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Vladimir Putin has buffed up his action-man image and raised the pin-up stakes among world leaders with another set of bare-chested holiday pictures. Photographs were published today showing the Russian Prime Minister stripped to the waist and riding a horse imperiously through rugged terrain during a brief holiday in the Siberian region of Tuva. Wearing only green fatigues, his eyes hidden behind reflective sunglasses, Mr Putin also showed his gentler side as he fed the horse from his hand after the ride. Mr Putin, who will be 57 in October, showed off a set of rippling arm muscles as he...

Why St. Pete Pride grows Published : Friday, 26 Jun 2009, 7:22 PM EDT Steve Nichols ST. PETERSBURG - Saturday's St. Petersburg Pride Parade is expected to attract its highest attendance ever, making it the largest Pride event in the southeastern United States this year. Last year, an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people descended on Central Avenue, and organizers expect to top 80,000 this year. The exponential growth has already made the event the largest Pride celebration in Florida, and has come about because of a number of factors. Chief among them is that a drought in Georgia that could...

Although I've always wanted this particular superhuman power, I've never been very good at detecting other men's sexual orientation. Findings from a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, however, suggest I may be underestimating my gaydar abilities. The January 2008 study investigated people's ability to identify homosexual men from pictures of their faces alone. In an initial experiment, researchers Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady from Tufts University perused online dating sites and carefully selected 45 straight male faces and 45 gay male faces. All of these photos were matched for orientation (only faces shown looking forward...

More than a dozen photographs of a bathing suit-clad President-elect Barack Obama surfaced online Monday showing the shirtless Chicagoan accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters on the white-sand beach in front of their vacation home. Reporters, photographers and television camera operators traveling with the Obamas have been banned by the Secret Service from approaching the oceanfront estate in nearby Kailua where the family is vacationing. But an enterprising paparazzi photographer wearing a Hawaiian shirt apparently strolled along the beach, saw the Obamas, took out his long-lens camera and started shooting. The photographer was less than 200...

The shirtless "hot president" photo seen 'round the world: Was it staged, like the Clintons dancing on the beach long ago? Some have voiced their suspicions. Check the link, which recalls that Reagan had his cachet as a lifeguard.

Barack Obama showed off his impressively muscled tummy and a toned pair of pecs while on holiday in Hawaii. The U.S. president-elect is throwing down something of a challenge by being photographed in his swimming trunks. Several world leaders have tried in recent years to impress the crowds with a topless holiday shoot - with varying degrees of success.   Hawaii photos(If that waxed/shaved look isn't metrosexual nothing is. I'm embarrassed by this dude. He embarrasses America. I can imagine what Muslims leaders and Amedinijad will think of the shaved look)

Remember those staged photos of Bill and Hillary Clinton dancing on the beach once upon a time? You have to wonder. The Obama 'pec' photos were taken on a public beach. Some accounts said the photographer had approval to take those shots. All of a sudden, the bad buzz about links between Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama was gone for a while, replaced by good buzz about presidential pecs," noted Tim Graham of the Media Research Center. "There's some bathing-suit bias, too. When beauty queen photos of [Alaska Republican Gov.] Sarah Palin surfaced during the presidential campaign, the...

San Francisco (AP) -- A daylong work stoppage during which employees were encouraged to "call in gay" to express support for same-sex marriage drew spotty participation nationwide Wednesday, with some gay rights activists praising the concept but questioning its effect. In San Francisco's gay Castro district, residents and merchants said they endorsed the message behind "Day Without a Gay" but didn't think a work stoppage was practical given the poor economy and the strike's organization. "If we are going to make a huge impact and not be laughed at, then we have to take the time and make the time...

Tonight we talked to someone who works in the federal courts here in Chicago. The buzz in those corridors is that federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been leading a team of FBI investigators in 10 states working on a RICO case. Today, it was announced that ACORN is being investigated in 10 states. That’s one Hell of a coincidence. We asked why Fitzgerald would be involved in this, because he’s the prosecutor on the Tony Rezko case and we aren’t aware of ACORN being investigated in Illinois. We were told that ACORN was investigated in Illinois years ago, and it...

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) recently appeared before the Human Rights Campaign to present a keynote speech on her support of the homosexual/bisexual/transgender agenda and her efforts to defeat any attempts by Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that will ban same-sex marriage. HRC President Joe Solomese introduced Clinton and revealed their long-term relationship in fighting against the pro-family movement. Solomese describes numerous meetings with Clinton as they strategized togethor about how to defeat any constitutional amendment on marriage... ... Clinton told her homosexual activist audience that they will have a close "partnership ... when I am President." Watch her comments...

Philadelphia Posts Gay-Welcoming Street Markers in Center City by KYW's John McDevitt A dedication ceremony was held Wednesday afternoon to unveil street signs to define Philadelphia's famed "gayborhood." Singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," a group of about 100 gathered at the corner of 13th and Locust Streets, in the Washington West neighborhood, where one of 36 discreet rainbow signs were unveiled. The sign is the same size as the Locust Street sign and fastened directly beneath it. Tami Sortman is president of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus: "Philadelphia four years ago started a gay-friendly campaign here to bring gay travelers...

It's a tough call which accidental placement of Mitt Romney's online campaign ads, as reported by the New York Times, is funnier: The irony of the same-sex marriage-opposing former governor unintentionally urging readers of Gay.com to "Join Team Mitt!" is pretty strong. But in the end we're going to have to go with the Mormon family man, desperate for Americans not to perceive his religion as some kind of weird cult, advertising on FanFiction.net. In case you're not familiar, that's where users can write their own plots about their favorite fictional characters or read the work of others "including pornographic...

Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling's revelation that Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is actually a gay wizard has shocked many Potter fans, but hardcore readers have always been attuned to his latent homosexuality. For starters, Dumbledore is repeatedly described by Rowling as having a "twinkle" in his blue eyes—coincidentally, the same eye color as bathroom patrolman and fellow friend of Dorothy Sen. Larry Craig. Dumbledore is also a flamboyant dresser, fond of flowing, colorful robes, and expresses a particular zest for decorating the Great Hall before feasts. His weapon of choice—fire—is literally flaming, and...

Airline comes out with gay-themed flight Trip will feature drag queens, pink cocktails, cabaret performed by crew The Associated Press Updated: 4:42 p.m. PT Sept 14, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO - Air New Zealand is delving into the gay and lesbian market with a special themed flight that will feature drag queens, pink cocktails and a cabaret performed by the flight crew. The destination for the airline's one-time "Pink Flight," scheduled to depart San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 26, is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most well-attended gay events, said Jodi Williams,...

An individual's body motion and body type can offer subtle cues about their sexual orientation, but casual observers seem better able to read those cues in gay men than in lesbians, according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "We already know that men and women are built differently and walk differently from each other and that casual observers use this information as clues in making a range of social judgments," said lead author Kerri Johnson, UCLA assistant professor of communication studies. "Now we've found that casual observers can use gait and body shape to...

Has anyone noticed that the Persian King Xerxes in the movie "300" looks gay, or at best bisexual? Or thought that this film, though good, looksa like a pro-Irag war justification?

Consider the bathroom stall, that utilitarian public enclosure of cold steel and drab hue. It can be a world of untold secrets, codes and signals as invitations to partake. Like foot-tapping: Who knew? Let us peer in, shall we? Let us peer into the stall as intently as Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) allegedly did in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June, when his searching blue eyes were visible to an undercover cop, who would later title his police report on Craig's arrest "Lewd Conduct" and write that police had made "numerous arrests regarding sexual activity in...

TCM shines spotlight on movies with gay themes Series focuses on changing views in film history By MIKE McDANIEL Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Unless you're good at spotting innuendo or your gaydar is working overtime, images of gay and lesbians in films have been comparatively few over the years. But as author and historian Richard Barrios sees it, gay themes and characters can be traced to more films than you think. Throughout June, Barrios and Turner Classic Movies have been spotlighting movies with gay themes. As the Monday and Wednesday night series has pointed out, before the Production Code of...

Richard Lippa, a psychologist from California State University at Fullerton, is one of the leading cataloguers of the many ways in which gay people are different. I caught up with him a few weeks ago at a booth at the Long Beach Pride Festival in Southern California, where he was researching another hypothesis -- that the hair-whorl patterns on gay heads are more likely to go counterclockwise. If true, it will be one more clue to our biological uniqueness... "We assume that whatever causes people to be right-handed or left-handed is also causing hair whorl. The theory we're testing is...

The co-founder of the Gaydar brand has been found dead outside his south London apartment. Gary Frisch, who launched the online dating website in 1999, was found lying injured on the ground outside his Commodore House flat on Saturday. Police are investigating whether the 38-year-old, from South Africa, fell or jumped from his eighth floor balcony. A Wandsworth CID spokeswoman said the death was "unexplained". The death is not being treated as suspicious. 'Highly regarded' Prior to launching Gaydar, Mr Frisch co-founded IT consultancy firm QSoft, after moving to the UK from South Africa in 1997. In a statement, QSoft's...

Now I know there are many out there who will think I have lost it when I write that a key, new must-have for men this coming fall will be a pair of leggings to be worn outside, not just in, the house, but that was the big message at the debut Marni men's runway show this morning in Milan. Leggings made of microfiber cotton and wool, shown in violet, forest green and Milan fog gray, all of them with stirrup straps, except of course for a couple of them cut above the knee, accompanied half the looks in this...

Hinted and teased about for months, Sunday’s New York Times (already being delivered in the New York area) confirms that DC is brining back a staple of its Silver Age: Batwoman. The article, entitled "Straight (and Not) Out of the Comics: At DC and Marvel Comics, new heroes are gay, black, Asian and Hispanic. Get used to it," is a full- page feature on page 25 of the Sunday Arts & Leisure section on Marvel and DC’s emphasis on increasing the diversity of their respective character libraries over the past months to year-plus. NYT writer George Gene Gustines covers, among...

(Former Vice President Al Gore, who previously supported the Defense of Marriage Act and civil unions, was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Campaign Gala on March 25, 2006, at the Century Plaza Hotel. This is an excerpt of his speech.) Abraham Lincoln once said, "I do good and I feel good. I do bad and I feel bad, and that is my religion." As a Christian, I was taught at an early age that the single most important departure in Christianity from the Judeo-Christian tradition as a whole was embodied in the simple teaching -- God is Love....

Egor Gaydar has some advice for the hundreds of social scientists, lawyers and economists considering Cuba's post-Castro future. Watch out. ''It's not an easy job. It will be a big mess,'' Gaydar said. ``You can make a lesser mess or a bigger mess.'' Gaydar should know. He is the former prime minister of Russia who was instrumental in reforming the post-Soviet government under Boris Yeltsin. A former finance minister, he drafted the economic reforms that he said led to an inevitable ''transition recession'' and backlash from a population that quickly forgot the communist regime's abuses. He offered his guidance at...

DEBARY -- Volusia County Council member Bill Long confirmed Thursday that he was beaten in his home earlier in the week by a close friend he would not identify. Long, who lives alone, refused to offer details on the incident Thursday and even asked deputies who responded to the 911 call at his house early Monday not to file a report, leaving a shroud of mystery around the incident. "County Council member or not, what takes place in the privacy of my own home is my own business," Long said Thursday.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Two legislative committees on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages and strip away a long list of rights granted to domestic partners in recent years. The Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees both rejected an amendment offered by Republican Assemblyman Ray Haynes, who claimed the proposal would strengthen the intent of voters who approved a ballot measure five years ago that prevents the state from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere. Other laws bar same-sex marriages from taking place in California. Conservative groups immediately said they would try to gather the nearly 600,000 signatures required...

Developing...

San Bernardino, CA, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The Pacifica Lutheran Synod has revoked a San Bernardino, Calif, mission's congregational status because its pastor is in a committed lesbian relationship. The decision to remove the Central City Lutheran Mission, an urban ministry that serves poor and homeless people, of its official recognition is the harshest punishment of a Lutheran congregation with a gay pastor in more than a decade. (snip) "This is the first time in 14 years that any congregation or any pastor has been dealt with this harshly. We thought those days were over," said Pastor David Kalke, who...

Blogger angst NBC's Tom Brokaw signs off the air tonight after 21 years as anchorman, and will be replaced tomorrow by correspondent Brian Williams. Both have opinions about Internet bloggers — whose dogged pursuit of CBS' Dan Rather helped expose his use of forged documents in a "60 Minutes" story that questioned President Bush's National Guard service. Mr. Brokaw is not threatened by bloggers. --snip-- Mr. Williams — who called himself a "big NASCAR freak, a 'gear-head,' " in an NBC interview yesterday — is even less receptive. Bloggers are "on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with...

I'm so angry. I found out (by Googling Mehlman+gurley) that Dan Gurley, National Field Director for B/C04, and Jay Banning, CFO for Republican fundraising, are publicly "outed", and future RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, "all but" (no pun intended). Has the President and the RNC turned their backs on us? Why is this just now coming out? I feel betrayed. The government and public service should be off-limits to moral degenerates. Is this why the RNC supports useless marriage amendments instead of the REALLY necessary banning of these "people" from teaching in public schools, the civil service, etc? WHAT GIVES?? I...

Oct. 29, 2004 — New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey surprised a lot of people a few months ago when he announced: "I am a gay American." But a lot of people say they can tell right away — just by looking at someone — or listening to them — whether they're gay or not. They say they have "gaydar." (The word is a play on radar … seeing what's hidden.) Apparently McGreevey's wife doesn't have gaydar. They are reported to have separated. And his ex-wife said she had no clue and most of his constituents didn't know. So if so...

This is the dream. It involves a shiny cool small premium new car and a big happy beautiful dog sticking his head out the window and a longish solo road trip up the West Coast from San Francisco to the northern tip of Idaho in the middle of the summer. There is music playing. There is a huge sunroof open at all times. There is a small cooler full of ginger beer and spelt pretzels and Odwalla bars and organic turkey sandwiches. There is an in-dash CD multichanger loaded with dirtystupidfun '80s hard rock and badass electronica and Rufus Wainwright...

Two guys walk into a bar. One has style, flair and good hair. The other is OK, average, not really worth a second look. A woman nudges her friend and says, "Hey, check out the fox who just walked in." The other friend looks and says, "You mean the gay guy?" Yeah, well, while this might sound like a joke, but it's actually happened to me more than a few times. Along with my other dating difficulties, I have almost no gaydar, or gay radar, or queen meter, or sixth sense for friends of Dorothy. And if it couldn't get...

U.S. Supreme Court rewrites Constitution and 3,000 years of history WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today rewrote the U.S. Constitution and 3,000 years of legal history by striking down the Texas sodomy law in a 6-3 decision. The court overrode the Constitution, the history of American law, and its own precedent by declaring in Lawrence v. Texas that there is a right to privacy to protect private, adult consensual sexual activity. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, and only Justices Scalia and Thomas and Chief Justice Rhenquist dissented. The majority reasoned, unbelievably, that because of the trend in state...

SCOTUS sided with the perverts.