Mark your calendars! Alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning has his first court date, 1 1/2 years after being imprisoned. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for December 16th, where his defense team will "evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government's case" against him, according to a blog post by his lawyer, David E. Coombs.
The CIA has basically lost its network of spies in Lebanon and suffered a major setback in its efforts to infiltrate Iran, all because it screwed up basic tradecraft—including communicating with spies on trackable cell phones and using the indecipherable code word "PIZZA" to denote planned meetings at a Beirut Pizza Hut.
Here's what stupid uneducated people imagine that college literature professors do: teach. Har har, stupid ignorant idiots! Here is what college literature professors actually do: write obscure papers that nobody will read. Now that's where it's at!
J.Lo was getting dirty in public with her new 20-something boytoy. Oscar de la Hoya likes it in the butt. Bethenny Frankel's cocktail may not be as pure as she thinks. Robert Wagner thought Natalie Wood was messing around the night she died. Monday's gossip lost its virginity a long time ago.
Some variety of factory-farmed meat product: it's "what's for dinner"—for the wealthy! Americans, who, on the whole, are not wealthy, are eating less meat these days, due to both high prices and the fact that edible meat products are hard to come by while dumpster diving. Big Meat companies are posting their earnings this week, and it's not looking good, according to the WSJ. They're being squeezed on all sides, like a pig in a crate.
These actresses made the ends meet with the world's oldest profession. This actress is ashamed of her old job. And this actress is running a welfare scheme. They all work hard for their money, so you better treat them right!
Say what you want about Jennifer Lopez—go ahead, we'll wait until you're done saying those things. Finished? OK, cool—but there's no denying that she can obliterate the stage at a televised event. Her relentless medley of "Until It Beats No More," "Papi," and "On The Floor" at last night's inconsequential American Music Awards took advantage of every award show performance convention ever: the ballad-as-intro, the choreographed dance breakdown, the rap cameo (by Pitbull), the gradual costume strip show. She even managed to squeeze a Fiat commercial into the middle of it.
Let's all read this one together, in unison: "We don't mean to brag, but we've been Occupying Wall Street for 227 years."- BNY Mellon, in ad that a WSJ reporter photographed at last Friday's Financial Follies, the super hilarious funny night of things that people who work in and cover finance think are hilarious. "Headquartered in New York, BNY Mellon has $25.9 trillion in assets under custody or administration and $1.2 trillion under management"
Ever since the mediapocalypse that occurred simultaneously with the overall economy-pocalypse, the magazine industry has been, shall we say, not at its best. The financially weaker magazines died off at an alarming rate; the survivors, shaky or not, assumed that they were the strong ones, destined to emerge from the hard times with renewed vigor, ready to soar to ever greater heights as the wounded economy began its healing process.
Stating that he's "appalled" by Friday's pepper-spraying of peaceful University of California-Davis protesters—an incident that sparked public outrage (and led to two three cops being placed on paid leave)—UC system president Mark Yudof has ordered an urgent review of police procedures at all 10 UC campuses. Good!
One morning not long ago, Fort Bend (Texas) District Attorney John Healey was sitting at his kitchen table and updating his to-do list: "Make pozole for office party? Check. Pay mortgage? Check. Buy dog food? Check. Indict that dude Richard for murder?... Aw, crap."
Every day, celebrities across the world are followed and photographed by the omnipresent paparazzi, often to entertaining results. Here are some of our favorite shots from the past week.
The Pakistan's Telecommunications Authority has issued a list of 1,700 words it considers "offensive and obscene," and has demanded that mobile providers begin filtering them from text messages as of Monday. The list, which contains hundreds of familiar swear words as well as some truly puzzling choices, is meant to curb SMS spamming, according the PTA, which it defines as "the transmission of harmful, fraudulent, misleading, illegal or unsolicited messages in bulk to any person without express permission of the recipient."
Who's excited for the most trample-riffic day of the shopping year? Not me. But if ever there was a match made in marketing heaven, it's Black Friday and Rebecca Black's brain-corroding earworm of a viral hit, "Friday." It's the meme that won't die, on the day that won't end (for America's retail employees, that is). Hit it, Kohl's! [via Adrants]
This is me writing the lede to a post that features a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger's DVD commentary for Total Recall. This is me telling you that Schwarzenegger's commentary is literal to the point of hilarity. This is me highlighting the great moment of the sweat running down, which gives it away. Here it is. [via Reddit]
Stephanie Madoff Mack, widow of Bernie Madoff's son Mark, has written a book — The End of Normal: A Wife's Anguish, A Widow's New Life — about losing a husband to suicide after he played a central and implicit role in the biggest financial fraud in history. (First sentence: "Every night before going to sleep, I put a fresh towel down on my side of the bed, knowing it will be drenched with perspiration by the time I bolt awake, precisely and without fail, at 3:51 in the morning." Imagine the audiobook, voiced by the author, lulling you to sleep!)
