The View girls get all hot and bothered while discussing who does and who doesn't qualify as a terrorist. And guess what?!? Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O'Donnell disagree!!! Shocking.

We have to say we feel a bit bad for poor, misguided Elisabeth. Those girls obviously get off on picking the lone conservative...

(Thanks to virtual matter for the heads up!)

Prince Harry can't have everything he wants. The 22-year old royal insisted he be sent to fight in the Iraq War, but Army brass ain't having it. BBC reports that General Sir Richard Dannatt has nixed the plan due to threats against the would-be reconnaissance commander. Dannat said,

Following a visit to Iraq last week I discovered a number of threats relating directly to Prince Harry and those around him and I am not prepared to export those risks... I know Prince Harry will be extremely disappointed and his soldiers will miss his presence in Iraq.

We understand how much the prospect of fighting the not-so-good fight meant to you. You'll most likely never be King, so this was an opportunity for you to really shine. Now, you'll just sink back into your life as a peaceful citizen. Or, you could go it alone and become a war vigilante. Better yet, you can form a rag-tag group of mercenaries with a clever name, like "The H-Team" or "Harry's Angels"! That would show the stupid army.

More gay casualties of war over in Iraq. Last month, police picked up a 27-year old carpenter and suspected homo named Maan. Four days later, on April 25th, the Taji resident's corpse was found on the side of the road - he had been killed execution style.

Meanwhile, a known gay activist named Hani remains in hiding after being arrested and tortured by Iraqi police. Doug Ireland reports that a police squad targeted and tortured an Iraqi gay activist named Hani. Worse yet, American officials may have been present, but did nothing.

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• In other bullshit-related news: Brian Juergens spent his time watching VH1's Flava of Love spin-off I Love New York last night and he thinks he smells a bit of homophobia. We smell something else.

• And how about some more: another year, another continent, another war front? Pardon us while we wretch.

• Suzanne Somers: how one celebrity overshadows dozens of people's charred dreams...

• Happy birthday belated 22nd birthday to Ted Haggard's former preaching post: The New Life Church. May it be bullshit free.

• 2006 ranks as the warmest year in history. More proof the planet's fucked. (You know, just for a change of pace.)

• Definitely not bullshit: Michael Musto's reading from his new book over at the Barnes and Noble on 6th Avenue and 22nd Street in good old NYC. 7pm. After party at Room Service. Totally bullshit free. (Now, that's bullshit.)

Considering the government's not down with gays in the military, it seems a bit queer that the State Department has picked openly gay police officer Scott Oak of Missoula, Montana, to head-up a training mission in Afghanistan (the other war). As part of his mission, Oak will provide civil and human rights training to Afghanistan's struggling police force.

He first caught the national eye last year when The Washington Blade wrote about his work as Missoula's gay liaison officer and the fact that Logo planned to make a documentary about his experience. Though some of his friends worry about potential danger, Oak's more concerned with the long-term effects:

Ideally, I think that by going over there and helping out as a civilian instructor it will make for a smoother transition and allow America to pull out of there more quickly...

I want to go experience another culture without breaking my commitment to public service. I think I'll be fulfilling that by helping to build a police department kind of from the ground up.

While we wouldn't be packing up for Afghanistan to help a beleagured security force, we certainly tip our hat to Oak. Watch out for the Taliban, though: fresh reports cite a rejuvenated core and renewed fight for control.

The Rosie/Donald brawl's not the only feud raging in Gayville: porn king Michael Lucas has set his perfectly aligned sights on a certain Jimmy. No, it's not his arch-nemesis Owen Hawk, but alleged anti-semite President Jimmy Carter.

As you may know, President Carter just published the controversial Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid in which he rails against Israeli's abuse of the Palestinian people. A big, big Jew, Lucas has used his blog to rail against Carter's abuse of the Heebs. In the book, Lucas says, Carter blames Israel for mess known as the middle east conflict.

[Carter] claims that Israel is at fault for everything, and the only reason there is no peace in the middle east is because Israel has blocked peace... I hope that in the new year we do not see more democrats or people as a whole turn against Israel, the only democracy in the middle east. I hope that my concern is unwarranted, and that there is at least one political party that at least vaguely stands with me on the issues that compose my core political concerns.

As for the Democrats turning on Israel - that's as likely as Lucas giving up plastic surgery.

Good news for fagalas looking for a little military play. It seems House Speaker Elect Nancy Pelosi's not all about gays in the military. And, it seems, everyone else, too. The Boston Globe reports:

Anxious to chart a centrist course with Democrats' new majority in Congress, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top deputies are busily working in private and public to rein in the liberal ambitions of some senior party heavyweights --including proposals to reinstate the military draft and end the Pentagon's ban on gays in uniform.
...
Pelosi has also tempered hopes of reversing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the service of gays and lesbians in the military, after two key Democrats -- Representatives Martin T. Meehan of Lowell and Barney Frank of Newton -- said last week that they want to repeal the policy.

(Update: We erroneously implied that Pelosi wants to reinstate the draft. We blame this on three things: stupidity, dyslexia and years of drug abuse. Pelosi actually doesn't want conscription. Nor, it seems, does she want homos fighting the good fight. So, she's 1-1 in our book...)

Amnesia Sparkles is great for a laugh, but power's not all fun and games. For this installment, Peter Tatchell delves inside the gruesome injustices that face gay Iraqis. Let's just say it's not pretty.

It's no secret that armed militias have taken advantage of the power vacuum to enact their own anti-gay justice. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Tatchell argues, there has been a startling rise in the strength and pervasiveness of these groups. Without intervention, the numbers will only continue to rise, certainly a dim outlook.

Read about the more forceful - and certainly more graphic - aspects misused power, after the jump.

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Today is meant to be a day of mourning, a day of remembering, a day of honoring. It's pleasing to know, then, that some folks are actually doing that on Memorial Day, with 365Gay reporting hundreds of LGBT community members are honoring their fallen gays in uniform (where and how they're honoring them, however, isn't exactly clear).

But then, of course, there is a small but attention-grabbing group of folks using Memorial Day to promote their anti-gay agenda. The same group of Kansas church members heavily responsible for Congress pushing through a bill banning protesting at military funerals upped their visibility today during a protest at Arlington National Cemetary.

As President Bush layed a wreath and spoke at the cemetary's annual memorial service honoring war dead, the Kansas group stood about 300 feet away across a four-lane highway, singing "God Hates America" to the tune of "God Bless America" and waving signs reading "God is America's terror," "Thank God for dead soldiers," and "Bush killed them." And just to make things interestesting, they were joined by their foils: supporters of conservative FreeRepublic.com countered the Kansas group's barely audible (thanks to motorcycle roars) protesting with their own chants and signs.

And at last, we've got a small reason to be thankful for the right-wing.

Memorial Day Demonstrators Face Off [AP]
Gay Vets Remember Fallen Comrades [365Gay]
Earlier: You Can Thank Anti-Gay Protests For First Amendment Infringement