Loganotron

As much as I want to hate the tax compromise and Obama’s inability to negotiate, this chart accomplished its goal with me. After looking at the blue vs. red slices of the pie, even I am convinced that the Democrats are getting the lion’s share of the compromise. That being said, Obama still capitulated (as always) and there’s no denying that damn red slice could’ve and should’ve been smaller.

The nice thing about this chart is that it represents Obama finally getting in the game of visually selling his policies. He’s attempting to communicate a story here while owning the political message. We’ve seen far too little of that in the last two years, so I’m happy to see the Obama admin get their heads in the game.

Of course, “selling” often includes some exaggeration or half-truths. Take #1 for example. I just watched a million talk shows and read a bunch of blogs this weekend that say the total job growth would be 2.2 million with the tax cuts. But jobs are expected to grow even without the cuts by roughly 1 million. So, it’s a little smoke-and-mirrors to suggest the tax cuts would be solely responsible for creating (or saving) 2.2 million jobs.

But, whatever. I say: Do what you must, Mr. Obama. But keep up this salesmanship for the next two years. You’re going to have to be in front of the American people selling your vision in ways we haven’t see you do since the campaign.

Dude, Apple: Learn how to roll with the punches and take a joke. Or to quote a more famous dude, “Chill out Honey Bunny.”

There will be no blogging on April 16th on this blog and dozens of others across the United States and beyond as we Unite in Silence in support of our LGBT youth and the Day of Silence anti-bullying and GLBT harassment initiatives in our nations schools.

Join us today -GLBT bloggers UNITED in SILENCE! (Facebook page)

Hundreds of thousands of students at thousands of middle schools, high schools and colleges will participate in GLSEN’s 15th annual Day of Silence on Friday (4/16) by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) name-calling, bullying and harassment.

Students from more than 6,000 middle and high schools already have registered as participants at www.dayofsilence.org for the student-created and student-led event sponsored nationally by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Students typically participate by remaining silent throughout the school day, unless asked to speak in class. The event is designed to illustrate the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment on LGBT students and those perceived to be LGBT.

“Anti-LGBT bullying is a pervasive problem in America’s schools and creates unsafe learning environments for countless youth,” GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. “The Day of Silence was created by students as a simple yet powerful way to raise awareness about a problem that very few schools adequately address. More than a decade later, the Day of Silence is an example of how people of any age can bring about positive change by working together to make their world a better and safer place.”

Research has continually shown that anti-LGBT bullying is commonplace in American schools.

Two of the top three reasons students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America, a 2005 Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN. The top reason was physical appearance.

Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.

The report also found that 3 out of 5 LGBT youth (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation.

On April 6, 2009, Carl Walker-Hoover took his life after enduring constant bullying, including anti-LGBT bullying. Though Carl did not identify as gay, his story is a tragic reminder that anti-LGBT bullying and harassment affects all students. Carl would have turned 12 on the 2009 Day of Silence. Learn more about his story here. Tell Congress to support the Safe Schools Improvement Act. Sign the petition HERE.

The voters in Washington state passed Referendum 71 yesterday which allows the state’s “Everything by Marriage” bill to go into effect. The new law will be similar to California’s domestic partners law which grants gay and lesbian couples all of the state-wide rights and responsibilities of marriage, without calling it “marriage.”

Unfortunately, Maine voters rejected the new gay marriage law that the Governor and state Legislature had approved. Question 1 asked voters whether they wanted gays to get married or not. Mainers said “No” 53 to 47 percent. Those numbers look awfully familiar. (California’s Prop 8 spread was 52 to 48.)

I feel that we are just about a five or ten years too early to be winning in the court of public opinion. We have some courts on our side, and even a few legislatures and governors. But, if we keep getting our rights put before the people for a popularity contest, I fear that we won’t fare much better than this for a while.

Oh, and any chance we might have had at having New Jersey finally convert from civil unions to full marriage was thwarted when uber-conservative Chris Christie beat out incumbent Jon Corzine last night.

Christian and I arrived in Palm Springs Wednesday afternoon. We checked into the very adorable Villa Royale Inn. Apparently it was built as the home of a famous tennis star/Hollywood star in the 1940s. She wanted a place for all her friends to stay that felt like home. The rooms were ornate and homey, while the courtyards and facilities were welcoming.

Yesterday we checked into the Marriott Villas in Palm Desert. Our friends have a time share here, and they arrive later tonight. It’s simply spectacular here. We haven’t enjoyed the pools yet, but that’s our plan for tomorrow.

Tomorrow night we head east to Joshua Tree for a day and a half. We’re going to hike around and explore. I’ve never been to Joshua Tree before, and I’m looking forward to it. I only wish I’d put my U2 album on my iPhone so we could be cheesy and listen to Joshua Tree while on our way to Joshua Tree.

Monday night we leave JT to go visit Christian’s parents. We’re going to meet Christian’s brand new niece Kiana, and then have a brunch with his family. I’ll be blogging sporadically until next Thursday.

You may recall these frat boys who lip-synced their way to YouTube fame:

I was scrolling through old London Preppy posts and found his review of the video above. Pure genius and worth the 5 minutes it will take you to read through to the end.

Quoth the London Preppy:

OK so these are three guys that are in a college doing some stupid degree like Business Studies or something and on this Tuesday at 0130 they decided to play a song that they thought was hilariously cheesy and camp and lip sync / dance along to it. This is almost lost on me because I consider Total Eclipse of the Heart to be one of the best songs ever written without any irony involved, but there you go. I’m going to pretend I get it anyway.

They also decided to take their tops off, because they know very well what us losers who spend our free time on the internet are like.

Now then. The boys.

Boy no.1 – the boy in the middle.

Boy no.1 is my least favourite. Of course he’s the main character and the others look up to him and adore him and he bosses them around and he gets all the chicks and he may not be the best academically, but somehow he always gets away with it and does well for himself and everyone likes him apart from the people he bullies but even they have to pretend that they do like him because he’s so popular…so naturally I like the others more.

Plus he looks like somebody that Sean Cody put together as a contrived model of “straight jock”. Tan AND blonde highlights AND white coral necklace AND suspiciously Abercrombie looking shorts. Well I guess maybe these people do exist.

Regardless, he’s still very good and I love him with most of my heart.

Boy no.3 – the boy in the background.

Boy no.3 is my second favourite. It’s a shame that no one’s paying any attention to him because everyone’s watching Boy no.1 who has a natural star and Boy no.2 (more of which later) who is a gorgeous, pleasant straight boy.

If you get over the other two boys for a second and focus on the unshapely one in the background, you’ll see that he’s giving the performance of a lifetime. The Rodin’s Thinker pose at 0:05, the explosion at 0:13 (completely unrelated to the music), how he grabs his knob at 0:24 – all classic moments.

But still, none of this is enough to distract us from Boy no.2 – the boy on the left.

Boy no.2 is the greatest boy that has ever lived. In the long tradition of boys that are good looking and natural and seem genuinely nice (e.g. Harvey from Sabrina The Teenage Witch and…erm that’s it) I desperately want to be Boy no.2.

Boy no. 2 has effortless hair, a flawless face, an effortless athletic body and the pièce de résistance, little white socks. I love love love those. I love love love him.

Favourite moments in the life of Boy no.2 for me, include:

0:01 a close up of his chest

0:03 he turns around, looks at me straight in the face and sings: turn around

0:04 to 0:19 he looks at Boy no.1 for 15 continuous seconds, trying to get some approval, his attention, a look back, anything. This confirms to anyone who was stupid enough to doubt it still, who the leader of this group is. This dynamic of this group is not a democratic one, it never was and it never will be. We all know that, but we’re OK with it. Of course Boy no.1 completely ignores him for these long 15 seconds, as he’s preoccupied with his good self

0:25 he raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes dramatically as he looks at me again

0:28 still with Boy no.1’a best interests at heart, he gently pulls the chair back to give him more space. This is the most homosexual action I have ever witnessed in my 28 years. At the same time, it’s not homosexual at all, it’s just Boy no.2 being nice, nice like I never will be and I never will understand, because unfortunately, I’m more like Boy no.1 myself

0:31 to 0:40 this is where his amazing silly straight boy choreography begins (bent knees, finger clicking, up-and-down arm movement, magnificent back-and-forth stepping with the left foot), a choreography that’s cut off suddenly and heart-breakingly on the 40th second mark, leaving me with a hole in my heart, wait, I never had one anyway.

And here are some more shirtless college frat boys singing and acting silly:

Okay, so this is just an appearance at some party. But they do make a dashing couple, don’t they!? They even wore reversed-out outfits. How well coordinated and adorable…

You may recall my re-posting of TPM’s coverage of the Hoekstra Twitter blunder yesterday. Someone has taken the idea and turned it into a blog meme. It’s a cross between LOL Cats and Despair, Inc. Here are a few of my favorites from HoekstraIsAMeme.com:

I have no idea how I stumbled upon this image today on Flickr today. I was searching for images of “interconnected networks” and this popped up. It sure did brighten my day though. Check out what the dude wrote about ST: TNG below the image. LOVE IT!

I used to love The Next Generation. It was great. I found myself forgiving the fact they had no internet, and sat in chairs on a spaceship with no seatbelts. And some of the crew have to stand up. For hours probably.

Anyway. Insurrection takes place about the time of the Dominion war as seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. So what do the writers of Insurrection do? Send the Enterprise off on some pissy mission to some nothing planet full of smug tossers. In the words of Winehouse:
NO.
NO.
NO.
You don’t send your most famous ship off to hide. Picard would have bitten his cup of Earl Grey tea in half when he got those orders. So NO.

Who knew that little Ricky Schroeder grew up to be such a hot stud?!

Click through to the rest of this post to see naked skinny-dipping pics of Rick’s bootie.
Keep reading more of this post »

This is pretty fun! I love when he says, “We just made YouTube!”
Indeed.

Dude.
Dude.
Dude.

I want a dragon cake for my birthday. Or maybe a magician cake. Or a Green Lantern cake. Or… Or… Whatever it is, just make it as badass as this cake is. OMFG.

I’m spending two weeks travelling for the holidays. Posting will be intermitent at best. I am definitely hoping to post a hotness post next Wednesday. Maybe I’ll even post a few pics of my trravels if I get time. Of course, all will depend on high sped Internet access which I have not had for the last week.

Hope you all are having great holidays!

Love,
Logan

Hahahahahaha. Love this photo from Boston.com’s list of best photos of the year:

In this photo released by the official Xinhua news agency, members of China's armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, east China, on Wednesday July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Fan Changguo)

Americablog has evidence that Cinemark’s CEO AlanStock gave $9,999 to Yes on Prop 8. I solemnly vow to never patronize another Cinemark, Century, or CineArts theater. If their CEO is willing to spend the money he’s made off of my ticket sales to strip my rights away, then I will no longer contribute to his company’s profits. I encourage all of you to do the same.

For a list of CineArts locations, click here. For a list of Cinemark-owned theaters, click here.

For those of us in San Francisco, the Century Centre 9 Theater in the Westfield is owned by Cinemark. I personally will no longer watch a movie at that theater ever again. Who else is with me?