Ever looked at that tranny teetering down the center median of the boulevard and asked yourself "why'd he choose to be like that for?" Well, it turns out that it may not be a choice at all, according to science, which released a statement today, by way of Australian researchers who believe they have found a possible genetic cause for male-to-female transexualism. Suck it, Nurture! The scientists of Oz believe that extra length of the androgen receptor gene may weaken testosterone signals that are sent out to various parts of the brain and body that make you do boy things like play sports and enjoy having a penis. One of the researchers told the Australian AP:

Good morning! In the midst of recovering from the Dow's freakoutpanicmeltdown ("This recession is already deeper than the 2001 downturn," intones today's Times), we have another round of layoff... horror stories. There's a "classic banking fuckup" that almost ended in a "trading floor riot," a post-9/11 husband-and-wife double-whammy, and a person who has been downsized three times in eleven months. In other words, "Last year's [company] holiday card required the removal of 13; this year it's 15."(As always, if you have a layoff story, send it to tips@gawker.com) Laid off 3 times in a year:

The Weinstein Co. has a few issues at the moment. Including—but not limited to!—the hasty departure of top executives; an ongoing struggle with Bravo over Project Runway, the company's strongest TV property; and a consistently weak outlook for Harvey Weinstein's myriad businesses. The one thing Weinstein's investors really have to look forward to is the possible success of the company's upcoming Kevin Smith/ Seth Rogen flick, Zack And Miri Make A Porno. But has the Weinstein Co. managed to screw up the film's prospects before it's even released? Last month the MPAA banned the movie's poster for being too raunchy. That was a huge red flag. The company responded by thumbing its nose with a cute little riff on the controversy, and continued on its merry way, marketing-wise. But ads for the film were still getting banned across the country. Now it seems to be sinking in that the very title of the movie could prevent it from being properly marketed and advertised, dooming it to box office failure:

Last week we offered to send you a Halloween mask free of charge. We ran through the supply pretty quickly and a number of you were left out in the cold. (Sorry about that!) For those of you who missed your chance—and provided you have access to a color printer—we've posted the masks online. So you can print them out yourselves in the event you still don't have a Halloween costume lined up. After the jump, our very special collection of seven masks, in case you feel like dressing up as Anderson Cooper, Mario Batali, Nina Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Keith Olbermann, Vikram Pandit, or Al Sharpton.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up, like Lorraine Hansberry? Or does it put on hideous clothing and affect sad little mannerisms and appear on a bargain basement reality show shot in Tyra Banks' basement starring a blonde hobo lady all gussied up and uncomfortable in fancy clothes? Well, that's what happened to eight or nine fashion wannabes who flounced their way through The CW's second episode of the tremendously silly and kinda boring fashion magazine editor competition show Stylista last night. Yeah, I watched the damn thing again. If you did too, or if you're just morbidly curious, sally forth with me after the jump for the minutes from this screechy meeting of the Sadness Club. Umm... let's see. Where to start. Oh, everyone was awful. The first competition, the Assistant's Challenge, was to go to Elle's 'style closet' (I'm convinced it was not the real one, it was tiny) and put together an ensemble for an unforgiving mannequin. The clothes had to be selected using various fancy fashion terms, like "darting" and "empire waist" and "not ugly." Pretty much the only ones to not tragically fail were sassy (read: black) front-runner Ashlie (Ashlee? Ashley? Ashleigh? Veronica? Susan? Harper's Bazaar? Destin, Florida?) and Megan, the queen bitch with the weird muddled chin. As usual, the big-breastuhted Kate embarrassed herself by sucking on some helium and then going into a "shanti! shanti! shanti!" trance and wrapping the mannequin in swatches cut from neon hot air balloons. Then she knocked the mannequin to the ground and stood awkwardly, slowly farting. I imagine. Oh and Anne Slowey was all "I think she got dressed... on craaack" and I wanted to slap her because saying something or someone is "on crack" stopped being funny about ten years ago. So Megan won the challenge and acted silly about acting bitchy—she does this thing in the solo interviews where she cocks one arm up, like this without the cigarette and it's like she practiced in the mirror how to pose while being evil—and assigned Ashlie (Tiffany? Cranberry Walnut?) to a shitty team. Back at the pad, the two titans clashed about how they don't like each other and Ashlie called Megan the devil's handmaiden and somewhere in New Orleans' Garden District Anne Rice was like "awww yeah, new book title y'all!" The other terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing that happened back at the house was that Danielle, the poor lone overweight girl in the house, was filmed eating in every scene. Like it was either a sad part of her obesity or the producers were just being really cruel. And I felt really bad—almost bad enough to pour out my rosé and turn off the TV and go to bed! Almost!—and hoped she'd do well the next day, because she seems like a sweet lady. And she did do well! The Editors Challenge was to go to a mysterious, ching-chongy, probably murderous, far East land called 'Chinatown' and find a hidden gem for white ladies who live in Danbury. You know, like a wedding shop (team fattie! Sorry), a super chinky tea shop! (TEAM LOSE, MEGAN. SUCK IT), and a spa (secret front for hookers? of course! it's Chinatown!!!!!) They had to get a story on the place plus photographs then, of course, put together a one-page layout. Everyone was fighting and bellowing at each other as they all desperately realized that literally no one in the room had any talent or ability for this whatsoever, so yelling seemed like the only option. Like kids in a bad school play. YELLING MY LINES ABOUT THINGS!!!!! LA LA LA. Then poor Gay Dude began getting hives and having a panic attack. Like a srs panic attack that left him moaning and writhing on the floor. Oddly I too was moaning and writhing on the floor at this point, mostly because I was out of wine and the store was closed. But! Both we noble spirits soldiered on and I ended up staying up to watch something more edifying (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), and Gay Dude ended up going home. He got the ol' hives-ho. hahhahahahahahaha. Team Token Sad Fattie won and I was happy. The only important thing about this show, really, is that Anne Slowey, despite being the Countess du Elle, cannot. walk. in. a. damn. pair. of. heels. She teeters and galoompfs and leans back on her haunches and like leads with her center of gravity to stay upright. It's spectacularly dumb and embarrassing for everyone involved. It's like the editor of Cat Fancy being allergic. But for some reason, Anne wanted to be on the show. Maybe it was her dream, to one day be on television. And was it realized, or did it fester like a sore, and then run? The show certainly festers like a sore and I fear I may run away from it. Or will I just explode?

Assuming Barack Obama pulls this thing off next week, we imagine we're due for a deluge of media gushing over our First Black President. No, seriously, it'll make the last two years look like a dress rehearsal. And it will all lead to a glorious crescendo of treacly nonsense by January, when Obama, secret socialist muslim god willing, is sworn in. So. That really makes it all the more ridiculous that Time editor Richard Stengel has taken to the YouTubes to ask "you" who should be named the Time Person of the Year. Every sitting President has received the dubious honor, with Bush II, Reagan, Carter, Clinton, and others all getting it the years of their elections. And they were all old white guys. So go ahead and email "NOBAMA" to Stengel and see how far it gets you if Barack wins Colorado and Nevada next week. A scant two years after naming YOU Person of the Year, Time is now just jerking YOUR chain.

• After starring with Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, Alec Baldwin said the Republican vice presidential nominee was not "someone who I wanted her hand on the nuclear button at any point." At least that's what he told David Letterman, before impersonating Palin. Video after the jump. [Extra]

[Michael Jackson, a nylon stocking stuffed with old insulation material and chicken bones somehow made animate, out trick and/or treating with his children in Los Angeles yesterday; image via Bauer-Griffin]

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson getting on the subway at Spring Street ... Kate Beckinsale smoking on the sidewalk in SoHo ... Naomi Watts shopping at Whole Foods on Houston Street ... Naomi Campbell leaving her hotel ... John Legend walking around town ... Beyonce talking on her phone at JFK ... Penn Badgley and Blake Lively under an umbrella on the set of Gossip Girl ... Christina Aguilera getting into an SUV with son Max ... Joshua Jackson on the set of Fringe ... Aretha Franklin arriving at her Midtown hotel ... The Who's Roger Daltrey going for a walk ... Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet crossing the street ... Katie Holmes coming back at her East Village apartment after a matinee performance on Broadway ... and Sarah Jessica Parker taking son James to school.

Everybody in the media fucks up once in a while. Sometimes the fallout is bad. Remember when Bloomberg accidentally ran Steve Jobs' obituary while he was still alive? Then shortly afterward they mistakenly ran an old headline about United's bankruptcy as if it was current, and temporarily destroyed the company's stock price? Both are very bad errors, but at least Bloomberg apologized for them. Which is more than you can say for Dow Jones, which handily fails to mention its own mistake that crushed GE's stock price yesterday: With 15 minutes left in the trading day yesterday, Dow Jones ran a mistaken report that (almost singlehandedly) erased the day's gains in the DJ Industrial Average:

American Express plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force, Amex chief Ken Chenault announced this morning. [AP]

New York City's gun "buyback program" is going great, you'll be happy to hear. According to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, 744 firearms were collected last weekend. One "entrepreneur" (Morgie's words, not ours) was even clever enough to collect nine guns from his friends, so he could turn them in and collect $200 a piece! Just a friendly reminder in case you've been keeping an AK-47 in the back of your closet and you're looking to make a little extra cash in advance of the holidays. [Newsday, NYP]

There was one compelling theory yesterday that the star who unwittingly slept with his half sister was Usher, whose father is secretly Ben Vereen. Zoobilee Zoinks! Today we have a TV show that might be shut down because of its star's drug habit, an athlete and an 'entertainer' who are secretly dating, and a designer who loves a roll in the money hay with rentboys. 1) "What network drama is in danger of shutting down production because its lead has come down with the "flu"? The flu is actually a really bad drug habit that needs attention now. Producers and writers have been scrambling for the past week to figure out a way to write the character out of the next few episodes so the actor/actress can get help." [CDaN] 2) "Which athlete and entertainer are dating on the sly? One of them lives with an unsuspecting spouse, the other with a steady. The couple are bound to be discovered, though. Too many people have seen at least one of the intimate texts he sends each day extolling the impact her warmer bits have on his private parts." [BlindGossip] 3) "This well-known and very established designer is coy about his sexual preference, but he really lets loose when he picks up street hustlers. He’s got a lot of money and loves to get the boys excited by throwing handfuls of bills on the bed. He gets very turned on by rolling around and having sex with his rentboy on the money. When the encounter is over, the boy peels the bills off their sticky bodies and usually goes home happy with at least $500 in his pocket." [BlindGossip]

Quelle horreur: Conde Nast is cutting the budget of all their high-class rags by 5% across the board! Five percent of payroll and 5% of every title's expense budget. And that goes for the editorial and the business sides. The Observer calculates that it will be impossible to accomplish the cuts without layoffs. One less assistant for Vogue's Anna Wintour! A slightly less long tail for Wired's Chris Anderson! And, worst of all: could this be the end of the long road to oblivion for that emasculating Wintour plaything, Men's Vogue [UPDATE: Sort of!]?

What are unemployed bankers doing to pay the bills these days? Meet Bryan Gunderson. He lost his job analyzing structured-equity investments at JPMorgan a few months ago. Now he's learning how to mix up Purple Hooters as a student at the New York Bartending School. Yes, it appears a growing number of people who, just a few months ago, were dropping thousands on bottle service at the city's clubs are the same ones who are now learning how to serve up drinks to other people.

The presidential campaign has been going on for, what, 10 years now? The sad campaign reporters are all about to collapse. Take CNN's Candy Crowley, who writes the following on a Post-It to look at as soon as her three alarms go off and she wakes up, weary and confused: "What city is she in? What time zone? What time does she have to be out of the hotel room the next morning? What day is it?" Crowley pleads with a New Republic writer (do follow that link, it's an awesome story) that she just wants. To go. To a simple. Grocery store. Please! And the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza described a harrowing scene on board Barack Obama's stinky airplane:

♦ Alex Rodriguez has already lowered the price of his Trump Park Avenue condo by $1.5 million, just a month after first putting it on the market. It's now listed for $12.5 million, although A-Rod is also willing to rent it out instead, assuming there's anyone willing to pay $50,000 a month for an unfurnished apartment. [NYP, Modlin Group]
♦ Divorce attorney Zoltan Hankovszky has sold his townhouse at 88 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights for $10.8 million. That makes it the most expensive sale ever recorded in the neighborhood. [Brownstoner]
♦ The West 9th Street townhouse once occupied by Elizabeth Jagger—she rented one of the five apartments in the building until recently—is now on the market for $7.95 million. [NYP, Corcoran]

Who will go down as one of the biggest winners of Election '08? (Not including Barack Obama, of course.) That would be Nate Silver, the obscure baseball statistician who is now the nerderrific numbers-man behind the polling data website FiveThirtyEight.com. If you can't watch a cable news show or read a newspaper or magazine without hearing or reading Silver's name, it's not your imagination. Silver was mentioned in the news 120 times during 2007. In the last seven days alone? His name has appeared in 267 major magazines, newspapers and websites. Now he just has to hope his methodology pans out—he's predicting 344 electoral votes for Obama and 193 for McCain—and he can look forward to many more hedge fund consulting gigs and a steady stream of cushy offers from cable networks.

Hope you're not planning to sell your house in the Hamptons: The average price of a home dropped 23 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, a far steeper decline than Manhattan's seven percent dip. [Crain's]

It's a big day for birthdays: Ivanka Trump turns 27 today. (Hope Jared got you something nice!) Page Six's Paula Froelich is 35. Barneys creative director Simon Doonan is 56. The most powerful literary agent in the biz, Binky Urban, is celebrating her 62nd. Fashion photographer Mario Testino is 54. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell turns 63. Billionaire financier Wesley Edens is 47 today. Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin is 19. Henry Winkler turns 63. Gavin Rossdale is 41. Actress Nia Long turns 38. Actor Kevin Pollak is 51. And Cash Cab host Ben Bailey is 38.