The Daily Beast has followed up its retraction of Howard Kurtz's bizarrely wrong Jason Collins column by retracting Kurtz himself: editor Tina Brown announced they have "parted company."

Supposedly, you can't get something for nothing. But what if you wanted that something really badly? What if you offered access to "hot bitches" to get it? What if you kissed unbelievable amounts of ass in your quest? And most importantly, what if you knew Tim Tebow in high school?

All of this and much, much more gets offered by a 26-year-old "boy" (we'll get to that in a minute) who recently emailed the reborn DeLorean Motor Company because he wants one of their cars — with or without a flux capacitor — at a discounted price.

So the young man wants a deal on a DeLorean. Who wouldn't want to drive one? He doesn't say how much of a price break he wants, and heavily implies that he should simply be given one as part of some kind of magical "pay it forward" scenario.

But none of that does his email justice. The message he sent is such a perfect combination of stupidity, entitlement, misogyny and dudebro-ism that it feels as if it was handed down to us from the Internet gods themselves.

We've done this young fellow a favor by redacting his name and email address. But we'd be doing the world a disservice if we didn't parse through the email he sent to DMC, one bit at a time.

Prepare yourselves. You're about to see some serious shit.

I just searched for Deloreans in Florida and I came across you Gentlemen. Let me open by saying I'm a 26 year old boy who has the utmost respect for nostalgia.

A 26-year-old "boy"? Really? I can already tell this isn't headed anywhere good...

One of my favorite films is Back to the Future and im not sure if you gentlmen bought your cars pre or post Marty McFly but i can tell you it doesnt matter because the Delorean is fucking awesome either way. Let's cut to the chase, im hoping one of you is a very wealthy man who doesnt mind parting with their Delorean for a tad less than price,

Yes, the DeLorean is "fucking awesome." We would agree. As you all probably know, DMC restores and reproduces these iconic cars for resale. Some of the cars in their current stock go for about as low as $31,000, which seems like quite a bargain considering all the work that goes into them.

So why should our friend the 26-year-old "boy" get one at a discount? First, there's his trade-in:

I have a 2002 Eddie Bauer Expedition and money that I'm Willing to part with.

Not just any Expedition — an Eddie Bauer Expedition, that most coveted of late 90s/early 2000s suburban soccer mom-mobiles. More importantly, he has money that he is willing to part with, an essential component in the purchasing of an automobile. Or any other good or service, really.

I can't offer much more than the fact that i'll treat her as the best piece of Ass i've ever had and offer the seller full reign at reuniting with her and me providing hot bitches whenever you want to see her again. Flux Capacitor doesnt have to be included.

Now I'm starting to understand the arrangement. You give me a DeLorean, Flux Capacitor-ed or otherwise, and I bring you "hot bitches," he says. And he'll treat the car like "the best piece of Ass" he's ever had.

I'm also beginning to see why he refers to himself as a 26-year-old "boy."

No joke if one of you is a philanthropist who doesnt mind taking a little less than asking price and we can work on making a kid the sweetest motherfucker on earth please let me know. Imagine if when you were a kid if someone gave you a '64 Mustang and said "get it kid, and eventually pay it forward". I know that each and every man I'm e-mailing is a straight pimp because if not they wouldn't have a Delorean.

Scientific fact: every man who drives a DeLorean is indeed a straight pimp. I believe studies have been done on this.

I don't ask for much and I'm not a lucky kid, I've worked my ass off for everything I've ever gotten and I'm willing to give a full biography, but if any of you gentlemen have a heart and vigor for making dreams come true please at least give me a shot to state my case for owning one of these beauties, I'm more than willing to drive anywhere and make any negotiations or terms to get one of these bad boys.

This is no joke, and I hope and pray that one of you gives me a chance to at least meet me and try to get one of the sweetest cars to ever touch planet earth!

Is he writing a letter to Santa Claus?

Okay. I can't make too much fun of him here. It's clear that he's passionate about DeLoreans, and he's making what he understands to be a longshot pitch for one. He wants the car. He's offering up what he has to get one. Maybe I've misjudged him.

I'm a business management grad and football player from Hawaii, I went to Nease with Tebow and he was my quarterback if that helps(if youre a Florida State and Deion Sanders lover that's my allegiance!)

Nope. Didn't misjudge him after all. Did you just make a long, exasperated sigh? That means you have a brain in your head.

How in the name of holy fuck would playing football with now-ex Jets quarterback Tim Tebow in high school "help" lock down a deal on a DeLorean?

I'm really having trouble wrapping my brain around this one. But then again, I never played football with Tebow, so maybe I'm not meant to understand. (Odds are I'm a better quarterback than Tebow is, as is anyone with a pulse, but that's another matter entirely.)

Anyway. Continuing with the email:

If the Delorean falls through and you have a hook up on a white LeBaron i'll do that simply because Deion had one while he was in Tallahassee(drop top red interior, I'll take care of the PrimeTime license plate on the front)

Wait. WAIT WAIT WAIT.

If the DeLorean deal "falls through," you want... a LeBaron? Really? You sure about that?

Neon Deion apparently did drive a LeBaron back when he was in college. But that was in the late 80s. People didn't know any better back then!

At least he'll take care of the PrimeTime license plate. So that's good.

Either way I'm sitting here hoping that one of you gentlemen can sit back and say this kid has the chops, heart, and balls to stand up and say it's time for the Delorean to get his FUCKING ass back in the game.

Dude... you know John Z. DeLorean is dead, right? He's still dead, last I checked. And what "game" are you talking about? And why are you swearing at John Z. in all caps? Did he sell your dad some bad blow back in the 80s? Why are you so angry with him?

If we have to sit down and watch Back to the Future together and at least be gentlemen and friends than thats one step closer to me being on the level of a couple guys who get it...I'm attaching a couple images, #5 is real...What i'm getting to is it's time to pass the torch and if we need to sit down and drink fine Scotch I've got every Johnnie Walker, 10-12-15 of Macallan, Balvenie 12-14 caribbean and 17 double wood, it would at least be an interesting week to talk Delorean especially because TPC is coming up...

So yeah, DMC. If all that other stuff didn't convince you, let's drink a ton of scotch. Might as well.

I'm a mere two years older than this "boy," and I don't think I've ever been this worried for my generation's future than I have been until today.

If you can pull your face out of your palm long enough, here's the email in its entirety.

I just searched for Deloreans in Florida and I came across you Gentlemen. Let me open by saying I'm a 26 year old boy who has the utmost respect for nostalgia. One of my favorite films is Back to the Future and im not sure if you gentlmen bought your cars pre or post Marty McFly but i can tell you it doesnt matter because the Delorean is fucking awesome either way. Let's cut to the chase, im hoping one of you is a very wealthy man who doesnt mind parting with their Delorean for a tad less than price, I have a 2002 Eddie Bauer Expedition and money that I'm Willing to part with. I can't offer much more than the fact that i'll treat her as the best piece of Ass i've ever had and offer the seller full reign at reuniting with her and me providing hot bitches whenever you want to see her again. Flux Capacitor doesnt have to be included. No joke if one of you is a philanthropist who doesnt mind taking a little less than asking price and we can work on making a kid the sweetest motherfucker on earth please let me know. Imagine if when you were a kid if someone gave you a '64 Mustang and said "get it kid, and eventually pay it forward". I know that each and every man I'm e-mailing is a straight pimp because if not they wouldn't have a Delorean. I don't ask for much and I'm not a lucky kid, I've worked my ass off for everything I've ever gotten and I'm willing to give a full biography, but if any of you gentlemen have a heart and vigor for making dreams come true please at least give me a shot to state my case for owning one of these beauties, I'm more than willing to drive anywhere and make any negotiations or terms to get one of these bad boys. This is no joke, and I hope and pray that one of you gives me a chance to at least meet me and try to get one of the sweetest cars to ever touch planet earth! I'm a business management grad and football player from Hawaii, I went to Nease with Tebow and he was my quarterback if that helps(if youre a Florida State and Deion Sanders lover that's my allegiance!) If the Delorean falls through and you have a hook up on a white LeBaron i'll do that simply because Deion had one while he was in Tallahassee(drop top red interior, I'll take care of the PrimeTime license plate on the front) Either way I'm sitting here hoping that one of you gentlemen can sit back and say this kid has the chops, heart, and balls to stand up and say it's time for the Delorean to get his FUCKING ass back in the game. If we have to sit down and watch Back to the Future together and at least be gentlemen and friends than thats one step closer to me being on the level of a couple guys who get it...I'm attaching a couple images, #5 is real...What i'm getting to is it's time to pass the torch and if we need to sit down and drink fine Scotch I've got every Johnnie Walker, 10-12-15 of Macallan, Balvenie 12-14 caribbean and 17 double wood, it would at least be an interesting week to talk Delorean especially because TPC is coming up...

Notice anything amiss with The Week's current Tsarnaev brothers issue? I can't put my finger on it; feeling sort of in the dark.

If the terrorists won't do us the courtesy of being brown, no matter—we'll just make them brown, instead. See also.

[via Brofiling]

A man at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston committed suicide near the ticket area today, firing an AR-15 twice in the air before turning a pistol on himself. All flights have been grounded.

In case you missed it: Just-left-of-mainstream rapper Danny Brown received oral sex onstage at his show on Friday at Minneapolis's West Bank. This has scandalized social media for most of the week. An early account of the incident on Reddit, titled "I just saw Danny brown get his dick sucked on stage mpls" went like this:

...I was near the front row and all night Danny had been going up to the crowd and having random girls touch his dick through his pants. Then this girl in front of me starts flashing him and he goes up to her and grabs her tits. Then all of a sudden gets up close pulls his shirt up a little and she start blowing him. Then I'm behind her and I start getting pushed against her by the crowd shifting. It horrible and i hope you guys will be donating to my future therapy sessions but also i came back with a story. He rapped the entire time during too Also this [NSFW-ish] photo is floating around.

Now World Star Hip-Hop has posted shaky footage confirming what Danny Brown had already confirmed the night of the incident when, responding to fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar's tweet that read, "u really just got the head on stage stanny?," Brown boasted, "<<<~ and didn't miss one bar bruh bruh." Here it is. It's also NSFW-ish:

This instance of a regularly lewd rapper living his music onstage seems rather cut and dried. Though Brown's sizable profile makes his public sex at least notable, this kind of thing happens at public establishments that aren't necessarily advertised as sex parties all the time. Go to enough gay places in New York, for example, and you'll get desensitized. This hummer is ho hum.

What is worth considering, if briefly, is the account Brown's fangirl tourmate Kitty Pryde wrote of the incident for Vice's Noisey blog. After territorially pissing over female Danny Brown fans, the consciously precious quasi-rapper writes that she was "pretty drunk" when all this went down, but she refutes the Reddit account, explaining, "whoever wrote on Reddit that Danny was 'walking around the stage getting girls to grab his dick' is 100% false, and to blame someone for their own molestation is a shitty thing to do."

Molestation, yes. That is her story. She goes on:

Anybody who is exaggerating this tale to climax is also a lying fool, and to call it a blow job is even going a bit far because it was probably the fastest thing I’ve ever seen. "The Thing" was not a thing that Danny facilitated—it was an actual sexual assault, and somehow nobody gives a fuck about that but me.

It's obvious that the reason nobody cares is because a girl did it to a boy.

Here is the bravado-swinging male rapper's dilemma when faced with unwanted head, according to Kitty Pryde:

Now I’m prepared to kick a motherfucker in the teeth if he touches me at all, and I equip myself with giant boots for that reason. What is Danny supposed to do? The girl was at mouth-to-dick level already and to push her away, he would've had to either pushed her face or kicked her, and even the most gentle of either motion would immediately be labeled “abuse” by anyone watching. Guys pushing girls is not a good look when people are taking photos. So what was Danny supposed to do, other than back away, which he did? And if he had figured out a way to gently push the girl off him immediately without looking like he was smacking her in the face, he’s faced with attacks on his masculinity by every douchebro in the building. Yo dude, you don’t want your dick sucked, bro? Are you gay? Haha you’re gay you don’t want girls to suck your dick haha gay dude bro man swag! And that’s a rapper’s literal nightmare.

It is an interesting dilemma given Brown's image, which isn't outrageously macho but is hetero-sex obsessed nonetheless. If Kitty Pryde is correct (and who knows how well she's familiar with Brown's psychology, especially in this particular case since she says she and her tourmates aren't speaking of what they've termed "The Thing," even though naming it does imply that they have, in fact, spoken about it), a public, unwanted sexual advance from a woman does make for a complicated situation. Masculinity, see, is just so damn delicate.

However, instead of pushing or kicking, which Kitty Pryde posits were Brown's only options, he could have merely stepped back if he weren't into it. He could have turned away and not used this woman as a confirmation of his masculinity, because if Kitty Pryde is correct, this blowjob became transactional in nature. If he wasn't doing it for pleasure, he was doing it for his image, thus consenting for perhaps an unconventional reason but consenting all the same. He also could have shut up about it after instead of bragging later on Twitter that he didn't miss a bar.

The Reddit user who posted the original account followed up by saying that he saw the woman who gave Brown head go into the back with him at the end of the show. Brown has retweeted Kitty Pryde's Noisey post several times. He also has retweeted several women professing their love for him.

So yesterday, stand-up-comedian-slash-fat-dad Jim Gaffigan decided to make what he thought was a mostly harmless joke about women and their nails.

"Ladies I hope getting your nails done feels good because not a single man notices you got them done," Gaffigan tweeted to his 1.6 million followers.

Ha! Women be getting their nails done, am I right fellas?

Anyway, commence TOTAL MELTDOWN:

"If you think I make my nails pretty for anyone other than myself, you are a fool," replied @gesa. "or maybe some women do things not to impress other people," offered @oceana_roll. "you're such an asshole," @phaserstostun put it bluntly.

Even Chad Ochocinco Johnson weighed in on the scandal, calling Gaffigan's remark "blasphemy."

And the tweets kept coming. Dozens every minute.

"If you think people are overreacting to my edgy 'nails done' post here," Gaffigan followed up a short while ago, "you have to see the anger on my Tumblr."

And sure enough, since the joke was posted there yesterday, it has racked up over 100,000 notes, most of them far less subtle than those being made on Twitter.

"Nobody gives a fuck about you noticing their nails, Jim Gaffigan," exclaimed popular outrage-du-jour Tumblr STFU, Conservatives.

Added the ironically named Tumblr Not A Talker, "so many things implied about femininity, women, masculinity, men, non-binary persons, heteronormativity, beauty standards, commodification, etc. in so few characters. it’s impressive, really."

For his part, Gaffigan did issue a worrying apology, telling those who were offended by his "edgy 'nails done' joke' that he's sorry and he'll "attempt to be more sensitive in the future."

Let's hope he's just joking.

[screengrab via Twitter]

The Westboro Baptist Church's protest of last night's Rockets-Thunder game—in response to Jason Collins's coming-out, naturally—was sad and trivial, as the WBC's protests always are. Six picketers showed up. Many more were there to greet them.

Via Getty, a pair of photos of the counter-protests outside the Chesapeake Energy Arena. It is about time the world had a religious apologia that invoked Kevin Durant:

Update: I particularly like this one too, via BallerBall's Jason Gallagher:

Update: A few more, from a big collection over at The Lost Ogle:

Just in time for its wingnut-filled annual meeting tomorrow, the National Rifle Association is set to install a new president: an Alabama lawyer who laments "the war of Northern Aggression," calls Barack Obama "this fake president," and fantasizes about "whipping" opponents of the gun lobby's agenda.

Jim Porter of Birmingham, a longtime board member whose daddy's name graces an NRA championship shooting trophy, is expected to take office tomorrow in Houston at a national shindig that will include speeches by Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and John Bolton.

In addition to bearing a passing resemblance to Pappy O'Daniel, Porter works at his own law firm, where his areas of expertise include "defense of firearms manufacturers" from product-liability lawsuits. His NRA election announcement also identifies him as a "special assistant attorney general for the state of Alabama," which couldn't be independently verified by publication time. But if true, Alabama must have one of the few governments that Porter trusts, given his views on those scalawag federals.

He laid those views out last summer in a videotaped address, excerpted above, to rod-and-gun enthusiasts in Ulster County, New York. While speaking to residents of that rural upstate region, which saw significant losses in life and wealth fighting for the Union cause in the Civil War, Porter took an unconventional tack. The NRA, he said in a barbecue-licked Dixie lilt,

...was started 1871 right here in New York state. It was started by some Yankee generals who didn’t like the way my Southern boys had the ability to shoot in what we call the 'War of Northern Aggression.' Now, y'all might call it the Civil War, but we call it the 'War of Northern Aggression' down south.

That was apropos of the NRA's original purpose, Porter said: to train civilians to use military-style weapons so that "when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they’re ready to do it. Also, when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they have the wherewithal and the weapons to do it."

Apparently, the time to fight tyranny is now. "The NRA, I can assure you, is dug in," he said. "And I can assure you, we're whipping their ass. Everywhere we can go. Right, left, up and down."

Porter never specified who "they" were in his applause line, but he later ranted against Obama, "this fake president," whose "entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-Second Amendment." He reserved special ire for Attorney General Eric Holder, whom he called "rabidly anti-gun, rabidly un-American, involved in trying to kill the Second Amendment at the United Nations."

The speech wasn't a fluke for Porter. At the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, he told an NRA interviewer of the need to rally "warriors for freedom" against Obama's push not merely for gun control, but for an all-encompassing "European socialistic bureaucratic type of government."

But in spite all those ominous multisyllabic threats, he thought the struggle against gun-reform advocates like Gabby Giffords and Jim Brady was going pretty well: "Like we say down South: When you got all the pigs squealin', you know you're doing something right."

[h/t Scott Bixby, meetthenra.org]

Thomas Blachman, award-winning jazz musician and judge on the local edition of The X Factor, has a new show on Denmark's public service TV station that's a lot like his other show. Except instead of passing judgement on aspiring pop singers, Blachman and a co-host critique the naked bodies of random women.

The talk show, simply called Blachman (in lieu of the far more obvious X-Rated Factor), premiered last month on DR2 to widespread outrage from residents who aren't quite on board with public funds being used to finance a glorified prime-time strip-show.

But Blachman, who lives in New York, doesn't quite understand what all the fuss is about.

Responding to across-the-board criticism from local media outlets, Blachman called those who don't understand his genius "ungrateful," and insisted that he is merely attempting to "stir discussion about the aesthetics of the female body without allowing the conversation to become pornographic or politically correct."

For its part, the station appears to be standing by the controversial program, with one DR2 producer asking what is so wrong with a show "that reveals what men think about the female body."

[clips via DR2TV]

Here's a trailer for Kristen Wiig's new movie Girl Most Likely. It's like the depressing third quarter of Bridesmaids, but Annette Bening is her mother and Matt Dillon is her mother's boyfriend. And Darren Criss (Darren Criss? Darren Criss in eyeliner?) has a crush on her.

Kotaku: I've Seen Grand Theft Auto V. This One's Radically Different. | Deadspin: How Frank Isola Became The Most Hated Man At Madison Square Garden | Jezebel: The 12 Ways We Are Amanda Knox | Gawker: Was Danny Brown Sexually Assaulted When a Woman Blew Him Onstage? |

Fugitive cop-killer Joanne Chesimard has become the first woman on America's Most Wanted Terrorists List, joining a previously all male list of super villains. Chesimard, who also goes by the aliases "Sister-Love Chesimard" and "Joan Davis," murdered a New Jersey state trooper 40 years ago today. Chesimard busted out of prison and has lived in Cuba ever since.

Chesimard was convicted of killing Trooper Werner Foerster in a shootout. In 1979, militants from assorted leftovers of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army took guards hostage and busted her out of prison.

American cities were madhouses in the early 1970s. Wild and violent leftist guerilla groups—Chesimard's Black Liberation Army was one of dozens operating from San Francisco to New York City—planted bombs everywhere, robbed banks, recruited by kidnapping and routinely shot cops. The police didn't behave much better. Everything was like a Quentin Tarantino movie you could never walk out on.

There's now a $2 million reward for Chesimard, but you'll have to bring her back from Cuba first. She fled to Castro's Island of American Political Fugitives at some point in the early 1980s and has been there ever since, according to the FBI.

"She may wear her hair in a variety of styles and dress in African tribal clothing," says the FBI in a new statement that sounds like it was written in the 1970s. The bureau isn't even claiming she's up to anything new—she's 65 years old—but New Jersey's Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa says "her standard of living is higher than most Cubans."

FBI agent Aaron Ford said at a news conference today that Chesimard lives openly in Cuba and "continues to maintain and promote her terrorist ideology."

Chesimard now goes by the name Assata Shakur. Her version of events significantly differs from that of the FBI.

[Photos via FBI.]

Ah, Liberty University, where upstanding evangelical students still may not dance on a date, but that boy expelled from his high school for illegally bringing a shotgun onto campus gets a four-year scholarship. Truly, He works in mysterious ways!

A group of women in Devon, England, thought it would be fun to dress up like pirates for a talk about piracy being given by sea captain Colin Darch. Unfortunately, some of the fun wore off when the realized that, rather than discussing piracy in general, Darch would instead be recounting the time he was held hostage for days by a band of armed Somali pirates.

"They were more embarrassed than me," said the 75-year-old captain, who thought the women were rehearsing for The Pirates of Penzance.

For their part, the women, members of the local Women's Institutes chapter, apologized for the mix-up, but did end up making Darch pick the best dressed pirate among them.

"In the end I decided to choose the one with who had a fluffy parrot on her shoulder," he said. "Of course there weren’t any parrots near the real pirates."

[screengrab via BBC, image via Owen Jones]

Welcome to Thatz Not Okay, a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Please send your questions (max: 200 words) to caity@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."

I want you to read this question without thinking I am cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I work in a firm with some young attractive people who are all either dating or actively not dating due to hook ups. I have no luck with finding a boyfriend or a date or anyone who wants to spend time with me in a romantic capacity. I am 25 and have never been in a relationship. So one day, I just made up a person. I talked about where we go for dinner, how we get along, basically my ideal relationship except for not being real. I intend to eventually break up with this person and use that as a past experience to reflect on with dates when they bring up their past and with coworkers to sound interesting. Is that okay?

Thatz okay.

The key to successfully perpetuating a fake boyfriend ruse is to make sure your relationship is not too dramatic. Your fake boyfriend doesn’t need to be terminally ill or a Kuwaiti prince or freaking you out right now because he’s demanding you get an abortion and you don't know what to do. Boyfriends are enough drama on their own without adding a bunch of complicated B-plotlines, right girlfriend? (This is where you say “Amen!” because of course you know what boyfriends are like because you have one who is real. This kind of on-your-feet thinking will be crucial to maintaining your lie.)

I’m a little concerned that you say you intend to use the ups and downs of your relationship with this fake boyfriend to “sound interesting” to coworkers. On a girl power note, stop living your life like it’s the imaginary fifties – you don’t need a pretend man to find fake fulfillment. Consider opening an imaginary Etsy shop or taking imaginary night classes. Adopt an imaginary shelter pug. There are lots activities you can pretend to pursue that would be equally if not more rewarding than a hohum fling with a man you created in your mind.

Which brings me to my second point: Unless a person knows both parties well (a development which, by design, can never occur in this scenario), hearing about someone else’s boyfriend just isn’t that interesting. It’s also not interesting to hear about how someone doesn’t have a boyfriend, because not having a boyfriend is not particularly unusual or weird. That you came up with the fake boyfriend idea shows you are a creative problem solver, which tells me you are already interesting. Whether or not you’re dating someone will have no effect on this.

Having said all that, there are probably some situations when it will just be easier to pretend to have (or have had) a boyfriend. Like, when someone says “You know how, when you’re dating someone, you can’t always watch what you want to watch on TV?” You don’t have to respond “ACTUALLY, I DON’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND SO I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT IS. DOES NOT COMPUTE. ERROR ERROR ERROR C:\.” You can just say “Yep!”

For these instances, feel free to make up a boyfriend. It’s not hurting anyone. The important thing with this lie is to be consistent. If you told them your boyfriend’s name is George Glass in April, you can’t start calling him Jiminy Tabletop in May. You might find it helpful to loosely base your boyfriend on an obscure TV character (Little Ricky) or animal (bear). My boyfriend’s mother is crazy. My boyfriend looooves salmon.

Whether or not you ever reveal the lie depends on how deep into it you get. If you only ever mention vague details when prompted, this whole charade (Ohmygod, I almost forgot! I pretended I had a boyfriend when I started working here so we would have something to talk about!) might give everyone a good laugh several years from now over cocktails. If you go out of your way to bring him up—and dominate conversation with tales of your suspiciously perfect relationship—you should probably keep the truth to yourself.

And if you find yourself caring a little too much about what your fake boyfriend is thinking and doing, take that as a sign it's time to break up. You were never a good match anyway. (Because he was fake.)

As a black guy, 6ft tall, 190 pounds and black all over, I look like the sort of guy that the police would stop and frisk. I however am also Ivy League educated, work in high finance and occasionally sport a bow-tie. In short, I am the guy that white people in New York are occasionally spooked by but also the kind that they claim as a friend when they get in race related trouble. As such a nebulous member of society is it okay for me to make faces at strangers' babies on the gentle streets of Manhattan? I love babies and babies like staring at me, likely because, let's face it, they don't see black faces often and are probably just as interested in me as I am to them. The faces I make at the babies are not confrontational (just in case you are stereotyping me lol). They are more the same faces I make to (at?) my nephew. Still, I am wary of potentially unnerving innocent parents on these here streets. Making faces at babies: is that okay?

Thatz okay.

I’m not sure what parts of New York you’re frequenting if you’re encountering babies who never really see black people. Are you riding the white subway? Are you breaking into genteel Klan meetings? New York babies are like New York adults, in that most of them have televisions and all of them live in the world. Babies probably like staring at you because babies like staring at everything.

Secondly, while there certainly exist many ugly stereotypes of black people, I don’t think “making confrontational faces at babies” is one of them. Black people are not really known for taking babies to task (“HEY BABY") nor are they regularly depicted as going out of their way to frighten children. Many black people have children. Many black people once were children.

I say all this, because I think you’re overthinking things here. People making silly faces at babies in public is something that is almost always going to go over well. It’s fun for the babies because silly faces are hilarious – almost as funny as jingling keys. It’s fun for the parents because they get a thirty second break from being the one who has to entertain their baby. It’s fun for you because making babies laugh is hilarious – almost as funny as jingling keys. It’s fun for everyone who sees it because now they get to be part of a heartwarming scene.

One thing I would not do is make a big deal about how you are making a funny face at this baby even though you are a black man.

Hello, I am your friendly neighborhood black man.

I do not mean to alarm your child with my face, for I understand he has probably never seen a black man before.

I’d hate for anything bad to happen to your baby.

Taken at face value, all of these sound like nice things to say. However, saying any one of them would instantly suggest something is amiss: that you are a friendly neighborhood psycho; that you do mean to alarm the child; that you, a stereotypical black man, are here to confront that baby.

As long as you refrain from the 4 L’s (leering, lunging, and licking your lips at the baby), you can be confident that no one is going to reprimand you for looking at their child.

Plus you sound rich. Who wouldn't want you to smile favorably upon their infant?

Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions (max: 200 words) here. Art by Jim Cooke.

The Daily Beast stage, or fraction, of the career of Howie Kurtz ended with a perfectly apt string of Twitter messages from the media reporter/Washington bureau chief:

I've enjoyed my time at the Daily Beast but as we began to move in different directions, both sides agreed it was best to part company.

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 2, 2013

This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website.

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 2, 2013

Newsweek and the Beast are great brands, but the time had come for me to move on to other opportunities.

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 2, 2013

And away went the host of CNN's Reliable Sources, in a rustle of content-free managerial cliches. Great brands, both sides agreed, good night.

Why should the country's best-known media reporter give a clear report on a media event involving him? He never worried about the ethics of working for two corporations that were supposed to be reporting on each other. The inherent corruption of what he did was a simple background fact, like the background fact of his dullness and mediocrity. There was a time when he had a platform that allowed him to command attention by breaking stories, before platforms proliferated and news breaks sped up; the news of his departure was broken by Dylan Byers at Politico. Latter-day Kurtz was boring except when he was laughable, and for a long time, none of that harmed him in the slightest.

What did harm him, now, in the end? He had just bumbled his way through a weird correction-retraction of an almost inexplicably incorrect column about Jason Collins—but that, like his 2010 phantom interview for the Daily Beast with someone he wrongly believed was Rep. Darrell Issa, wasn't classic death-penalty journalistic malfeasance. Instead, it was a clownish screwup.

But it came right after the news that Kurtz was devoting copious time and energy (and a huge share of his Twitter feed) to moonlighting with a nearly unwatched enterprise called the Daily Download. It was suddenly possible to suspect that Kurtz was spreading himself too thin, a problem he had previously avoided by not allowing his work be noticeably thick.

And he was a holdover, too, from the brief period when Tina Brown had been able to operate the Daily Beast as a refuge for veteran "name" journalists who were becoming too expensive to survive the upheavals in old media. Now Brown is slashing budgets too, and her boss Barry Diller has called the Beast's acquisition of the doomed Newsweek "a mistake."

So instead of dwelling on today's overdetermined divorce, let's remember Howie Kurtz and the Daily Beast in the early days of their relationship, when Kurtz was the Washington Post's media reporter (and of course a CNN host) and the Daily Beast was a can-do startup powered by Tina Brown's zesty energy. As Kurtz described it in the lead, datelined NEW YORK:

Tina Brown has just been briefed on a series of potential stories when she asks her staff about another element of her new Web site.

"What are we doing on video? I want to put Condi playing the piano up," she says, referring to the secretary of state performing for Queen Elizabeth.

A staffer says a day-old clip of Britney Spears choking up on MTV is still popular. "Should we put it in the top box, or is that overkill?" Brown asks. And she loves the idea of poking fun at the new "Meet the Press" host with morning-show footage of a dancing David Gregory.

The woman who transformed Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, only to crash and burn with Talk magazine, is reinventing herself yet again. In launching the Daily Beast, the celebrity editor who once fussed over each headline and photo is trying to adapt to the relentless pace of the blabosphere.

Later in the story, Kurtz returned to that energetic office scene:

During a recent morning meeting, Brown's predilections are on display as a half-dozen staffers, most of them young, gather around her desk. Brown is marveling at the depth of the reader feedback on her Maddow piece. "I've become addicted to the comments," she says.

The talk turns to the latest hot topics. "Sarah Palin is crack cocaine to the Internet," Brown observes.

...

She constantly tosses out potential ideas, such as starting a feature on "newly relevant books. Because people keep saying, 'God, you should read X.' " Seconds later, Brown asks what "hot movies" are coming out. They run through which celebrities they want to pursue. "We can get Dustin Hoffman for a Buzz Board. I can ask him," she says.

According to a participant in that meeting, it was a fake, staged for Kurtz's benefit. Brown was not in the habit of showing up for story-brainstorming sessions, much less bringing staffers into her own office en masse to zing ideas around. Kurtz, the seasoned reporter, ate it up.

And Brown, after a suitable interval, hired him.

The New York Times is reporting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told FBI interrogators that he and his brother initially considered carrying out suicide attacks on the Fourth of July. When the two finished building their bombs earlier than planned, they moved the attack up to Patriot's Day, according to a law enforcement official.

Just hours after her first post-jail interview aired on Good Morning America, the police video taken during Reese Witherspoon's arrest has emerged. It's even better than you could have expected.

In it, the Academy Award-winning actress does some of her best work in years, believably shouting lines like, "I'm an American citizen ... I'm allowed to stand on American ground,” and “You're saying I'm obstructing your justice?”

TMZ grabbed some of the other highlights:

Reese: "Do you know my name sir?"
Officer: "Don't need to know."
Reese "You don't NEED to know my name?"
Officer: "Not quite yet."
Reese: "YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT WHO I AM!"

Reese: "I have done nothing against the law."
Officer: "Yes you did, you didn't obey my orders."
Reese: "I HAVE TO OBEY YOUR ORDERS??"

Reese: "I'm being anti-American?"
Officer: "Yes, please sit down."
Reese: "Wow!"

After Witherspoon is handcuffed and taken to the squad car, her husband, Jim Toth, who was also arrested, turns to the officer and calmly says, "I'm sorry. I had nothing to do with that."

And here's video of Reese telling the officer she's pregnant, though, as she noted in her Good Morning America interview, she is not.

[TMZ]

To contact the author of this post, email taylor@gawker.com

Jeff Hanneman, guitarist and founding member of legendary American metal band Slayer, died of liver failure today in California. He was 49.

Hanneman's band members released the news a short while ago on the Slayer Facebook page, writing, "Slayer is devastated to inform that their bandmate and brother, Jeff Hanneman, passed away at about 11AM this morning near his Southern California home."

Hanneman had stopped touring in 2011 after coming down with necrotizing fasciitis, a degenerative skin infection he reportedly contracted after suffering a spider bite. Though he would occasionally make surprise appearances with Slayer over the next couple years, a regimen of surgeries and skin grafts sidelined him most of the time.

Hanneman had formed Slayer in Huntington Park, California, with fellow guitarist Kerry King when they were still teenagers. This year marked their 32-year anniversary as a band.

[Image via Flickr user ozz13x]

Bitcoin, the virtual currency libertarian geeks expect us all to use to pay for pizza in the future, has had a rough few weeks. A series of booms and busts have sent shivers down the spines of Bitcoin enthusiasts. Now, Gawker has learned that a much-hailed partnership between two of the most prominent players in Bitcoin, Mt. Gox and CoinLab, has devolved into a nasty $75 million lawsuit, which appears to be by far the biggest Bitcoin-related lawsuit ever.

The two companies are in the business of Bitcoin exchange, which plays a central role in the Bitcoin economy. For all the hype surrounding Bitcoin's promise as the "future of currency," at present it's not really good for buying much. So all those Bitcoin millionaires must exchange Bitcoins for actual currency if they want to actually get any use out of it. The trades on the exchanges also set the closely-watched price of Bitcoin. (Currently hovering around $100.) Mt. Gox is the world's largest Bitcoin exchange. It handles about $6 million in trades a day, accounting for 76 percent of trades worldwide, according to The Verge. Coinlab is a relative newcomer to the Bitcoin game, but has received notice for attracting $500,000 in venture capital and partnering with Silicon Valley Bank.

This February, Mt. Gox and Coinlab announced they were forming a strategic partnership. Under the contract, Coinlab was to handle all of Mt. Gox's North American services. It seemed like a perfect match: Mt. Gox has years of experience handling hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions, and a massive customer base, but they're based in Japan and so have can't serve American customers efficiently. Coinlab is a small but savvy upstart based in Seattle, looking to expand. The partnership would allow Mt. Gox to access the huge U.S. market handled by a capable partner, and Coinlab could latch onto Mt. Gox's reputation and existing customer base.

Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpeles (pictured, above) was enthusiastic in his press release on February 28th:

"This should be a huge win for everyone — faster deposit and withdrawal times, easier-to-reach customer service, and better access for United States financial markets, market makers and liquidity providers"

It didn't work out that way, according to a Federal lawsuit filed today by Coinlab's attorneys in Washington State. Coinlab alleges that Mt. Gox has breached a contract clause which was supposed to give Coinlab exclusive access to the North American market. "Defendants have breached the exclusivity provisions of the Agreement by directly servicing customers in the United States and Canada since the Agreement took effect," the lawsuit states.

Coinlab also says Mt. Gox hasn't allowed them to transition existing U.S. and Canadian customers from Mt. Gox to Coinlab, as agreed in the contract. "Despite repeated requests to do so, Mt. Gox has failed to deliver all passwords, Yubikeys, administrative logins and any other security information required so that CoinLab may assume operation of the Bitcoin exchange services for customers in the United States and Canada."

Coinlab is demanding $75 million in damages, and even that, it says, "likely underestimates the actual damages."

If it's true that Mt. Gox botched the deal, it's a big setback for the company, which has had a rocky past. An ongoing series of hacks, outages and other weirdness has led many in the Bitcoin community to question whether Mt. Gox is stable enough to be a major Bitcoin broker. Whenever Mt. Gox experiences downtime or a problem, the price of Bitcoin drops noticeably: Not a good look for what's supposed to be a radically decentralized currency

The Coinlab-Mt. Gox juggernaut was supposed to bring a new level of service, along with the legitimacy that came with the Silicon Valley Bank's backing, to Mt. Gox and the economy as a whole. The partnership was considered so important to the growth of Bitcoin that some observers credited it with sparking a massive 40% surge in Bitcoin prices past $250 when it was first announced, during which some big Bitcoin hold probably made millions. (At least until the price crashed back down again.) Now the biggest hope of Bitcoin has devolved into the biggest lawsuit.

Bitcoin might someday be utterly worthless, but it's clear there's big money to be made, and lost, right now.

(Mt. Gox's Mark Karpeles did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Update: in an email, Karpeles wrote:

We have not been served nor notified of such a lawsuit (except from your email), so it is difficult for us to comment at this point in time. We will review this within the next hours.

Update II: Coinlab CEO Peter Vessenes gave some details about the lawsuit in a blog post. He wrote: "Today, CoinLab regretfully filed a formal complaint in Federal Court against Mt. Gox."

What tipped us into filing was our complete inability to get Mt. Gox to deliver on the few simple things left that were needed for customers to move over en-masse; we were often left just apologizing to our alpha customers while their own businesses suffered. I'm just not willing to put any of our customers in that position — if we can't do a good job for you, I won't promise that we can.

Here's the lawsuit:

Coinlab v. Mt. Gox

[Image via Getty]