Friday, January 18, 2008

Rethinking AIDS Spending

With the AIDS pandemic in the middle of its third decade, some AIDS experts are saying that resources spent to fight HIV/AIDS might be better spent elsewhere.
[W]ith revised numbers downsizing the pandemic published last year along with an admission that AIDS peaked in the late 1990's, some AIDS experts are now wondering if it might be wise to shift some of the billions of dollars of AIDS money to basic health problems like clean water, family planning or diarrhea.

"If we look at the data objectively, we are spending too much on AIDS,'' said Dr. Malcolm Potts, an AIDS expert at the University of California in Berkeley, who once worked with prostitutes on the front lines of the epidemic in Ghana.

Problems like malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria kill more children in Africa than AIDS. "We are programmed to react quickly to small children with AIDS in distress,'' Potts said. "Unfortunately, we don't have that same reaction when looking at statistics that tell us what we should be spending on.''

The world invests about US$8 billion to US$10 billion into AIDS every year, more than 100 times what it spends on clean water projects in developing countries. Yet more than 2 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation, and about 1 billion lack clean water.
Here's the sensible answer from Tom Coates, a professor of global AIDS research at the University of California in Los Angeles: "Why does the public health budget have to be so limited? Let's not drag AIDS care and prevention down to the level of every other disease, but let's bring everything else up to the level of AIDS."

For comparison, for that $10B the world spends on AIDS every year, Americans spend the same $10B on the Iraq war EVERY MONTH.

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Dressing "Casual Gay"


From LA sketch comedy duo Galadina.

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While The Iron Is Hot

Immediately on the heels of Apple's unveiling of their new movie download program comes word that Time Warner Cable is planning to test a new pricing model that charges broadband users based on the amount of data they download in a given month.
Under the experiment, TWC will offer customers four tiers of service starting with an introductory level that allows users to download 5 gigabytes of data per month, and steps up to 10, 20 and 40-gigabyte plans, a source said.

Connection speeds rise with the size of plan. Users who exceed their allotted data plan would be charged a still undetermined metered rate. A company rep said the average user will see no meaningful change in the speed of their connection or the amount of data they download per month. The heaviest downloaders are said to represent 5 percent of the company's user base, but can hog as much as half of the available bandwidth.
Time Warner will begin testing the new billing plan in Texas. Last year Comcast admitted to throttling the broadband signal of its users that were transferring large amounts of data.

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Caption This

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Broadway Friday

- AMFAR will honor Julian Schnabel, Carine Roitfeld (Editor in Chief, French Vogue) and Bobby Shriver (Chairman, PRODUCT (RED)) at its 10th Annual New York Gala on Thursday, January 31 at Cipriani.
Appearing: Marc Jacobs, Lou Reed, Natasha Richardson, amfAR Chairman Kenneth Cole, Cheyenne Jackson, Maggie Rizer, Miss Universe Riyo Mori, Ben Gazzara plus a special performance by Barry Manilow. The black-tie gala benefit honors those who have made outstanding efforts to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to raise dollars for AIDS research.

- Rent closes on June 1st after almost 12 years on Broadway. The show will have grossed $280M during its run and leaves as the seventh longest-running show in Broadway history. How many minutes is that?

-Try to remember: The Off Broadway revival of The Fantastiks closes on Feb.24th after almost 700 performances at the Snapple (ick) Theater.

- Inevitable: Shrek, The Musical opens on Broadway in November after its world premiere in Seattle in August. Casting to be announced. I could see Meat Loaf as the Ogre.

- Replacing Elle: A reality show about the next casting for the lead of Legally Blonde: The Musical will run on MTV.

- Will chain-mail panties be tossed onstage? Clay Aiken joins the cast of Spamalot today. Middle-aged Claymates are already lined up.

- Fascinating series: Jeffry Denman, Eddie Korbich, Marc Kudisch, and Emily Skinner will appear in The Broadway Musicals of 1947, the kickoff of the eighth season of Broadway by the Year, at 8pm on Monday, March 3 at The Town Hall. The evening will feature selections from Brigadoon, Finian's Rainbow, High Button Shoes, Allegro, and Street Scene, among other shows. The series will continue with The Broadway Musicals of 1954 (April 7), The Broadway Musicals of 1965 (May 12), and The Broadway Musicals of 1979 (June 16).

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On "De Facto" Gay Marriage

From an op-ed piece in the Annapolis Capital:
Here's how inevitable gay marriage is in Maryland, in one form or another. There was a debate on the issue last week in Annapolis, and the supporters didn't even bother speaking.

True, it wasn't actually a debate over a marriage or civil union bill; it was a General Assembly committee hearing about insurance regulations, not ordinarily one of the more scintillating shows in town.

But make no mistake, this was about gay marriage. By a 12-4 vote, a joint Senate-House committee approved inserting a definition of "domestic partner" into state insurance rules.

And give them credit: The self-appointed defenders of "family values" can see the writing on the wall. Heck, Del. Don Dwyer, R-Glen Burnie, showed up to complain, and he's not even on the committee.

Is this, as the moralists fear, an end-run around the legislature and the courts, which so far have declined to bring civil unions or gay marriage to Maryland? Are administrative rules like this a way to do piecemeal what lawmakers won't do in one fell swoop?

Absolutely, and it's going to work.

[snip]

Once there is de facto gay marriage, changing the law to reflect that reality (whether we call it marriage or temporarily use a euphemism like "civil union" to appease the religious right) won't seem like such a huge step.
We're already seeing this happen in New Jersey.

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Manhattan Cross Training

Second Avenue, 9am

A group of people are running from the subway to the bus stop across the street.

Homeless Man: Run FASTER! You're not making enough MONEY!


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Gays Fight Nicer?

In an interesting first-person story about the difference between gay and straight relationships, TIME writer John Cloud discusses the end of his 7-year relationship with his boyfriend. An interesting bit about the way gays fight:
Research on gay relationships is young. The first study to observe how gays and lesbians interact with their partners during conversations (monitoring facial expressions, vocal tones, emotional displays and physical reactions like changes in heart rate) wasn't published until 2003, even though such studies have long been a staple of hetero-couple research. John Gottman, a renowned couples therapist who was then at the University of Washington, and Robert Levenson, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, led a team that evaluated 40 same-sex couples and 40 straight married couples. The psychologists concluded that gays and lesbians are nicer than straight people during arguments with partners: they are significantly less belligerent, less domineering and less fearful. Gays and lesbians also use humor more often when arguing (and lesbians use even more humor than gays, which I hereby dub "the Ellen DeGeneres effect"). The authors concluded that "heterosexual relationships may have a great deal to learn from homosexual relationships."
Gays fight nicer? That's news to me.

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HomoQuotable - Boy George

"I open my mouth and bitchy things come out. I'm really trying to curb that. It doesn't make me look good. I was reading some things I'd said and I sounded horrible. I had a big row with Elton John and David Furnish about some queeny remark I'd made. But I regretted it and apologised to David. He was so sweet about it. It was Elton. I thought: 'Oh my God!' He thanked me for saying sorry to David. As a result, I made up my mind then that I didn't want to be seen as a bitch anymore. So I've stopped. End of...Now I confine my bitchy comments to my private life!" - Boy George, resolving to be sweeter.

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Quelling The MRSA Panic

The CDC has issued a statement in an attempt to quell the "dirty gays spreading MRSA superbug" panic being fanned by right-wing Christianist websites and news organizations.
The strains of MRSA described in the recent Annals of Internal Medicine have mostly been identified in certain groups of men who have sex with men (MSM), but have also been found in some persons who are not MSM. It is important to note that the groups of MSM in which these isolates have been described are not representative of all MSM, so conclusions can not be drawn about the prevalence of these strains among all MSM. The groups studied in this report may share other characteristics or behaviors that facilitate spread of MRSA, such as frequent skin-to-skin contact.

CDC’s extensive and continuing study of invasive MRSA in 9 US states indicates that these strains are rare. CDC continues to monitor resistance patterns and strain characteristics in MRSA isolates submitted to CDC for a variety of investigations. Bacteria are able to acquire resistance to antibiotics. It is concerning that these bacteria are becoming resistant to more antibiotics than the typical community associated-MRSA strains because this limits the available treatment options. Fortunately, there are still effective choices available to treat infections when antibiotics are required, including those antibiotics given by mouth. It remains important to do what we can to prevent transmission of these strains and of MRSA in general.

MRSA is typically transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, which occurs during a variety of activities, including sex. There is no evidence at this time to suggest that it MRSA is a sexually-transmitted infection in the classical sense.
The story linked above includes advice on how to prevent MRSA. Short answer: soap and water.

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Clinton Takes On ABC Reporter


The web is buzzing about Bill Clinton's exchange with an ABC reporter when he was asked about voting rules for Nevada's caucus. Most reports are describing Clinton's response as "heated" or "testy". Clinton does give a pointed answer, but he seems to be his usual unflappable self to me.

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Evening View - Broadway & 45th

Embiggens nicely.

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Giuliani II: Bloomberg Calls For DNA Testing For All Arrested In NYC

In his seventh annual State Of The City address today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed his plan to ask Albany for the power to gather DNA from anybody arrested in New York City, innocent or guilty, for any crime, including simple misdemeanors such as participating in civil disobedience.

Why this? Why NOW? We already live in the safest (by FAR) large city in the United States. Obviously, Bloomberg is casting an eye towards his upcoming presidential candidacy. The mayor is well-known for his wonky habit of relying on studies and surveys. Did some heartland focus group steer him to this fubar plan? Two years ago Bloomberg lobbied Albany for the right to collect DNA from convicted felons and those convicted of certain sex-related misdemeanors. That seemed justified to me. But not THIS. Get ready for the civil liberties groups to completely lose their shit, Mayor.

As I've said here many times, with a couple of notable exceptions, I've been very impressed with Bloomberg thus far. If not for the obvious fear of his Naderizing the 2008 election, I'd even consider supporting him for president. Unlike others, Bloomberg supports gay marriage. He's strongly pro-choice, and generally (but not always) says and does the sort of things that make progressives happy. His personal philanthropy is legendary and his billions immunize him (probably) to the backroom deals of scumbag lobbyists, although many are rightfully concerned about his allegiances to big business. That concern aside, the man knows how to run the business of the country's biggest city and that's an invaluable skill to bring to the White House in this darkening economy.

Until today, for me the biggest downside to Bloomberg has been his relative silence on the Iraq war, other than to call Bush arrogant on the issue. Still, I've sort of given Bloomberg on pass on the war until he is actually a candidate. But this Orwellian DNA bullshit is a total dealbreaker. Even though I don't see Gov. Spitzer supporting this crapola for one minute, Bloomberg needs to pull back from this immediately.

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More Filth

Wednesday, January 30th, I'll be appearing again at Rapture Books' Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Look At Queer Sex series. Also on the bill that night is Eric Leven and Sherry Vine, with more to be added later. I'll be reading an X-tra filthy new story and will post a reminder next week once the ad comes out.

Next week's Filth (Jan.23rd) features queer rapper Cazwell, Wayne Hoffman, and Mark Sam Rosenthal. Here's Cazwell's latest single with porn star Colton Ford, That's Me. Probably NSFW.

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Huckabeastiality

Mike Huckabee, talking to Belief.net :" Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic."

I ripped off the title of this post from AmericaBLOG, it was too good to pass up.


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Linky Love: John Hughes

I met John Hughes, author of Johnny Is A Man and the fab 80's music blog, Lost In the 80's, back in the late 90's when we starting chatting online about music after Johnny had been a winning contestant on the short-lived Rock-N-Roll Jeopardy. These days he's also writing for PopDose. Check out his stuff, I dig his latest piece on Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Frankie Say: Go Johnny!


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Patty Sheehan Gifts Orlando Gay Center

Some happy news from my hometown:

ORLANDO - When her lone opponent dropped out of the race, Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan was left sitting on a pile of campaign cash with no campaign to spend it on. The law allows candidates to distribute their unused contributions to charities of their choice. On Tuesday, Sheehan presented a check for $25,000, most of her funds, to the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Center of Central Florida. The center at 946 N. Mills Ave. is raising money for a building fund. The group provides support and social programs to more than 15,000 people a year. Sheehan, who is gay, had about $43,000 left when challenger Sam Odom ended his candidacy in October, citing fundraising problems.
Go Patty!


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Rolling like A Rapper


Dateline covered the lavish lifestyle of Pastor Benny Hinn, which includes a $10M oceanside mansion, personal jets, and numerous stays at opulent resorts where the daily room rates are in the thousands of dollars. But it's OK, cuz he totally uses the rest of his time exhorting his millions of viewers to send him money to feed the starving children of world. And to bring them to Jeebus.

(Via - Pam's House Blend.)

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Iowans Pray-Walk Against Gay Marriage

Several hundred Iowans gathered at their state capital yesterday in a "prayer walk" against gay marriage. The attendees are demanding that legislators launch an effort to amend the state constitution.
The issue of gay marriage gained attention last August when District Judge Robert Hanson ruled that Iowa's marriage law is unconstitutional. He ordered the Polk County recorder to permit same-sex couples to enter into civil marriages.

The decision has been appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, which is where several key Democratic lawmakers say the battle should conclude before lawmakers consider tinkering with the state's constitution.

Many of the advocates of the amendment argue that measures to squelch same-sex marriage should begin immediately.

Amendments to the Iowa Constitution need to be approved by simple majorities in both the House and Senate in two consecutive general assemblies and then be approved by a simple majority of voters in the next general election. That means if a resolution is approved this year and in the 2009 or 2010 session, it can be on the general election ballot in November 2010. If lawmakers wait a year to start the process, the earliest a resolution could reach the ballot is 2012.

"It's a matter of preserving a culture and making sure that children have a healthy home to grow up in and they both have a mother and father," said Dave Barnett, a coordinator for the Iowa Family Policy Center. "We want to make sure that children have the best home to grow in."
The head of the Iowa Family Council says, "At its core, this is a battle of good versus evil, truth versus lies."

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Colossal Bears

Yesterday NPR did a story about Colossal, a new apparel company that is targeting bears as their first niche market.
Bill Devine is a bear in Minneapolis. He says he sometimes has trouble finding clothes that flatter a belly he calls "rotund".

DEVINE: After a while you get to the point where you just don't want to go shopping. You literally go in going, "Ok, this will fit. This will fit. I don't care."

Analysts say retailers have been banking for too long on that "I don't care" attitude. Some clothing labels have deliberately strayed from producing bigger sizes -- preferring only to have skinny people wear their clothes.

DEVINE: It's frustrating. It's frustrating to be kind of overlooked as a market, because in regards to I guess our disposable income, I would think that we would have just as much of it.

And they do. Bears have an average household income of $90,000 a year, and Devine says they're willing to pay more for quality. Marshall Cohen, a marketing analyst with the NPD group, says as Americans expand retailers ought to start thinking big. He says the bears are a good place to start.

MARSHALL COHEN: The most vocal consumer is the gay community within the male apparel industry. In other words, bears talk, and Colossal hopes they keep on talking.
Colossal is launching the line in an upcoming issue of A Bear's Life magazine.

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George Michael To Pen Autobiography

I can't remember the last time I read a celebrity autobiography, but I gotta say that I'll probably read George Michael's. HarperCollins just announced they've secured the rights to his story in "one of the biggest publishing deals in UK history." Michael promises the book will be very frank and will cover the gamut of his life - from the days of Wham! to losing his lover to AIDS to his recent run-ins with the law over public sex and drug use.

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Open Thread Thursday

What are you afraid of?

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Mike Jones' Book Found In Car Of Colorado Church Shooter

Colorado Springs police have reported that they recovered a copy of Mike Jones' autobiography from the vehicle of Colorado church shooter Matthew Murray. In December, Murray killed himself with a shot to the head after killing two people at the Youth With A Mission ministry in Arvada, Colorado, then killing two congregants at Denver's New Life Church, once home to disgraced evangelical minister Ted Haggard.

Jones' book, I Had To Say Something, recounts his experience working as a prostitute and crystal meth procurer for Haggard. Jones brought about Haggard's downfall when he revealed their relationship to a Colorado radio station in the fall of 2006. Prior to the shootings, Matthew Murray had expressed anger that New Life had forgiven Ted Haggard for his homosexuality, but had not forgiven him.

In the trunk of Murray's car, which was found in the New Life parking lot, was an AK-47 assault rifle, 28 gun magazines, and over 2000 bullets. Police also found a copy of Serial Murderers and Their Victims, by Eric W. Hicke, and a letter addressed "To God". The contents of the letter were not disclosed.

In 2002, Murray was dismissed from the Youth With A Mission group for what they described as "health reasons." Youth With A Mission has been described as "associated with the ex-gay organization Exodus International, has been criticized by some as a 'cult' and attacked for 'brainwashing' members and promoting anti-gay messages."

Ted Haggard, the New Life Church, and Youth With A Mission are all morally complicit in the murders committed by Matthew Murray. When you ostracize gay youth, when you tell them they are worthless, perverted, diseased sinners bound for eternal damnation, you have to bear some of the responsibility for the creature you have created. If I were the parents of those killed, I'd be suing every fucking one of them.


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Talking Out Of Four Sides Of His Mouths

December 30th, on Meet The Press: "I've never tried to come out with some way of imposing a doctrinaire Christian perspective in a way that is really against the Constitution. I’ve never done that."

January 14th, speaking to evangelical supporters in Michigan: "What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so that it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so that it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

In the past, such outrageous lying and slimeballery might escape attention. May the FSM touch YouTube with His noodly appendage!

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Elected: First Openly Lesbian Black
Mayor In American History

Denise Simmons became the first openly lesbian black woman to be mayor of an American city yesterday after her election by the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Simmons was backed by the Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBT candidates nationwide. The outgoing mayor of Cambridge is an openly gay black man.

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Feds Drafting Warrantless
Email Snooping Policy

From the New Yorker, via Raw Story:
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker's Web site.

McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

Laptops. Phone calls. Emails. Google searches. What's left?

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PlanetOut Stock Tumbles On Sale News

After yesterday's news that PlanetOut is planning to sell itself, its stock tumbled another 23%. The company has lost 87% of its value since January 2007. In an effort to retain their NASDAQ listing, last year the company performed a 1-10 reverse stock split. Companies must maintain a stock value of over $1 to maintain their listing on the exchange. PlanetOut is trading at the moment at $4.56.

PlanetOut owns Gay.com and the magazines Advocate and Out. The ownership of the Gay.com domain name is considered by some to be the company's most valuable asset.

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Texas Prof On Hunger Strike For Same-Sex Domestic Partners Benefits

A University of Texas lecturer is in the third day of a hunger strike to protest the school's lack of same-sex domestic partners benefits. Uri Horesh, 37, is subsisting on water and vitamins until his demands are met.
"The fact that the university is conducting itself in this manner makes me feel like I'm a persona non grata here, a person whose rights are less important than others," said Uri Horesh, a lecturer of Arabic in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies.

Horesh, 37, began his campaign for the university to grant benefits, such as health insurance, to employees' same-sex partners in November, when he filed a complaint with the university's Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. The university has pursued neither his original complaint nor an appeal, citing state law, which prohibits state institutions from recognizing same-sex unions, Horesh said.
Horesh: "I'm not going to start eating until this matter is resolved or I'm taken to the hospital. Whatever happens first." I found Horesh's Friendster page if you'd like to send him a message of support.

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HIV Drugs Work To Prevent Infection In Mice

Two commonly prescribed HIV drugs have been shown to prevent mice from contracting the virus. One of the drugs, tenofovir (sold as Viread), is reportedly already being sold in gay dance clubs as an HIV preventive. Tenofovir is most commonly prescribed in combination form with Emtriva as the single pill Truvada.
After 25 years of researchers around the globe being confounded by HIV, scientists in Dallas have shown that the virus's transmission can be stopped with medications.

The scientific first, though performed only in lab mice, bodes well for a future when people at high risk for HIV infection would have a convenient way to protect themselves from the virus.

Even though the experiment – which involves two commonly prescribed drugs for AIDS – could represent a breakthrough in AIDS prevention, experts who have long advocated safe-sex practices are worried that people will seek these drugs without waiting for scientific proof from human studies.

"This has the potential to undermine years of safe-sex reinforcement and risk reduction," said Bret Camp, associate executive director for the Resource Center of Dallas, which operates several AIDS programs.

One of the drugs, tenofovir, is reportedly being sold at gay dance clubs on both coasts as a protection against HIV. Mr. Camp said he didn't know if the drug is also being used that way in Dallas, but he said it was likely.

"I'm sure it's happening everywhere, maybe to a lesser extent here than in other places," he said. But as word of this and other similar studies gets out, "there's a huge potential for abuse."

J. Victor Garcia, the UT Southwestern Medical Center microbiologist who led the study, said he does not want the study to be misinterpreted.

"This is a mouse experiment," he said. "It cannot, under any circumstances, be extrapolated to humans directly."
Underground rumors have long abounded that a pre-sex dosing with an HIV med can prevent infection, but the high cost of the medications has prevented such gambling from becoming widespread. A monthly supply of Truvada costs about $867. However, I've also heard stories of negative men poaching the unused supplies of friends.

Even if this mice study should prove similarly effective in human, it must be remembered that HAART is chemotherapy. Remember the story about the long-term effects of HIV meds? Popping a Truvada before sex, while it very well may eventually prove to be the most effective way to prevent HIV infection, seems an awfully harsh way to go about it.

Still, condoms fail, people fuck up, shit happens. Ultimately, this story IS good news, even if it rightfully worries the hell out of HIV activists.


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King Of The Road

More music industry woes. The head of the venture capital firm that bought EMI last year is planning to cut hundreds of artists from from the label. An interesting tidbit from the linked article:
About 85% of what EMI does release never makes a profit, in part because of the cash spent signing bands and partly due to overestimating demand. For instance, the company is understood to have more than a million unsold copies of Robbie Williams's Rudebox album, which it will send to China to be crushed up and used in road surfacing and street lighting.
I remember unsold vinyl being melted down for reuse, but I don't think I've heard of this use for unsold CDs. They should at least name the road after Robbie.

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ACLU Backs Larry Craig

The ACLU has filed a friend of the the court brief in support of Sen. Larry Craig's bid to overturn his disorderly conduct conviction, arguing that according that people who have sex in public restrooms have an expectation of privacy.

From the brief: "The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to engage in anything other than sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom."

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HomoQuotable - Joe Solmonese

"We've come to expect hysteria and gross distortions from an organization like this and normally their bigoted rants don't even warrant a response. But the statement today about MRSA is beyond the pale. In typical fashion, they disregard the facts and instead chose to demagogue the issue in order to fear-monger. Serious medical issues deserve serious consideration, not wildly off-the-mark press releases from anti-gay groups trying to capture media attention. We saw this kind of hysteria in the early 1980's around HIV/AIDS, I'll be damned if we will sit idly by in 2008 and let them perpetrate that type of anti-gay hysteria without calling them out on it." - HRC head Joe Solmonese, responding to the below statement from Concerned Women Of America spokeshater Matt Barber.

Matt Barber:
"The human body is quite callous in how it handles mistreatment and the perversion of its natural functions. When two men mimic the act of heterosexual intercourse with one another, they create an environment, a biological counterfeit, wherein disease can thrive. Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences.

"In recent years our culture has adopted a laissez faire attitude toward sexual deviancy. Television shows like Will and Grace glorify the homosexual lifestyle while our children are taught in schools that homosexuality is a perfectly healthy, alternative sexual 'orientation.' 'Stay out of our bedrooms!' we're often commanded by militant 'gay' activists.

"Well, now the dangerous and possibly deadly consequence of what occurs in those bedrooms is spilling over into the general population. It's not only frightening, it's infuriating.

"Citizens, especially parents, need to stand up and say, 'No More! We will no longer sit idly by while politically correct cultural elites endanger our children and larger communities through propagandist promotion of this demonstrably deadly lifestyle'. Why does it take a potentially deadly staph epidemic for people to acknowledge reality? Will that even do it? Enough is enough!"

RELATED: Last week MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named CCW president Wendy Wright the "Worst Person In The World". Olbermann's "Worst Person" is a recurring feature on his show.

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And Nobody Got Punched

Better Burger, Chelsea, 8pm

Angertwink 1: Hurry up. The Biggest Loser is on.

Angertwink 2: Please. If I want to see sad fat people I'll go to the Dugout.


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Huckabee: We Need To Amend The U.S. Constitution To Reflect God's Standards


I'm rethinking my opinion on Mike Huckabee. Because with crackpot shit like this, maybe he IS the guy we want running against the Dem nominee. Too bad he only got 16% to Romney's 39% in Michigan yesterday.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Lisa del Giocondo

Mystery solved.
Experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for one of the most famous portraits in the world.

“All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been eliminated by a discovery by Dr. Armin Schlechter,” a manuscript expert, the library said in a statement on Monday.

Mrs. Giocondo, whose maiden name was Gherardini, was married to a wealthy silk merchant in Florence and was first linked to the painting in 1550, about 50 years after it was finished. But doubts persisted and theories multiplied, including one about Mona Lisa being a man and another that she was Da Vinci’s version of the ideal female, not a real person.
Occam's Razor, indeed.

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The "J" Is For "Juiced"

Gotta say I'm a bit surprised to read that Mary J. Blige is named in this hip-hop steroids mess. And no mention of LL Cool J and his tree-trunk sized arms?
R&B music star Mary J. Blige, rap musicians 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and author and producer Tyler Perry may have received or used steroids, according to unidentified law enforcement officials involved in an Albany-based steroid investigation, the Times Union newspaper reported.
Obviously, allegations of steroid use will only add to the hype of any rapper, so no harm will come to their careers. As for that self-hating closet case Tyler Perry, I can only hope for the worst.

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Hitler Hates Blu-Ray

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Law & Order: Special Jeebus Unit

Christian activists are demanding an apology from NBC for portraying Christians as "violent Bible thumpers."
A recent “Law & Order” show portraying a leader in a college Christian ministry as anti-homosexual and Christians as "Bible thumpers" is drawing ire from a watchdog group for anti-Christian bigotry.

In the opening of the NBC show's episode last week, a leader in a college Christian ministry, who opposed homosexuality, was portrayed as being guilty of making death threats against a professor studying the "gay gene." The lead detective also refers to Christians as "Bible thumpers."

There is a relentless attempt by the media to stereotype Christians as prone to violence, said Dr. Gary Cass, chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, as he criticized the producers as insensitive.

"There's a tendency on the side of the media to make what I call a 'moral equivalency': If you are a fundamentalist Muslim, you are violent. If you are a fundamentalist Christian, you are violent," he told The Christian Post.

Contrary to the media's portrayal, Christians are often the victims of violence and not the perpetrators, said Cass. He noted that there are rare reports from around the world of Christians murdering a Muslim or a Hindu but frequent news on Hindus murdering Christians.

He added that it is negative portrayals of Christians like that featured in “Law & Order” which are used to "legitimate violence against Christians." The Christian leader was also stereotyped as being anti-homosexual, which reflects a common perception among young adults, according to a recent study.
The best quote from the story: "Every once in a while, some nutjob Christians will do something stupid," acknowledged the CADC head.

Every once in a while, yeah.

(Via - Queerty.)

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MacWhirled

I haven't been paying attention. What's this year's "one more thing"? The Apple Store is currently down pending the announcement.

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Subprime Losses Wrack Citigroup

The deepening banking crisis hits Manhattan hard with this news from Citigroup.
Citigroup plans to announce a writedown of as much as $24 billion and layoffs that could total as much as 24,000 due to subprime and credit-related losses, CNBC has learned. Citigroup plans to announce a $24 billion writedown and layoffs that could total as much as 24,000.
Slightly on the upside, apartment rents are dropping downtown as the financial meltdown continues.

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FL Gay Marriage Ban May Not Make Ballot

Whoa, not so fast there, haters. Organizers of the ballot measure to ban gay marriage in Florida claimed in November that they'd succeeded in raising the necessary signatures to force the issue to a statewide vote. Turns out, maybe they haven't.
A proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Florida may not make it to voters this year, after organizers -- who proclaimed a month ago they had gotten it on the November ballot -- found out Monday they haven't collected enough signatures after all.

A counting glitch -- which has the state pointing fingers at Miami-Dade County -- has resulted in Florida4Marriage.org falling 22,000 voter signatures short of the 611,000 needed to place the amendment on the ballot. The group has a tight deadline -- Feb. 1 -- to get the signatures to state election officials.

A month ago, backers of the amendment declared they had met their goal and began attacking groups that had formed to fight the amendment. On Monday, the leader of the effort said he had little time to figure out what happened, but said he would push volunteers to start gathering petitions again.

''There's a real temptation in pointing fingers, but we're interested in getting the job done,'' said John Stemberger, an Orlando attorney and chairman of Florida4Marriage.org. ``We will immediately jump into action. I'm confident if every petition is counted that is submitted prior to Feb. 1 then we should have no problem.''

It looks like they "accidentally" double-counted the 27,000 signatures from Miami-Dade County. Accidentally.

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PlanetOut On The Ropes Again

PlanetOut, parent company of Out, Advocate, Gay.com, is looking for a financial savior again.

Struggling gay and lesbian media and entertainment company PlanetOut Inc.LGBT] late Monday said it has retained Allen & Company LLC to assist it in evaluating strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company.

Read more »

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Staph Superbug Cases Spiking In Gay Men

Doctors and hospitals are seeing a big surge in staph superbug infections in gay men around the country.
San Francisco General Hospital researchers have been chasing the rogue strain of drug-resistant staph called USA300 since they first isolated it from a patient specimen seven years ago.

With every turn, the aggressive and persistent bug keeps getting worse. Now, a new variant of that strain, resistant to six major kinds of antibiotics, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

City doctors first spotted the original USA300 during tests for patients treated at a walk-in clinic for skin infections in 2001. Since then, they have watched it morph from laboratory curiosity into the dominant form of staph infection in much of the United States.

"It stormed into town and just took over, displacing everything else," said Dr. Chip Chambers, infectious disease chief for the renowned hospital.

At first, USA300 hit the down-and-out: injection-drug users, jail inmates, homeless men and women. Today it is also infecting suburban moms, executives, doctors, athletes and children. It has turned up in tattoo parlors and newborn nurseries. People with HIV infection seem especially prone to it, but it also strikes patients, gay and straight, who have no previous health problems.

Staph infections are usually treatable but can be lethal. USA300 is as dangerous as they come - it can attack organs throughout the body, forcing doctors to amputate fingers, toes and limbs. Its most disturbing trait, however, is just how easily it gets around.

[snip]

USA300 is one of a dozen distinct varieties of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, now circulating. The first MRSA strain, resistant to the penicillin substitute methicillin, was discovered in 1961. It continues to evolve. More than 200 families of the strain have come and gone since. USA300 is shaping up as the worst of the lot.

The various MRSA families have been gaining strength as a public health menace for years.

MRSA infections used to be confined to hospitalized patients. But in the late 1990s, people began contracting them in community settings - in gyms, jails, schools and even at home. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated last fall that drug-resistant staph was killing 19,000 Americans a year - more than are dying of AIDS.

From the Free Republic comments on this story:

-"I thought AIDS was bad enough. I guess they will get us all killed through their “choice” of lifestyle and spread their misery to one and all. Misery loves company."
-"Quarantine. Learn the lesson of AIDS. They can have sex with each other in quarantine until they die from the bacterial infection."
-"In Iran these sickos would’ve been executed and this would have a quick end put to it."


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Swag Tuesday

Today's Swag Tuesday giftie is Code Of Conduct, the new novel from Rich Merritt, whom you may recall from his critically lauded 2005 memoir, Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star.
Memoirist Merritt (Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star) delivers thought-provoking fiction on the problem of being gay in the military. As Clinton begins putting the "don't ask, don't tell" policy into place in the early 1990s, closeted and disturbed Naval Investigative Service Agent Jay Gared goes on a mission to catch violators of Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice--i.e., the rule that states that sodomy is a criminal act. Chief Petty Officer Edie L. Johnson, who has been switching blood vials for six years to get around the service's mandatory HIV test, gets into Jay's sights. When Eddie catches Jay snooping in his home, Jay shoots Eddie and fakes Eddie's suicide. Shocked friends and family know better, for a group of close-knit gay and lesbian military personnel, the "suicide" is a call to arms. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Donald A. Hawkins, a gay rights advocate, vows to learn the truth. Merritt raises provocative questions and delivers a graphic crime tale.
Here's a beefcake laden trailer for the book:

Enter to win Code Of Conduct by commenting on this post. Only comment once and please remember to leave your email address. Publicists: If you'd like to participate in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

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Monday, January 14, 2008

Gays Face Battles With 2008 Congress

Congress returns from their holiday break over the next week with three major pieces of pro-gay legislation still to be resolved: the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, and the bill that ripped apart LGBT and progressive groups - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

With so many issues facing this session of Congress (the election, the war with Iraq, the banking crisis, oil prices, etc), it will be hard for LGBT activists to get the full attention of the Democratic majority in both chambers.

What's ahead (links go to previous posts here on JMG) :
Sigh. It's going to be a long year. The upside is that all of the above legislation would signed into law by a Democratic president, should we get one.

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7th Annual No Pants Subway Ride

Improv Everywhere, who last brought us the shirtless men invasion of the Abercromie & Fitch flagship store on Fifth Avenue, yesterday staged their 7th Annual No Pants Subway Ride, which had almost 1000 Gothamites riding the rails in their boxers and tighty-whities. Numerous cities around the world joined in with No Pants rides of their own.

That's my pal (and JMG readers favorite) Eric Leven on the left, waiting for the 6 train in the Union Square station. Participants in the ride were instructed to otherwise dress normally for winter weather (hats, coats, etc) and to keep a totally straight face while riding pants-less. Here's a Flickr set from the event.

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People In Order


Brits from ages 1-100 beat a drum and announce their age. Strangely compelling.

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Antartica Shrinking Faster

More bad news on the global warming front.
Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.

While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of outh America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years -- as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world.
Of course, the "global warming is a hoax" crowd will find a way to dispute this latest news.

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Chairs

From the comments on a Guardian article about Barack Obama's speaking style, whom the author says can even make a chair sound interesting.

Biden: I have worked with chairs all over the world, and most members of Congress agree with my plan for how to make chairs.
Bloomberg: I've put together a committee to survey voters on whether they want me to make their chairs.
Clinton: I have the most experience in making chairs.
Edwards: I will fight the chairmakers!
Giuliani: I can best protect you from the danger of chairs, just as I did in NYC.
Huckabee: Chairs did not evolve, but were created.
Kucinich: We should have a one-payer system for chairs.
McCain: My friends, I believe we can sit together in our chairs and work out bipartisan solutions without torture.
Obama: Together we can create chairs in a new way.
Paul: Why is the government involved in making chairs?
Romney: Venture capitalism has made American chairs the greatest in the world.
Tancredo: We must build a fence to keep out foreign illegal chairs.
Thompson: I like a comfortable, yet presidential looking chair.

(Via - Andrew Sullivan.)

Hillary Defends MLK Remarks


Hillary Clinton went on Meet The Press yesterday to defend her comments on the Civil Rights Act, which is being widely interpreted as "I am LBJ, Obama is MLK", despite the fact that Clinton clearly didn't quite say or mean that. However, that meme is now being widely repeated in newspapers and online, causing quite a bit of added ill will towards Clinton.

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Bearded Beer Boys

With all that NYC has to offer, the centerpiece of my social life remains my Sunday afternoons at the Dugout. It's like a weekly house party with a hundred of your best friends. Corny, but true. Clockwise from top left: Bob, Dudley, Damian, Dane, Superdaddy, Chris, Dustin, Scott, Dr. Jeff, Jerry, Randy.

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Golden Globezzzz

Here are last night's Golden Globes winners. Anybody care? Yeah, me neither.

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Top 25 Hook-Up Sites

This weekend while I was writing The Revenge Of Plan B, I couldn't remember or find the name of the hook-up site that everybody in SF was using in 1999, so eventually I just gave up and plugged "Manhunt" into the story. Somehow during my hunt for the site's name, I came across a place called Online Personals Watch, which tracks the business of personals/dating/hook-up sites. According to OPW, here's what Hitwise reports are the top 25 such sites, ranked by visits.

1 Singlesnet
2 PlentyofFish
3 eHarmony
4 Yahoo Personals
5 TRUE
6 Match
7 Adam4Adam
8 Manhunt.net
9 Blackpeoplemeet
10 Mate1
11 Gay.com
12 DateHookUp
13 BlackSingles
14 Onlinebootycall
15 Cupid.com
16 Hot or Not
17 MSN Dating (Match)
18 OutPersonals
19 SingleParentMeet
20 JustSayHi
21 American Singles
22 Love Access
23 BBPeopleMeet
24 Webdate
25 OK Cupid

I've never heard of most of these sites, but it's interesting to see that Adam4Adam, a site I first heard mention of a few weeks ago, is ranked higher than Manhunt.

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Oochee Mama


Saw this commercial during the NFL playoffs last night. Seems a little queer, eh?

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Monday Wake-Up: Pigbag

Let's kick-start the week with Pigbag's 1981 classic, Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag. This track still gets me going.

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SB 777 Repeal Bid Fails

Wingnuts in California have failed to deliver the necessary petition signatures to challenge SB 777, the public schools anti-bullying law signed into effect by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year. "Save Our Children" needed to turn in 434,000 signatures by last Friday, but claims they could only find 350,000 people willing to sign their names to hate.

Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors: "Opponents of SB 777 have been spreading misinformation and outright lies for months, and whether they actually collected 350,000 signatures, we will never know. What is clear is that they failed. Despite their vicious attack, Californians stood with us and said 'no' to turning back the clock on civil rights and protecting all youth from discrimination in our schools."

By the way, if "Save Our Children" sounds familiar, that's because it's the same name Anita Bryant used in her successful 1977 campaign to overturn Miami's gay rights ordinance.


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