"State officials Thursday pointed to the failure of the quality assurance office within the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Albans to detect a prisoner-artist’s addition made four years ago to the traditional state police logo. A spot on the shoulder of the cow in the state emblem was modified into a pig. An investigation has begun into how the computer program was improperly modified to insert the image, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito said." READ MORE

Michael D. Duvall, a married "family values" Orange County Republican in the California Assembly, was caught on a live mic speaking openly about a series of affairs he's had with female lobbyists in Sacramento. There is also spanking involved! You can watch this gripping local news report (my favorite part is how excited they are each time they say "SEX") or read the story in the OC Weekly, but be warned: It contains the following super-gross quote from Duvall about one of his conquests. READ MORE

Scandal in the world of British academia, as "Ruth Padel, the first woman elected Oxford's professor of poetry, has resigned following claims she tipped off journalists about allegations that her chief rival for the post, Derek Walcott, had sexually harassed students." The move comes after Padel initially denied involvement and offered vocal support for Walcott, who pulled out of the competition when the longstanding allegations reemerged shortly before the decision was to be made. This story has it all: academic infighting, accusations of sexual harassment, complaints of sexism in the response to the revelation of Padel's role in the process; Davids Mamet and Lodge are probably both staring at their keyboards right now and thinking, "Winner!" Either way, we hope Oxford picks Clive James for the post. Just because we love Clive James.

In the post below on the forthcoming auction of Bob Dylan's juvenilia, commenter "formerly it takes a lot etc." directs us to this message board, which points out that the "Little Buddy" poem is actually an old Hank Snow song, making this one of the earliest examples of Dylan's process of cultural collage. The Guardian comments, archly: "Dylan wouldn't be the first teenager to cheat on his homework, but he's almost certainly the first to find the end result so valuable. Christie's, who valued Little Buddy at £10,000, have yet to comment on the discovery that they are Snow's lyrics."