Spurred by the mass shooting in Newtown, a councilman from Spring City, Utah, has drafted a proposal recommending that each of the town's 956 residents get their hands on a gun.

The proposal initially made gun ownership a requirement, but pushback from some, including the county sheriff, forced Neil Sorensen to rework the language.

The revised ordinance is expected to pass at next month's council meeting, triggering a public hearing.

But KSL says residents are unlikely to show resistance.

"Law enforcement, that's a big expense for us. So if we can do our part, then it will be a better place," said resident David Sedlak.

Sorensen notes that many of the town's residents already own a gun.

A separate proposal to fund concealed weapons training for local teachers has already been approved by the city council.

Spring City is not the first town to put gun ownership in its law books. In Kennesaw, Georgia, an ordinance passed in 1982 required all heads of households to own a gun, and the city claims that burglary rates have been declining ever since.

[H/T: C&L, screengrab via KSL]

Hiring a nanny is nervewracking. You want someone who's great with kids, who can speak three languages, and who has impeccable virtue, yet you also want someone who will work for free. It's a delicate balance.

One Queens couple has a very specific idea of the kind of adult in whose care they will leave their children: a lost soul who's willing to tackle the epic quest of slogging through their 65-question survey.

Grab your umbrella! You are a magical Mary Poppins, a wizard, or a giant spiky Triceratops. You love to play, pretend, create, teach, and nurture. You are reliable, warm, and fun, but also know how to say "no" when necessary.

The questionnaire, linked from a Craigslist posting, opens by asking for basic (if perhaps illegal) info: What's your name? Are you a U.S. citizen? Would you ever go to Queens?

Then, all of a sudden, your doctor is involved.

6. Will you be able to provide a letter from your primary care doctor stating that you are in good health and able to perform the "rigorous job of caring for two small children?"

7. Will you provide a letter from your doctor listing all your current prescription drugs?

There are questions about how often you bathe, and how often you wash your hair. Questions about how many countries you have been to ("More than 30?") and about whether you will become homesick and need to return to your non-American family. About traffic citations, and where you fall in the birth order of your siblings, and whether you have ever been placed in "a Youth Detention Center or 'juvie.'"

Then, there are the drug questions.

Now, make no mistake. The king and queen of Queens are down with the kids. They know that you might think it's cool lick a pill or drink some "cough meds," and they know all the different slangs.

"How often do you smoke weed?" asks question 25. "How many smokes do you typically have on a social occasion?" comes next.

28. Do you take any of the following prescription drugs or their derivatives? Choose all that apply:
Ritalin, Percocet, Adderall, Vicodin, Tylox, OxyContin

Question 29 is composed of three colums. One for drugs you did more than 5 years ago, one for drugs you did between 1 and 5 years ago, and one for drugs you are probably on right now as you're filling out this survey. :

Which recreational drugs do you do? Check all that apply.

Here are the choices:
- Inhalants
- Ritalin
- Percocet
- Adderall
- Vicodin
- OTC
- Cough meds
- Tylox
- OxyContin
- Mushrooms
- Meth
- LSD
- Ketamine
- GHB
- Coke
- Ecstasy
- Heroin
- Other (Please write below)

Now, here is the question burning at the heart of this survey, in the soul of Queens:

Do you reward the honest meth head, one year sober, who, in the spirit of full disclosure, did pop a tab of ecstasy in celebration of the great new kids (your kids) he can't wait to learn and laugh with?

Or do you go with the folks who at least had enough sense to lie on your very-easy-to-lie-on Internet survey?

And who, if not drug addicts, are you trying to attract by posting your listing on Craigslist?

Following the drug bust, there are a few dozen more questions of varying degrees of difficulty: What was your high school GPA? What age do you feel is the oldest a child should cease breastfeeding? ("3 months?" "2 years?" "Whenever the child and mother agree to wean?") What would you do during naptime?

Oddly, the most perplexing question of all concerns what would seem a pretty straight-forward subject: washing hands.

9. Choose the following instances when you would wash your hands with soap and water, or clean your hands with a hand sanitizer (No, we're not expecting you to choose them all. Just answer truthfully):

- Before eating
- After eating
- Before bedtime
- Upon waking
- After touching a public door
- After going to the bathroom
- Before feeding children
- After playtime in the park
- Before changing diapers
- After changing diapers
- After cleaning the house
- When hands are visually dirty

How should you answer this? They say they don't expect you to choose all of them, but don't those all sound like pretty good situations in which to wash your hands, now that they mention it? Is it possible the "don't choose all" warning is a trick to weed out the Unclean? Or will selecting all of those instances make you look like an OCD hand washing enthusiast who will scrub the tender palms of their children until they're raw and red? Maybe the answer is "none of the above" — to boost the kids' immune systems?

Good luck getting this nanny job, would-be nannies.

You are not qualified.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney this afternoon made good on his promise to respond to a We the People petition calling for the deportation of "British citizen" Piers Morgan over his outspoken views on gun control.

At the time of Carney's response, the petition — which urged the White House to deport Morgan over his "effort to undermine the Bill of Rights" — had racked up over 100,000 signatures — well over the threshold of 25,000 required to elicit a White House reply.

In a statement entitled "When Discussing the Second Amendment, Keep the First in Mind Too," Carney tells those capslocking for Morgan's head not to let arguments "over the Constitution's Second Amendment violate the spirit of its First."

He goes on to reiterate President Obama's support for "an individual right to bear arms," but stresses that his support for gun rights doesn't supersede his support for free speech rights.

Americans may disagree on matters of public policy and express those disagreements vigorously, but no one should be punished by the government simply because he or she expressed a view on the Second Amendment — or any other matter of public concern.

Morgan, who invited the petition's creator Alex Jones to a spirited debate on his show, told The Mail on Sunday he would leave the United States on his own if gun laws stayed the same.

A far less popular petition demanded Morgan remain in the US because "no one in the UK wants him back."

The most exciting public relations industry development of the day is undoubtedly the official launch of the hottest new PR agency in town: $100 Dollar PR. That is actually the name of the new PR agency: $100 Dollar PR. What's that screaming sound you hear? Oh, it is just the name "$100 Dollar PR" screaming "quality."

We are happy to give $100 Dollar PR this free bit of publicity on its launch day, because the very existence of $100 Dollar PR just goes to show that PR people are just as broke-ass as everyone else out there right now. (Finally, something that PR people and journalists have in common.) From the press release:

$100 Dollar PR's concept is simple, yet comprehensive. Clients will be able to get their message out to targeted media contacts via a professionally written press release that is distributed by one of the industry's leading distribution services, www.vocus.com. In addition, $100 Dollar PR will provide the critical follow up contact often overlooked by those without experience in the public relations business. In essence, every client will receive the same quality of service one would expect from a high priced public relations company. One of the many great benefits of the service is that it can be used just once, or many times throughout the year, for virtually any newsworthy purpose.

Allow us to translate: "We are broke. I mean broke. It ain't so easy to round up clients as a lone PR person these days. This shit is dog eat dog out here. My fucking water got turned off last month. My water. I was showering in my neighbor's hose. That is not conducive to projecting a professional business image. So tell you what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna write a fucking press release for anybody for a hundred bucks. Flat fee. No shit. I will write a press release on your new beauty parlor or birthday clown business or liquor store for a measly hundred bucks. I'll even throw in a follow up email that will automatically go into reporters' 'Spam' folder at no cost. I'm fucking hustling out here. I write press releases to pay my bills. I write one press release to pay my telephone bill. I write another press release to pay my automobill. I am the 'quickie 15-minute handjob in the back of a car' of the PR industry. And there's no fucking shame in my game."

Why not give $100 Dollar PR your PR business? They'll probably do just as good a job as your fancy PR firm, and their price is much closer to the actual value of a press release (a nickel).

[That name again: $100 Dollar PR]

Non-Senator Rick Santorum has announced his intention to combat the Senate confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Defense secretary. There's a lot to that sentence, so let me re-state: Rick Santorum, who as a regular, non-elected citizen has no more power than you or me or Bobby McGee, is going to attempt to hold up Chuck Hagel's nomination as Secretary of Defense. Because Congress needs help to be inert and unproductive.

President Obama has formally nominated Hagel, a Republican former Senator from Nebraska, to replace Leon Panetta. His nomination must be approved by the Senate, a process to which all cabinet positions like this one are subject. While the President's nomination of a white, male Republican to a top government position would, theoretically, please members of the GOP in the Senate, to some Hagel is not Republican enough. He has come under fire for allegedly hating Israel and loving Iran; he does neither.

This is where former-Senator Santorum comes in. Santorum, who has not been elected to public office in 7 years, does not approve of Hagel and will be leading a lobbying effort to encourage actual politicians not to approve Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Basically, the nonprofit that supported Santorum's failed 2012 presidential bid, Patriot Voices, will be running online ads and maybe Rick himself will make some phone calls to his friends who actually managed to retain their elected seats.

Former senators Santorum and Hagel actually have something in common, however. They are both noted bigots. Which inspired us to create this game called, "Which Homophobe Said It?" The answers are at the bottom, the prize is a whole lot of pride, gay pride.

1. "I think it is an inhibiting factor to be gay - openly aggressively gay like Mr. Hormel - to do an effective job."
2. "Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?"
3. "I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions."
4. On coming out: "I think you do go beyond common sense there, and reason and a certain amount of decorum."
5. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

[Image via Getty]

Answers: 1) Hagel, 2) Santorum, 3) Santorum, 4) Hagel, 5) Santorum

After spending a week in critical condition at the MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, exotic dancer Lauren Block succumbed to injuries she sustained after hitting her head in a 15-foot fall from a strip club balcony.

The accident, which gained national attention last week, occurred around 1 AM on January 2nd inside Christie's Cabaret, where Block was employed.

According to a Cleveland Police Department report published by The Smoking Gun, the 22-year-old was performing a lap dance on 25-year-old Pasquale Storino, when she attempted a complicated "jump/dance move" and fell head-first over the second-floor balcony rail.

Block suffered major head trauma, from which she never recovered.

Following news of her passing, Block's family released the following statement:

We would like to thank the community for their outpouring of support and prayers for Lauren. She has passed away but is an organ donor, and we hope this will enable her to save many lives and live on through others. We would like to express our gratitude to the staff at MetroHealth. They worked tirelessly to do all they could to save her life. We ask that the media respect our privacy during this difficult time. We know that she's in God's hands.

No criminal charges were filed, but OSHA said it would be investigating the incident.

[photos via The Smoking Gun, Christie's]

New polling data suggests New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have exactly what it takes for a Republican to be elected president: Democrats like him more than Republicans do.

Public Policy Polling has released new data that shows Gov. Christie has a 48 percent to 27 percent favorability rating with Republicans compared to his 52 percent to 23 percent favorability with Democrats. Christie actually fares best with independents: 52 percent to 18 percent.

It's no big secret that the Republican party is disjointed. Mitt Romney—historically a fairly moderate Republican—leaned hard right during the primary in order secure the nomination, only to have it bite him in the ass during the general election, independents finding his comments just months previously too conservative.

Christie, who has never been afraid of making headlines or delivering a soundbite, has most recently been in the news for his criticisms of members of his own party. Christie was especially hard on Speaker of the House John Boehner after he pulled a vote to approve Hurricane Sandy relief off the table just as the 112th Congress ended its session. In this polling, Christie's numbers are up 12 points from last month with Democrats, but down 11 points with Republicans.

[Image via AP]

Rockabye Baby! produces sleep-friendly covers of pop and rock — they have released, for example, a white-vinyl version of lullabies based on Smiths songs. A disc of nap-time spins on Rush favorites is on the way. Neither of those can quite match the conceptual weirdness of a baby-friendly version of a song called "Californication." After all, why expose your child to Anthony Keidis yowling, "First born unicorn / Hard core soft porn / Dream of Californication / Dream of Californication..." when you can present him or her with a xylophone expressing the accompanying melody much more gently?

Fans of the critically acclaimed series Arrested Development have had to endure months of teases and at least two false starts, but the good news is that all that lead-up has left little waiting time between now and the fourth season's debut.

Speaking to reporters at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos confirmed that the company plans to drop all 14 episodes of the new season simultaneously this coming May.

Earlier this month, it was rumored that Netflix had scheduled the show's premiere for May 4th, but reps immediately debunked the date.

Still, it seems the rumor-mongers weren't that far off, and neither are Bluth-heads from the first new episodes of Arrested Development in seven years.

Another arrow in the gaunt, stylish corpse of la vie bohème: the New York Daily News reports that a judge ruled on Tuesday that a Manhattan school's firing of a French teacher was legal, after the woman allowed six eighteen-year-old girls to drink wine while on a school trip to France.

The teacher, Danièle Benatoiul, whose name in English translates to Danielle Benatoiul, was fired in 2010 after her students presented a video to the school that showed them sippin' sizzurp and le drank violet (actually just wine) at dinner. While Benatouil had received written permission from the girls' parents to serve their children alcohol, the drinking went against the Calhoun School's zero-tolerance policy.

Now here's where things go bananas. A central tenet of Benatouil's defense was that sampling the wine was an important part of French cultural education for her students. Here's what she said, per the NYDN:

"Having a glass of wine with a meal is absolutely a big part of the French cultural experience. It's very traditional - like having a hamburger in New York!"

You know. Those classic New York hamburgers. New York: The Big Hamburger. "Can I get a little cream cheese for my New York-style hamburger please?" I [hamburger] NY. "Class, please bring in a dish representative of the state you're presenting. For example, if you have New York, you might bring in a hamburger."

Listen, I love this lady as much as she and I love wine (a lot, holla girl), but she is drunk right now.

Benatouil, who worked at the school for 13 years prior to her firing, sought $120,000 (a year's worth of salary and benefits) in her wrongful termination lawsuit. The Daily News writes that she "is mulling an appeal." Over wine, perhaps.

[NYDN // Image via Shutterstock]

The well-worn cliche is that there is a Starbucks practically everywhere.

One Seattle woman has decided to take that hackneyed observation to the next level by eating her every waking meal exclusively at Starbucks for the next 12 months.

Well, Starbucks-owned brands: Tazo Tea and Evolution Fresh are okay too.

"I've been going in and getting their nutrition by the cup charts for all their serving sizes," says Beautiful Existence (real name Beautiful Existence), who adds that she's trying to get two chef buddies to help her turn products at Evolution fresh into sushi.

Why is she doing this? Good question.

Speaking with Linda Thomas at MyNorthwest.com, Existence, who is fresh off a year of buying all her stuff at Goodwill, says she want to help Starbucks help communities.

"The company pays good benefits for part-time workers," she says. "That's where my money is going."

Another reason is that other countries get by on fewer eating options than Americans, and Americans have gotten spoiled.

"You go to all these other countries and they don't have these luxuries," Existence tells Thomas. "Really? Is it really going to be that hard for one year of my life to limit my menu? We'll find out."

Finally, this experiment is also about giving women a voice in the fast food diet world.

On her blog, where she plans to document the year-long challenge, Existence writes:

So how can eating only one company's products impact me, anybody? Well Mr. McDonald's already proved that question years ago with his documentary and Mr. Subway did his take on the loosing weight portion of the food challenges too. But when I watched those guys doing their thing I asked myself "where are the WOMEN challenging themselves in the world?" "Where are the effects being shown on a woman's culture? A woman's family & children? A woman's diet, weight, fashion, checkbook, community and world through challenges?" "Where is HER VOICE on how an international company is directly or indirectly impacting everything from her waistline to her bottom line and every other woman's, man's, child's, societies and planets world with their presence?"

It remains to be seen how empowering Existence's latter-day odyssey will actually be.

With an average daily expense of $18.79 so far, Existence is well on her way to an annual total of over $7,000. As Eater points out, that's $4,000 more than the average adult woman spends on groceries, which can used to make something far more nutritious than a pre-packaged artisan whatever.

[image via 1yearofmylife]

Hyper-popular online misogyny aggregator Reddit is looking to raise money from outside investors for the first time. All Things Digital reports they're looking for around $1 million. Reddit has never been a profitable business, thanks to the raciness of much of its content and administrators' reluctance to monetize the site in a way that might upset their fickle user base. According to BetaBeat, Reddit CEO Yishan Wong is making sure to find so-called "angel" investors, who wouldn't need to have any influence on the workings of the site. Which is too bad, because I would personally pay $1 million for a stake in Reddit if they let me eliminate all of the site's rage comics section from the internet, forever.

Thursday morning, Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone will get up about seven hours earlier than they usually do to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. This will be stupid and pointless and watched by millions of idiots, myself giddily among them. The Oscars are dumb, but as far as awards shows go, they're actually the best, by a pretty wide margin, unless you think Jon Cryer is better than Alec Baldwin, Louis CK, or Larry David, unless you think the best album of 2010 came from Taylor Swift. The Oscars may award pedestrian or mainstream tastes, but they don't skew too far that way. If the Oscars were anything like the Grammys, your Best Picture nominees last year would have included the Transformers, Twilight and Hangover sequels.

Even if you find the Oscars pointless, they remain undeniably fun. They nod pleasantly at the illusion of something really being the "best." And they do so without the dreariness and obvious illogic of Baseball Hall of Fame voting.

Anyway, to play along, let's make some predictions in the eight major categories. Obviously, these are not the nominees I hope to see, but the nominees I expect to see.

Best Original Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
Michael Haneke, Amour
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

This is one of the easiest categories to predict, with five clear leaders. (The next contenders, maybe Rian Johnson for Looper and John Gatins for Flight, are rather far back.) For all the critic love for The Master, this might be the only nomination Anderson gets this year.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Tony Kushner, Lincoln
David Magee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Chris Terrio, Argo
Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild

The only real possibility to crack this group is the gaggle of people who "wrote" Les Miserables, in case that film ends up taking every nomination. I suppose Best Exotic Marigold Hotel could sneak in, but that would be so boring I'm getting sleepy just typing this. The most annoying nomination is Life of Pi, because the screenplay is what keeps getting in the way of that movie.

Best Supporting Actor

Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

There has been a late push for Samuel L. Jackson from Django, and Leonardo DiCaprio has been nominated three times before, but I'll stick with Waltz: The guy was born to recite Tarantino dialogue. The charms of De Niro's Silver Linings performance continue to elude me, but he'll sneak in. I'm still a bit baffled Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike—an Oscar-friendly, out-of-nowhere great-story bid if I've ever seen one—has faded from the top five, but I still hold out hope. Chaps don't get a fella what they used to. Also: No villains in this group. That's always a shame. Maybe Javier Bardem has a chance for Skyfall.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Master
Ann Dowd, Compliance
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Adams, Field, Hathaway and Hunt are locks—and Hathaway winning this award is the biggest lock on the board—but that fifth spot is tricky. Maggie Smith has the Downton Abbey goodwill for Exotic Marigold Hotel. Nicole Kidman is bizarrely getting support for The Paperboy, a film I suspect she's secretly ashamed of. There was less of a push for Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook than I would have thought. Because there's no way I'm putting Kidman in here—let's not forget what goes on in that movie—I'm going with the dark horse in Dowd, who financed her own campaign and was outstanding in a movie I otherwise kind of hated.

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

A tough little category, with only Lawrence (your most likely winner) and Chastain no-brainers. Naomi Watts may ride in on the goodwill for The Impossible, though she probably just deserves the Best Screaming Actress award for that one. If the nine-year-old Wallis is nominated, she'd be the second-youngest nominee ever, though that comes with a big caveat: She was only six when Beasts was filmed. She's 76 years younger than potential fellow nominee Riva.

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Day-Lewis is light-years ahead of everybody else here, but it's an intriguing category nonetheless. Phoenix would be an easy call except he's on record as hating the Oscars, and all awards. (Though that he's accepting his LAFCA award this weekend, presented by our own Tim Grierson, is a sign to many that he's more willing to play ball.) John Hawkes from The Sessions is a possibility, as is Jean Louis Trintignant for Amour.

Best Director

Ben Affleck, Argo
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Spielberg, Affleck and Bigelow, the directors of the three films most likely to win Best Picture, are easy calls. The rest is sort of guesswork. Lee, for the safe, audience-friendly Life of Pi, seems a reliable call for the fourth spot. The fifth has all sorts of contenders, from Michael Haneke for Amour to past winner Tom Hooper for Les Miserables to David O. Russell for the actor-happy Silver Linings Playbook. But I still think there's such moment for Django right now—neverminding its rather astounding financial success—that the Academy will reward Tarantino pulling yet another rabbit out of his hat.

Best Picture

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

As always, the five-minimum, 10-maximum Best Picture slots confuses everybody, particularly with a packed field like this year. Argo, Django, Les Miz, Pi, Lincoln, Linings and Zero are easy calls. So there are three spots open, and perhaps none of them will be filled. Completely guessing, I'm thinking Beasts gets the critics' fave spot that The Master is going for, Amour punches the elderly Academy where it hurts and Moonrise Kingdom and Skyfall don't make the cut.

Whew. There are actually 16 other categories. Sheesh. And hey, if that wasn't enough for ya, how about some predictions for 2014? Why not?

Grierson & Leitch is a regular column about the movies. Follow us on Twitter, @griersonleitch.

A judge yesterday sentenced 25-year-old Jason Earl Dean of Dalton, Georgia, to a split sentence that includes four years in jail after he handcuffed himself to a female Taco Bell employee who wouldn't go out with him.

The incident took place on August 8, 2011, outside a Taco Bell in Ringgold. The unidentified employee was walking to her car when Dean suddenly appeared and handcuffed himself to her.

The woman began to scream, causing multiple co-worker to emerge from the restaurant. Dean immediately let the victim go and fled the scene.

Police arrested Dean two days later at Dalton State College, and booked him on charges of false imprisonment.

According to the victim, Dean, a volunteer firefighter, had been trying to get her to go on a date with him for a month leading up to the incident.

On his Facebook page, Dean, who has been in jail since entering a blind plea last September, claims to be in a relationship and says he is "looking for someone who can see past the outer facade of one another."

[H/T: Brobible, photo via CatWalkChatt]

Japan's most-wanted hacker is also one its most brazen. After taunting authorities for months, the hacker sent them a mocking clue in the form of a memory card strapped to a cat which lived on an island near Tokyo. Above is video of the authorities capturing the cat on January 5th, which was tracked down only after they solved a bunch of riddles the hacker emailed to dozens of Japanese newspapers on New Years Day.

The hacker, dubbed "enkaku," has been plaguing Japan for months. He or she created a virus known as iesys.exe, which allows them to take control of unsuspecting internet users' computers. The Enkaku hacker has then posted anonymous treats of violence on the internet and generally caused online havoc. Enkaku's been so elusive that authorities are offering a bounty of around $34,000 for information leading to Enkaku's arrest.

The police are still analyzing the collar, according to Japanese news reports, but as far as we can tell the cat was let off without even a warning. It's not the strangest thing that's ever happened involving cats and Japan.

[video via Rocketnews24]

How bad is this year's flu season? Here's a Google map that estimates how bad the flu is across the country based on aggregated Google search data. No matter where you live in the U.S., you're facing "intense" or "high" flu activity — unless you live in Connecticut, in which case you're only looking at "moderate" activity (but you're suffering enough).

Or maybe you just use Bing? Either way, you have the first non-UConn sports thing to be proud of in the history of Connecticut. And when the rest of us die, you and your income-disparate peers can rule the remains of the United States from the chilly towers of Hartford.

Because it's not just Google's data telling this story. "We are in for what looks like it's going to be one of the worst flu seasons in nine or 10 years," director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci told WTOP. Washington, Boston and Chicago are all being slammed with flu patients (in some places to such an extent that people are being turned away from hospitals), most suffering from the H3N2 strain of the virus, which has stronger symptoms and tends to last longer than other strains. And this is just anecdotal evidence, but I got the flu last week and I died.

The good news — if you haven't already gotten sick — is that this year's flu shot is widely available and well-matched to H3N2. (You can get one at most pharmacies, or make your own by killing a red chicken at the new moon and reciting certain lines of Aramaic.) Wash your hands a lot, avoid touching or kissing birds, and give mean looks to anyone on public transportation who coughs. And if you do have the flu, get plenty of rest, drink a lot of fluids, and complain loudly to everyone around you so that they understand how hard you have it. Or move to Connecticut.

[Google.org, NYM, WTOP; image via Shutterstock]

Hey, Mack. Who's the most sensual twosome on the block?

That's easy: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

Every day, conversations like the one above play out all over America, on all the blocks where Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart live. Their smoldering chemistry, their zest for life, their passion for the pleasures of the flesh—all is undeniable.

"Sex is a thing that I love to do," Kristen Stewart's glazed glaze seems to say. "And I will do it seven times a day, specifically."

This is the figure thrown out by Star magazine, in a new scholarly report on the intimate lives of Pattinson and Stewart.

Star claims to have heard from "a source" that the couple "have a very active sex life" and "like handcuffs, blindfolds, and feathers."

Close your eyes and imagine Robert Pattinson, his iridescent tail plumage shimmering in the winter sun.

"I like your feathers. I'm so into that," Kristen Stewart mumbles, tearing off her blindfold. "Let's have sex in the way that we love, like we do all the time."

Fifteen minutes later, Stewart sends a text to her friend, "a source."

"Just did it again. I <3 this stuff. (Sex)."

Meanwhile, in the sunken living room, Pattinson switches on a re-run of Law & Order: SVU. He watches as Benson removes a pair of handcuffs from her pocket, then wordlessly slams them on the desk of a colleague.

"I like it," he thinks.

Now imagine that scenario repeating seven times a day.

This is the life of Priapus and his maid.

[Star via HollywoodLife // Image via Getty]

Think Two Girls, One Cup, but without the searing mental anguish that comes from knowing that no amount of regret and shame will ever blot out that which can never be unseen.

[Daily Picks and Flicks via Tastefully Offensive]

Among wealthy, developed countries, that is. According to a study from the National Academy of Sciences, Americans are "far" unhealthier than their counterparts in Canada, Australia, Japan, Britain, France, Portugal, Italy and Germany and eight other countries. But just how bad is it?

Well, Americans ranked last (or first, depending on how you look at it) in infant mortality, injury and homicide rates, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, drug abuse, obesity and diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and disabilities. But don't worry, we managed all this while spending $8,600 a year per person on healthcare, which is more than twice as much Britain, France and Sweden, "even with their universal healthcare systems."

And the numbers are worse for younger Americans.

"It's a tragedy. Our report found that an equally large, if not larger, disadvantage exists among younger Americans," said Dr. Steven Woolf, chair of the department of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who chaired the panel.
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"The size of the health disadvantage was pretty stunning," Woolf told reporters in a telephone briefing.

And, not to make everything about guns but: "Americans are seven times more likely to be murdered than people in the other countries, and 20 times more likely to be killed by a gun."

Who's to blame? According to the study's authors, American culture in general is at fault.

"We have a culture in our country … that cherishes personal autonomy and wants to limit intrusion of government and other entities upon our personal lives," Woolf said. "Some of those forces may act against the ability to achieve optimal health outcomes."

It's clearly not pollution or some other outside factor, said Ana Diez Roux, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, who served on the panel. "It seems to be a whole bunch of things acting together," she said.

"Something fundamentally is going wrong to cause our country to lose ground against other high-income countries," Woolf added.

It's not all terrible news for Americans, though; the old US of A has the highest cancer survival rates and the lowest cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Basically, it's a great spot to live if you're old: "Americans who reach age 75 can expect to live longer than people in the peer countries," the report reads.

But if you're young, well, you should probably just move to France: "I don't think most parents know that, on average, infants, children, and adolescents in the U.S. die younger and have greater rates of illness and injury than youth in other countries," Woolf said.

[NBC News//Image via AP]

That headline says it all, really, but in case you want more info: When the sheriff's department in Alameda County, California attempted to conduct a "probation compliance" check at a home in Castro Valley, they discovered 34 pounds of processed dried marijuana and a five-foot alligator, named "Mr. Teeth," guarding said marijuana from a Plexiglas tank.

As you might expect, Sheriff Sgt. J.D. Nelson said guard alligators are rare. "We come across guard dogs like pit bulls quite frequently, but a guard alligator is very very unusual," Nelson said.

Also unusual: Mr. Teeth's owner, Assif Mayr, purchased the alligator in 1996 "to commemorate the death of rapper Tupac Shakur," which, sure, why not.

Both Mayr and Mr. Teeth were detained, although the gator got the better deal; Mayr was sent to Santa Rita jail with $160,000 bond while Mr. Teeth was taken to the Oakland Zoo.

[Image via Shutterstock]