I find this all to confusing.
Arnie vetoed at least 2 laws allowing gay marriage. I think he vetoed 3 such laws.
He supported Prop 8.
Now he's saying that gay should have the right to marry, but he won't lift a finger to help gays get that right by sending a "friend of the court" brief/letter.
hXXp://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9593.html
Governor Schwarzenegger predicts Supreme Court will overturn Prop 8
By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk November 17, 2008 - 12:44
The Governor of California has said that the state Supreme Court was right to rule a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional.
On election day, November 4th, Californians voted in favour of Proposition 8, a ballot measure that seeks to change the state constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
With 100% of votes at polling stations counted, 5,424,916 (52.4%) voted in favour of a constitutional definition of marriage being between a man and woman. 4,832,086 (47.6%) voted against.
More than 2m postal and absentee votes have yet to be counted. However, the campaign to stop Prop 8 has conceded defeat.
"For me, marriage is between a man and a woman. But I don't want to ever force my will on anyone," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on ABC television's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
"I think that the Supreme Court was right and that everyone should have the right.
"So the Supreme Court, you know, I think ought to go and look at that again. And we'll go back to the same decision. I think that they will. And I think that the important thing now is to resolve this issue in that way."
His wife Maria Shriver, a niece of former President John F Kennedy, has been a strong supporter of gay marriage.
Governor Schwarzenegger said he would not be joining 44 members of the California State Legislature who have filed a "friend of the court" brief in the state Supreme Court backing legal challenges to Proposition 8.
The legislators said that the ballot measure "eviscerates the judicial branch's ability to uphold the fundamental rights of all Californians under equal protection clause" of the state constitution.
They claimed that if Proposition 8 takes effect, "this court will no longer be the final arbiter of the rights of minorities.
"Furthermore, treating Proposition 8 as a mere amendment would divest the Legislature of its constitutional authority to subject such a fundamental abrogation of the equal protection clause to its deliberative processes."
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Centre for Lesbian Rights have filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8.
The California state legislators have filed their brief in support of their case.
The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitutions core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group lesbian and gay Californians.
Proposition 8 also "improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities."
According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organising principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.
"The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works," the groups said in a statement.
"Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution.
"But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters.
"That didnt happen with Proposition 8, and thats why its invalid."
The lawsuit was filed in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Equality California and 6 same-sex couples who did not marry before last Tuesdays election but would like to be able to marry now.
The groups said they are confident that the state will continue to honour the marriages of the 18,000 lesbian and gay couples who have already married in California.
It should be noted that, like every President, Obama will get to pick his own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He can either choose bigots or fair minded people.
hXXp://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/111808dnnatobamagays.2945b32.html
Admirals, generals urge Obama to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell'
05:09 PM CST on Monday, November 17, 2008
Associated Press
ANNAPOLIS, Md. More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
The move by the military veterans confronts the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama with a thorny political and cultural issue that dogged former President Bill Clinton early in his administration.
"As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality," the officers wrote.
While Obama has expressed support for repeal, he said during the presidential campaign that he would not do so on his own an indication that he would tread carefully to prevent the issue from becoming a drag on his agenda. Obama said he would instead work with military leaders to build consensus on removing the ban on openly gay service members.
"Although I have consistently said I would repeal 'don't ask, don't tell,' I believe that the way to do it is make sure that we are working through a process, getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be," Obama said in a September interview with the Philadelphia Gay News.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama's transition team, declined comment.
The issue of gays in the military became a flash point early in the Clinton administration as Clinton tried to fulfill a campaign promise to end the military's ban on gays. His efforts created the current compromise policy ending the ban but prohibiting active-duty service members from openly acknowledging they are gay.
But it came at a political cost. The resulting debate divided service members and veterans, put Democrats on the defensive and provided cannon fodder for social conservatives and Republican critics who questioned Clinton's patriotism and standing with the military.
Retired Adm. Charles Larson, a four-star admiral and two-time superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy who signed the statement with 104 other retired admirals and generals, said in an interview that he believed Clinton's approach was flawed because he rushed to change military culture.
Larson said he hoped Obama would take more time to work with the Pentagon. Joining Larson among the signatories was Clifford Alexander, Army secretary under former President Jimmy Carter.
"There are a lot of issues they'll have to work out, and I think they'll have to prioritize," Larson said, noting that the new administration will immediately face combat-readiness issues and budget concerns. "But I hope this would be one of the priority issues in the personnel area."
The list of 104 former officers who signed the statement appears to signal growing support for resolving the status of gays in the military. Last year, 28 former generals and admirals signed a similar statement.
Larson, who has a gay daughter he says has broadened his thinking on the subject, believes a generational shift in attitudes toward homosexuality has created a climate where a repeal is not only workable, but also an important step for keeping talented personnel in the military.
"I know a lot of young people now even people in the area of having commands of ships and squadrons and they are much more tolerant, and they believe, as I do, that we have enough regulations on the books to enforce proper standards of human behavior," Larson said.
The officers' statement points to data showing there are about 1 million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States, and about 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in the military.
The military discharged about 12,340 people between 1994 and 2007 for violating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a military watchdog group. The number peaked in 2001 at 1,273, but began dropping off sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Last year, 627 military personnel were discharged under the policy.
Political observers say that even though the issue may not be as controversial as it was when Clinton addressed it, it's impossible to forget what happened then.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said Obama is unlikely to tackle the issue early on. Sabato said he expects Obama to focus on economic recovery and avoid risking the spark of a distracting "brush fire" controversy at the outset.
"I can't imagine that he will do this right in the beginning, given the Clinton precedent," Sabato said.
Aaron Belkin, who has studied the "don't ask, don't tell" policy as director of the Palm Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara and organized the officers' statement, said how Obama addresses the issue will be the first test for the new president on gay rights.
"Everyone is going to be interested to see how he responds," Belkin said.
There are some inherent problems with this though;
1. As it stands now, we can't even get enough bone marrow for people with Leukemia.
2. The average cost for a simple bone marrow transplant is $250,000. Imagine how much this specialized type of bone marrow transplant is going to cost.
3. The vast majority of AIDS patients are in the poorest regions, so they will be flooding western countries to get treatment on backs of the taxpayers in these countries.
hXXp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_aids_treatment;_ylt=ArDBScb7Aua_IVpZ0KTDMM2s0NUE
German hematologists Eckhard Thiel and Gero Huetter of Berlin's Charite Medical University believe they may have cured an AIDS patient of his AIDS by virtue of a bone marrow transplant, given for an unrelated illness. An unidentified 42 yr. old American living in Berlin and suffering from AIDS developed an unrelated leukemia, which the doctors treated with a bone marrow transplant. Now, 20 months after the procedure, doctors can find no sign of AIDS in the patient.
The HIV retrovirus survives inside of white blood cells, all of which are completely eradicated prior to a bone marrow transplant. The white blood cells are then restored from the donor's bone marrow. One American and one European in 1,000 carries a gene mutation which happens to confer resistance to infection of the white blood cells with HIV. In searching for a tissue match for his patient's bone marrow transplant, Dr. Huetter managed to find a donor who was not only a tissue match, but also carried the mutant gene for HIV resistance.
Bone marrow transplants have been attempted before as treatments for HIV. In a 1999 review of 32 such attempts reported in the journal Medical Hypotheses, two apparent cures were reported. None of the prior studies, however, attempted to find donors who were both a tissue match and who carried the gene for HIV resistance.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure for AIDS, however.
Significant minority want recriminalisation of gay sex in the UK
By Tony Grew October 27, 2008 - 15:56
A new survey of the British public indicates there is still a minority who remain opposed to gay rights.
24% want gay sex to be recriminalised.
Among 16 to 24 year olds almost the same number, 23%, have had sexual contact with someone of the same sex.
Overall 6% classed themselves as gay, bisexual or lesbian, while 13% of the people surveyed said they had had sexual contact with someone of the same sex at some point in their lives, 16% of women and 10% of men.
Despite the introduction of civil partnerships, the equalisation of the age of consent, and new laws banning discrimination at work and in the provision of goods, services and facilities, there remains significant opposition to gay rights.
56% of those polled in the survey thought that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt children.
45% oppose gay marriage and 40% want a higher age of consent for gay sex, according to The Observer Sex Poll 2008.
"We have always been crystal clear that homophobia does not go away, it goes to sleep," said Ben Summerskill of gay equality organisation Stonewall.
"It is essential that we are continually vigilant of those who would like to turn back the clock not just to 1988, when Section 28 was introduced, but to the 1950s as well."
Homosexuality was partially decriminalised in 1967, with the age of consent set at 21. That was reduced to 18 in 1994.
In 2001 the government finally succeeded in equalising the age for gay and straight sex at 16, despite opposition from the House of Lords.
hXXp://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081016-net-filters-required-for-all-australians-no-opt-out.html
'Net filters "required" for all Australians, no opt-out
By Jacqui Cheng | Published: October 16, 2008 - 11:14AM CT
Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.
The Australian government first revealed its filtering initiative in 2007, which it expected to cost AUS$189 million to implement. That money would go toward imposing filtering requirements on ISPs, who would have to use the Australian Communications and Media Authority's official blacklist, which is in turn based on the country's National Classification Scheme.
Australia moved forward with its plans despite widespread public outcry and began testing the system in Tasmania in February of this year. At the time, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that the filters would be enabled by default and that consumers would have to request unfiltered connectivity if they wished to opt-out of the program.
Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true. Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the "additional material" blacklistwhich targets content inappropriate for childrenbut not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.
"That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out," Newton said. "Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blockedend of story."
A spokesperson for the Australian Communications Minister seemed to confirm this revelation by saying that the filters would be required for all Australian citizens.
Assuming this is in fact the way the scheme is implemented in practice, it raises plenty of troubling questions. "Illegal" is a broad definition, leaving users wondering exactly what kinds of content will end up falling prey to the government's apparently mandatory filtering restrictions. Will Big Content be ringing up the Aussie government soon to have tracker sites added to the blacklist? What about sites that discuss topics like at-home bomb making, or something a little less explosive, like DVD decryption tools? And how about those sites that advise users on how to get around the filters? Will various Wikipedia pages be blocked?
Australia continues to ignore its own government-funded studies from 2006 that show ISP-level filtering to be ineffective and costly. The Australian government's disregard for those prior studies suggests that the driving force behind the current plan is more political than technical.
hXXp://gizmodo.com/5064310/australia-to-build-great-firewall-down-under
Australia To Build Great Firewall Down Under
By Elaine Chow, 2:05 AM on Thu Oct 16 2008, 11,081 views
Looks like China won't be the only place with a Great Firewall in placeThe Australian government is introducing its own censorship regime that will determine what is or isn't illegal for you to view on the web. The move is said to help stop teenagers from accessing online pornography, but even if you opt-out of the pr0n filter, you'll get put on a different blacklist for illegal content.
So what could be considered illegal content? There's the possibility that the government will block any website related to controversial opinions on euthanasia, drugs or political dissent. Even legal content might get screwed with, considering even the best Internet content filters still incorrectly firewall about .1% of webpages. Who knew the land of bloomin' onions and Crocodile Dundee was teetering on the brink of Big Brother-ness?
hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btBF8jp6IgE
Many of you may remeber that Moses was up on Mount Sinai talking with god and getting the original 10 Commandments, while the others were making the golden calf. When Moses came down and saw this, he broke the tablets, ordered the statue be destroyed and a bunch of people killed' including his brother. Then he went back and got a replacement set of tablets of the 10 Commandments.
They mistakenly assume that gays are pedophiles. It's not the same thing.
No one ever says they need to ban heteros because some people molest children of the opposite sex.
hXXp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3329225/Vatican-to-use-psychologists-to-weed-out-homosexual-priests.htm
Vatican to use psychologists to weed out homosexual priests
Trainee priests suspected of being gay should be weeded out by psychologists and banned from joining the Catholic Church, the Vatican has said.
By Nick Squires in Rome
Last Updated: 4:02PM GMT 31 Oct 2008
Homosexuality was a "deviation" that must be rooted out in would-be clergy early on in order to prevent "tragedies", the Vatican decreed in new guidelines on the issue.
Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Catholic Education Congregation, said that a celibate candidate with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should be barred "not because he commits a sin, but because homosexuality is a deviation, an irregularity, a wound" that would prevent him from fulfilling his duties.
The guidelines, approved by Pope Benedict XVI, are designed to prevent the sort of sex scandals involving paedophile priests which have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, triggering law suits costing hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
The decree appears to ignore the consensus among sex abuse experts that homosexuals are no more likely to molest children than heterosexuals.
Should there be any doubt about a trainee, psychologists or psychotherapists should be brought in to assess their sexual orientation and evaluate their suitability for the priesthood, the Vatican said.
The ruling outraged Italian gay rights organisations. "If the principal requirement for being a priest is chastity, sexual orientation should be irrelevant," said Franco Grillini, president of Gaynet.
Another homosexual group said the Catholic Church was full of gay priests and threatened to 'out' them to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Vatican's stance.
"We offer ourselves as consultants to help the Italian Catholic hierarchy trace all the homosexuals hiding away in the Vatican, in the college of cardinals, in dioceses, in parishes, in monasteries and so on," said Aurelio Mancuso, the president of Arcigay. "It would certainly be a haul to make the sacred buildings tremble".
It's great news for so many things in the US.
However, Obama believes in the Jim Crow style "back of the bus" for gays. He has repeatedly said that his religious beliefs won't allow him to support gay marriage.
Civil Unions are not equality for countless reasons and it does separate us from the rest of society, making us 2nd class citizens.
I moved this since it's not an upload request, but a discussion about the video clip.
It's still happening.
The torrents are very fast. I had one the other day doing over 7.8mB.
We just bought the series' 1 - 4 of Battlestar Galactica boxset and I noticed that no matter what the situation is, their hair is always perfectly gelled.
The humans still left on Caprica {their home planet} after it was nuked and taken over by the Cylons, all had perfectly gelled hair. They lived in the forest and scrounged for food and clean drinking water while fighting the Cylons, yet they were able to maintain their hair gel supplies.
During battles with the Cylons, stuff would be blowing up all around them on the various ships, but their hair never got messed up, even if they suffered massive 3rd degree burns on their entire bodies. You couldn't always recognise the face, but you knew who's hair style it was.
On New Caprica, they had virtually no supplies {a piece of rat jerky costs an entire day's wage} and the conditions were extremely hash, but they had plenty of hair gel.
After they left New Caprica, the President and the Admiral were talking and they said that all supplies were either completely gone or were going to run out in 2 days. 3 weeks later and their hair is still perfectly gelled, but the only food they have is algae soup.
Every time a helmet comes off {think hat hair}, their hair is still perfectly gelled.
I'm not really complaining, as there are some very hot guys on the show, but really, let's have at least a tiny bit of realism.
For this conversation, we're talking about east Asians {China, Japan, Korea, etc}.
Now the other way around… what I've observed is there are far fewer whites (gay men and women) that prefer Asian men, especially when you talk about the younger whites. Why is that...
It's natural to tend toward your own race and culture.
You also have to look at the % of Asians and white in countries like the US and the UK. There'd be a lot of lonely white people if everyone preferred Asians.
Gay white boys (those in their 20s) don't go for Asians because I think they've got certain stereotypes about how Asians look and act, and that just turns them off.
I think most of this is due to them coming out of the closet and being insecure and trying to keep as much security as possible by being with someone they can relate to the most.
For their parts, John Cho and B.D. Wong has shown that you can be Asian, not speak with an accent, and be good looking. Unfortunately they're not bigger in the media.
I don't find BD Wong attractive at all. John Cho is a good looking, but I still get grossed out about him because of the "House" episode he did.
Some of you may be old enough to remember the show "Designing Women". The part where they go to Japan was funny. There was a stand up comic who is Japanese American and had a massive Georgia accent.
Brent Corrigan used fake some pretty good fake IDs to do porn before he was old enough.
The fake IDs were so good, that no one from Cobra got in trouble over it.
http://forum.gaytorrent.ru/index.php?topic=2726.0
It's in the "guides & how to" section of the forums.