A man from Tacoma is under arrest after having approached a neighbor at his apartment complex at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, and asking them if he could dump a dead body in their trash.
Ahead of Sunday's 10th anniversary of 9/11, Stephen Colbert interviewed former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on tonight's Report about what he was doing when he learned of the attacks, how he got through the day, and the degree to which the tragedy changed America. You'll find all of Brokaw's responses in this video, but let's just quickly address the first one: he was in the middle of a yoga class.
On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke down yesterday's GOP debate and the media's post-showdown coverage. Many pundits predicted Rick Perry's campaign would suffer after he called Social Security a ponzi scheme. But it didn't, and Stewart explained why: "All due respect to both Romney and the citizens of Talking Headsylvania, but you're up against something you're too smart to understand." At least "President Perry" is alliterative.
You know how you know you're probably a miserable, murderous, Middle East tyrant? When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls you up and says, "Bashie? Mahmoud here. Oh, good, good. Azam and the kids are terrific! Thanks for asking. Listen, Bash, I absolutely adore your work. You know that. Great stuff. There's no one who can brutally put down an uprising like you can. Oh, stop, you flatter me. That? That was barely an uprising! That was, like, two undergrads with a Tweeter machine and a little tear gas. No, but you. You're the man. You can't see this, but I'm high-fiving you right now! Ha ha ha! No, but listen hear me out for a second here. Maybe you should think about turning down the dial a bit on this whole 'mass-murdering of your own people' thing? What? No! Not too much! Never too much. But you know how the Westerners are. They're all 'barbaric' this, 'unarmed protesters mowed down with gunboats' that. Oh crap! I'm late for my two o'clock gay hanging. Can we pick this up tomorrow? You got it. Send my love to Asma. Saw the Vogue spread. Fabulous."
Here's some disturbing video, allegedly shot in Russia some time last week, of a polar bear attacking a woman in a back alley. The bear — and how it got there remains a mystery even Damon Lindelof would be hard-pressed to explain — then flees, possibly because a horrified onlooker threw something at it. Then, shockingly, the woman stands up and walks away, her torn pants dangling around her ankles. (This image has led some anonymous online analysts to suggest she was peeing at the time of the attack, which is idiotic.) That last part makes the first part tolerable, but be warned: Seeing a bear throw a human being around like a bag of sardines is extremely disturbing. [Daily Mail]
1.4 million people in the San Diego region are currently without power, and will remain to be so until Friday. The outage appears to have originated in Arizona, according to San Diego Gas and Electric, and extends across Southern California and into Baja. What happened? SDGE still doesn't know, saying only in a tweet that a weeklong heat wave may have overloaded the system, and that the lines "appeared to fail."
In a spirited, 32-minute address that demonstrated he still has some fire left (but not so much fire that he would dare pre-empt the Republican debates or 2011 NFL kickoff), President Barack Obama called for Congress to "stop the political circus" and approve a $450 billion defibrillation of the flatlining U.S. economy.
Yes, Fashion Week doesn't technically start until the stroke of midnight, when the city will use Anna Wintour's cold magic to transform itself into a place of model parties, runway shows, and clothing presentations. But before women's wear takes over, let's give the men an equal opportunity to shine. It's only fair, right?
Finally, television is directly addressing the lesbo community. Also today: Candace Bushnell will never go away, Keira Knightley sets out to do another prestige project, and Michael Keaton has been found.
Has the AOL civil war descended into a sad, juvenile battle for WordPress admin privileges? An angry blog post was mysteriously deleted from the company's hotly contested TechCrunch blog, leaving "Page Not Found" at the top of its list of most popular posts.
Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them.
How the hell did 20,000 sensitive patient records from Stanford University's hospital end up posted to a college tutoring website for almost a year? It looks like some lazy billing company employee uploaded it themselves.
This has been a brave new week for the Ron Paul presidential campaign, as the dear old Doctor Congressman appears to be growing some hair on his chest. He's actually picking a fight with another candidate, Rick Perry. They even got into a little scuffle during the debate last night! Was Rick Perry so angry that he beat the shit out of Ron Paul during a commercial break? The inappropriately protective Ron Paul fan community is concerned.
Australopithecus sediba! Wildfire science! Real jetpacks! Persuasion methods! Solar properties Petrified forest! Heavenly metals! Anger cooperation! And Hummingbird mating techniques that drive lady hummingbirds bazonga! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your health—voodoo, doo doo, woo hoo!
In the excellent New York magazine 9/11 issue, Mark Lilla says, "The tragedy will be mourned, then trivialized, then commercialized, and then amnesia will set in." There are some tchotchkes that mourn, trivialize, and commercialize that tragedy all at once. Here is the tackiest 9/11 related crap we could find.
