Morning Meme: 50 Cent Writes Redemption for Bullies, Jason Segel Gets The Muppets, and We Love Our "Perks"

50 Cent is coming out with a new book, Playground about a 13-year-old bully “who finds redemption as he faces what he's done." Of course, 50 Cent is somewhat famous for being a bully himself, so I don’t know if this smacks of hypocrisy, redemption, or hubris.

The big news of the day was the continued fallout from AT&T attempting to influence GLBT orgs to lobby for their business interests with large cash donations. After Bilerico broke the original story on GLAAD, they’ve followed up with news that at least three other organizations, NGLTF, National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and Equality California have all admitted to lobbying for the telecom giant. Chris Geidner adds that the HRC declined to submit a letter in support of the merger.

There is a picture of Betty White puckering up to a boa constrictor in the hands of Slash. Now get your minds out of the gutter. It was at the Beastly Ball at the Los Angeles Zoo.

NBC has had to apologize for a montage of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance that omitted the phrase “under God” during a golf broadcast. The questionable phrase was added to the pledge in 1954 during the McCarthy era, so maybe NBC just used an old encyclopedia?

Director Nicolas Winding Reth, recently seen here being kissed by his Drive star Ryan Gosling, is still trying to make a Wonder Woman movie. And he still wants to have Christina Hendricks star as Diana Prince.

The New York Times has changed the maximum length of comments on articles from 5,000 characters to 2,000 characters. I’m guessing they figured since most internet comments seem to be written like OMG LOL there was no reason to provide all that space.

Disney has decided to get me a Pixar movie for my birthday in 2013. The mystery film will be ready for me to unwrap when I turn 42, November 27, 2013.

As we move firmly into swimsuit season, the age old question of whether it’s safe to pee in the pool or if it will suddenly turn blue around you causing social shame pops up again. It turns out it’s not lack of trying, but anything that reacts with urine also reacts with just about anything, so we’re totally safe. Besides, most gay pool parties I’ve been to, no one actually gets wet.

 Miss California, who looked a disturbing amount like The Little Mermaid was crowned Miss USA Sunday night in a ceremony co-hosted by power gay Andy Cohen. Her question concerned the legalization of marijuana. She managed to take both sides of the issue as her answer.

Speaking of Andy Cohen, he’s one of the top names being bandied about as a replacement for Regis Philbin when he retires, along with Ryan Seacrest (probably too busy) and Kelly Ripa’s own husband, Mark Consuelos.

I’m unfamiliar with the show Neighbors, but it’s had a sole gay character for a while. Now they’re adding another gay to the village! I can think of several American shows that should take note.

Liechtenstein has approved civil unions (without adoption rights) by a popular vote, with 68% of the tiny country in favor.

While I still can’t marry Russell Tovey, 51-year-old Lost actor Doug Hutchison has married 16-year-old Courtney Alexis Stodden.

Dating site beautifulpeople.com has rejected 30,000 singles as being too ugly for their site. I guess they’re more into “pretty on the outside.”

In possibly heartbreaking news for Lafayette on True Blood, Kevin Alejandro is a finalist to replace Christopher Meloni on Law & Order: SVU, along with Danny Pino, David Conrad, and Michael Raymond-James.

Over at /film, they’ve published a huge interview with Jason Segel from the set of The Muppets. I think he truly does get the Muppets and wants this to be perfect. He goes from, “Yeah, I just operated Fozzie about a minute ago. I’ve done Fozzie, I’ve done Dr. Teeth, and I’ve done Beaker so far. It’s been amazing. That is what knocks your socks off. This is going to sound different than how I mean it, but my hand is inside Fozzie…” all the way to “I wish you guys were over there so you could see how a kid reacts to those puppets. It’s one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. The puppeteer just instantly disappears. You watch a child…you can see the guy standing there with a puppet on his hand and he’s talking, and the kid is looking directly at the puppet.”