One thing that’s nice in these volatile times is that the Winklevoss identical twins–aka the Olympic rowing hunks whom Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seems to have repeatedly dunked since college–can always be relied upon to create nonstop entertainment for those riveted to their increasingly kooky lawsuit against the hot social-networking site.

(Tyler Winklevoss is pictured here and Cameron Winklevoss is below.)

This week, the latest news came from a bizarre cut-and-paste technique that allowed the Associated Press to get redacted financial details of the settlement related to a lawsuit between Facebook and the Winklevosses, in which they alleged that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them.

The method of how AP got to the numbers–getting to the “blacked-out portions by copying from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document”–was perhaps the most interesting piece of news in the hubbub.

That’s because the $3.7 billion valuation for Facebook uncovered Harry Potter-style in the court papers–although treated as new news by the blogosphere–was actually old news from a while back.

For those not paying attention, the legal document revealed that Facebook agreed to pay the Winklevoss-founded social site ConnectU $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 shares of common stock.

The worth of those shares depends on whether you are using Facebook’s “own appraisal” to set the value of the start-up at $3.7 billion or the fictional-from-the-get-go $15 billion from when Microsoft (MSFT) forked over $240 million for preferred shares in Facebook in late 2007.

(If you’re bored, you can play investigative reporter on the docs here too!)

In any case, it’s only the legal hijinks–either via rank incompetency or, more likely, creative leaking–that I want to know more about, especially since heretofore confidential information seems to keep seeping out of this case like some hole-plagued rowing shell.

Besides the invisible ink trick, there was also the “accidental” leak earlier this week by the law firm that once represented ConnectU against Facebook about how well it had scored for the Winklevosses.

In a marketing newsletter, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges bragged it had earned them the higher $65 million figure, based on the Microsoft valuation, rather than the lower Facebook one.

ConnectU fired Quinn Emanuel over the settlement–likely because the lower figure was the right one–and, presto, the new information suddenly emerges.

And last year, Zuckerberg was subjected to widespread ridicule after the Boston-based magazine 01238 got hold of all sorts of court-sealed goodies about his bad behavior while a student at Harvard University, where he created Facebook.

It just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Of course, the documents that still have not gotten leaked are the alleged “smoking gun” that shows Zuckerberg to be guilty and the Winklevii redeemed. While many on the twins’ side have persistently insinuated they exist, such proof has not surfaced as yet.

That’s why, until then, this whole legal circus remains a ship of fools.

BoomTown simply cannot resist the irresistible urge to compare the gripping quest for gold by U.S. Olympic team rowers (and, as you can see here, left to right, identical twins) Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss with their more lackluster effort to grab a piece of Facebook via a lawsuit.

In an unlikely upset in the semifinal of the men’s pairs, the hunky brothers placed second and will go on to the finals on Saturday.

Apparently, the Winklevosses actually have some magical come-from-behind in them.

Although they were sucking wind in the first part of the race yesterday, they surged in the last 500 meters of the course to the fastest time of 1:34.34, which vaulted them from fifth place of six boats.

Their overall time was 6:36:65.

Thus, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg might want to be a tiny bit scared. After all, the Winklevosses have lagged behind badly so far in their fight with him over whether the ideas and programming of their ConnectU service were stolen at Harvard University in the creation of Facebook.

At this point, the Winklevosses have essentially lost their case, but they are still arguing with Facebook over the confusing valuation of the hot social- networking site (much as Facebook employees are!).

While I doubt they can pull off a Hail Mary with regard to Facebook, let’s all keep our fingers crossed that they can grab a pair of well-deserved medals this Saturday.

Also, here is a link to an pre-Olympic video interview with Cameron Winklevoss and one with Tyler Winklevoss on row2k.com (they are unembeddable…grrrr).

They lost.

In court, I mean, not in rowing!

But I am sad to say BoomTown is deeply uninterested in the long-running legal struggle between Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the hot social-networking site and the group affiliated with ConnectU–heretofore referred to by BoomTown as NotFacebook.

Namely the Winklevoss brothers, Cameron and Tyler (and also another guy, not a Winklevoss), who are world-class rowers.

Without going into the gory details, they settled a lawsuit in February that centered on how Facebook was founded and whether or not Zuckerberg stole code to create it while an undergrad at Harvard University.

And then the Winklevosses claimed that that settlement in the endless legal battle should be voided because of fraud and reopened.

The ConnectU side claimed that it had found some “smoking” gun instant messages that proved their case.

Whatever.

The federal judge in San Jose decided to let Facebook enforce the settlement anyway (but, because there are lawyers involved, there will probably be yet another bite at the apple).

In any case, BoomTown fully enjoyed the take-no-prisoners PR stylings of Facebook, now under uber-PR guru Elliot Schrage and, thus, we render the statement about the win here in its entirety:

We are happy that Judge Ware enforced the agreement settling our dispute with the ConnectU founders. ConnectU’s founders were represented by six lawyers and a professor at Wharton Business School when they signed the Settlement Agreement. The ConnectU founders understood the deal they made, and we are gratified that the Court rejected their false allegations of fraud. Their challenge was simply a case of ‘buyers remorse,’ as described by the Boston Court earlier this month.

We were disappointed that we had to litigate the settlement, as we believed we were caught in the middle of a fee dispute between ConnectU’s founders and its former counsel. Nevertheless, we can now consider this chapter closed and wish the Winklevoss brothers the best of luck in their future endeavors.”

As in, don’t let the door hit your Winklevii on your way out!