Had you asked me last week if the number of known pyramids in the world was likely to substantially increase anytime soon, I might have said no; how wrong I would have been. LiveScience recently reported that in the last three years "at least 35" petite pyramids have been uncovered for the first time in millennia at a single site in Sudan.
In 2008, a group of Ron Paul supporters founded RonPaul.com, a Ron Paul fan-site that became one of the leading sources for information about and support for the perennial Libertarian presidential candidate. The creators of the site "put our lives on hold and invested 5 years of hard work into Ron Paul, RonPaul.com and Ron Paul 2012." His presidential campaign fell short, but the enthusiasm lived on as supporters continued to rally around this free enterprise Messiah.
After an intense six-week training program, the only thing that stands between Aaron Alton and a $90,000 fracking job is a commercial driver's license. It's August of 2012. The job, at a natural gas drilling company, is Aaron's ticket out of Harrisburg, PA.
Here's the popular consensus: In the mid-nineties, New York City finally got tough on crime. By using the ground-breaking CompStat computer system, cracking down on misdemeanors and criminalizing social situations (like hanging out with other people in parks or hallways), as well as instituting its controversial "Stop and Frisk" strategy, crime fell. It went down a jaw-dropping 40% in three years. Bill Bratton (pictured above), its intrepid police commissioner, was hailed as an innovator and savior. The legacy of Mayor Rudolph Giulliani was forever intertwined with the "broken windows" policy, which then spread to cities worldwide. Being tough on crime meant arresting anyone (mostly poor people) for the slightest of infractions. And that's how New York City came back.
Earlier today, Mariah Carey posted almost three minutes of herself listening to herself (specifically her rendition of "O Come, All Ye Faithful") and rambling over the blaring music about celebrating Christmas in February. In the YouTube clip, she shows off a Christmas tree recently purchased in Connecticut, a roaring fire and decorations. She wishes everyone a merry Christmas and an early happy Valentine's Day. It is a festive, seasonally malapropos moment.
If you live in a city of a certain size and do not own a home, chances are that you have had to spend a not-insubstantial portion of your life scanning Craigslist and other ad services looking for a place to rent. If you are not a particularly wealthy person, chances are that you have come across a great many listings in your price range that employ the crushing phrase "kitchen privileges."
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the biannual fashion colloquium in which Maxxinistas from all over the globe gather in New York to learn which fashions are legal to wear, was thrown into chaos last night, as a storm with no name bore down on the city. With London Fashion Week scheduled to begin February 15, an event-wide postponement was off the table. It was either catwalk through the blizzard or enter grimly into a Year Without Style.
The Lisa Turtle meltdown of 2012 is still happening. Still.
Depressing information for the normal set: a new study from an economist at UC Davis has found that social mobility, while still a cool concept, is not really happening. By following the rare surnames of prosperous Swedes (prosperous Swedes wake up every morning, clad in their flaxen robes, singing "I am a prosperous Sweeeeede!"), Gregory Clark found that the names of elite families in the 18th century still make up more than their correct proportion of premium jobs. According to The Economist:
Snope. Snow kidding. There's a storm out there. But if a thousand feet of snow falls on the Northeast and you're not there to pick the right Instagram filter, did it really fall at all?
Good morning, survivors!
Welcome to the weekend. A weekend we'll all spend huddled inside, guzzling boxed wine and praying the power doesn't go out because god forbid we're without Netflix for a few hours. That is, except for Cord, who'll probably be trail running while he double fists tacos or whatever they do in Los Angeles.
You'd think Nelson Mandela, a worldly, highly decorated 94-year-old man who spent 27 years of his life in a harsh, degrading prison fighting to free his people from the shackles of injustice and colonial abuse would want absolutely nothing to do with the TLC reality show Toddlers & Tiaras.
In the day and a half since ex-cop Christopher Dorner allegedly went on a vengeful killing spree that's left three dead so far, the search for the 33-year-old former Navy reservist has reached rabid heights. Cops eager to catch Dorner have already shot at a few innocent people thinking it was their man, and police units have fanned out to towns up and down California's southern coast in a manhunt that went through the night.
