Advertising isn't just a matter of putting a picture of your product up on the screen. It's a subtle psychological process of associating your product with the most powerful and appropriate metaphor. Not just blow jobs; cum-guzzling, also. Masterful. [Copyranter]

If you're on the FBI's terrorist watch list, you can't get on a plane. You can't get 9/11 responder health benefits. But you can buy all the fucking guns your little jihadi heart desires—247 of you did last year, according to the FBI—because the NRA is out there protecting the Allah-given right of suspected terrorists to buy guns.

Alex Pettyfer's crotch tattoo says thank you, "in case I forget to say it." Blake Lively is a literal trainwreck. A Jersey Shore star is pregnant. Mariska Hargitay sues her talent agency. Thursday gossip is cocky.

This sci-fi movie star wants to tell the world he's gay, but his handlers want him to keep mum. This celeb has lost a bunch of weight because of a new drug habit. We have a feeling he won't be talking about that publicly.

Hans-Peter Feldmann (pictured, at right) won the $100,000 "Hugo Boss Prize" last year, for being a good artist. Looks like you miscalculated, Hugo: Hans-Peter is totally sticking all of your money to a wall.

Ben Stein—wacky creationist, conflict-of-interest-ridden former columnist, and slow-speaking Ferris Bueller teacher—is still in demand as a speaker, apparently, despite being provably wrong about things. But he's funny, by financial standards. Right? Yeah, too funny.

Air travel in America is becoming increasingly scary, with napping air traffic controllers, First Lady near misses, and so on. Who can we turn to in these trying times? Heh, we should be ashamed for posing such a rhetorical question. The Daily Beast caught up with the only man we need to hear from, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, to get his thoughts on the crisis gathering in America's skies. Besides the fact that Captain Sully never met a flying schedule he couldn't man up and handle, we learn that proposed cuts in the FAA's budget scare him:

The death toll from the storms and tornadoes that tore across the south yesterday has risen, with the governor of Alabama today saying that 128 people are confirmed dead there. Dozens more across the region have died.

Some newspapers are up in arms over a police union guy allegedly trying to "fix" a speeding ticket for someone — which is surely a very rare occurence in the world of law enforcement. And in a Post EXCLUSIVE, we get transcripts of a wiretapped conversation that paints a picture of what one union delegate thinks of cops: "One thing that I know about these Highway dudes is that they're all pretty much assholes, you know what I'm saying? [...] They're all dickheads." Outrageous! Next thing you know, an EXCLUSIVE wiretap will come out with someone saying that all cops have a chip on their shoulder, like flat tops and unironic moustaches, and target people who aren't white on dubious grounds.

Leaving Tony Blair and Gordon Brown off the guest list for The Most Important Wedding of All Time was pretty funny. And really, is anyone going to miss them? Doubtful. But the fact that Syria's ambassador to Britain, Sami Khiyami will attend has pissed off some members of parliament, what will the whole massacre of unarmed civilians at the hands of Khiyami's boss and assaulting cities with tanks thing going on there at the moment.

This is a diorama inspired by New York's Canal Street. It doesn't just miniaturize the street though, it also includes the underside of New York City, too—the labyrinth of subways that make the wonderful city move. [Gizmodo]

In her upcoming appearance on Ellen, Lady Gaga addresses that clip from her HBO special in which she tearfully admits in a makeup chair that she "sometimes [feels] like a loser kid in high school."

Just hours after excoriating the "carnival barkers" who corral the gullible into darkened tents for a fleeting glimpse of "Obama: The Man Raised by Kenyan Wolves," the president found himself inside another kind of sideshow entirely: The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Absent-minded meat muncher John Richardson is not in jail tonight! This is because a jury believed that Richardson maybe did not mean to take a 99-cent sausage from a grocery store without paying for it, but simply forgot to pay for it. Forgetfulness is not yet a crime, so what else could the jury do?

Paparazzi snapped what might be the royal wedding vows in the back seat of Kate Middleton's car. The visible text: "As down the...The wearing of the...With so much love within...As no more will you...And all y—" Beautiful. [Daily Mail]

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart opened with a segment about the release of President Obama's birth certificate and Donald Trump's role in forcing Obama's hand. For Stewart, there were two big losers here: Trump, for being a racist asshole; and the media, for treating something that had already (and repeatedly) been proven false as some sort of "bombshell."

You know that common recurring nightmare where you're wandering around your elementary school after hours, and you stumble into your teacher, and he's completely naked and wanting to talk to you about enlightenment? No? Maybe it's just me. Anyway — that scenario has played itself out in real life. What does it all mean?

Are you a leper? It may be because of the nine-banded armadillo, and not because you are a sinful blasphemer, as previously believed: Based on new evidence, scientists think that the armadillo carries and can spread leprosy to human populations. DNA tests have matched the leprosy strains of some U.S. patients with those of armadillos—among the only animals that carry the bacteria—and though the majority of cases in the U.S. are contracted in countries with higher instances of the disease, these tests indicate that some American patients contracted leprosy through armadillo exposure. Now: It's unlikely the diseases is transmitted through armadillo-human sex—though it's gross your mind went there immediately—as leprosy isn't sexually transmitted between humans, but Dr. Warwick Britton of the University of Sydney in Australia says that he "would not cuddle armadillos," which strikes us as both an admirable personal confession on the part of Dr. Britton, as well as advice we should all consider following. [AP]

A monstrous tornado nearly a mile wide killed fifteen people in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and "obliterated" parts of the city when it touched down on Wednesday afternoon. These videos should give you some sense of how terrifying a tornado can be.

Here's the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, aka the last Harry Potter movie ever. That noise you just heard? It was the collective scream of millions upon millions of Potter devotees worldwide, for whom July 15 can't come any faster. [via ONTD]