Guardian: Blind Date

Sake.

Gay men are about 2-4% of the population, you don't need to feature them every other freaking week.

Guardian: Again?

You do know you don't have to do some fags every other week?

Modern Times: 'Dating' Apps

The Guardian.

What on earth did you expect, love?

Update: If you're looking for love, then go on a Guardian Blind Date.

Deleted Tweet Of The Week: Chelsea Manning

.@ggreenwald He's fast. But here's the screenshot. pic.twitter.com/ZHLf7e6zRM

— Billmon (@billmon1) August 13, 2015

Coz Chelsea Manning being threatened with being thrown in solitary confinement on ludicrous charges iz well LOL!!!

Glenn Greenwald: Quo Vadis?

Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought The Guardian the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news organization, for a brand-new, large-scale, broadly focused media outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.

Greenwald, 46, published revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American and British domestic spying and about officials’ deception about its scope. He said he is departing for a new, “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity” with major financial backing, the details of which will be public soon.

“My partnership with The Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved,” Greenwald said in an emailed statement. “The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline.”

Greenwald said that because the news had leaked “before we were prepared to announce it, I’m not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture.” It will, he said, “be unveiled very shortly."

...Greenwald declined to comment on the precise scale of the new venture or on its budget, but he said it would be “a very well-funded … very substantial new media outlet.” He said the source of funding will be public when the venture is officially announced...

“My role, aside from reporting and writing for it, is to create the entire journalism unit from the ground up by recruiting the journalists and editors who share the same journalistic ethos and shaping the whole thing — but especially the political journalism part — in the image of the journalism I respect most,” he said.

Greenwald will continue to live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he said, and would bring some staff to Rio, but the new organization’s main hubs will be New York City; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, he said.

The venture, which he said had “hired a fair number of people already,” will be “a general media outlet and news site — it’s going to have sports and entertainment and features. I’m working on the whole thing but the political journalism unit is my focus.”

Greenwald said he looked forward to creating a new organization with “no preexisting institutional strictures on what you can do.”

And he said his move is driven solely by the opportunity presented.

“When people hear what it is, there is almost no journalist who would say no to it,” he said.

BuzzFeed.

How amusing that this news was leaked.

Fagburn can exclusively reveal that he doesn't know what this is all about, yet.

PS There's a rumour his wealthy benefactor is the billionaire eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar. [No idea if this other story is reliable].

The Guardian: Facts Are Sacred

The Guardian's Datablog collects "the data on which countries protect, and which countries persecute their homosexual citizens".
Death penalty!
Life sentences!
Here's a chart - it could be my computer being annoying, but this makes no sense at all.

"Relying on the texts of the laws themselves..."
This is beyond daft.
What this article doesn't say is if and when these laws are actually applied.
Gay sex was illegal in Scotland until 1980 - was anyone charged for an offence that they wouldn't have been charged with in England and Wales after 1967?
Is there any evidence that anyone has been executed in Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia "just for being gay"?
Or been imprisoned for life?
If this were actually the case, may I suggest the Keystone Cops might do a better job of policing The Gays?
Still it's a good excuse for a good old boo-hoo-hoo squish-squish fest.
Particularly if you're trying to raise money to pretend to fight for an emotive issue that's not actually happening.
To say that a law is enforced - or means anything - just because it's gathering dust on some statute book is as silly as saying you can still be hanged for striking a match in the Queen's shipyards.

I await Mona Chalabi's reply with interest...

Click to enlarge.

Bit confused about this, surely she can't mean her research about Iran for DATABLOG was based on one sentence she heard in a TV documentary last night? Asked for clarification...

PS Je me demande ce que Roland Barthes aurait fait de cette image? Honte?

Chelsea Manning: Two Statements

Earlier today, a story was published in the Guardian by Ed Pilkington regarding Chelsea Manning's reaction to receiving the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award. In this letter, Chelsea stated that she was not informed that she had received the award or that Col. Ann Wright was accepting the award on her behalf. She also indicated that she did not consider herself a "pacifist," "anti-war," or a "conscientious objector."

I had a phone call with Chelsea this morning. We discussed the letter that she sent to the Guardian. I reminded her that we spoke about the Sean MacBride Peace Award on three separate occasions: once when she received the award; once prior to Col. Wright accepting the award on her behalf; and once when the award was delivered into my physical possession and I informed her that the medal was made out of disarmed and recycled nuclear weapons systems. 

After being reminded of these conversations, Chelsea indicated that she did, in fact, remember the award and our discussions about it. She told me that she got confused when she recently received mail about the award, and assumed that people were writing to her about a new award. Chelsea told me that she has been feeling isolated and out of touch with the outside world during the indoctrination period at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, which is what led to her confusion over this issue. Due to this confusion, Chelsea said she felt the need to write her letter. She told me that she is sorry if her letter caused any offense to the International Peace Bureau, Col. Wright, or her supporters.

There are three other issues raised by Chelsea's letter that I would like to personally address. First, as mentioned above, Chelsea indicates that she doesn't consider herself a "pacifist," "anti-war," or a "conscientious objector." Rather, she considers herself a "transparency advocate" because she believes "the public cannot decide what actions and polices are or are not justified if they don't even know the most rudimentary details about them and their effects." Chelsea has never claimed to be anti-war; indeed she joined the military to defend her country. However, she is a humanist and was motivated in her actions not only by her transparency beliefs, but also by deep concern for the value of human life...

The start of an open letter by Chelsea Manning's lawyer, David E Coombs.

Here's the now updated Guardian article - and a scan of Chelsea's original letter.

Fagburn's not quite sure why this is being hyped up as Big News.

Did anyone think Manning was an anarcho-communist dedicated to overthrowing the American military-industrial complex?

He was a soldier who learned of immoral and criminal acts that had been committed in secret and so - being a moral agent - chose to expose them.

• A new RT video interview with Noam Chomsky: All superpowers feel exceptional, inflate security myth for ‘frightened population’, which touches on Manning and Snowden.

NB Although she now wishes to be known as Ms Chelsea E Manning, according to the Private Manning Support Group the photograph at the top is the one she prefers to be used at present.
The Daily Telegraph today write about "Bradley Manning" and refer to her as male throughout!

Stupid Thought For The Day: Julie Bindel

According to popular belief anti-gay bigotry is all but dead in the UK. With the passing of equal marriage legislation the assumption is that lesbians and gay men can now rest easy...

The opening lines to Julie Bindel's latest error-strewn installment on gay life in Britain today running in The Guardian online. 
So homophobia didn't disappear the day they legalised gay marriage?
WHO KNEW!!???
Take that, strawman!
Does she really think anyone thinks this?
And - again - the gall and hypocrisy of this notorious homophobe and transphobe writing against bigotry and bullying is sickening.
Was the sub having a sarcastic dig by titling it 'Fear and loathing'?
Shame on The Guardian for falling for this fraud.

PS I understand various complaints posted by trans people have been removed...

Blind Date: A Firm Handshake And A Business Card

Entrepreneur David Mack, 24, meets marketing executive Peter Newman, 26

Peter (right) on David

What were you hoping for?
Good conversation, good food, a good laugh – and a good story to tell after.
First impressions?
Polite, friendly, a snappy dresser.
What did you talk about?
Ventures, adventures, "funemployment" and micro-bakeries, desserts and chocolate preference.
Any awkward moments?
Not really.
Good table manners?
Excellent.
Best thing about him?
He's a very ambitious guy who knows what he wants from life.
Would you introduce him to your friends?
If they wanted a business partner.
Could he meet the parents?
I don't know how appealing he'd find a trip to the Midlands.
Did you go on somewhere?
Not this time.
And… did you kiss?
No, but I did get a firm handshake and a business card.
If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be?
There could maybe have been a few more laughs.
Marks out of 10?
6? He's a nice guy, but I don't think we quite hit it off.
Would you meet again?
Probably not, I'm afraid.

The Guardian - who've now done a handful of this weekly column that featured some man-on-man restaurant action.
This was a classic mismatch where they didn't seem to have much in common beyond their sexuality.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something tells me Peter thought "Entrepreneur David Mack" was an asshole.
Hopefully he'll have learned his lesson and stick to Grindr in future.   

Honours: I'm A Lady! etc etc

The civil partners of homosexual knights and peers could be granted formal titles in line with married couples, under proposed reforms of the honours system. 
The plans, to be debated in the Commons, would see individuals including Sir Elton John’s civil partner David Furnish being formally recognised.

Currently, only wives are granted permission to use a formal title once their husbands become knights or peers, automatically receiving the title of lady.

However, the husbands of women who are honoured with the title of dame are not granted any additional status, with civil partners also being ignored.

MPs have now been asked to consider reassessing the honours system to include gay partners, with the issue due to be raised in Parliament this week... 

The Daily Telegraph.
Let's make inequality more equal!

Without a shred of irony the Tory MP who's behind this, Oliver Colville, says; “The current system is uneven and rather outdated."
Of course, being a Private Member's Bill the chances of this becoming law are close to zero... 

•  Much media today have picked up on an article Elton John has put his name to in The Guardian on Ukraine's Section 28-style law. He bigs up the Kaleidoscope Trust - can anyone tell me what they've actually done?

Tom Daley: I Say Nothing

I don't care if Tom Daley is "the oldest 16-year-old" – he deserves better than a provocative pose in his trunks and the "coming of age" coverline. If the same approach had been taken with a 16-year-old sportswoman, it would have been clearly exploitative. The same is true for Daley.
Alison Smith
Norwich

Working in the macho environment of a professional kitchen, I already get a lot of stick for reading the Guardian. A half-naked Tom Daley on the cover of Weekend, and a further 38 fully naked men inside did not help my cause when it was delivered to work last Saturday.
Jack Glossop
Linton, Cambridgeshire

Guardian Weekend letters.

By showing Tom Daley in a provacative pose in his trunks, The Guardian is now breaking this law: here.
Well done New Labour.