aibojp

Maybe you were among the 138 million shoppers who rushed the stores on Black Friday and the weekend that followed Thanksgiving looking for discounted HDTVs, e-readers, toys and sweaters.
Or maybe you were like me and avoided coming within 500 feet of a retailer’s door on Friday, traditionally the frenzied start to the holiday shopping season.
I used to rush into shopping for the holidays, mixing with the crowds, searching for the deals.
Finding that special something for someone special still is important, but over last couple of years holiday shopping has become exercises in buying gifts without investing in anti-LGBT companies and dodging bell-ringers calling for donations to an organization that discriminates against gays.
This year I toyed with the idea of buying the majority on my list — from cousin Eddie to neighbor Vicky to boss Bonner — a “Be Gay” T-shirt from a gay-owned company. However, I got stuck trying to find out whether the T-shirt was stitched together in a China sweatshop.
Plus I’ve just received wishes from the kids in my extended family and toys, from the low-tech to the high-tech, crowded out clothing on their lists. Not a T-shirt requested among the list of video games, Disney toys, dolls, stuffed animals and guns.
So, here’s what I’m doing to make sure my economic choices are consistent with my social and political values. As I prepare to play Santa this holiday season, I’m making a list, checking it twice, trying to find out who’s naughty or nice, not to determine who gets presents but rather, where do I buy presents.
To get started, I downloaded the 2010 Buying for Equality Guide, a 44-page PDF posted on the Human Rights Campaign’s website, to read how nearly 600 retailers and manufactures rated on a scale of zero to 100. HRC will issue a new guide in a couple weeks if you can wait.
I next began my lists of the companies with the best and worst records on LGBT issues, including the offering domestic partnership benefits and banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
I’ll then I’ll compare the Human Rights Campaign’s findings with other corporate responsibility guides for a fully screened approach to ethical consumerism. Why? Because a company with a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign might rate a zero rating with another of my favored groups, such as Amnesty International or the National Audubon Society. Case in point — BP earned a 100 from HRC, but rates a big zero with environmental groups here on the Gulf Coast.
If all this sounds like I’m taking the warm and fuzzy out of the gift-giving season, that’s not my intent. I’m trying to guarantee good vibes and good will and good policy, trying to make sure I don’t boost the cold-cash profits of a cold-hearted corporation.
There are a lot of sayings about money in our culture, and I think they tend to be true. Money does make the world go round, especially now, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in January that overturned a century-old restriction and cleared the way for corporations to spend unlimited amounts on federal elections.
The Court’s decision, for example, allowed for Target and Best Buy to make campaign contributions to an independent expenditure committee providing financial support for ultra-conservative, anti-gay Republican Tom Emmer’s campaign for governor in Minnesota.
Because of the donations and refusals to request refunds, both retailers were dropped from the 2010 Buying for Equality Guide because “HRC will not encourage people to shop at either store.” HRC also reduced the retailers’ rankings on its new Corporate Equality Index.
That means neither Target nor Best Buy are on my list. I’m certain. I’ve checked it twice. This year they were naughty, not nice.

Here are two hints:

1. If I typed out his name letter by letter some of you might still be like, "Que?"

2. The above does not apply if your ass still subscribes to BOP Magazine and has copies from 2004 stored in a Chinese Laundry shoe box under your canopy bed.

Aaaaand GO!

No, this is not Mickey Rooney wrapped in the Botoxed skin of Pinocchio. It's 24-year-old Jesse McCartney at Comic-Con in San Diego yesterday!

Jesse McCartney obviously does not give three, two or even one fuck that he's got a mouth that only Orajel could love. While most hos would cover that mess up with a Stormtroopers helmet, Jesse is working the camera with every inch of that sore. Get that Valtrex endorsement, bitch!

While I totally get that Jesse is a nudist when it comes to his cold sores, he could've dressed that shit up a bit. You know, throw some glitter on it. Stick a sore tassle on the end of it. Or since it's Comic-Con, cover it in brown fur and say it's a Wookie sore. But that Paris Hilton on his mouth is at the bottom of Jesse's list of problems. At the top is.....

THOSE BROWS!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like his brows got into a fight with his crow's feet and the latter scratched out the former. Jesse has every right to make lips curl into mouths by flashing that sore, but he does not have the right to serve that tragic eyebrow situation to the public. Jesse needs to throw a brow toupee on those things until he gets them fixed by someone who is authorized to work a pair of Tweezers. Or those stray hairs on Jesse's chin should be re-planted on his brows. I swear.

I can look past that sore and the fact that he's got that Courtney Stodden's shit , but I cannot look past those sad brows.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Thursday making California the first state in the nation to add lessons about gays and lesbians to social studies classes in public schools.
Brown, a Democrat, signed the landmark bill requiring public schools to include the contributions of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender in social studies curriculum. The Democratic-majority Legislature had passed the bill last week on a largely party-line vote.

“History should be honest,” the governor said in a statement. “This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books.”
The bill has drawn criticism from some churches and conservative groups that argue such instruction would expose students to a subject that some parents find objectionable.
Republican lawmakers who opposed the bill had called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived bill. Some raised concerns that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality.
State Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill’s author, hailed the bill signing as a step toward teaching tolerance. Supporters say the bill will teach students to be more accepting of gays and lesbians in light of the bullying that happens to gay students.
“Today we are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT Americans,” Leno said in a statement.
California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor. The Legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics.
The new law, SB48, requires the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities, as soon as the 2013-2014 school year.
The legislation leaves it to local school boards to decide how to implement the requirement. It does not specify a grade level for the instruction to begin.
Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a conservative family group, said under the new law parents will have no choice but to take their children out of public school and homeschool them to avoid what he said was “immoral indoctrination.” The new law applies only to public schools, not private schools or families who homeschool.
“Jerry Brown has trampled the parental rights of the overwhelming majority of California fathers and mothers who don’t want their children to be sexually brainwashed at school,” Thomasson said. “This new law will prohibit textbooks and teachers from telling children the facts that homosexuality is neither healthy nor biological.”
The bill was supported by gay rights organizations including Equality California and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Teacher groups also said the bill would help students prepare for a diverse and evolving society.
“There is no room for discrimination of any kind in our classrooms, our communities or our state,” said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association.

One thing I know for sure after looking at these pictures of Janice Dickinson on the beach in Malibu yesterday is that when I'm 56 years old, I hope I too have zero fucks to give and will strut out in public no matter what.

Who cares if people won't sleep tonight, because Janice looks like one of the cave creatures from The Descent in a two piece! Who really cares if scientists would like to poke at Janice, because she looks like a mutated piece of overcooked steak fat that fell in a vat of acid! Who cares if it looks like all the muscles inside of her body are scurrying for the next exit! Who cares if I was Jerry Hall I'd have the weirdest lady boner right now! Who cares if Janice is leaving people confused, because she doesn't have a sales tag from Wilson's Leather sewed onto the back of her neck! Who cares if the bottle of SPF lube I keep next to my desk for outdoor fapping just dried up when these pictures hit my screen!

Who cares, because Janice certainly doesn't! And yes, if Janice Dickinson introduced herself to me as Iggy Pop, I so would.

  Becky Chace can hardly believe she’s been calling the office of Rhode Island’s governor to urge him to veto legislation that would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions.
The 35-year-old singer-songwriter is gay. She wants to be forever committed – legally – to her partner of seven years, 38-year-old Christy Bergeson.
But she does not want a civil union of the sort spelled out in a bill the General Assembly has approved and which Gov. Lincoln Chafee is expected to sign. It includes language that would allow religious organizations to dismiss the rights given to gay couples in a civil union.
“Anybody could say, `Oh, we’re not going to recognize that because we don’t have to,’” said Chace, who owns a home with Bergeson in Barrington. “To me, it’s meaningless if that’s the case.”
Gay rights groups, in the state and nationally, have been deeply disappointed with the civil union legislation, calling the exemptions discriminatory. Under the bill, for instance, a hospital with a religious affiliation could ignore the right of one individual in a civil union to make medical decisions for the other.
Marriage Equality for Rhode Island, Freedom to Marry, the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations have urged Chafee to veto it, saying that taking no action on the issue at all is preferable to enacting something they insist relegates them to second-class citizens.
The governor, who supports gay marriage, called it an “incremental” step toward that goal and has said he intends to sign it.
The state House of Representatives this year passed a gay marriage bill, but the legislation ran into opposition in the state Senate; it also was vigorously opposed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, who is gay, dropped the effort in favor of advancing civil union legislation, much to the chagrin of gay rights activists.
Sen. Donna Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, is a gay marriage proponent. But she voted against the civil union bill.
“From a conscience point of view, I couldn’t press the green button and vote for that,” she said. “We can’t confuse rights with equality.”
Still, Nesselbush, the only openly gay state senator in Rhode Island, said its passage marked “a huge step forward.” And she said that some people she knows in the gay community plan to enter into civil unions despite their dissatisfaction.
“Gay people can’t give up the rights of civil unions to spite their face,” she said.
Six states – Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York – as well as the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage. New York’s GOP-controlled Senate approved gay marriage legislation last week after four Republican senators joined all but one Democrat in voting yes.
Republicans had demanded stronger legal protections for religious groups worried that they would be slapped with discrimination lawsuits if they refused to allow their facilities to be used for same-sex weddings.
Backers of New York’s gay marriage legislation held up the victory as one with national implications, saying it would give momentum to the broader gay marriage movement. But New York’s success left some in Rhode Island stinging over the fact that, even with a Democratic-controlled legislature and an independent governor who supports gay marriage, the state could muster only passage of civil unions, and with broad exemptions.
Several other states, including Illinois, Delaware and Hawaii, also offer civil unions or domestic partnerships instead.
Unable to marry in Rhode Island, Luisa DeLuca, 45, and Brenda Harvey, 41, of South Kingstown, tied the knot last summer in neighboring Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage, under court order, in 2004.
While their hope is to marry one day in Rhode Island – where they own a home and pay taxes – DeLuca says that, for now, a civil union is “the next best thing.”
“At least it’s some sort of progress toward the ultimate goal, which is to obtain marriage equality,” said DeLuca, who works as a psychotherapist in Providence. “So I’m not as opposed to it as other people might be. I might actually take some flak for that.”
They’re planning a civil union ceremony on their property for September.
DeLuca’s parents have been outspoken proponents of gay marriage legislation – and opponents of the so-called civil union “compromise” – testifying repeatedly before state lawmakers. Anthony DeLuca told legislators that he and his wife, Sylvia, were “deeply offended” that the gay marriage bill had been dropped in favor of one he likened to Jim Crow-era laws that discriminated against African-Americans.
That some, including Chafee, a former Republican who left the GOP after he lost his U.S. Senate seat in 2006, have called the civil union bill an incremental step on the road to allowing gay marriage doesn’t sit right with him.
“You don’t divide humanity in incremental steps,” he said. “At what point is my daughter, or other gays and lesbians, at what point do they become full-fledged human beings? In what increments?”
Still, he supports his daughter and daughter-in-law’s decision to enter into a civil union.
Ashley Daigneault, 26, said Sen. Nesselbush, who is a municipal court judge, will be performing a civil union ceremony for her and her partner, Lyndsey Paparella, 28, in August.
Daigneault said they got engaged last year, with high hopes that by the time August came around the legislature would have legalized gay marriage.
Daigneault, who works for an education policy and advocacy group in Providence, and Paparella, who works in finance, are disappointed that the state did not approve gay marriage. But the couple, who live in South Kingstown, are taking a practical view of the situation.
“For us personally, we feel like it’s important for us to be protected. We plan on having a family, and we own property. It’s just not worth the risk for us to say we’re going to take a stand” by holding out for a gay marriage law, she said.