San Diego Pride: Audience, Acceptance, Attacks

San Diego's 32nd gay pride went off over the weekend and even as organizers lauded the event's larger audience and broader acceptance from the community, two men were attacked on Saturday after leaving the Balboa Park festival:

"Two men leaving the Gay Pride festival in Balboa Park were attacked by three men with a baseball bat who taunted them with anti-gay comments...During the fight, one man was hit in the head with the bat, while the other felt some hard object stab him in the back, police said. Both men were taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries."

The police are treating the incident as a hate crime.

Photo via Dichron.

3 men hurt in anti-gay attack near festival [san diego union tribune]

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Weekend in Madrid: Gay Bashings and Marriage

Protestors were out in force in Madrid on Saturday following the gay bashing of a gay couple at a public swimming pool in that city. Their signs read "tolerance of aggression makes you an accomplice."

In unrelated news, that same day Madrid's mayor Ruiz Gallardon caused controversy as he officiated for the first time at a same-sex wedding ceremony: "Gallardon in a brief statement said that the ceremony 'went off as weddings should do' after saying Friday that the law 'must be applied.'

Gallardon's Popular Party (PP), which is strongly opposed to same-sex marriages, criticized the mayor's actions as being "incoherent" with party policy.

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News: Christina Aguilera, Apple iPhone, Gay Wages

STUDY: "[UK] Gay men face considerably lower wages than their heterosexual colleagues and are less likely to be in work, despite the introduction of a law to prevent discrimination against sexual orientation in the workplace more than two and a half years ago."

Mel Gibson in DUI embarrassment. Apologizes for anti-Semitic tirade.

NYT perpetuates Christina Aguilera/Britney Spears rivalry in a new profile on Xtina: "As Ms. Spears, a proud hillbilly and soon to be mother of two, attempts to clean up her image and quash speculation that her marriage to a backup dancer turned rapper is on the rocks, it’s her former rival, Ms. Aguilera, who has found the road to respectability. And the once-dirty singer is convinced that it is she who will have the last laugh."

Lambda Legal and ACLU ask Nebraska court to reconsider ruling reinstating Nebraska's ban on same-sex marriage: "The federal appeals court panel ... just ignored the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ruled that states can't pass laws just to discriminate against gay people. We are hopeful that the court will recognize this decision simply can't be squared with constitutional guarantees of equality."

Apple may introduce its iPhone in August, according to recent rumors: "A reader is reporting to us that a coworker's tech-unsavvy friend, who is regularly hired by Apple to do marketing photo shoots, was recently brought on to take some shots of 'the sleekest, sexiest damn phone he's ever seen.'"

Following the outing of a gay linguist, Fort Bragg soldiers say "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a trivial issue.

Suburban Chicago gay bar Nutbush City Limits celebrates its 30th anniversary: "There are obviously still people in the suburbs who are very closeted and leading double lives, but much less than before. It's not so unusual for a male couple to live openly in a small city or a suburb, whereas 10 years ago that was unusual and 20 years ago, if it happened, it was very hidden."

Nick Lachey reportedly roughs up 18-year-old who attempts to take photos of him with a cameraphone. Spokesman: "This harassment with camera phones - it's just out of control."

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Lance Bass tells the world he's gay!
No pride: A rainbow flag brings out the bigots in Kansas.
Washington State Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage.
David Beckham demonstrates that wearing a white speedo isn't a faux pas.
George Michael sex drama: caught; cancels vows; denies shame; blabs; sues.
Jake Gyllenhaal to play Lance Armstrong in biopic; works the spandex.
Anderons Cooper gay joke gets the axe from upcoming sitcom.
Twice-divorced Rupert Murdoch thinks gay marriage is wrong.
Latvian gay prided revelers targeted by eggs, feces.
Prince Harry adjusts the Crown Jewels, in his pants.
Brazilian hottie Rodrigo Santoro adds some sex appeal to Lost.
Hypocritical anti-gay Spokane Mayor Jim West dies of cancer.
Just how do those testosterone-pumped college football players bond?
Discharged: An Army sergeant is outed by email.
German swimmer Christian Hein is on a winning streak!
Can they save Laguna Beach's Boom Boom Room?
Travel pioneer Hanns Ebensten voyages into the great beyond.
Uma Thurman on crack? Meet the new Boy George.
Guide to the Tube: Shortbus, Colin Farrell, shirt-ripping.

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Towletech V.18

"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" The technology that Princess Leia used to send her distress message in the first Star Wars trilogy is almost here. While Leia's message was a hologram, the technology in the new Helio Display uses an invisible plane of condensed air. The plane of air catches a projected image where it creates the illusion that the image is three-dimensional. I'm not sure what you might use it for at this point, unless you've got any droids that you need safely delivered to Alderaan.

Apple's Mighty Mouse gets wireless Bluetooth technology and has its tail cut off.

Did you ever bite into a peach expecting a juicy mouthful and instead come up with a bitter hard chunk of flesh? Judging whether or not fruit is ripe may soon be getting a lot easier. University of Arizona professor Mark Riley has invented a sticker that grocery stores can attach to fruit which will change color as the fruit ripens. As fruits and vegetables age, they releases ethylene gas, which the sticker can detect. There are still a few bugs to work out, but if all goes according to plan, the stickers should be appearing in produce departments in two to three years.

Kazaa has agreed to settle its global piracy lawsuits against the RIAA and the entertainment industry, paying out a whopping $115 million in restitution. And record companies love these settlements because they provide no clear accounting method to pay artists what they're due.

Scientists have found what they were looking for on Saturn's moon, Titan: lakes. "The discovery was made on July 22, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now orbiting Saturn, did its 16th close flyby of Titan." This makes Saturn's moon the only known body in the solar system other than Earth to have lakes on its surface. What are those lakes full of? Titanic aliens, of course.

YouTube may be worth $1 billion, but who will buy it?

Google announced that they would begin providing live traffic information on Google maps for mobile devices. Now, if you can pull up all that information on your phone while driving and avoid getting in an accident, you're most likely stopped in a traffic jam, so how would it help you anyway?

Last week we told you briefly about the importance of net neutrality. Because we think this is such an important issue (and a somewhat complex one) here's a short video that explains it. Please watch the video and understand how your rights will be affected.

Viewers of shows recorded on TiVo skip about 70% of the commercials, according to the company's audience research division. But not everyone is fast-forwarding, and TiVo plans to begin selling research data to advertisers on the quirky commercial-viewing habits of users: "For example, one study for a consumer packaged goods company, which Mr. Juenger declined to identify, found that commercials featuring animal characters, when shown on animal-related programs, were skipped less often than usual." Researchers found the same trend among gay men when the commercials featured a shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal.

Its name is Zune and what it does exactly is anyone's guess. But Engadget has a rundown of what are the super secret project's most likely selling points. It's being billed as an "iPod killer" because it is rumored use of WiFi means it is a "connected entertainment" device. This means that you'll be able to download music and entertainment from any WiFi source. As the novelty of the iPod begins to fade, users are looking for a new experience. Is Microsoft up to the challenge with a device that most likely won't be able to play anything but its proprietary format? And of course, Apple's probably got a few things up its sleeve as well.

For past editions of Towletech, click here...

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News: Justin and Lance, kd lang, gay bash victim dies...

Outgames kick off in Montreal: Mark Tewksbury, Martina Navratilova, kd lang help kick off event. Lang accuses Prime Minister Stephen Harper of supporting intolerance by not showing up...

A gay bashing that occurred three years ago in Great Britain has been reopened as a murder case after a Texas man who "was beaten, stomped on and kicked until he fell unconscious" and never fully recovered, died this week of a seizure. Martin Salinas was beaten in May 2003 after leaving a gay bar in Manchester.

GQ coverboy Justin Timberlake voices his support for newly out former bandmate Lance Bass: ""Lance is one of my great friends. I support him and wish him all the happiness in the world."

Los Altos, California: Gay-Straight alliance will continue to push for pride proclamation from city. Advisor: "It's the right thing to do. It's a human rights issue, not a sexual orientation issue. These are kids and they want to be accepted for who they are.''

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