Last year, about half of all working-age Americans lacked sufficient health insurance. Cool system.

For over a year and a half, Joe Nagy of Arizona suffered from a severe case of runny nose.

It started out as "once or twice a week," he told Phoenix's Fox 10, but "pretty soon it was all the time."

Eventually, Nagy's condition became unbearable — "I got to the point where I had tissues all the time" — and he finally sought medical assistance.

That's when he learned that his run-of-the-mill "runny nose" was, in actuality, a waking nightmare: His brain was leaking.

"I was scared to death if you want to know the truth," Nagy told the Fox affiliate.

According to Barrow Neurological Institute neurosurgeon Peter Nakaji, the body produces up to 12 ounces of brain fluid a day, and leaks can occur.

Dr. Nakaji says the most common causes of brain fluid leaks are head injuries and complications due to brain surgery or spinal taps.

"This is one of the more common conditions to be missed for a long time...because so many people have runny noses," Nakaji said.

Though the fix was fairly routine, a sudden near-deadly outbreak of meningitis forced Nakaji to put Nagy's surgery on hold.

Once the infection subsided, the doctor got to work repairing the leak, which was traced to a tiny hole in the membrane surrounding Nagy's brain.

The operation was successful, and Nagy has been hankie-free ever since.

UPDATE: Seems an Arizona woman experienced the very same worst case scenario just last year. QED: Stay the Hell away from Arizona.

[screengrabs via MyFoxPhoenix]

So I'm watching the season premiere of Mad Men and Don Draper is hanging out late at night alone in the bar of the Royal Hawaiian hotel, and I keep waiting for Don to get up and go bang a waitress because Don Draper is the world's classiest sleazebag, but no. Instead, he befriends a drunken sailor and ends up being the best man at the sailor's beachside wedding, all while staring off into the distance and looking crazy thoughtful because that's how Jon Hamm rolls. Draper, a man whose very existence is an elaborate sales job, has an epiphany on that beach about the hotel he's staying in. When he meets with the client back in New York, he explains that you become a different person when you stay at the Royal Hawaiian. You enter a different state of consciousness, and you don't miss what you left behind. You're not you anymore. You disappear. That's all pretty solid thinking. I know most advertising is terrible, but that doesn't mean someone out there didn't put some insight into it.

And then Don shows them the ad, and it sucks.

He shows them just one measly print ad with a dude's footprints on a beach and a headline that says, "Hawaii. The jumping off point."

Granted, it's not a finished ad. Advertising people love to hold "tissue" sessions with clients, where they present skeletal ideas to the client as a way of essentially stalling... to buy more time to prepare actual WORK. But despite that pre-condition, it's still underwhelming. The client isn't thrilled with it, and why would they be? Don Draper had a cool insight about their hotel and then gave them barely anything. The visual is cliched. The headline's clumsy. Is it a headline? Is it a tagline? The fuck is it? What's the next ad?

I worked in advertising for ten years and the fun of watching Mad Men is seeing all the ways in which the series rings true for anyone who's ever been in the field: the eye-rolling from creatives when their first round of ideas are rejected, the frustration Kinsey expresses when he forgets a brilliant idea in a drunken haze and can't will it back into his skull, the moron clients who take EVERYTHING literally, and the breathtaking insecurity that overshadows the entire advertising industry—the sense that, deep inside, these people know that nothing they're doing matters. All of that is there.

And in the character of Don Draper, the series accurately portrays a very specific kind of creative director that advertising professionals are painfully familiar with: hard to pin down, difficult to please, rarely effusive with praise. Don acts like a lot of creative geniuses. And he has insights into the human condition similar to those of a lot of creative geniuses. But is his WORK genius? I went through some of his portfolio in attempt to figure it out.

One of the problems with accurately gauging Draper's talents—apart from the fact that this is a TV show we're talking about and NONE OF THIS IS REAL—is that you have to grade his work relative to its era. I know advertising sucks, but I assure it sucks far less NOW than it did 50 years ago. It wouldn't have been realistic on the show's part for Draper to be coming up with Apple's "1984" or anything crazy like that.

Still, even in 1967, it's pretty lame to show up to a secret meeting with Heinz ketchup and show them three ads that all have the same line: PASS THE HEINZ.

(In fact, the idea of not showing the product in the ad at all was the exact same idea Don had a week earlier with Royal Hawaiian... ZOMG HE'S TRYING TO ERASE HIS OWN LIFE.)

Draper had Rizzo (who is awesome) turn around the presentation boards to show three different food items in need of ketchup, with that line over them. A week before, Peggy shat on her underlings for giving her uninspired work by telling them that it was the same idea, just different executions. This happens a lot in advertising because it's remarkably difficult to create little spinoff ads that don't feel repetitive. Yet there was Draper trying to sell Heinz three of the same thing.

And that's one of the few times Don Draper bothered to show a client more than one ad. Most of the time, Draper shows a client one ad with one headline and when they bitch about the ad, he acts as if they just rejected Shakespeare. DO YOU PEOPLE NOT RECOGNIZE GENIUS WHEN YOU SEE IT?! For Belle Joile lipstick, he offers only one line ("Mark Your Man").

For Bethlehem Steel, he offers one extremely basic headline formula ("New York, brought to you by Bethlehem Steel Company").

He gets the Jaguar business based on one headline from Ginsberg ("At last, something beautiful you can truly own"), and the headline isn't even that good. He gets headlines and taglines confused. The THOUGHTS behind the ads are interesting. Draper's always really good at telling you WHY he dreamt up that shitty ad. But the ad itself is usually lifeless.

A lot of agencies may present just one idea in a new business pitch, but sometimes they try two or more. And if they're working on a regular account, they usually give the client options. Don Draper NEVER gives his clients options. Even when he's working with an existing client, he always gives them just one idea, sometimes even one ad. He's selling the certainty of vision. He's telling the client there's no other possible solution, which makes him an arrogant fucker, especially when he's offering incomplete ideas. Sometimes he makes the ad and runs it without even telling anyone, as he did with his "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco" letter. That was his finest ad, and it makes perfect sense that it wasn't presented as an ad at all, and that it was selling Don Draper's integrity.

When an ad agency pitches a new business, an "idea" usually means a full campaign. There's a tagline. There's a series of headlines to go with it. Maybe a TV ad. All of it fits under a single thought, often expressed in the tagline (Example: "Michelin, because so much is riding on your tires"). All of it is of a unified design. A good campaign idea produces ads that are of a whole but can also stand on their own. Each ad is its own little interesting spin on the main idea (for one of the great historic examples of this, check out Altoids). They're fleshed out. That's a big term people use in advertising. Everything should be "fleshed out."

Don Draper rarely, if ever, presents fully fleshed out ideas. He pours a drink, gives a cool speech, and then turns over one rinky-dink ad. No wonder clients are never blown away. Even his big presentation to Hilton, in which he posits that "Hilton" is the same is any language, shows off a bunch of variations of the same execution. How do you say ice water in Italian? Hilton. How do you say fresh towels in Farsi? Hilton. How do you say hamburger in Japanese? Hilton. Yes yes, we get it. Hilton's the answer to everything. WE WANT THE MOON, DON, YOU PIG.

But "Mad Men" wouldn't be a successful show if you thought that Don was a fucking hack every time you watched. What Draper excels at is selling the idea of his genius, of charming you into seeing more in a shitty lipstick ad than you thought was there, or getting you to cry when he christens a wheel of photo slides a "carousel."

Given how carefully made "Mad Men" is, it was probably a deliberate ploy by Matthew Weiner to make Don Draper a professional fraud—someone who has the building blocks of brilliant ideas but not the resolve to make anything useful out of them ("You only like the beginnings of things"). He takes you out for a nice dinner and fingerbangs your wife and gets you to see what he wants you to see. And it's only after that little bit of song-and-dance do many clients realize that they've been given something incomplete... that they've been tricked into wanting something they didn't really want... that it was all so hollow.

If Don Draper were a better man, a whole man, he would probably be a true genius. He would come up with the idea AND blow it out into real advertising, the way a great adman would. He wouldn't have to sell you his bullshit. But he rarely, if ever does that. In the end he's a man whose life, and whose talents, are destined to remain incomplete. Don Draper is only good at advertising when the product he's selling is Don Draper.

The childlike joy of America's Free Comic Book Day became a violent drama of assault and police firing taser guns when two costumed characters were attacked by a 300-pound drunken monster outside a comics shop in Portland, Maine, on Saturday.

A ghostbuster and a Star Wars stromtrooper were outside Portland's Coast City Comics during Saturday's nationwide Free Comic Book Day promotion when the massive 6'4" street lunatic assaulted the costumed heroes.

Both men were captured on video dancing on the street shortly before the attack:

Bobby Daggett, dressed as the Green Lantern, gave this harrowing eyewitness report to the Bangor Daily News:

“There were a bunch of people standing outside trying to drum up business and one guy was dressed as a Stormtrooper,” said Daggett. “Out of nowhere this guy tried to put [the guy in the Stormtrooper costume] in a chokehold from behind and then throws him to the ground. He was trying to be intimidating above him and screamed obscenities to everybody.”

The alleged assailant, 31-year-old Adam Barnes, was then confronted by five police officers. He reportedly tried to take them all on, like The Hulk, but the cops tasered him to the pavement.

Police Lt. Gary Hutcheson says Barnes was charged with assault, disorderly conduct and five charges of threatening the five police officers who took him down.

“I’ve been a cop for 23 years," Lt. Hutcheson said. "I’ve never heard of a Ghostbuster and a Stormtrooper getting assaulted."

[Video via Comic Geeks Unite; Mug shot via Portland Police Department; top image by Jim Cooke.]

A man stepped out for a cigarette and was repeatedly shot by mystery gunmen in San Francisco's Sunnydale neighborhood.

It's a strange feeling when you kind of agree with something that Charles Manson did. It's not a good feeling. But I just learned that Charles Manson's insane "Helter Skelter" global race war fever dream used battalions of VW and Porsche-based dune buggies as key components, and I gotta say, at least in this one detail, it makes sense.

I had no idea about this whole dune buggy part of the Manson story until my friend T.Mike sent me a link to a reddit TIL (Today I Learned) that talked about this. So I did some research. I found that Manson not only planned to have a fleet of specially-equipped dune buggies as a crucial element in his Helter Skelter vision, he and his deranged "Family" actually had a sort of dune buggy factory operating in a desert junkyard, and the whole stealing-VWs-for-coming-race-war-dune-buggies plan had a key in his eventual undoing, because you know how cranky people get over stolen VWs.

Now, don't get me wrong — Manson and his whole "Helter Skelter" concept were, if you'll forgive the medical jargon, batshit insane. Absolutely, irretrievably clamshit nuts. Essentially, he and his followers (called "The Family") were going to try and start a huge race war with some awful album they never quite managed to record and, while all the brutal destruction was happening, they'd wait it out in a secret underground city in the desert, after which they'd emerge to rule over everyone.

That's the insane part; the solitary semi-sane part of the plan was that in order to outrun the police and race-armies roaming everywhere so they could get from LA into the underground city in the Death Valley desert they'd use a fleet of light, agile, rugged VW (and Porsche) based dune buggies.

Southern California deserts are the Dune Buggy's natural habitat. They can handle the terrain, and when they get to some feature or boulder they can't drive over, three or four of Manson's insane followers could easily lift one out of trouble. The air-cooled engine requires no water, which will likely be scarce in the desert after a globe-destroying race war.

And that's about the extent of the sane part. As you'd expect, everything gets pretty crazy in practice. At first, donor cars were purchased, sometimes with bad checks, but very soon the Family graduated to just stealing VWs and the occasional Porsche 356 outright. The operation got pretty elaborate. As Ed Sanders describes in his book, The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion:

They set up a creepie-crawlie dune-buggy assembly plant in the trash dump behind the corral of the Spahn Ranch. They stole Porsches and Volkswagens and brought them to the Devil's Dune Buggy Shop in back of the corral, and then men would strip off the body and fenders, and cut everything up, and load the cuts onto a truck and cart it away. Then they'd make some dune buggies out of the skeleton Porsches or Volkswagen frames. They would then sell the fresh fashioned dune buggies somewhere out on the desert, in exchange for dope and money. It was creepy-crawlie capitalism.

So based on that it sounds like they were turning enough Beetles and 356s into crude dune buggies that they could sell off the surplus ones. Also, Ed Sanders may be the only author I've ever encountered to use "creepy-crawlie" twice in one paragraph.

The book also gives a nice detailed report of why these dune buggies were selected (to get in and out of LA without crossing a major highway), and some interesting variants they developed:

He [Manson] decided to begin to build a fleet of Helter-Skelter dune buggies with which to transport the Family back and forth from the Spahn Ranch to Death Valley, up into the Santa Susanna Mountains by means of Devil Canyon and across the Mojave Desert.

From his experience in the rough terrain of Death Valley, Manson decided that dune buggies were the vehicles for his mobile snuff squad. They were great for outrunning cops in the abyss. They were light enough so that two or three of the gore groupies could lift them over boulders and precipices. Motorcycles, on the other hand, were scorned as bingeing inadequate in the wilderness.

But dune buggies, ah sacred dune buggies— they were like battleships. He would later outfit dune buggies with huge gas tanks giving them a 1,000-mile assault field. They put machine gun mounts on them and Mansons command dune buggy was fixed so that it could be slept in. There could be food dune buggies, ammunition dune buggies, dope-supply dune buggies, etc.

Manson even had a Biblical inspiration for his use of a dune buggy, in Revelations 9:7:

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle.

The shapes of locusts that were like unto horses were, to Manson, his fleet of dune buggies.

There's not many pictures of these buggies around, but there are a few key ones. Forgive the quality of the image, I had to take it with my phone in a library. This one seems to depict a pretty typical buggy-of-the battalion.

The buggies are of very crude construction. These aren't sleek and well-designed Meyers Manx VW-based kit things. These are Beetles (or, and it still horrifies me, 356s) with bodies unbolted, the chassis appears to be shortened about a foot or so behind the front seat, and mostly square-section iron tubing is used to build a simple support structure. Appropriate tires are added at the rear, but the mechanicals and seating (well, except that weird back seat) and everything else looks to be pretty conventional VW.

Other pictures do suggest that the Family had some fiberglass-bodied Manx-type buggies, which they seemed to stash in various places in the desert, awaiting Helter Skelter to get started, already.

Manson's own command dune buggy was even more insane, covered in furs, with an integrated sword scabbard, machine gun mount, and a winch, which Manson imagined employing in a laughably cartoon-like scenario:

On the buggy's front was a winch that Manson envisioned using to evade police, apparently in Helter Skelter. He would fling the winch's rope up into a tree and then winch himself up out of sight as pursuing officers would drive haplessly by.^[46]

Not surprisingly, it was these stolen VWs that proved their undoing. On August 16, 1969, Manson and 25 followers were arrested as part of a major auto theft ring targeting Volkswagens and turning them in to dune buggies. Police were tipped off by a legitimate dune buggy shop owner who bought a car from a Manson friend that turned out to be one of his own VWs, stolen from his back lot. The warrant for their arrest had the wrong date, and a few days later all were out on this technicality, but the police were closing in.

Incredibly, there's still some vestiges of the old dune buggy battalion around. This video shows discarded VW Beetle body parts that the Manson family flung off a long drop into a ravine as recently as 2012. It's possible that some of the dune buggies they built are still out there in the desert, baking in the sun.

Other than seeing the look on a Porsche purists' face if a 356-based one is found, I think those debased air-coolers are better left to decay in the desert.

(Sources, text and photos: The Family: The Story Of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion, Wikipedia, CharlieManson.com)

Meet Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski. Lt. Col. Krusinksi is the head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program. This weekend, Lt. Col. Krusinksi was arrested for—you guessed it—sexual assault.

According to Arlington Now, a drunken Krusinksi was picked up by the cops early Sunday morning in a Crystal City parking lot:

“A drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks,” according to a Arlington County Police Department crime report. “The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police.”

The Air Force has had some trouble with sexual assault and holding its officers responsible: Earlier this year, an Air Force officer convicted of sexual assault and thrown out of the service was returned to active duty when the case's convening authority, Third Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, decided there wasn't enough evidence to convinct him—the latest in a string of controversial decisions and shocking revelations about military sexual assault. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has recommended legislation to change rules on military tribunals.

Krusinksi, for his part, has reportedly been removed from the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program.

Natasha's roommate, Eric, had finally done it. He had truly crossed a line. He existed now beyond the pale, in a lawless wasteland populated by bandits, brutes, and bad, bad roommates. Natasha sings now, of his treachery, in an email forwarded to Gawker.

Three weeks ago, I was going to give you 48 hours to pack and get out of the apartment. What you did is INEXCUSABLE, scummy, dirty, selfish, and frighteningly disrespectful to say the VERY least!!!!!!!!! You need to be out of this apartment by the end of this month.

We received this email—the Email of Eric's Everlasting Exile—from Eric today, a couple months after he had moved out of the apartment he once shared with two other tenants. In it, Eric's roommate Natasha explodes with fury over The Thing That Eric Did. These words are her passionate attempt to evict Eric from her home, her life, and Earth itself.

...I will talk with my doctor to see what testing/shot is necessary to make sure you and all the girls you sleep with, haven't infected me with anything. You will pay for the testing as well as the lab work.

To this day, Eric denies that he did the dastardly deed he definitely did (according to Natasha), which is classic Eric. Lo, she foretold his feeble protests even as he did conceive them:

Even if you deny it, I will not believe you. That is the conscious decision you made, and these are the repercussions you have to pay.

Fortunately for the wretched Eric, Natasha was loath to invite negativity into her life and so merely gave him 11 days to remove himself from her presence after he Did What He Did, rather than physically assaulting or poisoning him, as others counseled her to.

I have spoken to many people about this and I've gotten answers like..."I would have thrown his stuff out asap," "I would have knocked him out and down the stairs," "I would have contaminated his food or bath products." I however, am not interested in inviting negativity into my life. I just want you to leave immediately. And you're lucky I'm giving you so much to do that.

It is hugely unfair and disturbing for me to be in this situation!!!

By the way, what Eric did: put her toothbrush in his mouth (maybe).

Aren't you fuckin' aware that you can spread DISEASE by sharing a toothbrush?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should seriously pray to God that you haven't infected me with anything. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Eric tells us that his teeth were polished to a gleaming white not by means of duplicity and deceit, but with a toothbrush of his own purchasing. He says that when he asked Natasha why she thought he had used hers, she responded "Because it was wet."

Natasha, who is in fact one of the most real and kindest people Eric will ever know in his lifetime, was moved to exist outside of herself by the drama of the proceedings.

Unfortunately for me, I've been severely going out of my way and comfort zone, by being completely fake around you (when I'm in fact one of the most real and kindest people you will ever know in your lifetime) — when in actuality, I don't want to even see your face. That poses an unhealthy environment for the both of us, and this is the way it will be fixed. Also, I know that my honey, face wash, and body wash, among other of my things, have been used. If it's you, stop.

Elsewhere, she admits she is annoyed at Eric for "constantly doing what you do on the patio" (Tie-dyeing shirts without laying down newspaper? Exploring the herbal arts? One of those two things)—

One more thing- I don't feel comfortable with you constantly doing what you do on the patio. Starting from 9am on the weekends in visible light and throughout the day every weekend, and every single day of the week, in and out.

I will ask Marc if he wants to find a place with you so you guys don't have to sneak in the apartment separately anymore after constantly going out without me like you were doing for weeks before I joined you for Trivia night that time. LOL Pathetic!!

The full email, with names changed, is here:

Eric,

Since the day your parents came to visit, three weeks ago, I've been totally livid and being fake around you.

I know you've used my toothbrush.

Three weeks ago, I was going to give you 48 hours to pack and get out of the apartment. What you did is INEXCUSABLE, scummy, dirty, selfish, and frighteningly disrespectful to say the VERY least!!!!!!!!! You need to be out of this apartment by the end of this month. I will have a new roommate take that bedroom starting the beginning of March.

In addition, I will talk with my doctor to see what testing/shot is necessary to make sure you and all the girls you sleep with, haven't infected me with anything. You will pay for the testing as well as the lab work.

I am also getting tired of placing the dishes that you leave all week long in the sink, into the dishwasher. That is not my responsibility and I have already spoken to you about that. I'm also getting tired of running and emptying the dishwasher twice every single week, where I used to do it only once or twice a month max. I'm a working professional (not a a maid), I am very busy, and don't need to spend my time like that. You should have told me when we first met that you cook often; that is one of the main characteristics I do not want of a roommate, for these reasons exactly. Also spraying the slattered oil off the stove every week...is not my job.

One more thing- I don't feel comfortable with you constantly doing what you do on the patio. Starting from 9am on the weekends in visible light and throughout the day every weekend, and every single day of the week, in and out. You and I can get in major trouble for that and I am not going to continue to worry about that in the home I've been living in for the past seven years.

—- However, all that aside — it's the using of my toothbrush which is the reason you are leaving. Even if you deny it, I will not believe you. That is the conscious decision you made, and these are the repercussions you have to pay.

I have spoken to many people about this and I've gotten answers like..."I would have thrown his stuff out asap", "I would have knocked him out and down the stairs", "I would have contaminated his food or bath products". I however, am not interested in inviting negativity into my life. I just want you to leave immediately. And you're lucky I'm giving you so much to do that.

It is hugely unfair and disturbing for me to be in this situation!!! I even called my close friend who's a nurse, as well as my dentist, to talk with them about the situation. I will call my doctor this week.

Aren't you fuckin' aware that you can spread DISEASE by sharing a toothbrush?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should seriously pray to God that you haven't infected me with anything. That's all I'm going to say about that.

There are tons of people looking for roommates in this town and locally, even now during the winter; I already checked craigslist last week.

Unfortunately for me, I've been severely going out of my way and comfort zone, by being completely fake around you (when I'm in fact one of the most real and kindest people you will ever know in your lifetime) — when in actuality, I don't want to even see your face. That poses an unhealthy environment for the both of us, and this is the way it will be fixed. Also, I know that my honey, face wash, and body wash, among other of my things, have been used. If it's you, stop.

I will ask Marc if he wants to find a place with you so you guys don't have to sneak in the apartment separately anymore after constantly going out without me like you were doing for weeks before I joined you for Trivia night that time. LOL Pathetic!! What are we in grade school?? lol!...and once again- just plain disrespectful, especially after I've been totally sweet to the both of you...... and especially considering the fact that it's ONLY because of me, that you guys are good friends now....lol Your Welcome. A decent individual/roommate would never exclude one roommate, but rather as a human being, ask every once in a while, if she/he would like to join. l would NEVER do that to any roommate of mine. NEVER.

Eric, I will start showing your bedroom immediately. You need to move out by the end of this month of February. You still owe me utilities and medical fees. I will let you know soon, what that totals to. Regardless of whether you email me back or not, it doesn't matter. You're things need to be removed out of the bedroom and closet by the end of this month. Make sure not to break the window blinds or anything else.

So now you know why I've been acting weird around you both, on and off, for the past several weeks. You deserve that. I don't.

Natasha

[Photo via pedrosala/Shutterstock.]

Nine Inch Nails put its infamous 1993 faux-snuff film/long-form music video Broken on Vimeo today, and within two hours it was taken down, which is very 1993 of Vimeo.

A California mother of four made a very fortunate mistake last month when she accidentally purchased a winning lottery ticket at her local CVS.

Thuan Le, a single parent from Santa Ana, was at a Mission Viejo CVS, picking up her weekly stack of lotto tickets: Four powerball tickets and one SuperLotto Plus.

Distracted momentarily, Le accidentally put $6 into the self-service terminal instead of the necessary $5.

Noticing the extra $1 in her favor, Le thought, "I might as well get another SuperLotto Plus ticket."

According to state lottery officials, it was that sixth ticket that won Le the $14 million jackpot.

"We thought she was joking," said one of Le's four sons, referring to his mom's announcement that she had won the SuperLotto Plus drawing. "But we thought would she really joke like this? My older brother said, 'Yes, she would.'"

But it was true: Le had beaten the 1 in 42 million odds, and matched all six numbers.

Le says she plans to use her windfall to buy a house and visit her parents in Vietnam.

The CVS that sold Le her winning ticket will get to share in her joy with a $70,000 bonus courtesy of the California Lottery.

[H/T: The Sideshow, screengrab via Calottery]

Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months in prison today for failing to pay taxes on about $1 million in income. The IRS: Ready or not, here they come, you can't hide. They're gonna fiiiiiiind you, and send you to jail.

Here's a disgusting new way to make Baby healthier: Instead of being an uptight parent who uses dishwashers or soap or basic hygiene, try "cleaning" your infant's gross pukey pacifier by sticking that thing in your mouth and sucking away.

A new study proves that parents who do this, in Sweden, end up with kids who don't have a million allergies and aren't such a hassle. What you're doing when you suck the filth off your baby's pacifier is teaching Baby's body to get used to germs, because you are feeding your germs back to the child.

According to the new study published today in Pediatrics, kids who feast on their parents' mouth bacteria also have lower rates of eczema and asthma.

But the simple act of a parent sticking a dirty pacifier into their mouth may not be the sole reason their babies are healthier. This kind of behavior might just be a marker for the kind of slovenly child-rearing necessary to keep Junior from becoming allergic to everything.

It's also a good way to get some extra space on the subway or in a busy restaurant, although probably not as foolproof as changing your child's diapers in public.

[Photo via Shutterstock.]

Jalopnik Crazy New Flying Car Is A Vertical-Takeoff 200 MPH Plug-In Hybrid | Lifehacker What Happens to Your Brain When You Have Stage Fright | Gawker Roommate Banished from Existence for Using Other Roommate's Toothbrush | Gizmodo Watch a Sand Storm From the Top of the Tallest Building in the World |

Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup for the CIA this century outside of the actual killing of Osama bin Laden. But the extent to which the CIA shaped the film has remained unclear. Now, a memo obtained by Gawker shows that the CIA actively, and apparently successfully, pressured Mark Boal to remove scenes that made them look bad from the Zero Dark Thirty script.

The CIA's whitewashing effort is revealed in a cache of documents newly released under a Freedom of Information Act request about the CIA's cooperation with Bigelow and Boal. The documents include a 2012 memo—initially classified "SECRET"—summarizing five conference calls between Boal and the CIA's Office of Public Affairs in late 2011. "The purpose for these discussions was for OPA officers to help promote an appropriate portrayal of the Agency and the Bin Ladin operation," according to the memo. (Hundreds of pages of CIA documents about the film were released last year; the memo obtained by Gawker was approved for release late last month.)

During these calls, Boal "verbally shared the screenplay" for Zero Dark Thirty in order to get the CIA's feedback, and the CIA's public affairs department verbally asked Boal to take out parts that they objected to. According to the memo, he did.

Here are the key changes:

The much-discussed opening scene of Zero Dark Thirty features the main character Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, observing a detainee at a CIA black site as he is water-boarded and shoved into a tiny box during an interrogation. It appears that an early version had Maya participating in the torture. But during their conference calls, the CIA told Boal that this was not true to life. The memo reads: "For this scene we emphasized that substantive debriefers [i.e. Maya] did not administer [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] because in this scene he had a non-interrogator, substantive debriefer assisting in a dosing technique."

According to the memo, "Boal said he would fix this." Indeed, in the final film Maya doesn't touch the prisoner during this scene. The decision to have Maya abstain from the torture was as significant artistically as it was factually. Her ambivalence was a key part of her character, and critics picked over every detail of the torture scenes, including Maya's status as an observer rather than a participant, for meaning in the debate over torture that the movie sparked.

Wired's Spencer Ackerman, for example, interpreted Maya's complex relationship to on-screen torture as a sign of a complex inner life: "Maya is... a cipher: she is shown coming close to puking when observing the torture. But she also doesn’t object to it." Of course, the scene reads a bit differently if the choice was dictated by a CIA propaganda officer.

The CIA also took issue with an interrogation scene that featured a dog intimidating a detainee. Boal took it out: "We raised an objection that such tactics would not be used by the Agency," the memo reads. "Boal confirmed in January that the use of dogs was taken out of the screenplay."

The CIA might not have done it, but threatening detainees with dogs was a well-known feature of the War on Terror, even allowed in certain circumstances by U.S. Army interrogation manuals. The technique was pioneered in Guantanamo Bay and cruelly elaborated upon at Abu Ghraib. Some of the most disturbing photos from the Abu Ghraib scandal featured military dogs menacing naked prisoners.

The CIA also successfully pressed for a change outside of interrogation scenes. One scene in the early script featured a wild party in Islamabad, and the CIA asked Boal to take it out. He did.

From the memo:

"One scene early in the film that was objected to was a rooftop party in Islamabad where an officer, after drinking fires a celebratory burst of AK-47 gunfire into the air. We insisted mixing drinking and firearms is a major violation and actions like this do not happen in real life. We requested this be taken out of the film. Boal confirmed he took this out of the film."

To be fair, drunken firearms abuse was more a Blackwater thing.

Another minor issue was the fact that Maya analyzed videos of detainee interviews in order to track down Osama bin Laden's courier. The CIA told Boal that they didn't videotape interviews and use them in analysis. (This is itself a lie of course—the CIA did record 92 tapes, totaling hundreds of hours, of the interrogation and torture of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. It subsequently destroyed them.) But Boal explained "visually this is the only way to show research in an interesting cinematic way," according to the memo. The CIA "did not request Boal take this scene out of the movie," and it remained.

The document reveals the extent to which CIA access was a quid pro quo arrangement, in which Boal made substantive changes to his script to appease them. "As an agency, we've been pretty forward-leaning with Boal," wrote a CIA flack to her peers in documents released last year. "He's agreed to share scripts and details about the movie with us so we're absolutely comfortable with what he will be showing."

Reached for via email, Mark Boal wouldn't comment on the record. But a person with knowledge of the Zero Dark Thirty production process confirmed that specific changes had been made to the script after suggestions from the CIA, including Maya's lack of participation in the torture scene. But this person said these changes were only due to security or accuracy concerns, and the CIA had no input on creative decisions.

Update: in an email, Boal wrote:

We honored certain requests to keep operational details and the identity of the participants confidential. But as with any publication or work of art, the final decisions as to the content were made by the filmmakers.

Here's the memo (pen mark-up is ours):

For several years, someone calling himself "Fat Longpig" haunted a variety of online forums, discussing with anyone who shared it his unique interest in "abducting, raping, murdering, and eating children," trading child pornography, and, in at least one case, attempting to arrange a kidnapping.

Meanwhile, away from the keyboard, as court documents reveal, Longpig was building a basement dungeon, stocked with a cage, a child coffin, a butchering kit—and two freezers.

Longpig, real name Geoffrey Portway, pleaded guilty on Monday to soliciting the kidnapping of a child and to the distribution and possession of child pornography. According to the Department of Justice, Portway, a UK citizen born in Spain and living in Worcester, Mass., had solicited a Kansas man, Michael Arnett (pictured), to kidnap a child whom Portway "would ultimately rape, kill and eat." ("Longpig" is slang for human flesh when cooked, and appears frequently on cannibal-fetish sites.)

Arnett has since been arrested, and the statement of facts released by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz reveals an alarming flirtation:

At least as early as 2010, PORTWAY utilized Skype and other programs to communicate with ARNETT. PORTWAY and ARNETT traded child pornography and images of injured, mutilated and deceased children while chatting about the sexual abuse, rape, abduction, murder, and cannibalism of children. Over months, PORTWAY repeatedly solicited and endeavored to persuade ARNETT to kidnap a child for him, with the intent that ARNETT would do so and PORTWAY would ultimately rape, kill and eat that child. These solicitations for help abducting a child included discussing real children, by name and photo, that ARNETT claimed to know and have access. In the chats, PORTWAY and ARNETT discuss different ways to kidnap children and the age range PORTWAY prefers. During the time that PORTWAY was soliciting ARNETT, he had been told that ARNETT had helped others with such requests before and that he had experience with the abduction and sexual abuse of children.

Portway was arrested in June of last year, and officers serving the search warrant on his home unearthed a sickening scene:

During the execution of the search warrant at PORTWAY’s residence, HSI agents also discovered a locked door in the basement of the residence. Inside the door was a sally port that led to a second door (with a keyed lock). Inside the second door was a dungeon, which was lined with acoustical sound-deadening material and contained a chair, television, and what appeared to be cable access to the internet. Also located in this room were a child-sized homemade coffin (with large speakers covered in wire mesh at one end) with exterior locking devices, a steel cage (approximately 3' wide, 2' high and 4' long) with multiple locking devices, and a steel table top (with steel rings at 6 points, presumably for restraints). Outside these rooms were a cabinet freezer, an upright freezer, disposable scalpels, butchering kits, and castration tools. This dungeon was described in detail by PORTWAY in recovered chats as a place he intended to use to keep kidnapped children while he sexually abused them and as a place to eventually murder and cannibalize the children.

Portway was arrested as part of the Justice Department's Operation Holitna, an online sting operation that investigators say has resulted in 51 arrests and the rescue of 160 children. Portway will serve 18 to 27 years in jail, and will be deported on his release.

Here's the Statement of Fact from the case. Warning: graphic descriptions of child pornography.

The Wall Street Journal, America’s premier lifestyle magazine for teens who love fashion, beauty, and fun, issued a friendly yet firm memo to staff Monday morning reminding everyone that staying abreast of international business and economic developments is important, but looking good on tape is just as, if not more important.

…we want to remind those appearing on camera that you should take into consideration your appearance both in terms of journalistic content and on-air presentation.

In the emailed memo, WSJ Deputy Editor in Chief Matt Murray and video operations head Chris Cramer, plead with the filthy, misshapen trolls they hired to churn out lengthy think pieces on the European debt crisis in exchange for cats to eat to JUST BE HOT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. Why don't the Wall Street Journal-ists try taking “neat and professional dress” out for a spin before appearing on screen? Maybe everyone would like to experiment with a new hairstyle called "combed hair"?

There’s even an in-house makeup artist whose life’s passion is to take the face your mama gave ya and fix it so that it is presentable to humans.

…a quick visit to our resident makeup artist on the 6th floor is encouraged before each appearance for both men and women – even for just a quick dash of powder. You want the spotlight focused on your stellar journalism – not shining off your forehead.

At the end of the memo, Murray and Cramer acknowledge that journalism is a fast-paced world driven by tight deadlines. Sometimes, people just don't have time to be made camera ready. If you're under the clock, and more worried about facts than face, don't stress about getting made up. All you have to do is your job (whichincludesswingingbythe6thfloorformandatorymakeup).

We fully understand and appreciate the deadline pressure you are under and will make you camera ready in moments.

If you don't work from the New York offices, God help you. Watch blush tutorials on YouTube. Explore plastic surgery options in the U.S. and abroad. Consider taking up another profession, like "ugly waitress," "ugly anesthesiologist" or "ugly accountant."

If you’re in a bureau or coming to us remotely, please keep the above guidelines in mind prior to your appearance.

Read the full memo here; guess which on camera uggo inspired this memo in the first place below.

[Image via Shutterstock]

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

The man who injured President Obama during a basketball game nearly 3 years ago finally gave his first interview:“I’ve played basketball a million times in my life and I’ve never elbowed anybody. So the first time I do this, it’s to the President of the United States? What is the probability of that? Nil, right?”

The eyes of the fashion-conscious and celebrity-obsessed turn this evening to the annual Costume Institute Gala at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. To accompany the Institute's latest exhibit, "Punk: From Chaos to Couture," the gala's theme this year was punk rock, because what better way to celebrate the history of punk music than by inviting millionaires to compliment one another at an exclusive party.

Pictured above is noted punk Ivanka Trump, whose husband, Jared Kushner, real-estate scion, New York Observer publisher, and radical anarchist, waits quietly behind her, pondering revolt.

Update: Via Twitter, a chilling gallery.

Beyoncé in Givenchy at the Met Gala (4) twitter.com/BeyonceLite/st…

— Beyonce Lite (@BeyonceLite) May 7, 2013

"Miley Cyrus stood out with her punk rock hairstyle at The 2013 Met Gala Tonight" - twitter.com/StylishCyrus/s…

— Miley Cyrus Fashion(@StylishCyrus) May 7, 2013

It's a starlet moment at #themetgala for Jennifer Lawrence in Dior. See more!hbazaar.co/6018Xmx2 twitter.com/harpersbazaaru…

— Harper's Bazaar (@harpersbazaarus) May 7, 2013

Sienna Miller and Tom Sturridge wearing @burberry to attend the #MetGala in New York tonight twitter.com/Burberry/statu…

— Burberry (@Burberry) May 7, 2013

Sienna Miller punked it up with a studded @burberry jacket. More #METGala looks this way! marie.cl/6018Xmxk twitter.com/marieclaire/st…

— Marie Claire (@marieclaire) May 7, 2013

Nicki Minaj SLAYING LIVES @ #METgala twitter.com/kennyyKEN/stat…

— KUSH KEN. (@kennyyKEN) May 7, 2013

British actress Michelle Dockery wearing a @burberry dress at the #MetGala in New York tonight twitter.com/Burberry/statu…

— Burberry (@Burberry) May 7, 2013

Jennifer Lopez embraces her wild side in animal print Michael Kors #METGala twitter.com/ETonlineAlert/…

— EntertainmentTonight (@ETonlineAlert) May 7, 2013

British model @caradelevingne in a @burberry dress at the #MetGala in New York twitter.com/Burberry/statu…

— Burberry (@Burberry) May 7, 2013

Madonna in @givenchy bringing the punk to the #MetGala @kcdworldwide twitter.com/tomandlorenzo/…

— Tom + Lorenzo® (@tomandlorenzo) May 7, 2013

making new friends at #MetGala @gwynethpaltrow twitter.com/psy_oppa/statu…

— PSY (@psy_oppa) May 7, 2013

...and her husband chris martin #MetGala twitter.com/psy_oppa/statu…

— PSY (@psy_oppa) May 7, 2013

The entrance way to @metmuseum #metgala... what a night! ;-) twitter.com/aliciakeys/sta…

— Alicia Keys (@aliciakeys) May 7, 2013

[Image via Getty]

Perhaps inspired by the recent nationwide subway poop crime spree, San Francisco officials are finally able to ban passengers who use the city's subway trains as public bathrooms.

Assembly Bill 716, which was passed last year and went into effect Monday, gives BART employees the power to ban passengers who urinate, defecate or otherwise commit illegal acts while commuting. For lesser offenses – like, as San Francisco Weekly notes, shitting on an escalator – might earn you just a citation, one of three you can receive in 90 days before you're barred from the train.

Your more serious offenses –your stabbings, your robberies, your mid-train masturbating – will now get you banned on the spot. Those bans can last between 90 days to one year, depending on the severity of the crime.

The ability to ban repeating subway shitters won't just make Bay area commutes more sanitary and pleasant in general; it could also save lives.

[Image via AP]

Three women were rescued Monday afternoon from a home in Cleveland. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight all went missing roughly 10 years ago, when Berry was 16, DeJesus 14 and Knight was 21. All three are alive, talking, and apparently in good health, according to police.

The three were rescued by a neighbor, Charles Ramsey.

“I heard screaming… And I see this girl going nuts trying to get outside,” Ramsey said. “I go on the porch and she said ‘Help me get out. I’ve been here a long time.’ I figure it was domestic violence dispute."

“She comes out with a little girl and says ‘Call 911, my name is Amanda Berry’… When she told me, it didn’t register."

Ramsey then called 911. When police arrived, they told Ramsey who he'd rescued. Ramsey told reporters that a four or five year-old-girl was with Berry when she escaped, and that there were other young children in the home.

Berry has been missing since April 2, 2003, the day before her 17^th birthday. She disappeared after telling her sister she'd accepted a ride home from the Burger King where she worked. Her disappearance made headlines again last summer, when a man told Cleveland police that Berry was buried in a vacant parking lot. Police searched the lot, tearing it apart with backhoes, but found nothing. Eventually the man, Robert Wolford, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to four and a half years.

DeJesus went missing in April 2004 at age 14 as she was walking home from her middle school. Knight was last seen leaving her cousin's home in 2002, when she was 21. All three women were found within miles of where they'd disappeared.

Cleveland police have confirmed they've arrested a 53-year-old suspect.

UPDATE 12:50 AM: CBS News is reporting the woman in the center of this photo is Amanda Berry. Her sister is to the left.

UPDATE 11:57 PM: Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba told local reporters that the three suspects are brothers, aged 50, 52 and 54. All three are being held in city jail, awaiting charges.

The three women were taken to a local hospital. All three are in stable condition.

And WOIO-TV in Cleveland is citing an “investigative source” who said chains were found hanging from the home's ceiling.

WOIO-TV: Investigative source says chains found hanging from ceiling in Cleveland home, signs of dirt moved or excavating in backyard

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) May 7, 2013

UPDATE 11:37 PM: Betsy Kling of WKYC is reporting that two of Ariel Castro's brothers were arrested as suspects.

@wkyc Prime suspect is 52 y/o Ariel Castro... 2 additional suspects arrested, allegedly Ariel's brothers

— Betsy Kling - WKYC (@BetsyKling) May 7, 2013

UPDATE 11:21 PM: According to reports, this is the Facebook page for Ariel Castro, the 52-year-old suspect in the kidnappings. It's worth noting that information like this is often incorrect in the immediate aftermath of breaking news, but more and more evidence has emerged linking the suspect to the profile.

A link to the page was tweeted by Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter Rachel Dissell, who noted that the page listed Castro as a bass player in a tropical/merengue band. In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, the suspect's uncle said, "[Ariel] was a musician, a great bass player.” The Facebook page includes several pictures and updates about playing the bass.

Sara Shookman, a reporter for Cleveland's WKYC, reported that it was Castro's son, Anthony, who penned this 2004 article about DeJesus and Berry's disappearance. Shookman noted that Anthony Castro was then a journalist at Bowling State.

One of Ariel Castro's Facebook friends is an Anthony Castro who studied journalism at Bowling Green. Shookman also spoke to Anthony Castro.

Ariel "Anthony" Castro, the suspect's son who wrote of DeJesus, tells me: "This is beyond comprehension...I'm truly stunned right now."

— Sara Shookman (@SaraShookman) May 7, 2013

This is a picture from Ariel Castro's Facebook page:

UPDATE 11:03 PM: Sara Shookman of WKYC in Cleveland is reporting that the author of the below article was Ariel Castrol's son, Anthony, who was a journalism student at Bowling Green State University at the time.

I'm talking to Anthony Castro right now, the son of Ariel Castro. While a BGSU student, he wrote this in 2004. twitter.com/SaraShookman/s…

— Sara Shookman (@SaraShookman) May 7, 2013

UPDATE 10:30 PM: In a strange twist, someone named Ariel Castro — the same name as the suspect — wrote a 2004 article in a West Side neighborhood newspaper about how his neighborhood was coping with the disappearances of DeJesus and Berry.

The author interviewed DeJesus’ mother, Nancy Ruiz, and a group of parents waiting for their children to be released from Wilbur Wright Middle School. They spoke of the need for greater security and the fear that had settled upon the neighborhood.

“For seven weeks, Gina’s family has been organizing searches, holding prayer vigils, posting fliers and calling press conferences,” Castro wrote. “Despite the many tips and rumors that have been circulating in the neighborhood, there has been no sign of her. One thing is for certain, however. Almost everyone feels a connection with the family, and Gina’s disappearance has the whole area talking.”

It is unclear whether the author is the suspect.

Here's a link to the full article.

UPDATE 10:18 PM: The Plain-Dealer is also reporting that police arrested Ariel Castro, 52, the owner of the home.

Castro, who Ramsey said took off running after the rescue, was arrested at a nearby McDonald's. “We never thought that man would do anything to anybody,” [neighbor Victoria] Pratts said. “He was a bus driver.”

UPDATE 10:09 PM: The Cleveland Plain-Dealer has 911 calls from Berry and from Ramsey. Note: Ramsey's 911 call, while amazing, is not exactly safe listening for work.

And here's another interview with Ramsey:

[Image via AP]