"Erick Erickson, editor of the blog RedState, wrote that voters should be wary of 'the liberal anti-gun former cokehead whose feminist wife hates America.'" [WP]

First, Wal-Mart tried to endear themselves to the online world with a thoroughly corporate website full of "Facts." Then, they tried a fake, secretly corporate-sponsored blog. Now, it looks like they've learned their lesson about openness and disclosure; they've started an (apparently) uncensored corporate blog that proves once and for all that free speech is nothing to be scared of, because even high-level Wal-Mart employees are just as gee-whiz predictable and goofy as you would have imagined. Evidence of the fundamental nerdiness of the corporate steamroller—and a fun quiz!—after the jump.

The Times looked into the death of DDB Chicago Creative Director Paul Tilley and found that he probably jumped from an upper floor of the Chicago Fairmont hotel to his death, and does not appear to have been brutally pushed through a window by the Scary Internet Blogs as had been feared. Though Tillet faced potentially lethal "biting" "harsh criticism" on AgencySpy.com, the Times found an anonymous friend of Tilley's who said blogs had nothing to do with his suicide:

Everyone is always talking! Or, typing! Comments and questions and jokes and things! And some of it is really great. So this is where greatness is recognized. Join me as I bestow honors upon a lucky few.

Have you ever drunk lime-flavored Bacardi? Worn Timberland boots? Made a web site? WELL STOP BITING FROM PRODIGY OF MOBB DEEP YOU FAKE ASS SHOOK ONE. HOW DARE YOU QUESTION HIS TREND SETTING? It turns out that Prodigy, the soon-to-be-jailed Queens rapper, is responsible for many of the innovations in music, clothing, and the world at large, so SHOW SOME RESPECT.

There's a new book about blogs that the blogs can't stop talking about because bloggers love books about them. But actually reading a book about blogs? Nothing could be more boring. But there are nuggets in Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web that make reading it, or the reviews of it at least, worthwhile. For one: In Eurotrash Geraldine Hayward takes bad breath to new literary heights describing her former (possibly famous!) boss.

Carrie Brownstein, member of defunct, earnest grrl-rock band Sleater-Kinney, is bloggin' for NPR. Everybody's blogging! Nerd-a-rific. (Although we often found the femband a bit cloying and shrill?) In response to the Maxim magazine/Black Crowes outrage in which Maxim reviewed their record without listening to it, Brownstein reviews albums by the White Stripes and the Shins that haven't been recorded yet. Um, everyone knows that feminists aren't really that funny, but judge for yourselves!

Dear Internet: If you really wanted to see photos of screenwriter Diablo Cody's nipples, you could've just read her old City Pages blog, where all of them came from. Honestly, people. [Defamer] (Clarification: we're bitching about EGOTASTIC, to whom we did not wish to deliver more traffic, not our friends at Defamer. Also the internet as a whole.)

The controversy over what role (if any) ad bloggers played in ad exec Paul Tilley's suicide is rising up the ranks pretty fast. Earlier today Nina Disesa, the chairman of the New York flagship office of huge ad agency McCann Erickson, left a comment on the Agency Spy blog that calls bloggers hateful failures, and their commenters "losers." This prompted AdScam's George Parker, an actual ad industry guy who takes a backseat to no one in cussing out said industry, to scoff at her, and add that "I happen to think the vast majority of the work that comes out of McCann is shit." The most incredible aspects of this controversy are, 1. The fact that nobody knows why Tilley committed suicide has not prevented a major agency executive from speculating on the cause, and 2. A major agency executive could be so tone-deaf when it comes to the blogosphere. The whole thing is getting nastier by the minute, without any real new information. Disesa's full angry comment is copied below.

Paul Tilley, executive creative director of the major ad agency DDB in Chicago, jumped to his death from a hotel window on Friday. He played a key role in many familiar ad campaigns, including "Dude, you're getting a Dell" and the "I'm Lovin' It" campaign for McDonald's. But Tilley was often criticized on industry blogs, and in the wake of his suicide, some people are calling those harsh criticisms a factor in his death. Others are arguing just as hard against that interpretation. Below, a selection of the negative comments on Agency Spy, a blog that had criticized Tilley's management skills recently (and offered "heartfelt condolences" on his death):

Meghan McCain, daughter of John and frequent blogger, did not comment directly on her father's current sex scandal, but she did write a few words of encouragement to her parents, and bemoan the state of modern politics. She followed that up with 500 pictures of herself. [McCainBlogette.com]

Journalists at the Honolulu Advertiser have adopted ruthless tactics in their dispute with the newspaper's management over pay: they will continue to report stories, but the Advertiser's blogs will not be updated for the next few days.

The George Polk awards—described by blogger Will Bunch as the "Golden Globes of American journalism"—were announced early this morning. One of them went to a blogger who blogs! Far out! An army of Davids has stormed the gates! Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo (a blog!!) won the Polk Award for Legal Reporting, for his role in exposing the US Attorneys scandal that eventually brought down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. On a blog! A blog that follows the rather traditional journalistic model of "hiring" and "paying" "reporters." Brave new world! [E&P via Attytood]

In honor of Presidents Day, our nation's greatest ever president, Richard Milhous "Dick" Nixon, started a blog! Because everyone gets a blog! It's called "The New Nixon Blog" and America's Dead President Hero "would be fascinated by the blogosphere," according to his blog, written by the staff of his presidential library. Because Nixon adored the latest technology, see, giving all his secretaries IBM Selectric IIs and also state-of-the-art audio taping equipment. Of course, we all know how much Nixon adored free speech. And cursing! Blogs have lots of cursing. The blog also will feature contributions from right-wing columnists and authors (like Hugh Hewitt), all of whom should know better than to defend Nixon, as he was not actually particularly conservative, just an amoral sociopath. Also James K. Polk is following you on Twitter and Franklin Pierce has a Tumblr. After the jump, a hilarious 1968 campaign ad from America's drug-addled criminal racist President who probably beat his wife.

Sometimes we pine for the days before celebrities became bloggers. There was a time when, if you wanted to hear something that originated in a celebrity's brain, that something had been painstakingly culled by a professional pseudo-journalist from the reams and reams of useless, insipid crap that make up the bulk of what celebrities say, do, and think. That way, celebrities could be accurately portrayed as shapely, pretty, empty shells upon which we all could project our hopes and dreams. But that was before they fucked it all up by putting their ideas onto their own blogs without any adult supervision whatsoever.

• Results 1 - 10 of about 128 for "blogger who came in from the cold". (0.36 seconds)
  

"Funny" network TBS is planning to promote its "Sex and the City" reruns with a new sex-themed blog called "The Frisky." Which, judging by some screengrabs of the (unlaunched) site a tipster sent to us, promises to be excruciatingly folksy. The plan, according to the tipster, is for the network to let the site run on its own for a while before really integrating it into the TBS marketing machine. Maybe that will give them time to get the dog sex headlines out of their system. After the jump, screengrabs of the yet-to-be-unveiled site, including their political mission statement: "I so want to bone Barack Obama."

As you know, Julia Allison, the Time Out dating columnist, is providing free advice at the Dunkin' Donuts Toast Tent in Herald Square. (Hurry!) For a young student-reporter she dispensed the following wisdom: "What goes around comes around! If you know, you're going to write down, say stuff about people, you... and you choose to write about your relationship publicly. You're going to get burned. I think it's in general a horrible idea. Aside from changing our Facebook status from single to attached, that is just about as far as you should go." (Click the thumb for the scratchy audio. Yes, the student-reporter was a Gawker spy.) The compulsive fameball forgot to mention that she knows the perils of self-publishing from personal experience. By blogging every turn of her relationship with College Humor's Jakob Lodwick, including a mention of his bipolar condition, Allison complains she's scared off her last three suitors. And it's Valentine's Day tomorrow. CLIP »

As Mr. Kissinger said in his remarks: "I don't know what a blog is. I don't know how to find a blog." His computer, he said, is used to read newspapers.

"I thought my privacy was mine, not yours," he added somewhat feebly. Powerline's John Hinderaker shrugged and shot Kissinger a lopsided smile. "You should've known better. After all, I'm a blogger." [NYT]

Divulging your corporation's proprietary information on your blog is generally a no-no, and now the bastards say you can't even hold a good virtual wet t-shirt contest starring your fellow employees. Prominent law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (phew) has heartily chastised two employees for an "inappropriate" poll on their blog Skadden Insider, rating the hottest female Skadden lawyer. Apparently it didn't jibe with Skadden's "values and standards of behavior." Luckily we are without such encumbrances, so after the jump, take our own informal poll of the steamiest female attorneys at Skadden. Naturally, the least-clad lady won the Skadden poll, but that might have been cheating. You be the judge and later today we'll see if Gawker readers have the same taste in women as do pent up white-show law associates.