I'm kind of on the fence about Happy Endings these days. It's almost become too Happy Endings-ish for me to watch. 
Still, Penny is a totally unique character, and finding someone to play her father couldn't have been easy, yet Andy Richter seems the perfect choice.
British Labour MP Paul Flynnis preparing an amendment to a bill that would allow the first born child of Prince William and Kate Middleton to assume the throne regardless of gender. The amendment would allow for the eventuality that a future heir could be gay, and allow the heir's partner to become consort, and their children conceived by surrogate to be in line for the throne.
Mike White's new show Enlightenment premiered last night, and he's completely happy with making people squirm, both on the screen and in real life. “For me, being not straight was weird, but it was also fun to be different. I like the idea that everybody has to grapple with sexuality. Maybe I want to problematize it, because being different forces you to be free of conventional expectations.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has released his list of ten priority bills he wants addressed in the new Congress over the next two years, and I can't help but notice that none of them are GLBT priorities, like ENDA or SSIA.
The BBC is apologizing for airing a 2001 repeat of the children's show The Tweenies which had the lead character dressed up as disgraced child molester Jimmy Saville and host a Top of the Pops-style show. Does nobody think these things through?
Bieber butt. No explanation given, look at your own NSFW risk.
The House of Lords has amended the Public Order Act to remove the category of insulting language. This means that it is no longer a crime to call a horse gay.
A federal judge has declined to stop the public nudity ban from becoming law in San Francisco. Opponents tried to overturn it on free speech grounds, but the judge said the act of taking off your clothes does not in itself constitute a protest.
Months ago we wrote about college football player Jamie Kuntz, who was outed when he was caught kissing his 65 year old boyfriend in the press box during a game he wasn't playing in. Kuntz was kicked off the team. Now he's still hoping to play again, at the college level, if he can find a team who doesn't consider him being out baggage. But it's been the response in the gay community that puzzled him the most. “I really don’t give a sh*t if people think I'm a freak, because those people would most likely not say anything to us in person. Grow a pair! It’s whatever. It’s funny, though, how us ‘gays’ are always saying ‘Love is Love’ to the straight people who hate us, but then we turn on our own when we don’t approve of the age? How can we expect homophobes to understand gay people, if gay people can’t understand love? It baffles me.”
My buddy Brett Berk has been checking out the Detroit Auto Show, and has picked out thirteen cars that impressed him. 
Oddly enough, I'm most in love with the Hyundai concept car.
The judge in Bradley Manning's trial has severely limited his ability to use the Whistleblower defense in his trial. Basically, he won't be able to raise his motives in trial, only in sentencing. The judge says whether he was felt he was helping the U.S. by releasing the documents is irrelevant, because that requires an objective standard, not just Manning's.
Michael Tripplett, the president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association (I'm a member) has passed away at 48 after a battle with cancer. Tripplett was an assistant managing editor at Bloomberg with a specialty in tax and labor policy, and he will be missed.
This photo is of Washington, D.C., taken by Commander Chris Hadfield of the International Space Station for the inauguration. D.C. is a fairly unique city from afar at just about any angle, but this is breathtaking.
Photo Credit: Chris Hadfield/NASA
I'm not sure where Joe Pasquale's hands are, but I bet mine would be in a similar place with Gareth Thomas
NYC Speaker Quinn snaps a photo with Justin Mikita and Jesse Tyler Ferguson at the inaugural celebrations
Why do I find it so strange Lance Bass went to Kathy Griffin's home to watch Prosecuting Casey Anthony?
This is the last Saturday Intermission Photo that Ryan Steele will ever take with Newsies
This is part of a series of ads targeting GLBT tourists for Las Vegas, making it seem like a gay city that's straight welcoming. I never found Vegas to have a particularly gay nightlife when I went, but that's been years.
Sure, let straights come to Vegas, but just indoors. Leave the pools for us
Once again I was glad I went to bed instead of watching Saturday Night Live. I do find Jennifer Lawrence to be one of the most engaging celebrities out there, but they gave her nothing to work with. The only two sketches of note she wasn't even a part of. The cold open had Piers Morgan interviewing the news makers of the week, starting with Lance Armstrong, then Mani Te'o before finishing with Kate McKinnon's Jodie Foster. Somebody needs to just let McKinnon take over the entire hour, because she's a star performer, instantly becoming any character she wants. And the delivery of the almost-confessions is perfect.
The other sketch I liked was one that I used to hate - Secondhand News with Anthony Crispino on the "Weekend Update" segment. What's become so great about this sketch is how similar it seems to my real life now, with everyone around me trying to give me news that's just not quite right. It's especially amusing because many of them know I'm obsessive about news, and read hundreds of pieces each day to create this column, yet they want to toss half-baked facts at me, then argue about them.
Nobody knows who funded this "No On Hagel" ad that was scheduled to run during all the Sunday morning news shows. The group is called Use Your Mandate, but beyond that, there's no information. They claim to be independents and Democrats who work with the President, and want to challenge him without getting personal. Major GLBT organizations like the HRC and Get EQUAL have disavowed the ad.
Daniel Radcliffe is at Sundance promoting Kill Your Darlings, and he can't get over how much conversation about the movie is about his gay sex scenes. He really doesn't seem to be able to grasp why people see gay sex and straight sex onscreen differently, which is kind of adorable. And he's fairly outraged that anyone would find his role in this movie more shocking that Equus. But he does admit it was his first sex scene onscreen, which was a little awkward.
At Any Price is a Dennis Quaid/Zac Efron movie about a family farm that young Zac wants no part of, as he's going to be a race car driver. All of that changes when the farm hits some trouble, and Zac will go to any length to save his birthright. Mostly, I'm just happy that the wardrobe budget for the movie didn't cover sleeves on Zac's shirts.
PBS Newshour did an extended interview with out inaugural poet Richard Blanco, who talks about the difficulty of writing a poem for a specific occassion as opposed to writing a poem that's in his heart. Blanco also wrote an editorial at CNN about what it means for someone of his background, that of an immigrant, gay outsider who really embodies the classic American Dream.
Colin Stokes has a daughter, and a younger son. As he introduced them to first The Wizard of Oz, then Star Wars, he began to think about how movies teach us about manhood, and the lessons aren't good. He thinks we have a responsibility as parents to form a Netflix queue that teaches our sons to respect our daughters and not fall into classic gender stereotypes. It's really fascinating to watch.
Can you train your mind for physical tasks without actually performing them? If it's something like the piano, evidently you can, but I remain skeptical about the ability to train my muscles to be stronger without hitting the gym. I tried that for decades, and it didn't work nearly as well as the two hours each day I spend lifting heavy pieces of metal.
