News: Sarah Palin, Dave Navarro, Swedish Bus Drivers

Sarah Palin and Adam Lambert were both on the Tonight Show last night but the two didn't get within arm's reach of one another. According to an anonymous source, "Both camps have made it clear they have no interest in meeting backstage or on stage."

Johnny Weir is still strutting his stuff on the streets of NYC.

Weir on being "too gay:" "There are so many kids like me, coming after me, whose parents might repress them just because they saw what they said about me, that their kids are going to turn out like me. And I think me is pretty fabulous."

Two men have been charged with felony hate crimes for an anti-gay attack outside of a community center in Seattle this past January. "The victim is so fearful he has stopped attending his mosque, required by his faith."

Cam Gigandet is even more attractive holding his baby.

A Catholic church in the Netherlands will give communion to gays. If they want it.

Dave Navarro strips for PETA.

A bus driver in Sweden kicked a man off of his bus not because he as offended by his exposed underwear but apparently because he was afraid he "could get turned on."

Argentina gets its second gay marriage.

Is Governor Paterson just as kinky as Eliot Spitzer?

Neil Patrick Harris will star in the live action big screen adaptation of The Smurfs. It's probably a much better idea than it initially sounds. 

Is This New York's Next Governor?

As rumors swirl about a "career-ending" ruinous scandal for New York Governor David Paterson, the Daily News profiles a candidate with an eye on his job — "Manhattan Madam" Kristin Davis:

"Davis has spoken in the past about running against former Gov. (and alleged former client) Eliot Spitzer - to draw attention to the fact that she served nearly four months on Rikers Island while Client 9 escaped indictment. 'This started out being about Spitzer,' admitted Stone, who in 2007 tipped off the FBI to Spitzer's hooker habit. 'But now that it looks like he won't run, Kristin still wants to use her celebrity to highlight a reform agenda.' Davis laid out her credentials last weekend at a Libertarian Party convention on the lower East Side. 'I was valedictorian of my high-school class,' said the golden-tressed Davis, sporting a modest black suit but wicked Christian Louboutins with 5-inch heels. 'I worked 10 years in finance. I was vice president of a hedge fund. I went on to build a multimillion-dollar business from scratch.' While branding 'taxation as confiscation,' the former escort empress said the legalization of prostitution and marijuana could provide $2.5 billion in revenue to help close the budget gap. 'I'm a natural Libertarian,' said Davis, who also embraces gay marriage and the views of the National Rifle Association."

(via the advocate)

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #481

ELIOT SPITZER: Rachel Maddow asks the former New York governor, who resigned after his prostitution scandal, about legalizing prostitution.

PAULINA PORIZKOVA: Says she was fired from America's Next Top Model. "The reason I was told I was fired was because, it seemed that 'America's Next Top Model' has gotten too fat and they needed to cut some fat and the fat was me. So I figured it was either that or my gigantic huge ego. Which I wasn't aware of before I was told by the producers that I have an ego problem."

MISS PANAMA 2009: Confused about Confucius.

LA ROUX: Their new video for "Bulletproof".

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

News: Rihanna, Shiba Inus, Simpsons, Oregon, Robert Buckley

Potential AIDS breakthrough following bone marrow transplant in Berlin: "The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease. The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he appears to have won his battle with AIDS. Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days, despite his having ceased all conventional AIDS medication."

Writes Sam Fulcher to the Dallas Voice: “I found it ironic and sad that on a night of such history and hope I was greeted with a sign stating ‘Gay is Not O.K.’ As one barrier is being shattered homophobia is alive and well and still accepted enough to be on the side of a building. The recent passing of bans on gay marriage in many of our states make this point even more obvious.” Fulcher is organizing a protest of the church on Sunday.

Not sure how they're ever going to make a Broadway musical out of THIS.

Ex-Councilman in NYC Philip Reed dies at 59: "Philip Reed, a former elevator salesman who devoted himself to health issues as a member of the New York City Council, where he was a pioneer as a black, openly gay and H.I.V.-positive lawmaker representing a mostly Latino district, died on Thursday."

Live puppies!

GLSEN slams The Simpsons for "That's so gay" line: "Nelson's use of 'that's so gay' in a negative way is not surprising considering that 90 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth say they hear the term used this way frequently or often at school. Nelson should visit ThinkB4YouSpeak.com where he can send an apologetic e-card to Milhouse. GLSEN would also welcome Nelson's participation in our next PSA so he can make amends by helping to educate young people about why such language is wrong."

Studio: Sex and the City sequel confirmed.

UN urges India to decriminalize homosexuality: "he United Nations has urged India to decriminalise homosexuality, saying it would help the fight against HIV/AIDS by allowing intervention programmes like the successful ones in China and Brazil."

Silverton, Oregon resident Stu Rasmussen becomes first openly transgender mayor of a U.S. city.

Robert Buckley answers the 'boxers or briefs' question.

Eliot Spitzer will not face criminal federal prostitution charges: "The announcement, a five-paragraph statement from Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, ended almost eight months of uncertainty for the disgraced governor, whose lawyers had been quietly making their case to the country’s most prominent prosecutor’s office that he ought not be charged. And it ended the possibility that Mr. Spitzer, once an aggressive prosecutor himself, would have his private life explored in a public criminal case."

Fun with presidential maps.

Britain's Ministry of Defence pays compensation to gays discharged unfairly: "The Ministry of Defence has paid £4 million to settle a series of compensation claims from homosexual service personnel who were unfairly dismissed from the Forces. The payout has been pending since 1999 when four staff won their case in the European Court of Human Rights. The MoD disclosed this week that it had paid £3.7 million last year to 57 former staff who had also brought legal action. This was in addition to £300,000 paid to eight homosexual staff over the previous two years. Of the 65 people who have settled a claim against the MoD for its ban on homosexual staff, the average payout was £61,500.

Rihanna passes out on stage.

Magazine Covers of the Year

The American Society of Magazine Editors has announced the finalists for its annual magazine cover awards. These three magazine covers featuring Marc Jacobs, former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doing a Larry Craig toe-tap, are the finalists for "Cover of the Year".

You can check out the rest of the categories here.

News: Gay Films, Paraguay, Harvey Dent, The Rock, Atlantic City

Gay panic: Trial to begin for Cesar Israel Villazano in Florida. He shot a man wearing a mini-skirt and high heels in the back of the head for making a sexual advance: "Villazano told police he was embarrassed because he isn't gay."

Hollywood Reporter: Gay indie films more plentiful than ever, but suffering critically and at box office. "Strand Releasing's 22 films in theaters last year (most with GLBT themes) grossed just $462,000. Killer Films has shifted its focus from queer-themed features to true crime dramas and other films, with tepid critical and financial success. Rotten Tomatoes says that gay- and lesbian-themed films averaged a 51.5% rating in 2006 and 2007 (well below its under-60% "rotten" threshold), while projects like the 2005 Toronto fest's best Canadian feature winner, "C.R.A.Z.Y.," can't secure U.S. theatrical distribution."

Openly gay journalist David Self who took part in one of Britain's first civil partnership ceremonies, has died at the age of 67.

Man makes love to Cheeto...really.

UK Vicar Dudley has no regrets over performing marriage of two priests: "Amazing flowers, fabulous music, a ceremony both solemn and oddly homely, familiar words reordered and reconfigured, carrying new meanings. Nothing jarred, nothing felt even vaguely inappropriate. New and untried but not wrong."

Harvey Dent: viral video for The Dark Knight unleashed...

Couple jailed in Paraguay for same-sex wedding is freed after one of them is discovered to be a hermaphrodite.

Anti-gay "pro-family" bigot Paul Cameron takes his diatribe to Russia.

What does gay look like?

Larry Craig and Dave Karsnia wed in quaint bathroom ceremony: "The private ceremony was held in a quaint public bathroom on the third floor at San Francisco City Hall. In an interview after the ceremony, Craig said, in his highly oratorical and completely off-putting voice, 'We wanted all of the heat to die down before we went forward with this. Well ... not all the heat.'"

That kiss that Dwayne Johnson had with Steve Carell must have really affected him. He's still talking about what a man he was to do it: "It was like -- you know, you ever had, like a warm apple pie with that cold ice cream, too? And you find that balance, where you're like [utters disgusting sound]. Hey, it was great, it was great."

Atlantic City holds first-ever "Gay Day at the Beach". ORganizer: "There isn't a gay area in Atlantic City. "We decided to pick Flag Day as a way to stake out our claim for an area. We're trying not to be political, but there's so much to be political about."

The 70's are back: Robbie Williams flashes his chest rug.

Former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer to be named the "Ultimate Sugar Daddy". "He'll win a pound of sugar, a year's worth of free lap dances from strippers at the VIP Men's Club in Chelsea and an unlimited supply of testosterone pills."

Ireland's Catholic Bishops restate opposition to gay marriage: “In view of the current debate in our society about the nature of marriage, sometimes promoted by individuals or institutions who claim support from Christian ideals, the bishops reiterated that marriage presupposes the mutuality and complementarity of the sexes."