Oil reaches Louisiana shores - The Big Picture - Boston.com

The US Congress is on track for taking a landmark vote over the issue of LGBT people serving in the military, according to the Associated Press.

The House may well vote today on the "don't ask, don't tell" law that was established under President Bill Clinton in 1993. The proposal to repeal the law was put forward by Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat who served in the Iraq war.

The legislation was struck as a compromise between the White House and the Defense Department and President Obama, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff have agreed to provide considerable evidence that the lifing of the ban will not impede the US military's abilities or damage morale. The Senate Armed Services Committee is also expected to take up an identical measure which would be tucked in to a broader billl, authorising a sum of hundreds of billions of dollars for the US military.

Supporters of the movement suggested that the Senate had enough votes to pass the bill. Senator Bill Nelson, himself a supporter, said: "In a military which values honesty and integrity, this policy encourages deceit." However, some conservative Democrats including Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi have threatened to oppose the spending bill if it includes a repeal of the ban.

It is likely that the Senate will not vote until the Pentagon have completed their survey of military personnel. Speaking to Air Force cadets on Wednesday, Admiral Mike Mullen, the top uniformed officer in the US and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said service members should question conventional ideas. He said: "Few things are more important to an organisation than people who have the moral courage to question the direction in which the organisation is headed and then the strength of character to support whatever final decisions are made."

Apple shot past Microsoft Corp as the world's biggest tech company based on market value on Wednesday, the latest milestone in the resurgence of the maker of the iPhone, which nearly went out of business in the 1990s.

Apple's shares rose as much 2.8 percent on Wednesday, as Microsoft shares floundered, briefly pushing its market value above $229 billion, ahead of its longtime rival.

Shares of Apple are worth more than 10 times what they were 10 years ago, as it has profited from revolutionizing consumer electronics with its stylish, easy to use products such as the iPod, iPhone and MacBook laptops.

The last time Apple had a higher market value than Microsoft was December 19, 1989, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P5PE20100527

Wow what a turnaround for Apple. All credit must surely go to Steve Jobs who has created lucrative new revenue streams in iTunes, iPod and the iPhone.

Microsoft has lots of similar ideas in their consumer / entertainment division but apart from Xbox has largely struggled to produce anything to rival Apple or the earnings of their own Windows and Office products.

This stock price swap may just be a blip that will be corrected when the global recession ends and big businesses start investing in new hardware / software upgrades again.

But if not, what can MS do to turn things around?

a) I'm delighted to see that not a single BNP candidate was elected to Parliament. I know we had this discussion a while ago, but I was dismayed at the time of that discussion that some of our younger members here were actually considering voting BNP. The BNP prospective parliamentary candidate for Lincoln, Reverend West, gave a fair assessment of what we could have been in for :mad:

[URL="http://gayspeak.com/forum/redirector.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.pinkpaper.com%2FNewsStory.aspx%3Fid%3D2901"]BNP candidate sends abusive email to LGBT group - PinkPaper
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b) Philippa Stroud, the Tory candidate who didn't win the Sutton and Cheam seat is (maybe was now?) head of the Centre for Social Justice, the thinktank set up by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, has heavily influenced David Cameron's beliefs on subjects such as the family. She founded a church (an unusual thing to do in itself) in Bedford that tried to "cure" homosexuals by driving out our "demons" through prayer! The sensible people of Sutton and Cheam decided to stick with the sitting Liberal Democrat.

Sutton and Cheam: Constituency | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Rising Tory star Philippa Stroud ran prayer sessions to 'cure' gay people | Politics | The Observer

i'm going in the hospital to get a scope done on my stomache. The doxctors say if they dont act soon i will only have a week to live they believe that i have stomach cancer as well as stomach ulcers. they also believe my acid reflux is eating away at my asophogus. they told me there is a 49 precent chance of me dying when they do this scope. they also told me i have a 75% chance i will die if they try to romove the ulcers. Im soooooo worried! im too young to die. But i know this is all a part of life. well hopefully i will tlk to you all soon bye.......... :frown:

I just thought that I ought post this story from Sunday's Observer. For me it is the most serious of the anti-gay revelations regarding the Tory Party this election season. In short the Tory candidate for Sutton and Cheam used to be active in the leadership of a church that tried to cure a variety of ills, including drug addiction and homosexuality, through prayer. To me it strikes of being both anti-gay and a belief in the power of prayer rather than scientific evidence. So far Cameron has said nothing about this, I don't expect a leader in a tight election to suspend a likely winning candidate but he could say something.

On the other hand I am rather pleased about something the Tories have done. In their Equality Manifesto:-

Quote:We will also consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage.

You may remember back in October a gang of youths beat up James Parkes, a trainee PC, outside a gay bar in Liverpool. He suffered multiple skull fractures and spent several weeks in hospital. (It was presumed to be homophobic but that has been disputed). The police arrested 15 youths but the CPS has now decided there is insufficient evidence to charge any of them. (Full details here.)

My question is this, how does no-one see anything well enough to charge any of them with anything? I can understand how for some it may be clear that they were there but not if they did actually do anything, but for all of them? I'd be tempted to consider homophobic police officers not doing a proper thorough investigation as a reason but Parkes was one of them and the Police do stick together.

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/repealprop8.jpg[/img2]A drive to gather enough signatures for a vote to repeal the gay marriage ban in California failed earlier today. The Los Angeles-based Love Honor Cherish campaign attempted to gather 700,000 signatures in order for there to be a state wide vote on whether to repeal Proposition 8, a law that banned gay marriage in the state.

Just last week, a poll found that 52 percent of Californian respondents support allowing gay marriage in the state.

Fifty-two percent of the 1,515 people surveyed agreed that "same-sex couples should be allowed to become legally married in the state of California", while 40 percent disagreed.

Because Love Honor Cherish were able to gather the 700,000 minimum signatures to secure a place on the ballot paper, the group must now wait until 2012 before being able to put it to voters.

California has been the most high-profile battleground for same-sex marriage in the US in the last few years.

Gay couples were given the right to marry in 2008 but opponents succeeded in having this struck down at the polls with Proposition 8 just several months later.

The Supreme Court turned down an appeal by gay rights groups last year, although a trial examining whether the ban was constitutional is currently on hiatus and expected to resume shortly.

Love Honor Cherish's Executive Director John Henning said: "I'd rather repeal Prop 8 than see the Supreme Court review it, given the current composition of the court."

All of the 18,000 couples who married in the brief window have been permitted to remain married.

Last week, Californian politicians began to consider whether to repeal a law which requires the state to look for cures for homosexuality.

The legislation, which dates from the 1950s, says that gays are "sexual deviants" and requires the state to carry out research on "deviations conducive to sex crimes against children".

It was drawn up after a series of sex crimes in Los Angeles, including the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl.

Although the perpetrator was not a gay man, homosexuality was included in the list of sexual deviations in Welfare and Institutions Code Section 8050.

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/chriscolfer.jpg[/img2]Chris Colfer, the actor who plays Kurt Hummel in Glee, has said he hopes gay teenagers can identify with the character.

The 19-year-old star was asked by Digital Spy about whether he thought Kurt could help gay teenagers.

He said: "I definitely hope so. I decided to play him the way I do because there are a lot of over- the- top flamboyant loud characters like Kurt on TV.

"I grew up in a small conservative town so I didn't know a lot of people like that, so that's why I decided to play him that way. I have so many letters and messages and fan mail. People are relieved to see someone being honest with who they are."

Kurt's most famous scene to date saw him teaching the football team how to dance to Beyonce's Single Ladies.

In the next series, which begins airing in the UK on April 19th on E4, Kurt gets a boyfriend.

Colfer said: "I think it's going to be the first couple of episodes of the second season, so we've got a while yet. I don't want to be the downside to the relationship so I'm hoping he's less good-looking than me!"

On spoilers for the upcoming season, he said: "We are in a heavy battle with Vocal Adrenaline and they are starting to see the ND as a threat, so they try to sabotage us a bit and we of course sabotage them right back.

"The focus in the next few episodes is probably Rachel, Finn and Kurt. Kurt wants Kurt's dad and Finn's mum to get married so he can get closer to him! The crush hasn't gone away – I think he'll always have a soft spot for him!"

Wonderful to hear some good news from Jamaica at last.

I take my hat off to these proud and brave people

Jamaica Stages First Public ‘Gay Pride’