Rap lyrics do not equal endorsements, but that doesn't mean Nicki Minaj's apparent affection for Mitt Romney won't raise eyebrows.

Is Barack Obama finally embracing stoner comedy?

It's Labor Day. Here's a video of dogs playing basketball.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes it's basically a Tarantino movie.

Prince Harry made his first public appearance since the Las Vegas nude photo scandal. Much to everyone's disappointment, he was "fully clothed."

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong was rushed to the hospital in Europe for an undisclosed illness.

Red Bull may give you wings, but it does not give you immunity.

Hey, kids, remember Joey Buttafuoco? OK, ask your parents. Either way, the repugnant man at the center of the Amy Fisher case is finally writing the tell-all book we've been clamoring for.

During this season of Breaking Bad, the first half of the show's fifth and final, Walter and Skyler White asked her sister Marie and her DEA agent husband Hank to accept increasingly outlandish (and fraudulent) behavior wholesale. Walter had a fake breakdown in Hank's office so that he could plant a microphone in it. Skyler, meanwhile, freaked out at Marie (in the instantly meme-worthy, "Shut up!" outburst) and then went seemingly catatonic in a pool during Walter's 51st birthday dinner. A cover-up so ridiculous hasn't been devised since Walter's Season 2 "fugue state" nonsense. All these lies have been in service of making the couple appear to be socially acceptable messes, and not the outlaw messes that they actually are.

Michael Clarke Duncan died today from complications of a heart attack he suffered July 13th. He was 54.

It was bad enough that Paul Ryan compulsively lied about his marathon time, but now comes word that, among recent vice-presidential candidates who ran marathons, Ryan is only the third fastest. John Edwards posted the fastest time at three hours and thirty minutes. Impressive, if not super surprising; you don't get to be as monstrously vain and awful as him without a masochistic workout regimen. The real surprise here, though – and the one sure to sting the most to Ryan – is the report that former Alaska Governor and current reality TV matriarch Sarah Palin ran a marathon in three hours and fifty-nine minutes, a full two minutes faster than Ryan's time.

Romney's speech at the RNC received the lowest rating of any presidential candidate's convention speech since 1996.

As far as drug stashes go, the inside of a roasted chicken is not the worst idea I've heard. But, alas, it wasn't clever enough for a Nigerian mechanic attempting to smuggle $150,000 of cocaine into Lagos from Brazil. Nigerian police arrested him at the Lagos airport after discovering over five pounds of poultry-covered cocaine, all wrapped inside egg-shaped tinfoil.

Two days before the Democratic National Conventions' start, up to 3,000 protesters marched through Charlotte yesterday.

In today's New York Times, Obama family biographer Jodi Kantor writes about Obama's perfectionism and intense competitive spirit. While it's comforting to have a commander-in-chief so concerned with success, it's possible Obama takes it a little too far at times. Here are some of the more interesting factoids from Kantor's article.

A co-founder of The Pirate Bay was arrested in Cambodia last week; he faces a one year prison term in Sweden.

A U-Haul truck carrying Vice President Joe Biden's campaign equipment was stolen late Saturday night from a Westin Hotel's parking lot in Detroit. Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman, confirmed the theft.

Perhaps inspired by Kiese Laymon's excellent essay, Kanye West took to Twitter yesterday to examine some of his more controversial language, particularly "bitch" and "nigga." This, of course, comes just three weeks after he released a Kim Kardashian-inspired song called "Perfect Bitch," but still, progress is progress. Here are Mr. West's tweets, in convenient paragraph form:

Australian national hero and renowned tosser of telephones Russell Crowe got into a little kayaking trouble over the weekend. Crowe and a friend were paddling in the water near Long Island when they lost their way. After it became dark, they paddled to the nearest shore, which was in Huntington Bay – some ten miles from where they began their voyage. Eventually, a U.S. Coast Guard ship approached, and Crowe flagged it down.

82-year-old Doris Thompson has had quite the career in crime. The octogenarian burglar has a twenty page rap sheet that dates back to 1955. She has at least 25 aliases. And she's been imprisoned nine times since 1983. With a career like that, you'd think Thompson would be satisfied and ready to retire. But this week, Los Angeles police will submit evidence linking Thompson to eight recent burglaries, most of which took place in different doctors' offices.