Big Brother is sort of filthy this season, it seems.

Clicking is more or less fine, except for some language like "a one-woman whore circus," but if you go over to this dlisted post you'll get the NSFW warnings on the videos attached.

Yes, I Need To Start Watching: SteveL. writes:

This season is a freak show. There has been name-calling, two women collapsing and going to the hospital, and some blow jobs. It's must-see TV.

My source for tips on the best of crap tv -- chickpea -- didn't say a word. Damnit.

Bonus! Is this the Ultimate of Hot Chicks With Douchebags Douchebag?

"I don't chase girls I replace em....yes reread...I don't chase girls I replace em...reread"

I want a Super Size Fries and large Diet Coke... yes reread... I want a Super Size Fries and a large Diet Coke... yes reread.

Thanks to steve_in_hb.

And the delightful Florida Cracker has further douchebags -- a site devoted to, uhh, Wiggaz, which I guess I'm not allowed to say, so let's use her alternate terminology of "wankstas."

Represent, yo! Bowling Green, Ohio, in da hizzouse! Fo shizzle my wizzle.

Thanks to Marcus.

Kind of related: if you haven't checked out Things White People Like, maybe you should. It's going round the Intertubes. I think it's more "heh" cute than ha-ha funny, but a lot of people seem to disagree.

And More: Another inappropriately-themed song with Star Trek footage for the video, thanks to the Conservative Gunman. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 PM | Comments (19)
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Tomorrow (Wednesday), the Supreme Court will consider the Exxon Valdez oil spill, almost 19 years after the event. The issue is punitive damages under maritime law, a somewhat specialized area of study.

ExxonMobil [which was just Exxon in those days, and later SeaRiver Maritime] afterwards spent some 2.1 billion dollars cleaning up the polluted coastline and more than 300 million in compensation for fishermen and locals affected by the catastrophe.

The company also paid out more than 900 million dollars of fines in a bid to halt criminal proceedings begun against it by the US government and the state of Alaska.

But in 1994, a jury in a civil Alaskan lawsuit ordered the Texas-based firm to pay five billion dollars in damages to some 34,000 fishermen and others whose livelihoods were decimated in Prince William Sound.

The oil giant has fought that verdict ever since and in 2006, a federal court cut the punitive damages to 2.5 billion saying the amount was more in line with legal precedent.

It should be noted that, as of August 2007 and up to today as far as I know, $2.5 billion is larger than the total of all punitive damages affirmed by federal appellate courts in American history. On the other hand, the Valdez spill was also the largest in U.S. history, so I suppose there is some symmetry there. However, this is not about the compensatory award (which Exxon has already paid), but about punishment.

I bring it up only because the Court has extended oral arguments to 90 minutes from the usual 60, and Justice Alito has recused himself because he owns ExxonMobil stock. Also, I have a family connection to the spill--it provided an endless source of oil spill- and petroleum shipping-related science projects throughout junior high and high school--which causes me to perk up when I hear Exxon or the Valdez mentioned.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:29 PM | Comments (11)
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The Left Blogosphere and Democrats on the Hill are aflutter over a statement from Senator Hutchison that is much more true than false:

Speaking about a Democratic proposal to force Iraq troop withdrawal within 120 days, Hutchison said Tuesday that such a proposal would "put a bullet right in the hearts of our troops who are there."

Hutchison had joined fellow Republican leaders to question the political motivations behind the 35th Iraq related vote in the Senate over the past year, and was trying to make the point that mandatory withdrawal on the heels of recent military success would undermine the troops.

But her choice of words made it sound like Democrats were advocating something that would kill U.S. troops, and it didn't go over well with Democratic leaders.

Hutchison's spokesman tried to walk back this language after Harry Reid shit a brick, suggesting that she meant "bullseye" rather than "bullet" as she's said in the past. But I think she is correct either way.

Telling al Qaeda that we're giving up endangers the lives our soldiers who are there now and any who remain in the long term. Both Democratic presidential candidates and Democrats in Congress have acknowledged that we will still have some presence in the region for years to come, even if we pull the troops out of the war effort. The Democratic attempt to cause a meltdown in Iraq (and blame Republicans for it) puts a gigantic bullseye on the troops and Democrats are kidding themselves if they think that an early withdrawal will not have a price in blood among U.S. soldiers. Not to mention any Iraqis who aren't down with the whole murdering their neighbors thing.

Nice job, Senator.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:10 PM | Comments (19)
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Update: Hillary all but losing it.

...

As Drew writes, we've been having some technical difficulties. However, the MSNBC debate is ongoing and it's been really bad for Clinton so far. Obama has had some unfortunate moments, too. I've been keeping track as I get some work done and a partial account of what happened (times are Pacific) is tucked into the extended entry.

FIRST THOUGHTS: Again, this is a win for Obama by default. No real fireworks occurred during the debate, certainly nothing that blunts Obama's momentum. He's ahead now and will stay that way.

Also, her ugliness during the first hour of the debate will be replayed endlessly for the next week. There's no way she's coming back in Texas and I suspect she's going to have much more of a fight in Ohio than she thought. I continue to think that we'll see her bow out on March 4th or 5th. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:18 PM | Comments (25)
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Some technical difficulties but not as bad as Hillary is having in the final debate tonight.

So long Hill, it's over.

Update from Pixy: Caught it in the act this time. Yep, it's spammers clogging up the filters and causing the hamsters to overheat. The spammers have been shot. (Or to be precise, I reconfigured the mailserver.) That should be the last of that particular problem.

Now I just have to deal with the other billion-and-one problems...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:12 PM | Comments (5)
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Slots need to be filled. Urgently.

Requires light typing, hand jobs.

Thanks to Andrew Levy.

Posted by: Ace at 03:25 PM | Comments (18)
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Customers notified via email.

Ok, not really. But it cracked me up when Blackberry did that a couple of weeks ago.

Those of you who use Hotmail already know about the problem. Now the rest of us do too.

Also massive power outages in Florida today. Could that affect the internets?

Beats me. It's been a weird internet day though.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:46 PM | Comments (10)
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Oh that is rich.

Look, it's just Maxim. But we all know jackasses like Lewis Lapham have written articles ripping the intolerance on display at, say, the Republican National Convention before the event ever took place.

Thanks to CJ.

In this guy's defense... I have to figure the rating -- two and a half stars -- as well as the critique -- the band's style and trajectory has not "left them much room for growth" -- is 99% likely to be accurate.

But then, come on. I could do that with every single movie, tv show, and book, too.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (23)
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Mohammed Mahid found guilty in a London court of organizing terrorist training camps and soliciting murder. Dubbed himself Osama bin London (that's cute!).

His followers included 4 men who were convicted of being involved in failed bomb attacks on the London public transport system on July 21, 2005.

Hamid, described in court as a “recruiter, groomer and corrupter of young Muslims” worked with Atilla Ahmet, a former spokesman for the radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri who is serving seven-year jail sentence for race hate crimes and for urging his followers to kill non-Muslims.

He's also awaiting extradition to the US on suspicion of involvement in setting up a training camp in Oregon.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:05 PM | Comments (11)
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Not for me. For you lot.

Film's casting call wants that 'inbred' look
By David M. Brown
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A movie about to be filmed in Pittsburgh is casting Gothic characters -- including an albino-like girl and deformed people -- to depict West Virginia mountain people.

"'Regular-looking" children need not apply.

That's the gist of an open casting call for paid extras for "Shelter," a horror film starring Julianne Moore that will begin shooting in Pittsburgh in March.

The casting call scheduled for Sunday invites "men and women of all races, 18 or older," to try out as extras, according to the announcement from Downtown-based Donna Belajac Casting. But the extras wanted for the West Virginia scenes evoke images of "Deliverance" and "The Hills Have Eyes."

"It's the way it was described in the script," Belajac said Monday. "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."

Belajac said the announcement was not meant to stereotype people from West Virginia. But state officials and a history professor called it "unfortunate" that such unfair views of people are being repeated.

...

The announcement -- which was sent out in a news release and posted on the casting company's Web site -- asked for people with the following attributes:

"Extraordinarily tall or short. Unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features, especially eyes."

The announcement requests "a 9-12-year-old Caucasian girl with an other-worldly look to her."

"Could be an albino or something along those lines -- she's someone who is visually different and therefore has a closer contact to the gods and to magic. 'Regular-looking' children should not attend this open call.'"

Albino? Odd-looking? Painfully thin? That "inbred" look?

Guess they're casting around their star.

No, I'm sure she's a sweet girl.

For a Ginger.

But I'm sure some of you could make some meth-money on this gig. Let's be honest, every single one of us is a deformed, head-stunted inbred hillbilly cannibal.

Posted by: Ace at 01:55 PM | Comments (47)
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