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Like a disgustingly rich, misanthropic cancer-ridden nonagenarian clinging on his hospital bed to what few remaining brain cells haven’t atrophied, just to spite all his would-be heirs, Ron Paul’s presidential campaign just won’t freaking die already.

Apparently unfamiliar with the terms “graceful exit” or “shut the fuck up already,” Paul’s delegates turned Nevada’s Republican convention upside-down Saturday, dominating some weird party vote that opened the convention up to all state candidates. (Yes, it’s extremely confusing, and this story doesn’t really help.) They were emboldened by none other than the good doctor himself, who said in a speech that he’ll continue running as long as there’s support, which is kind of like keeping “According to Jim” on the air because five people might actually like it.

Things got downright ugly when the party chairman suddenly canceled the whole thing, resulting in “boos!” and, according to another source, screams for blood. So this whole thing should serve as fair warning to anyone who thinks McCain has the nomination sewn up, as well as anyone who thinks black teens are especially “fleet-footed”: Ron Paul is here to stay. Well, at least for a few more months. – Craig Malisow

A few Sensitive Sallies at Texas Tech have voiced their outrage over a game of “Catch the Illegal Immigrant” organized by the school’s chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas. Marshalling their collective powers of intelligence, entrepreunership and xenophobia, the kinderkonservatives made T-shirts that say “Illegal Immigrant” on the front and “Catch Me if You Can” on the back.

While this local paper vaguely describes the game as a variant of hide-and-seek, we actually checked the Official Catch the Illegal Immigrant Handbook and now provide the rules, so your school can join in on the fun!

1.) Put on the T-shirts (make sure “Illegal Immigrant” is on the front, or the point of the game will be lost on passers-by).

2.) Designate one person to be the aforementioned miscreant (ten bonus points if this person is, in fact, an illegal immigrant; five points if he’s at least brown).

We’re not sure if his platform includes looser shiv-control laws and an overhaul of the bjs-for-protection economy, but a federal prisoner in Texas has landed on the ballot for Idaho’s May 27 Democratic primary.

So this blog is about pop culture, and this post is gonna be about politics, but in my opinion, politics comes pretty close to serving as our pop culture, most of the time.

I want to write about Silda Spitzer, the wife of the ex-governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after it came out that he hired prostitutes (just a little recap for the under-a-rock crowd). I know the scandal has somewhat blown over, but Silda Spitzer’s face keeps popping up in television, looking spaced out and shocked as she stands behind her man while he apologizes and, ultimately, resigns his office.

I can’t get her out of my mind.

Do I think a man who visited a prostitute is any less capable of running a country or a state? No, not at all. I have mixed feelings about whether or not Eliot Spitzer should have resigned.

But I’m 100 percent certain that Silda Spitzer should resign him.

“It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep…”

Unless you’re a moron, you know the Clinton ad I’m talking about. And a few weeks after its debut (and a million mostly unfunny parodies on YouTube later), it’s come out that the little girl in the bed is now a soon-to-be 18-year-old who’s supporting Obama.

Does anyone else find this funny and delightfully ironic? It’s like discovering the little girl in LBJ’s infamous Daisy Ad grew up to fly fighter jets or something.

Yesterday’s GOP presidential primary was a snoozer, but it did reveal this: 143 people thought Hoa Tran would make a good president. Or at least a good Republican candidate for president.

Tran more than doubled the Harris County vote of wacko Hugh Cort, dealing a likely knockout blow to Cort’s presidential chances. (Statewide, Cort did manage to beat Tran.)

First, in December 2006, controversial Chicago alderwoman Dorothy Tillman was exposed by a community newspaper for using a taxpayer-funded development project to steer contracts to family and friends and possibly cheat the IRS. Then, in April 2007 – despite being endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – Tillman was booted from office after representing the historic black ward for more than two decades. Now, the 60-year-old Tillman has landed herself in jail.

Early yesterday morning, Tillman was arrested in her native Montgomery, Alabama and charged with criminal trespassing for tussling with local hospital administrators. Tillman says she was the victim of excessive force. She smiles in the mug shot photo – a rare picture in which she is without one of her trademark, wide-brimmed hats. “They knocked my hat off,” Tillman, referring to police, told the Chicago Tribune. “One of them put his knees on my spine and threatened to Taser me.”

So what’s up with this totally nuts video Jack Nicholson made endorsing Hillary Clinton? Granted, it’s not so weird that he would endorse her…only odd that he’s done so by creating a short video montage of some of his “greatest hits” from film history.

The problem? In most of the roles he’s borrowed from, he plays characters who have completely and totally lost their ever-loving minds. We’ve got the psychotic Joker in “Batman,” the murderin’ pop in “The Shining,” the depressed, estranged son in “Five Easy Pieces,” and the bloodthirsty Col. Jessup in “A Few Good Men.” All fine men whose presidential endorsements are, I’m sure, worth considering. Only thing I’m wondering is why he didn’t include a shot of himself as a post-lobotomy Randall P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to really send the message home?

Have a moment? Then let me take you back to the year 2000. Miss Pop Rocks was just a young lass then, fresh out of college and earnest as Hell. In my gin-and-tonic infused idealistic stupor, I fell crazy ass in love with Ralph Nader.

I ordered a Ralph Nader T-shirt. I got a Ralph Nader yard sign (despite not having a yard, so I put it on the door of my apartment instead). I went to see Ralph Nader speak at U of H. And I voted for Ralph Nader.

Ladies and gentlemen, I was a damn fool.

Out in Fort Bend County, usually a stronghold of Republicans, the polling place at Hightower High School meant a wait of about 25 minutes mid-day – if you were a Democrat. There was no wait on the Republican side because no one was there other than a lone poll worker and the precinct election judge. A lengthy winding line of people tried to get to the four or five Democratic primary machines available, while the polling machines on the Republican side stood unused.

The traffic reports keep coming in. Here's the latest batch:

"Yesterday it took me an hour to vote at the West Gray center on my lunch break. I guess you can't eat and vote."

"I just went to the Ripley center on Navigation and there is no line. I had a friend who was at West Gray at the time and she said it was insane. She actually ended up driving over to the Navigation center."

Both Kevin Whited and John Nova Lomax say downtown is where it's at.

More to come. -- Keith Plocek

Planning on early voting at the last minute? A few of our staffers hit the polls this week and brought back tales of traffic. Read below to find out where the good spots are. We’ll keep updating as more and more civic duties (ahem) are fulfilled.

“I went to the W. Gray location 2 pm Tuesday; the line looked like it would be an hour/90-minute wait. Instead I went after work to the Bayland Rec Center, near Hillcroft and Bissonet. It was about 6:15 or so and the wait was 10 minutes.”

I used to talk to Barack Obama on a regular basis back when he was a rank-and-file state legislator in Illinois and I worked for a pair of community newspapers there. I lived two blocks away from him and worked in the same building that housed his favorite barbershop.

Obama’s rise from political unknown to political icon has been astounding. In 2004, when Obama was running for U.S. Senate, I followed him on a tour of small churches on the Chicago South Side. The pews were empty, and his speeches received lukewarm applause, at best.

Last Tuesday, 19,000 people packed Houston’s Toyota Center for Obama. Many waited outside for ten hours to hear him speak for 40 minutes. You should have heard the roar when he finally hit the stage.

Obama may well make an excellent president. But he was a largely ineffective lawmaker during most of his career in the Illinois General Assembly.

6:25 p.m. And we're in. There's not quite the circus outside I would've expected, although there were some clowns from the Ron Paul campaign, no doubt talking about how their candidate isn't a racist. (Click here for a slideshow of images from the great outdoors.)

6:35 p.m. I see the college reporters in front of me in the press room are doing the “look what I got in the grab bag post.” Dammit, I was going to do that, especially while Jim Steinberg, dean of the LBJ School, is giving his kick-off speech. No offense against the dean, of course. It’s just a little early to really get going.

Looks like Republicans and Democrats alike won’t have D.A. Chuck Rosenthal to kick around any more.

Rosenthal resigned earlier today, citing several reasons in a press release, including possibly feeling a bit loopy of late due to a cocktail of prescription drugs.

“Although I have enjoyed excellent medical and pharmacological treatment,” states Rosenthal’s release, “I have come to learn that the particular combination of drugs prescribed for me in the past has caused some impairment in my judgment.”

Perhaps Rosenthal hopes this confession will explain away the revealing, embarrassing, and possibly incriminating emails that he was caught writing that contained political messages and love letters.