Questions No One Knows The Answers To: VIDEO

A new adorably-animated series from TED. TED Curator Chris Anderson shares his boyhood obsession with quirky questions that seem to have no answers.

 I agree with the YouTube commenter, who says, "I want this guy to sit next to my bed and ponder these things out loud while I go to sleep." Preferably on a dark, starry night.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Clementi Parents Discuss Dharun Ravi Trial: VIDEO

I missed this clip on Friday of Tyler Clementi's parents' statement on the Dharun Ravi verdict.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

In related news, Michelangelo Signorile writes at HuffPo about why the verdict was just:

The jury did exactly as it was instructed to do, looking at the law and the 15 counts and returning with a guilty verdict on all of them. Ravi did spy on Clementi, thereby violating the invasion of privacy law. He did tamper with the evidence later, trying to delete text messages and tweets, knowing what he'd done. And all of the evidence shows that he did attempt to intimidate Clementi on the basis of his sexual orientation -- and he succeeded -- which was the basis of the hate crimes counts.

No jury that thought long and hard about the case could have returned with any other verdict. It is not the jury's job to think about sentencing or punishment. It is its job to follow the law.

We've seen too many cases in the past where juries didn't do that, where they accepted the "gay panic" defense, as well as its cousin, the "trans panic" defense -- in which defendants get sympathy for harboring feelings that many in society, presumably including jurors, also harbor, even if all believe those feelings are wrong.

Watch Clementi's parents AFTER THE JUMP...

Ellen Returns to Her First Job: VIDEO

Ellen DeGeneres returned to her first job at the JC Penney in Metairie, Louisiana to see if she still had what it takes, and the supervisor wasn't happy with her method for folding customer purchases.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Pro-Equality Coalition Speaks Out Against Repeal of New Hampshire's Marriage Equality Law: VIDEO

Pro-equality group Standing Up for New Hampshire Families held a press conference today to speak out against Rep. David Bates' HB 437 which would roll back the state's marriage equality law, replace it with civil unions, and place a non-binding measure on the ballot, Windham Patch reports:

More than 20 members of the leadership council of Standing Up for New Hampshire Families, along with family, friends, and spouses, gathered together to tell members of the press why they were involved in the group and why they believed in preserving the state’s same-sex marriage law. Attendees included many former and current Republican activists, business owners, and a former chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court...

...State Rep. Mike Ball, R-Manchester, the chairman of the Manchester Republican Committee, said he and others represented “a sizable amount of Republicans in the House who feel that gay marriage is a liberty issue.” Ball, who grew up in the south and attended a segregated elementary school, likened the same-sex marriage to the civil rights issues of the time period.

“This is a segregation bill,” he said.

The government should not “be micromanaging a certain group of people’s lives … that’s not acceptable,” he added.

Watch their press conference, AFTER THE JUMP...

More on the hideous Bates amendment HERE and HERE.

New Hampshire's largest newspaper, the Union Leader posted an editorial over on Sunday calling for a voter referendum, while an editorial in the Concord Monitor spoke out against it.

Jimmy Carter: 'Jesus Never Said a Word About Homosexuality'

Jimmy Carter talks about homosexuality, the Bible, and gay marriage in his new book, NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter:

Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things -– he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1086

CINNAMON CHALLENGE: YouTuber Gay God takes on the latest internet meme.

BORN THIS WAY: Sydney Mardi Gras celebrants go Gaga.

GIRL'S FIRST SKI JUMP: "Here...goes...something, I guess."

ANOKA-HENNEPIN PLAINTIFFS: It gets better.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.