Just when you thought that DADT could not possibly be any more inhumane...

Turns out, it's not only homophobic, it's sexist as well:

Women are far more likely than men to be kicked out of the military under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gays in uniform, according to government figures released Thursday that critics said reflect deep-seated sexism in the armed forces.

Nathaniel Frank, a researcher at the Palm Center, a University of California, Santa Barbara, center specializing in gays and the military, said one partial explanation is that homosexuality is more common among women in the service than among their male comrades.

But Frank and some women who served in the military said the gap could also be a result of "lesbian-baiting" rumors and investigations that arise when women rebuff sexual overtures from male colleagues or do not meet traditional notions of feminine beauty.

"It's very clear the military comes down harder on women than on men, but the question of whether they come down harder on lesbians than on gay men is harder to answer," said Palm Center director Aaron Belkin. "We don't know whether the statistics reflect lesbian-baiting or just a higher rate of lesbians in the military."

Frank said the increases are all the more surprising because the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was largely driven by the argument that "straight men won't tolerate serving alongside known gays."

Tara Reid decides that botched plastic surgeries are nothing compared to a botched career

As one or two of you may remember, I have a kind of love for Tara Reid. She's just so darn cute, and I support her decision rarely to ever wear pants. All jokes aside (well-mostly) I've seen pictures of her with no makeup, and feel I can say that she's truly one of the best-looking women in the world.

But it's not a blind love. I accept that she needs to have a long talk with her agent (actually, she needed to have it at least five years ago); I also see her as a poster child for women who have wholly unnecessary plastic surgery.

My point being, I have a moral dilemma about this:

...the "American Pie" star is going to pose nude for an upcoming issue of Playboy. The photoshoot was conducted on October 7th at a private Santa Monica residence.

Reid is said to have started out the shoot nervous, but grew more comfortable as the day wore on. A source commented:

"She was a bit insecure about her body when they first started . . . She looked great and finally got into the groove."

The actress had previously said that the scars left from a bad liposuction procedure in 2004 would keep her from ever posing in the magazine.

Those scars are nothing compared to the ones left on her career by movies like "The Crow - Wicked Prayer" and "Alone in the Dark"...

If looks could kill, they probably will In games without frontiers...

Jim Emerson at Scanners has an early review (w/a couple of images!) of Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus.

Spoiler-free, unless you think of scene setting as spoilers. It ends:

"Imaginarium" reminds us that we are always inhabiting more than one "reality" at any given moment -- memory, the physical present, fantasy -- and that the totality of those experiences is what our existence is really made of. While it's not Gilliam's strongest work (that would probably be "Munchausen," but I'd like to put in a small plug here for the darker, grossly [!] underrated "Tideland"), it's another fanciful chapter in a body of work that is fiercely devoted to celebrating imagination in all its guises. I don't know how he does it, but leave it to Terry Gilliam to make CGI look like vintage animation. Bravo for that!

And bravo about liking Tideland, with a hearty "me, too!"

Updated from an earlier entry of Least newsworthy headlines:

Heath Ledger was missed at Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus premiere, says Terry Gilliam

As if he was going to say, "Thank God that shit isn't here..."

...okay, so this is Gilliam, and he might've...

Think what you will about the fact that I will see Saw VI in the theater and probably this on DVD*

Roger Ebert makes me want to see Trucker. His first paragraph:

There's one of those perfect moments in "Trucker" when I'm thinking, This is the moment to end! Now! Fade to black! And the movie ends. It is the last of many absolutely right decisions by the first-time writer-director James Mottern, who began by casting two actors who bring his story to strong emotional life. Both of them show they're gifted and intelligent artists who only needed, as so many do in these discouraging times, a chance to reveal their deep talents.

*In my defense, Trucker is only in limited release, and those limits do not include Seattle. Saw VI, on the other hand, will be released Oct 23, 2009. Wide (get it?).

Sur-Prize (edited with additions)

I've decided to "bump" this as I come up with updates and additions:

Josh Marshall (editor, Talking Points Memo), on why the President might "deserve" the prize more than some think he does:

Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it's a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was 'normal history' rather than dark aberration.

My original entry: To tell you the truth, I'm not sure about this (Obama's Nobel Prize) myself. However, anything that makes Republican leaders look like crybabies stamping their little feet cannot possibly be all bad.

Seriously, this is awesome.

ETA: Michael Moore congratulates President Obama, but adds:

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

I'm not sure (and I'm willing to admit that), but I think he may have a good point.

ETA 2: Huff asks its readers: What is the Most Outrageous Attack on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize? As you might expect, Rush is in the lead, but Glenn is breathing down his neck (and I use that imagery just because I know it'll make them see red).

Limbaugh told Newsweek that "the Nobel gang just suicide-bombed themselves."

And that's not even his winning entry. Meanwhile, Beck:

"[The] Nobel Peace Prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and given ... to the Tea Party goers and the 9-12 Project"

Comers, both. But I say, don't count out the heretofore unknown Brian Kilmeade, who wondered whether Obama delayed his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan in order to win the Nobel. That scrappy little Fox "news" reporter is really thinking out of the box...

Pop music light as a bubble

Nothing much more to say about it than that.

Holy crap.

Thug life:

For the offense of not having his shirt tucked in, 15-year-old special needs student Marshawn Pitts was slammed into a wall of lockers and pounded repeatedly in the face by a police officer who broke the boy's nose and bloodied his mouth.

Wait, there's more:

Cop who assaulted teen now in jail on rape charge; shot ex-wife's new husband 24 times in 'self defense'

Prez as Folk

Nathaniel Frank, who wrote one of my favorite books this year (Unfriendly Fire: How The Gay Ban Undermines The Military And Weakens America, my review here) writes a piece for HuffPo on what he hopes the President will say in his speech about/to/for gay people tomorrow. Excerpts:

What President Obama can do at this speech is to model how a genuine straight ally can do his or her part to help end discrimination against gay people. Yes, he's the President, and so he ought to do much more. But until he does, he should be sharing our stories with the world, to help make it clear why equal rights matter--to gays and non-gays alike. Show the world, Mr. President, how we are just like you, and perhaps more important, how you are just like us: In what ways are we pretty normal, and in what ways are you kinda Queer?

How are you like us, Mr. President? Your love for your family is just as important to you and just as prone to fragility; you've worked hard and paid your taxes and, like us, wanted to believe your government wouldn't slap a surcharge on your life just because of whom you love; and, despite what you've achieved, you've suffered discrimination and denigration because you're seen as different. Like it or not, you're Queer like us!

On a completely unrelated matter:

Tom Cruise, fashion police !:

Katie Holmes surely has a hot critique of her dressing style—hubby Tom Cruise. Talking in the November issue of Elle, the actress, 30, has said that Cruise, 47, often critiques her clothes.

"He usually likes everything, but sometimes I'll walk out and he'll say, ''I think that dress might be wearing you. You don't need that,"

Sounds perfectly sweet* to me

There's a bit of a fuss being made on one or two sites about some comments Hilary Swank made in an interview.

...said that she has no qualms about being naked in front of her boyfriend John Campisi`s six-year-old son.


However, the ``P.S. I Love You`` actress has admitted that she might have to start covering up soon.

"I don`t sleep in anything, but my boyfriend`s son is six years old, and you wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude. Every morning he comes into the bedroom, and you`re just nude. But he doesn`t look twice - he doesn`t think about it yet,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling America`s Marie Claire magazine.

*"Sweet" in the sense of "free from acidity or sourness."

Heather, I adore ya, but I think that dress has cut off circulation to your brain

Talent-poor but richly-breasted movie star Heather Graham thinks President Obama was elected because she and her witch friends cast a spell. I am not making this up.

Pink is a cheese puff of a hot bitch

Or vice-versa.




Via Hollywood Tuna

This may be worth keeping an eye out for...

Bradley Whitford, former star of The West Wing, has signed for a new series by the creator of Burn Notice.

Unanswerable questions

Why men in drag are funny, and women in drag are hot.

Why Torchwood is lame, in one picture

ETA: It's not Captain Jack, it's the gun.

Another lesson in just how very screwed up is our take on women in this country.

Go with me on this: It's fair to say, is it not, that if Kim Kardashian is known for anything--and she's not known for much--it's for being curvy. So why the hell would you Photoshop most--or even any--of those curves out?



I don't know either, but that's what FHM did for this layout (via Hollywood Tuna):

Shame

More because I want to do my bits to get this out than because I have anything new to say about it. But as you may have seen elsewhere, idiots like Sean Hannity are drawing a false connection between President Obama and--wait for it--NAMBLA.

They've concocted this rich (as in "ho ho, that's rich") fantasy about a young boy being sexually molested by an older man and talking to a then-school counselor about it. The counselor, who now works for Obama, did nothing.

How could any human being be so cruel?

...except that no sexual contact of any kind took place, this is about two males talking to each other. Not "dirty" talk--it was an older male homosexual talking to a young man in the process of realizing his sexual orientation.

Better yet, even if the two had all-the-way anal sex, it still wouldn't have been illegal, because the young man in question was 16 at the time, which is the age of consent in the state.

Ironically, I think I may be developing a kind of love for John Derbyshire

He's just so perfectly...fucked, in his thinking.

Yesterday, radio host Thom Hartmann probed Derbyshire about the suffrage issue, and Derbyshire re-affirmed his view that “of course” he believes women should have the right to vote. But, he explained, they shouldn’t exercise that right because it is “bad for conservatism” and therefore “bad for society”:

"I don't mind free women, as long as they act like prisoners in public."

How to give anyone who actually cares about words and the way in which they are used a headache

On CNN’s Larry King Live last night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked if she agreed with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that birthers are “crazy.” “That’s a non-issue,” replied Bachmann. “In my district, it’s a flat out non-issue.” King and guest James Carville pressed Bachmann to answer the question, but she continued to dodge it by saying her constituents just wanted to know “where are the jobs?” Eventually, King put her on the spot and she voiced support for the birthers:

KING: Congresswoman, I am — Congresswoman, the only thing was the question was simple — do you believe the birthers? Forget the district, forget the jobs for a moment. Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States?

BACHMANN: I have no reason to doubt that he wasn’t born in the United States.

Oh, my head...

Get out of that dress, you innocence stealer

Katy Perry spits in my face.

Love Happens didn't happen, but Jennifer Aniston will still work

...because for every dollar they pay her, her movies make $26. Aniston is one of the top 10 most money-making actresses in Hollywood. Joining her are Naomi Watts, Jennifer Connelly, Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, , , Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and Hilary Swank

Finally, someone else is questioning it

All that "Megan Fox is dumb" talk, that is...

It's times like this I'm happy to say I have a bottle of Pepsi chilling in my fridge right now...

Hate and descrimination are not family values.

Today, I empower you to take control over your life. Can you disconnect from the one thing that has brought you and others so much pain?

Y'know...let's say you wanted to split two sides of my soul right down the middle and represent each with pop culture manifestations.

You could do far worse than to have on the one side, representing as 'twere, my devilish nature, my love of Saw. And upon the other, speaking for the childlike, fun-loving, compassionate and dreamy side of me, my Doctor Who fandom.

This is why I'm glad that this morning, I have received talismans of a sort for both of them.

This is the new Doctor Who logo :

This is a second Saw VI trailer.



And here are some shots of the new Doctor and companion (Matt Smith and Karen Gillian) working on the next series.

Everything is connected to everything.

And everything lovely

Sylvia Kristel.

President Obama: You cannot abuse people's trust like this.

President Barack Obama will focus "at the right time" on how to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving openly in the military, his national security adviser said Sunday.

That immediately begs the question: If not now, when? And further: When you say right time...do you mean at a time which is acceptable to the Fox "news" republicans who clearly, if inexplicably, have this President cowed?

No, not cowed--it's like they're in a codependent relationship. He thinks if he just acts nice and does every little thing they want him to do, they'll like him as much as the Democrats do. Big surprise: That's never going to happen.

And if he keeps focusing on them and not on the people whose votes put him in office, Democrats aren't going to like him much either.

As a candidate, Obama signaled support for repealing the law. To the disappointment of gay-rights supporters, he has yet to made a move since taking office in January. The White House has said it will not stop the military from dismissing gays and lesbians who acknowledge their sexuality.

President Obama, please look very carefully at what I said in this post's title. I mean every word and phrase quite precisely and literally. You. Cannot. Abuse. People's. Trust. Like this.