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The Knife
Colouring of Pigeons

Roy Moore, Alabama Chief Justice, Suspended Over Gay Marriage Order
by Campbell Robertson of The New York Times
SEPT. 30, 2016

The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, was suspended on Friday for the remainder of his term in office for ordering the state’s probate judges to defy federal court orders on same-sex marriage.

The suspension was imposed by the state’s Court of the Judiciary, a nine-member body made up of selected judges, lawyers and others. While the court did not remove Chief Justice Moore from the bench entirely, as it did in 2003 after he defied orders to remove a giant monument of the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building, it effectively ended his career as a Supreme Court justice. His term ends in 2019, and Chief Justice Moore, 69, will be barred by law from running again at that time because of his age.

The court was unanimous in its judgment, the decision said, because of both “his disregard for binding federal law,” exhibited in a January order to the state’s 68 probate judges to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and “his history with this court.”

He is most known for his unyielding social conservatism and his insistence that the law reflect his theology. The federal court decisions on same-sex marriage, including the ruling in June 2015 by the United States Supreme Court that it was a constitutional right, outraged him; in a 93-page concurrence to an Alabama Supreme Court decision on the matter earlier this year, he condemned the gay rights movement as leading to a “wasteland of sexual anarchy” and wrote, in the context of the federal Supreme Court decision, of the “duty to disregard illegal orders.”

In his view, the federal Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, guaranteeing same-sex couples the right to marry, was not binding on Alabama directly. Without a final ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, he insisted, the question was still open, and in January he issued an order to the state’s 68 probate judges, informing them that they had a “ministerial duty” to refuse licenses to same-sex couples until a state-level decision was handed down.

It was this action that brought charges from the Judicial Inquiry Commission, a state oversight body, that he was violating Alabama’s canon of judicial ethics. “He was instructing state officers to disregard a binding injunction that was consistent with controlling Supreme Court precedent,” said Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law. “It was a remarkable thing for him to do.”

Legendary Professional Skateboarder Brian Anderson Comes Out as Gay
by Sean Mandell of towleroad.com
September 27, 2016

A skateboarding legend took many in the skating community by surprise with his announcement which he shared in a video profile created by VICE Sports.

Brian Anderson says he knew he was gay from about the age of three or four, saying something about men’s facial hair triggered him from a young age. “Something about that told me, ‘that’s right. I like that,'” he recalls.

Anderson also recalls that as a kid he “had a thing” for the character Bluto in Popeye cartoons, an affinity he finds funny today “because [that type of guy is] what I like now as an adult.” Commenting on the homophobia he encountered growing up, Anderson says, “Hearing ‘faggot’ all time time, made me feel at a really young age that it was dangerous to talk about it.” That led Anderson, who is 40, to keep his sexuality a secret until now. “I figured it out how to balance it to where nobody questioned it and I was a big tough skateboarder, of course they’re not going to question [my sexuality],” he explains.

Anderson says he didn’t come out earlier in his career in part because he thought his attraction towards men might fade but also because he says he was “pretty freaked out.” “I was really scared. And people would have perceived it a lot differently had I said this fifteen years ago.” Skateboarding released Anderson from his anxieties about his sexual orientation. “I used skateboarding to not think about that. I knew I couldn’t go and meet some dude, or something, I was terrified of somebody seeing me doing that. I kind of consider myself a skateboarder first and gay second…I’m a skater, that’s all I know.”

Anderson says he’s coming out now because he hopes to tell LGBT youth that they don’t need to hide who they are and fill themselves with shame the way he did. On how being closeted may have affected his career, Anderson thinks it may have actually driven him to take more risks. “I think a part of me was so irritated and angry from holding that in so it made me more of an animal on my skateboard,” he says.

Brian Anderson’s interview with VICE is here.

@Bluesurfer:

notified that my torrent has been deleted as it's a duplicate.

Unless I'm mistaken, if the torrent which caused your upload to be flagged as a duplicate is inactive (dead) you should report this to the help desk, as the policy favors having inactive torrents being replaced by their duplicates.

As Popper puts it:

@Popper:

If the original is dead at the time of review, it will be deleted and the report dismissed. We won't try to revive the original"

@jand1350:

There are also numbers of files that come from the same studio that are cut up, titled differently, and uploaded as single files

This is not really an uploader-based problem.

Every year a studio will film, label, package, re-cut, re-label, and re-package as many instances of monetized content as they can. Titles that were once packaged as Video-A can then be sliced into differently-labeled pieces: Video-Aa, Ab, Ac, Ad, etc. These are rented off through repeated viewings by subscribers in order to amortize a studio's library.

Preventing duplicates is important for uploaders. However, they need not be expected by us to guard all the time against a studio's porn-title craftery. This would be as cannonmc suggests a bit like bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon.

Poor Jordan. If he only knew.

Just like his drug-level tolerance expectations on a 5'04" bodyframe — plug doors on an airplane are slightly larger and thicker than the frames they fit into.

This makes the door — and Jordan's capacity for rational thought — impossible to open.

I wouldn't fly Alaska ever again.

@cannonmc:

before seeding it here I stopped and removed the first torrent

But you left thousands more — all identical 864Mb .avi's circulating from around 2011.

@Popper:

or

A torrent with the same hash was removed here some time back and was kept seeding in a member's client. It then re-connects automatically to the re-uploaded torrent.

That's how, after switching the studios name with its acronym (Active Duty=AD) in the title. There's your match

The real thing occupies less real estate but more giggity than Hollywood's version

@Starrider:

I have a healthcare background so I've found it much easier to be accepted as a volunteer for some of the wrestling teams at the colleges in my area

The "weigh-in" as a semi-public event operated by high schools and colleges is essentially a relic of the past. It lives on in pop culture consciousness mainly through its depiction in movies and as public spectacle for the boxing-based entertainment industry.

What has taken the place of the public weigh-in for colleges and high schools is an automated system that focuses on practical and scientifically based weight management programs which are more private, paperless, and cost-effective. Like any secure system of recording and accessing information, that means only those in the immediate coaching and parenting circles — not those with just healthcare backgrounds — have access to a student's weight or any process of determining their weight.

This information is used by a broader system which validates a student's right to wrestle by issuing regionally-based certification. The NCAA took the lead in cobbling together framework for this broader-based system over 20 years ago. They slowly expanded it through patchwork design to high schools and colleges across the country, although it may be noted that participation is not mandatory.

The need for this newer system became evident in 1997, when three college wrestlers were killed at the end of a 35-day period engaged in unsupervised, unsafe weight management practices just prior to their weigh-in.

An exploratory, qualitative study of the health risks of heterosexual adult film performers has been done before, however, performers in the male homosexual adult film industry—which is smaller than the heterosexual industry and not centered in Los Angeles—was outside of its scope.

The results of that study showed that while all adult film performers can be exposed to health risks that are often cumulative, including physical, mental, and social risks that could be severe and sometimes life-threatening — female performers in particular were especially vulnerable to the occupational risks of the industry.

Grudzen et al., focused on the fact that women were a vulnerable group when faced with risks such as drug addiction, mental health problems, financial hardship, physical trauma, and negative social interactions because women have traditionally occupied positions in society that afforded them more discrimination and less resources to mitigate risk than their male counterparts have had.

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

Click on See full list in any torrent page in order to view a file's extension.

If you download and use VLC media player you wont have to worry about your downloaded torrent's extensions or how to convert them.

Q: Why Do Gay Men Love the Olympics? A: Isn't It Obvious?
By John Branch of The New York Times
August 13, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO — Since before the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Outsports.com has been covering gay issues in sports. The site is filled largely with coming-out stories, news analysis and slide shows of good-looking athletes. And every two years, during the Winter and Summer Olympics, its audience traffic rises to new heights, quantifiable evidence of something often generalized and stereotyped. “Gay men love the Olympics,” Cyd Zeigler, a founder of Outsports, said in an email.

It did not take a record number of publicly out athletes competing at the Rio Games to draw the gay community’s attention. It did not take a shirtless and lubed flag-bearer from Tonga, or photographs of gymnasts on the beach, or divers taking post-plunge showers. Those things only helped draw interest from audiences, both gay and straight. But gay men were already a reliable demographic, as demonstrated across the web, from Outsports to other sites targeted to gays that are now filled largely with photos and posts about the Olympics.

The question is why gay men love the Olympics. Theories are as varied as the gay community itself. Bruce Hayes, a 1984 gold medalist in swimming who is gay, cautioned against stereotypes. “Gay people like sports as much as any other group of people,” said Mr. Hayes, now the managing director of health for the New York office of Edelman, a public relations firm. “There’s this perception that we don’t. Or that if we’re watching the Olympics, it’s for a reason other than watching the sports and the athletic achievements.”

But the Olympics have some unique qualities that attract gay men, several others said. Many closeted gays participated in individual sports to avoid the discomfort of team-sport culture, and the Olympics is the biggest showcase of individual sports. Mr. Hayes, too, said that being gay was a reason he gravitated toward swimming as a boy. Also, many Olympic sports possess an outsider’s sensibility that gay men can appreciate. Many sports are filled with artistry often missing from the usual weekend sports selection on television.

And, for some, admittedly, the attraction is physical. “A big part of it is the skin factor, for sure,” Mr. Zeigler said. That happens across the spectrum. People gaze at the physiques of the divers in small Speedos. They marvel at the tiny bikinis on the women of beach volleyball. What has changed is who is doing the ogling. More than ever, and more openly than ever, it seems to be everyone.

“The mainstream media is finally catching up to the gays in their public admiration of athletes’ bodies, male and female,” said Jim Buzinski, the other Outsports founder. “Now everyone is doing the ‘hottest bods’ post, encroaching on what had been our turf. Plus, men are more and more open about showing off, especially on social media, and don’t care who’s looking.”

Outsports found that, at last count, 49 athletes are publicly out. That is about twice as many as at the 2012 London Games. Eleven of them, none from the United States, are male. The popular British diver Tom Daley, a two-time medalist, is openly gay and a bit of an icon, and his boyfriend is a bit of a celebrity, too. Brazil’s Rafaela Silva, who won a gold medal in judo, came out publicly two days later. A female Brazilian rugby player proposed to her girlfriend at the medal stand.

“There is something cool happening with this Olympics,” Mr. Hayes said. “There are quite a few out gay athletes competing. You used to never hear about that or see that. There were gay people competing, but they weren’t out or written about. Slowly, there’s starting to be a realization that gays are interested in sports, that they’re actually good at sports and they can excel and achieve like anyone else.”

Add all that context — more open athletes, a culture gaining acceptance and traction in a growing number of countries — and it is suddenly difficult for many to keep their eyes off these Olympics, the ultimate sports spectacle. The shirtless, well-lubed flag-bearer from Tonga became an instant sensation and has since made the news media rounds, including at NBC’s “Today” show. (Interview with Al Roker? Oil rub from Matt Lauer? Does it get more mainstream than that?) Members of the United States men’s gymnastics team suggested in The Wall Street Journal that they want to be objectified, perhaps by competing shirtless.

Social media lapped up the “accidental censorship” of divers taking showers between dives as television graphics covered their tiny suits, giving the illusion of full-fledged nudity. “For some people, the Olympics is the greatest soft porn ever,” said Eric Marcus, an expert on gay history and co-writer of the autobiography of the Olympic champion diver Greg Louganis, who came out after retiring. “What’s changed is that the mainstream press is interested in these things, that gay people are comfortable talking about them, that it is now O.K. to objectify the bodies of men in a way that I don’t think that most news outlets would be comfortable objectifying women.”

In a twist from the past, the one news media taboo seems to be ogling women, though that does not stop it from happening. Even most lesbian sites do not have the same type of photocentric posts that those catering to gay men have. A beautiful woman carrying the Tongan flag is probably not booked on the “Today” show, and certainly not getting rubbed by the hosts. “The objectification of women was tied to the subordination of women,” Mr. Marcus said. “There’s a different dynamic involved.”

That doesn’t keep some in the Olympic audience from seeing obvious objectification in some female uniforms, especially the bikinis worn by most beach volleyball players. Such revealing amounts of skin are not required; many women cover up on cool days and nights. One athlete from Egypt wore leggings, long sleeves and a head-covering hijab.

To suggest that they are being sexualized is often seen as an insult to competitors, men and women. Mr. Marcus compared Olympic athletes to dancers, who often dress to show off their contours. In an age when the likes of ESPN The Magazine does an annual Body Issue, featuring athletes of both sexes and all sizes in undress, such appreciation is meant for everyone’s consumption. Even The New York Times had an interactive feature of undressed athletes asking readers to guess which sport they represent.

At these Games, the South Korean men’s judo competitors got attention for showing their rippled abs. The Tongan flag-bearer, a taekwondo athlete named Pita Taufatofua, went from unrecognized to more than 130,000 Instagram followers practically overnight.

“There’s no stigma when looking at bodies when it’s the Olympics,” Mr. Marcus said. “When I look at a website that’s featuring these athletes, and the guy’s shirtless, I’m not looking at porn. I’m looking at the Olympics. You can look at Tom Daley and his diving co-partner palling around in the pool and hugging each other, in little teeny bathing suits, and it’s just watching the Olympics.”

@jkronfuss:

Disgusting. :afr2:

What's disgusting is that the police documents and the list of items seized at Neverland Ranch are not "new" or "recently unearthed" documents at all. Whomever released it inserted newer photographs in and amongst older, already released police and prosecutor files. One such photograph was described as coming from a book called "Room to Play", with the investigator handwriting its title in the margins of page 11:

Only problem is that the photo is actually from a graphic artist named Jonathan Hobin, whose book In The Playroom was published in 2011 – 7 years after the police report was written and 2 years after MJ's death.

Transgender People Will Be Allowed to Serve Openly in U.S. Military
by Matthew Rosenberg of _The New York Times _June 30, 2016

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter on Thursday removed one of the final barriers to military service by lifting the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces.

The decision pushes forward a transformation of the military that Mr. Carter has accelerated in the last year with the opening of all combat roles to women and the appointment of the first openly gay Army secretary. He made his feelings on ending the transgender ban clear last year, when he called it outdated and ordered officials across the military to begin examining what would need to be done to lift the prohibition.

When Mr. Carter ordered that assessment, there were already thousands of transgender people in the military. But until Thursday, most have been forced into an existence shrouded in secrets to avoid being discharged, a situation much like that faced by gay men, lesbians and bisexuals before the lifting of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2011.

Lifting the ban on transgender people has faced resistance from some at the highest ranks of the military, who have expressed concerns over what they consider a social experiment that could potentially harm the military’s readiness and effectiveness in combat.

Several studies have reached the opposite conclusion, however, finding that lifting the ban is unlikely to have any appreciable effect on the readiness of the armed forces.

A study by the RAND Corporation, commissioned by Mr. Carter, found that out of the approximately 1.3 million active-duty service members, an estimated 2,450 were transgender, and that every year about 65 service members would seek to make a gender transition.__

@oliverqueen3:

I can't find anything to tell me what it should be.

I did a speed test on Internet - Up: 11.27

I'm using Utorrent  1.8.7

Although designed for Azureus, this calculator uses the same settings layout as μTorrent does and suggests what to enter based on your upload speed.

@overover:

anyone know where I would be able to access or find a log of self entry on my laptop?

File auditing is what you want, located under the advanced section of the security tab in the folder's property settings. If needed this video walks you through it.

@cannonmc:

mostly by hard-left students

Fortunately for you spring semester is over, so we shouldn't be bothering you for the next 3 months—provided the undergrads don't spend the time inventing new words to terrorize you with.

@Mrker1234:

One group has no business labeling another.

Labeling just makes things easier. How comfortable would you feel being treated in a hospital where all the medications weren't labeled?

Your answer to that might be "Well that's different. It's a hospital, and where the labels are used makes a difference."

If you agree with that, continue reading below.

@Mrker1234:

How is arbitrarily labeling people cis or cisgender any different than a straight guy calling someone a fag? Or white people calling a black person the 'N' word?

If you agreed with the hospital scenario, then where the labels are used makes a difference.

When you're being called cis, it isn't being yelled at you from across the street, or spray painted on the side of your house or car. You're being labeled cis primarily in academic journals by social scientists, and by the media—using the journals own terminology.

So with that in mind, do you still agree that where the labels are used makes a difference?

;D