California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriages, seemed to be opposed by the entire tech sector. Truth is, a significant fraction of Valley voters voted for the ban. Some even donated to the campaign. Anti Gay Blacklist has published a partial list of alleged pro-Prop 8, anti-gay-marriage donors. There aren't any Googlers listed, but there's one lonely Yahoo software engineer who kicked in $1,300. Angela Li, I kinda like you because everyone else hates you, so we have that in common.

Yesterday we heard about the beginning of the pricey 600-person layoffs at Time Inc.—memos went out at several major magazines announcing that dozens of staffers would be cut. But this is an international company, and its trouble isn't limited to America. We hear that the European offices of Time, People, and Fortune could be facing severe cuts as well: A tipster tells us:

It looks like Donald Trump has found a rather morbid way to capitalize on the press surrounding the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew. The publicity-seeking mogul now says he's been "protecting" Hudson by allowing her stay in a suite with her family at his Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago free of charge since October 24th. It might have been a kind gesture on Trump's part if he weren't blabbing about it to People magazine (especially since she's supposedly holed up in his hotel for her own safety), and if his other recent charity case, Ed McMahon, wasn't still waiting for the handout that Trump promised him back in June. But these are precarious economic times and Trump's Chicago property is reportedly near bankruptcy. So should we really be surprised he's stooped to this?

Austin-based HomeAway, which operates a network of vacation rental listings, has landed a $250 million round of funding, at a pre-money valuation of $1.15 billion. Technology Crossover Ventures led the round, which you can read about at TechCrunch. HomeAway, which seems to have acquired all its competitors over the past couple of years, didn't even have to lay off the token 20 percent of staff.

• Us Weekly issued a formal retraction saying Guy Ritchie is not sleeping with actress Kelly Reilly. Was apologizing to Reilly "for any potential embarrassment" the gossip may have a caused a big passive-aggressive dig at Ritchie? Just asking! [Us]

"Laura is interviewing publishers who are bidding on her memoirs." [Post]

New York City's dirtiest bars, according to one blogger: 1. Mars Bar in the East Village; 2. American Trash on the UES, 3. Billymark's West on 29th Street; 4. Rawhide in Chelsea; 5. Welcome to the Johnson's. The full top 10 list is here. [Meet Live Now via EVG]

You would think that a 24-hour medical clinic in the middle of Manhattan would be full of people all the time, but at the new, round-the-clock facility in Chelsea operated by Beth Israel, only four patients showed up between 10pm and 6am the night a New York Times reporter was there. At least you know that the next time you're awake at 4 in the morning wondering whether that thing on your leg is a malignant melanoma, a flesh-eating virus, or a mosquito bite, you can find out without subjecting yourself to hours in the ER. [NYT]

At some point last night, the Daily News fed the Web address above into its RSS feed. The XML file appears to have been subsequently cleansed, but Google Reader still has the original address, attached to the much tamer headline, "Side Dish: Juliette Lewis isn't into 'Gossip'." Clicking it is a dead end, of course, but we're now way more intrigued by what the tabloid's gossip section didn't say than by anything it could have possibly printed about Jared Kushner's girlfriend. Maybe it's a clever bit of reverse psychology, hyping tomorrow's Rush & Molloy. Anyone care to clue us in?

♦ Edgar Bronfman Jr. has closed on the sale of his 8,000-square-foot home in Amagansett, which he originally purchased for $12.5 million in 2005 and listed for $15.8 million in 2006. The final sale price was just $12.67 million, which means after adjusting for taxes and inflation, Bronfman actually took a $1 million loss on the property. Photos of the home are here. [Page Six]
♦ Albert Hammond Jr. has reportedly gone into contract to sell his 1,200-square-foot co-op at 141 East 3rd Street, which he picked up for $770,000 in 2005 and put on the market for $1.199 million back in August. [NYM]
♦ Lisa Kerkorian, a former tennis pro and the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, has lowered the price of her Bridgehampton home. After more than a year on the market, it's been reduced from $12.7 million down to $7.995 million. [Newsday]

For the brave souls who earn a living dressing up as Santa, this should be the beginning of the busiest time of the year. That isn't the case this year, unfortunately. The Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, a group that represents 700 red-suited men, reports that bookings have fallen off a cliff in recent weeks as department stores and civic groups cut back on their holiday budgets. [WSJ]

It's Leonardo DiCaprio's big day: The actor turns 34 today. Stanley Tucci is 48. Demi Moore turns 46. Jane Pratt, the founder of Sassy and Jane magazines, is 46, too. Carson Kressley is 39. Calista Flockhart is turning 44. Senator Barbara Boxer is 68. Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick is 43. Writer Mary Gaitskill is 54. Interior designer Mariette Himes-Gomez is 66. And Trey Smith, the son of Will Smith, is turning 16 years old.

It's just a brief item, reporting that NBC chief Jeff Zucker was spotted with "old pal Katie Couric huddling over dinner at Elio's." But Page Six's sighting of the CBS Evening News anchor with her old Today boss will inevitably stoke further speculation about the possibility she might take over for Tim Russert at NBC's Meet The Press. The alleged dinner comes barely a week after the Times reported NBC executives were bandying Couric's name as a possible anchor for the Sunday-morning interview show. Gossip aside, let's move on to speculation: Wouldn't the gig just be an awful reprise of the CBS Evening News disaster?

♦ Guy Ritchie met up with sons David and Rocco in London yesterday for the first time since October, but only after agreeing to follow a list of rules issued by Madonna, which included no new friends, no fast food, no newspapers, and no TV. [Us, Mirror]
♦ Back in the US, Madonna supposedly threw an "intimate dinner party" at her apartment so she could introduce Alex Rodriguez to a group of her friends. [Mirror]
♦ One week after Tim Robbins experienced a few problems trying to cast his vote in the presidential election, officials now say they pinpointed the issue: Robbins turned up at the wrong polling location, which he might have known if he'd bothered to vote in the mid-term elections. [NYDN, P6]

More than a month after the New York Sun went bust, the final vestige of the neocon paper seems to have come to an end: The NYSun.com website has been down since yesterday. Guess you'll have to go elsewhere to get your stale news from mid-September!

♦ With so many companies looking to tap into the $700 billion bailout, it's clear there won't be enough to go around, and a lot more work (and cash) is going to be needed to fix the problem. [WSJ]
♦ The latest company to convert itself into a bank to tap into government funds: American Express, which earned approval from the Fed to become a commercial bank yesterday as it seeks to cover rising credit card defaults. [Bloomberg]
♦ GM's possible bankruptcy was a major topic of conversation at the White House yesterday when Barack Obama met with George Bush. Meanwhile, shares of GM fell to $3.36 yesterday, its lowest level since 1949. [WSJ, Bloomberg]

New code names: "Renegade" (Barack), "Renaissance" (Michelle), "Radiance" (Malia) and "Rosebud" (Sasha). [Chicago Tribune]

You may recall that Tim Robbins "flipped out" at poll workers on election day, accusing them of abridging his "freedom to vote" by offering him a provisional ballot and then politely asking him to please leave the voting area since his name was not on their list. The actor had been voting at the polling place for 15 years, you see, and was used to being totally VIPed. The incident was clearly part of a conspiracy by New York City bureaucrats against rich white Hollywood liberals, so staff at the Times and at City Hall were immediately assigned to parallel investigations. The conclusion: Tim Robbins is confused and possibly senile. Reports the Times:

Listen up, voters: It was not Sarah Palin's idea to try and fool you by wearing fancy clothes she would not normally have anything to do with! The Republican National Committee bought an opulent $150,000 wardrobe for her and seven family members before she even showed up at the convention, the former vice presidential nominee told Fox News Channel's Greta Von Susteren Tuesday night. The legendary MAVERICK was just "goin' with the flow... if that's the way they do this." She's never even been to a Saks or Neiman Marcus. Why on earth is she telling everyone this now?

Be careful what you wish for. Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook COO who left the social network in February, has gotten the CEO job he said he wanted — as the new chief of Project Playlist, an online-music startup. (It's been widely reported that MySpace wooed him to run its MySpace Music spinoff. He also had conversations with social-news site Digg and shopping search engine Nextag, among others.) Van Natta's an investor in Project Playlist, and the company has just announced funding from former AOL CEO Bob Pittman's Pilot Group. But powerful backers won't change the toxic business environment all online-music startups face.A group of record labels sued Project Playlist in April — which is, sad to say, the music industry's usual approach to beginning talks. Van Natta has a reputation as a skilled dealmaker, and he led talks with the labels while at Facebook. But sources who have had recent negotiations with labels say they have been granting only short-term licenses for music — typically a year in length. Their strategy is to give startups a year to grow — and then shake them down for most of the profits they generate. Does Van Natta think he can get a better deal? Since he's taking the job, he must be betting on it.