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We've taken a slight break from covering Twilight news on the blog because we thought our vampire jokes might be sucking the life out of you (zing!), but the New Moon trailer aired earlier this week and posting it here became as irresistible as Bella's sweet-smelling heroin plasma. Warning: The following video contains clunky dialogue, paranormal teen angst, and more damsel-in-distress scenarios than you could shake a wooden stake at.



Some of the players may have changed, but it looks as though Bella's role as the defenseless female who is both abused and protected by males has remained the same. Also, the werewolf looks cheesy.

"I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile." So said NPR's PJ O'Rourke on NPR's Morning Edition earlier today. According to O'Rourke, feminists are to blame for the auto industry's decline because at some point in the 70s we stopped putting out in the backseats of cars and starting going to work instead. WTF, PJ?

Now, before you get your unisex underwear in a twist, I realize that PJ O'Rourke is a humorist (I do listen to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! after all). His next sentence was "I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism — or commies." So yeah, he's kidding -- somewhat. But he's still getting laughs at feminism's expense, and I personally don't think that he is 100% joking here. Let's discuss it further, shall we?

Did anyone else see that a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer film is being made, but that Joss Whedon won't be involved? WTF is the point of that?

Without Whedon, won't the film just be a remake of the decidedly less kick-ass1992 original? WHY MUST HOLLYWOOD SUCK THE LIFE (and feminism) OUT OF EVERYTHING GOOD?!?

I almost don’t want to give the New York Times the pageviews it was obviously courting in publishing Ross Douthat’s stunningly underthought and journalistically sloppy column “Liberated and Unhappy.” But those of you who’ve read Beth Skwarecki’s article “Mad Science: Deconstructing Bunk Reporting in 5 Easy Steps” will immediately recognize the tricks Douthat uses in his “analysis” of the supposed link between the gains of feminism and the sad, benighted women it’s left in its wake.

The 2007 study on which Douthat hangs today's column is called  “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” and was authored by two economists from The Wharton School of Business; reading it, it seems fair to say that, like many an interesting study, it makes a sweeping hypothesis — “By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s declining relative happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men” — and then spends much of the following 44 pages explaining that it’s not actually that simple, and exploring the many variables that may contribute to this decline. For instance, the social pressure on women of the 1960s and ‘70s to put on a happy face (even one that was chemically induced) is very likely a factor in the study’s self-reporting; so is the probability that, as revealed in a study by another economist published around the same time as “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” men have over the past several decades cut back on activities they don’t like and, as a result, have more true leisure time; women —whose leisure time, particularly if they have families, is not their own—have less.

Last week, at a panel session during the Seventh Circuit Bar Association in Indianapolis, a couple of judges aired a grievance regarding women in the courtroom. Their complaint? Lady lawyers are dressing too damn sexy!

Discussion of this all-important issue included the thought by Chief Judge Michael McCluskey that some women come to court wearing "skirts so short that there's no way they can sit down and blouses so short there's no way the judges wouldn't look," and Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar's belief that female lawyers' clothing is “a huge problem.” He said sometimes he wishes he could tell the female lawyer before him, "I'd really like to pay attention to your argument." But he can't, you know, because her boobs are too distracting.

What's next? Keeping women out of the courtroom entirely because some of the male judges can't handle their pretty hair or nice eyes? More of a discussion (if you randy readers can handle it!) after the jump.

Americans love our fast food, and you know what we like most about it? It's not the trans fats, or the corporatization of farming, or even the ridiculous amount of waste the packaging generates (so if you guessed one of those, you're out of luck). Nope, our favorite thing about our favorite type of food is... offensive commercials! If it weren't, then why would EVERY f*ing fast food chain in the country advertise its plastic-y foods with a ridiculously offensive ad campaign?

So, in honor of America's apparent love of offensive fast food commercials, we're having (wait for it...) AN OFFENSIVE FAST FOOD COMMERCIAL SHOWDOWN! The contestants for this showdown include a date-rapey toaster oven, a Warrant-loving park pervert, and a booty-shaking creeper in a king mask. Four ads enter, one ad leaves! Which will reign supreme as the most offensive fast food commercial? YOU MAKE THE CALL! (Oh, and warning: These ads contain ads)

Our first contestant is an ad for Jack-in-the-Box smoothies:



I'm sorry, did that man in the bobble head just call menopausal women "street rat crazy"? WTF? More, after the jump!

(WARNING: Video contains graphic images)

I think it's great that the British kids who came up with the concept for the above video were committed to a teen pregnancy PSA that wasn't preachy.

Too bad the end result is problematic for other reasons.