One would think that now that the election has come to a close, we no longer need to hash out Sarah Palin's… oddities.

That would only really be true if she planned on heading back to Alaska and staying there. But no one, from her fans to her archenemies, believe that we've seen that last of her. Thanks to an upcoming expose in Newsweek (and Fox News), quite a bit of new, if unsurprising, information has come out about her since America voted.

Here's a round-up:
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Patrick Dempsey appeared on lesbian entertainer Ellen DeGeneres' talk show yesterday and, yes, the conversation turned to actress Brooke Smith's recent axing from ABC's Grey's Anatomy.

Some suspect ABC gave Smith the boot because her on-screen lesbian relationship was getting a bit too serious. Dempsey gave no credence to those rumors - not because they're not true, but because network executives told him what to say:

ABC actually sends me over what I should [say]… 'We've had a great time working with her and that the conclusion of her [character] has been orgasmic' — I'm sorry, I'm dyslexic! — 'organic' ending to the story line.'
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I don't know what happened with that story line. They decided not to continue it for some reason.

We weren't inclined to believe the aforementioned rumors, but ABC's choreographing of comments strikes us as a bit queer.

British gay group Stonewall may have egg on its face this Thursday when trans activists protest the organization's eponymous awards at the V&A Museum.

Activists are annoyed over the group's nomination of lesbian journalist Julie Bindel, who, in 2004, wrote an article in which she pitted her feminism against trans rights.

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Birmingham mayor Larry Langford's hoping to get off easy.

Gay group Alabama Pride filed a discrimination lawsuit against Langford this summer after Langford refused to allow city workers to hang supportive signs on city property, despite the fact that sports and other non-controversial groups can display themselves on similar structures.

Langford has also said he cannot endorse the lavender "lifestyle."

Despite his clearly discriminatory ideals, Langford's hoping a federal judge will toss out the suit…

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Zimbabwe's a mess. There's really no other way to put it.

Their inflation's around 231%, industry's nonexistent, most of the nation's people are uneducated and underfed. And, of course, there's their madman president, Robert Mugabe, who has led the government and his people into what appears to be an insurmountable crisis. Thus, it should come as no surprise that health organizations are accusing Mugabe's government of misappropriating potentially life-saving grants:

The Zimbabwe government has been accused of misusing funds mean to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases by an international aid agency.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has claimed that $7.3 million of the $12.3 million it gave to the government did not go towards its intended use.
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The organization says that repeated attempts to get answers from Central Bank and government health officials have been unsuccessful.

This comes as the fund’s board is set to vote on Friday on granting an additional $400 million to the Zimbabwe government.

Let's hope the board realizes they're flushing their money away - Mugabe's not interesting in saving his homeland. What is he interested in? Perhaps being remembered as one of the top ten worst leaders in human history. If so, he's definitely succeeded.

Madonna's fans are all sorts of inflamed over her divorce from director Guy Ritchie - and some of them are going downright insane.

It looks like fans — at least the crazed ones — are siding with Madonna over Guy Ritchie as their divorce battle heats up.

Ritchie called security on the set of his new movie “Sherlock Holmes” when a Madonna fan reportedly threatened to stab him to death.

According to Britain’s Sunday Mirror a 16-year-old boy burst onto the set shouting, “I’m Madonna’s biggest fan! I’m gonna kill Guy!”

Indeed! How can this guppie claim to be Madge's biggest fan? You know there's a whole gaggle of older, grayer gays who deserves the title way more.

Someone's up to no good gay-bating here in New York State.

Gay City News reports that several districts across the state have been receiving robo-calls touting the paper's "endorsements" of various Democratic candidates. One of the calls does highlight a real endorsement, that of gay-friendly former boxer Joseph Mesi (pictured). Another call, however, fabricates the weekly's backing of Long Island-based Democrat Kristen McElroy. Though she supports gay marriage, GCN did not endorse her. The paper authorized neither call.

Paul Schindler elaborates:

According to an email received from a voter in the Sixth Senate District, which is in western Nassau County on Long Island, voters are being informed that Gay City News supports Democrat Kristen McElroy because "she will vote for gay marriage, and advance the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender agenda in Albany."

A spokesman for McElroy's campaign confirmed that they are receiving the same information from district voters, and are not the source of the calls. The campaign of McElroy's opponent, Republican Kemp Hannon, the long-standing incumbent, told Gay City News they did not authorize the ads and do not know where they are coming from.

Mesi Republican rival, Michael Ranzenhofer, also has not yet commented.

Spain's royal flacks insist Queen Sofia's anti-gay comments from her biography were "misquoted:"

The Spanish royal court distanced itself Friday from comments expressed by Queen Sofia in a new biography in which she opposes gay marriage, among other political comments.

The queen was making the comments 'in a private framework,' a statement from the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid said. The queen's comments had also been misquoted, the palace said.

Author Pilar Urbano calls those claims absolute rubbish and points out that the Queen approved the biography before it went to print.

British journalist John Gapper received loads of criticism yesterday after describing Rachel Maddow as a "chirpy gay liberal." Feeling a unfairly attacked, Gapper took to his blog today to explain his comments, which he says were woefully misconstrued:

One is the meaning of the word “chirpy”. To me, and to most British people, chirpy means lively and fun. I used it because one of Ms Maddow’s appealing qualities is that she is humorous and cheerful, a welcome contrast of the self-aggrandising, bombastic style of various of her male counterparts (I will not mention any names, for fear of yet more emails).

Unfortunately, a lot of US readers seem to have taken chirpy to mean bird-brained and irritating, so they got annoyed. That was not what I meant.

The second problem was my describing her as gay when I did not mention the sexuality of anyone else in the piece (or indeed my own). In fact, Ms Maddow is gay, and openly so, as noted in some recent articles about her, including this one in the New York Times.

I included it because I thought it said something interesting about the US culture wars (yes the ones that I strayed into) that a gay woman was now one of the most popular talk show hosts on American television.

Well, it's not that interesting - all the right-wing folk watch Fox News, anyway, so they may not even know Maddow exists. (Well, except Tim Graham, who's afraid of lesbians.)

Lesbian journalist Carol Anne Burger committed suicide last Thursday minutes before police were set to question her about the gruesome murder of her wife, businesswoman Jessica Kalish, who's pictured on the right.

The women, who wed in 2005, separated last year, but stayed living in the home they shared since 2000. Though admittedly depressed over the break-up, Burger, who worked for Huffington Post, seemed to be pulling through, her friends say, but something went horribly awry last week.

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Some Virginian troublemakers are distributing a flier claiming Democrats should vote on November 5th, not November 4th:

A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state elections officials.
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The four-paragraph flier concludes with: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but felt this was the only way to ensure fairness to the complete electorial process."

Virginia's state police are looking into this mess, but they have no leads yet. Obviously they should start with people who want to see the Democrats fail in the election.