News: Drag Race, Dow Jones, Tom of Finland, Hong Kong, Kanye

MTV's Graden: RuPaul's Drag Race "the widest hit" LOGO has had to date. AfterElton talks with the show's Ongina.

Virtual reality "cocoon" in development. Maker: "This will be a huge step forward in comparison to today's virtual reality devices. Combining the use of all five senses will make the experience feel totally real - it will be unlike anything previously available."

What is Kanye West's greatest pain in life?

Asteroid buzzes Earth: "The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth when it zipped past early Monday...That is just twice as high as the orbits of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon.

Britney Spears returns to Big Top in NoLa.

Wannabe supermodels return to the airwaves tonight.

St. Louis, Missouri candidate Shane Cohn on road to becoming city's first openly gay alderman.

Massive Ecstasy bust at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras: "Ryan Kirkbride, from Wentworthville, was charged with selling a large commercial supply of a prohibited drug. Police will allege Kirkbride was organising the supply of 2000 ecstasy pills for Saturday's Mardi Gras. Worth about $80,000 on the streets, police, more importantly, believe the arrest has ended a valuable supply chain to this weekend's gay parade. NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn hailed the bust as a significant blow ahead of the parade."

Sean Penn's Milk suit auctioned at benefit for $12,500.

Anti-gay Mormon machine cranks up against Illinois civil unions bill: "In a private email sent out to LDS members of at least one ward in Illinois, church members are being encouraged to call their representative to voice their opposition to the bill, which would provide same-sex couples with recognition and limited protections under Illinois law. But the official LDS-sanctioned email to members is loaded with much of the same misinformation that was present in the campaign against California’s Proposition 8."

Weeklong DDoS attack launched on gay Russian websites: "Ironically, the attack was in fact coming from Russian, courtesy from a botnet operated by a DDoS for hire service. Here's a list of the sites that were subject to the DDoS, with the majority of them returning "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" error message during last week : gogay.ru 1gay.ru androgin.ru boysclub.ru egay.ru gaylines.ru gaymoney.ru gayplanet.ru gayrelax.ru xabalka.ru On the 25th of January, gogay.ru was among the few sites to issue a statement and confirm the attacks offering financial reward for information leading to the source."

Similarities between today's Dow Jones and that of 1937 (via daily dish).

New Tom of Finland book muscles its way onto shelves.

Extreme fishing host gets back to nature.

REPORT: Rihanna marries Chris Brown.

HIV infections in Hong Kong surge in 2008: "The city recorded its highest-ever number of HIV infections in a single year, with 435 new cases recorded in 2008, up 5 percent from the previous year, the Department of Health announced yesterday. It is the highest number of HIV infections since records began in 1984, it said, adding most of the new infections were the result of sexual contact. Of the new cases, 145 resulted from homosexual relations, 131 from heterosexual contact, 40 from intravenous drug use and three from blood infusion. Causes of the remaining infections are unknown, it said.

Semi-colon in Times Square.

UK to get superfast broadband: "Download speeds across a new £1.5billion fibre-optic cable network will be more than 25 times faster than the current service most people get."

News: Sweden, Thin Mints, Kanye West, Moon, Herpes, Clay Aiken

Girl Scouts hit by recession: Bad news for lovers of Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos, and Thin Mints!

Kanye West shows off new LV shoe, says he will not be doing bisexual porn.

Poll: Gay marriage or civil unions okay with Floridians. "A new poll finds that most Florida voters favor allowing gays to get married or have civil unions. Most of those voters -- 55 percent to 39 percent -- also oppose the state law banning gays and lesbians from adopting children. Democrats and independent voters were in the majority favoring the elimination of the ban while more Republicans and white evangelical Christians supported the law. The Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday -- with a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points -- found marriage and civil unions supported by younger voters more than by older voters, more by Democrats than Republicans, and more by people with higher incomes and college educations."

Inauguration panorama!

Sweden likely to allow gays to marry civilly and in Lutheran church: "Sweden, already a pioneer in giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, would become the first country in the world to allow gays to marry within a major Church."

SALON: Is the government spying on citizens from a secret room at AT&T in St. Louis?

Scientists: Asteroid hit might have flipped moon around.

State Department employees hold "Glinda party" for Hillary, refer to Condi as "The Wicked Witch of the West".

MAP: Structurally deficient bridges in the United States.

Mixed-race transgender woman sues Wisconsin nightclub: "[Broussard] said she was twice denied entrance to Park Central, 318 W. College Ave., because of her race and her transgender status...A club manager told The Post-Crescent newspaper this summer, however, that the bars do not discriminate against gays or lesbians, but cannot accommodate Broussard because allowing her to use either the men's or women's restroom is a safety issue."

Scientists: Cream could prevent genital herpes infection. "This topical treatment, which has so far been tested only on mice, stops the virus from replicating in a new host...The cream, developed at Harvard Medical School, uses a technique called RNA interference, which stops the genes the virus needs to replicate from working properly."

Aiken and boyfriend ham a lot in Spamalot photo booth.

Avenue Q to exchange lyrics referencing George W. Bush for an anti-Prop 8 quip as part of online competition.

More sting arrests IDed in Chelsea, NYC porn shops: "Police arrested at least five men for prostitution in a Chelsea porn shop last September and October, bringing the total number of known prostitution arrests of gay and bisexual men to 52 in eight different businesses dating back to 2004. The five arrests are part of a wave of such arrests that swept through Manhattan porn shops in 2008, with cops busting at least 27 men in at least six porn shops last year. Police made at least 25 other arrests from 2004 through 2007, including at least 23 at Video, Video, Video, a porn shop that was located at Eighth Avenue and 34th Street."

Economy takes toll on gay media: "The financial woes have led many LGBT media outlets to reduce page counts, lay off writers, and scramble to find new sources of revenue."

Audun Carlsen, the male escort at the center of the Boy George conviction, apparently now receives death threats: "I look over my shoulder." Boy George is reportedly releasing a song in March, sung in French,

Chace Crawford says: take the jeans off.

News: Newt Gingrich, Spice Girls, Taipei Pride, Dean Johnson

Gay businessman Tony Hoare bludgeoned to death walking his dogs in London. Motivation behind the attack is unclear.

NYC downtown icon and gay performing artist Dean Johnson dies: "The six-foot-six promoter was found dead by authorities in Washington, D.C., but remained unidentified until this week. Police are still investigating the cause...At times a porn star and at other times a rock star (he fronted Dean and the Weenies and later the Velvet Mafia), he was always recognizable by his height (often augmented by heels) and brazen eyewear..." More from World of Wonder.

Taipei, Taiwan to hold carnival and gay pride parade this month. The carnival is this weekend. Said city official Jason Yeh: "The theme of this year's gay carnival is 'Teach You How to Watch a Gay Film'. We want the public to watch gay films in a relaxed atmosphere so that they can understand gay-related issues."

Fall auctions to test the art market bubble: "Doom-mongers are dubbing the blitz of forthcoming London sales as 'judgment week'. It will begin on October 11 with the opening of the Frieze art fair, which attracts dealers from all over the world."

Male Missouri high school student crowned Homecoming Queen: "His mother, Mary Ann Zaggy, said her son wanted to surprise his steady girlfriend at the dance tonight when the honor is formally bestowed. 'It's no big deal,' said [Marcel] Coleman, the homecoming king, although he was unsure how the traditional king-queen dance would play out. The school body voted for Zaggy, but he may have upset some students who consider the homecoming court no laughing matter."

Street Angels to take to the streets to thwart anti-gay attacks in Sydney: "The GenQ Street Angels want volunteers with policing, military, security or medical experience to join. They could be patrolling in Sydney's Oxford Street precinct and the King Street strip in Newtown as early as the first weekend in November. Organiser and GenerationQ.net founder Andrew Stopps said he hoped the patrols would initially focus on Friday and Saturday nights between 9pm and 3am, when as many as 10,000 partygoers flood Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and Paddington."

Newt Gingrich says he won't run for president.

Spice Girls reunion concert sells out in 38 seconds.

Anti-gay artists Elephant Man and Sizzla nixed from Toronto concerts over homophobic lyrics.

The Captain + Tennille = Tori Spelling?

Anti-gay wingnut's daughter to star in production of The Laramie Project: "Amy Contrada, author of the vehemently anti-gay MassResistance blog and tireless crusader against the Laramie Project play, failed to report that her own daughter will star in Acton High School's production of the play this November. Despite the fact that her daughter will play a TV reporter and serve as a Moderator for the play, which sensitively chronicles the death of Mathew Shepard, Contrada remains committed to organizing an anti-gay forum at the same High School in October."

Madonna to collaborate with Elton John? Elton: "Madonna is a great artiste and I think I shoot my mouth off too much, really. Who wouldn't want to work with her?"

Police accused of harassing LGBT gathering during opening week of UN General Assembly: "On Wednesday night, September 26, without provocation, officers from the 9th Precinct of the New York Police Department attacked lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community members who were attending an event organized by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP). At the celebration, in front of M & R Bar, at 356 Bowery Street, two people were violently arrested without cause. Others were pepper sprayed in the face without warning or cause, and injured. Most of the people attacked by the police were people of color, and many were transgender."

7,000, including hecklers, show up for North Carolina's Pride Fest.

World Series Champ St. Louis Cardinals Play Ball

And now, something a little on the lighter side.

We neglected to celebrate the 2006 World Series champs, the St. Louis Cardinals, so consider this a brief tribute. I'm not sure when this shot (sent in by our reader Joe) was taken (probably not during the series), but there's no doubt that to win a World Series it does take a special kind of teamwork and camaraderie.

And remember, Missouri is the "Show Me" state.

Players pictured are pitcher Jason Marquis and center fielder Jim Edmonds.

Freak Nature: Busch Stadium Thunderstorm

You've perhaps heard about the crazy weather that's been going on around St. Louis, Missouri? Check out this video (via Deadspin) that someone shot at Busch Stadium as a thunderstorm rolled through Thursday night, and watch for the dude getting nailed by the trashcan. And could that be a cow flying by in a twister I hear at the end?

In related news, "Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced today that that they will launch a bipartisan inquiry into allegations that White House officials, including former adviser Philip Cooney, edited climate reports to play down the potential threat of global warming." And coverage of headlines from this week's heat wave.