I wonder what they're talking about tonight on the 700 Club...?

Via numerous sources...  When the homophobes say gays are obsessed with sex, count on them to describe the sex we are obsessed with in more detail then most gay pornography.  So naturally, in the wake of the California decision, we see Peter LaBarbra framing the issues involved in his own demure way...

How Will California Homosexual Couples Consummate their Counterfeit 'Marriages'? 

Oh I suppose they'll...Go To Disneyland!

Whatever.  Here's how my gay couple consummated the Lawrence v. Texas decision that finally overtuned the sodomy laws...

For someone who thinks same-sex sex is so ugly Peter, you sure do think about it a lot...

The hated Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower, arguably a republican although in this day and age I doubt he could even get his party's nomination.  And as it turns out, the majority on the California Supreme Court that decided equal rights under law means equal, not separate but equal, were all appointed by republicans too.  The Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who wrote the opinion, was appointed by Pete Wilson no less.  But even Pete Wilson is old school, compared to the Bush republicans.  Think, Samuel Alito.  When you can put a man on the court who thinks the warrantless strip searching of 10 year old girls isn't any big deal, let alone poses a constitutional issue, you can safely know the gutter Eisenhower would have recognized, though not as American, has ascended to power.

I am elated on the one hand, and terrified on the other.  There is a referendum coming.  Californians have not won this yet.  Millions will be spent to put the knife back in the hearts of same sex couples in the Golden State.  Only two things give me slender hope.  The right wing there has become more insane since Wilson.  And Schwarzenegger says he will oppose it.  If he lives up to his word, we could yet win this now.  If not, there may well be more bitter years of fighting to come.  I am not dancing yet.

This, as Annie Wagner over at SLOG points out, is the nugget of gold in this decision...

Furthermore, the circumstance that the current California statutes assign a different name for the official family relationship of same-sex couples as contrasted with the name for the official family relationship of opposite-sex couples raises constitutional concerns not only under the state constitutional right to marry, but also under the state constitutional equal protection clause. In analyzing the validity of this differential treatment under the latter clause, we first must determine which standard of review should be applied to the statutory classification here at issue. Although in most instances the deferential “rational basis” standard of review is applicable in determining whether different treatment accorded by a statutory provision violates the state equal protection clause, a more exacting and rigorous standard of review — “strict scrutiny” — is applied when the distinction drawn by a statute rests upon a so-called “suspect classification” or impinges upon a fundamental right. As we shall explain, although we do not agree with the claim advanced by the parties challenging the validity of the current statutory scheme that the applicable statutes properly should be viewed as an instance of discrimination on the basis of the suspect characteristic of sex or gender and should be subjected to strict scrutiny on that ground, we conclude that strict scrutiny nonetheless is applicable here because (1) the statutes in question properly must be understood as classifying or discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, a characteristic that we conclude represents — like gender, race, and religion —a constitutionally suspect basis upon which to impose differential treatment, and (2) the differential treatment at issue impinges upon a same-sex couple’s fundamental interest in having their family relationship accorded the same respect and dignity enjoyed by an opposite-sex couple.

Suspect class...Strict Scrutiny...  This is what we, gay Americans, have needed for so very long.  Without this, the statehouses and congress will continue to stack the deck against us, whenever the hate vote demands it. 

...then you may have what it takes to be an artist.

Lesson One:

No silly...not that Pirate.   This Pirate... 

This is a work in progress.  I'm trying desperately to get my drawing groove back.  I took a sick day off today because my insomnia came roaring back last night for some reason and I felt utterly miserable this morning.  I stumbled down to the basement to do a laundry and laid eyes on the little pirate statuette I'd bought in Catalina a couple of summer's ago.  My brother probably remembers it.  The subject is female but I took one look at it and knew I could draw a really sexy male pirate from it.  So I bought it and took it home and it's been sitting on one of my art room shelves ever since.  This morning I picked it up and plopped it on my drafting table, taped some Strathmore to one of my drawing boards and somehow, even though I could barely think straight, managed to wrest out a pretty good pencil sketch of what I had in mind when I first set eyes on it.

A few slight adjustments to the body here and there...somewhat broader shoulders, a slightly different curve on the backside, a somewhat sharper jawline...and there was my beautiful and dangerous young pirate.  I think I'll leave him blond.

I've some more work to do on this, mostly background stuff now.  I need to work on the monkey a bit too.  Then I'll ink it up.  Stay tuned. 

So far away; Doesn't anybody stay in one place any more?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door;
Doesn't help to know you're just time away...

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood;
Holding you again could only do me good;
How I wish I could, but you're so far away

One more song about movin' along the highway;
Can't say much of anything that's new;
If I could only work this life out my way;
I'd rather spend it bein' close to you;

... I sure hope the road don't come to own me;
Yet so many dreams I've yet to find...

Via Slashdot...  In a nutshell...

Debian Bug Leaves Private SSL/SSH Keys Guessable

SecurityBob writes "Debian package maintainers tend to very often modify the source code of the package they are maintaining so that it better fits into the distribution itself. However, most of the time, their changes are not sent back to upstream for validation, which might cause some tension between upstream developers and Debian packagers. Today, a critical security advisory has been released: a Debian packager modified the source code of OpenSSL back in 2006 so as to remove the seeding of OpenSSL random number generator, which in turns makes cryptographic key material generated on a Debian system guessable. The solution? Upgrade OpenSSL and re-generate all your SSH and SSL keys. This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu."

At last year's Open Source Conference in Portland (OSCON), I was made aware of a wee dust-up between the Apache project and "some" Linux distros.  Specifically, the Apache folks were complaining that certain Linux Distributions routinely modified their product, sticking libraries and configuration files wherever they damn well pleased because that was how, in their opinion, things should work. 

Now...the beauty of Linux and open source in general is that it is open and community driven and anyone can do whatever they damn well please with it.  I hope it always stays that way, Microsoft's backdoor attempts to stifle it notwithstanding.  But the other side of that coin is that if you modify someone else's software to work with yours now it's your responsibility.  The Apache folks were complaining that they could not help end users configure their servers when they themselves didn't know how the software worked anymore, particularly when it came to configuring it.  That's not a trivial complaint coming from a project that powers the majority of web servers.  Most of what you see on the World Wide Web was fed to you by an Apache server, running on either Linux or Unix.

Well, the Debian folks pretty well knew who the Apache folks were talking about and sure as the sun rises they started pointing their fingers back at Apache's big monolithic configuration file, and other in-their-righteous-opinion Apache shortcomings.  Begun, the clone wars have...

My feeling is, if you change it you own it.  At least in the sense of now you have to support it.  At minimum you ought to run your "fixes' by the people who are maintaining the software you are "correcting".  They might actually appreciate what you've done and incorporate the changes into their build.  Or they might tell you why you shouldn't do that.  Sometimes you should listen to that.  But from what I hear, listening isn't one of the Debian project's best points.

I keep hearing about how wonderful Ubuntu is, and knowing that it's a Debian family distro I've been highly reluctant to bother with it.  I get along fine in the Red Hat family.  For the past couple years I've been happily running CentOS here at Casa del Garrett and I admit I would like it a lot better if it came bundled with better multi-media support, but on the other hand adding packages to it isn't hard because everything is pretty much where everyone expects it to be.  Yes, I have to configure a lot of it in its own specific way, as opposed to having a nice common configuration system to do it for me.  If you want consistency, open source isn't going to work for you.  Try Apple.  Seriously.  I run Macs here at Casa del Garrett too and damned if I haven't been impressed by how well integrated everything is on a Mac.  I do all my artwork on Bagheera, my art room G5 tower, because it just gets out of my way when I'm in a creative mood and lets me create.  I love that.  On the other hand, it's like that because Steve won't let software developers color outside the lines.  Just ask anyone who ever unlocked an iPhone.  That's why I'm still running Linux here too.

Anyone can do it!

Step 1:   Create a basic stick-man frame.

Step 2: Add the major body segments as oblong bean shapes...head, neck, chest, arms, legs...and so on...

Step 3:  Add the detail.

NEXT: Can you draw the pirate?

I'll endure lectures on how gays don't actually want marriage rights from a lot of people...even from some other gay people...but not from another gay person who refers to gays as "same sex-attracted" not once, not twice, but eight times in a single column, as though he just can't bring himself to utter the word 'gay' let alone 'homosexual'.  Still looking for that cure are we...?

From The New York Times...

When Vito J. Fossella Jr., the soon-to-be boy congressman, stood beside the young girls of a cheerleading squad at the Excelsior Grand catering hall in 1997, it seemed a particularly vivid version of Staten Island pageantry. Mr. Fossella — 32 and with Al Pacino looks — was on his way to becoming the sole Republican in New York City’s Congressional delegation at a spirited party billed as an evening of “pasta and politics.”

George H. W. Bush and Senator Bob Dole were there that night, strolling past the steaming trays of ziti and charging donors $1,000 each to pose for pictures. Sonny Bono was on his way from California to stump with them the next day. Mr. Fossella, the man of the hour, raised his hands, quieted the crowd, then launched into a rousing speech on cutting taxes and championing school choice.

...

Mr. Fossella, victorious with 62 percent of the vote, was so intent on getting to Congress that, according to The Staten Island Advance, he flew to Washington from Newark carrying the morning papers proclaiming his own victory only 10 hours after it was announced.

Once there, he established himself as a reliable member of his party. He voted to impeach President Clinton, followed President Bush’s war policies in Iraq, voted to eliminate financing for Planned Parenthood and supported a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

And yet many of his Democratic colleagues did not regard Mr. Fossella as an ideological warrior...

Doubtless...not the gay ones...

Via The New York Daily News...

Fossella shuns his gay sister - source

Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch "family values" pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.

He even shuns his gay sister, Victoria Fossella, refusing to go to family events if she and her partner attend, a source close to the family said.

...

As congressman, Fossella voted to prohibit any funding for joint adoptions by gay couples.

He has voted for the Marriage Protection Amendment, a federal prohibition on gay marriage.

He also demanded housing funds be held back from San Francisco unless it repealed its domestic partnership law.

Nice family republican values kinda guy wouldn't you say?

Oh yes...definitely...

In the nine days since the 43-year-old Mr. Fossella, who has served five terms in Congress, was arrested and charged after running a red light in Alexandria, Va., things have gone from not-so-good to pretty bad, with only a slender thread still staving off the worst.

Within days of his admitting that he was on his way to visit “some friends in Virginia” when he was stopped by the police, the New York tabloids began raising questions about the woman who came to retrieve him from custody, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel named Laura Fay. Then, on Thursday, he released a clipped statement from his office, saying that he had fathered a daughter, now 3, in an extramarital affair with Ms. Fay. 

...definitely...

Judgment Day For Congressman Fossella

Democratic and Republican Congressional officials are reportedly looking into Fossella's mysterious and expensive trip to France in 2003 with his mistress, Laura Fay.

It was called a fact-finding mission to La Hague's nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, according to the Daily News.

However, the Staten Island Republican was the only lawmaker authorized to go. And according to one committee member, it may have been less about nuclear power and more about fueling his relationship with the Air Force legislative liaison officer, the retired colonel who subsequently bore the congressman's love child.

Should Fosella repay taxpayers for his travel expenses if investigators find he mixed pleasure with business? 

Listen for the right wing 'phobes who bellyached about Tammy Baldwin's domestic partner being allowed to fly with her, to blast Fossella for flying with his mistress to France on the government's dime in, 3... 2... 1... Never.

If you have time to manage you're neighbor's personal lives it probably means you aren't paying enough attention to your own.  Well adjusted heterosexuals don't seek validation by trashing the lives of their gay neighbors.  When you see someone going on a crusade against homosexuality it's probably because the stench of their own intimate lives has become too terrifying for them to contemplate.  Nobody goes looking for scapegoats if they don't need any.

Via C/Net News...

Stolen Mac helps nab burglary suspects

A remote desktop access feature found in some Macintoshes is being credited with leading police to two suspects in the burglary of an apartment in New York.

In addition to flat-screen TVs, iPods, and DVDs, the thieves made off with two laptop computers, one of which belonged to Kait Duplaga, an Apple store employee, according to a report in the New York Times on Saturday. While police in White Plains, N.Y., were coming up empty with their investigation, Duplaga learned that her computer was being used on the Internet and turned on the Back to My Mac feature installed on her Mac from another Mac, according to the report.

The feature allowed Duplaga to see immediately how the computer was being used at the time, as well as operate it remotely. Recalling that she had a camera installed on the computer, the fast-thinking Duplaga snapped images of one of the burglary suspects before he realized what was happening, according to the Times. Duplaga showed the image to friends who recognized the suspect as someone who attended a party at the apartment.

The photo lead police to arrest two suspects on Wednesday and recover nearly all the stolen property.

"It doesn't get much better than their bringing us a picture of the guy actually using the stolen property," Daniel Jackson, the deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains, told the newspaper. "It certainly made our job easier."

The Back to My Mac feature runs on Leopard-based Macintoshes and requires a $99 subscription to the .Mac online service.

Don't fuck with us...

Ryan Sorba, author of the forthcoming book "The Gay Gene Hoax", was brought to the Michigan State University by the campus Young Americans For Freedom group to tell the student body there that "The born gay hoax was invented in 1985 by pro-sodomy activists in effort to overturn anti-sodomy laws by way of minority status." The event was advertised by YAF with a flier called "Gays Spread AIDS".

During the course of his speech, in which Sorba falsely claimed among other things that Bruce Bagemihl's Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity was not a "correct study" and had not been cited by other researchers, including Paul Vasey and Volker Sommer (Biological Exuberance was cited by Vasey and Sommer thirteen times), a group of gay folk got up and began chanting and banging pans to drown him out.  He eventually had to leave the stage.

Kyle Bristow, the chairman of the MSU chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom, said, "Sexual deviancy poses as a dire threat to our civilization; is an affront to God; corrupts culture with decadence; and is an attack on the institution of the family, which is the crux of our society." 

The kook pews naturally, are in an uproar, over this incident, and others where they claim gay folk are engaging in "homofacism".  Over at Pam's House Blend, blogger Dagon says ...

They say the glbt progressives will not allow free discussion of homosexuality, especially by Christians.  They compare glbt techniques of silencing Christians to Hitler in the 1930's.  I think the Freepers go overboard.  But there is no doubt that the Smith students and the Toledo University President are stifling Christian oppositional speech against homosexuality.

Just like we would stifle speech advocating slavery, anti-Semitism, or racism.  When Andy Humm, the host of Gay USA on Free Speech TV, found himself on a TV Talk Show opposite a reparative therapy counselor, he refused to speak with the counselor.  Instead he spent the entire time speaking with the host of the show.  He wanted to know how the host dared invite such an irresponsible person as the reparative therapist to the TV show.  Andy went on and on about how the therapist and others like him hurt so very many people ... but he never engaged the therapist ... he ignored him completely.

I think Andy's tactic was brilliant.  I have to admit, I think those bloggers who criticized the Smith women were wrong.  The Smith lesbian were right on the money.  We do NOT need to invite crazy people to our campuses, churches, or civic centers.  The whole western world already knows that homosexuality is completely normal.  The jury is back, the verdict is in, the case is over.  Case closed.  Debate over.  

The wingnuts can argue among themselves.  They can hold the debate right along side an explanation of the world being only 6,000 years old and the earth being flat.  Have at it.

But over at the Independent [sic] Gay Forum, John Corvino would politely disagree...

Increasingly, one finds people on both sides who object not merely to their opponents’ position but even to engaging that position. Why debate the obvious, they ask. Surely anyone who holds THAT position must be too stubborn, brainwashed or dumb to reason with.

The upshot is that supporters and opponents of gay rights are talking to each other less and less. This fact distresses me.

It distresses me for several reasons. First, it lulls gay-rights advocates into a complacency where we mistake others’ silence for acquiescence. Then we are shocked—shocked!—when, for example, an Oklahoma state representative says that gays pose a greater threat than terrorism—and her constituents rally around her. Think Sally Kern will have a hard time getting re-elected? Think again.

It distresses me, too, because dialogue works. Not always, and not easily, but it makes a difference. Indeed, ironically enough, healthy dialogue about our issues helped move many people from the “supportive - but - open - to - discussion” camp to the “so - supportive - I - can’t - believe - we’re - discussing - this” camp.

Corvino is right of course in the basic idea: dialogue works.  But was Sorba engaging in dialogue?

The born gay hoax was invented in 1985 by pro-sodomy activists in effort to overturn anti-sodomy laws by way of minority status.

If that amounts to dialogue, then I suppose so is a burning cross.

Yes...dialogue works.  Absolutely.  When it's dialogue.  But dialogue has one inescapable prerequisite: good faith.  I have three conditions for dialogue with anyone on the other side of the gay rights issue.  I think they are reasonable ones.

1. Stop lying.
2. Stop lying.
3. Stop lying.

When you have a talk with someone who angrily waves Paul Cameron's junk science in your face, and you point out to them how Cameron's facts cannot be trusted, and they concede the point and stop waving Cameron in your face, but then go on to angrily wave something else just as bogus in your face...yes, actually, you Are having a dialogue.  There is a willingness there to at least listen, even if it is a very slight one.  They really are engaging you...albeit between bouts of finger pointing at the perverted gay lifestyle.  But if that same person later goes on to wave Cameron in Someone Else's face as though they'd never conceded the point at all when they were talking with you, there was no dialogue.  You need to see that for what it is.  There was no dialogue.  You may have thought there was, but there was no dialogue.  And there is no dialogue possible with that person because they are not and never were engaging you in good faith.  What was going on there is if Cameron doesn't work on you, he can still work on someone else.  What was going on there is if they can't make you hate yourself at least they can try to make other people hate you, and if enough people hate you then no matter how proud you are, you will still be afraid. 

That's what's going on behind the anti-gay mask of dialogue.  Not having an open and frank discussion of the issue, but hate mongering.  And you need to know the difference because when you sit down with hate mongers, people who have a history of falsifying the evidence, hiding the truth, ignoring the facts, you are elevating them by virtue of your own willingness to be persuaded.  You are granting them a status they have not earned, do not deserve, and in any case do not want apart from its usefulness as a tool in their Kulturkampf .  They are not interested in being persuaded.  They are not interested in listening to you.  That measuring gaze in their eyes as you tell them your story isn't listening.  It's calculating.  They are interested in only one thing: demonizing homosexuals.  The world must hate us, as much as they hate us.  That is all that matters to them.   And if they can get you to help them demonize you, so much the better.

This isn't rocket science.   Starting in 2003, various anti-gay sources started peddling, as an argument against same sex marriage, a study by Dutch researchers led by Dr. Maria Xiradou which they claimed proved that not only were gay relationships very short lived, none that lasted longer then a few years were monogamous.  And indeed, none of the gay male relationships in that study were long lived, or monogamous.  But as Jim Burroway later found out by...well...actually reading the study...that would have been hardly surprising as it was intended to show how HIV infection was spreading through the young gay male population of Amsterdam and the researchers excluded older couples and monogamous couples from the study. 

When you see people doing that kind of thing it is telling you all you need to know about the possibility of dialogue with them.  You cannot sit down and have a dialogue with someone where you are trying your level best to understand their point of view and tell your own side of the story as simply and as honestly as you can and they are looking you right in the eye and lying through their teeth.  That is not a dialogue, and you are being used.  It is not that there is no point in sitting down with hate mongers.  It's that sitting down with hate mongers makes them seem like something they are not, and that allows them to keep right on spreading their poison into the dialogue the rest of the human family needs to have. 

Earlier this year the Vermont legislature appointed an 11-member Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection to explore the idea of gay marriage and hear how Vermonters feel about it.  They conducted hearings all over the state, and something amazing happened.  The conversation was civil.  There was no cat-calling, no screaming and shouting, no personal attacks.  Why?  Because the anti-gay opposition boycotted the hearings.  They weren't silenced.  They weren't shouted down.  They weren't censored.  They simply chose not to participate, claiming that the hearings were stacked against them.  But with the hate mongers out of it, the people were able to have what they weren't supposed to have, what the hate mongers didn't want them to have.  Dialogue.  See how that works?

Religion doesn't matter.  Party doesn't matter.  Education and culture do not matter.   Only one thing matters when it comes to dialogue and that is good faith.  Unless that one thing is present, there is no dialogue.  At best there is only flag waving.  At worst, all you are doing is helping hate mongers to destroy the possibility of dialogue.  Because, yes, dialogue works.  Dialogue brings people together.  Dialogue kills hate.  And that is why the hate mongers want to be wherever there is a chance of dialogue occurring. 

In this country even hate has a right to speak it's mind.  And that's well and good.  Better hate comes out into the open where it can be seen for what it is.  But that doesn't mean we need to engage hate as though it is something it is not.  I am perfectly willing to have a dialogue.  I am all about dialogue.  But if you want to wave your hate flag you will have to do it all by yourself because I was not born into this world just to help the likes of you make people hate me.  Here are my conditions for having a dialogue about homosexuality:

1. Stop lying.
2. Stop lying.
3. Stop lying.

The Scene: 

Soft introduction music plays...

"Are you embarrassed easily? I am. But it's nothing to worry about; it's all part of growing up and being British. This course is designed to eliminate embarrassment, to enable you to talk freely about rude objects, to look at awkward and embarrassing things and to point at people's privates. The course has been designed by Dr Karl Gruber of the Institute of Going a Bit Red in Helsinki."

-Monty Python's Flying Circus

Every Friday evening now for almost a year, I've made it a point to drive down to D.C. and hang with my gay friends down there.  We have a regular happy hour/dinner end of week gathering.  It keeps me sane.  I'm single, I live all by myself up here in Baltimore, and if I don't actively seek out companionship I just go nuts.  I wasn't cut out to be a loner. 

This week I decided I wasn't drinking.  My body really isn't used to regular drinking nights, and alcohol was never my favorite form of relaxation.  So I just drank Cokes.  One of my friends later blamed that for how embarrassed I became at the...erm...low altitude of the dinner conversation.  But I don't think so.  You have to expect when you're with a pack of gay guys in a gay bar in a gay neighborhood in a city with a large gay population, that the conversation is going to get a tad sexual.  I strongly doubt that's really any different from the tone of most conversations in straight pickup bars either, but I wouldn't know about that.  Last night however, thanks to a few folks at the dinner table the conversation got really really raunchy.  So I did what I usually do when I'm not enjoying myself.  I tuned out.  Ironically, I suppose that was a tad rude of me.  I really felt sorry for our waiter.

I blame my Baptist upbringing for the modesty to the point of paralyzing inhibition I've been stuck with ever since puberty.  But it may also just be in my blood.  I wish I could be more of a gay peacock.  I was a cute little dickens when I was younger and I'll go to my grave regretting I didn't make more of that.  And I get embarrassed.  So much so that I've been asked outright on occasion if I really am gay.  I think people mistake my embarrassment for disgust.  But if I am anything it's sexually frustrated, not turned off by the idea of sex between guys. 

But I'll cheerfully admit to being grossed out by some of the kinks people get into.  Some heterosexuals get into those same kinks too and I don't confuse my libido's sexual tastes for a moral sensibility.  As long as people consent to whatever it is they're doing and as long as it's done with some degree of care and sympathy it neither picks my pockets nor breaks my leg what they're doing with each other.  I don't expect people to accommodate my embarrassments.  Matter of fact I'm usually grateful when they don't.  But not last night.  I wish I didn't get embarrassed so easily, but I do not regret being a romantic in the least, which is the polar opposite of raunch, and there were other people in that dinning room besides us.

The night that started out with my making my first ever iTunes buy from my iPhone.  Before heading downtown I was at a friend's house when I heard Dionne Warwick singing This Girl's In Love With You on his Pandora station...

You see this girl, 
This girl's in love with you 
Yes I'm in love 
Who looks at you the way I do 
When you smile I can tell 
We know each other very well

Somehow I'd never gotten around to buying that one...probably because I never saw it on the singles rack back when I was a teenager.  But I sat there listening to it at my friend Jon's house and next thing I know I'm calling up the iTunes store on my iPhone.  My inner teeny-bopper has been grooving to it all day today.  Probably as a tonic to last night's raunch.

My hands are shakin' 
Don't let my heart keep breaking 
'Cause I need your love, 
I want your love 
Say you're in love 
And you'll be my guy...

Am I really gay?  As I was sinking deeper and deeper into my chair last night in embarrassment, one of the guys, who had been briefly married, started talking graphically about a certain way straight guys can make their ladies happy and That was when I started getting grossed out.  No offense to my heterosexual readers here...I know some of you would probably get grossed out by a graphic conversation about the same sex version of that kind of sex, and that doesn't make you homophobic.  It's just your libido grimacing.  One person's sweet delight is another's gross-out and that's just the way it goes.  That part of us just has its own way of looking at the world and all you can do is just try to deal with it honorably. 

I was embarrassed, not disgusted.  But I think I have a plan.  From now on I'll save my drinking for when the conversation starts looking like the letters page of Screw magazine.  Then I'll walk up to the bar for a shot or two.  They say people in a bar generally look better when you're drunk.  Probably they make better sense too.

I have a confession to make.  I have this...tragic...habit of falling madly in love with guys who tell me after I've become completely twitterpated on them that they're straight, and later go on to lead thoroughly heterosexual lifestyles (and yes, I am using the word 'lifestyle' ironically here...).  Either they tell me they're straight, or do so in so many words.  Not always...'K'...my ex...is certainly not presenting himself as a heterosexual...at least not to his friends.  And I've had the random crush on guys who were unambiguously gay.  Alas, none of those ever seemed to have a crush back on me.

What I find...interesting...after having just had a brief email chat with one...is that almost without exception none of these straight guys I've ever crushed deeply on have ever gone on to get married.  The exception being, ironically, my first crush back in high school.  He got married, or so he says...to a girl he seems to have met in his college years, and is still married after thirty years now.  But he's the only one of the lot who ever married.

And none of them...not a one...has ever had kids, or even expressed the slightest interest in having kids.  The only guy I've ever been in love with who ever expressed an interest in having kids, ironically enough, was 'K'...the openly gay one.  And...interestingly...he Did get married.  For a little while.  After his parents pressured him into it.  Then he got divorced...and called me up...and came up to Baltimore for a visit...  But that's another long and tragic story...

So...about a half dozen serious crushes in my life who present themselves as heterosexual.  And of the lot, only one ever got married and none have kids.  Most of them are single now, as I write this.  In their 50s.  Most of them have been single for most of their lives.

I have no idea what this means, but it isn't random.  I take any other random group of six heterosexuals who I know and there are kids there, and the ones who don't have any are the exception.  But there are no kids by any of the heterosexuals I've ever fallen in love with, and only one outright marriage.

There's an obvious conclusion here, and maybe I just don't want to look at it.  But at least I'm not blaming myself anymore.  Time was I used to think of myself as the cure for homosexuality that NARTH has been searching for...

The attorney of the 14 year old boy who shot 15 year old Lawrence King in the head thinks he has a new and improved version of an old strategy...

Lawyer blames school in shooting of gay Oxnard student

As 14-year-old Brandon McInerney prepares to be arraigned today in the slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, his lawyer is advancing a defense that at least partly blames school officials for the tragedy.

Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said Deputy Public Defender William Quest.

No.  The tensions pre-existed that.  The flirting was Kings way of dealing with the abuse he was getting from the other kids.  But look at this carefully.  Quest is hanging a dead skunk on a sliver of truth obvious to everyone in hindsight.  Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys...  Yes.  And right here is the poison Quest is trying to slip in along with that...

Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus, Quest said.

You'd think the boy was going to school in drag...which is exactly the image Quest is creating there.  Quest is slyly turning a murdered 15 year old gay kid into a drag queen exploring his sexuality on other terrified teenagers.  He's pushing all the usual buttons there.  But look past that.  King's behavior was creating turmoil on campus.  Quest has probably figured out that blaming a 15 year old gay kid for his own murder isn't going to play well...at least with California juries.  He might get away with it, but considering Matthew Shepard's killers couldn't even in Wyoming, it's a risk.  So what to do?  Simple.  Blame the school for not blaming the victim. 

Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus...

Isn't that a neat trick? The school was siding with the gay kid, which left the other kids in turmoil, which caused Brandon McInerney to bring a gun to school and shoot Lawrence King in the back of the head.  Poor Branden was so traumatized over having a gay classmate, and even worse being flirted at, that he couldn't even look him in the eye when he pulled the trigger.  And it's all the school's fault.  For nurturing the gay kid.  When they should have been keeping him under control.  So the other kids wouldn't be in turmoil.  So Branden McInerney wouldn't have been in turmoil.  

You have never seen the gay panic defense so slickly inserted into a murder trial. 

Hey kids!  Microsoft's super good music player, Zune, is becoming Double More user friendly!!!

Information Week: 

Microsoft Gets More Social With Zune Update

Users of the portable media player can now download friends' nine most recently played songs, as well as nine tunes flagged as favorites.

Microsoft, which trails far behind Apple in the portable media player market, tried to narrow the gap Tuesday with the release of new technology that enables Zune users to share more of their music libraries with friends.

The latest update to the Zune software that synchronizes the player with a person's music library on the PC and Microsoft's online store reflects how Microsoft is hoping to grab market share from the Apple iPod by encouraging Zune users to build online social networks. Microsoft last November launched a music community Web site called Zune Social, where users could browse each other's playlists and share opinions on songs and bands.

Neato!

PC Week:

Microsoft Looks to Social Networking for Zune 2.0

Along with the three new Zune players, including Microsoft's first-ever flash-based model, Microsoft announced a new community site, dubbed Zune Social that it will fire up as beta in November. According to Microsoft, Zune owners can automatically share their current playlists with friends using a Zune-to-Zune Social sync.

That sync will rely on user-made profiles that Microsoft's calling Zune Cards; other Zune owners will be able to view a friend's Card, then play short samples of those tracks and/or buy the tunes at the also-redesigned Zune MarketPlace online store. The sharing concept isn't new, as several services -- notably iLike -- already promote something similar.

"Microsoft must find a way to grow the coolness of the Zune," said JupiterResearch's Michael Gartenberg. "This isn't a bad strategy, and at least it's found a way to differentiate from Apple."

Super Cool!  And...oh look...here's another way they can differentiate themselves from Apple...

Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune

If you like to download the latest episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows from BitTorrent, maybe you shouldn’t buy a Microsoft Zune to watch them on.

A future update of the software for Microsoft’s portable media player may well include a feature that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it.

...

Late Tuesday afternoon I reached J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, to ask why NBC found Microsoft’s video store more appealing than Apple’s.

He explained that NBC, like most studios, would like the broadest distribution possible for its programming. But it has two disputes with Apple.

First, Apple insists that all TV shows have an identical wholesale price so that it can sell all of them at $1.99. NBC wants to sell its programs for whatever price it chooses.

Second, Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos.

Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright “cop” to be installed on its devices.

...

Mr. Perrette said the plan is to create “filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”

He said this would be similar to systems being tested by Microsoft, Google and others that are meant to block pirated clips from video sharing sites. NBC is also working with Internet service providers like AT&T to put similar filters right into the network.

... 

Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to discuss details of this effort other than to say that the software company is exploring anti-piracy measures with NBC. He said Microsoft, which suffers from its own piracy problems, is sympathetic to Hollywood’s concerns.

Let me unpack that for you: NBC agreed to let its content be sold by Microsoft, because Microsoft is willing to make it's products block the playback of unauthorized copies.  They're talking about videos there, but does anyone doubt for a moment that same technology will be used to prevent the playback of music too.  And remember, The Music Industry Regards Copying From CDs To Players Like The iPod As Theft. 

Microsoft is going to help the industry make that impossible.  If they can get the technology developed, the industry will then press congress to make it manditory.  Never doubt it.

Oh...wait...  Microsoft says it's all been a terrible mistake...

In the Zune Insider Blog, Cesar Menendez, a member of Microsoft’s Zune team, refers to this post, and the blog discussion it prompted. He writes:

We have no plans or commitments to implement any new type of content filtering in the Zune devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC.

Microsoft, let it be said, is second to no one in its skill at deploying tactical syntax.  Let's unpack all the weasel words in that statement, shall we?   We have no plans...  Right.  Why not say "We will not..."?  as opposed to "We have no plans..."  How about, "We are not in the planning stage, but the proof of concept stage."  Any new type of content filtering...  Why not just say "Any content filtering"?   New Type?  Fine.  They already have something on the drawing boards.  It isn't new.  As part of our content distribution deal with NBC.  Fine.  But that isn't the only deal you have with NBC is it?  So are you developing any content filtering, based on an already existing "type", apart from any deals you may have made with NBC, or anyone else...?  Do you have any internal efforts directed at content filtering or blocking?.

No...no...  It's just not possible to get straight answers out of Microsoft if they don't want to give you any.  And besides, all you need is to look at Windows Vista to see how devoted Microsoft is to DRM.

Windows Vista is the bloated pig it is, in large measure because of all the DRM technology packed into it.  Vendors are having nightmares getting it to work with hardware because of the DRM requirements Vista imposes and Redmond mandates.  Your video and audio circuitry must literally have no possible point on it for a user to tap a signal from before it can be certified and Vista will allow the highest quality signals through it.  Otherwise it cripples the output.  That Redmond would develop technology to allow the music and film industries to control what you can and can not play on your own playback devices is as unsurprising, as the fact that they'll be deploying it on paltforms running their software with or without the owner's consent. 

They say that men don't change, they reveal themselves.  Once upon a time I made my living programming exclusively on Microsoft platforms.  And I felt proud to be a part of a revolution that was bringing power, as the slogan of my generation went, to the people.  But empowering the common folk was never what Bill was in it for.  He just wanted to own the world.  Bill Gates is to computer technology what Mao was to government.  He spoke the language of revolution, he posed as a friend of the common people against the powerful.  He told them he was about returning to them the power that was rightfully theirs.  The computers would be taken out of the big data processing centers and put right there on your own desktop.  Your data would belong to you, not big business or big government.  Information you need would be directly accessible to you.  Bill Gates promised the world would be at your fingertips.  And if he really meant that, I wouldn't care if he was ten times as rich as he is.  Instead, he became one of the biggest despots the world ever saw.  Your computer belongs to him now.  And to his friends in the penthouse board rooms.  Men don't change, they reveal themselves.  Here's to the new boss...

[Edited a tad...]