Page 1 Consider (06/22)

What's the Matter Here? A Long Island couple was dragged into court yesterday in a bid by neighbors to silence their two young daughters when they play Marco Polo in the backyard pool -- with jail time a possible punishment. At least six families on the normally quiet Perry Avenue block signed the petition accusing the Poczateks' daughters -- Ashley, 11, and Chloe, 5 -- of unbearable screeching and squealing when they play in the backyard pool. What are these kids doing playing outside in the summer, anyway? Shouldn't they be indoors on MySpace making themselves available to online sex predators? (NYP)

Dateline BALTIMORE: This headline is somehow not from The Onion. (AP)

Pizzaland: "Sopranos" fans may not be happy with the way the series ended, but that isn't stopping them from flocking to the Jersey restaurant where the now-infamous closing scene was filmed. I wonder if the Mount Kisco diner where the Clintons filmed theirs will get a similar bump. (AP)

Advanced Placement Hate: That delightful 16-year-old school girl at Crystal Lake South High School in Illinois who distributed leaflets with a picture of a male student that stated "God hates fags" has copped a plea deal with prosecutors to have hate crime charges dropped against her in return for guilty pleas of disorderly conduct and resisting a peace officer. I smell a future homecoming queen in the making. Jesus f**k. (365Gay)

Tying the Gay Knot: New York's got marriage legislation in the works and the California Supreme Court wants answers too. (Story)

Explosion of Pride: Nothing like discovering a homemade bomb intended for the parade route of a gay rights march in Jerusalem to put a damper on being there and queer. Sadly Israelis are getting used to it. (PinkNews)

Petersoned: Not to be a bitch, but I don't exactly have to be Amber Frey to figure out who killed this poor woman. (AP)

Birth Order: Finally, some research to explain why my brothers are so much smarter than I am. (NYT)

Garden State of Disbelief: In what alternate reality are we living in that Mandy Moore is the woman wronged and disgusting freak Zach Braff is the hottie/player who cheated on her??? (PageSix)

Face-Lift: New York's LGBT Community Center is planning a $50 million dollar expansion of its West 13th Street location. This week at a Gay Pride event City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer announced three major allocations of capital funding totaling $9 million to help get fundraising under way. Given the way gay bookstores have died by way of the Internet, I'm sort of delightfully relieved and maybe a little surprised to hear that there is still a need for a community center. I remember when I was in my early 20s living in Southern California I frequently went to events at the community center near my home (I was a contestant on "The Gay Dating Game" from time to time, too) , and met a number of cool people. It's nice to know that people aren't just sitting anonymously behind their computer screens waiting to be exploited by an anonymous person -- they can still be exploited in person. (365Gay)

Dallas Diva: Congrats to my pal Jack E. Jett, whose cable television show "The Queer Edge" just won the 2007 Telly Award for Outstanding Talk Show (Special Class: Alternative). (TellyAwards)

No Small Wonder: Oh, great. Rehoboth Beach is still free game for gay-bashers. (Advocate)