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lazy fucker

[Frothy Afterbirth]

DSF has to be a major contributor.


Top 5 Reasons Porn-for-Profit Is Dying

Why is the adult film business in dire straits? Sasha Grey and other stars answered The Daily Beast?s question this weekend at the porn industry?s annual convention in Las Vegas.

Every January, the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is the biggest annual gathering of the adult film industry. But the biggest is suddenly a lot smaller. The 2010 AEE convention, which ran Thursday through Sunday, had shrunk from packing two floors of the Venetian?s Sands Expo Center last year down to one floor (and that one with lots of empty space).

?The AEE show is an example of what the business faces. There are fewer fans, less foot traffic, and less companies exhibiting,? said Steve Javors, editor in chief of industry trade publication XBIZ. ?During the 2000s, porn kept expanding outward. We thought there was an insatiable appetite for porn, and there would keep being more companies and more porn stars. Now, we are finding out that is not true.?

As for the concurrent, AVN Awards?AVN being another adult industry trade publication?which the porn world bills as their Oscars, it moved from the arena-size Mandalay Bay Events Center to the few-thousand-seats theater at The Palms. AVN head Paul Fishbein sounded like he was echoing the words of Spinal Tap?s manager when he described the venue switch as not so much to a smaller space, but one more ?selective and intimate.?

So, what happened to the porn business, which had been magnificently profitable since the arrival of the VCR? The attendees at this year?s Adult Entertainment Expo gave a number of reasons for its problems.

Here are the Top 5 reasons why it is harder than ever before to make a living selling porn:

1. Piracy.
According to porn star Dana DeArmond: ?If people don?t realize it is stealing and start paying for their porn then performers are going to stop performing.?

Among the acts DeArmond performs (solo or in group sex with men and/or women) are anal sex and double penetration. ?I don?t think people are just going to do what porn stars do for free and put it on the Internet,? she said.

BS TOP - abowitz porn convention ?It is stealing, and unfortunately it is hitting the adult industry hard right now,? said Sasha Grey, the current porn It Girl.

According to XBIZ?s Javors, thanks to illegal downloading and ?Tube? sites like YouPorn, sales of porn?s most profitable product, DVDs, have taken a huge hit this past year. Javors said: ?Piracy is the biggest single factor contributing to the economic malaise we are in. How can you compete with free??

Dan O?Connell, president of Girlfriends Films, explained how his company has been among the few to claim an increase in DVD sales from 2009. ?We?ve been able to grow our DVD sales, because we have been aggressive going after piracy. In the past eight months, we have taken down 17,000 pirated videos of ours by just sending out letters warning them that we will sue.?

But Girlfriends Films is just one company that averages about five movies a month. And even Grey does not see DVDs sticking around much longer. ?I think DVDs are going to be a collectors? medium like vinyl,? she said.

2. Video on Demand Meets the Masturbating Fan
Paying online hasn?t worked out so well for porn. Unlike conventional movies, the other Hollywood has a serious Achilles? heel. ?People look at VOD as the salvation that is going to be this huge revenue generator. But it is expensive to shoot a feature,? said Pete Housley of Candid Tweet. His company sits between fans and the industry by aggregating porn stars on Twitter. His perspective: ?If you think about the costs of making a movie, and then selling it for 6 or 7 cents a minute, well, that is great for Hollywood. The problem for porn is that a guy watches 4 or 5 minutes, jerks off and is done. So, residual payouts are becoming less and less.?

AVN?s Fishbein said: ?A lot of the studios that depended on DVDs are trying to make it up through video-on-demand. That is where you have people struggling, because they haven?t figured out how to fully monetize that content.?

John Stagliano, owner of Evil Angel, one of the largest DVD distribution companies in porn said: ?We make money on VOD, just not nearly as much as comes from DVD sales. But we are making money on VOD. It isn?t the newspaper business yet.?

3. The Taboo Is Gone
?People used to be ashamed to say their girlfriends did porn. That is gone. Anyone can afford a Web site now,? said Housley.

So, Housley has developed criteria for his various feeds. For example, PornStarTweet requires that the performer has appeared in at least one DVD. Still, there are close to 500 qualified porn stars on this feed.

Mark Spiegler has been an adult talent agent for almost 20 years. His clients include some of the biggest names in the industry, like Dana DeArmond and Belladonna. But he no longer has to look for his talent: Aspiring porn stars email him in droves: ?I send away at least two girls a week who think they can do porn,? he said.

Not everyone gets sent away. Spiegler likes to tell of the email he got in 2006 from the then recently turned 18 Sasha Grey. He immediately put Grey in her debut, a John Stagliano film.

Though Spiegler no longer reps her, he nostalgically keeps Grey?s first email on his phone. This weekend, reporters on the red carpet at AVN Awards asked to see this initial email. It appeared that it wasn?t the first time he had performed this ritual. He read the email aloud like a proud father, omitting only her real name, and ended by turning the phone around to display the long, long list of all the sex acts Grey was willing to perform on camera. The reporters turned totally silent as Spiegler scrolled down the list.

?Very few people are cut out for this business. Almost all of the girls who contact me, I send away. In my entire time doing this, there has only been one person who was perfect in every way for the porn business and that is Sasha Grey.?

At that point Grey, walking the carpet, came up behind Spiegler and the two warmly greeted each other.

4. Online Gaming
One of the strangest challenges porn faces is competition from online games like World of Warcraft, though the connection may at first seem random. ?It is all entertainment that you are getting involved in the same way as porn is entertainment,? said Aiden. ?I won?t say everyone, but a lot of people in the industry play videogames. The games are competition for porn. Fans jerk off to porn and are done, but you can keep playing a game.?

Aiden (no last name, this is porn!) should know, as he is also Webmaster for his wife Belladonna?s successful site EnterBelladonna.com. As for his online gaming, his wife wants him to cut back. ?Yeah, my wife and I occasionally argue about the amount of time I spend playing.?

5. Porn Star Hookers
Why fight for the diminishing supply of work in the porn business, doing those double penetrations, when you have fans who will pay you more for basic missionary-style sex with them? It is a logic that is increasingly making sense to some porn stars as fans are able to connect ever more directly with them via Facebook and Twitter.

Few will talk about this, but one well-known veteran put it this way: ?A lot of hookers make a few movies just so they can put ?porn star? on their escort Web site. That did not used to happen and still doesn't with the top girls. But a lot has changed in the past few years. It used to be girls in porn were unattainable fantasies. But they also used to be able to work five days a week if they wanted to. Now, very few of the younger girls can get that much work.?

Perhaps the clearest sign of this efficiency was the booth at AEE occupied by the legal brothel Mustang Ranch, located over 400 miles from Vegas. The brothel is starting a porn production company using their hookers as stars. They hope to have their first release, One Night at the Mustang Ranch, out by spring. But don?t look for it on DVD. It will be Internet only.

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[Five Inch Taint]

A four-year degree doesn't have to bury college-bound students in debt.
Faced with state budget cuts and recession, some colleges and universities are stepping up their financial aid offerings.

Many of those schools are on The Princeton Review's list of 100 Best Value Colleges for 2010, four-year public and private institutions that strive for both quality and affordability.

"These schools are excelling at fulfilling the financial aid need for students, and the rigor of academics is still very high," says David Soto, director of content development for The Princeton Review, which produces the annual list. The company has partnered with USA TODAY to publish an interactive database, with detailed analysis of the schools and why they were chosen, at BestValueColleges.usatoday.com.

The Princeton Review looked at academics, costs and financial aid from about 700 campuses its editors considered the most selective out of more than 2,000 public and private four-year schools in the USA. The New York education services and test-prep company is not affiliated with Princeton University.

This year's list keeps the University of Virginia and Swarthmore College in the No. 1 spots for public and private schools, like last year. Several others on this year's list also appeared last year, including Harvard, Florida State and the University of Georgia. Some are new to the top 10, such as the University of Colorado-Boulder, Texas A&M, MIT, Virginia Tech, the University of Oklahoma, Wellesley and Wesleyan College in Georgia.

Academic ratings were based on surveys of students about class sizes and professors' accessibility, as well as student/faculty ratios and percentage of classes taught by teaching assistants. Financial aid rankings came from school-reported data and student surveys, and factored in tuition, fees, room and board.

Grants rise along with tuition

Prices have increased dramatically in the past 10 years, show data from the non-profit College Board, which tracks college costs. Tuition, fees, and room and board at four-year public schools jumped 46%, from an average of $10,440 in 1999-2000 to $15,210 last year, when adjusting for inflation. For private four-year schools, costs rose 28% in that period, from an average of $27,740 to $35,640.

But Best Value Colleges provided on average $875 more in grant money per student this year, even as their tuitions rose. Nine schools don't charge tuition.

The U.S. Department of Education gave out $18.2 billion in Pell Grants for low-income students, up from $6.2 billion in the 1999-2000 school year, data show. Next year, the government plans $129 billion in grants, loans and work-study opportunities for about 14 million students.

But even though more grant aid and student loan money is available than in the past, some states are cutting need-based grants, says Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst for the College Board. At least 36 states enacted or proposed education cuts because they faced massive, "devastating" budget deficits in this recession, says a report last year by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-profit research group in Washington, D.C.

In Arizona, for example, about $232 million was trimmed from the university system in fiscal 2009 and 2010, according to the Arizona Board of Regents. But both Arizona State and the University of Arizona remained on Princeton Review's list; Arizona universities saw a $13 million increase in state aid from 2004-05 to 2008-09, says a regents report.

Need-based aid to undergrads

At UVA, the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board was $19,112 for in-state students and $41,112 out of state.

Need-based aid to undergrads rose from $37 million in 2003-04 to $59.1 million last year, and 1,250 entering students took advantage of those funds this year, says spokeswoman Marian Anderfuren. The average undergrad got $9,673 in need-based grants and graduated with about $19,016 in debt.

"We're looking at a pretty diverse list of schools," Soto says. "These schools are exceptional, and they're giving their students the aid they need."

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Nintendo Wii Will Soon Stream Netflix


The New York Times writes that Nintendo and Netflix will announce Wednesday that streaming movies and TV episodes will soon be available on the Wii?with one or two caveats. The service will be available free to Netflix subscribers with an unlimited streaming account, but will require a free software disc to be shipped from Netflix and kept in the Wii while streaming. The Wii's hardware limitations will also rule out HD-quality streaming, though that may be a subtle nod toward a possible HD-capable Wii coming down the line. No start date was given, but given that the streaming software sits on a disc, the service could start as soon as Wednesday.

Robertson on Haiti: 'Pact to the devil'


From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Evangelical preacher Pat Robertson is at it again. On his Christian Broadcasting Network, he blamed the earthquake in Haiti on the country's "pact to the Devil" for wanting its freedom from French colonial rule.

Imagine if he had said this in October of last year:

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Rememeber that about Hurricane Katrina, Robertson said the Bible says, "the land will vomit you out" in blaming Katrina on U.S. support for abortion rights..

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And after 9/11, he said he'd predicted a terrorist attack on the U.S. after a prayer meeting.

[Expletive]

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This fucker isn't Christlike he's a fucking christendom, there is a difference, it's like People concerned for abused and misused pets compared to Peta. Or our beloved friend Amy compared to one of Pred's whores.

[cjayb]

Facebook Fugitive Arrested And Facing Porridge

* January 13, 2010
* By Tom Jowitt

An escaped prisoner who used Facebook to taunt British police over the Christmas period has been arrested

The long arm of the law has caught up with Craig "Lazie" Lynch and his infamous middle finger, after nearly four months on the run.

28 year old Lynch was finishing a seven-year sentence for aggravated burglary when he absconded from the 330-inmate Hollesley Bay open prison near Woodbridge, Suffolk, on 23 September.

Lynch first began to attract publicity just before Christmas when he began using Facebook to taunt the British police over their inability to catch him. He boasted of living the high life by eating steaks and driving like an idiot on icy roads.

He also posted pictures of himself in various situations, typically making a one finger salute to the camera. This included a picture of him wearing tinsel and cooking a Christmas turkey while swearing at the camera. He continued to taunt the police after Christmas.

Lynch's Facebook homepage attracted more than 40,000 'friends' before administrators closed it down two weeks ago. As his fame spread, t-shirts and musical YouTube tributes were apparently made in his honour.

Despite the closing of his homepage, Lynch returned to Facebook under the name ?Maximus Justice?, in which he boasted "Guess who's back?". This new homepage is thought to currently have 182 friends.

"I got a fantastic video, me watchin the London firework display surrounded by thousands of incompetent pigs. I'm even recorded asking police for directions. Let's get this show back on the road," Lynch boasted.

However it seems that the police were not sitting on their laurels and Lynch was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in Kent on Tuesday night. He appeared at Bexleyheath Magistrates? Court on Wednesday morning charged with escaping from lawful custody.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk police said: ?A Hollesley Bay prisoner who absconded on Wednesday 23 September, is back in custody. Craig Lynch, 28, was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Service in Kent last night, Tuesday 12th January.?

It appears that Lynch's recapture had nothing to do with information he revealed on his Facebook page, but was down to old fashioned police work. However, his public boasting and sharing, is possibly the biggest public evidence for Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg's assertion that people now share without thinking.

?People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," said Zuckerberg. The case of Lynch shows that this now includes fugitives sharing with those tracking them down.

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[Predator24]

Closed Door Transparancy Meeting

Joe Biden update: He meets on transparency today. But the meeting is closed
January 14, 2010 | 2:22 am

Everybody should just relax and take it easy.

Unsubstantiated rumors that Vice President Joe Biden had suddenly gone a little loopy and ordered some of his official meetings opened to at least cursory public or media attention were just that -- unsubstantiated rumors.

After a recent public sighting, fears had mounted that the one-time, long-term senator might rebel against traditional White House strictures and start acting on all the administration's oft-promised promises of government transparency and official openness running back into 2008.

But the VP's public schedule today puts all those fears to rest.

In fact, loyal Ticket readers will recall that one day last summer with no advance warning whatsoever Biden's official White House schedule changed from listing frequent "private meetings" to listing frequent meetings that are "closed press." Was this dramatic and....


...little-noticed vocabulary change a sign of internal administration turmoil? What did it really mean?

No, of course not. And, nothing.


Announcing everyone the VP meets with, including sessions with unidentified senior staff, which consume much of the vice president's listed time, and what subjects they talk about would have been a stark contrast to George W. Bush's administration, whose notoriously secretive ways drew such criticism from Democrats in Congress during eight long years of really failed policies.

Instead, in the apparent interests of bipartisanship, the Delaware Democrat has adopted much the same sort of undetailed schedule as his Republican predecessor, Dick Cheney, who was not in the Senate when Obama was only 11 years old.

In fact, today's Biden schedule highlight is a meeting with the chief of transparency for economic recovery. But, unfortunately, the transparency meeting is non-transparent, closed to the press. (See his full schedule below.) Which makes it -- what? -- secret openness? Open secrecy?


In a joint report issued early this week a league of nonprofit groups including Common Cause gave the Democratic administration high marks for its openness, although it said the work was incomplete and didn't really go into the lack of open healthcare legislative hearings televised by C-SPAN, as promised by candidate Obama.

Under the category of good but not good enough, here's another viewpoint from Tommy Christopher, including the Obama C-SPAN promise video.

Biden once described Cheney as the most dangerous VP in American history. But since Biden will only turn 68 this year, he was probably overstating in his well-known, jolly way the dangerous vice presidents that he's known whose devious backroom skills and ways earned them fame over the decades --men with household names like William King, Henry Wilson and T.A. Hendricks.

Someday, who knows, Biden's too may join them.


-- Andrew Malcolm

Here is the vice president's official schedule for today. Boldface was added in the interests of emphasis. Note especially that the vice president's meeting with the chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board is closed, meaning non-transparent.

The "pool spray" mentioned has nothing to do with aquatics. It's a coded message to media that a few select members will be allowed in to take pictures briefly -- possibly for only a few seconds -- as Biden and his guest pretend to continue their previously private conversation as if the meeting was open.

DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT, Thursday, January 14, 2010:

In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and the Economic Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. These briefings are closed press.

At 11:30 AM, the Vice President will meet with Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This meeting is closed press.

Afterwards, the President and the Vice President will have lunch in the Private Dining Room. This lunch is closed press.

At 1:00 PM, the Vice President will meet with Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi in the Roosevelt Room. There will be a pool spray at the bottom of this meeting; gather time is 1:45 PM in the Brady Briefing Room.

Then, at 2:15 PM, the Vice President will meet with Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. This meeting is closed press. ###

In the interests of transparency we admit you can click here to receive Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. You can also go to our new Facebook fan page here.

[Striker]

More at

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Mindful of soaring deficits and an anti-Wall Street mood, President Barack Obama wants a new 10-year tax on the country's largest banks to cover a projected $117 billion shortfall in the government's financial crisis bailout fund.

The president planned to propose Thursday a levy of 15 basis points, or 0.15 percent, on the liabilities of large financial institutions to make sure every dollar spent from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to rescue Wall Street firms, auto companies and mortgage holders is either repaid or paid for. Congress would have to approve the tax.

A senior administration official said the tax, which officials are calling a "financial crisis responsibility fee," would apply only to financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion. Those firms - estimated to amount to about 50 institutions - would have to pay the fee even though many did not accept any taxpayer assistance and most others already paid back their government infusions.

The official said banks could pay for the tax by tapping their generous executive bonus pools. The administration official described the plan on the condition of anonymity because it had not been officially announced.

[jchutch2]

Funniest Headline I've seen in a very long time!


Weight Watchers clinic floor collapses under dieters

The floor of a Weight Watchers clinic in Sweden collapsed beneath a group of 20 members of the weight loss programme who were gathered for a meeting.

As the dieters queued to see how many pounds they had shed, the floor beneath them in the clinic in V?xj?, in south-central Sweden, began to rumble, according to a report in The Local, Sweden's English-language newspaper.

"We suddenly heard a huge thud; we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air..."