Free Republic

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Officials from Jefferson Parish claim BP bused 400 cleanup workers into Grand Isle on Friday in time for a visit from President Barack Obama. The extra workers were brought in for Friday only, at a rate of $12 an hour, officials told WDSU.

You've seen them in Million-Dollar Baby, Be Cool, and Ocean's 13: stands crammed with spectators cheering for the hero. But in the movies, sometimes not even the extras are real. To cut costs, filmmakers dress up inflatable vinyl torsos to intersperse among real people in crowd scenes. Now the two startups in the market are squaring off in court. Crowd in a Box (crowdinabox.com), which holds patents issued in 2004 and 2005 for the use of inflatable humanoid figures in background scenes, is suing Inflatable Crowd for patent violation. Joe Biggins, owner of Inflatable Crowd (inflatablecrowd.com), declines to comment on...

Unemployed radio producer Karl Pilkington has become an unlikely superstar by using the new medium of podcasting for his bizarre statement about eating an animal's private parts. Pilkington plays the village idiot on The Ricky Gervais Show, with Gervais and Stephen Merchant, a hit podcast -- the new media craze of blending iPod with broadcast. The free audio or video shows on the Internet can be downloaded onto iPods and MP3 players. It was during a discussion on the Gervais show about a reality TV show, where contestants were asked to eat an animal's penis, that Pilkington made Internet history....

I've always been fascinated with actors who have to be heroes, whereas I shy away from that," Ricky Gervais, the British comedian who will star in a new HBO series, "Extras," this fall, was saying the other day. "I'm a flawed character. I'm good at that." He uses a Yiddish word for loser. If you want that sort, Mr. Gervais says, then "I'm your man. If you want John Wayne, forget it." Mr. Gervais plays an extra who considers himself a great actor. Oh? And why does he think he brings such verisimilitude to portraying losers? There's a long and...