When it debuted in 2010, Inspire, al Qaeda's English-language magazine, drew mockery—from us and others—for its seemingly laughable mission to bring modern media packaging and splashy headlines to the world of primitive holy war. It turns out that, if initial reports about the confession of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are correct, it accomplished precisely what its proprietors hoped it would.

Do you still feel a need to fund Bret Easton Ellis's attempts to affirm his cultural relevance? You can give money to American Psycho: The Musical! with music by Duncan Sheik.

Oh you misunderstood Michael Bay: he confirms that Armageddon was perfect, he is sorry for nothing.

Earlier this month, the world was stunned to learn that The Boy in the Chanel Ski Mask, Justin Bieber, had abandoned his baby capuchin monkey, Mally, in Germany because all prior evidence had indicated that Justin Bieber would make a levelheaded and responsible mother.

A cat is being credited with foiling a burglary after scaring a would-be burglar into thinking there was another thief inside the house.

The ongoing evolution of former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic into the world's best blogger is the greatest thing going in American letters.

Many tributaries and major rivers in the midwest are forecasted to surpass major flood levels over the next week. Because of extremely heavy rainfall and snow in the last week, the surge is moving down rivers throughout the midwest. So far, three deaths associated with the flooding have been reported.

A Florida woman who celebrated her 21st birthday last week by going out with a man she met through a series of texts ended up getting carjacked by her date following a romantic walk on the beach.

By now, most high school seniors planning to attend college in the fall have selected their chosen institute of higher education. It’s an exciting time for you, Wildcats '13, and you probably have some questions about your future. Such as, who will I meet? What clubs will I join? What if my roommate only wants to stay in the room eating cold cuts and watching Moesha re-runs? Will I decide to buy a body pillow from Bed Bath and Beyond? (Yes, besides being extremely comfortable body pillows are an excellent way to block you from other people's booger walls). In an effort to get to know each other a little better before the fall rolls around, several members of Columbia University’s future class of 2017 uploaded their college application essays into a shared Google doc. That Google doc, which contains 70 essays that either answer the Columbia essay prompt or the Common app prompt, was then shared with us. And now with you.

Taking the "unpaid intern" degradation to its logical conclusion, erotic novelist Chad Leslie Peters posted an ad late last week to Craigslist seeking a "female participant" for a 30-day love affair which he plans to turn into a book.

Did you know that Maj. Sidney Freedman from M*A*S*H was once married to Diane Arbus? Rest in peace, Maj. Sidney Freedman from M*A*S*H.

Paul Kevin Curtis, the Prince superfan arrested last week on suspicion of sending ricin-tainted letters to Barack Obama and others, was released from jail today.

Starting in the fall of 2014, the renowned and famously free Cooper Union college in Manhattan will start charging tuition for the first time in over a century.

A hacker briefly shook the world today by cracking into the Associated Press' official Twitter feed and sharing this. The account was swiftly suspended as AP employees sheepishly assured everyone it was a hack.

A Colombian police officer was in the right place at the exact moment a Medellin man decided to end his life by jumping in front of an oncoming Metro train.

New York media outlets who have been daydreaming of a chance to profile Zach Klein's turn as an upstate woodsman may have their chance yet! Klein, who cofounded Vimeo and was an early employee at CollegeHumor before it was sold to IAC, purchased a plot of land upstate a few years back, dubbing it "Beaver Brook." Now he's inviting all comers to help him build a bathhouse. For a small fee.

France became the 14th country to legalize same-sex marriage today. The National Assembly had approved the measure on February 12, with 329 approving, 229 against, so this second reading was mainly viewed as a technicality. On April 12, the French senate voted to legalize gay marriage after a weeklong heated debate.

And speaking of hipsters, Jimmy Kimmel took his popular Lie Witness News segment on the road to Coachella, where he had some fun with the local fauna by asking them their thoughts on bands "so obscure that they do not exist."

Pity the suburban commuter school that goes belly-up trying to spend its way to college-football greatness, then looks to cover its bet with shady stadium-naming rights. Pity the Florida Atlantic University Owls.

What exactly made the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn proclaim Jesus "the original hipster" in its new campaign ad? A really obscure bible verse. You've probably never heard of it.