Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is proposing massive cuts to the state's higher education system in his budget proposal, including reducing aid to colleges and universities by 50 percent. But! And this is important! Six lucky colleges and universities in the Pennsylvania higher education system, Corbett says, have an easy way of making up that difference: Open the campuses to natural gas drilling, because there's a fucking goldmine under College Green.

We often highlight the astoundingly bad emails dudes can spit out. But obviously not all guys are bad email apples. Like the fellow who asked us to deliver a special message to his girlfriend. [Jezebel]

Tonight is Steve Carell's final episode of The Office, a show few people were happy to hear was being made but somehow became a critical and popular success, largely due to Carell's go-for-broke performance.

In February, CBS abruptly announced that its correspondent Lara Logan "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" in Cairo while covering the Egyptian revolution. It was odd to make a such a strong, vague statement; it got everyone's attention, but nobody knew what it really meant.

Now that President Barack Obama's legal team went out of its way to get a copy of Obama's so-called long-form birth certificate, it's time for the birthers to eat crow, right? Not so much. It hasn't taken long for members of the "birther" movement to grab their backup plans.

Newsweek/Daily Beast celebupundit Andrew Sullivan really, really wants to see Trig Palin's birth certificate, thinks Obama should have released his earlier, and has lots of righteous things to say about how real reporters demand to see documents. Funny thing—we're trying to get documents about you, Andrew! Care to help?

The file sharing obsessives at TorrentFreak.com are convinced that Netflix is helping Americans become conscientious citizens who pay for movies rather than illegally downloading them free off BitTorrent. We are truly becoming moral titans.

In your soggy Thursday media column: a rumored bid for Variety, Penthouse's owner has a cheap IPO, Erin Burnett's going to CNN, Slate's editor likes Slate, and a Reader's Digest recipe kerfuffle.

According to science, birds that live in the city have larger brains than birds that live in the sticks. European researchers studied 82 species of birds and compared their brain sizes. From the BBC:

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld doesn't go anywhere without his traveling companion and muse Baptiste Giabiconi. Now he's reserved a very interesting honor for the comely young man: Uncle Karl has sculpted the boy in chocolate. Remember Karl, it melts in your mouth, not in your hand. We wonder what it's filled with when you bite into it!

The first debate of the 2012 Republican presidential primary season is on May 5. That's but one se'en-day away! Fox News is sponsoring, live from South Carolina. The setting has all the trappings of a lively Republican political discussion about our nation's future. But as of now, only a handful of potential candidates plan on showing. What's up with all the other losers?

This week, The New York Times Style section discovers yappy dogs. "There's a bull market in bad dogs right now," reports Bob Morris, who goes on to compile a compendium of terrible stories about rich people's obnoxious dogs. A sample:

Massachusetts, the liberal hellhole run by a Democratic governor and two Democratic legislative chambers, is the latest, most surprising state to pick a fight with public employees' unions over collective bargaining rights.

After being stabbed in the side with a butcher knife, a 58-year-old parking garage attendant in the Bronx fended off two armed attackers with an apple. The surveillance video shows two younger men threatening the attendant, who happened to be holding an apple at the time. (By color, I would guess it is a Gala. Jonagold, Fuji, and Honeycrisp are also possibilities.) As the knife-wielding assailant lunges at our frugivorous hero, he flings his snack at his attacker, then shoves the thug out the door.

Despite having cornered the market on cheap crap, Wal-Mart just isn't as popular as it used to be. Not to worry. Wal-Mart knows exactly what you animals want: deadly weapons.

Times Square has always been one of the worst parts of town. Now it's crammed with badly dressed tourists waddling along the sidewalk trying to find M&M World. Back in 1986, it was just as bad.

Facebook is very likely about to move into China. But when Facebook.cn launches, don't start friending Chinese users unless you're OK with Chinese censors peeking at all your party pics.

Last night's episode of American Dream Explosion featured our six remaining tributes, bloody and beaten but still belting on, paying homage to Carole King. And darn it if they didn't turn in a good show! Yeah, it was patchy and raggedy as all their shows are, but it was also fun and felt fueled with that kind of white-knuckle desperation that really makes these shows entertaining.

Last month, pervy American Apparel CEO Dov Charney was sued by (first one, then several more) former employees for alleged sexual harassment. As the media war over Dov's reputation raged, new facts came to light —incriminating texts, emails, and photos from his accusers—that made it seem that Dov might actually be innocent this time. But of course, Dov couldn't leave well enough alone.

GDP grew an anemic 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011. To blame: The ten million snowstorms that slowed construction and closed businesses, rising commodity prices, decreased government spending, and the failure of the American experiment in general.