room, assuming if people thought I was a girl in the men’s locker room it would be less of an issue than if I was thought to be a man in the women’s room. I passed in and out unnoticed. On the sidelines, I feel an immense amount of pressure to prove that despite my ‘fay’ presentation, I am not to be shoved in a trashcan— I am writing. I wield my notebook as if a shield. I laugh to myself when I notice that my interview subject is checking obtrusively for a bulge in my crotch. But mostly, I am consistently impressed with the fact that I have not been driven out of town. Recently, I unearthed a journal of mine from elementary school and found a passage of musings regarding the idea of sports reporting. At the Observer I lamented writing about politics or real estate when I thought I could do much better covering the Jets or the Knicks. In high school, I read and re-read work by Gay Talese. And every day, the scores and scores of sports antidotes I grew up with sift through my mind, potential is what gets you fired… As a trans/genderqueer person, no part of me thought sports journalism was a career option. As a recent New York Timesarticle about Outsports.com highlights, gay people and their participation in sports are an ‘enduring taboo.’ I am grateful for this opportunity and for the people here who are able to hold the seeming paradox of gender bending and organized sport in the same hand. Day to day, I choose not to tone down my personality as exuded through my gender presentation—recently a friend of mine dubbed me the Johnny Weir of sports writing. While I often feel pressured to only dress in ball cap and jock strap, I am still glittery—wearing my gender as my own. My gender identity demands a space where the flamboyant and the athletic meet—I am an androgynous trans/genderqueer sports reporter for the Mt. Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a sports beat that sends me onto high school sidelines, into national marathons, and inside the coverage of international championships. I am the only ‘out’ transgender sports reporter at a weekly newspaper in the United States that I know of. By Emerson Whitney http://www.outsports.com

My interview for this sports-writing job came the morning after I served as emcee for a transgender celebration in Portland, Maine. For the event, I covered myself in glitter…and chose not to fully remove it for the interview. My partner nodded at my decision saying, “If a couple flakes of glitter are an issue, honey, you don’t want this job.”

Honestly, part of me thought sabotage. Nobody up here is going to hire me for anything, I thought. And part of me didn’t care. While I wholeheartedly wanted—needed—a job, I wasn’t sure about this one. Some of my reticence was the idea of living rurally. I was withdrawing from a whirlwind departure from New York City, where layoffs swept the two offices I inhabited: the New York Observer andRadar Magazine. I lost both my writing jobs and went traveling. My partner and I landed in Maine after some back-to-the-land soul searching and were starting to run out of money. So I sent my resume to several publications on a whim, not expecting to hear back. But I got a call from a newspaper needing to quickly fill the position of ‘sports and maritime’ writer for their nationally recognized publication (“New England’s best weekly newspaper”).

Repercussions After Law Firm Drops Anti-Gay Marriage Case

 

The firm was hired by House Republican leaders who disagreed with the Justice
 Department's conclusion about the unconstitutionality of a section in the Defense
 of Marriage Act prohibiting gay marriage.

Source:	(AHN)	Reporter:	Kris Alingod
Location:	Washington, D.C., United States	Published:	May 2, 2011 05:28  pm EDT
Topics:	Crime, Law And Justice, Laws, Politics, Government, National Government,  Social Issue, Minority Group, Gays And Lesbians

Former Solicitor General
 Paul Clement has left a
law firm that has decided
not to defend the federal
 law banning same-sex
 marriage. Conservatives
accuse gay advocates of
having intimidated the firm
into dropping the case.

Clement, who served under
 former President George
 W. Bush, quit King &
Spalding after the firm chose
 to withdraw as representative
of the congressional Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

The firm was hired by House Republican leaders who disagree with the
Justice Department's conclusion about the unconstitutionality of a section
 in the Defense of Marriage Act prohibiting gay marriage.

Clement was to lead a team of lawyers at King & Spalding, where he
was a partner and head of the national appellate practice, in arguing for the constitutionality of DOMA. He jumped ship and joined Bancroft PLLC the
 same day King & Spalding said in a terse statement that it had not
adequately vetted the offer from the House of Representatives.

The transfer to Bancroft will let Clement continue representing the
 Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which consists of five members led
by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in defense of DOMA.

Gay advocates had hailed the decision of King & Spalding.
But the firm received equally intense condemnation from conservatives,
who cited its record of defending Guantanamo prisoners and comments
 from the legal community praising Clement.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's latrgest gay advocacy group,
 said the firm chose "to put principle above politics... [and] to stand on
 the right side of history and remain true to its core values."

However, the National Organization for Marriage acvused the Human
 Rights Campaign of intimidating the firm.  

"Such blatant attempts by HRC and other gay marriage advocates to
 marginalize and silence the views of the American people are nothing
short of despicable," the conservative group said.

Congress passed DOMA in 1996. Section 3 of the law requires
the government to recognize only marriage between a man  and
 a woman.  Same-sex advocates have challenged this section
courts for prohibiting gay spouses from receiving Social Security benefits,
 medical leaves, and federal employee and retiree pensions.

The Obama administration had been defending DOMA despite
 calling the law "discriminatory" because it was duty-bound to do
 so until the law is repealed.

However, Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that
two new cases were filed in November in courts that had no
 "established or binding standard for how laws concerning sexual
 orientation should be treated."

In previous lawsuits, government lawyers had argued that Congress
was constitutionally authorized to enact DOMA in order to preserve the
status quo until debate on same-sex marriage is resolved. They told
courts that DOMA provided nationwide uniformity in terms of federal
 benefits.

Holder explained in a letter to Congress, "Each of those cases evaluating
Section 3 was considered in jurisdictions in which binding circuit court
precedents hold that laws singling out people based on sexual
orientation, as DOMA does, are constitutional if there is a rational
 basis for their enactment."

The attorney general said that rational basis, however, cannot be used
 in courts with no precedents. Doing so would create a situation that
 would force the government to defend the law "under heightened
 scrutiny," which Holder said had never been done because it was
 unconstitutional. Defending a law under such circumstances for
 the first time could violate the Equal Protection Clause.

"Under heightened scrutiny, the United States cannot defend
 Section 3 by advancing hypothetical rationales, independent of the
 legislative record, as it has done in circuits [with] precedent," he said.

"The legislative record underlying DOMA’s passage contains
 discussion... that undermines any defense under heightened
scrutiny," Holder added."The record contains numerous expressions
 reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate
and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based
 thinking and animus the Equal Protection Clause is designed to
 guard against."

  http://www.allheadlinenews.com

In New York State gay-marriage push, the limits to playing nice.

By Chris Rovzar 

 

(Photo: Alamy)

Governor Cuomo has set his sights on getting same-sex marriage passed by the end of the legislative session in June. And for the first time, four top advocacy groups have united under one banner for a final push. Together they’re signaling: This is it.

Why all the confidence? Because the landscape has shifted so favorably since December 2009, when a weak David Paterson led the charge, the gay groups were fractured, and a marriage bill failed in the State Senate 24-38. This time around, Cuomo enjoys a 73 percent favorability rating and political capital to spare. A record 58 percent of New Yorkers now support gay marriage. By that last measure alone, the bill should sail through, carried along by the virtue of won-over hearts and minds. It would be a beautiful thing.

But this is Albany, where getting things done is never pretty. A marriage-equality bill is still six votes short in the Senate, and though four senators who previously voted “no” have indicated their votes may now be up for grabs, that still leaves the tally two votes short—at least one of which will need to be Republican. The united gay groups say they are soliciting some fifteen senators, and they’re making it personal. “I’m going to talk to anybody about this issue, even if they’re down as a no,” says Cathy Marino-Thomas, board president of Marriage Equality New York, who believes she can get holdouts to see “that marriage is a right for my family.”

As a volunteer for the Empire State Pride Agenda, I’ve tried that approach, spending a sweltering day knocking on doors in Bellerose, Queens, last summer. After several hours’ work by six canvassers, we found only a dozen or so people willing to sign our marriage pledge. As I walked by a public-school campus named for then-Republican state senator Frank Padavan (a gay foe), I remember thinking we were on a hopeless quest.

So it’s a fortunate thing that even as gay people across the state are working on hearts and minds, the advocacy groups and the governor have other tools at hand. Cuomo, for example, can offer carrots on hot-button issues like rent regulation and property-tax caps. “Federally, what did Lyndon Johnson do?,” noted one gay leader. “[He said] ‘We’ll give you your federal money. You give us civil rights.’ That’s how politics works.” And then there are the sticks. If marriage passes, the wealthy gay-rights groups can lay off State Senate Republicans, instead of aiming to pick them off one by one, as they’ve been doing—as they did to Padavan, who was bounced last November. They might even support GOP senators who vote their way. In March, the Human Rights Campaign hosted a benefit for Maine’s Susan Collins to reward her for her role in repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“This is a vote that will be beneficial for Republicans,” HRC’s Brian Ellner emphasized. A majority of New Yorkers may now believe in the universal right to marry, but making that reality may come down to a select few not wanting to lose their jobs.

http://nymag.com

Why Can't Atheists Get The same Human Rights..as gays??

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry. They can’t join the Boy Scouts. Atheist soldiers are rated potentially deficient when they do not score as sufficiently “spiritual” in military psychological evaluations. Surveys find that most Americans refuse or are reluctant to marry or vote for nontheists; in other words, nonbelievers are one minority still commonly denied in practical terms the right to assume office despite the constitutional ban on religious tests.

Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens.

Is this knee-jerk dislike of atheists warranted? Not even close.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

As individuals, atheists tend to score high on measures of intelligence, especially verbal ability and scientific literacy. They tend to raise their children to solve problems rationally, to make up their own minds when it comes to existential questions and to obey the golden rule. They are more likely to practice safe sex than the strongly religious are, and are less likely to be nationalistic or ethnocentric. They value freedom of thought.

While many studies show that secular Americans don’t fare as well as the religious when it comes to certain indicators of mental health or subjective well-being, new scholarship is showing that the relationships among atheism, theism, and mental health and well-being are complex. After all, Denmark, which is among the least religious countries in the history of the world, consistently rates as the happiest of nations. And studies of apostates — people who were religious but later rejected their religion — report feeling happier, better and liberated in their post-religious lives.

Nontheism isn’t all balloons and ice cream. Some studies suggest that suicide rates are higher among the non-religious. But surveys indicating that religious Americans are better off can be misleading because they include among the non-religious fence-sitters who are as likely to believe in God, whereas atheists who are more convinced are doing about as well as devout believers. On numerous respected measures of societal success — rates of poverty, teenage pregnancy, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, drug use and crime, as well as economics — high levels of secularity are consistently correlated with positive outcomes in first-world nations. None of the secular advanced democracies suffers from the combined social ills seen here in Christian America.

More than 2,000 years ago, whoever wrote Psalm 14 claimed that atheists were foolish and corrupt, incapable of doing any good. These put-downs have had sticking power. Negative stereotypes of atheists are alive and well. Yet like all stereotypes, they aren’t true — and perhaps they tell us more about those who harbor them than those who are maligned by them. So when the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich engage in the politics of division and destruction by maligning atheists, they do so in disregard of reality.

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth. Despite the bigotry, the number of American nontheists has tripled as a proportion of the general population since the 1960s. Younger generations’ tolerance for the endless disputes of religion is waning fast. Surveys designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities.

Gregory Paul is an independent researcher in sociology and evolution. Phil Zuckerman, a professor of sociology at Pitzer College, is the author of “Society Without God.”

By Gregory Pauland Phil Zuckerman

http://www.washingtonpost.com

Trump Now He's Slammed by Stutterers for Seth Meyers Slur

  by GINA SERPE

NBC/Ali Goldstein

There's no doubt about it: Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner quickly turned into a de facto roast of Donald Trump—his unfounded and ultimately disproven birther conspiracy theories, his hair and his biggest political supporters (shout-out to Gary Busey!)—with both President Barack Obama and main attraction Seth Meyers positively skewering the reality star.

So how do you come back from such a politically-acute, humorously layered and intelligently thought-out public evisceration? Well, if you're the Donald, you reach into the vast recesses of your wit and, with an eye to your would-be presidential campaign, take on a professional comedian (with a weekly platform, no less) and call him a stutterer.

Funny, right? Hilarious comeback? Yeah, the Stuttering Foundation of America didn't think so, either.

MORE: Believe it or not, Lady Gaga can probably relate

Anyone who caught the C-SPAN broadcast (or, more likely, online video) of the political gagfest would have noticed that Trump was most definitely not amused by the string of one-liners directed his way, and, of course, let the curious press know as much after the event.

On Sunday morning, Trump briefly phoned in to Fox & Friends to give his assessment of the night. In addition to lapsing into a nonsensical argument criticizing those in attendance (um, that includes himself, presumably) for "having a good time" while  "I don't think the American people are having a good time with $5 gas and clothing prices doubling," he turned his attentions to the main entertainment.

"I thought Seth Meyers—his delivery, frankly, was not good," Trump said. "He's a stutterer and he really was having a hard time."

Except that he isn't. And because he isn't, the label isn't so much an accurate description as an offensive, un-P.C. and frankly in this post-King's Speech world, antiquated, slur.

"Shame on you, Mr. Trump!" Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation, said today in response to the word's insulting context. "We at the Stuttering Foundation find it discouraging that in 2011, Donald Trump has chosen to use the word 'stutterer' in a derogatory fashion, something to be made fun of, to describe Seth Meyers' speech at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.

"In light of The King's Speech and the new awareness it has brought to stuttering, we had hoped that this kind of unfortunate comment was a thing of the past. When in doubt about the eloquence of those who stutter, Trump should take a look at Winston Churchill, King George VI and James Earl Jones."

Trump has yet to respond to the criticism of his rhetoric, though those offended shouldn't hold their breath for an apology.

Perhaps sensing fallout from his weekend exploits, desiring to stay out of the press for a couple days (bad luck) or out of sincere respect, he seemingly vowed to keep his trap shut for a little while.

And, more surprisingly, offered a compliment to our commander in chief.

"I want to personally congratulate President Obama and the men women of the Armed Forces for a job very well done," he tweeted this morning. "I am so proud to see Americans standing shoulder to shoulder, waving the American flag in celebration of this great victory.

"We should spend the next several days not debating party politics, but in remembrance of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and those fighting for our freedom. God Bless America."

There now. Finally the Donald said something that we can all agree on.

http://www.eonline.com/

J. Crew Catalog Depicts Gay Designer and Boyfriend

Gay J. Crew designer and partner model spring styles\Source: abcnews.com

Here’s to  J. Crew  for (gently) pushing the social envelope, one ad campaign at a time.  The preppy retailer’s a-traditional, LGBT-friendly take on family values began with last month’s pink-toenail-painting ad in an online newsletter; now, a shot of gay designer Somsack Sikhounmuong and his boyfriend dressed in J. Crew casual wear features among the pages of this month’s spring catalog.

The “Men’s Shop” section of the May catalog includes the photo of Sikhounmuong, a designer and model, together with his boyfriend Micah and the caption “Happy Together;” and simple though it may seem, gay advocates have praised the subtle advertisement as a strong message.

Cathy Renna of LGBT-oriented Renna Communications, for example, told ABC News that “nothing is unintentional in this kind of marketing,” and extended a “bravo” to J. Crew.

Meanwhile, Witeck Combs CEO Bob Witeck, whose marketing firm specializes in LGBT clients, said with the regard to the J. Crew ads that he is “loving it,” and that the clothing company’s approach “suggests they are updating and speaking to a more youthful and more self-aware audience that wants to see the truth and complexity and authenticity about every identity.”

In addition to the gay designer and his partner, the May 2011 catalog depicts the diversity of the J. Crew staff with photos of the company’s in-house stylist and his young son, bearded brothers, a designer and his dog and the photographer’s own African-American husband and Asian daughter, all under the headline “Family Matters.”

Will the latest J. Crew ad campaign rile social conservatives as much as last month’s newsletter featuring creative director Jenna Lyons painting her son’s toenails pink? We’ll brace ourselves for the media onslaught – and hope in the meantime that such controversy will soon be a thing of the past.

Posted by LGBT Weekly

Suddenly The President Regains Rockstar Status

One of the most-shared tweets after President Obama’s late night news conference Sunday hit a theme we’ll likely be hearing a lot about between now and, say, November 2012: Obama. The President Who Killed Bin Laden. Sean Thomason captured the sudden shift in meme with his tweet imagining an alternate end to Obama’s announcement:

“Anybody else wanna see my birth certificate?” Drops mic, walks away.

by Mark Joyella

http://www.mediaite.com

Steph Jones Naked: Some stars forget the power of the camera and iphone

 [PHOTOS - NSFW]

Steph Jones is a singer, writer and
 performer who this week became
another celebrity exposed on
the internet / family jewels
 that is. We have said it one
 million times that celebrities should
 run quickly when they are in
 the vicinity of any recording
devices while nude or engaging
 in questionable behavior.
They will never learn it seems
 because these expose are
becoming more frequent as
 of late. The cantor undressed
 displaying his impressive maleness
 -mouth watering chocolate.
 Here is a close-up so that some of you may begin those fantasies.
 Sometimes we think that celebrities either are stupid or they do these
 things to get into the news cycles during their career down-times.
 As we were searching the internet one of our favorite website here
in Europe Gay.TV based in Italy has composed a short montage
of celeb exposed on the Internet. The the link is absolutely work safe.
Pop over and run down memory lane of those who we all have
become to know intimately because of the Internet super highway
 of info. Stay tuned. [ source MissJia ]

On link to one of  the sites you will encounter the following,
 let me interpret:
Sex scandals: 10 famous men stripped
Scandal or routine? Now the "sex scandals", which are home
 made video sexywebcam shows are no longer any fuss. Us with 
this gallery voggliamo rememberthe pioneers of a genre that is already
 amateur amarcord: 10 men (and 3 women) who made a sex tape scandal.
[Sex scandals: 10 uomini famosi messi a nudo]
[Scandalo o routine? Ormai i "sex scandals", siano video home made che
 sexy shows via webcam non fanno più nessun clamore. Noi con questa
 gallery voggliamo ricordare i pionieri di un genere amateur che è già
amarcord: i 10 uomini (e le 3 donne) che hanno fatto scandalo con un sex tape.]

http://www.letmegetthistraight.com

No Whalers this Year: News from 'The Sea Shepherd'

I have a lot of respect for the Sea Shepherd and whenever I can get news of what they are doing I try to publish. They believe that Whaling is poaching and totally unnecessary. Killing the whales, this endanger species to feed people that can not get Whale taste out of their mouths is very unfair to all. These are mammals just like we are. They are highly intelligent and have so many secrets to show us. With todays technology, we do not need their oil to light our lamps, nor their skins to keep us warmth nor their meat and blubber to feed us and help us cook. The United States has look the other way on Japan, the biggest culprit of whale killing. I understand that out of disasters we get lessons that stick with us. Since whaling is not cheap, I hope that Japan puts whaling way back on their burner as they reconstruct their beautiful country after the recent experience with these awful disaster.
adamfoxie*

No Welfare for Whalers This Year?

The Japanese whaling industry, otherwise known as the Institute for Cetacean Research, has been kicked off the dole this year.
The corporate welfare whale killers will most likely not be able to return to the Southern Ocean in December 2011. The Japanese government this week announced massive budget cuts to divert monies for the restoration needed to repair earthquake and tsunami damages and to help the people evacuated from the no-go zone around Fukushima. In addition, the ongoing crisis of keeping the nuclear reactors cooled is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from the government treasury.
This has resulted in cuts across the board, including child support, senior citizen support and pensions, and infrastructure repairs and maintenance.
However, the government bureaucrats of Japan are still driven by pride, anger and revenge. For this reason, Japan recently sent a delegation to Palau to pressure the Republic of Palau from working with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Japan has offered but not yet confirmed that they will supply Palau with a patrol boat and funds to operate it if Palau rejects the agreement with Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd will be quite satisfied if Palau gets the support of Japan for the patrol vessel and funds. That will allow us to go onto other Pacific island nations to make similar offers, which hopefully will motivate Japan to respond with counter offers. We may be able to manipulate Japan into providing fishery patrol vessels to the entire South Pacific region.
So there is a small possibility that the government could still risk public outrage in Japan by once again subsidizing the Japanese whaling fleet. And if that happens, Sea Shepherd ships will once again return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to continue our interventions against unlawful Japanese commercial whaling activities.
There have been a few critics who have been advising us to lay off Japan because of the recent disasters. The point is that Sea Shepherd interventions are not targeting the Japanese people. We are addressing unlawful activities – whale poachers in an area far from Japan, the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, where whales are supposedly protected by law.
Would the war against drug trafficking be put on hold if Colombia has an earthquake? Would we stop opposing shark finning by Chinese longliners off Latin America if China suffers an earthquake? The answer is “no.” Natural disasters cannot be used as a justification for illegal activity including the violations of international conservation law.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is dedicated to shutting down all illegal whaling activity by anyone, anywhere, for any reason. There can be no discrimination. Poaching is poaching and not only is it ethically wrong – it’s a crime!

http://www.seashepherd.org

The BIEBER Got EGGED IN Australia

JUSTIN Bieber isn’t universally loved!
The teen singer was left reeling after being egged by concert-goers when he hit the stage in the Australian city’s Acer Arena Friday night. Six eggs landed by the Baby hitmaker.
Bieber then backed way from the mess to allow for a quick cleanup—and carried on with the show, reports E! News.
Recent reports claimed Bieber is being torn apart over his parents’ feud.
Mom Pattie Mallette and dad Jeremy Bieber – who fought a custody battle when Justin was really young — are at odds over their son’s fame because they feel like they have been sidelined by his mentor Usher, managerScooter Braun and stand-in Hollywood dad Will Smith.
“Pattie is forever sniping that she gave up everything for Justin and she should be the person who makes the decisions,” a source said.
“Jeremy wants to be at the center of his son’s life. He hates the way other men, especially Usher and Will Smith, are acting as father figures.
“Pattie was only 17 when she found out she was pregnant. Jeremy was a year older and a real bad boy. They split up when Justin was a tiny baby, but they’ve been fighting ever since.”

http://www.showbizspy.com/

The HOMO Handshake: Call A Pastor If You've Been Touched That Way!

Call A Baptist PastorImmediately If You've Experienced The Following Secret Invitation:

http://www.landoverbaptist.org

Priest jailed after stealing to fund expensive gay lifestyle but he remains a priest

A Catholic priest in the United States has been jailed for three years after being found guilty of stealing more than 

$1 million to spend on a lavish lifestyle including regular visits to gay bars, the services of male escorts and designer clothes.

Father Kevin Gray, 65, from the Sacred Heart Parish in Waterbury, Connecticut pleaded ‘no contest’ to allegations that he shared a New York flat with a man who he also paid for to go to Harvard University, the Daily Mail reports.

But Gray, who first raised suspicions when disappearing from his church in April last year, will not be forced to pay back what he stole after the diocese in which he worked did not claim damages, The priest may even be allowed to return to priesthood after seeing out his sentence.

As reported by the Daily Mail, the Diocese of Hartford said in a statement: “Father Kevin Gray’s plea demonstrates that he is fully aware and responsible for the severity of his wrongdoing and is repentant.

“After he completes his sentence, if devoted to his priestly commitment, he will be eligible to continue serving as a priest, but will never be placed in a position where he will manage finances.”

Gray’s method of stealing from the church by making cheques out to himself, and using the money to finance a lavish gay lifestyle was exposed in documents he left behind. But Gray’s lawyers claimed many of the charges levelled against his client were exaggerated.

Jonny Payne

http://news.pinkpaper.com/

The Donald Says About Seth Meyers: "He’s a stutterer" Had a Hard Time

Donald Trump didn’t waste any time to respond to jokes about him last night at the White House Correspondents Dinner from President Obama andSaturday Night Live comedian Seth Meyers. Before criticizing Obama, Trump admitted he was impressed with Obama’s delivery, unlike Meyers who Trump reviewed declaring, “his delivery frankly was not good, he’s a stutterer and he really was having a hard time.”

Trump didn’t mind being the brunt of many jokes, but didn’t necessarily think Obama should have spent so much time on issues that weren’t serious:

“Well, I really understood what I was getting into. I didn’t know that I’d be virtually the sole focus . . . I was certainly in a certain way having a good time listening. I don’t think the American people are having a good time paying $5 gasoline . . . I was thinking to myself as they were doing this, that you know, the American people are really suffering and we’re all having a good time. I thought it was inappropriate in certain respects.”

And Trump also responded to some of the controversy erupting from his profanity-laced tirade, admitting he probably wouldn’t be doing that again in the future.

by Matt Schneider

http://www.mediaite.com