Security screeners at a court in Honolulu were having a regular, run-of-the-mill day earlier this week when they noticed something unusual as they X-rayed a man's bag – an object appeared to be moving inside. When the guards asked the man, Michael Hubbard, to open his bag, he initially refused. The screeners insisted.

"Deputies told him that if he didn't open the bag, he couldn't enter and that he needed to leave immediately," said Toni Schwartz, public information officer for the Department of Public Safety.

Hubbard continued to resist and, eventually, the deputies escorted him outside. Once outside the courthouse, Hubbard finally gave up and shouted, "There's a live duck in there!"

Inside the bag, the confused deputies found an actual live duck, next to two 40 ounce bottles of beer. When informed he wasn't allowed to bring the duck or beer inside, Hubbard left, only to return once he realized he had to meet with his court officer.

The security team let him store his belongings, duck and all, at their desk while Hubbard went inside. He later returned, grabbed his beer and duck, and left without incident.

"We have no way of knowing if Hubbard was drunk since no one was able to draw blood from him to test his blood alcohol content level. However, the deputies didn't smell any alcohol on his breath," Schwartz told Hawaii News Now.

She later told the Associated Press that it wasn't uncommon for people to bring pets to court.

"A lot of people try to bring their pets to court," she said. "[But] a duck is unusual," she said. "I don't think we've come across that one before."

[Image via AP]

If you're going to rob a store in Chicago, it'd probably be smart to make sure it's not one owned by Luis Quizhpe. In the video above, you can see the 62-year-old Quizhipe absolutely wrecking shit as he successfully fends off two gunmen armed only with a baseball bat.

One gunman fired a total of 10 shots, wounding Quizhpe in the leg, while the other held a gun to Quizhpe's brother-in-law's head.

"I thought it was a toy, but what made me frightened and really made me angry was when they grabbed my brother-in-law by the neck and they were pointing the gun at him," Quizhpe, 62, said Wednesday from Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was nursing a leg wound.

"It was like the Fourth of July. Pow, pow, pow," he said. "Then he was yelling, 'Kill the (expletive)."

Quizhpe didn't realize he'd been shot until the incident was over and he was on the phone with police. "I felt something warm down my leg," he told the Chicago Tribune. "I lost about a pint of blood."

One of the alleged shooters, Cornell Mack, 53, was arrested and charged with attempted murder and armed robbery. Mack was hospitalized shortly after his arrest for a gunshot wound to the chest, reportedly fired by his still-at-large accomplice.

[Associated Press/Chicago Tribune]

The last time Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) made news for tweeting, it was just after this year's State of the Union. Those tweets, which were quickly deleted, were aimed at 24-year-old model and seemed flirtatious in nature. As it turns out, Cohen was tweeting at his secret daughter, not his secret mistress, and what seemed like a standard sex scandal instead turned into one of the more bizarre ones in recent memory.

On Wednesday, Cohen again made an ill-advised and quickly deleted tweet, though this one was aimed at an 80s pop star who, presumably, is not also Cohen's daughter.

"@cyndilauper great night,couldn't believe how hot u were.see you again next Tuesday.try a little tenderness."

That tweet, recorded and saved by Politiwoops, was up for just 21 minutes before Cohen, or someone on his staff, deleted it. As the Washington Post noted, it's not clear whether he was referring to her looks or her performance at Tuesday night's White House Memphis Soul event. "the try a little tenderness" line is apparently in reference to the Otis Redding song by the same name, which Lauper performed at the concert.

A rep for Cohen confirmed the congressman wrote the tweet himself, but declined to comment further. Cohen continued to praise Lauper on Thursday, telling his congressional colleagues from the House floor: "While there were a lot of great performers there, I want to put a particular shout out to Miss Cyndi Lauper. She's special...I would suggest to my colleagues in the other side they ought to try a little tenderness on occasion."

Sweet burn against Republicans or not, Cohen should probably stay away from Twitter, lest he make more potentially inappropriate comments or reveal any more secret family members.

[Image via AP]

A massive storm system, spanning from Maine to the Dakotas and from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, bore down on half the continental U.S. yesterday and today, unleashing tornadoes, snow and ice and killing three people on Thursday. One was killed in far eastern Mississippi, where a tornado touched down yesterday afternoon; Derek Cody, an amateur storm chaser, watched it from his car: "I kind of sat there and hoped it would cross right in front of me," he told the AP. "It was just a black mass that moved across the road." In Missouri, another tornado ripped the roofs of some houses, and a pharmacy technician in Hazelwood told USA Today he saw "'a wall of bright light' before the storm lifted products off shelves and tore holes in the roof." Nearby, a utility worker was electrocuted, and later died. The storm system's third victim was killed in Nebraska, where the dangerous weather effect wasn't a tornado but a blinding snowstorm; elsewhere in the upper midwest, states were hit hard by rain and ice. The system now moves out to the east coast, where it'll be dumping rain in the north—and maybe more tornadoes in Virginia and the Carolinas. [USAT | CBS | NBC]

Today, the French senate voted to legalize gay marriage after a week of heated debate. The bill, which won a 179-157 majority vote, will now return to the National Assembly for a second reading before expected approval in May. The second reading is seen as a technicality as the members of the National Assembly approved the move on February 12.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira said the bill would strengthen French society "by granting the simple recognition of full citizenship to homosexual couples." The French president Francois Hollande also publicly supports same-sex marriage.

Though the country is close to granting legal rights to same-sex couples, there has been a reported rapid increase in assaults against gay men and women in France over the past few months. A gay rights organization SOS Homophobie reported a 30% rise of verbal and physical attacks since 2011.

Opinion polls in the country show that between 55 percent to 60 perfect of French people approve of same-sex marriage, while about 50 perfect approve of gay couples adopting children.

France will join the twelve other countries worldwide that have legalized same-sex marriage, including Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Norway, South Africa and Uruguay, which legalized gay marriage on Wednesday. The House of Commons in the UK has approved plans to introduce gay marriage legislation, which the House of Lords must vote on shortly.

[BBC | The Huffington Post, image via AP]

A recent military intelligence briefing for members of Congress states for the first time that North Korea can launch a nuclear missile at its enemies, but there's plenty of reason for skepticism about the assessment.

Put out by the Defense Intelligence Agency and publicly disclosed yesterday by a Republican congressman during a defense budget hearing, the report states: "D.I.A. assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles." That's a hurdle the Democratic People's Republic hadn't previously cleared: making nukes small enough to actually fit on the long-range intercontinental missiles that could make them useful.

However, there are a couple of big caveats to the report:

• The next words in the report are "however the reliability will be low."
• Director of National Intelligence James Clapper "released a statement saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of the nation's intelligence community," according to the New York Times.
• The Pentagon's top spokesman, George Little, said something similar, adding: "It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage."
• There's the small problem of the missiles themselves, which don't go very far. The North Koreans still dream of a missile that could just reach the shores of Hawaii, going downhill, with a favorable tailwind.
• The DIA also told America in 2002 that Iraq "probably possesses" chemical weapons, so. Yeah.

On a completely unrelated note, recent polling suggests Americans are obsessing over North Korea news and overstating the chance of war. [NY Times, Washington Post]

[Image via AP]

Last night's especially very special episode of Glee took on the hot-button topic of school shooting. A series of gunshots put everyone in William McKinley High School in lock down. No one was actually shot, so the episode was kind of inert and lacking the sort of catharsis that would come from watching people on Glee die.

In the end, it turned out that Becky did it. Becky is Glee's resident character with Down syndrome. Her reason for bringing a gun to school and accidentally discharging it in coach Sue Sylvester's office went like this:

"I was scared coach, about graduating, being out in the world with no one to protect me...I wanted to be prepared and protect myself. I need help."

And so, to protect herself from the future, the girl with Down syndrome brought a gun to school.

When police officers first became a common sight in high schools in the 1990s, school districts had presumable expectations that the law enforcement would protect students from violence. Instead, the police have found themselves mired in problems usually reserved for a constantly exasperated Vice Principal: disciplining trouble-makers, chasing after scofflaws, scolding ruffians, and tracking down truants. As a result, the number of kids sent to court has increased in school districts where police are present at schools. A criminologist at the University of Maryland and expert in school violence, Denise Gottfredson, said:

"There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety. And it increases the number of minor behavior problems that are referred to the police, pushing kids into the criminal system."

Hundreds of thousands of students are arrested or cited nationwide at school each year, with a large portion of these sent to court for minor offenses. Civil rights groups like the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund reports that black and Hispanic students and those with disabilities are disproportionally affected. Police officers in Texas schools alone write over 100,000 misdemeanor tickets each year.

At this time, many school districts are advocating for assigning police officers to schools. A recent NRA task force after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut recommended armed officers in schools as well. But judges as well as youth advocates are protesting this strategy. While the effectiveness of having police officers in schools remains uncertain, the most clear result is a dramatic rise in criminal charges against youth for relatively minor, often-nonviolent misbehavior issues. The chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, Wallace B. Jefferson, gave a speech to the legislature in March, saying: "We are criminalizing our children for nonviolent offenses."

Many of these charges at high schools involve truancy, swearing at teachers, and minor scuffles. These are issues that judges claim are better settled in a school disciplinary situation—not in court. But when police officers are present at a high school, they often take up the opportunity to solve these problems with legal recourse. One police officer stationed at E. L. Furr High School in Houston, Danny Avalos, who has made efforts in his school to discipline rather than arrest, says:

"Writing tickets is easy. We do it the hard way, talking with the kids and coaching them."

[The New York Times, image via Michael Jung/Shutterstock]

On the heels of ExxonMobil's really tough couple of weeks sopping up that grievous oil tar sands spill in suburban Arkansas, America's largest, most profitable corporation is now trying to stop a different leak: a novel attack-ad campaign from an environmental group.

Titled "Exxon Hates Your Children," the ad and website have actually been around for a few months, but they gained renewed attention when the campaign's sponsors, a group called Oil Change International*, sought to buy advertising time from several Arkansas stations to air the commercial.

No Arkansas TV stations appear to have accepted the ad, but that didn't stop Exxon from having a massive retaliatory freakout. The company reportedly leaned on station managers to reject the ad, distributing an epic five-page, point-by-point rebuttal of the commercial's "nonsensical...defamatory" script. The full document is below, but Exxon's broad strokes are worth highlighting:

• "Here at Exxon we hate your children." —Factually incorrect and cannot be substantiated...
• "We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart, we don't care because it's making us rich." —Factually incorrect and cannot be substantiated...
• "Making a fortune, destroying your kids' future. At Exxon that's what we call good business" —Factually incorrect and cannot be substantiated.

Perhaps ExxonMobil should have stopped and considered whether there might be a certain degree of reputational risk to taking the claims of an ad called "Exxon Hates Your Children" so seriously, especially when the ad is having so much trouble making the jump from YouTube to TV. But that evidently would have slowed down the oil company's spokesman in telling one local reporter: "The advertisement is offensive, nonsensical and fails to meet any basic standard of accuracy, so we requested that the TV stations reconsider airing it."

This is the public-relations equivalent of a guerrilla war: The whole point of an insurgent group's first small volley is to evoke a massive overreaction from the superpower, exposing the superpower as a dick and gaining the moral high ground. Maybe if Exxon had any previous experience in insurgent wars, they'd understand that cycle. Then again, maybe not.

*Update: Oil Change collaborated with two other groups, The Other 98% and Environmental Action, on the Exxon campaign.

After keeping relatively quiet for the past two weeks, TechCrunch founder and Silicon Valley kingmaker Mike Arrington issued an exhaustive rebuttal on his blog yesterday to his ex-girlfriend Jenn Allen's public claims that he raped and physically abused her. Arrington's pushback against Allen comes as Gawker has uncovered more detail on allegations that he assaulted another ex-girlfriend, Meghan Asha—including corroboration from Asha's friend and former partner, Julia Allison.

In the wake of Allen's online accusations against Mike Arrington earlier this month, Gawker learned that he had a spotty repuation when it comes to his treatment of women. Specifically, we reported two instances in which Arrington had been accused of violent and abusive behavior toward ex-girlfriends.

One of those instances involved a claim that Arrington had thrown his then-girlfriend Meghan Asha against a wall in 2009. After our report was published, Asha issued a vague statement through TechCrunch that did not specifically reference the Gawker report or address any of its particulars. It simply stated that "none of the claims made on [her] behalf over the past week are accurate" and that she remains friends with Arrington.

Now we can report that Asha's close friend Julia Allison has privately maintained that the incident happened as we reported it, that she "was there" when it happened, and that she won't elaborate because, she told Gawker, she is frightened of Arrington. As we previously reported, during a late-night phone call in 2009, a close friend of Asha's told the entrepreneur and former Arrington business partner Jason Calacanis that Arrington had thrown Asha against a wall. Numerous sources confirmed to us that friend was Allison, the well-known tech personality and fameball, who is a longtime friend of Asha's. Asha was a founding member of Juila Allison's tech lifestyle start-up Nonsociety.com, in 2008.

Despite Asha's statement, Allison insists in private that the incident did happen, according to a text message conversation we've obtained.

"I don't know why Meghan said it wasn't true because it WAS," Allison wrote in a text on April 9, three days after Asha released her statement. "I know because I was there. But I bet [Arrington's] threatening her."

She continued: "He abused her and many others. That isn't in question."

When asked about the text messages, Allison confirmed their authenticity but declined to elaborate. "It's not my place and it wasn't my relationship," she told Gawker. "And I don't feel safe messing with Arrington."

Arrington's rebuttal, published yesterday in the form of a letter from his attorney, Eric M. George, to Allen, does not address any of Gawker's reporting. It is limited to claims Allen has made directly via Facebook or in comments on Gawker posts. While the rebuttal doesn't categorically prove or disprove anything, Arrington's attorney provided documentary evidence that Allen had continued to communicate with Arrington—emailing photographs, offering landscaping advice, inviting him to a wedding, and soliciting start-up capital—after he allegedly raped her.

In an April 1, 2013, comment on a Gawker post, Allen claimed to have been assaulted by Arrington on March 5, 2012. George's rebuttal says that claim is provably false because Arrington was in Washington and Allen was in California at the time. George claims to have—but did not release—credit card receipts and travel records proving Arrington was in Washington on March 5. He appended a Facebook post showing Allen out with friends at a bar in San Francisco early in the morning of March 6th. (On Twitter last night, Allen revised her claim, saying the incident occurred at a San Francisco hotel on the early morning of "the first Friday of March 2012," which would have been March 2.)

The letter also includes a number of emails from Allen suggesting she kept in friendly contact with Arrington long after the alleged rape, including alluring pictures she sent him with the subject line "For You Only," and a request that he invest in her startup, Rtist.com.

In another comment on Gawker, which Arrington's lawyer attributed to Allen (it was posted under a different user name than Allen had used in the past, and we have not been able to confirm this comment's authenticity), she laid out a story about how Arrington had gone to court for "sexual harassment and/or rape while at his first law firm" but had managed to get out of it because of a "Stanford connection" with the judge. (Arrington graduated from Stanford Law before becoming a partner at prestigious Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.) The lawyer said that there was not "any truth whatsoever to any element of this fantastical story involving a rape, a trial, connections with a judge, or anything else you have suggested in your posting."

George also claims Allen has a history of deceit when it comes to her relationship with Arrington. He claims that Allen faked being pregnant with Arrington's child and having an abortion in order to get him to talk with her.

The letter demands a retraction by Monday. If she doesn't retract, "you will have left us with no choice but to proceed with legal action against you."

Arrington has not responded to Gawker's repeated requests for comment on the allegations we have reported. Allen declined to comment.

Update From Gawker Editor John Cook: Arrington has responded on his blog by posting what he purports to be texts from Allison to Asha that...dispute the story? After quoting our account, Arrington writes, "compare this to text messages that Julia Allison has sent to Meghan Asha over the last few days." He then posted the following texts:

You might call this an inadvertent admission against interest. A few points are worth emphasizing: First, Allison expresses surprise at Asha's statement, which, though it did not address any reporting specifically, vaguely dismissed "claims made on [her] behalf " as inaccurate. It is unclear why Allison would be surprised—"Did you really say that? Life is weird"—at Asha's statement if that statement accorded with Allison's view of events. It would presumably not be "weird" for Asha to issue an accurate statement.

Second, Allison describes our inquiries to her thusly: "They say Jason [Calacanis] told them that I told him years ago what happened with Mike." (Calacanis did not in fact tell us anything aside from the fact that he had a phone conversation with Allison one night at a party; others described that conversation to us as Allison telling Calacanis that Arrington had pushed Asha into a wall.) Allison's reference to "what happened with Mike" strikes us as a reference to a specific incident.

Third, Allison tells Asha that, if we were to attach her name to the story, "I will deny." The contingent nature of that statement—if it comes out, I will deny it—does not strike us as the sort of thing someone would say if they were texting a friend about a reporter who is pursuing an inaccurate story. Likewise, Allison's final query to Asha—"What should I do???"—does not strike us as the sort of question one would ask a friend if one were trying to decide whether to truthfully deny a claim about that friend being assaulted.

Allison appears to be a woman of her word. In a comment to this post, she is indeed denying any knowledge about Arrington's alleged abuse of Asha:

I have been harassed by no less than seven reporters about these incidents, including Gawker's writers, including Adrian Chen. To ALL of them I said I was not willing to comment. I NEVER witnessed any physical abuse, and I don't know why Gawker is alleging I did. I don't know what happened between Meghan Asha and Michael Arrington, and I never will.

It is never okay to abuse anyone, but it is ALSO not okay to report stories when your "evidence" is shoddy and/or made up. Gawker has "reported" stories using absolute crap before, and they have no conscience whatsoever about doing so.

I have moved away from New York, I got my life back, I am happy now, I have moved on. I told Gawker to leave me alone and leave me out of this. Why am I not surprised they didn't respect me enough to do so?

Allison's comment, which calls into question our reporting and suggests that our evidence was "shoddy and/or made up," leaves us little choice but to reveal one source of our information. We don't like to burn sources. And simply offering a blanket denial of a story we reported wouldn't normally justify such an action. But when one of our sources provides us information and then publicly attacks the reporting based on that information as "made up," there's not much we can do. Below is a screengrab of a text-message conversation reporter Adrian Chen had with Allison. When he initiated the conversation, Chen had not agreed to any restrictions on how he could use or attribute the information Allison provided. In it—immediately before Chen agreed to treat the conversation as off the record—Allison told Chen that "Arrington threw Meghan against a wall." She also told him that "he is bipolar but won't take his meds," that he was "verbally abusive for years," and that he "would kick Meghan out of the car and leave her on the side of the road in foreign countries."

And while we're all posting screengrabs of text messages, below is a screengrab of Allison telling an associate that, as we reported above, she "was there" during the alleged abuse, and that she doesn't "know why Meghan said it wasn't true because it WAS."

In a phone call with Gawker, Allison insisted that she has never witnessed any abuse by Arrington, and that she would continue to publicly deny telling Chen that Arrington had thrown Asha into a wall.

Nathaniel Rich's second novel, Odds Against Tomorrow, traces the life of Mitchell Zukor, a young mathematician obsessed with predicting apocalyptic natural disasters. After college he finds himself working for a secretive insurance firm in New York City, where his ability to predict these cataclysms becomes his job. After his predictions are realized, Zukor is proclaimed a prophet in this new world, ravaged by natural disasters.

Odds Against Tomorrow itself has a uncanny prescience to it: Many passages evoke specific imagery from Hurricane Sandy, though Nathaniel wrote the book before the hurricane struck the Eastern seaboard. But the most interesting parts of the novel imagine the world after these catastrophes-with thoughtful and often unsettling forecasts about human nature in the face of disaster.

Read an excerpt below and the reader Q&A in the discussion section of this post.

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW
Excerpt

The way other people fantasize about surprise inheritances, first-glance love, and endless white empyreal pastures, Mitchell dreamed of an erupting supervolcano that would bury North America under a foot of hot ash. He envisioned a nuclear exchange with China; a modern black plague; an asteroid tearing apart the crust of the earth, unleashing a new dark age. Such singularities didn't frighten him, he claimed; they offered freedom. They opened wormholes to a sublime realm of fantasy and chaos. Worst-case scenarios, he said, were for him games of logic. How vast a nightmare could he imagine, and to what level of precision? What was possible? What should we be afraid of?

We knew that Mitchell's "logic games" line was a bluff. Worst-case scenarios filled him with very real terror. Late in the evening he raced out of his bedroom in a panic, cheeks flushed, eyes haunted. He flipped on his desk lamp, pounded numbers into his calculator, and scrawled equations and odds ratios. It was a near-nightly ritual. The next morning we'd find him there asleep, facedown on his papers, his cheek ink stained with numbers like a prison tattoo.

None of us, to be clear, lost any sleep over Mitchell's prophecies.

We thought he was a little mad, and a little depressed, even by U. of C. standards. He may have understood numbers, but everyday life was too complex for him. We felt for him, we did-he'd had it tough from the start. His name was its own kind of worst-case scenario, a throwback to an era of midwestern Anglo-Saxon gentility. Mitchell. Who named their child Mitchell? Parents with high aspirations and antiquated ideals. From his mother, a stout, fair Missourian, he inherited a twangy Ozark accent, flat russet hair that lay on his head like straw at the bottom of a pigpen, and a loathing for Overland Park, his native suburb. His father, a Hungarian refugee who owned housing projects in east Kansas City, contributed an eccentric, brooding manner and a depressive sense of humor. At first we wondered how Mitchell had been admitted, but it soon became apparent that he was a mathematical zealot. During orientation he wore a series of gray T-shirts bearing the faces of "Legendary Statisticians" (this written in a pompous cursive): C. R. Rao, Leonardo Fibonacci, Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov. We hadn't heard of any of them. We suspected that Mitchell had silk-screened the shirts himself. If he wasn't a mathematical genius, something else was wrong with him.

Put out of your mind, if you can, all the posters and magazine photographs and T-shirts bearing Mitchell Zukor's own face. Try to imagine the great man as a college student. You would not have recognized him then. Clean-shaven, round faced, eyes dark and hooded. He was flagrantly rust belt. He looked like a swing voter. The old-fashioned crew cut, the neck reddish with razor bumps, and his retiring, timid manner gave the impression of a perversely premature descent into middle age. Had he not been assigned to our dorm, we likely wouldn't have considered him more than a curiosity, like the chairman of the college Republicans who slept in his bow tie, or the sad, skinny girl who walked around campus cradling a ragged teddy bear.

As might be expected, he was always with the computer: in the lab during the day and at his desk in the common room at night. When friends visited, he'd participate amiably enough in the conversation for a few minutes, though before long he'd retreat to his screen, scanning the Web for articles about artificial intelligence or manned space exploration or the lives of great mathematicians. I'd glance at him uneasily from time to time. Why wasn't he trying like the rest of us? His hunched back, expanding the fabric of a Peter L. Bernstein T-shirt, projected absolute indifference. Even when he was eating midnight takeout, or watching cable news, he seemed lost in the higher questions.

I came to know Mitchell casually over the years, but I can't say we had any particularly meaningful interaction until shortly before graduation. I'm referring to the Puget Sound earthquake.

When we graduated in June, the panic raised by the Puget Sound earthquake had become part of us. It was slapped across our faces like a birthmark. We were dubbed Generation Seattle. Both the best and the worst suddenly seemed possible.

Mitchell, like so much of our class after Seattle, moved to New York for a financial consulting job. We fell out of touch. I never saw him again, at least not in the flesh. I wish I could say that we'd been the best of friends, but today I consider myself lucky to have known him at what, I now realize, was a crucial stage in his development.

To tell the truth, I was as shocked as everyone else when I found out what happened to Mitchell Zukor.

Our chat with Nathaniel has concluded. Find Odds Against Tomorrow here. The author is hosting a reading at 7 PM tonight at BookCourt in Brooklyn and one at McNally Jackson on April 17 also at 7 PM.

[Photo by Hannah Welling]

What is "the case for supporting Assad," the brutal Syrian dictator whose government is indiscriminately targeting civilians in a violent, gruesome civil war? For some Syrian civilians, surely, there is a political and tribal case for supporting Assad; for his foreign allies, there is an economic and hegemonic case. And for maniac Islamophobe Daniel Pipes there is the sociopathic case:

Western governments should support the malign dictatorship of Bashar Assad.

Here is my logic for this reluctant suggestion: Evil forces pose less danger to us when they make war on each other. This (1) keeps them focused locally and (2) prevents either one from emerging victorious (and thereby posing a yet-greater danger). Western powers should guide enemies to stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong the conflict.

This is not, actually, so much a "case for Assad" as it is a case for prolonging for as long as possible a conflict that has killed over a hundred thousand people and displaced more than a million. What's the end game, here?

On the happy day when Assad and Tehran have fought the rebels and Ankara to mutual exhaustion, Western support then can go to non-Baathist and non-Islamist elements in Syria, helping them offer a moderate alternative to today's wretched choices and lead to a better future.

Okay. If this seems thin compared to the extensive reasoning backing Pipes' "support" for Assad, it may be because his end goal isn't a "better future" for Syrians so much as it is unceasing violence and death.

[NRO]

Jonathan Winters, the comedian who helped make "improv" a household term and kept audiences laughing for over half a century, died last night of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California. He was 87.

Winters' boundless font of characters, screwball facial expressions, and rapid-fire improvisational skills would eventually give rise to other entertainment heavyweights like Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, and Steve Martin, not to mention entire programs like Whose Line Is It Anyway, an improv game show whose featured test of wits, props, was essentially just an old Winters routine. Though Whose Line Is It Anyway? ran for hundreds of episodes in different iterations, it always turned out that nobody could do it as well as the original.

Winters would go on to star in dozens of film and TV roles, including turns in the Twilight Zone, Mork & Mindy—alongside his protege Williams—and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. In 1991 he won a best-supporting actor Emmy for playing Randy Quaid's father on Davis Rules, and in 1999 he was awarded the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for Humor.

Once asked how he came about his talent for conjuring characters and voices from thin air, Winters, who was born in Dayton, Ohio, noted that he was always a child who wanted many different careers:

As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things. I was a Walter Mitty type. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight.

In his nearly nine decades, Winters got to be all that and more.

[Associated Press]

Here's former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino rapping on Fox News. "Rap is such a complicated art form," she tells her co-hosts. (Protip for would-be rap parodists: rap doesn't sound very much like Sugarhill Gang anymore.)

Obviously this is sad and deeply embarrassing for her and for anyone who has the misfortune of watching it, but let's not forget that the "joke" here (the one Perino is making, not the one you're laughing it) is "LOL, black people."

Minutes before an unidentified gunman opened fire at a Virginia mall on Friday afternoon, a user of the 4chan message boards seemingly announced his plans to undertake a mass shooting, providing exact details of the location and timing of the coming spree.

"Hey /b/ it's time," he wrote at 1:52 p.m., addressing the anarchic and gleefully amoral /b/ subboard. (4chan has a high rate of turnover, and the thread has since been deleted, most likely automatically; we were provided with an archive and screenshots.)

My name is neil Macinnis and I go to new river community college in Christiansburg Virgina. 10 minutes away from Virginia tech. I'm gonna give y'all the details because the news never gets it right.

Stevens 320 shotgun.
Buck shots and slugs

Wanna listen? Www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/9365/?rl=rr. If tha doesn't work search New river valley public safety.

I'm a bit nervous because I've never really handled a shotgun but a few times with the Christiansburg police. Anyways this is not a highscores game but actually a lesson (that's why I'm at school). Wanna see my eportfolio/what I look like? Www.nrccstudents.org/macinnisn/ Make sure there is a slash at end. Also pic related I'm here at school writing this. Wish me luck. An heroing [suicide — Ed.] is not necessary unless I get fucked out the ass. It's pretty busy

New River Community College has a satellite location in the New River Valley Mall. Around three minutes after the posting, Christianburg police received a 911 call that someone with a gun was at the college site with a gun. The shooter managed to injure two women—both now in the hospital—before being taken into custody. Police have indicated that they believe the shooter, who has not been publicly identified, was acting alone.

We have reached out to Christiansburg Police, and the contact information on Neil MacInnis' website, and will update when we hear back.

Update: Authorities have identified the shooter as Neil MacInnis, 18.

This past January, three intrepid Gawker employees traveled to around the corner from their office to try out New York's bougie new fitness craze: SoulCycle. What the experience lacked in comfort, it made up for in terror and also seeing Chelsea Clinton. Emboldened, last night two of them (the third is on a cruise eating hot dogs from a buffet), accepted an invitation to tackle a new fitness fad, this one favored by women of a certain age: Zumba.

Rich Juzwiak and I went to a Zumba dance party hosted by Lil Jon at a nightclub.

For the unZumbified, Zumba Fitness® bills itself as a "fitness dance party" that combines Latin dance steps with fitness. (The fitness part manifests itself as a lot of arm reaches and jumping.) It is billed as appropriate for "all ages," and, therefore, skews a little old. The instructors we talked to placed the average participant in her 30s or 40s. They also spoke reverently of a student in her 80s. The instructors don't speak; they dance and you copy.

Lil Jon does not DJ every Zumba class, though perhaps he would like to. (He told a reporter for LA Weekly he got involved with Zumba because it allows women to "have a good time and lose weight.") He's touring the country as part of Zumba's "Nightclub Series," DJing at events led by instructor Gina Grant, a celebrity within the Zumbamunity.

Last night's exercise bacchanal was held at the Amazura club in Jamaica, Queens. Regular customers paid $35 apiece to get in; Rich and I went for free, as guests of a New York City Zumba instructor named Irena Meletiou, who was very kind to us even though Rich danced like a brick. Because we were her guests, we got to travel to Queens on a giant, rattling party bus which made the outing feel like a field trip to a strip club.

I am a dance class veteran but also an aerobiphobe. Rich works out regularly but had no prior dance experience. Our impressions are in the informal chat below.

Caity: Lil Jon was like an affable Bar Mitzvah DJ guiding our Zumba experience through a rigid, pre-determined playlist.

Rich: I LOVE that he acknowledged the overwhelming female majority by only hyping the "ladies."

Caity: Yes, "WORK IT, LADIES!" "SHOW US WHAT CHA GOT, LADIES." I started to wonder if he even knew there were men in attendance. He acknowledged them only once, when some male Zumba instructors came out to lead us in a dance.

Rich: And was like, "What are YOU doing?" Since inevitably, Zumba forced them to dance like female strippers. And shake they cakes.

Caity: That is 100 percent the Lil Jon soundbite I will remember: "What are YOU doing?"

Rich: "(faggot)"

Caity: How did you feel going into something so lady-centric?

Rich: Going into it, fine. I love women.

Caity: You sound like Lil Jon.

Rich: I am pretty well in touch with my feminine side. BUT, once there, I was not OK with doing some of the things we were asked to do.

Such as shake my tits.

And drop it like it's hot.

Mostly shaking my tits. I will seriously never do that.

Caity: I also felt uncomfortable shaking my tits because mine are very small so I look about the same as you would doing it.

Rich: I'm not nearly as wiggly as Zumba demands one to be. Like, I'm not that wiggly as a person.

Caity: Zumba is dance class for noodles. I will say, it was very nice to participate in a fitness-based activity and feel competent, or even good, because normally I'm blatantly the worst in class.

Rich: I had the exact opposite experience, but I was very impressed by your moves. You are definitely more Latin in them. And very capable on your feet. Uninhibited. Eager to learn. Zumba slut. I mean that in admiration.

Caity: You reminded me of, like, a basketball player on Dancing with the Stars. Obviously in very good shape but with a little trouble doing complicated criss-cross foot switch hip swivel things. Or maybe a camp counselor at a girls' summer camp. "Alright, ladies, what's the dance?"

Rich: That seems accurate. The only moves I truly connected with were the hip-hop ones. Like, I could pick up on them a lot better and they felt right and aggressive

Caity: This was almost identical to my normal workout routine, which consists of just copying Beyonce YouTube videos for 30 minutes. (But this was 90 minutes.)

Rich: I liked the opportunity to be lascivious in a safe space, since so much of these movements require squatting and gyrating your hips.I couldn't keep my nasty, darting tongue in my mouth. When you're down like that, grinding, how can you not lick the air?

Caity: I actually felt a little silly doing all that, because we were in a club (da club) full of hundreds of women, many middle aged or older, in bright neon clothes, dancing like the Pussycat Dolls.

Rich: Older ladies in neon need love too. I felt silly doing everything.

Caity: They got it, from Lil Jon. The environment was definitely absurd, but not in the frightening way SoulCycle was. Zumba was much more happy-go-lucky.

Rich: Well, it's more like, "You can't do it? So what! Just mince and sway!" Egalitarian.

Caity: Exactly.

Rich: Given that it is taught with nonverbal cues, it is bound to be that way. It's like, "Just make it up who cares! C'est la vie! Viva la Zumba!"

Now ... would you like to talk about the most beautiful person in the world: Gina?

Caity: YES, I would like to talk about her for hours and also marry her.

Rich: Oh boy, what a knockout. We should say that she was onstage in this club, leading us.

Caity: WHOA, I JUST GOOGLED HER AND SHE HAS FOUR KIDS. She's 36!

Rich: Amazing.

Caity: Holy hell.

Rich: She's a superstar. A bit Gloria Estefan-esque.

Caity: Gorgeous face, the prettiest smile, the biggest, curliest hair.

Rich: She is like one of those fake pop stars that you'd see on TV shows in movies of the '80s. She's like Shana from Teen Witch.

Caity: And she kept doing a little "bit" where she would shake her boobs and then look down fake-concerned like her boobs were popping out of her deep-V sports bra. (They never were.) She did it like 4 times and every time it was like "Oh, Gina! :)"

Rich: I mean, pop has not had a Gina. A single-named Gina. Gina G of "Ooh Ah (Just a Little Bit)" and Regina of "Baby Love" fame are as close as it gets.

Pop needs a Gina.

Pop needs GINA.

Caity: The world needs GINA.

Rich: Va-va-va-voom va-va-va-Gina

Caity: We should also mention that right before we started dancing, we saw who I presumed to be large gay man wearing a tank top that read, in silver sequins: "I LOVE GINA"

Rich: Yes. And I laughed at him in my head. And then I got it.

Caity: COMPLETELY. Let me borrow that top.

Rich: Gina is the most beautiful person that ever existed. She would add flourishes, such as:

* extra boob shakes

* hip sways

And I wondered if we should replicate them. I decided we didn't have to for the sake of maintaining the sexuality/agility hierarchy that Gina stands atop.

Caity: Agreed, she was occasionally a little hard to follow. But I didn't want her to tone it down, because she was just being Gina. And any time you got lost in her footwork, you could just bop in place because Zumba has no rules.

Rich: Since she never talked, she was like a mime. The spiciest mime.

Caity: Also, a lot of her steps were just a grapevine on hyper speed, so not that hard but they looked great.

My favorite moment was when she wanted us to do some kind of core-strengthening move, and she demonstrated, then pointed at us and did a wacky hip swiveling version (like what we apes were doing), and brought her finger to her face and waggled it "No."

Rich: Yes! She was mocking us with affection. I am happy to say that I was not doing the wacky hip swivel; I actually got that move. It wasn't always like that. If you'll recall, I left the dance floor immediately.

Caity: I would say within three seconds, you said "I can't do this," and vamoosed. ZUMBA DRAMA.

Rich: And then our host, Irena, implored me to return. She really helped me believe in myself. She told me, "Don't worry about being perfect." And I really do always worry about being perfect. So finally, I was just like, "fuck it." It looks more complicated than it is, like you were saying.

Caity: I don't think we met a person at Zumba who was not endlessly upbeat and positive. And at first I was like "Yeah okay..." but then I was like "YEAH!!! OKAY!!!"

Rich: People were feeling the fuck out of it. That is what impressed me the most. Because it's basically concert meets club meets church. It's so cheesy to admit but the club full of bodies moving in unison was awe-inspiring.

Caity: I really felt like we were bowing to the false (or maybe True?) god of Gina. I found some moments sort of unsettling and hive-ish BUT I still had a blast.

Rich: Oh, it's a total cult. But a fun cult!

Caity: This Kool-Aid tastes GREAT.

The cheesiness was certainly bolstered by everyone's Zumba gear, which looked like sexy clown costumes. As soon as we arrived, I saw a woman who had to be in at least her late 50s waiting in line for the bathroom. She was rocking a neon green off-the-shoulder t-shirt and silver glitter eye shadow.

Also, some people had modified their tops (or maybe they're just sold like that?) to the point that they no longer looked work-out practical.

Rich: For those who missed the chance to be club kids, there is Zumba.

Caity: YES.

Rich: What about the Soul Train line that Gina formed? She parted the crowd like the Red Sea.

Caity: I must say, although I—as always—appreciated Gina's radiant energy, I didn't love that part because I really wanted to be working out.

Rich: There was an elderly woman that jumped in and, you know, was cute. But you're right; I didn't get what we were supposed to be doing. Our own freestyle? Or just moving our legs in a shuffle to the beat? Or what Gina was doing?

Caity: Gina was breakdancing on the floor.

Rich: I wonder what Gina is doing now and whether I should be doing that too.

Caity: I bet she's having a small smoothie and a light salad for lunch

Rich: So I SHOULD be doing what Gina is doing then.

Caity: I think I'm gonna have a milkshake but I'll sip it like a smoothie.

Rich: I have leftover Indian food and summer is coming :(

Caity: That's the other thing I noticed: the instructors, of course, were all in impeccable shape, but most people in the crowd were average to overweight. The opposite of SoulCycle. Do you think this is viable as someone's only workout plan?

Rich: It couldn't be mine.

Caity: Your arm muscles would atrophy.

Rich: I did sweat but it didn't kick my ass. Part of the problem was not being able to do everything. Or most things.

Caity: Oh, how did you like the Bollywood Breakdown?

Rich: I was so bad at that. In general, I thought the music was a lot of fun, though. And I REALLY loved how so many of the moves required motions for each of the four beats in a measure, so you could intuitively grasp them.

Caity: Yes, this was definitely designed for the average person to pick up fairly easily. I can't imagine a less intimidating form of group exercise.

Rich: Yeah. And also, I'm not coordinated, so I was scared of hurting people. As much of this involved flailing.

Caity: I thought it unwise to have us do high kicks. And there was a lot of spinning, which looks great when Gina does it, but just bumbling when we copy.

Rich: So much spinning. Like something out of Goddess in Showgirls. Gina IS Goddess.

Caity: Gina Gershon.

Rich: I have two more things I want to mention:

1) The confetti

A nice add-on to any workout. We had about ... four blasts?

Caity: Yes! I was so disappointed there wasn't more confetti.

Rich: There was more confetti than your average workout, and for that I was grateful.

Caity: Confetti makes you feel like you're doing something right, even if you're not.

Rich: 2) I loved that we stretched to Miguel's "Adorn." Because you never hear a slow jam on a club's sound system. Or at least, you don't at the kinds of clubs I go to. And it was like being inside of that lovely, clinking, vibrating song. Gina's love adorned all of us.

Caity: So, final thoughts?

Rich: I would do it again. But I would probably want to work out after.

Caity: I would absolutely do Zumba again, but it might be nice to have a class with all young people, so I'd feel less dorky.

Rich: Ageist!

Caity: I rate the experience 9 out of 10 Gina's. I rate Gina 12 out of 10 Gina's.

[Art by Jim Cooke // Image via AP]

Our hate mail this week included a strongly-worded defense of Brad Paisley as well as a polite request for tame headlines. We were mistaken for Huffington Post Teen, Huffington Post College, a fitness blog, and—once again—the LinkedIn complaints department. Read below.

Dearest Gawker Pen Pals: This is an ideal letter. It has clear and constructive criticism, hilarious link suggestions, and a generally polite and jocular tone. Please take notes.
Dear Writer: Please correspond with us again!

Subject: News html titles.
Body :Good morning,
When you are making links to news articles, even if they are safe-for-work, or simply use loose language, please title the links so us paranoid people who have filtering can read some of them.
For instance:
http://gawker.com/5994381/not+fucking-your-professor-confronting-a-nibble+nabble-bandit-and-other-questionable-advice 
is not something I would click on, even if the content is acceptable in my area.  I also do not mail links like that to my friends.
Try naming them a bit nicer, please.
How about something like:
http://gawker.com/5994381/carburator-adjustment-for-vega
Or something innocuous.  Also for words like p*, v*, and so forth.
Thank you, your sites are some of my favorites.

This writer is not going to repeat himself, so listen up.

Subject: The only time
Body: This is it. The only time I will contact you. You sir, no matter what your education, accolades, self image, are a moron.
In case you haven't noticed, there is a condition out there called racism.
It's alive and well. People like you keep it alive by saying this is stupid or that is dumb and perpetuate the condition.
You can't say anything good and you can't keep your mouth shut although either is preferable to putting your foot in your mouth.
A rapper and a country star write a song together with a message about racism, but you have to attack where paisley is from with a negative comment about him not being from the real south.
Fuck you. I was born in California, but I have a southern pedigree, both my parents were born in Oklahoma, and my dad's parents came from Arkansas.
My grandpa was a racest, my dad heard me saying nigger when I was 4 or 5, (I'm well over 50 now) and he sat me down and told me about his father and how it was wrong and all people bleed red.
I don't think I understood then, but it made an impact on me.
So my point, as it were, is that anything that gets the conversation started, is not a bad thing.
So now sit down and write your article again. You don't have to publish it, but if you did....

Good at metaphors.

Subject: A tip for you
Body: You know how you've changed to a new web layout? Well none of the new layouts have links to your other sites. You used to have them on the old layouts. And now for the tip...Make sure you have it all working right before implementing a change over. Did anyone mention that the new layouts have all the warmth of an ER operating room?

Why do people write to us when they are enraged over LinkedIn? At least this fellow did not begin the query by type-singing The Brady Bunch theme song.

Subject: Linkedin Over Reacts and Fucks Up Thousands of Users
Body:
1. In an effort to combat spam Linkedin added a new feature. If just one group moderator tags you as a spammer for any reason at all, your posts are vaporized in all of your groups.
But it gets worse:
2. There is no recourse. You will never know who killed your posting privileges or why. Maybe it was due to your politics? YOU WILL NEVER FIND OUT.
3. Contact Linkedin customer support and they tell you go fuck yourself.
http://www.pbdink.com/blog/2013/03/29/linkedin-post-happening/
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1426&type=member&item=228142324&commentID=-1#lastComment

In which we are not Huffington Post Teen or College sections.

Subject: Procrastination Article
Body: Hi! I wrote an article about procrastination and why students shouldn't procrastinate in school. I thought it would be a good fit for an article posted on the Huffington Post Teen or College sections. I would greatly appreciate it if you read it and I look forward to your favorable reply!

Nor are we a fitness blog, but you correctly assessed our title, so points for you.

Subject: gawker fitness blog
Body: Hey,
I recently came across gawker fitness blog. I really love what you have done!
I work for a skate supplier and we are starting to look into blogs to help promote our company.
I was wondering, do you accept guest posts or do any type of sponsorship posts?
Let me know!

An extennnndddeeddd interrobanggg in this one.

Subject: Jimmy Saville
Body: http://gawker.com/5994007/margaret-thatcher-is-dead
You just described Jimmy Saville, the UKs WORST EVER Pedophile\ Trafficker\ necrophilliac \possible child murderer and VERY good friend of Thatcher as :
"a powerful radio DJ"
Well done, 
How about you do some fucking research. 
WOW!??????????
later.

And that's all we got. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Remember that children's book "Go the Fuck to Sleep" that came out a couple years ago? Samuel L. Jackson did a reading of it and Werner Herzog did a reading of it and it was so hot that it literally burned down all the bookshelves and Borders had to declare bankruptcy the company could not afford to rebuild its stores from the smoldering ashes wrought by this instant classic?

Well, Deadline reports that Fox 2000 is going to turn it into a movie. And people on the Internet are very worried about how that's going to happen, because the plot is too simplistic.

No doubt they feel discouraged by the monumental failures of movies built around boring stories like "a fish becomes lost," "a woman has bridesmaids," and "man starts newspaper." They note that the "Go the Fuck to Sleep" film's premise is "weak"; its one joke "worn out." They picture the opening shot of the movie—an exasperated father begging his baby to "go the fuck to sleep—and then imagine 82 minutes of awkward silence as he struggles to think of something else to say.

"How did they ever make a movie out of ‘Lolita'?" That's peaches. But how will they ever, ever make a movie out of ‘Go the Fuck to Sleep'?"

God knows. Maybe the film's lead character will be a little girl named "Thefuckto Sleep" and the movie will be about cheering on her soccer adventures; a Bend It Like Beckham-style romp through adolescence. ("How did they ever make a movie out of a girl who could bend it like Beckham?"). Maybe it will be an art film, an odd move for a major production company like Fox, and the "movie" will just consist of the words "GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP" blinking in scarlet letters thirty feet high, and none of the babies who see it will go to sleep, except the weird ones.

The book is being adapted by Ken Marino (of Wet Hot American Summer and Party Down) and his wife Erica Oyama Marino (who created the Bachelor parody web series Burning Love), who both have experience taking vague concepts and spinning them out into longer, movie-able things that people want to watch.

Will they be able to do that with Adam Mansbach's book?

Who the fuck knows?

[Deadline // Image via Getty]

Is there any way to understand this latest bit of schwag (pictured below) from Texas Congressman Steve Stockman other than to think he'd like to see armed fetuses shooting their way out of the wombs of pregnant women who are considering having abortions? Zygotes threatening their mothers with guns—what a grisly and horrifying thought, not to mention stupid considering that a fetus can't aim for shit. But very funny, apparently, to Steve Stockman, who wants you to know you can have one of these bumper stickers all for yourself if you donate just $10 to his 2014 reelection campaign.

In case you've forgotten, we last heard from Congressman Stockman when he was sharing this bit of studied and thoughtful wisdom: "The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out."

[Image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore]

You can now get a fine for sagging your pants in a Louisiana town after the town council voted 8-to-1 in favor of an ordinance Wednesday night that makes sagging illegal.

The Council of Terrebone Parish (a council that sounds mystical and awesome, but is being totally uncool here) has brought comfort to old people everywhere who somehow believe that the unstoppable whims of fashion could be corralled by law. A first offense for "sagging" will get the offender a $50 fine, while a third offense (this guy really loves sagging) will merit a $100 fine and 16 hours of community service.

The ordinance, which targets a fashion used mostly by young black men, was supported by the Terrebone NAACP president Jerome Boykin:

"There is nothing positive about people wearing saggy pants," Boykin said. "This is not a black issue, this is not a white issue, this is a people issue."

Wearing saggy pants comes from a prison mentality, Boykin said.

"Young men who were in prison who wanted to have sex with other men would send a signal to another man with his pants below his waist," he said.

Whoa, really? All these kids are just trying to do it with each other? Then we should let them be, man!

The NAACP of Louisiana has sent the parish a letter against the ban, decrying its fairly obvious unconstitutionality:

"To ban a particular clothing style would violate a liberty interest guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. The government does not belong in the business of telling people what to wear. Nor does it have the right to use clothing as a pretext to engage in otherwise unlawful stops of innocent people."

Cities and towns across the country have adopted similar ordinances targeting saggy pants and those who sag, mostly young black men who just have it so easy when it comes to law enforcement.