Today we claimed that South Carolina is a little bit racist, partly because of their insistence on flying the Confederate flag. This didn't sit too well with one commenter.

Did you hear? Hurricane Irene is going to slam into New York City like Lindsay Lohan slamming into the sidewalk in front of a nightclub. It's going to be horrible! But we're sure you can make it through if you prepare adequately. Here's how.

Once burned, the honey-blonde actress is headed back into the TV world. Also today: another Real World will soon make landfall, a model gets the weirdest role a model could get, and Jamie Lee Curtis is a mixed blessing.

There are states of emergency all up-and-down the East Coast.

We often give popular link-sharing site Reddit a hard time for being a hive of pale overexcitable nerds, but there is one reliably interesting section of the site: Ask Me Anything, where the famous and unknown alike take questions from random commenters. Unfortunately it was just shut down.

Beefcake brothers create beef cake cafe! Hotties to hawk hamburgers in Hingham. Mark and Donnie Wahlberg recently secured the trademarked name Wahlburgers, which is what they plan to call their 4300-square-foot restaurant in Boston's Hingham Shipyard, where they already have an Italian restaurant called Alma Nove. Well done. [Boston Herald, Wahlberg brothers at a Lakers game via Splash]

It turns out that the Obama administration was quite concerned about Matt Damon's very YouTube-able appearance at the Save Our Schools rally in Washington a few weeks ago.

Killer vaccines! Sex-crazed kids! Lower cholesterol! Sickening papayas! Laundry cancer! Healthier milk! Brain scans! Marathon beer! And fatty fat babies who need a little shove in the right direction! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your health—dishonestly!

Gagaologists will remember Lady Gaga's Vogue Hommes Japan photoshoot for two major Lady Gaga breakthroughs: The genesis of the meat dress, and the birth of male alter-ego Jo Calderone. Now, a new reason to have Gaga's Japanese photoshoot seared in your mind forever: Test shots of Gaga bond, naked, and looking like she is about to be raped. Yeeeah published them today. (Look out for a contextually terrifying autoplay video ad.) They are somewhat disturbing. Here are a few of them.

Indiana State Rep. Phillip Hinkle, the anti-gay marriage Indiana Republican accused of offering to pay a young man he met over Craigslist for "a good time," admits that he paid the man but contends that they didn't do anything illicit — they just talked about "baseball and the view."

Arthur Phillips and Brittany Lurch (ha!) were married on August 18, and set their wedding reception for 5:30pm on August 20th. That same afternoon they walked into a Pennsylvania supermarket, filled their cart with $1,000 worth of food, and walked out without paying. What a way to start a marriage!

In your soggy Thursday media column: hurricane coverage rules the universe, commenters can sometimes write, John Podhoretz discusses cocks, the NYT op-ed section is not working class, and Jack Shafer says goodbye.

We've arrived at the penultimate installment of our effort to piss off absolutely everyone in the nation, which means we're entering the Top Ten Worst States in this gruesome nation. Will your state be found within? Let's find out.

For a whole second time in a matter of weeks, we have footage of robotic old Northeastern Rockefeller Republican Mitt Romney raising his voice, in a public forum. This is not how your governess trained you to behave, Mittens.

The Associated Press checked in with 325 charities founded in the wake of 9/11, many of which are still active. Most of them were doing nice things! But a bunch were doing ethically dubious, borderline fraudulent things, frittering away millions of benevolently bestowed dollars.

As you know because you are currently reading this blog post on your handheld device as you stand in line at Home Depot where you're purchasing plywood, duct tape, and guns (shhhh), Hurricane Irene is allegedly headed straight for New York City. Is it even worth worrying?

You hear them all the time, you read them in blind items, and your friend at the bar knows someone who knows someone who definitely used to sleep with a guy who used to sleep with Bradley Cooper. Yes, we're talking about celebrity gay rumors. But when do you think they're actually true?

For the 10th anniversary of September 11th, the Internet Archive has relaunched its collection of 3,000 videos from 20 international news stations that broadcasted 24/7 during the week of 9/11. (It was first launched back in October 2011.) A lighthearted way to spend the weekend. [via BoingBoing]

Sean Parker, immortalized in The Social Network as a hard-partying playboy, was up early this morning. Around 6 am, the former Facebook president posted a quote to his profile concerning "the deaths of our enemies." It's hard to escape the conclusion that he was referring to Steve Jobs. (Update: Parker responds to this story below.)

The relationship between "Big Labor," especially the AFL-CIO, and the Democratic party over the last few years has been painfully one-sided. Unions raise large sums of cash for Democrats in federal elections, help them whip up support for major votes, and get nothing in return. Is labor finally ready to reconsider this terrible deal? Perhaps!