October 17, 2007 archive

This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started.

1. The New York Times reports Parliament in Turkey votes to allow Iraq incursion. “The Turkish Parliament today granted authorization for a cross-border offensive to strike Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, although diplomatic efforts continued to prevent any military action. The motion passed in the Parliament by 526 votes in favor to 19 votes against. It was drafted by the ruling Justice and Development Party, and grants the government open authority for one year to launch military incursions against rebels who carry out attacks in Turkey from northern Iraq.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post and others report that House support wanes for Armenian genocide bill. As much as the media and the Bush administration is linking the two, the Turks have had these incursion plans in the works for a long time. Good thing the Bush doctrine allows countries to invade to stop terrorism.

2. The Guardian reports Britain to claim more than 1m sq km of Antarctica and the move would extend UK oil, gas and mineral rights.

   

   The United Kingdom is planning to claim sovereign rights over a vast area of the remote seabed off Antarctica, the Guardian has learned. The submission to the United Nations covers more than 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed, and is likely to signal a quickening of the race for territory around the south pole in the world’s least explored continent.

   The claim would be in defiance of the spirit of the 1959 Antarctic treaty, to which the UK is a signatory. It specifically states that no new claims shall be asserted on the continent. The treaty was drawn up to prevent territorial disputes.

   So what’s motivating this grab? Well likely, Britain has been ‘frozen” out of the land grab going on at the North Pole by Russia, Canada, the U.S. and other countries. (For more info, see my essay from September, “Mapping Claims to the Spoils of Global Warming”.) In addition, the rising price of oil, which is at $88 a barrel, is intensifying pressure to secure new potential oil sources.

   Unfortunately, this will be nothing but bad news for penguins and other creatures that live in Antarctica. In another story at The Guardian, science correspondent Alok Jha reports, WWF calls for protected areas for Antarctica. “Large parts of the oceans around Antarctica should be turned into marine reserves to protect the rapidly declining biodiversity on the continent,” according to the WWF. The environmental charity “will call on diplomats, environmentalists and scientists to support their plan to identify and designate a network of protected marine reserves to safeguard Antarctica and its surroundings, which occupy some 40% of the world’s surface.”

Below the fold is an article about the poverty line, which one ground says should be $74,044 for a 2-parent family of four living in Los Angeles, today’s “Guns of Greed”, and a “extra” report on the Solomon Island’s sale and export of 28 dolphins to Dubai taking place today.

Welcome to a weekly roundup of news related to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and otherwise “Other” community.

• Starting with the good news… 2007 is a record year for the number of openly queer candidates running for political office in a year with no federal elections: a whopping 71, if you can believe that.  This includes people like Pam Bennett, a transgender politician running for city council in Colorado.  Only six states still have no openly gay or lesbian elected officials at any level…  including my home state.  Hoorah!
• Now for more sobering news… In the course of the last 20 years, HIV/AIDS has gone from a mysterious “gay cancer” to an international crisis to a celebrity cause to background noise.  Most of what we hear in the news today involves skyrocketing rates in Africa and the debate over condoms, which is why the 2005 report by the Center for Disease Control is all the more sobering: among MSM (that’s “men who have sex with men”) in urban areas, 21% of whites and 46% of blacks have HIV.  If you live near D.C. and are interested, the NIH Office of AIDS Research Advisory will be holding an open meeting on October 24th, focusing specifically on the spread of HIV in minority communities.  More info here.
• And some heartwarming news… counter to the largely negative story about living out in nursing homes that I posted last week, consider this: a 93 year old British man who recently came out in The Old Vicarage Nursing home has written a novel about forbidden love, The Heart Entrapped (h/t Towleroad).  Says author Mike Soper:

  “When all the old ladies heard about the book, they asked if they could read it. So I had to tell them I was gay and that it was a gay-themed novel.”

  Mr Soper, a former academic at Christ Church, Oxford, until 1981, said it had been nice to be honest about his sexuality after so many years.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Sigh. Look, I’ll be brief. I come here this morning, just a peak ’cause I have other work, seriously, and oh my god, what do I find? Three Gore diaries on the rec’ list, one urging Al to run, one offering in-depth analysis the latest poll data from Gallup on Al’s chances, and one that states categorically as “breaking news” that Gore has ruled out a run completely.. Guess which one made my heart stop? Thankfully, having been on this roller-coaster for a while, I check out the comments and sure enough, Gore has said nothing of the kind , nothing new at all, and who really thinks he would break such a huge piece of news to the Europeans before his own people?

One problem that has been raised, and it’s a very valid point, is how will Gore be able to shift gears from repeatedly insisting, these many months, that  “I have no intention”, “I have no plans” to run for President to suddenly declaring he’s in?  What can he say without losing all credibility and becoming a laughing stock on the evening news? That is what this diary will examine.

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With appologies to the MP crew…

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Current TV Re-launches Website

…Current founders Joel Hyatt and Al Gore (you might have heard of him), were recently honored with an Emmy for creative achievement in interactive television…So Current TV has this week relaunched its Web site to add many of the features found on YouTube. The redesign includes a Multimedia Wiki where viewers can respond to pods with comments, videos and animation.