08/20/2007
News: Synthetic Life, Andrew Sullivan, Frozen Smoke, Jocks
Blogger Lane Hudson files FEC complaint against Fred Thompson: "It is my contention that he has violated the 'testing the waters' exemption of election law. He has been presenting himself as a candidate for President, he has been raising large sums of money beyond what would be required to explore a possible candidacy, and he has signed a long term lease on a headquarters for his campaign. He has even spent advertising dollars, which are specifically prohibited by the law."
Scientists on verge of creating form of synthetic life: "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it. We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways _ in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."
"Frozen smoke" is world-changing material, according to scientists: "It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: 'It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.'"
A briefing on the Democratic debate held over the weekend in Des Moines, Iowa.
The L.A. Daily News looks at gay sites and straight athletes: "When it comes to visuals in sports, gay men and straight men are very similar except for the genders that we look at.Men are more visual. So we are just doing what mainstream sites do but we are catering to our audiences. If you look at Sports Illustrated or ESPN magazines, they all have some kind of photo gallery of hot babes in sports, or cheerleaders of the week. In a sense, that is geared toward what their audience mostly is: heterosexual."
An update on Britney's hair growth.
Responding to Victor Juliet Mukasa's press conference last week pleading for human rights in Uganda, the government has said there's no chance for equal rights or the legalization of homosexuality.
In space, no one can hear you eat your vegetables.
Blogger Andrew Sullivan experiencing "jitters" over imminent marriage.
Oklahoma chooses not to appeal ruling striking down a state law refusing Oklahoma birth certificates to children adopted by out-of-state same-sex couples. Lambda Legal: "This is a monumental decision, not just for the couples involved in the case, but for lesbian and gay parents and their children nationwide. It means that when same-sex couples have an adoption decree recognizing both of them as parents, the adoption, and their status as their child's parents, must be honored no matter where they go."
Federal government to pay $80,000 to couple arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts.
From the big house to the Big Brother house: Paris Hilton to join UK version of Celebrity Big Brother?
WaPo looks at Giuliani's retreat on gay issues. GOP Pollster: "Outside New York, the rest of America has this image of Giuliani as a tough, no-nonsense guy who cleaned up Times Square, closed sex clubs. And that Giuliani doesn't sound like the Giuliani who's pro-choice, pro-gay rights, et cetera. Until Republican primary voters are given information that counters the image they have of Giuliani, many of them will assume that he is who he says he is."
South African hospital to gay pregnant woman: "We don't help people like you."
Posted 2:05 PM EST by Andy in Andrew Sullivan, Britney Spears, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Fred Thompson, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, George W. Bush, Nature, News, Paris Hilton, Rudy Giuliani, South Africa, Uganda | Permalink
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If I were marrying Andrew Sullivan, *I* would have the jitters.
Posted by: peterparker | Aug 20, 2007 2:11:55 PM
The longer version of that piece in Andrew Sullivan's column in the Sunday Times is actually quite moving.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article2283227.ece
Posted by: EireKev | Aug 20, 2007 2:34:23 PM
and if I had spent my adult political life being a lapdog of the right wing I'd have the jitters as well. also if I wasn't sure I had found all nude shots of my power milking glutes that might be posted all over hookup sites on the web.
Posted by: ish | Aug 20, 2007 2:41:08 PM
Lane Hudson has balls of steel. What a guy.
Posted by: sam | Aug 20, 2007 2:45:04 PM
"power milking glutes"
lol... that's dirty...
Posted by: Brian | Aug 20, 2007 2:54:46 PM
Andy, any chance you can put up a link to the article (or at least your source) on the synthetic life thing. I'm mondo curious.
Posted by: Ryan | Aug 20, 2007 3:14:47 PM
i second ryan's request. thanks
Posted by: hughman | Aug 20, 2007 3:33:32 PM
That salad Alien is super sweet.
I always rooted for the Aliens. They were just misunderstood. I guess, I identified with them.
Posted by: David | Aug 20, 2007 4:17:28 PM
re: Sullivan's wedding day "jitters". bridezillas watch out - everyone's favourite moralist and hen-pecker is about to do us all a favour and tie the knot. does this mean that sero-synching is last year's news? or do the impending nuptials imply another more directional shift in "our generation's greatest gay voice" (trademark pending)?
sullivan is a propagandist for his own ego. all in all that's what most blogs are about (thanks for dodging that trend, Andy) but to afford him the attention he courts is most certainly not due.
Posted by: resurrect | Aug 20, 2007 4:22:54 PM
Yeah I'd like to read more on the synthetic life article. Please and Thank you,Andy!
Posted by: Shabaka | Aug 20, 2007 4:25:40 PM
When did Jeff Gannon change his name again; this time to "Aaron"? I guess Andy Pandy's hypocritical ["Bill Clinton and promiscuous gays are evil; I was just a girl who wanted to have fund."] online personal ads for someone to ride him piggy [bare]back finally paid off. Well, "Aaron" may luv Andy Pandy, but I still loathe him. Were I invited to their ceremony I'd throw not rice but asbestos particles. Why?
1. He's promoted the racist drivel of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray.
2. He's been giving public rim jobs to the Repugnant party and the Catholic church for years. Recent disagreements with Bush and Benedict make him no less a willing lapdog and apologist.
3. His hysterical declaration that, "AIDS is over" was not just patently wrong but criminally irresponsible for a man of influence.
4. One of the more recent quack pronouncements he's pulled from his fat ass [contradicting a cynical attempt at distracting us from his two-faced opposition to gay "marriage" that Obama pulled from his skinny ass] suggests that the fight for gay marriage is more important than any other gay equality issue, including job protection. Thus, Sullivan needlessly insults LGBTs not in relationships, or in ones they have no desire to “legalize.” His attempt to define an “either/or” situation is logically and practically absurd.
And is, in fact, just Andy Pandy's old wine in new bottles. He's been damning the fight for gay job protection as a "red herring," siding with our own Taliban that it is an indefensible "special right," for at least a decade.
Thus, he's just as "jejune" in 2007 as he describes himself in 1989 in the full "jittery" article in Rupert Murdoch's "Sunday Times." My how high some shit floats.
As for his personally written marriage vow, I missed any "caveat [partner]" referencing his defense last year of anyone in a relationship "faltering" — read following his dick wherever it leads him.
Posted by: Leland Frances | Aug 20, 2007 4:31:06 PM
Who wants to lay odds that the fundies get their knickers in a knot about synthetic life forms, enacting legislation banning it because jebeezus didn't make it.
Posted by: kitchenbeard | Aug 20, 2007 4:46:51 PM
While I personally think Andrew Sullivan is a fuckwit, I'm glad to see that he found someone with a strong stomach and will be tieing the knot. Sulivan has been changing his views on several subjects over the last few years and I cnan actually read some of his columns without retching.
To bad Leland can't say the same on the changing part. I knew before I got to the 10th word of Leland's latest hate fest that he was the author of the piece. When your rhetoric becomes that obvious Leland, maybe you should consider a new tactic. Kamakzie critisism wears thin.....is there anything or anyone that you actually *like*???
Posted by: Joshua | Aug 20, 2007 5:14:45 PM
".....is there anything or anyone that you actually *like*???"
If you genuinely wanted to see it you already would have.
Posted by: Leland Frances | Aug 20, 2007 5:28:49 PM
Sullivan's infatuation with Obama is ridiculously obvious to everyone but him, and that has been his problem all along--a lack of self-awareness bordering on the pathological--and the corresponding tendency to never admit error. He doesn't think Obama is the best candidate, he's in love with the guy and mashes the evidence to fit that infatuation. Despite his conservative rhetoric, he never lets the evidence get in the way of his conclusions about anything, and when he does change, such as on the Iraq war, it's everyone else's fault. At least Christopher Hitchens will defend his positions from twenty years ago with some self-awareness and responsibility.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Aug 20, 2007 6:12:43 PM
omfg, andrew sullivan is as nervous as a little girl @his upcoming nuptials! let us all hold our breaths. this mincing, repug madonna, deserves no space on this blog. fuck him and the fat-fuck whore (merv griffin) he rode in on.
Posted by: nic | Aug 20, 2007 6:32:26 PM
...All that terrible news on the gay front from Africa, it makes you wonder what the religio-crats will say about this synthetic life issue.
But then again, they may not say anything. I was having a discussion with a gay med student friend of mine about the hormones put into life forms for human purpose (livestock, dairy, fruits & vegetables) and the effect they may have on humans and, I mean I had no idea how serious it gets, and I said "Isn't that like playing God?" and he just shrugged. It just made me think that some people go out of their way to shoot up abortion clinics or turn away pregnant lesbians with "life" arguments but so much our our lives already based on some other humans' manipulation of nature, yet none of those same people seem to care.
It's very odd.
Posted by: Derrick | Aug 20, 2007 7:30:44 PM
JOSHUA...LELAND likes me...he sent me an email saying as much (hope it's okay to disclose that LELAND)...and I like him right back...LELAND is consistently on the right side of every political issue reported here...he makes his case logically and backs up his opinions with facts...and his writing style is great...in fact, your own statement that you recognized his post within ten words is evidence of his skill as a writer (by the way, LELAND, I also can usually recognize your posts before I see your name attached).
xo,
peterparker
Posted by: peterparker | Aug 20, 2007 8:42:26 PM
Peterparker, Leland backs up his opinions with dissertations. I have to agree with Joshua on this one. Leland does, at times, spray invective like a skunk sprays his stench. I do, too, but I keep it short.
Am I imagining this, or is this web-site kinda clique-ish in a high school sort of way? There seems to be a mutual-admiration-society thing going on here that I find more than a little bit off-putting -- almost incestuous. I'm just saying....
Posted by: nic | Aug 20, 2007 10:19:15 PM
I would like to take that pool cue to those sanctimonius Africans.
Posted by: Vi Agara | Aug 20, 2007 11:25:43 PM
Kitchenbeard,
The fundies won't stroke out unless the synthetic life thats created is homosexual.
Posted by: Vi Agara | Aug 20, 2007 11:30:38 PM
Nic: not sure what site you are reading, but if you post here you risk getting your head chopped off.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Aug 21, 2007 1:27:15 AM
anon (gmail.com), i pays my money (well, not really) and i takes my chances. lol.
Posted by: nic | Aug 21, 2007 1:33:22 AM
ps to anon: what makes you think i'm not reading the same blog that you are?
Posted by: nic | Aug 21, 2007 1:40:07 AM
I probably should have made myself completely clear. Leland and I don't actually disagree on quite a few topics, but when we do, we do. My problem is that no matter the subject, Leland can be counted on for the same vitrolic nastiness about those he dislikes or those whose views don't mesh with his. We all are guilty of this from time to time, but Leland has turned it into an art form.
That style of debate, isn't debate at all, it's who can be the nastiest last. I know that I'm not alone in trying to be of an open mind about many subjects, but when I express an opinion that differs with others, it's just that, mu opinion and I'm open to being shown the error of my ways by others possibly more knowledgable than I about the subject.......but brow beating and name calling and invective sure as hell won't work.
Isn't it better to just keep it to the issue and possibly change a mind than spew nastiness and make the other person never agree with you or vote your way on issues that are important to us as a community?
Posted by: Joshua | Aug 21, 2007 6:49:26 PM