I have to admit, I always thought that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, while a repressive and horrific policy, served as a kind of escape hatch for U.S. soldiers. If you are gay and in the military and they are about to send you out on your third tour in a row to fight a war that is, by all accounts, unwinnable you can come out of the closet. According to military policy, they have to discharge you.

Well, Private Bethany Smith tried that. Specifically, she was outed as a lesbian, harassed extensively and then requested to be discharged under DADT. She was on the verge of being sent to Afghanistan and the military decided to delay her discharge until after her deployment.

So much for the escape hatch.

So Private Smith came to Canada and asked the government to protect her. In the first hearing, her request was denied, but she is appealing. The problem is that Canada has a pretty bad track record when it comes to giving U.S. soldiers asylum. According the refugee laws, their court would have to essentially find fault with the United States court martial system in order to grant Smith asylum.

Not likely when the two countries are such good friends.

So I am left disappointed. Smith, after serious harassment and targetted violence because of her sexual orientation, is not even allowed to use the silver lining DADT supposedly provided.

And Canada, while better about gays in the military, is not likely to protect her from the court martial expected for her desertion.

1. When I’m out drinking, some men share their family dramas.

2. When I’m out drinking,  I wish some men would stop sharing their family dramas….unless they are cute.

3. RIP Frank McCourt.

4. You know marriage rights foes are losing the debate when they go bat-doo crazy over a small market paper printing a gay marriage announcement.

5. Anyone see the new Potter film?

6. Why didn’t I get to do the Stevie Nicks interview?

7. Does Governor Mark Sanford know when to keep his trap shut?

8. There is something priceless about a porn star going to jail for breaking into a beauty salon. Hopefully someone will turn that wackiness into a porn flick!

9. I  want to say something snarky about my day job, but in this economy it’s bad form to make the bosses upset. I love my job and everything about it. Everything.

10. Keep Army Private Bowe R. Bergdahl and his family in your thoughts.

1. Anyone who sells private pictures of a former lover/fun buddy  is a jerk.

2. Looks like a march on Washington D.C. is moving along.

3. The Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship. There is a disturbance in the force.

4. Will the protesters in Iran survive the brutality of the state?

5. Not much to add about the Department of Justice’s defense of DOMA. The adversary idea looks more tempting, no?

6. Flip-flops on city streets equals nasty.

7. What do you think of the new random thought photo?

8. For some reason I feel like a poser reading The Brothers Karamazov on the subway.

9. If you are looking for a provocative take on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, check out Michael Yon’s site.

10. I love city parks but not so much that I will stand in line for  a wristband to walk through one.

The use of known as stop loss, or involuntary combat duty extensions, reportedly is expected to continue through 2009. The number of soldiers affected by stop loss will remain at about 12,000 next year, Army Lt. Col. Mike Moose told USA Today.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say the policy is needed to maintain the cohesion of units heading to battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The continued use of stop loss illustrates how the discharge of over 12,500 qualified service members under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ has greatly strained military readiness at a time when our armed forces are already stretched far too thin around the globe,” said Servicemembers Legal Defense Network executive director Aubrey Sarvis. ” ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ undermines the military’s ability to attract qualified personnel of all backgrounds in order to keep pace with increasing deployment needs.”

The number of soldiers impacted by stop loss each month is approximately the same as the number of service members who have been discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – over 12,500.

The number of service members discharged under DADT also roughly equals the number of service members that commanders in Afghanistan are seeking to add to the 32,000 troops already on the ground.

Under DADT, two people every day are dropped from the military for being gay.

In the 15 years that DADT has been in force, more than 10,000 personnel have been discharged as a result of the policy, including 800 with skills deemed ‘mission critical,’ such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists.

The number of gay men and lesbians turned away by military recruiters is unknown.

A study conducted last year for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network concluded that the U.S. military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits, if gays and lesbians in the military were able to be open about their sexual orientation.

Legislation to repeal DADT is currently before Congress. Republican Presidential nominee John McCain supports the ban.  Democrat Barack Obama said last month that if elected president he would not try to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on his own.

Obama said that he wants to work with military leaders to build a consensus on removing the ban on openly gay service members in the armed forces. He said that wouldn’t be accomplished by attaching a signing statement to a military spending bill, a process that President Bush has used to set other military policies.

Palin sat down with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The conversations were private, the pictures public, meant to build her resume for voters concerned about her lack of experience in world affairs.

“I found her quite a capable woman,” Karzai said later. “She asked the right questions on Afghanistan.”

The self-described “hockey mom” also asked former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for insights on Georgia, Russia, China and Iran, and she’ll see more leaders Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings.

It was shuttle diplomacy, New York-style. At several points, Palin’s motorcade got stuck in traffic and New Yorkers, unimpressed with the flashing lights, sirens and police officers in her group, simply walked between the vehicles to get across the street. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, three hours behind Palin in seeing Karzai, found herself overshadowed for a day as she made her own rounds.

John McCain’s presidential campaign has shielded the first-term Alaska governor for weeks from spontaneous questions from voters and reporters, and went to striking lengths Tuesday to maintain that distance as Palin made her diplomatic debut.

The GOP campaign, applying more restrictive rules on access than even President Bush uses in the White House, banned reporters from the start of the meetings, so as not to risk a question being asked of Palin.

McCain aides relented after news organizations objected and CNN, which was supplying TV footage to a variety of networks, decided to pull its TV crew from Palin’s meeting with Karzai.

Overheard: small talk.

Palin is studying foreign policy ahead of her one debate with Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, a senator with deep credentials on that front. More broadly, the Republican ticket is trying to counter questions exploited by Democrats about her qualifications to serve as vice president and step into the presidency at a moment’s notice if necessary.

There was no chance of putting such questions to rest with photo opportunities Tuesday.

But Palin, who got a passport only last year, no longer has to own up to a blank slate when asked about heads of state she has met.

She also got her first intelligence briefing Tuesday, over two hours.

Karzai generated light laughter when he told an audience at the Asia Society that, in addition to Rice and Norway’s prime minister, he had seen Palin on Tuesday. Thomas Freston, a member of the society’s board, drew loud applause and laughter when he responded: “You’re probably the only person in the room who’s met Gov. Palin.”

Randy Scheunemann, a longtime McCain aide on foreign policy, was close at hand during her meetings. Another adviser, Stephen Biegun, also accompanied her at each meeting and briefed reporters later.

Karzai and Palin discussed security problems in Afghanistan, including cross-border insurgencies. They also talked about the need for more U.S. troops there, which both McCain and Democrat Barack Obama say is necessary, Biegun said.

With both Karzai and Uribe, Palin discussed the importance of energy security. With Uribe, the conversation also touched on the proposed U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement that McCain and Palin support but Obama opposes.

Her meeting with Kissinger, which lasted more than an hour, covered a range of national security and foreign policy issues, specifically Russia, Iran and China, Biegun said.

“Rather than make specific policy prescriptions, she was largely listening, having an exchange of views and also very interested in forming a relationship with people she met with today,” he said.

Before Palin’s first meeting of the day, with Karzai, campaign aides had told reporters in the press pool that followed her they could not go into meetings where photographers and a video camera crew would be let in for pictures.

Bush and members of Congress routinely allow reporters to attend photo opportunities along with photographers, and the reporters sometimes are able to ask questions at the beginning of private meetings before they are ushered out.

At least two news organizations, including AP, objected to the exclusion of reporters and were told that the decision to have a “photo spray” only was not subject to discussion. After aides backed away from that, campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said the reporter ban was a “miscommunication.”

On Wednesday, McCain and Palin are expected to meet jointly with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. Palin is then to meet separately with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Palin, 44, has been to neighboring Canada and to Mexico, and made a brief trip to Kuwait and Germany to see Alaska National Guard troops.