This is my new friend, JuJuBi.  A blog post about our afternoon together to follow. JuJuBi needs a single dog home.

This came through a LinkedIn connection.

Four out of five Internet users participate in some kind of group in the ?real? world, compared with just 56 percent of those who don?t use the Internet regularly, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center?s Internet and American Life Project. Those figures rise to 82 percent for users of social networks, and to 85 percent for users of Twitter ? in other words, being social online makes it more likely you will be social offline as well.

I had coffee a few weeks ago with someone I had met in real life, but mostly interact with over Facebook.  We actually talked about it ... the sense of familiarity from seeing family photos, sharing jokes and sharing outrage over various political stories. 

It didn't mean we were friend friends, but it did lay the foundation to have coffee which is the sort of real life networking that leads to actual friend friendships.

Does that make any sense?  Basically, I think meeting your tweeps and other online friends enhances your life in real ways.  And that real life connection translates back into the online social interactions.  It worked with the bloggers in my life so I trust the Pew research will prove true. 

Of course, I have 1700 facebook friends so I might need to have coffee 17 times a week to meet them all ... LOL.

On another note, The Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society has several new blogs.  Be sure to check them out. 

A homeless shelter threw out two women they perceived (wrongly) to be lesbians.

The Bilerico Project has a piece up on segregation in the LGBT community.

The problem is that so very many LGBT media outlets and organizations may as well have a "Whites Only" sign outside their boardrooms and all of the other places they make the big decisions that affect us all.

As a lesbian, I'm tempted so say White Gay Men Only sign, but I recognize that I have a lot of privilege because I'm white even as I struggle with the glass ceiling looming over women.  It is an interesting reflection and I suggest you follow the link.

The White House blog focuses on the new hospital visitation regulations. 

I'm not sure if I should be flattered that some homophobic comments about the Steeler Nation on a Ravens' forum links to a post on this blog.  That is a horrible sentence, but the night trudges on and my ability to parse wears thin.