*INDIA: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is repealed, decriminalising homosexuality. India has the second highest population in the world, and therefore, the second highest number of homosexuals of any country...
*DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Riot police disperse Gay Pride event.*CHINA: Shanghai's Gay Triangle; the city recently concluded its first Gay Pride week.
*IRAQ: Life for gays is worse than it was under the rule of Saddam Hussein.*BULGARIA: The Rainbow Friendship Rally takes place in Sofia today; earlier this month, "the British ambassador to Bulgaria was criticised for his support for the event".
*ITALY: When in Rome...
*US: Black men are the least preferred sexual partners by other races, according to a report by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Well... No, I'ma leave that one alone.
*US: The Obama administration starts to dismantle Bush's HIV travel ban. Countries coloured red (above) prevent foreign nationals with HIV from entering. Oh look, tolerant and cheerful Australia's one of them!
*US: Openly gay sailor August Provost was shot and his body set alight. August, pictured right with his brother, had complained of being harassed by fellow servicemen.*US: Anthony Woods, the openly gay Iraq veteran running for congress, talks to The Washington Post. Here he is talking to AMERICAblog:
*US: Colin Powell (that's Colon Powell if you're American) helped create Don't Ask, Don't Tell in 1993. Now he says: "I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed".*US: God Says No, "the first novel by James Hannaham, about a closeted black man trying to navigate the opposing forces of his faith and his desire".
*US: Fear and loathing in the Big Apple.
*US: San Francisco's Pink Triangle memorial partially destroyed by arsonists.*US: Only in America. Camp Camp, the summer camp for gay adults.
*UK: A history of London Gay Pride in pictures (left).
*UK: Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson, well known for homophobic remarks, fails to show up at London Gay Pride, and is booed when he appears in a pre-recorded video message. 500,000 marchers partied in Trafalgar Square; around 30 religious nuts "preached through a loudspeaker and held signs saying homosexuality was against God's wishes". I'm not great with numbers, but...
*UK: It's not all fun and games however. Peter Tatchell accuses the SGL community of "huge apathy and complacency" and The Guardian looks at a depoliticised Pride.*UK: Was our beloved Peter T snubbed by Grumpy Gordon?
*UK: The Pink List 2009 - 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain today. First Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is at No.1. The first non-white entry is Gok Wan at No.11; thereafter it's all white until we reach Waheed Ali at No.53, John Amaechi at No.60, and, just when I'd given up hope of seeing another, you know, Ethnic Person, Stephen K Amos is let in at 98. Pitiful.
*Tower Bridge restoration, in pictures.
*The worst tower block fire in London's history; 6 people are dead. The disaster, in pictures.*Heat wave hell! (Unless you were lucky enough to be in Hyde Park when the Chippendales went for a stroll, below left and right.)
*Dress down Friday!*Check your 20p pieces.
*Britain doesn't know the Bible.
*"I'd love to show Madonna what we have built in Romania", says Duncan Bannatyne, who doesn't subscribe to the view that wealthy Westerners can best help impoverished orphans by spiriting them away from their home, family and culture...
*The July 7th London Bombing Memorial is unveiled ahead of Tuesday's 4th anniversary. "The tribute, in the south-east corner of the park, near Lovers' Walk and Park Lane, consists of 52 roughly textured stainless steel pillars, each 3.5 metres high and representing one of the victims. They are grouped together in four interlinking clusters, of six, seven, 13 and 26, reflecting the number of lives lost in each of the four bombing incidents, at Russell Square, Aldgate and Edgware Road underground stations and at Tavistock Square."
*The human cost of businesses that collapse into administration.*Irma resigns as Alaska's Top Dominatrix. Now she can go back to her old job as April O'Neil's sidekick at Channel 6. Watch out for Bebop and Rocksteady!
*"Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression". In other news, KFC admit they're the ones behind dewindling fish stocks, and someone who isn't foriegn or non-white gets voted out of the Big Brother house.
*Naughty Cristiano! Plastic Slut Boy is being investigated for allegedly attacking a 17-year-old girl: "Ronaldo reportedly kicked in the window of a car the girl was sat in, sending shards of glass all over her". Car window glass crumbles into bits, not shards. And she's probably got the hump because it was glass he showered her with and not something else. You just can't please some people.*And before we get all serious again, how about a picture of top manikin Oraine Barrett naked in a top hat? It's an unused shot from the June spread he did for DOM.
*Treat violence as if it is an infectious disease; crime drops between 41 and 73 per cent.
*"Canadian HIV vaccine ready for human tests".
*WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Swine flu: "Reports are starting to emerge of people who sicken and die very quickly of what appears to be viral pneumonia".
*File under Really Bad Ideas: the DIY circumcision using nail clippers. "This is something we would advise men never to attempt," a medic is quoted as saying. Well, obviously it needed saying.
*Does size matter? Not if you're a woman in Tanzania, apparently.
*Is Bicycling Bad for Your Bones?
*Genetically modified rice that protects against allergies.*In 2000, the Human Genome Project found that all humans are more than 99 per cent alike. But what about the other 1 per cent?
*Photographs from the weird world of bodybuilding.
*Fancy standing in a glass box 103 stories off the ground? No, me neither.
*Naked on a plane! (And don't call me Shirley).*It's not likely that there would ever have been a naked person on the Horten 2-29. Had it been ready in time, the Nazi stealth plane could have dropped a nuclear bomb on New York City.
*Introducing the Autonomobile (ATNMBL), a self-driving electric passenger vehicle that heralds, according to its designers, the end of driving.
*Right children, last week we learned about the robot that eats flesh. Some people might think that's a bad idea, but what about emotional robots (did someone say Victoria Beckham?)*Boeing finds another sign of structural weakness in its new plastic plane.
*Apple goes bad in the heat.*Someone's gone and invented something useful.
*WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
*And it's not looking good for shrimps, crabs and sea turtles either.
*However, if you're part of the ant mega-colony that has taken over world, it's all good in the 'hood.
*Chimpanzee prison break!*Incredible shrinking sheep!
*The World's Ugliest Dog.
*This is the most revolting thing you'll see. Ever.
*HX Magazine is sold and Vibe Magazine shuts down. The New York Blade suspends production.
*Sex sells on the tramways of France. (Interestingly, the black model's package is the smallest.)*The British Board of Film Classification relaxes sex guidelines.
*The original ending to Brüno was a "brutal gay bashing played for laughs". Meanwhile, the administrators of Birmingham High School are in hot water for letting Brüno play with the football team.
*Hollywood Announces It's Officially Given Up. On that note, The Independent wonders whatever happened to the great American film director?
*The collapse of finances at ITV and Channel 4 means the BBC has become the only show in town - to the detriment of TV drama.*"Reality TV shows are Aesop's fables for modern times", argues Brian Sewell. "In the mirror it holds to our souls we glimpse society as it now really is..."
*God help us: "A new gameshow on Turkish television will pit rabbis, imams, monks and priests against each other in an attempt to convert sworn aetheists to their respective religions".
*Bless you sweetheart - a message from Dolly Parton:
*"'I'm better off dead. I'm done': Michael Jackson's fateful prediction just a week before his death". Includes matter-of-fact statements about his alleged homosexuality.*Everyone has something to say about Michael Jackson, and everyone wants to say something different: "Bleached-out Michael Jackson is no role model for me", says Lindsay Johns in the Evening Standard (a negative piece in the ES? Surely not!)
*Former music industry executive John Niven also takes to the soapbox with his article: Michael Jackson: Bad! And very dangerous.
*Bubbles, however, is alive and living happily ever after:
*Jackson's illuminated glove will be auctioned on 2nd October.*Neverland, in pictures.
*Lego Wino.
*You may recall previous episodes in the Spectacular saga - the grinding videos, the $100,000 offered by FlavaMen to pose nude - now, the happy ending. Tipsy In Dis Club is a hit for Pretty Ricky.
*Mollie Sugden, the actress, 21st July 1922 – 1st July 2009.
More pictures from London Pride 2009 at The Best of Men; London Pride photographs by Urban Shotz Photography.
On the cover: Oraine Barrett by Greg Vaughan.
