Update: Brooklyn Victim of Hate Crime Dies

This makes me so angry I could spit. I feel for this man and his family. Rest in peace Michael.

That this happened in New York City should be absurd. Alas, it was only in June that another gay man was the victim of a hate crime in THE EAST VILLAGE! Homophobia lives large. We need to live larger.

Pam reports that there is going to be a rally at City Hall on Monday:

Black LGBT organizers and activists vowed to hold a rally on Monday to demand an end to hate violence in the city and to hold city leaders accountable. The rally is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. on Monday at New York City Hall. The rally is being sponsored by People of Color In Crisis, the New York State Black Gay Network, Gay Men of African Descent, the New York City Anti-Violence Project and the National Black Justice Coalition.

It's Friday the 13th
Of course I have to link to the appropriate Wikipedia entry :)

More Nice White Boys

Man Charged in Hate Crimes; Brooklyn Victim is in a Coma

This is disgusting. The victim is probably going to die. His family is having to face the terrible decision of whether or not to remove life support. One of the men responsible is John Fox, 19; charged with the hate crime:

From the article:

At 9:40 p.m. on Sunday at the meeting place — a narrow, garbage-strewn parking lot near Sheepshead Bay, sandwiched between Plumb Beach and the eastbound lanes of the parkway — Mr. Sandy, 28, was attacked by at least two of the men, the police said. He backed away from them and, at one point, darted into the path of a car, which struck him and kept going, the police said. The police were still seeking the driver of the car that struck Mr. Sandy.

Other cars on the highway were forced to stop as the attack spilled across three lanes of roaring traffic. One witness told detectives that after Mr. Sandy was struck by the car, she saw a man drag him to the shoulder of the Belt Parkway and rifle his pockets.

Detectives investigating Internet communications Mr. Sandy had had were led to the first suspect, John Fox, 19, of Knapp Street in Brooklyn, who is a sophomore at SUNY Maritime College. The other two suspects are Gary Timmins, 16, of Gerritsen Beach, and Ilye Shurova, 20, of Sheepshead Bay. The three men were charged yesterday with first-degree assault as a hate crime, and first- and second-degree robbery, also as hate crimes, according to the police.

It Happened Just for You Mr. Malkin
Right wing bloggers will exploit anything for recognition. Thismodernworld catches a HotAir contributor in action.

Here are some examples of today's brilliant minute by minute commentary provided by a star child of the swivel chair set:
Update: The local news stations are covering this wall to wall. It’s like a vet with PTSD flipping out at the sound of a car backfiring.
Update: It’s a four-alarm fire now. One witness says the plane was doing “acrobatic” maneuvers. Over Manhattan? A reporter on WNBC4 says the plane took a “hard, 90-degree turn” into the building.There are two bodies on the ground on 72nd Street — as well as luggage. Would terrorists have packed?

I work in the hospital next to the crash site. I live three blocks away. When the crash happened today you could smell the smoke; no one really knew what was happening. People were genuinely frightened and concerned.

Food Scam
Thirty percent of adults over the age of 20 are obese (source: CDC). That our popular culture is body image obsessed doesn't need a reference. It's a nasty bit of irony that, between the "be thin be beautiful" messages, commercials relentlessly push some of the most unhealthy and calorie dense foods available. I don't watch much television, but I occasionally find myself humming the latest KFC jingle.

GMail has banners above their email space. Today I saw an add for a diet aid. I usually ignore all the adds, but this one caught my eye. It was about something that I really enjoy: tea. It was an add for something called Hu-Long tea. It promises to help shed pounds. After very little digging I found this link: The truth about wu long tea. It turns out that this "diet miracle" is nothing more than plain old oolong tea!

The big buzz about oolong (or it's re-marketed name "wu long") comes from a couple of research articles from groups in Japan. I read through one of the articles (see the link at the bottom of "The truth about oolong tea"). It's a nice article that uses indirect calorimetry to measure energy expenditure (EE). It also hypothesises about the potential agents that may be responsible for the significantly increased EE in oolong tea drinkers. Their concluding paragraph:
In conclusion, there were some limitations in the current study, but the results suggested that oolong tea increased EE and the factor was not only caffeine or EGCG but also some kinds of polymerized polyphenols.

The popular site for wu long tea is selling 60 tea bags for $37. That's on sale from $79.95. I just bought some organic oolong at the market, at crazy NYC prices: 20 bags for ~$3.75 without shipping and handling (though I had to walk a couple blocks carrying my groceries while trying to talk on the phone).

In an environment where obesity, a legitimate public health concern, is oddly contrasted by our culture's obsession with thinness, it's disgusting to see scammers trying to take advantage of often desperate people. The worst part is I've only picked a very, very mild example that happened to invade my email space. There are others. One resource for telling scam from plan is at the FTC.

Priorities
Jonathan Schwarz has a post up about that reminded me about Rachel Corrie, an American killed in Rafah near the Palestinian/Egypt border. As of today, a search on her name at GoogleNews turns up 69 articles. A search on Natalee Holloway turns up 346.

As usual, Jonathan's post is worth reading in its entirety.

My "Depraved" Gay Lifestyle
Below are action shots from a typical Sunday for this radical member of the homosexual movement. It's all part of the homosexual agenda. My dog is so subversive she doesn't even know she's a part of it all!

Me and Lady:

Stuart and Lady:

Lady: