AnalblasT - Archived Blog Posts

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broadway bares XX: strip-opoly raises over $1 million for BC/EFA

Broadway Bares XX: Strip-opoly, which was presented June 20 at the Roseland Ballroom, raised a record-breaking $1,015,985 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

This marks the first time that the annual fundraiser has broken the $1 million dollar mark, a goal that had been set in January by Bares creator and executive producer, Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell.

In a statement Mitchell said, "We did it! I'm so overcome with emotion at all of the hard work that went into making our dream a reality. I want to thank everyone who has put in countless hours to help make this happen. Some people thought it couldn't be done, especially in today's economy, but we did. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I couldn't imagine a more spectacular way to celebrate 20 editions of Broadway Bares for Broadway Cares."

The previous fundraising record was set in 2008 when $874,000 was raised. To date, the 20 editions of Bares have raised more than $7.5 million for BC/EFA.

Broadway Bares was produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS by producing director Michael Graziano and executive-produced by Tony winner Mitchell with direction by Josh Rhodes and associate direction by Lee Wilkins.

The evening featured the work of 15 choreographers and 216 of the "sexiest male and female dancers from Broadway’s biggest shows baring nearly all to benefit BC/EFA," according to press notes.

 

[AnalblasT]

5 reasons not to buy the iPhone 4​

Apple's (AAPL - News) redesigned iPhone is destined to be a knockout success. The phone scores high on style points with its sleek glass and stainless steel design, and it wins points for its multitasking software and improved screen.

There are, however, a few shortcomings.

The Apple iPhone 4 is set to go on sale Thursday. Judging by the record demand during the pre-sale period, the newest iPhone will make a huge sales splash, especially with old iPhone owners trading up.

All the presales excitement and Apple-driven hype have set expectations very high. But mighty Apple plays to a tough crowd. It's an affluent group that has been eager to buy the next new thing out of Cupertino, Calif. It's also a highly discerning group with a refined taste in gadgets, and that makes them a bit fussy.

Here are five bruises on the new Apple iPhone that may engender complaint.

No. 5: A Skimpy Camera

As smartphone challengers like HTC, Motorola (MOT - News) and Nokia (NOK - News) embrace the megapixel race with 8-megapixel and 12-megapixel cameras, Apple's new iPhone keeps it cheap with a 5-megapixel model.

This will be a bigger point of contention this week when Verizon (VZ - News) and Motorola unveil the Droid X Wednesday, the newest Google (GOOG - News) Android phone, which features an 8-megapixel camera. Android phone giant HTC has also been generous with 8-megapixel cameras in its Droid Incredible and Sprint's (S - News) EVO.

Meanwhile, Apple, always the laggard in cameras, won't enter the 8-megapixel class until next year when it debuts a sweet Sony (SNE - News) camera in its 2011 iPhone. But by then, who knows where the rest of the pack will be?

No. 4: No Swype

If you've seen Swype or used it, you know why this omission makes the list. Typing on a touchscreen is a challenge as the flat glass surface offers few clues to where your fat fingers are precisely making contact. It's an error-prone process that gives one a longing for the raised keys of the BlackBerry keyboard from Research In Motion (RIMM - News).

But the Swype keypad software helps tame the new medium. Swype follows the pattern of your finger movements to type words or predict words without the usual hunting and pecking.

Apple did wonders with the touchscreen, but Swype makes it more useful for those among us who like to type.

No. 3: Video Calling

Okay, it's not totally bait and switch, but Apple's hot new iPhone video calling feature, FaceTime, comes with lots of asterisks and a limited applicability.

Say you want to video chat with someone using the Apple iPhone 4. That someone has to have a WiFi connection and he has to use the same application on his own iPhone 4. You're looking at a small club of people -- not exactly an application of global Skype-like proportions.

No. 2: iPhone 4 Shortages

Strong demand is only half the story for Apple's iPhone sales debut. Limited supply is the other. A shortage of in-plane display panels, the crucial part of Apple's touted retina display screens, has forced Apple's contract manufacturers to cut production rates in half to 1 million iPhones a month.

This means there won't be enough iPhones on hand to meet the presumably high demand. Though it's not a terrible problem to have if you are a gadget maker, sellouts and delivery delays will mar Apple's big iPhone 4 debut. The frustration could push buyers toward other phones.

No. 1: No Verizon iPhone.

A new iPhone is big. But a new iPhone at Verizon? Much bigger.

Apple's exclusive partnership with AT&T (T - News) has been a point of some other website among iPhone owners and it has tarnished the public perception of both companies. It also has done almost nothing for AT&T's stock.

Investors have been waiting for the Verizon iPhone. But that's apparently not going to happen until next year, if ever.

So Apple fans who want the new iPhone have to lock in for another two years with AT&T. This scenario is not particularly pleasant considering that AT&T's new subscriber plans put penalties on people (like iPhone users) who happen to be heavy data users.

 

[AnalblasT]

google android 2.2 froyo vs apple ios 4

And so Apple has made its latest creation, the iPhone 4, official, The world is at peace once again, right? Wrong! If anything, this is the start of a new battle in the bittersweet (but mostly bitter) rivalry between Apple and Google. It could mean the beginning of another round of mudslinging and potential lawsuits courtesy of the 2 Goliaths' new mobile operating systems, Android 2.2 "Froyo" and iOS 4.

Froyo is being touted by the tech community as the more superior OS. Its collection of hardcore specs and customizable options makes it the poster boy for everything "not Apple." iOS 4, on the other hand, is gaining ground with new features and of course, new hardware that make it work smoother than ever. It's a lot better than it was just a couple of years back, but are the improvements enough to short-circuit Android?

We'd like to pass judgment on these 2, believe us, but in the end, the choice all boils down to you guys, i.e. the buyers. So to help you decide, we've listed down key points and our two cents' worth for each of them.

Multitasking

* Froyo: True multitasking complete with a task and application manager
* iOS 4: Limited "multitasking." Not all apps will run in the background

Effect on existing units

* Froyo: Can make older Android devices run up to 5 times faster
* iOS 4: Limited support for older iPhones

Wi-Fi hotspot

* Froyo: Turns your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot with the flick of a finger
* iOS 4: There's an app for that

Flash support

* Froyo: Flash 10.1 is in the bag
* iOS 4: Meh

Apps

* Froyo: 50,000 strong
* iOS 4: 200,000 stronger

Unified inbox

* Froyo: No
* iOS 4: Yes

 

[AnalblasT]

spanish commentator celebrates goal by convulsing

​

Spanish commentator and Real Madrid legend Camacho was so excited by David Villa's goal in Spain's 1-0 quarterfinal win over Paraguay that the overwhelming emotion made him convulse and appear to repeatedly hit himself in the face with his own microphone. That, my friends, is a man who cares. And I doubt he was the only Spaniard to react like that since Villa's goal puts his country in the World Cup semifinals for the first time ever. Villa maravilla!

 

[AnalblasT]

the world's most spectacular pools

click for the image​

Bliss in the Golden Triangle

Landscape architect Bill Bensley was responsible for a complete redesign of the grounds at Anantara Resort & Spa, a 90-room hotel located in Thailand—in the Golden Triangle, the point where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. Commanding a view over a jungle canopy, its pool may be the only one in the world that looks out onto three different countries. A poppy motif—a nod to the area’s history of opium trade—accents the pool.

 

[AnalblasT]

ugandan mp david bahati wants to 'kill every gay person'​

David Bahati, the Ugandan MP responsible for the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently under consideration, is found to be linked to “The Fellowship”, a US-based religious and political organisation that is "waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe."

Jeff Sharlet, an investigative journalist and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power – about a US-based religious and political organisation, met and interviewed David Bahati, the Member of Parliament who came to international attention after introducing Uganda's draconian anti-homosexuality bill in October 2009.

The proposed bill, which has attracted international outrage since it was announced last year, would impose prison terms for Ugandans who fail to report a homosexual within 24 hours, and the death sentence for homosexuals who had sex with a person under 18, who is HIV-positive and had sex, had gay sex with a disabled person or being classified as a "serial offender" – that is, someone who has gay sex more than once. Already under Uganda’s Penal Code Act of 1950, those who engage in the “unnatural offence” of gay sex may be imprisoned for life, and those who merely attempt to do so can be imprisoned for up to seven years.

The assistant professor of English at Dartmouth College and contributing editor of Harper's Magazine recounts his meetings with Bahati at his home which is "way high up in the hills outside Uganda" and at a "very, very upscale hotel (restaurant)" in a September 2010 Harper's piece, "Straight Man's Burden."

Sharlet says he visited Kampala at the invitation of Bahati who had told him: “If you come here, you'll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this.

"And he said, 'And I can explain to you what I really want to do.' "

That is "to kill every last gay person," Bahati told the journalist.

Sharlet recounts on a NPR radio programme: "It was a very chilling moment, because I'm sitting there with this man who's talking about his plans for genocide, and has demonstrated over the period of my relationship with him that he's not some back bencher – he's a real rising star in the movement. This was something that I hadn't understood before I went to Uganda, that this was a guy with real potential and real sway and increasingly a following in Uganda."

Sharlet explains that Bahati is one of the Uganda leaders of an American evangelical movement called the Fellowship, or the Family – the secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians who wield considerable political influence, both in Washington and abroad.

Last year, NPR quoted Bob Hunter, a longtime member of The Family, that neither he nor anyone he knows in The Fellowship supports the Ugandan bill.

Sharlet however wrote that he had discovered a “very direct relationship".

"And [the Fellowship members] are emphatic and saying: 'We haven't killed any gay people in Uganda. This isn't what we had in mind. We didn't pull the trigger.' And that's true. They didn't pull the trigger. But there's a sense in which they built the gun, which was this institutional idea of government being decided by small groups of elite leaders like Bahati, getting together and trying to conform government to their idea of Biblical law. And this is what their American benefactors wanted them to do."

The Anti-Homosexual Bill remains with the Ugandan Parliament's Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and has not been put to a vote.

The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni who is reportedly a member of The Fellowship, has distanced himself from the bill as a result of intense international lobbying by non-governmental organisations and international governments including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada France, Sweden and Germany. The European Parliament on 16 December 2009 passed a resolution against the bill, which threatens to cut financial aid to Uganda.

 

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tolerance

 

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two legged pig

 

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no place to hide​

Iraq is one of the most dangerous places for LGBT people on the planet. That’s why London based group Iraqi LGBT set up a small network of “safe houses” for people at risk of violence or assassination. These homes have literally been life-savers for those taking refuge in them.

But last month, one safe house in Karbala was raided and there is growing concern that the Iraqi government is supporting a witch-hunt against gay, lesbian and transgender people.

Twelve police officers are reported to have burst into the house, and then violently beaten up, and blindfolded the six occupants before driving them away in three vans. According to a witness, the police also confiscated computer equipment and then burned the house down.

Since the raid, one of the arrested people has turned up in hospital with his throat cut.

Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the other five individuals, which include two gay men, one lesbian and two transgender people. It is feared they may have been taken to the Interior Ministry in Baghdad where, it is reported, many gay people have been tortured and executed in the last two years.

Government forces are said to have seized people at roadblocks and then handed them to militias who have tortured them before dumping their bodies.

“Over 720 LGBT people have disappeared or been murdered, many of whom have been tortured to death. There is strong evidence that the government is colluding with these militia groups, by rounding up known homosexual and transgender people. Media and politicians have been too quiet for too long about the violence towards LGBT people in Iraq,” said Ali Hili, leader of Iraqi LGBT.

With the arrests and the seizure of computers in this raid, activists fear that the government may step up efforts to round up more of the country’s LGBT population.

This month, GayRomeo has written to the embassies of the UK and US expressing our deepest shock at these reports and our belief that they should use their influence in the region to ensure greater safety for the LGBT population.