Saturday, May 7, 2011

[Peckers_Pics] Model Wars-PICS-Health-News-May 8, 2011-Boycott Trump-NBC-TARGET



Model Wars-PICS-Health-News-May 8, 2011-
Safe PICS For All Ages/Boycott Trump-NBC-TARGET
Support Keith Olbermann-coming to CURRENT TV

Updates on Keith Olbermann  @ ObamaBiden2008 (Update: Keith joined "CURRENT TV").  Check with your cable provider to see if you have "Current TV".  Current TV's website has option for you to request service from your cable provider.   Current TV's founder is Al Gore.  Charter Cable does not carry "Current TV".  Please Contact Charter now!  Keith is a man who stuck his neck out for progressives, as well as the LGBT community. Update:  Keith began his FOK NEWS blog. 

Alert: Target + Minnesota Forward + Tom Emmer = Support for a rather dangerous and radical political philosophy that diminishes LGBT people to pests that should be murdered. And "Target" is cool with this?   ...Now Target is suing the LGBT community for their peaceful demonstrations in front of their stores.    ....Our answer:  BOYCOTT "TARGET"

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Diet & Fitness:

  • Reminder: Did you complete your Diet Journal today?
  • Did you do any physical activity?  If not, make a point of it by tomorrow! 
  • Perhaps our male fitness photos shall inspire you to get Fit!
Health - Wellness - Exercise - Reflections:
Inside the Navy's Elite River Force

April 20th, 2011 - Men's Health -  Holden Caulfield, War Hero

Of course there was something off about the delivery truck. Who backs an old two-ton down a muddy riverbank, its rear tires nearly lapped by the turbid flow of the Tigris River, just moments before an American patrol boat motors by?

"Basically, everybody was keyed onto the truck," remembers the Bosun's Mate 1st Class Tristan Vecere, back Stateside now, relating the story from the U.S. Navy's Expeditionary Combat Command headquarters in Virginia Beach. "It was parked fairly close to a mosque and because of, you know, a mosque's high-profile nature, we all got a little on edge."

It was last summer, south of Baghdad, a stifling desert morning even on the water. Vecere and his squad of Riverines were on an intel mission. Sailing upriver aboard their lethal, hard-hulled, shallow-water Command Boats--think an up-armored PT-Boat, or the Pibber carrying Martin Sheen in-country in "Apocalypse Now," except with killing power times infinity. The squadron's counterparts from the Iraqi maritime police had initially taken the lead when the small flotilla departed Basra. But now the Iraqi vessel had drifted downstream, investigating a suspicious fishing smack tied to a disused dock. That left Vecere and his mates, about 15 sailors in two boats, to ponder exactly what kind of payload this abandoned delivery truck might in fact be delivering.

"So we're kind of like, we'd better check this out," he continues. "All of us had encountered waterborne IEDs before. They'll make floating mines out of 50-gallon drums and disguise them by tying them under bunches of reeds. Or shaped explosive charges embedded right into the mudbanks, aimed toward the water. Sometimes you break an infrared beam to trigger them, like a garage-door opener. Sometimes they have spotters with cellphone triggers. Anyway, we're all eyes on this truck on the bank. And then there's movement right behind it. Suspicious? What's not suspicious movement in Iraq? I mean, if you're not careful, you can get got.

"So we turn in, and we're getting closer, maybe 50 yards away, and suddenly out of nowhere . . ."

But we're getting ahead of our story.

Sometimes you wonder if the Navy, apart from a few high-profile fighter jocks and low-profile SEALs, has any skin in the War on Terror. And then you make a telephone call. Mine is to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, or NECC, an elite force of warfighters that includes the Riverine Force, the smallest combat unit in the U.S. Navy, "working the seams between the maritime and land components." On the other end of the phone line arrives Tristan Vecere, who is quick to straighten me out.

"Riverine is very different from the conventional Navy, but we're still a big part of it, as well as part of the mission overseas," he says, making certain that I understand that out of 320,000 United States sailors, only 750 call themselves Riverines. "And also, if I may add, sir, it's the best job in the Navy to boot."

I imagine there might be plenty of sailors who would argue with that. I may even know a few. But for now we'll take Vecere at his word. More to the point, we'll also take the story of his journey. It is a rather interesting one.

Vecere spent his childhood as a "water rat," sailing, surfing, and swimming off the beaches of Pensacola, Florida, before enlisting soon after his 18th birthday in 1997. One October afternoon three years later, while stationed on the oiler USS Camden in the Arabian Sea, his skipper ordered the Camden's crew to break off all duties and hurriedly batten down. "Next thing I knew we're doing 40 knots," says Vecere. "Scuttlebutt had it that one of our vessels had been attacked by terrorists."

The Camden was the first American relief vessel to reach the destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. The Cole was listing dangerously and taking water through the gaping gash in her hull. Vecere was a member of the first work party to board her. "It was crazy, and pretty frantic," he says, his voice betraying a hint of the disbelief he remembers feeling at the time. "We were shoring up spaces, de-watering any way we could; bucket brigades at first, then it was portable pumps. We would stand watches with the Cole crewmen, waiting for shoring to break, waiting for flooding to begin again. It was touch-and-go for a bit."

As the uninjured Cole crew and its Camden reinforcements worked round-the-clock to keep the destroyer afloat, word spread of the suicide bombing's human toll--17 sailors dead, another 39 wounded. Moreover, as the days wore on and the Camden continued to supply support for the Cole, being stationed on an oiler began to lose its appeal to Vecere. He felt, he says, "as if the world had changed."

Less than one year later, 9/11 sealed the deal, and he began to ponder a new career path. An NCO who had taken Vecere under wing sensed the young man's itch, and recommended him to a Naval Security Forces unit, with whom he worked the harbor patrol unit in Bahrain. Yet, though he enjoyed the challenges of the "small boat" Navy, something still ate at him. One day in 2006, near the end of his tour, he decided to leave the seagoing service to enlist in the Army. His goal was to become an Explosive Ordinance Disposal operator--well before "The Hurt Locker" turned those crazy bomb squadders into romantic icons.

"I'd always kind of admired the EOD guys," he says. "When most people would run away from the bombs, these guys would run toward them. You'd watch the news and you saw that's where our guys were getting the most messed up, and EOD was the fast track to Iraq and Afghanistan. I just wanted to go over and help."

Fortune intervened again, however, this time in the form of another NCO who told Vecere about the new Riverine contingent the NECC was standing up. Following the Vietnam War, the Navy had transferred much of its brown- and green-water capabilities to the Marine Corps. (Blue water begins at the continental shelf.) Now it was taking some of them back, including a reconstituted Riverine Force--three tactical squadrons tailored precisely for unconventional warfare athwart the world's 113 major river systems, or perhaps in the riparian environments of, oh, I dunno . . . say a country bisected by two ancient rivers, each with dozens of twisting, shallow tributaries, and with a large portion of its southern rump covered by a swampy marsh?

"I'd never heard of the Riverines," says Vecere. "But I read up on them, and loved what I read. Fast, mobile, stealthy. Especially the part about not only being on the water, but about getting off the boat and extending the combat capabilities of the boat, if you know what I mean. The problem was, since it's such a tiny element of the Navy, you really have to fight to get orders just to qualify for the screening process."

Vecere was dogged. He had, after all, stood shoulder to shoulder with fellow sailors bucket-bailing from the hold of the Cole. He spent a year cajoling, entreating, and submitting detailed transfer requests before he was accepted to the NECC's River and Combat Skills course school. He graduated, and two deployments to Iraq ensued. The tours were were a blur of waterborne look-and-listen intel patrols and training missions with Iraqi river-going units that eventually led to that hot summer morning last year, when he and his squad found themselves eyeballing a ragged, old delivery truck incongruously backed down the left bank of the Tigris River just south of Baghdad.

Vecere picks up the story: "So we're moving in, and we've also got eyes on what we think might be bad guys behind the truck. And the next thing you know there was just this giant explosion and my face just, like, shook. Felt like my cheeks were pinned back around my ears. I could hear the shrapnel pinging off the deck, and a huge black cloud enveloped us. I lost sight of the other boat.

"My first priority, the first thing I did--well, after patting down my face and chest to see if they were still there--was make sure none of the crew was hurt. Now that I think about it, I could probably have counted them off by the click-click-click-click-click-click as everyone's weapon went into Condition One. The M240, all the M-4s, the 50-cal Mark 44. Fires 6,000 rounds in two minutes. Thing will saw through trees. Luckily, except for scratches, everybody was okay."

Within moments every Riverine had eyes on the suspects. They were running from the direction of the truck. Toward . . . the mosque. And here we learn how the realities of war interdict the Rambo happy endings Hollywood has conditioned us to expect.

"Although we were engaged by the enemy, we did not engage back," Vecere tells me. "Because of where we were, we had to consider backstop. There were civilians milling about their religious monument. I mean, you have to think about it. Not only am I going to shoot the bad guys, but I am going to endanger those civilians behind them. We stood down."

I took two things from my conversations with Bosun's Mate 1st Class Tristan Vecere. (Okay, Boatswain's Mate for all you sticklers out there.) The first was the man's selflessness. We spoke twice, for some length of time, and on each occasion he interrupted me quite often to stress that this was not his story, but his unit's story. I expect he will be angry that I focused it on him.

The second was an offhand comment that he made that not only resonates, but reaffirms the spirit of men in combat, at least as I've found it.

"Everybody goes through this," he told me. "It's a dangerous place over there. My biggest thing that I always thought about was to make sure that I managed my men and did what I had to so that I could bring them back. You're basically just guarding the guy to the left and the right of you. Everybody has a job to do and you do it so that you bring everybody home."

You're basically just guarding the guy to the left and the right of you. Inasmuch as combat technology has evolved, my guess is that this is a constant; that soldiers have felt this way since arrows and spears darkened the skies over the deserts of Mesopotamia.

A new adventure now awaits Vecere, who admits to having "the most patient wife in the world." He tells me he's now applying for a position as a Navy Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or J-TAC. I was a bit taken aback. Does this mean he is leaving the Riverine racket?

"That's a negative sir. We have one J-TAC unit in Riverine. It's just an expanded capability. You have a guy on the ground who can talk to any Bird in the sky to bring in close air support." Another pause. "If you need it."

I'll keep you posted on his progress.
Take Action:
  • Update: DADT has been repealed. President Obama has kept his promise!
  • Boycott Bill O'Reilly and FOX News and their advertisers.  Bill discussed a French commercial by McDonalds that was meant to show that McDonalds is Gay Friendly. Bill said what is next? Is McDonalds going to be Al-Qaida friendly as well?  Imagine - Bill O'Reilly compares Gays to Al-Qaida!  In conclusion, O'Reilly expressed out-right Hatrad of the LGBT Community. 
  • Boycott Arizona the home of  "hater" - U.S. Senator John McCain. Arizona's Hateful anti-Immigration Law - encourages racial profiling and increases hatred towards minorities.  A remedy: Demand Republicans to  support Immigration Reform (The Dream Act). Further, Senator McCain voted against ending DADT and Blocked Immigration reform! 
  • Boycott Target, Best Buy, Gold's Gym - for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations. Update: (12/26/2010): Target is continuing to donate to anti-gay groups/causes/politicians. Update 03/08/11 - Lady Gaga Ends Target Partnership, Reportedly Over Target's Poor LGBT Stance. Update 3/25/2010 - Target displays their hypocrisy and Sues California Gay Rights Group for Lobbying Outside Stores.  Target is attempting to block the LGBT right of free speech!  STOP SHOPPING AT TARGET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Update 4/8/2011: Target lost it's case to stop the LGBT from canvassing in front of their stores.  A huge PR Disaster for TARGET!  Perhaps Target should go out of business as they betrayed their investers and customers. Target contributed massive funds to a politician who would like to exterminate gays.  Now, Target can not stop us from Boycotting them, nor picketing, nor talking to customers near their stores; although, Target allows a anti-gay company such as the Salvation Army to stand outside their door and speak with customers and raise money. Isn't this a double standard? Perhaps TARGET would better understand the issue if they cared about David Kato - Uganda, who was slain because he is gay! That is because Uganda wants to kill gay people.  Again, TARGET invested in a political candidate that would Kill the Gays! 
  • End DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).  Prevents Federal employees and Gays in the Military from gaining equal benefits. Prevents Gay Partners from gaining equal benefits.    
  • Pass ENDA (Employee Non-Discrimination Act).  ENDA would prevent employment discrimination of  LGBT workforce.
  • Boycott Salvation Army as they will not hire Gays! "DO NOT DONATE TO THEM."
  • BOYCOTT "Chick-fil-a" for donating to anti-gay marriage groups.
  • BOYCOTT KOCH INDUSTRIES PRODUCTS- to include their products: Angel Soft toilet paper / Brawny paper towels / Dixie plates, bowls, napkins & cups / Mardi Gras napkins and towels / Quilted Northern toilet paper / Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper / Sparkle napkins / Vanity fair napkins / Zee napkins / Georgia-Pacific paper products & envelopes / All Georgia-Pacific lumber & building products (INVISTA Products) / Lycra / Stainmaster Carpet.   The billionaire - Koch brothers are ultra republican - tea bag founders/supporters that do not support causes of the LGBT community.
  • Boycott WALMART - The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, force criticized Wal-Mart for denying employee benefits to same-s-x partners and for failing to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. By comparison, the group said two other chain stores with a strong presence in New York, Costco and Walgreens, did much better.
  • NEW: Boycott Donald Trump [Tune Out TRUMP], The Apprentice and NBC Network! At CPAC, Trump said he is considering a run for president as a Republican. In a interview with the Des Moines Register, Trump added that he opposes all forms of legal recognition for gay couples, not just marriage. "They should not be able to marry," he said. So why does NBC keep the Apprentice when Donald Trump has stated he may run for president? Boycott NBC, CNBC! Boycott advertisers of The Apprentice and his other business's. Don't shop at any bullding with Donald Trump's name to include Trump Hotels, Casinos, Condo's, Offices, Shops!  The Donald has expressed extreme Hatred. He is a birther as well and brings out all the Bigots!  Remember how poorly Trump treated Rosie O'Donnel?  Now we know why he did that!  It was hate against a lesbian as we now know he is bigot.  Unforgiveable!  Get Ready to dump NBC & NBC NEWS because they air Donald Trump's "The Apprentice"!  Start Watching CBS Evening News with Katie Couric (Too Bad, Katie is leaving).
  • NEW: Boycott "APPLE." For the current owners and the aspiring owners of the I-phone,  Apple allows an application, "The Gay App", which is supposed to help gay individuals turn straight.  This is a step in the wrong direction.  Apple needs to know that the decision to allow this App on their products is a fallacious idea! Update: March 23, 2011:  Apple removed this app from USA stores; but, rumored to have them remain in some foreign stores.  This is offensive not just towards the LGBT community in the USA; but, offensive to  the entire LGBT community around the world.  How does anyone approve such a hateful, despicable app towards the LGBT community? Especially when Gay Teens are killing themselves after being harrassed by their church, parents, as well as  by bully's and teachers at school. The idea that this app was used, solicited is disgusting.  Still "no comment" from APPLE!

And Now, Model Wars!

This group is called "Peckers Pics."  The English -  slang definition of "pecker" is to pluck at the truth. Therefore, we peck at items such as Gay Men's Health, Male Fitness, Gay (LGBT) Politics & Issues.  In this section you may peck at each photo in order to decide the winner of the "war of the fittest!"   Whereas, who is the model that may inspire you to exercise and "get fit?"  Warning: This may stoke you!
 
Your participation in discussion of health / news articles - appearing in this message is greatly appreciated.
FERNANDO CUDUH
 
VS
[Above:Left]
[Above: Center]
FELIPE ANIBAL
 
You Decide!
Cinco de Mayo essentially became shirtless Thursday at The Cafe.
San Francisco; May 5, 2011
Stoked?
Cinco de Mayo essentially became shirtless Thursday at The Cafe.
San Francisco; May 5, 2011
Deportation of Immigrant in Same-Sex Marriage Suspended
Christian Post Reporter - May 7, 2011 - By Stephanie Samuel

A gay Venezuelan man married to an American man will temporarily not be deported after an immigration judge ruled Friday to suspend his deportation based on the recent intervention of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. in a similar same-sex marriage immigration case.

Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl of Newark, N.J. suspended the deportation of Venezuelan salsa dancer, Henry Velandia, married to Princeton graduate student, Josh Vandiver, because Holder on Thursday intervened and suspended the deportation of a man from Ireland who is joined in a civil union with a U.S. citizen.

Holder suspended the deportation of Irishman Paul Wilson Dorman and sent his case back to the immigration appeals court, asking it to consider several possible grounds on which the Irishman might qualify for legal residency.

Both Dorman, who is joined to a U.S. citizen through a civil union, and Valandia were denied legal residency because of the Defense of Marriage of Act defines marriage as between a man and a woman and therefore does not recognize same-sex marriage.

Judge Riefkohl said he chose to delay Velandia's deportation to December, at the earliest, to allow time for the attorney general and the appeals court to work out a similar deal for the Venezuelan.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), criticized Attorney General Eric Holder of having "instructed an immigration court to ignore DOMA in future rulings," according to The New York Times.

In February, President Barack Obama issued an executive order to the Department of Justice to cease defending the 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton.

While the DOJ cannot defend the constitutionality of DOMA in court, it still must obey the federal law. Moreover, DOMA has not been struck down either legislatively or in the courts and therefore is still a federal law that must be enforced.

But in March, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wrongly issued a temporary suspension on deportation cases of gay foreigners joined in same-sex marriages to American citizens.

"USCIS has issued guidance to the field, asking that related cases be held in abeyance, while awaiting final guidance related to distinct legal issues," said Christopher S. Bentley, the Department of Homeland Security's spokesman, in a statement.

But Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, denounced the USCIS's decision.

"[DOMA] governs the definition of marriage from a federal standpoint under the federal laws for every federal agency including the immigration services. They must abide by that federal law," he insisted. "No federal agency can act contrary to that law."

Bentley later told The Christian Post that the agency lifted the abeyance and would continue with deportation proceedings for gay foreign nationals regardless if they are in a same-sex union. The agency also criticized media outlets' assertion that married gay foreigners could now apply for green cards as untrue.

American Immigration Lawyers Association told CP that it too would not counsel gay foreign nationals joined to a same-sex citizen to apply for a green card. AILA spokeswoman Jenny Levy said gay foreign nationals who apply should not expect approval for their green card applications.
Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."
....Jake
 
Important Notice: Our ObamaBiden2008 Group works hand - in - hand with Peckers PICS (Both groups were co-created to work with each-other).  To prevent duplication of articles and questions, all members of this group are expected  to join ObamaBiden2008. It is unfair for members that belong to both groups to hear members of just Peckers PICS (only) to make statements when the ObamaBiden2008 has covered such topics in detail.  Therefore, members need to join ObamaBiden2008  immediately.  This shall clear up communications and confusion.  The LGBT cause is too important and beyond 1 person's need to just look at pictures.   Therefore, please join ObamaBiden2008 now.  No you don't have to read every article! But, it covers the LGBT community and includes updates on Health insurance; LGBT boycott list; Westboro Church; and the end of DADT, etc...Also, updates with the multi - state govt's war against LGBT rights and people with disabilities. The group is created for you!  There are gay teen suicides going on. There are Hate crimes against gay people. There are gays who are fired over their sexual identity.  There are gay people who died for our cause! You always reserve the right to remove yourself from all my groups if you do not appreciate this request.  I have done everything I can and now it is time for you to step up!  My Yahoo Groups are formulated towards individuals who sincerely care about LGBT rights and Gay Mens Health!   Please Join Now!

 

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All members of "Peckers PICS" are requested to join our "Obama Biden 2008" group as it runs in conjunction to this group.  Both groups shall not repeat articles from one group to another.  However, to gain full knowledge of Gay rights, members must belong to the Obama group as well as this group.  Therefore, please accept your invitation to join. 

To join the Obama group please click (or copy and paste the link into your browser) @  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ObamaBiden2008/join

Thank you!
 

"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."

...Jake (Moderator)



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