For all the jokes about President Bush being borderline brain dead that have been made in the last eight years, you would think that the man would leave well enough alone once he left the White House and stopped being the world's chief source of ridicule.

But no. Our 43rd commander-in-chief wants to publish his memoirs as soon as he gets out of office, despite the fact that no one is buying books in this bad economy, and no one wants to buy a book written by the guy who gave us this bad economy. So that's a double neg.

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Fey Friends piped up to offer their top ten of Congress' newest hotties. Martin Heinrich of New Hampshire Mexico has our vote! Dream boat central!

India's gay sex debate continues!

While health officials hope to lift the nation's colonial-era ban on "buggery," more conservative politicians are pulling out all the stops to keep the prohibition in place. One civil servant went to so far as to argue that lifting a ban on anal sex would lead to personal injury for participants.

The High Court, however, wasn't buying it:

"In several countries where ban has been lifted (from gay sex), no one has claimed that the act is injurious. Even WHO does not say that it causes injuries to people involved in such acts," a bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar remarked while hearing arguments being made on behalf of senior VHP leader B P Singhal that such acts cause injuries to private parts of the people who indulge in gay sex and that it should not be allowed even between consenting adults.

"Do you have any material to substantiate the claim that indulgence in such acts causes injury to people's body," the bench asked.

No evidence was submitted, and the court later remarked "human beings are the same everywhere." That simple, yet powerful statement comes after the court denounced claims that homosexuality's a disease.

It's official: Rham Emanuel has accepted Barack Obama's offer to become his chief of staff, according to MSNBC's "source very close to Rham Emanuel." So what about "partisan" Emanuel can Republicans glob on to immediately to paint Obama's first appointment as evidence of the Democratic president-elect's incompetence?

• He swears, saying "fuck" a lot. Read: He's an angry, angry man! This is especially important because the GOP will be called racist if they try to make Obama out to be an angry black man.

• Emanuel is a ballet dancer. Read: He's a fairy and won't be able to stand up to terrorists!

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Understandably upset over her fellow Californian's decision to prohibit gay marriage, aurally-inclined lesbian Melissa Etheridge has vowed to withhold the buckets of money the state would have reaped from her taxes. Writes Etheridge at the Daily Beast:

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now.
…
Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay!

Oooo, California, Etheridge sure told you!

It's rare that Advocate journalist Kerry Eleveld make herself the story, but that's exactly what she did in an editorial on Tuesday's election.

You know, the one where a black man was elected president, but gay marriage got trounced in three states? Yeah, it was emotional and Eleveld, seen here interviewing Barack Obama, had to get some things off her chest:

Wednesday morning, I awoke red with anger and blue with sadness even as tears of joy had graced my face for progress the night before.

This week, voters across the nation affirmed a promise that was launched from Middle America. Barack Obama, half black, half white, raised by grandparents who hailed from the heartland, became the president-elect of a country beleaguered by partisan, socioeconomic, and racial divisions that have haunted our nation for decades and escalated to a crescendo in the last eight years.

…Even as one prejudice fell to the will of the people on Election Day, LGBT Americans awoke the next morning to reports from the West to the South that all but confirmed one thing: We are most certainly second-class citizens in our own country…While I do not agree with the notion that I am undeserving of the same rights provided to other citizens by the Constitution, I cannot escape the reality that a majority of my fellow citizens still feel exactly that way. So perhaps it is time to reevaluate our movement’s approach with an eye to the area of our country that just supplied us with the single biggest civil rights advancement in a century.

Eleveld goes on to discuss how Obama told her he approaches gay rights from a strategic perspective, and concludes by suggesting that gay activists should be sure not to forget other struggles - i.e. hate crimes, employment non-discrimination - in the quest for marriage: "…Let us not deify marriage to the exclusion of pursuits like employment nondiscrimination, hate-crime protections, and basic partnership recognition. Perhaps we can embrace the lessons of history — and even smile in the knowledge that the path to freedom is not always straight."