About 28 seconds of attacking McCain, then the tag line. “Barack Obama: the middle class first.” Is it just me, or is there a new ad from both sides about every 12 hours?

At 21st Street and 11th Avenue, I noticed some gay graffiti at the top of the building that housed the previous incarnation of the NYC Eagle, which leatherated on that corner for 30 years, 1970-2000.

Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin might be getting some company in Congress. Entrepreneur Jared Polis, the first openly gay candidate for Congress from Colorado, won the 2nd Congressional District’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night. The race was defined by record- breaking campaign funding and vitriolic attacks in its waning days. “This election cycle, a lot of barriers are being broken,” …

Arkansas Democratic Chairman Bill Gwatney was shot today in the party’s Little Rock offices and is in critical condition. A gunman entered the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday and shot the party chairman, who was hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. The gunman asked to speak to the party chairman, Bill Gwatney, and fired three shots at the office near …

Since I now follow Rich Morel’s chart successes the way I used to track Donna Summer’s, I must mention that this week Morel has his seventh #1 Billboard dance hit with his remix of Yoko Ono’s Give Peace A Chance. At 75 years old, Ono is the oldest person to have a dance chart number one, of which this latest …

Hot on the heels of last week’s evisceration of Manhunt in Out Magazine’s article Is Manhunt Destroying Gay Culture?, comes the revelation at Towleroad that Manhunt cofounder Jonathan Crutchley has donated the personal maximum of $2300 to John McCain’s presidential campaign. Via Towleroad comes this exchange between Crutchley and a commenter on Online Personal Watch:Andy Towle: “It appears John McCain …

It’s a complicated turn of events for Gilead, the maker of HIV drug Viread. The 9th Circuit Court has reinstated a securities class action suit against the drug maker which claims that Gilead had misled investors about the demand for Viread. The suit charges that Gilead fostered demand for Viread by using improper marketing such as “aggressively promoting off-label uses.” …

Spanish basketballer Jose Calderon responds to yesterday’s “Asian eyes” controversy: Spanish basketball player Jose Calderon rejected international media accusations on Wednesday that slit-eyed gestures by his team at the Beijing Olympics were racist and said he had great respect for Asian people. Published pictures show the world champions dressed in Olympic kit standing on a basketball court marked with a …

Oy vey. Some designer named Rick Husong is trying to promote an Obama “hand-signal”, which he wants to turn into the “peace sign of our generation.” George Bush had his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will …

Donald Wildmon, the founder and head of the American Family Association, is asking its members to petition Congress to end all funding for PBS. The AFA is pissed because of an upcoming PBS show, The Bible’s Buried Secrets, which according to the AFA , contradicts long-held beliefs. From the AFA’s “Action Alert“: Take Action Sign the petition urging Congress to …

NBC has a rather homoerotic game running on its Olympics page in which readers are invited to guess which abs belong to which Olympic swimmer. Go to “Ab Fab: Guess The Swimmer” and see what you think.

Tourism to NYC isn’t suffering too much in this economy, we’re seeing just a slight dip in Broadway sales. But holy cow, room rates are averaging $350/night. In May the average cost of a hotel room in New York climbed to $350 a night from $300 in May 2007, according to figures released yesterday by the official marketing and tourism …

One of the neatest things about last week’s Summer Streets event was finding previously unnoticed items like this statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt on the Grand Central Viaduct, which I’ve surely passed in a cab more than 500 times. Vanderbilt bought the New York Central Railroad in 1867 and built the Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street in 1871. That station …

This Friday, August 15th, is the deadline to register for New York’s September 9th primary. The NYC Gay & Lesbian Community Center has a goal of registering 2000 new LGBT voters by then. You can register to vote online via their site. All of New York’s 29 seats in the House of Representatives are in contention, as are all 436 …

Some business owners in Provincetown are unhappy with Family Week, the annual event that brings hundreds of gay families to town, saying that business in the bars and the higher end shops falls by as much as 50%. Next year Family Week organizers plan to push the event back to the first week of August, heightening fears of greater lost …

Big money rolled in from labor organizations at Saturday’s Equality California event in Los Angeles. The Service Employees International Union presented a $500K check and the California Teacher’s Association kicked in $250K. Another $25K came from AT&T. A total of $2M was raised, much of which will be used to fund the No On 8 campaign. Equality California’s Geoff Kors: …

Last week I told you about Focus On The Family Anus spokespig Stuart Shepard asking for Christians to pray for rain at Barack Obama’s outdoor speech at the DNC. Last night Keith Olbermann tapped Shepard as the “Worst Person In The World.” UPDATE: Good As You reports that Focus On The Family has pulled Shepard’s video. Out of shame, we …

Famed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) is so outraged about gay marriage, he wants to overthrow the government. From his op-ed piece in the Mormon Times: If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that …

Huffing is no longer for bored teenaged suburbanites. Canned oxygen is reportedly “flying off the shelves” of NYC’s drugstores. At $16 a pop. With 1 in 10 Americans is chronically sleep deprived people are looking for anything to boost their energy. First there were Red Bull and double espressos, but now comes the latest — canned oxygen! It’s the latest …

NASDAQ has issued a warning to PlanetOut that the company has not maintained the required $5M minimum value of publicly held shares and may be delisted from the exchange. The company has until October 30th to up its value. Earlier this year PlanetOut sold their magazine division (Out, Advocate) to Regent Releasing, the owners of gay cable network Here! TV. …