Researchers at Stony Brook University have confirmed that Homo Floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species, and not a diseased branch. Homo Floresiensis is also known as the "hobbit" so can someone get me directions to the Shire?

In TV news, NBCSucks has ordered another reality competition. United Plates of America is a restauranteur show where they compete to win a chain of four restaurants, and is from the Top Chef people. Also, the insanely gay friendly Bill Maher has been renewed by HBO, and will be moving up to the 9pm slot when it returns February 19th.

Chaste vampires and homoerotic werewolves did some serious bank over the weekend at the box office, with the final numbers for Twilight:New Moon coming in at $142.8 million. I'd make several jokes here, but to be frank, Twihards scare the crap out me.

Using 147,456 processors and 144 terabytes of memory researches from IBM are reporting creating an artificial brain that's as smart as a cat. Which means that it's several hundred times smarter than a human, and would have taken over the world if there wasn't that sunbeam that needed napping in.

In other technology news, Toyota has a plan to modify their robots for use on the moon by 2020. Sure, it looks innocent on paper until they start throwing moon rocks at our cities and exterminating the human race. But it probably won't matter since the Large Hadron Collider started smashing proton beams into each other, likely creating a black hole that will destroy the world.

Travelling somewhere unfamiliar for the holidays? Not know where to find your fellow homos when you get there? Our friends over at the Bilerico Project have reviewed the new release of the GayCities app for the iPhone and found it to be a major improvement.

Stupid legal news is running around like crazy. First, we discover that Mickey Mouse has sued Donald Duck. In court. In the real world. In a prank that's admirable for the audacity, a lawyer using the name Juan Abagado (Abagado evidently means "lawyer in Spanish) filed the suit for trademark infringement. In stupid criminal news, a thief in Lisbon was found stuck in the window of a grocery store without his pants, having wriggled out of them trying to un-wedge himself.

In further naked news, True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard hit the red carpet at the GQ Awards, and teases that Eric will spend plenty of time naked, having sex with anything that moves in the upcoming season. He also takes the time to try not to bash the Twilight vampires. He fails at that.

In utterly terrifying news, there may be another Jackass movie in the works for 2010, and this time it's going to be in 3-D. There's nothing like a nut shot in 3-D.

Hey, England! You're not helping us out over here in the colonies. We know you're the older, more stable country, but the fact that you're talking about scrapping religious exemptions on gay discrimination is just fueling our "slippery slope" crazies as we try and get basic human rights in the U.S. You better be willing to offer me asylum and healthcare if the fundies go nuts with this.

Speaking of asylum, Canada is considering it for a U.S. lesbian who deserted her military unit based on persecution after being outed. Canada has never granted formal asylum to a U.S. deserter, but finds Don't Ask, Don't Tell to be such an awful, dangerous policy, they're considering it seriously.

It might be a heck of a precedent to set though, because it looks like Congress has decided to push hearings on Don't Ask, Don't Tell down the pike indefinitely. If I don't do my job, I don't get paid. Why does Congress?

Designer Harc Lee has created a design for a "naked" Coke can. It's not just about style though, because removing the paint reduces energy and chemicals required for making the staggering 75 billion cans Coke needs for their three top brands every year. And removes the energy and toxic waste issues from recycling the cans after I suck them down. 

For $39.99/year, you can register with You've Been Left Behind, and if you get taken up by the Rapture, they'll send messages and important files to your less pious friends. This isn't going to be a problem for me, since I planned on sticking around for the party on earth anyway. You can just register to send your bank account info to me.

And the end of the world may be coming sooner rather than later, since the whole global warming thing is out of control. Right now, they have over 100 large ice bergs headed for New Zealand, clogging shipping lanes, and doubtless scaring the devil out of the hobbits in the Shire.

In other New Zealand news, the United States Senate has confirmed our new ambassador to New Zealand and Somoa, and he's a homo! David Huebner is a rather hotlooking bearded (with facial hair!) attorney and he just cleared the last hurdle to starting his job. No word on whether his partner of 20+ years, Dr. Duane McWaine will be joining him, but if he did, he'd be able to take advantage of the new State Department programs for same sex spouses.

In news about women who make me feel vaguely uncomfortable when they talk, we start with Paula Dean from the teaser photo. She makes me uncomfortable because I can feel my arteries hardening whenever she's in the kitchen. In this non-embeddable clip, she proves that pigs can fly, but not well, since she gets clocked in the face by a flying ham at a charity event. Ever the trooper, she laughed it off. And in other news from women that make me squirm, the delightful Betty Bowers has a new video out discussing why Mormons aren't real Christians. We know she's a parody, but I bet some people don't.

A Republican candidate for governor of Massachusettes with virtually no political background, Charles Baker, has picked a gay Republican, Richard Tisei, with political experience to be his running mate in the primary next year. I can't believe that there are things such as gay Republicans in 2009. But after this maybe there won't be by 2010. 

Your art news for the day is about these origami money hats, made out of real currency. They have nine different countries over at the link, which I think is pretty amazing.

Video Meme

We'll start the day with David Tennant in a lei, as we prepare for the end of his run playing Doctor Who. "The End of Time Part 1" is set to air around Christmas in the U.K., which is around when we in the states will get "The Waters of Mars" on BBC America. While Captain Jack Harkness doesn't appear in the preview, we know he's in "The End of Time" but we don't know, with the elastic nature of time in these shows, whether it will be a pre-or-post Children of Earth Captain Jack.

I've been sitting on this since last week, and I still think it's pretty funny. Jimmy Kimmel brought on Cloris Leachman to do a skit about Saber Tooth Tiger Town, a spin off of Cougar Town. The old broad (and the world needs more "broads") has excellent taste in young men.

In the never ending effort to attract your attention, Coke Zero is going to do an Augmented Reality promo as a tie in with James Cameron's Avatar. With the special token, software, and your webcam, you too can hunt peaceful aliens trying to live their blue-skinned lives.

In honor of American Thanksgiving this week, we have The Sexy Pilgrim, which may be the first R&B Pilgrim rap.

And just because I think it's cool, here's a Time Lapse Shoe Art. Creative people blow my mind. Patient people make me uncomfortable. This blew my mind.