Thailand's got a reputation for being a sexual playground, but someone certainly wasn't playing when they ended 25-year old Ronny Ulbrich of Stralsund, Germany. Police were first alerted after one of Ulbrich's many tricks knocked on his door but got no answer. Upon entering the student's apartment, they found his naked body in a cluttered pool of blood, a barbell lying a few feet away. Thailand's The Nation reports:

Police Lieutenant Colonel Sompop Tunpolngam said police suspected that Ulbrich - who had been enrolled in the open university's international programme - was killed by a blow to the head on Wednesday night, following a fight with a male acquaintance. Police also found bloodstain on a doorknob of another room on the same floor, thus would soon interview the room's tenant to see if the tenent was involved in Ulbrich's death or not, the officer said.

Thai police have no leads in Ulbrich's death, but a number of internet-based theories abound. Some range from the believable - a lover or boyfriend murdered him for his alleged HIV positive status - while others border on absurd, such as one that the Russian mafia had it in for the rumored playboy.

Regardless of who killed him or why, it's certainly a distressing story. If you aren't distressed, check out this censored (albeit creepy) picture from the crime scene.

German student found dead in Bangkok apartment [The Nation]

Thailand's estimated to have the world's largest concentration of transsexuals. What a perfect place, then, for Sony BMG to construct the world's first trannie girl band: Venus Flytrap. That's right: Venus Flytrap, as in the flesh eating plant known for snapping tighter than a freshly constructed pussy.

The company auditioned over 100,000 thai trannies, but narrowed it down to five. After a year-long singing dancing boot camp, the women emerged as the trannie version of The Spice Girls, uniform prefix and all.

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• Terrance Dean to write homo hip-hopper tell-all, Hiding in Hip-Hop: Confessions of a Down Low Brother in the Entertainment Industry. Juicy!

• Michigan Court of Appeals voided the state's domestic partnership laws. Shitty!

• Governor Eliot Spitzer proposes $3.6million budget increase for NY's gay organizations. Super!

• CNN gets all 7th grader on Fox News. Catty!

• Thai Trannies still called "disordered". Rude!

Bring up Thailand and someone invariably brings up underage male hustlers. Certainly there are hundreds of readily exploitable young lads, but there's more to Thailand than just sexual tourism.

To shed some light on Thailand's boundary testing - yet not quite breaking - sexuality, we asked gay American expat Michael Clyne (pictured in an artist's rendition) to offer his take. Having lived there for the past year and a half, plus another lengthy stint a few years back, Clyne has a unique view of the country's visible and mute gay communities. While it's not unusual to see young boys dressed as woman, the country's never experienced what Westerners call a "gay rights movement". Rather, queerness has been subtly integrated into the national culture in some pretty astonishing ways.

Also, Clyne would like you all to know he's not a “Rice Queen “Soy Chaser", or a “Sexpat". He is, in fact, an equal opportunity slut.

(If you like what you see, head over to Clyne's blog, Bangkokker. Conversely, if you absolutely hate it, you can beat the tar out of him when he gets back to America next week. If you want to have sex with him, we're sure that can be arranged, too.)

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It may surprise some of you out there, but Thailand remains a leader in the battle against the HIV transmission. While the country lost its share of citizens at the beginning of the global scourge, the 1990s ushered in a unwavering public prevention campaign. Further, the country has become a model for the distribution of cheap anti-viral drugs to infected parties.

As a result of these steps, more and more denizens of the Asian nation are living with AIDS. While this undoubtedly comes as good news, as with so many things in this world, drawbacks remain. One major problem is that despite all the country's progress, an enormous cloud of stigma still hangs above HIV-positive people. Thus, people who have been abandoned by their families have turned a temple that once acted as a hospice into a provisional homeless shelter. Seth Mydans of The International Herald Tribune writes:

Illustrating what experts say could be one of the next challenges as low- cost treatments spread around the world, the AIDS temple and a small satellite village have become, in effect, a new sort of leper colony.

"This is our new problem," said the temple's abbot, Alongkot Dikkapanyo, 53, who founded the hospice 14 years ago. "What should we do with a healthy person who is rejected by their family and can't work? This will be a big burden on society in the future."

As activists struggle to find appropriate housing for AIDS surivors, the success of earlier campaigns may be backfiring. It seems that public health campaigns have been so triumphant that it's muted the dire nature of the epidemic. Mydans continues:

Thailand's successes in both prevention and treatment have brought with them another, perhaps predictable problem: the loss of a sense of urgency that has caused a slackening of prevention campaigns and the beginnings of a rise in new infections.

In addition, experts say about 5 percent of drug recipients each year will develop a resistance and need to switch to much more expensive "second line" drug treatments, which are covered by patents and will strain the government's budget for cheap medications.

While Thai activists struggle to surmount these new obstacles, may we offer a suggestion: perhaps drug companies can stop trying to make a profit on AIDS and distribute drugs out of the goodness of their hearts. Radical, yes, but crazy enough to work...

We ask you, our beloved readers, what's your take?

In our effort to provide you with a little art, we bring you photographer Thomas Weisskopf and his recent series, "Ladyboys." After focussing his gaze on a group of Swiss soccer boys, Weisskopf headed to Bangkok to capture the transcendental beauty of Thai trannies. Of the photos, Weisskopf says:

I wanted to show the self-confidence and the fragility of these people. They walk the line; it is just a part of their self-presentation. They want to appear beautiful as long as possible, knowing that they will fade like a flower.

Unlike Nan Goldin, who also featured Thai transsexuals in her work, Weisskopf neglects snapshots, choosing instead a line of portraiture at once confrontational and inviting. Take a look for youself and let us know what you think.

"I Walk the Line" [Sleek Magazine]

It pays to be gay in British military. Or, it does if you've been booted. [365 Gay]

Finland Blames Thailand for Slutty Finnish, HIV. [Bangkok Post]

Zidane headbutt truth revealed! [UK Daily Mail]

Crist/Harris leading in Florida. Gallagher Out. [The New York Times]

If only our commute were so sexy. [The Advocate]

• We miss World of Wonder’s “Ask a Black Girl” column. But, now that we have “Ask an Asian Girl,” we’re all good. [WOW Report]

• Elephants, transvestites, and ABBA. Finally, a sport we can get into around here! [Gay.com]

• We don’t need this, since you know, we have great asses. But some of you bottoms who want a firmer bottom just might want to snatch up the Bottom Reformulator Cushion. [Gadget Universe]

• Rikers is closing its gay jail. A gay jail? We had no clue they even existed. But it sounds kinda hot. [NY Daily News]

• “Gay lawmaker expects ‘intense’ session.” Intense session? Giggle. We expect that every time we cruise Craigslist. [Southern Voice]