Gays in the military. Anyone remember that? Just a couple of years ago that was the lead banner in the “gay agenda.” Our right to serve. Our banishment from the United States Armed Force was an intolerable form of discrimination, no, even oppression.

Haven’t heard much about that that lately, have we?. The whole issue has gone MIA. Disappeared. Which is weird, seeing as how it was, according to the gay and lesbian political leadership, the single most important issue faces gays and lesbians in America. The right of gays and lesbians to “serve” in the military was the most important measure of the status of gays and lesbians in American culture.

The door to service in the US Armed Forces is wide open. In fact, they are desperate for new recruits. Hell, they’ll even take 19-year old high school drop outs with long criminal records of drug offenses, such as Steven Green, who is now facing charges of murder and rape while “serving” in Iraq. In military shop talk they call this a “morals waivers.” They are welcoming people into the military who in the past would have been disqualified on “morals’ grounds.

Hey! Where did everybody go? Remember the whole bit about how it didn’t matter if you were straight, only if you could shoot straight? Right now we are being offered a golden opportunity to show how straight we can shoot. Lots of opportunities all over Iraq. It’s a “target-rich environment.”

But no gays or lesbians are taking up this wonderful opportunity. All the voices who not so long ago were insisting that this was the issue have gone mute. It turns out they didn’t really mean it. Or maybe they forgot what it is the US Armed Forces actually do, that soldiers kill people. They fought the whole issue presented as if the military was just one more civil institution to integrate, no different than schools, workplaces or sports teams. They forgot that our country spends by far more on its military than any other country in the world, and that we use our military more than anyone else.

But take heart, it looks like American soldiers are going to be in Iraq for a long time. There will be ample opportunity for those who “led” on this issue to find their courage, go to Iraq, and show us how it’s done.

The Associated Press reports that former president of the National Association of Evangelicals Rev. Ted Haggard has (Rev. Ted Haggard has discovered his hetereosexuality after 3 weeks of intensive counseling.")

One of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard said the disgraced minister emerged convinced that he is ''completely heterosexual. That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing.''

Congratulations Ted! You are not alone. Many people learn surprising things about their sexuality late in life. Thank goodness you had four ministers helping you in your long search for your hetereosexuality. By the way, where did you finally find it? In the closet?

It is fitting to launch this blog on the day that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 2007 assessment of global warming. (http://www.ipcc.ch/) Global warming is the issue of our time – indeed, the issue of all and time, if our time scale is a human one.

Hopefully the release of this report will be a turning point in terms of the political will of the leaders of the human species to begin to address this problem. Sadly, in the US, the opposite is happening. Bush administration officials announced that they “embrace” the report and asserted that the US has played a “leading role in combating climate change.”

As if that were not incredible enough, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman again rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions: “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/science/earth/...)

This is the man in charge of US energy policy at the most critical time in human history, when the window of time for addressing global warming is swinging shut (if it has not closed already). His statement shows his ignorance of the most basic facts of global warming that every middle school student should know (in some parts of the world, middle school students do know these facts, but not in the US).

“We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world,” says Bodman.

The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

This breathtaking ignorance leaves Mike Brown’s mishandling of Katrina relief in the dust. And yet, somehow, business as usual goes on. The streets of Washington are not filled with hundreds of thousands of people who will refuse to go home until the government falls. American students are not occupying the square in front of the White House.

Of course not: only about 10% of Americans say they worry a lot about global warming.
(http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/252.pdf)

The most militant voice on the global political stage seems to belong to right wing French President Jacques Chirac, who suggested that if the United States does not sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that will take effect when the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012, Europe could slap a tax on American products to try to force compliance.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world...)

Here is one American who has no hesitation in asking, begging the Europeans: Bring on the tax! But just a tax? We are facing global catastrophe, and most Americans still don't get it. Why not travel bans on Americans visiting your countries? Boycotts on American products? Vigils in front of American Embassies? Arrest warrants for American leaders? Please, help!