Buzz Blog

Q Salt Lake reports that a recent study has found “gaydar” appears to be a real phenomenon. The University of Washington study had respondents guess orientation from pictures of 129 participants, and, “For women’s faces, participants were 65 percent accurate in guessing sexual orientation. For men’s faces, the accuracy was 57 percent.”---

Top of the Alty World

“Study Finds Gaydar Exists, is Effective”—Q Salt Lake.

Truthout reporter Mike Ludwig joins RT News to discuss the limits of the Obama administration’s rules on fracking, the process of hyradulic fracturing of natural gas and other fossil-fuel deposits that activists worry could poison groundwater, and one micro-brewer worries could poison beer supplies—RT News.

The Texas Observer reports on a rare case where a gay union helped save a Texas man from being deported back to Mexico for being in the country without documentation.—Texas Observer.

Democracy Now! Hosts Ben Jealous, the CEO and President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to talk about the latest developments in the Trayvon Martin shooting case and racial profiling in America.—Democracy Now!

Top of Alty Utah

KRCLRadio hosts former Salt Lake Tribune staffer Glen Warchol, who was recently laid off from the paper, to discuss the local media landscape in Utah.--RadioActive

Doug Fabrizio discusses the pros and cons of energy development in the rural West, from Utah to Colorado and Wyoming.—RadioWest

A novel gold-storage and investment business keeps clients' gold outside of the traditional banking system and has placed a vault in Salt Lake City for its customers.—Salt Lake City Weekly.

From political fixer to gluten-free advocate, Tim Lawson is suing Orrin Hatch for defunding the FDA in a way he says jeopardizes the lives of millions of American who suffer from gluten intolerance in the form of Celiac’s disease.—Salt Lake City Weekly.

Rantosphere The High Country News delves into Utah’s battle over public lands and RS 2477 roads. “The fight isn’t about families’ access to private land and favorite picnic spots, [activists] say, but rather state access to resource-extraction opportunities.”—High Country News.

The Long View:

The OC Weekly looks at the troubling case of two Los Angeles County Transit Cops who drew guns on an unarmed homeless man and subsequently beat him into submission. The cops alleged the man possessed cocaine and during the fight swallowed the evidence.

“The deputies' story seemed plausible, especially because everyone knows cops would never, ever lie. But there was a huge problem: The rock-cocaine tale was fictitious. Toxicology tests done on Jones within minutes of his arrival at the ER proved he had no drugs in his system, not even a faint trace of cocaine. Oops. But Jones—whose face is now slightly deformed as a result of the officers' crushing blows to his head—would remain stuck in a twisted La-La Land. [Officers] Harper and Sherred continued to push charges. To bolster their stance, they wrote supplemental reports that added a new element to justify them drawing their weapons immediately upon arrival. They speculated that Jones had been urinating on the wall or preparing to perform an act of indecent exposure, instead of using rock cocaine.” –OC Weekly