This and that open thread...on auto-pilot, but keeping up with some newsworthy items

As I mentioned on Facebook and Twitter today...

Apologies, all. Pre-surgery pain has rendered me w/little motivation to write/email. #fibro + #fibroids=bad combo. On auto-pilot.

I've reached the point where I'm in physical pain so that my fibromyalgia has flared up to sing in concert with my fibroid-laden uterus. Lovely. Anyhow, now that I've hit the wall, you may not see many blog posts from me for a while.I'll keep up my posting on Facebook and Twitter as it saps less from me.

On that note, what I've been Facebooking and Tweeting about:

* Anti-Gay Bullying Blamed in Suicide of Pennsylvania Teen (via Towleroad):

Students at Midd-West High School cried out against bullying Friday as they mourned the loss of a classmate who in the early morning hours walked about 13 miles from his home to Routes 11-15, where he ran in front of a southbound tractor-trailer after leaving a suicide note at his home. Freshman Brandon Bitner, 14, of Mount Pleasant Mills, ran in front of the truck at 3 a.m. near Liverpool, according to state police at Newport. "It was because of bullying," friend Takara Jo Folk wrote in a letter to The Daily Item. It was not about race, or gender, but they bullied him for his sexual preferences and the way he dressed. Which," she said, "they wrongly accused him of."

* Mullen surprised at Amos' stand on DADT . Apparently talking out of school got Amos a rebuke.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he thought the top brass had agreed to make recommendations privately to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos. Amos had said that with forces fighting in Afghanistan and still deployed in Iraq, now is the wrong time to lift the ban.

"I was surprised by what he said and surprised he said it publicly," Mullen told reporters in Australia, where he attended meetings of defense and diplomatic chiefs.

He said the heads of the military services had committed to "look at the data and then make our recommendations privately."

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