Let The TSA Feeling Up Your T&A

So airport security has implemented new protocols for travelers just in time for its holiday seasons. For the selected few, they will be put through a full body scan. Apparently they have finally developed x-ray vision that those kids magazine had long promised and now they can truly see through your clothes. Since no one really want to be humiliated and be seen naked and no one know whether the technology used would cause harm to the human body, you can choose to be humiliated in another way which a TSA agent will come and do an extensive pat down which includes a groin check.

That's our freedom here, one idiot put a bomb in his shoes and everyone have to take off their shoes when they are traveling by plane; one stupid asshole make an underwear bomb and now everyone is at risk to go through more and more invasive procedures. The whole thing is annoyingly stupid. Terrorists wanted Americans to be paranoid and now we are, it is almost like they aimed to take our freedom from us and they have succeeded.

Out of all that, this guy have coined the next "Don't tase me, bro!":



"If you touch my junk, I will have you arrested!". You can either be filmed naked or get groped, not much of a choice there and if you refuse to do both, you won't be allowed to travel and you'll be sued for $10,000. How can the US of A who pride ourselves for being the Land of the Free forces its citizens to go through that?



Apparently it has became an international joke.





There's got to be a smarter way to work this, no? What if the next terrorist put a bomb up his butt, does it mean that we'll all be selected for a douche and a cavity search? Even being selected 50% of my travels, I've never minded racial profiling much. It is definitely irritating but never this invasive. You can already find hundreds of videos on Youtube about old ladies, little kids and cancer survivors being physically molested, no doubt this bad feeling will be heightened during the holidays and then the right will put this on the Obama tab.

The new measures make me want to travel less or at least use other means of travel if I can. Airline companies should fight this, travelers have rights too and not being groped should be one. At least not until a shoe bomb or an underwear bomb made it to the plane and killed someone. Sorry someone have to die to justified the humiliation and inconvenience of millions others; If they have caught the bombs before, it means that the prior measures work and there's no need for additional invasive security procedures.

That being said, how does one go about getting a job to be a groper?

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What The Kids Are Wearing

During "Ally Week", three students at St. Charles North High School wore "Straight Pride" t-shirts with a little excerpt on their backs quoting a bible verse from Leviticus: “If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to DEATH." This, of course, transpired an outrage from fellow students because of its plain offensiveness. But even though the school have a rule about how students should not disrupt the educational process or interfere with a positive learning and teaching environment through clothing, they have not disciplined the boys probably due to their first amendment rights and the legal implications.

It is true even bigoted imbeciles have rights. Although not clothing items are equal.



Coy Sheppard, a soccer player from Mendenhall High School Mississippi has been kicked off his high school soccer team last month because he showed up in a match wearing pink cleats which he was later ridiculed by his coach and when he showed up at practice wearing those pink cleats again, his coach threw him off the team. Since Coy needs the credit, being kicked off the team might mean him not being able to graduate.

It turns out those pink cleats are given by his 82 year-old grandmother who was a breast cancer survivor and the cleats are supposed to be a token to raise breast cancer awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness Month like all the NFL players were doing. Americans are overtly sensitive on what can be construed are homosexual behavior. Coy is suing the school and he planned to donate any judgment to the American Cancer Society but before he could do that the school had already sat him down and agreed to put him back on the team and apparently the coach hugged him out.

So as long as you dress in gender-specific colors, you'd be ok.

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The Future of China

As much as I loathe Republicans and Teabaggers alike calling their opponents to "man up" and "get their man pants on" to challenge their opponents' masculinity or to imply that they could be gay or using homosexuality as an issue on robocalls to scare their voters to vote their way as if they're telling campfire ghost stories to scare kids, apparently homosexuality is not the only scare tactics.

Joining Blacks, homosexuality, taking old people's meds and medicare away, and illegal immigrants (aka Latinos) is the Chinese!


Gotta love the gong sound and fortune cookie.


This one is way better done.

The bleak black and white room with Chinese propaganda decorations, the evil Chinese professor with the insane laugh. The Chinese is not only here to take your job, they are here to enslave your people!

With a booming economy going on in China and its large population that translate to one of the largest market in the world, their economy is bound to surpass the US. We do still owe the Chinese almost 1 Trillion dollars and it will take time to give that back but it makes little sense to turn on our lendors.

Actually the US should utilize the Chinese economy and invest in it. Since introducing the first Starbucks in China in 1999, the number of stores has increased to 376. Resource-hungry China has Africa's growth by increased trading between the two countries. Via the Wall Street Journal:

In a report released Monday, the International Monetary Fund said that growth for the sub-Saharan region—which typically counts 47 countries excluding North Africa—should reach 5% this year, up from an earlier prediction of 4.5%. The IMF predicted annual growth would rise to 5.5% next year. The organization attributed the increase mainly to strong economic fundamentals, such as high levels of reserves and low inflation. But it also noted a marked shift toward trade with resource-hungry China and developing countries in Asia and Latin America.

Africa's growth acceleration has stirred interest among investors, since it comes as the U.S. and Europe are struggling to recover from the global slump. After China and India, Africa is seen as the next emerging, billion-person market—one that boasts not just mineral wealth but increasingly large pockets of consumer spending power, too.

In fact, the relationship between China and Africa is building so rapidly that one of the news anchor on CCTV, the governmental television channel is from Zimbabwe.



Instead of feeling that China is, somehow, taking advantage of US, we all should think about how we can take advantage of the booming economy of China.

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Coin-Operated Park Bench

Via 8Asians

When resource-starved communist China was introduced to capitalism, people went all sorts of money-crazy. People were getting rich fast. Starbucks, yoga studios were opened up in every street corners. As long as you have a new idea that sounds foreign which equate to good, people will patronize and get behind it.

I didn't know this is the extend of it:



In Shangdong province eastern China, Yantai Park has installed coin-operated park benches that allows visitors to relax in the park only if they input coins for that privilege, or else metal spikes will ‘encourage’ the park-goer to stand instead. It must deter homeless people, if only they can make the spike sharper and someone could jump up in pain in a comedic way. Or maybe we can see old lady sitting in a stool beside it and use the bench to punch holes in doughnut or something.

It's worth noting that the coin-operated park bench was inspired by German artist Fabian Brunsing where a similar bench was created as a protest against the commercialization of modern life.

Apparently the Chinese doesn't have any concept of public property or relaxation. Anything for a buck, huh? Who knew that extreme capitalism is the next step of communism?

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Rest In Peace

It seems like everyday this week, I hear some kind of gay teen suicides or death because of some bullying at school.

On September 9, 15 years old Billy Lucas hung himself in his mother's barn in Indiana because his classmates thought he was gay telling him he's a piece of crap and didn't deserve to live.

Former student of the Greensburg High School had been bullied for the same reason before and when he complained to the school administrators, they just dismiss his complain, the same student had tried committing suicide. On the video clip below, you'll hear the school principal actually blaming Billy Lucas for his own bullying.



On September 23, Asher Brown shot himself with a pistol. Asher had been harassed for the past 18 months for being smaller in stature, his religion, not wearing name brand clothes and shoes. He has also been labeled as gay by the other bullies. On the day before he died, Asher was intentionally tripped down a flight of stairs and his books were kicked everywhere by his classmates. The next morning, Asher told his parents that he was gay and while his parents did not condemn him, Asher found a pistol in his stepfather's closet and killed himself. He was 13.

Throughout the past 18 months, Asher's parents had called School administration at Hamilton Middle School to complain about their son being bullied and harassed, they have talked to the counselors and assistant principal but they were mainly brushed off. After Asher's death, the school official claimed that no one have ever reported that any bullying have ever gone on at the school, almost calling the parents of the dead child are liars.

In California, 13 years old Seth Walsh hung himself on a tree in his backyard after years of being bullied. On the day that he hung himself, a few kids were taunting him but they said they never expected Seth to hang himself. School administrators said they have an anti-bullying program in place, but schoolmates said staff at Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi offered Seth no protection or guidance.

After 9 days of being in a coma, Seth died on Tuesday.

I guess for the kids there, it's hard to start a new school year knowing that for the coming months and perhaps years, they'd have to stay in the same school with those same monsters who would cause them physical and emotional pain. The lack of support or justice from the school officials are at the end, the ones to blame. While I applaud Dan Savage's initiative to tell GLBT teenager that it'll get better once they grow up, I also understand that one year for a young person can feel like an eternity, I don't know by telling them things will get better actually helps. Even after we grew up, we're still facing people who tells us everyday that being gay is a sin. Case and point: an asshole who is telling gay kids that things will get worse and the kids who commit suicide that they will go to hell. It's too vile to post it here but if you're interested, watch it here.


There will always be crazy loons that tries to bully people for myriad reasons. An Assistant Attorney General from Michigan, Andrew Shirvell is harassing the student body president at University of Michigan Chris Armstrong. Shortly after knowing that Chris Armstrong is gay, Mr. Shirvell set up a blog just in the purpose of slandering Chris. He also go out to where Chris lives and videotape what he's doing whenever he can, all in the name of his first amendment right and labeling Chris as a political figure. Sounds more like the guy has unresolved gay issues and Chris is his object of obsession. Anywho, Chris Armstrong has a stalker and he looked semi-retarded. I wonder if a little protest outside the AG office for a few days is not just the appropriate act to get him fired.



On the subject of Tyler Clementi, the 18 years old Rutgers Freshman who jumped off the George Washington Bridge because of his roommates broadcast his sexual encounter in his dorm room for the world to see. I don't know if this could classify as bullying. Clearly it's invasion of privacy but I don't know if it was done in jest or maybe the roommates just didn't realize the consequence of their actions. The whole thing, along with all the other suicides in this post are just very unfortunate, sad and somewhat infuriating.

Our culture are brewing some kind of self-righteousness for a group of people to treat another group badly. The bullies felt that they can rightfully torment gays and the authority figures are turning a blind eye either because they agree with that point of view or they are just too lazy to deal with kids and providing justice and at least protection. And when the victim kill themselves, everyone is surprised or they claim not to be responsible, and then these people are not punished for what they have done. It gets me angry.

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High School Bullies

Knowing that I like reading about food, a friend gave me a month old issue of Philadelphia Magazine where on the cover Iron Chef and Philadelphia Restaurateur Jose Garces is holding a baby pig with a shit-faced grin, perversely promoting the suckling pig meal at one of his restaurants. What I didn't expect was a detailed story in the magazine about the racial conflicts amongst Asian and Black students in high schools all over Philadelphia.

No one seems to know how it started, even though some seems to think that it might have something to do with Asians moving into neighborhood and taking over the corner grocery stores and driving up housing prices by acquiring them and remodeling them, though I thought there was always a large Asian community.

All we know is that those Asians who like to keep to themselves are picked on by black students as sources of amusement. Every day 70 to 100 Black students would roam and block off hallways where ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms are located and pick random Asian student targets to beat up and laugh from it. Since the perpetrators are numerous, the victims have a tough time pointing them out. After a while, a culture is created where the Asian students expect to be bullied and the school administration look the other way.

The Asian students tries to boycott the school while others have to drop out altogether just so that they can feel safe, but still nothing happened. In October 2008, thirty Black students chased 5 Asians down a subway station and beat them down which they were later hospitalized. Last December, seventy Black students started beating every Asian students in their path, a few of them suffered head and face injuries, one suffered his nose smashed and broken that he has a nose bleed non-stop. School police and the school sergeant also got pushed around which speak to a non-existing school security.

For the following 8 days, the Asian students gathered in Chinatown where a temporary classroom were put together for them to do classwork and study while a representative go to the school to gather coursework. On December 3rd, the media got hold of the story and placed an enormous pressure on the school and the school district to deal with the problem. 126 new security cameras are put in place, more security staff and counselors are placed to help the students. The principal resigned. As those victims are graduating, their hopes remain to be for the school climate to change for the better for future immigrants but no one could be sure that it will.

Throughout all this I'm shocked that not one student who incite violence had been criminally charged or disciplined in any sense. If that's the case, how could anybody learn from this? If beating up people has no consequences, why would anybody stop? If I were to be young again and attending class in South Philadelphia High, the first thing I'd do is to arm myself. If I were richer and know that this is happening, I would at least buy the students some mace or a folding knife if I can't distribute handguns. How else do you defend yourself against 70 people who all want a piece of you? Regardless of race, people only respond to danger. Since they are beating you up for no reason, how can you reason with them? Unfortunately I don't know how to be tactful when I'm physically threatened.

When I was in high school, we have a system where 3 warnings become a small demeanor, 3 small demeanors become a big demeanor and 3 big demeanors will get you expelled. When even getting late to class deserves a warning, we all strive to be perfect. It was strict, but at least we behaved and nobody ever got sent to the hospital because they were beat up.

I was reminded of Dan Savage's recent video campaign in effort to help gay teens from killing themselves. If anyone get bullied, all they have to know if it'll get better when you get out of high school. Life is not over just because some asshole decides to pick on you. Happiness will come eventually, and the bullying assholes will most likely end up in jail.

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Galileo Was Wrong?

Via Joe.My.God

Forgive me for being an easy bait but is this shit for realsies? Their site exceeded their bandwidth limit so there's no way to prove the validity of the said event but all you have to do is say some stupid stuff like that and attach a few religious figures on the poster and you can make me and any sane people goes apeshit. So global warming is a hoax and now Galileo was wrong, the sun and the whole universe indeed spins around the earth? What's next? Gravity is science fiction? Wow, I didn't think we as a society can go in reverse but obvious a lot of folks are trying really hard to do so.

On a related note, can an university revoke the doctorate degrees they issue because those people are now babbling crazy and distributing false information? And how do we know those speakers have their Doctorates in some field of science and not in crazy talk?

I'm sure they'll get a whole lot of attendees going just to see how crazy this is. First they burn the Quran... what has America turned into?

***shivers to my spine***

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On Ken Melhman

What is there to say about Ken Mehlman? If there's any individual fitting to be described as despicable, Ken Melhman would be the first one that comes to mind. The first gay that I would personally condemned to hell, not because he's gay but for the immeasurable harm and distress he had caused. It's much more than self-hating, he created a culture of homophobia for people in the whole nation just so that a few Republicans can be elected in order to for him to exceed in his career and benefit from it financially. And now he comes out and wants acceptance from it? There should be a public stoning for him. Ken Mehlman and his boyfriend should both be condemned and outcast. No self-respecting gay man with any kind of integrity should be dating or having sex with this person.

I'm sick of people like him and Roy Ashburn coming out after doing harm to the GLBT community, apologize and try to make up. Coming out after being in a position of power does absolutely no good. Especially when you're a Republican, all former colleagues will have to publicly distancing themselves from you or shun you just so they can exist in that homophobic culture in which you helped create. An openly gay Republican in power doesn't exist, that's why Charlie Crist changed parties. Worst of all, Ken Mehlman doesn't offer any kind of apologies, it was just something he had to do and he feels no guilt. Now Americans For Equal Rights is embracing Mehlman as the chairman of a major anti-prop 8 fundraiser, what do you have to do to the GLBT community in order to get shunned? Don't they know that if it wasn't for him, we might not have to be fighting Prop 8 right now?

I'm in complete agreement with the Young Turk Cenk Uygur who looks like the baby brother/eldest son of Jay Leno, hope Cenk has a future in xenophobic America. As for Ken Mehlman, I have nothing but my worst wishes for him.

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Mosque Controversy

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the building of the "Ground Zero Mosque" which was quite expected. Yesterday, dozens of people showed up in a anti-mosque rally at the Ground Zero site holding signs spelling out "Sharia" in red dripping paint. A black guy wearing a white cap unfortunately got caught in it and the crowd quickly turned on him, proving that the location is just a small part of it. When people (mostly Republicans) won't let Muslims built one in Murfreesboro, TN, Temecula, CA or Sheboygan, WI, people will be against building a mosque 4 blocks from Ground Zero.



It's pure xenophobia, the people who's against building mosques don't care to understand that just because the 9/11 attackers are extreme Muslims, it doesn't mean that all Muslims are terrorists or have linkage to them, just as a few Catholic priests molest children, it doesn't mean that all Catholics molest children. Instead of getting to know people, the anti-mosque crowd rather have Muslims "going back to their country". There's a whole hypocrisy thing with this which really gets my beef is that in theory America is supposed to be great because of the freedom people can experience in this country but it's not true. If you're gay or non-white or non-Christian, then you're still discriminated against and not being allowed to gay marry or having a place to worship your god is the exact opposite of freedom. You either get freedom of religion in this country or you don't, you can't really pick and choose the location or which religion to protect.

The proposed building which was named Park51 center to avoid controversy is going to be a 13-story glass and steel community center, that will contain a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court serving halal dishes, it sure beats the abandoned building that used to house a Burlington Coat Factory.

This might be entirely inappropriate but if the Westboro folks are allowed to protest at the funeral of dead soldiers as they are happening, why aren't Muslims allowed to building a center 4 blocks from Ground Zero of an incident happened 9 years ago? Instead of complaining about the mosque, why don't they complain about the still empty site at the Ground Zero after nearly 9 years? I thought the best way to show Al-Qaeda that they haven't won is to build something to replace the Twin Towers and move on with our lives, so where is it?

I blame Fox News for dividing the country with lies and hyperbole, they are evil and any upright citizens and companies should start finding ways to put them out of business.

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Freedom Postponed

After prop 8 has been overturned last week, gay Californians were supposed to be able to start getting married tomorrow but the opponents filed an appeal and the ninth circuit court of appeals has granted a stay to Judge Walker's decision so the soonest day that California gays can go on marrying each other will be in December. A lot of people expressed optimism because the appeal can potentially lead to a preferable ruling in a larger area and even potentially lead to a final decision in the supreme court for a ruling with national impact in our favor but since most judges are from the older generations and according to the polls, the older generation tends to go with banning gay marriage, I'm not holding my breathe.

A few things can help us along: Having other countries recognizing GLBT rights like Argentina which legalized same-sex marriage and Mexico which allowed gay marriage AND adoption. The US needs to realize that the world is progressing towards equal rights for all citizens and we are lagging behind. Stressing how no one wants to be in the wrong side of history works, it worked on Glenn Beck. People do realize that the recognition of gay rights is unavoidable, they just don't know if it'll be recognize 20 years from now or 20 months from now. You can see commentators and politicians softening their stance when the results of the prop 8 trial were not in their favors, even Maggie Gallagher from NOM got all defeated. I think secretly they are afraid to be remembered as bigots, that is why none of them wants to testify on camera.

Showing how inequality ruins lives helps too, so does having an open broadcast. Of course, the most helpful thing would be having the president saying something urging the people towards the right way. I was excited when Obama held a press conference supporting building the mosque near Ground Zero in the name of religious freedom but hearing him recanting his statement because of all the right-wing shit that followed made me think that maybe he's not the most reliable person to count on. At some point, he should realize that catering to the right will not do anyone any good. Instead of working towards unity, he should work towards what's right and understand that everything he and his wife do will be picked apart by Fox and Friends. (Who knew "Spain" rhymes with "pain"?)

We'll see how all this played out. In the meantime while more South American than ever are enjoying equal rights, Californians are still waiting for their turns and most of the country don't even have the fortune of waiting, DADT is still the existing policy and gay soldiers are still in the process of being discharged. NJ judges are afraid to hear marriage equality cases for fear that Governor Chris Chritsie might replace them if they were to vote to extend marriage equality to GLBT couples while Newt Gingrich is supporting a campaign for Iowan to vote out judges that favored marriage equality.

But it's not all doom and gloom, NOM has finally finished their lowly attended hate bus tour, Neil Patrick Harris and his partner are expecting twins: a boy and a girl. "Grab two beers and jump" flight attended Steven Slater has been offered a reality show, though I don't see how it'd draw an audience. Here's my favorite Steven Slater song:

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Anchor Babies Terror

It would have been a good educational show

A few congressmen are calling for the repeal of the 14th Amendment, I like how they just chose and select which amendments they like to repeal and when the liberal left wants to repeal the 2nd Amendment they are all up in arms about keeping the integrity of the constitution intact. Apparently when you're a redneck congressman, you can indeed have it both ways.



If we can attach the repeal of the 2nd amendment to their motion on the 14th, we might see some heads explode, it'd be quite a sight.

To gain support and speed up that motion, here's Texas Rep. Loon Louis Gohmert with his newest propaganda about Terror Anchor Babies. I shouldn't be surprised but can people really just quote some random imaginary people or research as proof? Good thing Anderson Cooper is there to ask for some credibility. I'm tired of interview tricks like this where Gohmert just keeps on yelling to prevent a legible dialogue. Dirty politicians.

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Inspiration of The Highest Degree

I'm surprised that the JetBlue flight attendant story had warranted such attention. I guess it was a great storm off scene, I would have loved to have slid down the airplane slide as well. Every time I fly, I do fantasize what happen if we landed somewhere in the ocean. What flotation device is nearby, where the mask will fall from and where is the closest exit. Good thing I never had to evacuate a plane in those circumstances.

Even though Slater's grandfather swore that the passenger must have done something very horrible for him to throw a tantrum like that, Slater's colleague said he does have a history to storm off when things don't get his way. And from his camera appearance, it seems like he does know how to throw around some sass. There are tremendous support for Slater which is rare since the guy is obviously gay and the media usually avoid good things in the gay community like they avoid leper and even though with the quote of the "sexual embrace", people are still behind this guy.

Various Facebook pages have popped up about him with supporters in the 100,000s overnight. He was able to make bail and another Facebook page had already been set up to support his legal fund. Late night TV is all over this one and even Roger Ebert and Rush Limbaugh has commented on it in support. A Taiwanese animation, a song, there's even a new T-shirt about the incident that I'm thinking about buying. I guess people generally bottle up a lot of emotions and we're all waiting to find opportunities to lash out.



With all this exposure, what I'm really curious about is the identity of the rude female passenger who undid her seatbelt and retrieve her luggage disregarding safety rules and caused a gash on Slater's forehead. What kind of a bitch was she and why not punish her by exposing her identity for the modern version of a public stoning to commence? (I have been known to keep listening to my iPod regardless of the turn off all electronics instructions, so I'm not really one to talk.)

I hope Mr. Slater will be hired back on JetBlue but it is a difficult situation. No passengers would like to know that their flight attendant will potentially curse them out. Maybe promoting him into a trainer position for his excellent operation skills of the inflatable slide or at the very least they should pay him a severance package and let him go the right way. Flight attendant should definitely have the power to blacklist rude and uncooperative passengers. For all we know, that lady could have a bomb or a luggage of snakes ready to unleash on the motherfucking plane, no?

*** NSFW ***

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Fakers!

Rejoice! Prop 8 was overturned as expected! The religious rights are majorly pissed off while liberal and gays alike are glad and celebratory, so being gay I guess I have no choice but rejoice! There were supposed to be nationwide rallies following the decision of the court, but I don't quite understand the purpose of the rallies if our side wins. Guess what? Most of them turned out to be celebration parties. Great! Now why didn't Philadelphia have our own rally party?

Aside from this great news, yesterday was full of fakers:

Jennifer Aniston had a photoshoot with Harper's Bazaar as Barbara Streisand





I think she did pretty well. I was never much of a Streisand fan but other than the not-so-pronounced nose I do think Jennifer Aniston captured some of her essence.

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Lousy Sculpture Fake Outrage



This video has been making the rounds, but it seems to be a made up news just to get YouTube clicks and get people talking about the station to spike ratings. A cherub ice sculpture? It looks like some ice balls put together and that certainly doesn't take 8 hours and who'd go so far as pushing the sculpture?

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I first saw this on Fail Blog and found it incredibly funny. Later on I was curious enough to go to Slate.com for the original letter and response from the Dear Prudence column:

Q. Bi Man Unintentionally Opens Can of Worms With In-Laws: I have a rather unusual problem, and I don't feel I have anywhere to turn but you. I'm a 33-year-old man who's been married for seven years. The issue is, I am bi-sexual and have known so for quite some time. My quandary is, about a month ago I responded to a posting on Craigslist. It was from an older gentleman who, like myself, is bi and was looking for some discreet fun. In responding to the ad, I sent a faceless/headless picture of myself without a shirt on. He responded back to me with some pictures that were a bit more graphic and a phone number. Upon seeing the number, I became immediately undone. It was the cell phone number of my wife's dad—my father-in-law! Once I realized it was him, I never responded back to him. I received several e-mails subsequently asking me what was going on and if I was still interested. However, not only did he e-mail me from his personal e-mail address, stupidly, he used the joint one with my mother-in-law. Fast-forward a few weeks. My mother-in-law was checking e-mail and somehow found the exchange between my father-in-law and myself. Obviously, and justifiably, she has become hysterical. She found the e-mail that I sent to him (from an anonymous e-mail address) that had my picture. It gets worse; she told my wife and her sister and brother, and they are trying to figure out who this guy is who "seduced" dad. At this point, I am freaking out as my wife is wanting to see my picture, but her mother has not shown it to her yet. Do I bite the bullet and let the cat out of the bag that I am the two-home home wrecker, or should I let my wife and in-laws continue to play detective? I feel such guilt as my wife cries on my shoulder as she tells me the latest developments every day.

A: Your posting didn't say, "I like pina coladas, and getting lost in the rain," did it? Because your letters sounds like an updated version of the dreadful Rupert Holmes song. Though I would like to see a movie version of this in which Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller end up as the lovely couple, it's time for someone in this family to be straight about not being straight. If you are committed to sending out headless photos of yourself in order to cheat on your wife with other men, you have to tell her about this right now. It's not just because you want to get ahead of her having that flash of recognition when she sees the photo of the "seducer's" torso and recognizes the pattern of moles. It's because you are lying and cheating and potentially endangering your wife's health.

I do think the original letter has painted a picture that's a bit too good to be true. I can just imagine the horror on everyone's face when they found out the subplot that's going on between the husband and the father-in-law. Though the probability of them both be gay and the stupid father-in-law using a "joint" email account with the wife to cruise for gay sex is really low.

Of course, I also find Prudence's response to this letter to be most bluff and slightly homophobic. No every closeted gay men who's engaging in extramarital gay sex goes unprotected and not all of them have STDs. Though if this is a real story, the husband should tell his wife that he's out looking for gay sex anyway. Can't go about for the rest of his life not being true to who he is.

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Law In Cali-For-Ni-A

I have read the Lindsay Lohan bit a a few days ago but I wasn't feeling like writing about it. For the DUI she was sentenced to jail for 90 days and got released after two weeks into a rehab facilities. I have heard about the luxuries rehab resorts in California, I wonder if she is going to one of those. The whole justice system is skewed in favor to the rich and famous, and other than OJ, white as well. A person with drug charges can get sentenced longer than a killer, so Lindsay got out after 2 weeks. Oh well.

There is something incomprehensibly tragic about child stars. After experiencing their early successes, there are little else to look forward to for the rest of their life. In rare occurrence, you get your second or third waves of success like Justin Timberlake but most of them keep on trying and trying with little or no results. It's stressful, especially for young starlets who are followed by a swarm of paparazzi trying to pick them apart and make up stories for tabloids. Given, Lindsay Lohan is not any revered actress and quite easily replaceable, but even though I find the obsession of drugged up, drunk, slutty young actress with little under their belts completely annoying, I do feel for them. I blame the showbiz parents has no parenting skills, who pimp their children out at a young age to make a buck out of them the true culprits. Though, keeping Lindsay in jail might just be a better remedy for her.

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In other California news, We should hear a decision from the California federal court today about their decision on Perry vs. Schwarzenegger to overturn Proposition 8. According to the proceedings and the weak witnesses, the probability of Prop 8 being overturned is high. If you're interested in an immediately text notification on the decision, text EQUAL to 69866.

In relevant news, political analyst David Fleicher has finally published his report saying that the reason why the majority supported equality during the initial survey but overturned in the voting booth was because of this commercial aired and had parents worrying for the children:



It's strange that people thing children rights are more important than adult rights. Children are more resilient than people think and saying that men can married men is not such a horrible thing to tell children, actually it might just be the best thing one can hope for to sprout the message of equality in their minds. Boys can marry boys if they so choose to, it's normal, if not, it should be normal. That message is better than lies, message of shame and hate. With the God card and the kid card, what about equal rights for us men who don't believe in God and don't plan to have children?

I'll cross my fingers that Prop 8 will be overturned.

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BP Oil Spill: Day 104

If my math is correct, today is the 104th day of the British Petroleum Gulf of Mexico oil spill. With CEO Tony Hayward getting paid $18 Million to step down after the disaster, BP has hired an American by the name of Bob Dudley to be its new CEO, I guess it is an attempt to make the foreign enemy one of us to lower the animosity. It is all a PR campaign of course, a few days ago I stumbled upon a Yahoo news article saying that the oil has disappeared as if people has been over-exaggerating the environmental impact of the spill. Imagine my surprise.

Despite the failure of the latest containment cap attempt, reports from Time Magazine, New York Times and other sites have been reporting that the oil has simply vanished, The reports claimed that some compounds in the oil would simply evaporates while bacteria in the ocean would eat what's remained. Sure, the oil kills birds but there's no real evidence suggesting that this is indeed an environmental disaster. There are tales of oiled dolphins but no one have seen it. A hundred bucks saying that these reporters have been bought, any takers?

Other than the outrage from the locals who are seeing oiled shore and dead animals daily, there is also the fact that reporters were kept far away from the affected areas. Chemicals that BP is pumping dispersant chemicals into the ocean which make the substance more toxic and volatile than the oil itself but achieve more cosmetic effects.

Last Tuesday, there was news that another oil well 65 miles South of New Orleans has been hit by a tug boat and oil is shooting 20 feet into the air. But new NP CEO Bob Dudley is already planning for a scale back on their cleaning efforts.



I'm thinking maybe BP is losing major business, putting out too much money for the cleaning up and maybe they are not doing so well. Before knowing how bad their safety record was, I felt bad for this unintentional accident and I felt bad that BP drew the short straw on it. Surely, nobody wanted an accident but using tricks to block and control the media made them despicable. With enough resource, I'm sure they can even argue the oil spill benefited the long ignored wildlife of the Gulf Coast or halted the over-fishing, but manipulated the media is not the way to go.

The next step is called "static kill" which technicians will pump heavy drilling mud into the well and then use cement to permanently seal it. These methods have all been used before on other oil spills but proved to be unsuccessful. Relief wells are being built as we speak and will probably finish by mid-August.

The BP oil spill apparently is not the only oil spill the world is experiencing at the moment. More than 2 weeks ago in Dalian, China, 2 oil pipelines exploded destroying several structures. The damaged pipes released thousands of gallons of oil, which flowed into the nearby harbor and the Yellow Sea.



At Kalamazoo River in Michigan, there's also a pipe burst that caused 800,000 gallons of oil spill into the river this past Tuesday. Are all the pipes manufactured at the same time and are experiencing metal fatigue? Oil spills are getting to be normal occurrences. Why are we still not developing alternative energy?

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Taking Joy in Tragedy or Nana Nana Booboo (幸災樂禍)

So Glenn Beck says he got macular dystrophy and he's going blind. The man gets no sympathy from me whatsoever.



The man who cries crocodile tears is going blind? Then how do we know those are actually tears when he fake-cries and not oozes from his eye disease? And when a disease befalls him, how is it not God's punishment? The correct punishment of course is rendering him mute or maybe God sees the righteousness in him and He's trying to aid him on his teachings on the course Justice 101 in the next semester of Beck University. I'm sure it's just an act to render as much sympathy as he can for his modern donation box that a fan will undoubtedly put up on a website asking for donations. On the slim chance that he is indeed going blind, all I have to say is "Hurray! Karma is a bitch!"

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The NOM Hate Bus has been touring around the Northeast, just reaching New Jersey but the public support has been dismal. Of all the cities and towns they've been, protesters outnumber their supporters and it's great, no doubt that will change the further south they go.

So the numbers that showed up for them is pathetic, but it's still not as pathetic as the organization itself. Just because the support is measly, they are taking the position as the victim, claiming that the gay activists who showed up to protest for being bullies, tweeting the protesters are arriving with their hate which is particularly laughable.

For a peaceful protest in Albany where protesters showed up surrounding the group carrying rainbow colored umbrellas:

They clumsily turned it into this:



Sorry if I'm not playing the world's smallest violin alongside the sad music. All I can do is feel bad for their kids.

The Rhode Island protest is even more hilarious with hack Pastor Jay Stirnemann speaking in tongues trying to ward off the gays. It's funny and pathetic at the same time.



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The Tea Party movement is so disorganized that I don't believe anyone has authority to throw anyone out of it but here it is: Founder of the Tea Party Express had been kicked out of the movement for being a racist and posting this as a satire:

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

One racist gone, how many are there left? It's funny how they try to paint themselves as non-racist when the whole movement pretty much started because a (half)black dude is in the White House as the president. Sure hire the first black opportunist to be their Michael Steele, the effect stays the same. Just because they've found one black dude in your party and make him chair doesn't mean the majority of they are not white and racist.

It's entertaining nonetheless.

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Don't Let The Bedbug Bite

I went to an allergist four years ago during a detailed annual check up. After getting pricked by 40 different toothpicks and got my back drawn like a football playbook, I found out that I was allergic to some trees, weeds, dust mites and bedbugs. Well, no. Not bedbugs or dust mites but the excrement of them. Isn't that disgusting? That reminds me of a time during college where I broke out with hives one night after sleeping on a couch. That is also the reason why I have a light chronic breathing problem.

Recently there's an outbreak of bedbugs going on in New York City. The Hollister at Broadway and Houston, Abercrombie and Fitch at South Street Seaport, and one of the undisclosed movie theaters had reportedly shut down because of bedbugs infestation. Bedbugs breed in the dark and all the theaters and the above mentioned clothing stores are dark as night. I was at that particular Hollister not long ago and it's almost pitch dark, you can hardly see what you're buying. Though both clothing stores are known for having half naked male models standing in front of the store to attract customers. It'd be interesting if there's a correlation between naked male fresh and bedbugs, wouldn't it?



A Pesticide company has listed the top ten most bedbug infested cities and here they are:

1. Columbus
2. New York
3. Toronto
4. Bloomington IN
5. Manchester NH
6. San Francisco
7. Durham
8. Vancouver
9. Chicago
10.Denver

Thank god Philly is not one of them, yet. Just thinking about it have me all itchy.



In other news, there are hundreds of rabid raccoons in Central Park. Just this year, they have trapped or found over a hundred of rabid raccoon in the park. A lady who's seating at a bench at the park was bitten on her ankle by one while reading her book. She was sent to the hospital and was treated with 4 rounds of rabies shots. She's ok but the problem in Central Park persist. Dog walkers were encouraged to keep their pets on a tight leash. Since raccoon are mostly active at night, one should beware if they see one during the day. Wouldn't that be a great background for a zombie movie or something?

Anyhow, with bedbugs and rabid raccoon it surely makes New York a little less attractive to visit.

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Pauls During World Cup

I guess everybody knows that the FIFA World Cup is over by now and Spain won. I did play a little bit of soccer when I was younger but I wasn't really as enthusiastic as some of my other Asian friends who negotiated days off with their bosses during the past month just so they can stay home or go to bars to watch the matches. Same with my friends in Hong Kong who'd go to bed real early so they can wake up at 4:00 in the morning to watch the games.

I, too, joined my friends at the local Irish pub once or twice and had fun watching the game with strangers over beers and fries. Somehow I rooted for South American teams but since they all lost, I rooted for the remaining Spanish speaking country who won the last match. Well, that's all over.

Other than the sure destruction that surely had followed when a country wins in any sports, there were other bizarre story. The above Octopus also named Paul had predicted correctly the winning of 6 consecutive games and made himself a celebrity. By placing two boxes with flags of different countries on them, the octopus chooses to hide in the box of the winning team every time, the Spanish environmental and fisheries minister has now sworn to protect Paul. A letter will be sent to the German aquarium today to make sure that Paul won't get eaten.



When I first saw the above video I was livid, because it just sounds like another crazy right wing conspiracy theorist but later I found out the series of videos is from a comedian called Paul Day. I guess it's funny if I knew it was a joke to start with, but you can't blame me because teabaggers do sound like that and I'm sure there would be a lot of folks trying to take a page from Glenn Beck and "drawing conclusions" on their own.

So much for the 20 Facebook updates during each match, no matter what your views are for soccer/football at least when they call it World Cup here the whole WORLD is involved, that's more than I can say for the other sports.


Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Today in Education

A month ago, the founder of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality Peter LaBarbera announced that he is forming a school called "Americans for Truth Academy" teaching young people "how to answer “gay” activist misinformation and fight the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda." It's a 3-day seminar that costs $99 and it aims to "train a new generations of activists to contend with the sexual sin movement that has fooled so many Americans into treating a human wrong as a “civil right.”

Undoubtedly, LaBarbera is using people's bigotry for personal financial gain, but I've always been fascinated on how involved he is/they are in the gay media. They seems to have people reading gay news blogs and refute negative articles about themselves on these blogs. Something tells me that LaBarbera is closeted just like Roy Ashburn and Larry Craig, secretly craving for some male attention.

Taking a cue from LaBarbera, college drop-out Glenn Beck is opening launching Beck University.



You say: "You must be kidding me since Beck only took one college class and dropped out in the middle of it." But alas it's true, I guess you don't need qualifications to start an university and their seems to be a whole lot of people less educated than Glenn Beck to gobble up his propaganda. From their website:

Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics," says the announcement on the Beck Web site. "Through captivating lectures and interactive online discussions, these experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.

The first courses they offer is Faith 101, Hope 101 and Charity 101. From this unaccredited college, one can hope to become a priest, a professional hoper or a professional philanthropist, or are those just names of strippers? How can Glenn Beck University actually benefit people? I'm sure they will produce another batch of teabaggers, although I'm worried still. What if they start teaching people shooting guns and making bombs in the second semester?

With the right wing infiltrating the Texas school board and dictating the contents in the textbooks. I'm afraid for the future generation.

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iPhone Busted

iPhone 4 came out sometimes last week and a friend of mine went to stood in line for 12 hours for it. Since I deemed AT&T undesirable and their plans to costly for me, I wasn't enthused. While I admire his passion and endurance, I couldn't imagine myself lining up for anything, perhaps for a $150 30+" flatscreen HDTV. (Figurative speaking, this coming Black Friday.) I never like to be shelve out premium bucks and become a product's beta tester.



I do see the appeal of an iPhone despite the little funny video above. iPod had been a huge success and iPhone up to the former generation had also been above the curve on the tech front and since HTC hasn't done a great job telling people how much better they are, you can't blame people moving towards iPhone. Obviously, developers are more likely to develop apps for a popular device which will make it more popular.

However, it seems that people are having trouble with iPhone 4. So far 5 lawsuits were filed against Apple; 3 from Northern California, 1 from Texas and 1 from Maryland. Two Maryland residents filed a class action suit against Apple and AT&T that focus on iPhone 4's antenna designs making several claims:

• General Negligence (APPLE and AT&T)
• Defect in Design, Manufacture, and Assembly (APPLE)
• Breach of Express Warranty (APPLE)
• Breach of Implied Warranty for Merchantability (APPLE and AT&T)
• Breach of Implied Warranty of Fitness for a Particular Purpose (APPLE and AT&T)
• Deceptive Trade Practices (APPLE and AT&T)
• Intentional Misrepresentation (APPLE and AT&T)
• Negligent Misrepresentation (APPLE and AT&T)
• Fraud by Concealment (APPLE and AT&T)

They are claiming that Apple knew the product is faulty by design but still selling them to the masses. Cardiff University in the UK has done some tests:

The resulting data was clear under both situations: There is a performance penalty when you hold your iPhone with your bare hand, independently of the bars displayed. When the signal is very strong, the impact is less noticeable. When the signal is weaker (chart above), the problem could stop communications altogether, like have been demonstrated already for both internet access and voice calls.

The performance suffers just because you're holding it? But cell phones are meant to be held. I wonder if this is why Apple was so eager to retrieve their lost iPhone and call on the cops to raid the home of the finder even after the phone was returned.

Steve Jobs and his developer's answer to one of his thousands of angry emails that he received is apparently: “Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.” That's a little bit douchy.

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