2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity.David Duke (notorious white supremacist leader):
3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).
"I don't see much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton--or, for that matter, John McCain."New Republic: Post-racial - how the American far-right is coping
All Mehdi Kazemi News updates are now at medhikazemi.com
In the coming hours the gay Iranian Seyed Mehdi Kazemi will be transferred from Holland (where he is after having fled from England following the British authorities' refusal to grant him political asylum) to London, before being deported to Iran where he risks execution for the crime of "lavat" (sodomy). The delivery of Mehdi should happen already tomorrow.Monday's protest (in Italian)
None Touch Cain and the Radical Party Nonviolento, transnational and transpartito ask the Foreign Minister D'Alema to intervene immediately to the UK to freeze the unacceptable process of deportation to Iran of Mehdi. That represent a violation of international conventions on human rights and in particular the Convention on Refugees, the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights and the same law (Directive 2005/85).
Yesterday [Monday 25th February] at 17:30 in Rome, in front of the Embassy of Great Britain (Via XX September, 80), there will be a demonstration of No Touch Cain, Nonviolento Transnational Radical Party and Transpartito and Group Everyone, to ask the Government to halt the English 'extradition of Medhi to Iran.
Oscar is 80, "which automatically makes him the front-runner for the Republican nomination"Late night hosts seem to have settled on McCain's age for comedy value.
The eGov prism through which this topic is missed can be seen in something like discussions about whether councils or specific services (like Youth) should have a Facebook or Bebo page. The eGov discussion would revolve around what you would do with it, how you would use it to 'engage', policy etc. Wonky stuff.
MANHATTAN — Dan Hoyt is a 'raw food guru' and subway masturbator in New York who met his match in a Camera-phone wielded by a woman fighting back.
The Daily News cover expose
There are quite a few reports from London too. Including a few pics - like this young dickhead 'reading' porn on the 17.45 from Manchester Piccadilly all the way to London Euston.
[Iran is not alone. Athough gays suffer murderous persecution ( a 'deathzone') in Iraq and many other nations, these are the ones with the death penalty in the statutes: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen and Nigeria. NB: The UAE includes Dubai, home to numerous supposed 'friends of the gays', such as the Beckhams, as well as the massed slave labour building those skyscrapers.]The Iranian Minister Mohsen Yahyavi (who is the highest- ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality) told British MP’s at the Inter-Parliamentary Union in May this year, that homosexuals should be executed [he initially said tortured but changed it to executed].However the UK is still deporting gays and lesbians back to Iran.
It could be any of us who are LGBT, who is in that position, if not for the roll of the dice that allowed us to be born in the West.Here is his story:
Seyed Medhi Kazemi was born in Tehran and is not yet 20. On September 15th, 2005 he set off for the United Kingdom after applying for a student visa. At first he lived with his uncle in London and attended an English course. In November 2005 he moved to Brighton where he enrolled at the Embassy CES College of Hove. He renewed his student visa to November 2006, with the intention of returning to his family in Iran once the course was over.Hearing yet another story like this makes me ASHAMED to be British and ASHAMED of the Labour Party I voted for. UK gays should note as well yet another Italian protest against Britain, at the Rome Embassy on Monday.
Medhi loved a boy back in Iran called Parham, with whom he had shared a secret relationship since the age of 15. Medhi and Parham regularly wrote to each other via e-mail until December 2005, when Parham suddenly stopped writing. In late March 2006, Medhi’s uncle informed him that his father had found out about his homosexuality and his relationship with Parham: the boy had been arrested by the Iranian authorities after being caught with a peer and accused of “lavat” (sodomy).
During the interrogation he was forced to give the names of all the boys he had had relations with, including Medhi himself. Medhi’s father had then received a visit from the Tehran Police, with an arrest warrant for his son as they wanted to put him on trial. In late April, Medhi’s uncle told him Parham had been put to death.
At this point, Medhi decided to apply to the British Home Office for refugee status, as a similar fate awaited him back in Iran: a death sentence for lavat, and maybe even mohareb, followed by hanging in an Iranian prison (seeing executions are no longer being carried out in public places after the decree signed by Ayatollah Mahmoud Hasemi on January 30th, 2008). His application for asylum, however, was turned down by the Home Secretary.
Medhi, terrified at the idea of being deported back to Iran - where a death sentence awaits him – attempted to flee to Canada, but he was stopped by the German border police. After telling them his story, he was sent to Holland (a country known for granting refugee status to Iranian homosexuals) and handed over to police custody. However, the United Kingdom then sent an official request to Holland, according to the Treaty of Dublin, asking for Medhi’s return, in order to proceed with his deportation to Iran.
On February 13th, 2008, Medhi informed his uncle of his whereabouts, he was being held in Venlo police station in Holland and had been told he was soon to be transferred to Rotterdam. Medhi’s uncle says he last heard from his nephew on February 15th. Medhi was in the detention centre at Rotterdam Airport, and according to the boy, no one had told him what his fate would be, nor when he was to be returned to Britain.
Omar Kuddus, from the Gay Asylum UK association, tells EveryOne Group that he received a phone call from Medhi, on February 18th, informing him that the flight that is to take him back to Britain has been arranged for Tuesday February 26th: it will leave at 8 a.m. (Dutch time) from the Amsterdam Airport of Schiphol, and arrive at Heathrow, London at about 8.30 a.m. (British time).
Medhi is at present in a precarious state of heath and suffering from deep depression. Several days ago he started a hunger strike.
The Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP
House of Commons, Westminster,
London, SW1A 0AA
By Telephone and Fax :
01527 523355
By E mail
smithjj@parliament.uk
The structure was designed to go through the center of blocks, rather than over the avenue, to avoid creating the negative conditions associated with elevated subways. It connected directly to factories and warehouses, allowing trains to roll right inside the buildings. Milk, meat, produce, and raw and manufactured goods could come and go without causing any street-level traffic.
Of course it was all set for demolition and redevelopment but New Yorkers fought (notably against Guiliani) and won it back for public space.
The British government says a sizeable chunk of the poison satellite of death will hit the earth at 5.30pm GMT today (12.30 Eastern). They expect it to hit somewhere in the South Atlantic, but are a little bit concerned that it might end up crashing into the picturesque seaside village of Cromer in Norfolk - they’re worried enough to have informed the local emergency services…This is Cromer described as a "lovely hobbiton" in my US source full of "quaint, thatched-roof cottages" and something to do with "wicket goblins" (a Potter reference I believe). Oh those charming Americans!
If only. It's actually a depressed seaside resort town with a drugs problem and seafront bed'n'breakfasts full of displaced asylum seekers. The pier area's been tarted up but the Victorian Gothic hotels behind desperately need a lick of paint.
When I speak, as I have now for the last eleven months, to tens of thousands of people and I say that we will do everything necessary to end our dependence on foreign oil, people!
Interestingly, Climate Change is, in this election, being loudly raised from the Right - some prominent evangelicals have made it a front-and-centre issue and this has caused schisms with those who prefer going after the gays. It was a big issue in the Republican primary.Mitt Romney has really been going after Senator McCain on this. Of course, McCain was the first to propose a cap on carbon emissions, and Romney's really been on the attack, saying this means McCain's not a real conservative. He's putting the economy at risk through increasing energy prices. McCain shoots back that he will trust American entrepreneurs to rise to this challenge and create green energy jobs.But the Democrat base hasn't prioritised it, as Al Gore has lamented (note the faint praise).
"Some of the candidates have made speeches which are quite good and proposals that are quite responsible, but overall the issue has not achieved the kind of priority that I think it should have."Indeed, if you look at Hillary and Obama's positions, they call for massive energy use reductions and massive carbon output reductions. All of their plans have enormous implications which - patently - the Democrat base don't get.
"I don't blame the candidates for that, some of them have tried to push it higher on the agenda."
"That is just the very reason why I have put so much of my time into trying to change the way people think about this crisis in my country and around the world -- so that candidates will hear from citizens that they want this to be the top priority."
Although Gore isn't about to blame them, it's clear that the leadership also isn't there to explain the seriousness of the mess they're in. Indeed both Obama and Hillary are linked to coal or nuclear interests and the primary process itself doesn't help: no-one will oppose disastrous biofuels because first-up Iowa voters love them and the subsidies they attract.Barack Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe.The policies are pretty xenophobic, messy and contradictory and way too inadequate ($150 billion isn't anywhere near enough) or just plain wrong. And in the November finale, expect the Right to use even these wishy-washy policies to go after so-called Reagan-Democrats. They'll capitalise on either Obama or Hillary's failure to explain/sugar coat reality for short-term political gain.
I think you're right about the notifications of errors. We can probably do more there in the 4 weeks or so before the first phase of the upgrade.I actually didn't mention error messages in my post here directly, but did in my initial (failed then succeeded) comment on the BBC Internet blog.
Don't think of it as a technical issue, think of it as a customer service issue.
You need to be upfront about the system's issues on the blogs themselves.
If someone cannot post, they won't come back and your mission of getting feedback is shot.
Your error message is a classic example of how not to do it. You should be much more usable and user-friendly and then maybe some of the failed commentators might come back (I have some 404 examples on my blog, here's one http://tinyurl.com/2mwk3c). You don't even have any help information which acknowledges your technical issues ('why your comment may have failed').
I have met some brilliant BBC usability people - maybe you need some of them in on your 'reviews'.
Devotees of the West Wing have been talking about it for weeks: the uncanny similarity between the fictional presidential contest that dominated the final seasons of the acclaimed TV show and the real-life drama of this year's election.
Both the real and imagined campaigns have centred on a young, charismatic candidate from an ethnic minority, daring to take on an establishment workhorse with a promise to transcend race and heal America's partisan divide.
But there's a twist.
For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician - not yet even a US senator - by the name of Barack Obama.
"Some of Santos's insistence on not being defined by his race, his pride in it even as he rises above it, came from that," West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie said.
"After [his 2000 Democrat] convention speech, Obama's life changed. He was mobbed wherever he went. He was more than a candidate seeking votes: people were seeking him. Some of Santos's celebrity aura came from that."
"It was always an inside joke on the West Wing that the show had a prophetic quality," recalls Attie, now a writer and producer of House, starring Hugh Laurie.You don't say!
On December 1, 2003, the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (the EER) came into force in the UK and made it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation, or harass or victimize them because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.2003!
