A multitude of studies indicating the genetic basis of homosexuality have indicated the existence of gay and lesbian animals in practically every species of the animal kingdom. Now, as a reward for being the most outstanding parents in the Polarland Zoo in northeast China, two gay male penguins have entered matrimony! The pair were married Tuesday in a special Chinese ceremony. One wore a tie and the other was dressed in a red blouse a traditional Chinese bridal color as they stepped into their icy wedding room to the music of the Wedding March. “They have been a good couple and deserved their reward,” said their keeper. The penguins tried diligently to be fathers and kept stealing eggs from their female cohorts. Finally, veterinarians allowed the two to care for eggs rejected by their mothers. Upon hatching, the fathers immediately provided love and care for their children and became the best parents within the zoo. Congratulations to the happy couple. Science has shown strong evidence homosexuality is a trait largely inherited from genetics. Perhaps one day, our society will be educated enough to understand that and give gay and lesbian people the same rights as everyone else.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Welcome Change!
It was definitely a historic day today as the world said good-bye to the worst President in the history of the United States and welcomed-in a new era of hope. President Barack Obama was sworn-in today as the 44th President of the United States of America in-front of record crowds in the millions! Also a first for the country, when outgoing President Bush was announced, the crowd voiced their disproval with boos, hisses, and an overall negative reaction. Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney, attending the ceremony via wheelchair, was met with the same reaction from the crowd of millions.
Obama inherits a country that is a complete mess thanks to failed policy and failed leadership from the Republican Party and George Bush. Thankfully, the Republicans have been reduced to a very small minority and should have a difficult time trying to impede the progress of the majority Democratic House and Senate and President Obama. The White House Web Site was also immediately changed to indicate strong support from President Obama for the rights of GLBT Americans.
You can review the official policy positions here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/. This comes after a Bush Presidency where among a multitude of other failures, a federal amendment to outlaw marriage rights for gay men and women was consistently thrusted down the throats of the American people. Thankfully, not only is Bush gone–but so are ALL of the Republicans who sponsored that disgusting and hateful piece of legislation, including the corrupt and moronic Republican Congressman Tom Feeney from my own district here in Oviedo! He has been replaced with Democrat Suzanne Kosmas!
Welcome President Barack Obama. May God bless his Presidency and the United States of America as he works dilligently to repair the damage of the last 8 years.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Lady Gaga Coming to Orlando!
Lady Gaga’s The Fame World Ball is coming to Orlando’s House of Blues on Monday April 6th, 2009!!! The show starts @ 7:00pm and the tickets are dirt cheap at only $18.25 each (probably around $24 after taxes and service fees). I will buy a handful of tix when they go on-sale THIS SATURDAY but if you want to go with us to the show, let me know ASAP and I will ensure I purchase you a ticket for the concert! Lady Gaga’s first release “Just Dance” from her debut album The Fame shot to number one on the Billboard charts and spent several weeks at the top spot. The Fame is also my pick for Best Album of 2008 and Lady Gaga opened for the New Kids on the Block back when I saw them in November. She is an amazing performer and singer. Don’t miss The Fame World Ball! Let me know if you want a ticket! This is great news for all those who are fans of the latest pop sensation!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Coaching Hires and Shifts Hope to Boost Knights’ Offense
After ranking dead-last in all of NCAA IA football in total offense for 2008, the UCF Knights are hopefully getting an offensive infusion designed to put points on the board and “W’s” in the win column. Head Coach George O’Leary has hired Charlie Taaffe, a former Maryland assistant coach with extensive Canadian Football League experience, to take over as the Knights’ offensive coordinator. O’Leary also demoted offensive coordinator Tim Salem to tight ends coach and special teams coordinator, moved George Godsey from quarterbacks coach to running backs coach and shifted Brent Key from tight ends coach and special teams coordinator to offensive line coach.
Taaffe, 58, was a two-time coach of the year in the Canadian Football League (1999 and 2000) while leading the Montreal Alouettes. He was 5-23 as the head coach of the CFL’s Hamilton TigerCats until he was fired in September. Taaffe previously had left the CFL to be the offensive coordinator at Maryland (2001-05), helping the Terrapins set school records twice for most points in a season. Taaffe has run both the spread and triple-option offenses. Before the CFL, Taaffe was the head coach at the Citadel. He posted a 55-47-1 record at the school, winning the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year award after an 11-2 season in 1992. (Note: Portions of this article are courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel).
Friday, January 2, 2009
Tucking Their Tails Between Their Legs
Politico is reporting the few remaining Republicans in federal office are planning to be MIA when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn-in on January 20th: Out of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and mostly out of favor on K Street, many emasculated elephants in the GOP herd will begin the Age of Obama with what amounts to an extended holiday vacation. Instead of fighting the quadrennial cold and what are expected to be record-setting crowds, they’re heading out to greener pastures, with better temperatures, less hassle and more agreeable company.
What better way to mark the Obama Inauguration (and his millions of adoring fans that will be in D.C.) than to get out of town to fabulous Las Vegas! Charlie Spies, a Republican lawyer and former CFO to Mitt Romneys campaign wrote in a blast e-mail to GOP friends. We hope you can join us for dinner and a fun evening on Monday, Jan. 19, to celebrate the last few hours of our Republican president in the White House.
Since that Republican president has been the worst in our nation’s history, I suppose those Republicans celebrating on January 19th will be quite a small minority compared to the vast majority of Americans who are welcoming in a new era of hope for a president who has the amazing task of fixing Bush’s mess for the next 4-8 years on January 2oth (see “Don’t Let the Door Hit You Post” below). Happy New Year and good riddance George Bush!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Abstinence Only Programs Cause Adverse Effects
A study released today appearing in the January issue of the research journal Pediatrics adds yet more evidence-based data refuting the use of abstinence-only programs to educate youth about sexual activities. The study found teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not. Perhaps even more alarming, teens who make “virginity pledges” are also significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do have sex. Many studies have shown the ineffectiveness of these programs while none have supported their efficacy; they are also based completely on a heterosexual model of sexuality.
While gay males remain at highest risk of transmitting and contracting HIV, abstinence-only programs ignore homosexuality and instead base sexual relationships as the ultimate reward of marriage attainment. Since marriage is not possible for most gay couples (and most states now have discriminatory bans in place), homosexual activity is invalidated. This also highlights the moronic conservative ideology of only providing taxpayer funds to abstinence programs.
This does nothing but lead to more social ills and problems, including increasing already high rates of teen pregnancy, sexually-transmitted infections, and HIV. Instead, sexual education programs should be comprehensive and include education about condom use, birth control, and homosexual activities. Plenty of research does support these programs as effective. Hopefully the intelligent and progressive incoming administration will reverse the federal regulations which mandate sole funding of abstinence programs put into place by the Bush Administration. It’s time for intelligence and reality to take the place of religious-fueled idiocy.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Phantom of the Opera Sequel Gets Greenlight
According to Playbill, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to the original Phantom of the Opera currently entitled Phantom: Love Never Dies is moving forward and will simultaneously open in three different territories at the end of 2009. Webber is approaching his sequel to his original masterpiece with amazing care. The first act was workshopped in the summer of 2008 at Lloyd Webber’s private Sydmonton Festival at his Berkshire country home. We’ve already done the first act,” Lloyd Webber explained, “and rather like The Woman in White, where the first act worked wonderfully, what we cannot do is presume that the second act is going to as well.”
Working with director Jack O’Brien, who staged the Sydmonton workshop, and lyricist Glenn Slater, he is now writing the rest of the show, and when they have completed the work, “we are going to do a workshop of the second act, then take a month off and do it again with both halves this time and then we’ll see.” Although Webber says he has a good idea who the Phantoms will be, rumors are circulating that Hugh Jackman and Gerard Butler (who played the Phantom in the 2005 film version of the musical) might get the starring role in 2 of the productions.
Research Links Gay Suicide to Parents’ Reaction
While plenty of epidemiologic data indicate gay youth have the highest suicide risk of any subset of the population, a new research study highlights the significant role parental reaction to their child’s sexual orientation has in encouraging suicide: “…the study showed that teens who experienced negative feedback were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use. One of the most startling findings was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents in terms of negative feedback, [social worker Caitlin] Ryan said.”
In the two-part study, Ryan and her colleagues first interviewed 53 families with gay teenagers to identify 106 specific behaviors that could be considered ‘accepting’ or ‘rejecting.’ For example, blaming a youth for being bullied at school, shielding him from other relatives or belittling her appearance for not conforming to social expectations fell into the rejecting category. Next, they surveyed 224 white and Latino gay people between ages 21 and 25 to see which of the behaviors they had experienced growing up. The responses then were matched against the participants’ recent histories of severe depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and unsafe sexual behavior. While the results might seem intuitive, Ryan said the study, funded by the California Endowment, was the first to establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Don’t Let the Door Hit You
A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll just released shows seventy-five percent of those questioned said they’re glad George Bush is going; 23 percent indicated they’ll miss him. A new national poll suggests that three out of four Americans feel President Bush’s departure from office is coming not a moment too soon. “Earlier this year, Bush scored some of the lowest presidential approval ratings we’ve seen in half a century, so it’s understandable that the public is eager for a new president to step in,” said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. At just 23 days, the end is quite near for Bush, who many political scientists have indicated will be forever remembered as the worst president in the history of the United States. Bush’s approval ratings have sunk lower than any president before him, including Carter (28%), Nixon (24%), and Truman (22%). Bush’s lowest ratings (19%) were marked twice during his presidency–the dates of 2/16/08-2/19/08 and 9/16/08-9/19/08. Finally, in a light of hope, President-elect Barack Obama currently has an 82% approval rating for his handling of his transition into office. President Obama is inheriting a government in complete devastation due to the horrific “leadership” of the last 8 years. Let’s hope our new President is able to mend the damage Bush has caused and begin to make the United States the prosperous nation she once was.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Madonna Annihilates Tour Profit Records!
With the completion of Madonna’s final show in Sao Paulo Brazil last evening–one of eleven record-breaking performances in South America– the Material Girl’s Sticky & Sweet Tour reigns supreme by becoming the number one largest tour in history by a solo artist, it was confirmed today by Live Nation, the tour’s international producer. Her 58 shows in Europe, the US, Canada, Mexico, and South America played for a staggering 2,350,282 (million) fans and sold over (USD) $280,000,000 in tickets. Madonna’s multi Grammy-nominated Hard Candy debuted at number one earlier this year in over 37 countries! If you missed the Sticky & Sweet Tour, I personally think you missed the best of the last 4 concerts Madonna has performed. With a healthy mix of Madonna’s timeless classics and her hits of today, this tour truly rocked! Let’s hope a DVD is on the way! Congratulations Madonna! At 50 years of age, the Material Girl still proves she is by far the most beloved performer of all-time! (Note: Portions of this article come from Madonna’s official press release).