This is hilarious

and it has beautiful costuming to boot.

'OK2BGay' by Tomboy


And of course, I'd like to thank YKWIA for finding it.

And Tomboy, who is from Denmark, has a pretty nifty website, in which you can gauge your gay potential. I don't know if his album has been released in the States yet, but it contains such tracks as 'Gay Guys Arise,' 'Who’s the Man,' 'Sucker for You' and 'Gays in Space.' QueerVerve lists OK2BGay as the Gayest Music Video Ever Made.

Happy Hanukkah!

I received my 10th anniversary gift from work today

It's a clock, 9 or 10 inches square with a maple finish, that sets itself by long-wave radio from an atomic clock in Colorado. The only drawback is that I wasn't getting a good signal at my desk, even near a window. When I took it home, however, it worked fine. Guess there was too much interference from the structure and the computers at work. Still, it looks nice at home, and I need another clock there anyway.

It's hard to believe I've been there 10 years. Actually, it's almost 11; it will be come March.

Anyway, it's a nice gizmo. I'm glad it's working okay now.

Nifty

Scientists dig up secrets from dinosaur mummy

Among the details of the mineralised body of a duck-billed dinosaur find were scales that showed possible camoflague patterns, heavier musculature than once thought, and a possible death scene--as an early crocodile-like thing apparently died trying to eat it.

I love science. And this was also a neat story because not only is it the most complete fossil of its type, its founder was a teen who stumbled across it in 1999 and came back five years later whilst leading researchers to spots that would be good to excavate in his native North Dakota. Now in his second year of graduate study in paleontology at Yale, he caught the fossil-hunting bug at 6 and made a career out of it. He certainly has a good dissertation topic well in hand. :)

Wow

Scientists Cure Mice Of Sickle Cell Using Stem Cell Technique: New Approach Is From Skin, Not Embryos

Making stem cells from skin cells from diseased mice, the researchers used viruses to change the cell and replace the sickle-cell DNA with healthy DNA, then transplanted the cells back into the mouse, curing the disease. This could mean amazing things in the future.

How would you feel if you found out your dad

missing for five years and declared dead, was really alive and he and your mom cashed in on the insurance money and hooked back up in Central America?

Canoe Man's Story Keeps Sinking

I don't blame the sons for washing their hands of their parents.

Intriguing

The Future of Reading

I don't think that books are in imminent peril, especially given reader reaction to Newsweek's story on Amazon.com's new Kindle e-book reader, but I for one would like to try it out. I think how we read is evolving, and this might just be the model needed for e-book readers to really catch on.

So another woman was also involved in the Megan Meier case

Prosecutor won't bring charges in MySpace suicide

That's two adults who acted immaturely when they conversed with the depressed 13-year-old over MySpace, leading to Megan Meier's suicide, saying something to the effect of the world being a better place without her. The second woman hasn't been named. The prosecutor would obviously like to bring some justice into this case, but harassment statutes for the area don't include online harassment and the stalking statute would require repeated negative contact. Apparently the account used purported to be a 16-year-old boy named Josh, being homeschooled in a nearby town, but was used by a former friend's mother and this 18-year-old to determine if Megan had gossiped about the daughter. Megan was confused by the sudden change from flirting, good interaction to 'Josh' turning on her and saying he'd heard she was mean and didn't want to be her friend.

There's no way to prove that the adults involved intended for the girl to kill herself, even if they knew she was severely depressed. Name-calling isn't really illegal, and there's really no way to prosecute it, authorities said. It just wasn't feasible to try to prove to a jury that there was malicious intent to the degree believed by the parents.

I believe that what the women did was wrong. It was terribly petty and immature and they should have been above taunting a 13-year-old girl with mental problems. I mean, what kind of person does that? There should be a small circle in hell for such people. But I agree that there's really no case and so there's no real justice either. On the other hand, I don't think you can blame Megan's suicide squarely on these women. There were a lot of factors, mainly her own brain chemistry and the tendency for teenagers to magnify any slight. She's not at fault for her suicide--she was far too young and too sick to truly be accountable, but she's certainly a victim of her illness, and that's very sad. The women involved, however, triggered it, as did no doubt her mother, who when shown the exchange berated her daughter for using bad language rather than taking her side, at which point Megan stormed off unbelieving and then she was found hanged a little while later. It must have seemed like a betrayal in her mind. That's the sad thing about depression--no matter how much you watch what you say, you know that at any time something might percolate through the depressed person's mind to make them give up entirely. By all accounts the parents were trying to do the best for their daughter. Perhaps given time she could have blossomed. But she didn't have that time.

This whole story underscores the toll mental illness--particularly mental illness in children--can take on people and their families. And vindictive, petty neighbours certainly don't help.

Oh, my!

The Heroes finale tonight was superb. Two heroes have apparently met their deaths--both heroically. Armageddon was averted but an old enemy returns. The information about the heroes and the Company is simmering like a pot, ready to explode into the mainstream, only to be contained on several fronts. This is great stuff--and we've seen a glimpse into the next story arc. Now if only there are writers to cover it. :)

Who in their right mind would do this as a vacation in this day and age?

Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists

Yes, let's go to Africa, the epicentre of the world's AIDS epidemic, and have as much sex as we can, trolling down the beaches for studly young men. It doesn't have to be Africa, of course--Asia's sex trade is also very dangerous, as it is pretty much everywhere these days in terms of HIV and Hepatitis, plus a whole host of other sexually transmitted diseases. But going to a country with a 6.9% AIDS rate to go have unprotected sex (condoms seem too 'businesslike' for some women's fantasies, according to the article) with strangers?

Or am I being a prude? It just seems, well, stupid, and it doesn't matter if the people doing it are young, old, white, black, whatever--HIV doesn't discriminate.

Speaking of the sex trade, I also came across this:

Teen suicide spurs war on child prostitution

Authorities are cracking down in Atlanta, which has become a hub for child prostitutes, many lured into sex with men in other towns and then brought against their will to work for pimps. Girls (and I'm sure, boys, too) are bought and sold from pimp to pimp, and the men having sex with them (perhaps from layovers at the busy international airport) aren't having a normal money-for-sex relationship with women who are consenting--they're having sex with 12-year-olds, making them predators and paediphiles.

The only facility in the country for rehabilitating former child prostitutes is near Atlanta. The city is seeking to open another, especially in the wake of Samantha Walker's suicide. Walker, from Toledo, OH, was lured into prostitution in Toledo at 15 and taken against her will to Atlanta. She testified against a man who forced her to have sex at a rest stop and then took her back to his hotel, from which she escaped. He was convicted of forced imprisonment and solicting sex with a minor. A few weeks after the trial, unable to get a placement at the rehabilitation centre, she had returned to Toledo and facing the shame of being a child prostitute, killed herself at the age of 18. The courts aren't set up for dealing with the Samantha Walkers of the world, and the system therefore fails to keep these young girls from continuing as prostitutes into adulthood, or worse, succumbing to drugs and sexually-transmitted diseases. The shady world of prostitution is bad enough as it is--but it shouldn't involve children. These kids deserve to keep their childhoods and not be jaded before they can drive. I'm sure just about any relatively large city has some experience with this issue. Keep your eyes and mind open to the fact that sexual slavery exists in all sorts of places--because we refuse to see it. Sometimes it is young foreign women who are lured to private homes or brothels. Sometimes, as in Samantha's case, it is home-grown. Sex can be a wonderful thing--it shouldn't be the chain by which someone is bound and gagged.

And remember, today is World AIDS Day. Do something proactive--get a test, wear a condom, raise awareness with a ribbon, or donate to a charity. Educate yourself about safer sex and about the disease. Protect yourself--and have sympathy for others who have been exposed and ire for those who aid its spread, often by misinformation or actions such as drug dealing or pimping.