Yearly Archives: 2009

Marriage Vote Fallout: LGBT Activists Warn Of “Bloodbath” In New York Senate

Quoting an unnamed gay activist, today the NY Daily News says that pro-equality forces are planning an 2010 “bloodbath” for Democratic state senators who voted against same-sex marriage. Gay advocates are on the warpath after the state Senate killed same-sex marriage last week, and few Democratic senators who voted against the bill are safe from their wrath. After spending more …

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NOM Issues Action Alert On New Jersey

Today NOM sent out an “Urgent Action Needed!” alert to their mailing list, asking that their fellow haters contact the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee and urge that marriage equality not be passed to the full state Senate for a vote. Let’s use NOM’s own list. Sen. Paul Sarlo (Chair): (201) 804-8118Sen. John Girgenti (Vice-Chair): (973) 427-1229Sen. Bill Baroni: (609) …

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Virgin Mobile’s New Gay Ad Campaign

Virgin Mobile has launched an ad campaign in Canada featuring two male models in a kiss. The tagline: “Hook up fearlessly.” The ad has already appeared on bus shelters. Agency of record Juniper Park created the new work to extend the “Fearless” positioning introduced in September. New brand-focused television, print and out-of-home ads encourage consumers to “hook up fearlessly” with …

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“A Perverse Accomplishment”

In an editorial about their October court victory in forcing the Catholic Church to turn over secret documents about the child molestation cover-up scandal, yesterday the New York Times noted the starkly differing reactions to such abuses by former New York Archbishop Edward Egan (pictured) and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Referring to the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, whom 12 former parishioners …

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Italy: Vatican Bank Being Investigated For Money Laundering

An Italian newsweekly is reporting that the Vatican Bank is being investigated for a $300M money laundering scheme involving one of Italy’s largest banks. Panorama reports that officials from the Bank of Italy’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) have identified transactions worth up to €180 million (£160 million) that allegedly violated anti-money-laundering regulations in accounts held at a UniCredit branch in …

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On The Word “Teabagger”

Rachel Maddow defends her use of the word “teabagger” which has hurt the witty-bitty feelings of the wingnuts. Maddow points out that the teabaggers themselves first used the word, and says that the expression first came into the pop culture via John Waters’ 1998 movie Pecker. I don’t know about that, I dimly recall first seeing the word in the …

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Photo Of The Day

Students at Yale really know how to handle wingnut street preachers, don’t they?

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Apple Buys Lala, Streaming iTunes Next?

Apple has agreed to purchase the streaming music venture Lala, bringing speculation that iTunes may add its own streaming function. LaLa fills a big hole in Apple’s digital music strategy and could bring streaming down music from the cloud into iTunes-ready devices everywhere. Integrating Lala’s ad-free music service — which stores music collections online and sells streaming songs at a …

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Grammy Nom For Murder Music Singer Buju Banton Sparks Growing Outrage

Jamaican reggae singer Buju Banton, whose songs have openly called for the murder of gay men, received a Grammy nomination last week, much to the growing outrage and condemnation of the LGBT community. Los Angeles LGBT Center: Throughout his career, Banton has performed music that promotes a culture of violence against lesbian and gay people; he sings in “Boom, Bye …

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Military Lifts Ban…

…on recruits with tattoos on their saluting arm. A ban that only lived for one week. Military chiefs have scrapped a ban on tattoos decorating the saluting arm of recruits joining the US air force, following a backlash among heavily inked young Americans signing up for duty. The air force recruiting service instituted a policy on 25 November prohibiting tattoos …

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Florida McDonald’s To Transgender Applicant: We Don’t Hire Faggots

The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund has filed an employment discrimination suit against an Orlando McDonald’s after learning that a manager had left a voicemail for a transgender applicant stating, “We don’t hire faggots.” Zikerria Bellamy, 17, had applied online for a job with the restaurant. The TLDEF notes: Zikerria’s story is all too common. Transgender people face tremendous …

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This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days… North Carolina: Pastor Robert Adams arrested in camouflage gear after weeks on the lam from authorities after sexually assaulting a five year old child. Adams’ wife has also been arrested for convincing the child to have sex with her husband.England: Rabbi Baruch Chalomish convicted of cocaine possession. Chalmoish, a multimillionaire, was acquitted on other charges …

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Friendster Relaunches

Third runner-up social network Friendster relaunched this weekend. Via Techcrunch: Friendster outlines some of the changes in a video (embedded below), in which it calls out other social networks (*cough* Facebook and *cough* MySpace) for being plain and boring. My absolute favorite part of the video: “I mean, if everyone’s there, woop de doo”. Friendster in the clip says the …

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The Nostalgia Train Starts Today

NYC’s Nostalgia Train program begins today. Via Gothamist: The Nostalgia Shoppers’ Special is made up of subway cars in service from the 1930s to the 1970s, running along the lettered lines from the Grand Concourse to Coney Island. Ceiling fans, padded seats and incandescent light bulbs were state-of-the-art when these cars were first placed in service. The cars were removed …

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Undercover With The “Ex-Gays”

You may recall Ted Cox, the straight, formerly Mormon, reporter who went undercover at an “ex-gay” conversion therapy retreats in two states. Cox was unable to tell his story because his publisher feared legal reprisals if Cox were to break the confidentiality agreement the “ex-gays” made him sign. This week Cox has broken the agreement in an interview with Alternet. …

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Flogging Gay Pakistanis

Andy Towle points us to this LiveLeak video which purports to show gay Pakistanis being flogged in the street. Clip description: “Homosexuals Pakistanis recieving their punishment. You can see two lovers kiss at 0:15 before their flogging.” Andy notes that the comments on LiveLeak are sickening.

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Fashion Bears

From the enigmatic designer Walther van Beirendonck, here’s what he thinks fashion-forward bears should be wearing in the spring season. The line is called Wonderfu. Not wonderful. The name Beirendonck always sounds like the title of a German fetish film to me. (Via JMG reader Justin)

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80’s Flashback

After The Fire, Der Kommissar, 1983. One year after Falco took his (mostly) German-language version of Der Kommissar to #1 in most of Europe (but only #72 in the U.S.), British prog-rockers After The Fire recorded a (mostly) English translation, taking it to #5 U.S., #47 UK. Falco’s hit came during an unprecedented (and unrepeated) string of U.S. hits by …

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Quote Of The Day – Russell Wisemen

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about …

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“Heavage”

A silly story in the Wall Street Journal announces that baring one’s chest hair with a plunging neckline, a phenomenon mostly associated with the gold-chain laden disco era, is apparently back. The paper calls the fad “heavage.” SRSLY. Vik Mohindra, a 27-year-old graduate student from Toronto, confesses that his guy friends sometimes tease him about his heavage. “I would not …

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