U.S. Vigils Planned For Tel Aviv Victims

U.S. Vigils Planned For Tel Aviv Victims

Memorial vigils for the victims of the shooting at an LGBT center in Tel Aviv will take place around the U.S. this week.

San Francisco: Tonight. Monday, from 530-6 @ Congregation Sha'ar Zahav (16th/Dolores -- the largely LGBT Synagogue) and marching to the LGBT Center by 6:30 p.m. for a vigil (Market/Octavia). (Via SF Supervisor Bevan Dufty)

Washington DC: Tonight. Dupont Circle, 8:15pm - 9:15pm. Facebook page.

Los Angeles: Thursday. Location TBD. 7:00pm - 8:30pm. Facebook page.

I'll update this post with more details and locations as they come in.

thanks to JMG

Want Marriage Equality? Follow the Money

Want Marriage Equality? Follow the Money Candace Chellew-Hodge No matter what Welton Gaddy might hope, anti-gay religious groups are not interested in finding common ground on marriage equality - they need the conflict to fill their coffers.

Support Iraqi LGBT

Ali Hili sent a message to the members of SOS: Support Iraqi LGBT.

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Subject: Iraqi officer 'behind bank heist'

http://www.facebook.com/l/;news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8180046.stm

An Iraqi army captain, possibly helped by presidential bodyguards, is believed to have been behind a major bank robbery in Baghdad, officials say.

Tuesday's robbery, in which eight people were killed and millions of dollars stolen, was among the biggest in Baghdad's history.

The money has since been recovered from inside a government compound in the city centre.

Two people have been arrested but another is still at large, police say.

A tip-off on Friday led police to the compound, close to the bank where the robbery took place in the district of Karrada.

Police believe that presidential bodyguards may have been involved in the robbery, which netted about $7m (£4m) worth of Iraqi dinars.

The BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad says this theory matches a widespread suspicion that the robbers had some inside help.

The gunmen stormed the bank at dawn just after it had received a large transfer of cash.

They got through five heavily armed checkpoints and no doors or windows were broken.

They then fired at security guards before using dynamite to open the vault where the money was kept.

Security officials say there are links between the armed insurgency and organised crime in Iraq, but our correspondent says that the alleged involvement of the presidential bodyguards shows that law enforcement agencies could also be part of the problem.

A few months ago, Iraq's own anti-corruption agency said the police and army were among the country's most corrupt institutions.
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Amsterdam's Mayor Weds NY Couples To Send Message To U.S.

Yesterday the mayor of Amsterdam married five bi-national couples on a gay Pride party boat to send a message to the United States about marriage equality and immigration reform.

The mayor of Amsterdam married five American-Dutch gay couples on Saturday in an implicit criticism of the lack of same-sex marriage in many U.S. states. Tens of thousands of spectators cheered as Mayor Job Cohen performed the ceremony on a cruise around the city's canals to celebrate the high point of the city's gay pride festival. Eight years ago Cohen presided over the first legal Dutch gay marriage. All five couples had at least one partner from New York, where a battle over the legalization of gay marriage rages on.

"For me it's a message to New York, the most liberal state, the most hip state, to get with it," said Ira Siff, an opera professional from New York who was about to marry his partner, opera singer Hans Heijnis. The New York-Amsterdam connection is much in the news this year, with the cities celebrating a 400-year relationship in 2009. Cohen called the couples a "figurehead" for that bond. "Your transatlantic love is proof of the lasting connection between old and new Amsterdam," Cohen said in the service.

Very nice.

posted by JMG