about 2 days ago - 11 comments
US general says Srebrenica massacre was fault of Gay Dutch soldiers
UK passes bill to cut off internet for thousands of households
Most British schools break law to spy on their pupils
US court says govt. can put non-sex-offenders on sex-offender-list
Texas rewrites school books to fit Republican agenda
In the US loud sex is a More >
about 1 week ago - 17 comments
Cam Archer is an independent filmmaker who, at the same age of most recent college graduates, has written and directed a vast amount of his critically acclaimed and award winning films. His debut feature film Wild Tigers I Have Known, which was executively produced by veteran indie filmmaker Gus Van Sant, premiered at the 2006 More >
about 1 week ago - 31 comments
An interesting exchange with a small boy who meets a gay couple at a family function
Download this Video
For this boy it was a simple step of logic. First, he admits he knew about husbands and wives but had never seen a husband and husband before. He says: "This is the very first time I’ve seen More >
about 1 week ago - 35 comments
Mexico enacts Latin America’s first gay marriage law
US Anti-Gay senator comes out as gay after arrest
Kid kicked out of pre-school because parents are gay
US high-school prom cancelled in Lesbian panic
Man branded as pedo for taking photo of his son
Obama supports DNA sampling upon arrest
European Parliament gives the US a More >
about 1 week ago - 62 comments
about 1 week ago - 27 comments
Austin didn’t know what to wear to his first gay dance last spring. It was bad enough that the gangly 13-year-old from Sand Springs, Okla., had to go without his boyfriend at the time, a 14-year-old star athlete at another middle school, but there were also laundry issues. “I don’t have any clean clothes!” he More >
about 1 week ago - 9 comments
It’s a year and a half since I posted this video here first so let’s introduce some of the new readers to Swedish idol Johan Palm. Even ‘tho the picture quality is horrible, just listening to him…. meow!
More Johan Palm here, here, here, here, & here ;)
about 2 weeks ago - 47 comments
Download this Video in HD | Found on Desmænok
You gotta love ‘em for not having any sense of shame ;)
about 2 weeks ago - 13 comments
about 2 weeks ago - 13 comments
A short by Swedish film maker Micael Norberg | More Scandinavian Candy at sCandy
about 10 months ago
[Video via Aleks-Blog & fefe]
about 10 months ago
That bit about the scouts being trained to do that is freakin scary shit
about 10 months ago
I really should go through the whole list before I go and make any comments. Russia is so behind the times, in some weird way it’s good that this put the gay rights atrocities committed there in the spotlight again. And the story about the girl with the report on Harvey Milk….. Wow, I’m just amazed at how ignorant this country is sometimes. I really hope something comes of it to force the schools to not be allowed to be this way anymore. It would be good to have some sort of precedent set from it.
about 10 months ago
The Pirate Bay judge is/was not biased, or it has not yet been determined he was. This “we can never trust the state lol, anyone who works for the state is evil and corrupt” mob atmosphere that has been spreading is rather unpleasant. This isn’t the US m’kay?
about 10 months ago
@William
Wut? It WAS proven that he works for the music industry, so he#s of course biased.
about 10 months ago
About the Irish schools & care facilities… “‘Endemic’ rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry finds”
The Inquisition21 website once had a story on it that was written by its editor, who was raised in a Catholic care home, which detailed his amazement at the allegations that led to the inquiry being set up and the claims made in the inquiry. He said he was in contact with many “almuni” of his institution, and they in turn knew others who had been cared for by that church’s institutions. Not only had none of them had been mistreated or had cause to complain about the care they received, but they were in fact full of praise for the nuns and priests who had “raised” and educated them. Stories such as the one linked to are part of the child-abuse hysteria process.
about 10 months ago
@xenopoesis
So all the people who said they were abused and raped are just lying? Sorry but I doubt that. It’s not a “story” made up by a newspaper, it’s a report from a governmental commission — which interest should they have in stating that all this happened Schools funded by the Irish government?
about 10 months ago
Josh: He doesn’t work for the music industry, at least that hasn’t been proved so far. And even if he was, it’s up to the appellate court to decide if there’s a conflict of interest. Otherwise I guess I could say he’s biased in favor of the defendants if, for example, it could be shown that he’s downloaded copyrighted material (which is quite likely)? All possible judges you could find has some kind of “bias” if you define it that way.
about 10 months ago
Govornment should drop the pirate bay case and move on to training 14yo soldiers…. thats terrible.
about 10 months ago
@Josh
There have been similar inquiries that, shall we say, got rather carried away. MacMartin Preschool? Daycare abuse? Satanic abuse? In the UK, for some reason a police force decided to start investigating past activity at certain government care homes, presumably after someone (a legitimate victim perhaps) had made an allegation. What did they do? They went to juvenile detention centres and ASKED if anyone had been abused. Plenty of people said yes. Why would anyone lie about being abused? Well, it might provide an excuse for their criminal background, which might “get them off”, and might anyway lead to the award of compensation.
There is a tendency to treat “victims” specially, since to question them might be considered be to demeaning them in some way, “minimising” their “trauma” or some such.
Some might have been raped and abused. They deserve the truth.
Why would government inquiries “lie”? The abuse investigators get validated, they get bigger budgets, whatever.
about 10 months ago
This official computer and phone surveilance is just too scary and is, it seems, EEC wide. It will soon be worse than anything George Orwell ever envisaged.
about 10 months ago
Link for the doubts, xenopoesis has expressed in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria
about 10 months ago
There is no doubt child abuse has occurred and still does in many institutions where young vulnerable people are ‘housed’ whether it be penal establishments, childrens homes, whatever. The abuse takes on many forms ‘the interrogation of michael crowe’ is one example and ’song for a raggy boy’ (albeit fictional) is another. But having grown up around catholic priests who often acted as marriage counsellors, youth club workers and general community do-gooders, it concerns me that the actions of a few detract from the overall good done by the majority.
It is dangerous to generalise and pigeon-hole stereo-types. I and all the others at the church where I grew up had respect for the priests and owe them a debt of gratitude for help and advice given unconditionally over the years.
As for scouts being trained to deal with terrorists. Kids in war torn countries are shown handling guns from an early age, given the nature of American foreign policy did you honestly expect America to be far behind them?
about 10 months ago
Witch hunts aren’t going to go away just because society is “modern”. And consider that the muslim world would prefer we go back to living in the 12th century, things will only get more interesting in the future.
about 10 months ago
@oaksong
Funny how you use the fact that Catholics who were supposed to care for children abused and raped them to bash Muslims -_- One cruel day you will realise it wasn’t a Muslim who took away all your rights and kicked your ass out of wonderland. Christians are not “better” or more harmless than Muslims in the slightest way.
@the other ones
I still don’t believe this was faked in any way, it’s way to big and there is just no serious motive for them to lie. And the fact that the Catholic church apologised for the abuse of the children doesn’t really help your theory either.
I wonder if some of you actually read the article.
“The Christian Brothers delayed the investigation for more than a year with a lawsuit that successfully defended their members’ right to anonymity in all references in the report, even in cases in which individual Christian Brothers had been convicted of sexual and physical attacks on children.”
Do you really think they would do that if they think they’re innocent?
about 10 months ago
I don’t doubt the attacks took place and have also read the church has in the past had a habit of ‘covering’ up for transgressors in the name of their faith. This I believe to be wrong and it only seems recently the church has taken responsibility by apologising on behalf of the offenders. I dont know what judgements should be brought, that is the responsibility of the local authorities.
My only point was when I first heard of such goings on it seemed the public outcry was against ALL catholic priests and that to me is wrong. It is like racism. Just because a nation has some notorious assholes you can’t assume the rest of the population is the same.
Nor am I defending the church as a whole because I personally find religion the bane of civilized society due to the wars it propogates, but I don’t profess to know all the answers and nor would I inflict my views on others unless in polite conversation or as a matter of debate.
about 10 months ago
Abe, I know I didn’t mean you so much but the hysteria-fraction ’cause it just makes no sense to me to say it’s made up when the whole report is actually based on internal records of the church :/
about 10 months ago
@Josh, I think that some deplorable things probably did happen in those care homes. I don’t think that the report is made up. But I think that what actually happened is MUCH more complicated than the inquiry and, more importantly, the news stories about it make out.
I just find it difficult to accept as true both statements made by people who were brought up in the same care home system to the effect that they were categorically NOT abuse and NEVER saw anything to suggest that anyone else was being abused with the finding of the inquiry that abuse was endemic in that system.
And how did this inquiry come about? As a result of a TV programme called “States of Fear” and other media activity, a ‘Redress’ programme was set up by the government that ADVERTISED NATIONWIDE for victims of residential abuse to come forward and CLAIM COMPENSATION. How many of the allegations of abuse that came in after that time had even been mentioned before the temptation of compensation was there to complicate matters?
Outraged by the sheer volume of allegations, and the one-sided official and media viewpoint, by huge compensation awards and the emergence of ‘celebrity victims’, the Christian Brothers finally hit back and issued a statement saying that they did not accept ‘the now established perception that there was widespread, systematic, sexual abuse in their residential institutions’.
At this point a group of women, former residents of homes managed by the nuns, emerged claiming that many of the allegations against the nuns were false and based on hopes of compensation. They formed an organization called LOVE (Let Our Voices Be Heard) dedicated to supporting the nuns who ran the residential homes.
Their web site has now been lost, but the wayback archive has a copy.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050410054130/http://www.voicesemerge.com/our_story.htm
about 10 months ago
Josh is turning into a witch hunter! Fee Fi Fo Fum
about 9 months ago
IMHO, I find it impossible to even consider that Josh’s character would ever allow him to be a ‘witch hunter.’
Re: Irish institutions for children – I read the article, which I find extremely credible. To the readers who think the report is overreaching, please consider that definitions of both abuse and rape have evolved over time [the time covered by the report is 1930s to 1990s]. Also consider that many youth in such circumstances expected, tolerated, and may well have even welcomed, behavior that those outside the system would define as abuse and rape. Youth who successfully joined society following a childhood in institutions may limit their criticisms or temper their memories because the benefits offered by the facilities outweighed the costs, however marginally.
Re: Explorer Scouts – I’m deeply saddened by the fact the Boy Scouting, which was such a positive part of my life and so many others’ lives, is approving of indoctrination that teaches that violence is an appropriate response to a person’s skin color or citizenship status. Lord Baden-Powell must be rolling over in his grave!
Re: Banned student presentation – Unfortunately, this is all too typical of American school administrators with job-security concerns, who are either too stupid or too scared to correctly interpret their own policies [it's rarely the teachers causing problems, usually it's principals and school boards]. In most of these situations, I’ll bet you can find that the controlling personnel or policies were developed by those hired or elected by the right-wing fundamentalist Christian political agenda. Ultimately, everyone can claim they’re just following orders; however, I remember hearing that before [Nuremberg]!
WE, all of us including me, should be extremely careful to stay aware of the difference between what we may believe when compared to what we may know as fact. When current “news” actually turns out to be well researched and, therefore, credible, WE may need to adjust some or all of our beliefs.
about 9 months ago
Well said Aleks, I totally agree. Josh is not someone I would ever think of as a witch hunter. He’s one awesome great guy to do all this that he’s created for our enjoyment.