-Hundreds of New Yorkers participated in the annual "No Pants" subway ride this past week. Now I think the men should protest discrimination given that it is being called in the cold of winter. Have you women heard of anything called 'shrinkage in the cold?' Lets move this event to summer!

-Eve Ensler of V-Day (photograph) is frantically seeking word of their 'safe home' for battered women in Haiti. They have not been able to reach the facility at all. Anyone that can help would be greatly appreciated.

This would be disastrous news for the progressive community politically. Right wing Republican Scott Brown has moved ahead of Massachusetts Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley by 4% according to the latest Suffolk University Pol.l. The thought of Scott Brown taking Senator Kennedy's seat is just to much for most of us. Get out and vote in Massachusetts.

-New York is a hotbed of politics. Sean Maloney, the openly gay candidate for Attorney General in 2006, has been making calls all over town testing the waters for another run for Attorney General.

-Of course, Harold Ford still dominates the politics of the Empire State. The state's largest and most powerful organization Empire State Pride Agenda issued a statement by its leader Alan Van Capelle that said in part:

I know Harold Ford Jr. just arrived to New York, but as a native and lifelong resident, I know what New York values are, and I know a snake oil salesman when I see one. You simply can't claim to be pro-equality if you've twice voted to enshrine discrimination into the U.S. Constitution. While it may be tempting for Mr. Ford to compare himself to people like Sen. Chuck Schumer, the fact remains that Sen. Schumer - who did evolve on his position on marriage equality - has been a longtime supporter of several pieces of legislation that are very important to LGBT people and never supported the awful Federal Marriage Amendment. Harold Ford Jr. is no Chuck Schumer, and he is no Kirsten Gillibrand.

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire reports this morning that former Senator Harold Ford might run as an independent in the New York City race. Move over Joe Lieberman, you might have another outsized ego join your amazing one.

-Alan Cumming (photograph) was feted by the British Counsel in New York City for receiving the Order of the British Empire (OBE). We don't quite yet get to call him "Sir Alan" but we all look forward to that day. Cumming is the toast of New York this week also performing his show at Joe's Pub.

-Congrats to our follow blogging site, Outsports.com, for being nominated for a GLAAD's Outstanding Digital Journalism Award. Their story on the coming out of Bloomburg University star football player Brian Sims certainly deserved the nomination. For those of us who know Sims, we know that he is a special and outstanding young man.

-The Advocate has a tough article on the relationship between the LGBT community and the National Democratic Party. Take a read!

The Los Angeles Times has yet one more great editorial on marriage equality. "The Marriage Test" disputes some of the arguments used by opponents:

"Some people wed for money or health benefits. In this town, some of them enter short-term marriages for the publicity. (You know who you are.) Teenagers barely old enough to vote marry despite the higher likelihood that they will divorce. Serial monogamists wed. There are couples who swap spouses, and those who live apart yet maintain their sense of affection and responsibility toward each other. Many a marriage, even those begun in love, ends up quirky at best and dysfunctional at worst.

The public as a whole might not look favorably on all of these marriages, but it does not try to deny others the right to form such unions. It's gay and lesbian couples who are singled out for this. Only in a hearing on same-sex marriage would we hear arguments judging whether a relationship between two adults is loving and committed enough to gain legal and social standing -- evidence on its own that homosexuals, who have long faced unreasoned hatred and abuse in many forms, are being singled out for the withholding of this basic societal right"

-Now I know why I love Leo Hindery, CEO of Intermedia Partners. In a letter to his step-daughter Adele he wrote to her:

"I believe passionately in gay marriage as a civil right, but my solution would be to require, through federal law, all unions to first have a civil ceremony, followed, but only if the couple wishes, by a religious marriage. But all of the couple’s civil rights would come from the civil union and not from the later marriage. This would mean that every couple has exactly that same “foundation” that I believe is the basis of all civil rights, and that each couple, at its option, could then bless that union, or not, with a subsequent religious marriage in the faith of their choice. But, importantly, the marriage rite would not itself grant the couple any civil, legal, property or inheritance rights."

-The Political Wire written by Taegan Goddard has a great "Friday Night Trivia" highlighting great political trivia. For example, "Abraham Lincoln, known for being a great lawyer, is the only president to have died without leaving a will."

Am I the only one who is sick of Jay Leno acting like a baby? He got his unprecedented 10PM show and he couldn't carry it. Don't blame everyone else and insist their hopes and dreams be disrupted because of your failure.

-There is a great candidate running for Insurance Commissioner in California named Dave Jones. He is spectacular on LGBT issues and can help us with our complicated insurance issues until full marriage equality. Take a look at this site.

-The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS has taken a strong stand against he pending legislation in Uganda. The CEO of the Coalition, which has 200 major corporations as members, John Tedstrom wrote to the President Musevini warning him of the difficulty of GBC's member companies doing business in Uganda if such a law passed and was signed by the President.

-Steve Pougnet, the openly Gay Mayor of Palm Springs, is challenging incumbent Republican Congresswomen Mary Bono. In the last quarter Pougnet out-raised Bono which is a very good sign for the insurgent candidate.

-We all have to be concerned about the situation in Nigeria. With the nation being held together by a fragile thread, their president has not been in the country for two months while being treated for a critical illness in Saudi Arabia. This nation could be the big crisis in the next decade.

-Luxist.com has a really fun picture this past week. It is of Rita Hayworth's classic Cadillac Series 62 Coupe that was custom built by Carrozzeria Ghia. There are only two of them in the entire world! Here it is!