Stephen Colbert Has Seen the Greatness of America and It is a Dude Popping Wheelies in the Lincoln Tunnel

Matt Toder · 04/05/12 11:09PM

On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert told a personal story that elucidated everything that is right with America: on his way into work this morning, he captured a dude popping wheelies on his motor bike while driving through the Lincoln Tunnel. It's an amazing personal testament to all that is right with our fair nation and all that is dangerous about driving while shooting video with your iPhone.

Jon Stewart Asks President Obama to Cool It with All the Emails

Matt Toder · 04/05/12 10:36PM

Jon Stewart gets a lot of emails from President Obama, as many people do, and he's kind of had it with them. As explained on tonight's Daily Show, everything is wrong with them and the overly friendly subject lines and the constant asking for money can snowball kind of quickly into something else entirely.

Checking in with Charles Manson

Caity Weaver · 04/05/12 08:19PM

What's new with notorious mass murderer Charles Manson? Not much. He's 77 now. Still in prison. The California department of Corrections has released an updated mugshot in advance of his 12th parole hearing next week. He probably won't attend (hasn't gone to one since 1997) and he certainly won't get parole.

Let's Discuss the Gay Classics

Rich Juzwiak · 04/05/12 05:41PM

When I watched Making the Boys, the documentary about Mart Crowley's seminal gay play Boys in the Band and its film adaptation, from which the clip above was pulled, I was a little horrified to see Christian Siriano conflating his ignorance with cuteness. (I'll concede that getting goofy could be his way of dealing with embarrassment, and it seems very gotcha of director Crayton Robey to spring this question without checking first if this small, smirking haircut of a human was familiar with the subject of his doc.) Regardless, don't do this. Don't neglect the work that helped facilitate the increasing levels of public acceptance you experience, and don't act like it's funny when you do. Don't be a Christian.

Magazine Founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson Now Publishing Rage Comics

Max Read · 04/05/12 04:46PM

In 1857, in the midst of the greatest political strife a young nation had yet known, a group of prominent intellectuals and activists — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others — gathered together to create a New England literary magazine: The Atlantic. For more than a century, it was a leading voice for progressive causes, from abolition to civil rights, and a platform for some of the country's greatest literary voices. Today, it published a rage comic. "Props on the rage comic, Atlantic!" writes Newsweek.

"Operation: Game Over" Purges 3,500 Sex Offenders From Online Gaming Sites

Jessica Benjestorf · 04/05/12 04:05PM

"Operation: Game Over"—an initiative undertaken by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman—recently purged over 3,500 registered sex offenders from online gaming sites. Sexual predators are using voice and text chat functions on the interactive games to troll for victims. One 19-year old Monroe county man pled guilty to sexual abuse charges after luring a 12-year old boy to his apartment; they met on XBox Live. The initiative was backed with widespread support from the gaming industry, with Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive Media Group, Warner Brothers and Sony participating in the plan.

Did Mary-Kate and Ashley Just Ditch Their Copies of Tyra Banks' Book at a Used Bookstore?

Max Read · 04/05/12 03:56PM

"We seem to have gotten a donation of Tyra Banks' 'fantasy novel' Modelland," New York City's famous Housing Works Bookstore writes on its Tumblr, "with one copy for Ashley Olsen and one for Mary-Kate Olsen." It's very nice of them to call it a "donation," but the fact that the books still have their Post-It dedications inside makes us wonder if they were ever even cracked open. "So excited to share my fantasy novel, Modelland, with you. I hope you enjoy it!" both notes begin. "SMIZE!" she writes to Ashley; "Stay fierce and fabulous," she advises Mary-Kate. Housing Works is selling both for $100.

How Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Descended Into Reality Television (and How Tech Is on the Same Path)

Ryan Tate · 04/05/12 03:27PM

Randi Zuckerberg has been awarded a Bravo reality show, a show that will follow young people trying to become "Silicon Valley's next great success stories." The mere existence of the program shows how the myth of golden opportunity in the Valley is, once again, far surpassing reality. But beyond that, the show's a clear signal that ridiculous, highly public interpersonal drama will continue to swirl around the Zuckerberg clan for some time to come.

He's Not Chevy, He's an Asshole: A History of Chevy Chase's Horrific Behavior

Max Read · 04/05/12 02:20PM

"When you become famous, you've got like a year or two where you act like a real asshole," Bill Murray told Tom Shales and James Miller when they interviewed him for Live from New York, their oral history of Saturday Night Live. "You can't help yourself. It happens to everybody. You've got like two years to pull it together — or it's permanent." He was talking, of course, about Chevy Chase, his opponent in a famous backstage fistfight. The two are friendly now, and it seems as though Murray wanted to imply that Chase had "pulled himself together" following his sudden rise to fame.

Today's Song: Georgia Anne Muldrow 'Best Love'

Rich Juzwiak · 04/05/12 02:15PM

L.A.-based leftfield soul singer Georgia Anne Muldrow's collaboration album with beat genius Madlib, Seeds, is so fucking good. It's a collection of terrific songs that are well said, well sung and often anchored by boom-bap breaks. (Why don't more contemporary R&B singers work with vintage-sounding break beats? It's such an easy trick and the result is a terrific unclogging of the block waveforms we've come to accept.) "Best Love" intersects disco and hip-hop, injecting both inherently political, increasingly depoliticized genres with a message...about pacifism and building wells in India. Whatever, it's good.

Business Majors Are Basically Kind of Dumb

Hamilton Nolan · 04/05/12 12:58PM

Now look, before all of you undergrad business majors get all hot under your golf shirt collars and start angrily pounding on your cubicle walls and throwing around your fraternity-branded shot glasses: this is not from me, okay? This is from "The Wall Street Journal," a newspaper that you may have heard of at some point in one of your business classes. (If you haven't, that's okay.) It's not that business majors are bad. Not at all. You're just not as sharp as the other kids.