More trouble for increasingly troubled gay media giant, PlanetOut Inc. As we reported last month, the owners of Out and Gay.com have been experiencing a bit of decline in recent years: stock prices have plummeted, publishers are leaving and people have canceled their subscriptions. Now comes distressing word that the once titanic PlanetOut's sinking to the bottom.

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Is Lord John Browne cutting all ties to the business world? Less than two weeks ago, the German-born aristocrat resigned from British Petroleum after lying about how he met his former gay lover. Now, Browne's distanced himself from the board of titanic investment bank, Goldman Sachs. WSJ reports:

BP PLC former Chief Executive John Browne resigned from the board of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a week after leaving the oil company over a personal scandal.

A person familiar with the matter said Lord Browne offered to resign from Goldman Sachs because of the reputation issue that followed his public acknowledgment of having lied to a British high court about his former lover.

Goldman Sachs big wig Lloyd Blankman says, "Browne has made an enormous contribution to Goldman Sachs and our culture of teamwork, excellence and client service". Wait..isn't it client service that brought Browne down?

French design visionary Philippe Starck really shoots for the stars.

In addition to designing Mexico's space port for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, Starck has been commissioned to design a new, more fashionable space suit. Don't expect any clunky helmuts or cumbersome padding, however. Like so many of his designs, Starck's suit screams "stream-lined":

The whole style of the rocket on the inside, the clothes and accessories, I have tried to make the most immaterial as possible. The style is dematerialization.

Starck finds the idea of material so vulgar, NY Times' Eric Wilson explains, that he originally envisioned Virgin Galactic's passengers naked.

As Virgin Galactic gears up for its first flight, Starck also struck a deal with Louis Vuitton to design a line of space age. Starck kept his trap shut on the details, but Wilson writes:

Starck would only hint at what they are developing: something made of transparent materials, roomy enough for cosmic incidentals so that an astronaut could strap it onto a spacesuit and not look lame.

Who knew the future would be so fashionable?

Bless satirical website ebaum's world. Not only did they bring us one of our favorite funny flick ever (End of The World), but they've also produced a send-up of corporate sexual harassment videos.

Our preferred part comes around the 1:29 mark...

(Oh, and also a blessing for our always-quirky source, quixoticals.)

Disgraced British Petroleum bigwig Lord John Browne may not have read The Mail on Sunday, but rest assured millions of people drooled over the details of his relationship with a former escort, Jeff Chevalier.

Considering that Chevalier's interview with The Mail led to Browne's outing and subsequent resignation, one would expect an explosive regaling of the men's sexual exploits, perhaps a bit of drug use and oodles of scandal. Instead all we get is a bit of name dropping. Conrad Black, Tony Blair, Hugh Grant - they're all there and just as bland as you can imagine. In fact, the only truly interesting bit from this sensationally overblown interview comes at the end, when Chevalier explains the emotional tension that led his breakup with Browne:

I was open to a lifestyle that people could only imagine about. It was all new to me and for the first few years a novelty. But after a while it became almost unbearable.

Billionaires remembered me, but I did not remember them. The anxiety grew from not remembering these notables who knew me but whom I did not remember.

Ultimately I experienced panic attacks from the thought of not knowing to whom I was speaking. John could not understand why his world was so difficult for me.
...
I lost all ability to function as John Browne's partner. He did not understand my anxieties and I had no ability to understand his concerns. We were worlds apart and we both grew to realize this.

The distance grew too wide and the men parted ways, sending Chevalier back to his penniless life, while Browne would continue reveling in his riches. That is, of course, until Chevalier sat down for this interview - a conversation given far more weight than it deserves. Talk about a bummer...

• John Roberts - the same man who brought us Jackie & Debra - has done it again. Send this one along to your mom. Especially if you're not out yet. It'll help her work through it...

• Ivan Marrow, the gay businessman who alleges Zurich Life ruined his business, may love being gay, but he wishes he were born straight.

• Ex-Idol on Sanjaya Malakar on I Love New York 2? Or does TMZ just think all Indian people look alike?

• Can the church save Jamaica's homos? According to American lesbian Reverend Nancy Wilson, yes: "We have strong allies in heterosexual church leaders here, but sometimes they are afraid to speak out for fear of being criticized by others, and so I met with many of them this week and say you have to come out and tell the others that they don't speak for all of you."

• Hey, wanna see pictures of Lindsay Lohan snorting coke? Look no further.

• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed the state's domestic partnership bill. Outfront Minnesota executive director Ann DeGroot ain't happy: "This veto is not good government. It’s the state telling local governments what they can and cannot do. We thought the governor supported local control. The governor has chosen to make a political point over good public policy." No wonder Pawlenty is GOP presidential candidate John McCain's election committee co-chair.

• Advertisers are now one step closer to taking over the entire world. Next stop: your dreams.

Lord John Browne may be feeling a little down after being outed and subsequently stepping down as British Petroleum's head honcho, but maybe a bit of homo haiku will cheer him up.

Mark from Slap Upside the Head has penned an epic of a poem in his honor. Here's but a snippet:

Don’t you find it strange
one would risk resignation
over coming out?

Clients shouldn’t flee
careers should not be ruined
just because you’re gay

Nicely done, but to just be clear: Browne didn't really quit because he's gay. He left over that whole perjury thing. But, yes, he perjured himself to save gay face over meeting a hooker in a park and then dating him for four years, so that's sort of like quitting over being gay. Only far more salacious...

Ivan Massow built a £22m business dedicated to providing insurance and mortgages. to gay men and women. All it took to take it down was a homophobic insurance giant, he claims

Massow founded Massow Financial Services back in the early 1990s, when insurance companies refused to give gay people equal protection. The AIDS crisis made gays a bad investment and many companies denied gays coverage. And, if they did, the rates were extortionately inflated. Massow stepped in to adjust the rates. The company took off and soon enough Massow found himself competing with the big boys. He even ran a series of adverts taking on more established companies' anti-gay reputations, including a 1996 poster against a company called Allied Dunbar, which would later become part of Swiss insurance monolith, Zurich.

In 2002, Zurich approached Massow to arrange a cease-fire and potentially lucrative business deal. As part of the arrangement, Zurich floated Massow a £330,000 loan. Massow admits he doubted Zurich's claims that they would adjust their policies for gay people, but he signed the contract anyway. It soon became clear, however, that Zurich had no intentions of altering their discriminatory ways. He alleged they were cruising Massow's client list.

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Lord John Browne's former lover, Jeff Chevalier asked the disgraced British Petroleum honcho for a £300,000 pay-off, according to The Times.

The Canadian national and German-born aristocrat allegedly came to an agreement after at the end of their relationship: Browne would help Chevalier maintain a life of luxury. Browne allegedly broke his word, which prompted Chevalier to sell his story to The Mail on Sunday.

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British Petroleum's head honcho Lord John Browne has stepped down after being revealed as a homosexual. Browne fought unsuccessfully against Mail on Sunday, which planned on publishing a revealing interview with Browne's alleged lover, Jeff Chavalier.

Britain's High Court refused to hear his case today, thus spilling his sexual deeds into the public realm. Justice David Eady also says that Browne "chose to lie" about his relationship with Chavalier, a Canadian national, including about meeting Chavalier while cruising Battersea Park.

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Another not-so-shocking story: a reader informs us that California's filed a lawsuit against the now defunct Q Television Network and CEO Frank Olsen for Labor Code violation. What are these so called Labor Code violation? Unceremoniously firing employees and withholding more than $800,000 in back pay.

You may recall the network helped lead the gay television station craze in 2002, but failed to draw the numbers necessary for syndicated survival. What's more, many claim Olsen and company pilfered the station's bank accounts.

When the company folded back in May of 2006, Olsen had this to say:

When I took over control of the network on March 7, 2006, the company was roughly 7 million dollars behind in payments to vendors; numerous lawsuits had been filed against the company and over $600,000 was owed to former employees. The financial challenges that the network faced proved too difficult and I was simply unable to turn around the network.

While Olsen may blame previous management, others insist he's merely an incompetent, greed-driven dick: certainly an anomaly in gay media.

• Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal ruled a lesbianic poem containing the line, "I'd like to pinch your thighs" too obscene for public display. It could have been worse. It could have said, "I want to lick your wet vagina until it swallows me whole." How's that for obscene?

• A Witeck-Combs Communications and Packaged Idea study claims gays will have at least $835 billion in disposable income by 2011. Approximately half will be spent on poppers and blow jobs.

• We wonder if any of those blow jobs will involve the new New York City condoms? They're just like regular condoms only New York-ier. Or something.

• You guys worked hard today. Why not take a look at some more naked footage from Big Brother Brazil?

• Big Brother Brazil may not censor hineys, but an American Airline employee censored the word "homosexual" from The Queen. (Oh, and God, too.)

• Those scamps at The Baptist Press have taken aim at Ford for advertising in fag-mags like Out. Shit, if they didn't have the gays, they'd be belly-up by now.