HAPPY PI DAY

Today is a day to recognize the importance of math and science to the American economy around the theme of Pi or the Greek symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter that is rounded to 3.14.Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) offered a resolution in the House to honour the day. The resolution passed 391-10. It is interesting to note that those who voted against the resolution were all Republicans. I checked a list of Representatives and vetted the findings. There were a few GOP members who voted alongside their Democrat colleagues but the 'Yea' votes were mostly along blue state political lines. The GOP needs to make science more of a priority if they are to gain any credibility in public confidence.



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BEING GAY SHOULDN'T HURT

In South Africa, men gang-rape and murder women for being lesbians. Last year, a group of men raped and stabbed to death footballer Eudy Simelane, an open lesbian. The men rape lesbians in the false belief that the forced sex will correct the women's orientation.

First, no one should be coerced into any manner of life that they were not born to follow. Being gay is a genetic predisposition, not a choice. It is not a condition that can be "cured" or remedied through terror. Homosexuality is within the weft of a person's DNA and RNA.

Secondly, why the hell is it anyone's damn business as to whether or not another person is gay? I think the phrase, "Don't you have anything better to do?" applies to homophobes that seek to impose heterosexuality on lesbians and gay men. Fundamentalist Christians et alius who harass and torture gays should, in sum, go take a piss and leave others to their own lives.



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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TUX

This is more fun than wishing a Bonne Fête ! to Alan Rickman. The actor certainly is the handsome one but he can't boot my laptop hard drive like my main Linux squeeze,Ubuntu. Sure, there have been the unsatisfactory flings with Microsoft software but I've said "Hasta La Vista" to everything Windows after too many relationship crashes and blue screens. I have had no regrets. The Linux distro, that was named after creator Linus Torvalds, offers a stable and low cost alternative to expensive and faulty Microsoft products during a downturn economy where businesses and people struggle to survive and do not need to pay blood money to Redmond. I'll stick with my 15-year-old penguin (45 in human years) who was born this day in 1994 and chosen as a mascot by Torvalds after a fairy penguin at the Australian zoo nibbled at him. Bon Fête Linux!


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GAY IS COOL EXCEPT.....

..when you are the last three Blue Ducks in England.

Happy Blue Duck couple Ben and Jerry have formed a romantic bond in Arundel Wetland Centre in West Sussex. The male loving birds have ignored the advances of a female duck named Cherry who has preened, coaxed, and tried to show the lavender duo how to nest as straights without success. Cherry, despite rejection from both males, has settled into her own enclosure and seems to take no heed of the males' Boston marriage. The proprietors of the wetland centre have taken the unusual pairing with aplomb, calling the two male ducks "a lovely couple", but with some regret that there was not a last clutch of eggs.

Radio Free Canada respects the cosy pair but a few eggs would not hurt to save an endangered species. There are conservation efforts in New Zealand but these are the last British Blue Ducks. We would like to nudge Ben and Jerry, in this instant, to be 'turkey basters' (pretend Cherry is Nadja Suleman) who may afterward return to their preferred living arrangements.


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PLEASE SIGN

Please sign the petition against Chris Brown to get him kicked off the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice awards.

Love shouldn't hurt.

Thanks.
Anne



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GIVE THEM HELL

This tickles my anti-censorship heart. The student paper at my old alma mater has gone on strike rather than cede control to a publisher's oversight. The staff, for the first time in the 109-year-old Daily Emerald's history, has shut down the paper to protest being reined in by publisher Steven Smith who finally resigned.True, the newspaper does need fiscal direction but this was at the cost of editorial independence. I hope this is a lesson for writers and commercial media everywhere that hard times do not equate to loss of editorial control.

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UPDATE: The staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald have gone back to work.