Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who have been hard at work to repair their strained relationship, shared a tender embrace tonight after Clinton's blockbuster 49 minute, 10 second speech at the DNC.

Quasi-hippie ice cream makers Ben and Jerry's aren't thrilled with two companies that are producing a series of porn movies called "Ben and Cherry's." The Vermont-based company is suing the films' producers, Rodax Distributors and Caballero Video, saying that "the sale of hardcore and exploitive pornographic DVDs and related goods is tarnishing Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.'s name by creating an association with pornography." According to the lawsuit, Ben and Cherry's videos include the following titles:

Greetings from the Democratic National Convention in horrible Charlotte, North Carolina, where your humble correspondents were just penned like dogs with a mass of humanity while waiting for fire marshals or some such to approve our entrance. Hamilton Nolan, myself, and SPECIAL GUEST AND GAWKER EMERITA Ana Marie Cox of the Guardian are here to liveblog this magical night for you. Let's begin.

Probable compulsive liar and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan has some thoughts on prayer in public school, and those thoughts are: let the states decide! At a campaign stop in Utah, a campaign volunteer with nine children asked Ryan if "we could give back to the states the right to decide if you want prayer or pledge in the schools.''

Season three of Downton Abbey will premiere September 16th but only in the UK. Here's the trailer.

The first night of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte had many highlights. There was the "political" tribute to Ted Kennedy that shifted midway into an ethering of Romney; Ted Strickland's VERY LOUD SPEECH; a keynote speech by San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, who, according to Tucker Carlson's clown paper, is insufficiently Latino; and a Sasha-pleasing speech by Michelle Obama; plus, of course, the live blog in which John Cook was chastised for not lifting a toilet seat. All of that translated into a ratings victory for the Democrats, as night one of the DNC drew 26.2 million viewers compared to the RNC's first night audience of 22.3 million.

Most of the time when a person offers unsolicited parenting advice, it's annoying and frustrating, and you walk away none the wiser.

San Antonio Mayor and DNC keynote speaker Julian Castro is Latino. But is he Latino enough? The Daily Caller, America's paper of record for investigations into Jewish summer camps, has put its Latino expert Geoffrey Malloy on the case:

If you've not seen George "Jason Alexander" Costanza lately, perhaps you don't know that television's most famous bald man is now trying to convince the world—via a toupee? Hair plugs? Something—that he in fact has a luscious head of brown hair. As a man who has not yet had a problem with hair loss, far be it from me to tell anyone how to deal with a retreating hairline. The line I'm more concerned with is the timeline.

Meanwhile, in the same webcast, the local newsreader went on to report the death of a child, the death of a man who drove into a tree, and the fact that there will be a boat race in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri in 2013. All with the same horrible, emotionally defunct monotone.

In a 2010 letter [pdf] signed by Paul Ryan and obtained The Nation through a Freedom of Information Act request, the GOP's VP nominee — a major opponent of President Obama's healthcare reform — asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to use Affordable Care Act dollars to fund a new health center in his district.

What is wrong with fitness infomercial "after" model Paul Ryan? Not only did the Republican vice presidential candidate claim to have a run a marathon in less than three hours — a lie for which he got busted, and bodied, by Runner's World — he's also claimed to have "made close to 40 climbs of Colorado's 'Fourteeners' (14,000-foot peaks)." Which he almost certainly hasn't. (Or maybe? See update.)

The Nite Moves strip club/artists' collective in Albany made headlines Wednesday, as its owners took their argument that lap dancing qualifies as a tax-exempt "art" to the New York Court of Appeals.

Police in Melbourne, Florida, said a man wearing "Joker" makeup was picked up outside a local movie theater after a call came in about his suspicious behavior.

Picture this: You're in a public restroom stall and it's literally wall-to-wall shit stains.

Michelle Obama wore "greige" nail polish last night. Ann Romney privately notes that nail polish is for harlots.

We've been told by the financial experts for months now that the U.S. recession is officially over. That may be what the calculations say, but it certainly doesn't feel that way for the millions of Americans struggling to keep their heads above water, or their mortgages away from the financial cliff, or any of the other dozens of cliches we've created to try and keep stories about financial woes at least marginally distinguishable from one another. To wit: In June, 46.7 million people used food stamps in America. That's roughly one out of every five adults and more people than have used food stamps in the program's 50-year history.

When asked if she was nervous about leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democratic National Convention's Wednesday night proceedings, 16-year-old Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas told Politico

TOP TWO PROPS YOU NEED TO BE AN ANTI-ABORTION PROTESTER OUTSIDE THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

Animal Collective makes music like San Francisco/Cleveland/Seattle/Blaine, Missouri/Iceland/everywhere (apparently) makes weather: If you don't like a melody, wait a few bars. That's the case for their twisty ninth full-length, Centipede Hz, which is out this week. Their endlessly shifting melodies and tempos make for an exhausting experience — I was listening to this album at the gym yesterday and noticed that it only made my workout seem longer. Though psychedelic, this music is no poor man's vacation — it is demanding and unsettling. Acid is an uncomfortable drug, and so is Centipede Hz.