About 150 crocodilians were removed from a Toronto-area home last week after their owner reached out to a nearby reptile sanctuary for help with his bonkers hoarding problem, CBC News reports.

Ariel Castro.

Wildlife photographer Phil Lanoue was snapping photos in the salt marshes of Murrells Inlet — South Carolina's Seafood Capital — when he came across a scene resembling something out of a photoshop: An alligator chewing on a Croc.

Thank you, Tim Gunn, for saying it—the man can't stand crocs. Men, women, children... he doesn't accept the look on anyone. When he first modeled a pair, he said apparently exclaimed "it looks like I have a hoof!"

You know those legends about pocket Bibles stopping bullets and saving soldiers' lives? We should all abandon Jesus and worship at an altar of rubberized gardening clogs, because Crocs just saved a three-year-old boy from death by electrocution.

Crocs lost $227 million in the past two years. The bad news: Crocs still exists.

Michelle Obama has been beloved by the fashion community since the early days of the 2008 campaign, as you're probably well aware. But she's now in danger of losing a fan in Tim Gunn. It seems the First Lady made the disastrous decision to wear a pair of crocs a few weeks ago and the Project Runway host isn't having any of it. On the Bonnie Hunt Show yesterday, Gunn started off by saying he was prepared to give Michelle the benefit of the doubt just this once. "I'm trying to look at this positively," he says. "I'm trying to think she was doing a footwear experiment. And she's decided to put them aside."

A leading goal at the annual BlogHer conference is "economic empowerment" for female bloggers. For some participants, this means ample freebies; for at least one, it meant the chance to shake a company down for free shoes.

The Way We Live Now: Taxed and Spent. But high! Marijuana taxes will save California from descending into Mad Max-dom. Residents celebrated by forsaking ugly shoes. Wall Street couldn't be happier!

• A group of 21 stores on the Lower East Side are coming together to offer a weekend of discounts in honor of the (capsule) trade show that's currently underway. [Pipeline, Cut]
• Modeling rates really must falling: A Hugo Boss model has been charged for taking part in the robberies of 15 gas stations and delis. [NYP]
• Eddie Bauer will survive, after all. A private equity firm is buying the company out of bankruptcy for a whopping $284 million. [BN]
• Rihanna half-shaved her head this week. Exciting! Don't think for a moment, though, it was an original move on Rihanna's part, says an outraged Joe Zee of Elle. [People, Twitter]

Spotted at the Savoy, at Prince and Crosby, at a corner table: New Yorker scribe and pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell. Hair no longer in trademark frizz, but cut down rather short—a few curls still evident, though. Wearing shorts and... navy blue Crocs. Now that's one shoe that's 100 percent beyond the tipping point. Also! It has now been 222 days since his last blog post.

Give in and buy a pair of Crocs. It's the only way to finally kill them, says Consumed's Rob Walker. [NYT]