26-year-old Belgian Kim Clijsters became the first mother (of Jada Lynch) in nearly 30 years to win a major tennis title, her second in 6 attempts, by defeating 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 7-5 6-3.
Caroline Wozniacki DEN (9) vs. Kim Clijsters BEL. Unseeded Kim Clijsters should win easily over the ninth-ranked teenager from Denmark playing in her first major final while the young mother of 18-month old Jada is playing in her sixth (one win, four losses).
Kim Clijsters defeated Serena Williams 6-4 7-5 after out-hitting and out-playing the defending US Open champion for two sets when Serena was defaulted a point for a "code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct" which happened to be match point at 5-6,15-40 thanks to a curious foot fault called on a second serve at 15-30.Tests conducted during the world athletics championships in Berlin last month, where Semenya's gender became the subject of heated debate following her victory in the 800m, revealed evidence she is a hermaphrodite, someone with both male and female sexual characteristics.The use of the word "hermaphrodite" to describe people with both male and female biological characteristics is considered offensive, similar to the use of the word "homosexual" to describe people sexually attracted to people of the same sex. Joe.My.God has posted useful information on the topic from the Intersex Society of North America:
Semenya, 18, has three times the amount of testosterone that a "normal'' female would have. According to a source closely involved with the Semenya examinations IAAF testing, which included various scans, has revealed she has internal testes - the male sexual organs which produce testosterone.
[...]
When quizzed by South African magazine You on the gender issue, Semenya said: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself. I don't want to talk about the tests - I'm not even thinking about them.''
RELATED: The Intersex Society of North America notes that although the term "hermaphrodite" is commonly used to describe intersex people (and this is already happening with Semenya), hermaphrodite literally means "fully male and fully female," which is a physical impossibility. "Intersex" is the proper way to describe a person who may have one or several of a very broad range of atypical gender characteristics, ranging from ambiguous or mixed external genitalia, internal conditions (as in Semenya's case), or an atypical chromosonal makeup. Some intersex characteristics are extremely rare, others occur much more frequently, and studies indicate that some aspect of being intersex occurs in about 1 out of 100 people.
Alan Turing2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.Woo hoo!
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.
But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.
So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.
Gordon Brown
Whitney Houston returned to the top of the Billboard 200 Album charts with the debut of her latest release I Look To You at #1, her fourth album to do so."I Look To You" becomes Houston's fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 304,801 copies during the week ended September 6, according to Nielsen SoundScan.Go, Whitney! I haven't bought the album yet, what do you all think of it?
It's by far Houston's best opening sales week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991.
"I Look To You" is also the singer's first chart-topper since the Houston-fueled "The Bodyguard" soundtrack spent 20 weeks at No. 1 in 1993. The albums are joined by Houston's two previous toppers: her self-titled set in 1986, and her 1987 sophomore set, "Whitney."
Early returns showed "I Look To You" also debuted at No. 1 in Canada, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, according to her Arista Records label.
Houston's previous album, "Just Whitney," debuted at No. 9 in 2002 with 205,000 copies.
The new front runner in AD-53?Well, I guess all's fair in love, war and politics?Aldinger and Butler parted on bad terms about seven years ago. He refused to relinquish some furniture that she'd had delivered to his house, and she had to sue him to retrieve it.
In 2004, a judge ordered him to pay her $5,000.
Both candidates say that episode is in the past and should not be relevant to the coming campaign. But their history together is likely to make the race somewhat awkward, at the least, and also raises questions about Aldinger's motives for running.
Aldinger, 48, said he is not motivated by resentment or hostility toward an ex-girlfriend who took him to court.
"This is something that's been in my mind for some time," he said. "This is not something that I would take lightly. I think I'm the most qualified."
CANDIDATE CASH ON HAND $RAISED $SPENT
Jim Aldinger $0 $0 $322
Kate Anderson $131,199 $135,090 $3,891
Betsy Butler $101,487 $81,229 $25,277
Nick Karno $110,003 $115,768 $10,457
James Lau $211,030 $211,435 $2,267
Mitch Ward $32,725 $60,380 $29,154
Ricardo Lara is an openly gay, Latino candidate for California's 50th Assembly District. The 50th Assembly District is in Los Angeles and contains the entire cities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Commerce, Cudahy, Lynwood, South Gate, and Walnut Park. Lara is the District Director for the only openly gay Latino Assemblymember in California history, John Perez who represents the 46th Assembly District. Lara is supported by HONORPAC, the LGBT Latino political action committee in the June 8, 2010 Democratic primary.
2009 French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova blasted 59 winners in 3 sets of play against 16 winners by 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and lost 2-6 7-6(5) 7-6(3) in the fourth round in New York City last night. Unfortunately, the Russian had 63 unforced errors to the Dane's 25.
I have previously called Edilson Nascimiento one of the hottest guys in the world. These pictures above are some of the rejected shots from a photo shoot that the Brazilian model did with the French magazine Tetu that Queerty got their grubby little hands on. Imagine what made it INTO the magazine!
The study also pointed to the relatively slow rate at which the average U.S. broadband speed rose in recent years, gaining only about 1.6 Mpbs since May 2007. That was a much slower increase than was seen in the U.S. states with the fastest speeds.Hat/tip Harry Shearer of KCRW's Le Show.
California, perhaps the nation's most high-tech-friendly state, ranked only 11th among the 50 states, well behind the national leaders. Still, the state's 6.6 Mbps average put it ahead of where it was two years ago, when it ranked 22nd among states, with barely more than 3 Mbps.
Delaware residents now enjoy the nation's fastest broadband at 9.9 Mbs, nearly twice the national average -- and up more than 5 Mpbs since 2007. At the lower end of the speed range, sparsely inhabited states such as Idaho, Alaska and Montana were well below the national average, clocking in around 2.5 Mbps.
Maria Sharapova. Andy Roddick. Dinara Safina. James Blake. All these seeded players lost on Saturday at the US Open. Former champions Sharapova (2006) and Roddick (2003) both lost to up and coming Americans who hail from Georgia. Sharapova lost to 17-year-old Melanie Oudin from Marietta, who had beaten MadProfessah-pick Elena Dementieva in the round before (and first came to attention earlier this summer for beating former World #1 Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon). The 6'3" Sharapova served up a bucketful of double faults and lost 3-6 6-4 7-5 to the 5'6 Oudin.Ventura County Superior Court Superior Court Judge Bruce Young set a pretrial hearing for Oct. 23 and a trial date for Dec. 1.Hat/tip Joe.My.God
[...]
McInerney’s lawyers, Scott Wippert and Robyn Bramson, filed a legal motion Thursday to dismiss the special circumstance of lying in wait that was tacked onto the felony criminal charges by prosecutors after a three-day preliminary hearing.
Attaching a lying in wait special circumstance to a murder charge in a juvenile case, by law, automatically transfers the case to adult court.
[...]
McInerney is accused of murder and a hate crime in the killing of King, who wore female clothing to school and told classmates he was gay. Prosecutors allege McInerney waited 15 to 20 minutes in a classroom before shooting King, constituting grounds for adding the lying-in-wait charge.
McInerney faces as much as 53 years to life in prison if convicted of all charges in adult court. Prosecutors have offered to agree to a sentence of 25 years to life if he pleads guilty to first-degree murder and the hate-crime allegation.
Prosecutors allege McInerney, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, subscribed to a white-supremacist philosophy.
Legislation that would declare May 22 "Harvey Milk Day" in California passed the California legislature for the second year in a row on Thursday. Last year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill but this time there will be a lot more attention given to how he deals with SB 572.A few weeks ago, Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Milk would be one of a dozen men and women -- including pilot Chuck Yeager, entertainer Carol Burnett and "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas -- inducted into the California Hall of Fame this year.
In July, Obama awarded Milk a posthumous Medal of Freedom. And in February, Sean Penn won a best actor Oscar for the title role in the critically acclaimed film "Milk."
A spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger said the governor has not taken a position on Leno's bill. But the senator feels bullish, given Milk's burnished image in Hollywood and beyond.
"If there's one thing Arnold Schwarzenegger understands, it's box office," Leno said. "And Harvey Milk now has box office."
The Indian Government has agreed not to appeal the recent New Delhi court ruling striking down the country's sodomy law, effectively decriminalizing homosexuality in the world's second most populous country.
Anthony Woods, the telegenic and youthful openly gay, African-American candidate for the 10th Congressional District of California failed to get the most votes in the Tuesday September 1 special election. Instead, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi placed first among all candidates with 26.15% of the vote and will face a run-off against the top Republican vote-getter David Harmer with 20.58% on November 3rd.
