New Jersey Democrats Believe They Are Within Securing Veto-Proof Support For Same Sex Marriage Measure, Microsoft Comes Out In Support Of Washington State Same Sex Marriage Legislation, 30 Rocks Mocks Tracy Morgan Anti-Gay Moment, Thousands Of Australian Grindr Users Hacked, Michael Fassbender For W Magazine, Shirtless Chris Hemsworth And Matt Damon Shenanigans, Michael Phelps Porn Moustache Returns

New Jersey Democrats believe they are able to secure enough support to override a veto of same sex marriage legislation if Governor Chris Christie chooses not support it. According to The Wall Street Journal, State Senator Raymond Lesniak, one of the bill’s sponsors, estimated the chamber had between 24 and 27 supporters for legislation to allow for same sex marriage in New Jersey. It takes 27 votes in the 40-member state senate to override a governor’s veto. “I’m wishing and hoping,” said Lesniak, who also acknowledged that some potential supporters still needed “shoring up.” Lesniak, a Democrat representing Union County, counted up to 23 Democrats and four Republicans as supporting a gay marriage, but wouldn’t disclose specific names of those he believes would vote to override a veto. Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver, a Democrat, has said that she has majority support for same sex marriage legislation, and that she would work to garner the 54 votes necessary for a veto override in the 80-member Assembly. Still, Christie noted in an interview with WNYC on Wednesday that the Legislature hasn’t been succeeded so far in passing a same sex marriage bill, and emphasized that his opposition has been “very well publicized,” adding, “I think this type of societal change is something we need to do very deliberately and have as much public input as we possibly can.” A new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found 52-percent of New Jersey voters favour gay marriage, the first time approval has topped 50-percent. Support varies by party affiliation: majorities of Democratic (62-percent) and independent voters (54-percent) are in favour, while only 35-percent of Republicans approve, according to the poll. Last week, Senate and Assembly Democrats announced that they were introducing the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act in their chambers as the first bills of the new legislative session. The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up the legislation on Tuesday. The Assembly is yet to schedule a committee hearing on the bill. Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat, said he wanted a floor vote on the legislation before the budget break, which comes in March. Sweeney previously abstained on the bill when it first came up for a vote in 2010, but he has said he now sees it as a civil rights issue. In 2003, New Jersey became one of the first states to authorize civil unions for same-sex couples. The bill now under consideration would allow couples with a civil union to “immediately” get a marriage license if they seek one.

Microsoft has made public its support of legislation in the state House and Senate that would allow same sex marriage in Washington state, signing on to a letter to legislative leaders with other prominent Northwest companies – Vulcan, Nike, RealNetworks, Group Health Cooperative, and Concur - and posting an entry about the company's position on its official blog. Written by its General Counsel Brad Smith, it raised economic and business-competitiveness reasons for the company's stance, saying: “As other states recognize marriage equality, Washington's employers are at a disadvantage if we cannot offer a similar, inclusive environment to our talented employees, our top recruits and their families. Employers in the technology sector face an unprecedented national and global competition for top talent. Despite progress made in recent years with domestic partnership rights, same-sex couples in Washington still hold a different status from their neighbours. Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples - Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.” Microsoft made a similar argument when it joined some 70 corporations in supporting a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Microsoft has been involved in other gay rights issues before, as in 2005, when a bill banning discrimination against gays and lesbians failed by a single vote in the state Senate and Microsoft's lack of support for the bill was criticized, and last year when it and other tech companies were put in the middle of an e-commerce culture war.

NBC comedy 30 Rock often finds laughs in real-life events in the show business world it inhabits, but Thursday's edition targeted one of its own cast members, Tracy Morgan, who found himself in real-life hot water last June after making anti-gay remarks during a stand-up appearance in Nashville, Tennessee. On the 30 Rock episode, Tracy Jordan, the character Morgan plays, sparked a protest after making a couple of ridiculous gay-oriented jokes at a club date. A contrite Jordan mistakenly apologizes to the makers of Glad bags, rather than to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, known as GLAAD. Jordan's boss, played by series star Tina Fey, is forced to apologize for him. "He's not capable of hate," she assures the media. "He's just an idiot who doesn't know what he's saying." In real life, Tracy Morgan publicly apologized to his fans and the gay and lesbian community for what he called "my choice of words." He denied being a hateful person and acknowledged that "even in a comedy club" what he said went too far "and was not funny in any context." During his rant, Morgan had said in part that if his son were gay, he would "pull out a knife and stab" him. Fey, who is also the creator and an executive producer of "30 Rock," issued a statement at the time declaring "I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian co-workers at 30 Rock." Mirroring that real-life statement on Thursday's episode, Fey's character, Liz Lemon, chides Jordan by saying, "Do you know how many of your hardworking and dedicated co-workers are gay?"

A popular smartphone app that spawned a sexual revolution in the gay community has been compromised by a Sydney, Australia hacker, potentially exposing intimate personal chats, explicit photos and private information of users. The location-aware Grindr app enables gay men to meet other gay men who may be just metres away, making use of their smartphone's Global Positioning System (GPS). It had about 100,000 Australian users as of August last year and more than one million users worldwide. Now, reports The Sydney Morning Herald, a hacker has pushed the app developer into a security crisis that has left its users seriously vulnerable considering the vast amounts of private information traded through the app - in many cases naked photos. The hacker discovered a way to log in as another user, impersonate that user, chat and send photos on their behalf. The vulnerabilities are also present in Blendr, the straight version of the app, according to a security expert who said both apps had "no real security" and were "poorly designed". Fairfax Media is not aware that Blendr has been hacked but the potential was there, according to the security expert. The founder of the apps, Joel Simkhai, conceded both were vulnerable and he was rushing to release a patch to address the issues. He said he had originally been waiting until new architecture was built "within weeks" but was now releasing an update to both apps "over the next few days". In a telephone interview about the vulnerabilities last Friday he said it was news to him about the potential for text chats to be monitored and claimed the company had never experienced a "major breach" in which a large portion of users were affected. "We [do] get people trying to hack into our servers," he said. "That's something that I am aware of and we certainly have a team in place that are working to prevent that." But by Tuesday Mr Simkhai admitted that he was "aware of some vulnerabilities" but he would not talk about them in detail to avoid a hacker exploiting them. "We are certainly aware of a lot of these vulnerabilities and ... they will be fixed as fast as humanly possible," he said. He could not say how many people had attempted to take advantage of the vulnerabilities but said a website created by the hacker had exploited some of the flaws in Grindr. That website was shut down after Friday's interview with Fairfax Media after he sought legal action. The website, registered on July 14, 2011, allowed the hacker to search for any Grindr user regardless of their location, and capitalised on the vulnerabilities to offer other services not designed by the apps. Material seen by this website suggests that a number of Australian users had their Twitter profiles linked to Grindr profiles on the web page, making it easier to find users. At one point, according to sources who saw the website before it was taken down, it listed users' Grindr pseudonyms, passwords, their personal favourites (bookmarked friends) and allowed them to be impersonated, and thus have messages sent and received without their knowledge. At one point, the website also allowed users' profile pictures to be replaced. It is understood the hacker changed the profile picture of numerous Sydney Grindr users to explicit images. One user who was targeted confirmed they had been banned due to a perceived terms of service violation. It is understood the hacker took advantage of the fact the apps used a personalised string of numbers known as a hash, instead of a user name and password, to log in. The hash is exchanged between users' smartphones so they can communicate with each other but the hacker discovered it could be replaced with another users' hash to enable the hacker to: log in as any user; see the user's favourites; change their profile information and profile picture; talk to others as the user; access pictures sent to the user; and impersonate a user's "favourite" and talk to them as a friend. A security expert - who did not wish to be named because he didn't have Simkhai's permission to analyse his systems - said that the Grindr and Blendr apps "had no real security.” They are "very poorly designed ... [with] poor session security and authentication", the expert said. "It wouldn't be too hard to secure this." The security expert demonstrated with permission of a user how he could log in as them and take over the app. In a statement Simkhai said keeping his platform secure from hackers was a "number one priority,” and adding that using technological means and legal actions his company had "blocked the offending website and hacker. We are diligently monitoring for hacking and we've added dedicated IT security specialists to our team. In the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out a major security upgrade to our platform." He maintained conversations on the app could not be monitored. "Not only can chat not be monitored, but since we don't store chat history on our servers there is no way anyone can access all past chat history." If users are concerned about their security they can permanently delete their Grindr profile following a number of steps on the company’s website, which involves Grindr manually deleting it through a support request.

Michael Fassbender – the object of desire – strips down for W magazine.

A shirtless Chris Hemsworth and Matt Damon spotted sliding on a waterslide in St. Barts.

Michael Phelps (and a kind of cute shirtless male friend) stroll along on a beach, Phelps sporting a porn moustache.