Jack Lew, Obama's current chief of staff and his reported choice to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, is known for a lot of things – the New York Times says he's a "fiscal progressive" with "fiscal expertise" and a "low-key style," whatever any of that means – but that's not what we're here to discuss; instead let's talk about his signature, which will soon grace all new dollar bills.

As New York Magazine's Kevin Roose put it, Lew has the "world's worst signature." Judging from the photo above, Roose isn't far off; it's just a loopy scribble that looks like it was drawn by nervous child (or as NY Mag puts it: "a Slinky that has lost its spring"). The signature is so bad that in 2011, when Lew was director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Daily Mail caught wind of it and, being the world's premier journalists, hired a forensic handwriting expert to examine it.

Forensic handwriting analyst Sheila Lowe told MailOnline that a signature is 'the cover on the book' that reveals what a person shows to the world.

She said of Mr Lew's signature: 'He doesn't want us to see a lot about him.

'The soft roundedness of the letters show he can adapt quickly and make rapid changes, but he's also self-protective. He doesn't want people to see his private side.'

But before you get too excited about the loopy chicken scrawl making it onto new currency, it should be noted that Geithner, Lew's predecessor, altered his signature to make it more presentable, and his wasn't half as terrible as Lew's. Let's hope Lew stays true to his gibberish handwriting roots because, in addition to paper money, it would look great on a trillion dollar coin.

[NY Mag/NY Times]

When a passenger aboard a Qantas flight en route to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, pointed out that a snake was slithering on the wing, she got the same reaction William Shatner did after he spotted a gremlin on his plane in the Twilight Zone: Mostly scoffing and disbelief.

But there was no ambiguity here: A 10-foot scrub python was indeed coiling for dear life on the plane's exterior.

"There was no panic," said passenger Robert Weber, who snapped several shots of the flying reptile. "At no time did anyone stop to consider that there might be others on board."

Passengers in the vicinity were "totally focused on the snake," which was caught in "a life and death struggle."

With the winds whipping it around, the snake ultimately lost that struggle, but it did put up a good fight. "Until we landed, I looked out the window and the thing was still moving," Weber said.

The snake is believed to have climbed aboard through the landing bay, ultimately moving into the trailing ledge flap assembly.

Qantas insists this is a first for the airline.

[screengrab via SMH]

Actress Emma Stone and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane — this year's host — got up nice and early to tell some really atrocious jokes and announce this year's Oscar nominations. If you were smart enough to avoid this stupid ceremony, here's what's totally surprising: neither Zero Dark Thirty's Kathryn Bigelow nor Argo's Ben Affleck received Best Director nominations, even though both directors were considered locks and both movies are nominated for Best Picture.

And here's what's unsurprising: Lincoln locked up 12 nominations, and MacFarlane was fumbling and unfunny and only took 12 minutes to make a Hitler joke. (Bring back blackface Billy Crystal and/or stoned James Franco!) Here's the full nominee list:

Best motion picture of the year
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln
Hugh Jackman in Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix in The Master
Denzel Washington in Flight

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva in Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts in The Impossible

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Alan Arkin in Argo
Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master
Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln
Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams in The Master
Sally Field in Lincoln
Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables
Helen Hunt in The Sessions
Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook

Achievement in directing
Amour Michael Haneke
Beasts of the Southern Wild Benh Zeitlin
Life of Pi Ang Lee
Lincoln Steven Spielberg
Silver Linings Playbook David O. Russell

Best animated feature film of the year
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph

Achievement in cinematography
Anna Karenina Seamus McGarvey
Django Unchained Robert Richardson
Life of Pi Claudio Miranda
Lincoln Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design
Anna Karenina Jacqueline Durran
Les Misérables Paco Delgado
Lincoln Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the Huntsman Colleen Atwood

Best documentary feature
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man

Best documentary short subject
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption

Achievement in film editing
Argo William Goldenberg
Life of Pi Tim Squyres
Lincoln Michael Kahn
Silver Linings Playbook Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
Zero Dark Thirty Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Best foreign language film of the year
Amour (Austria)
Kon-Tiki (Norway)
No (Chile)
A Royal Affair (Denmark)
War Witch (Canada)

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling
Hitchcock Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
Les Misérables Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
Anna Karenina Dario Marianelli
Argo Alexandre Desplat
Life of Pi Mychael Danna
Lincoln John Williams
Skyfall Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
Before My Time from Chasing Ice
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
Everybody Needs A Best Friend from Ted
Music by Walter Murphy; Lyric by Seth MacFarlane
Pi's Lullaby from Life of Pi
Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
Skyfall from Skyfall
Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
Suddenly from Les Misérables
Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Achievement in production design
Anna Karenina
Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright
Les Misérables
Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson
Life of Pi
Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Lincoln
Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Best animated short film
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head over Heels
Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"
Paperman

Best live action short film
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
Henry

Achievement in sound editing
Argo Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
Django Unchained Wylie Stateman
Life of Pi Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
Skyfall Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
Zero Dark Thirty Paul N.J. Ottosson

Achievement in sound mixing
Argo John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
Les Misérables Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
Life of Pi Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin
Lincoln Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
SkyfallScott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

Achievement in visual effects
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White
Life of Pi Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
Marvel's The Avengers Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
Prometheus Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
Snow White and the Huntsman Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

Adapted screenplay
Argo Screenplay by Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild Screenplay by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
Life of Pi Screenplay by David Magee
Lincoln Screenplay by Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook Screenplay by David O. Russell

Original screenplay
Amour Written by Michael Haneke
Django Unchained Written by Quentin Tarantino
Flight Written by John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty Written by Mark Boal

The controversial pastor who was selected to deliver the benediction at President Barack Obama's second inauguration ceremony announced this morning that he has withdrawn his participation over concerns that his appearance would present a distraction.

"Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda a focal point of the inauguration," Rev. Louis Giglio of Passion City Church said in a statement.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has been heavily criticized by gay rights advocates for their choice of Giglio since ThinkProgress uncovered a sermon delivered by the Georgia-based pastor in the mid-90s that "preached rabidly anti-LGBT views," including support for "ex-gay" therapy and a strong denouncement of the "homosexual lifestyle."

A spokesperson for the inaugural committee released this statement following Giglio's withdrawal:

We were not aware of Pastor Giglio's past comments at the time of his selection and they don't reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural. Pastor Giglio was asked to deliver the benediction in large part for his leadership in combating human trafficking around the world. As we now work to select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration's vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.

American Family Association rep Bryan Fischer called Giglio's announcement a "huge victory for fascistic intolerance."

However, others were quick to point out that the AFA's own president, Tim Wildmon, called on Giglio to decline the White House's invitation because "an implicit endorsement of President Obama "could hurt his credibility "within the Christian community."

[screengrab via YouTube]

Last night, Fox screened about an hour's worth of footage of the first two episodes of the upcoming season of American Idol (premiering Wednesday) to fans and contest winners in movie theaters around the country. It was as weird as it sounds, but thoroughly entertaining. Immediately, it was clear that pitting classic diva (Mariah Carey) against nu-diva (Nicki Minaj) is every bit the genius casting that it seemed to be when it was announced last year. And what's more, Nicki Minaj has emerged as the favorite in this now-legendary, inevitable feud. Minaj wins in the category of what matters most: entertainment value. She is by far the most magnetic persona on the judging panel.

The reason is immediately evident: Nicki Minaj has a devil-may-care spontaneity that lends itself well to the unscripted format. While Carey has a self-conscious poise that she tries to laugh off by going over the top and talking about being a diva and referring to people as "dahhhling," it's not hard to see that she ultimately believes she is very much a grand dame. If Minaj takes herself too seriously, she is savvy enough to know that the way to win people over is to pretend like she's not. And while she had moments of very clear insincerity ("I'm so inspired by you," Minaj croaked to an adequate auditioning singer), she exudes an overall looseness, a willingness to engage, hug, flirt and joke around with the common people singing for her that a 23-year-strong superstar of Carey's caliber clearly is uncomfortable with. Minaj feels like a natural leader, whereas Carey looks mostly uncomfortable, going along for the ride, exposure and rumored $18 million paycheck.

But just because the eye travels most frequently to Minaj doesn't mean that Carey is overshadowed, per se – the tension, which seems to have plagued them from very early on (plenty of footage of them bickering was included in the screening), has rendered the show riveting. Of course it did — this is reality TV we're talking about. I mean, this is the 12th round of these strangers-off-the-street auditions and not a second failed to entertain. We are being treated to an epic battle experience versus youthful exuberance, veteran wisdom versus newbie intuition, restraint versus explosiveness, unintentional humor (Mariah is camp, no matter how much she likes to think she's in on the joke) versus a jokester. I haven't watched American Idol in years, and I was dreading having to because the panel has made something that my job and personal interest won't allow me to miss. Now I can't wait to consume every episode.

(Oh, and also Keith Urban and Randy Jackson are also there.)

I didn't realize it till last night, but with this season of American Idol, stan wars will go mainstream. Sitting in the theater, there were very palpable #TeamMariah and #TeamNicki factions, devotees who screamed when their respective heroes said anything onscreen. In numbers, too, it seems as though Minaj is winning the war — the audience I sat in was overwhelmingly pro-Minaj, probably because they were mostly young people.

After the show footage was screened, the judges reunited onstage for about 40 minutes of Q&A that was simulcast from L.A. The divide (and Minaj support) was even more pronounced, with a representative from each team screaming out an interjection of support for his queen during the other's opening coments. (The Twitter feed that scrolled alongside of them was a ping pong game of compliments on both divas' appearance.) Both were momentarily rattled when this happened (see it in the video to the left). Two superstars being kept on their toes and being vividly confronted with their celebrity is an uncommon and fascinating sight. Carey and Minaj's dynamic tension is bound to be the most riveting thing about the show – the actual contestants don't have a chance.

A new Pew report out today confirms that, yes, having a college degree does have some benefit: young people with college degrees did much better during the recent recession than their peers without college degrees. (One would hope!) Expect your local college to immediately begin leafletting the town with this report, as a marketing effort.

Because the other report about colleges out today comes from Moody's, and it's all about how U.S. colleges as a whole are losing their ability to charge ever vaster sums of money every year for their dose of Fully Credentialed Educatione Magicke. From the WSJ:

For the fiscal year, which for most schools ends this June, 18% of 165 private universities and 15% of 127 public universities project a decline in net tuition revenue [tuition minus scholarships and aid]. That is a sharp rise from the estimated declines among 10% of the 152 private schools and 4% of the 105 public schools in fiscal 2012.

Honestly, considering the severity of the recession we've just come through and the widespread realization among young people and their debt-wracked parents alike that student loans can ruin your life just as easily as pave the path to prosperity, a drop in revenue among less than a fifth of schools does not seem so bad. If colleges are too expensive for most people to afford, they must bring their prices down or perish. If they must bring their prices down, cuts must be made. A mere drop in income for colleges is not necessarily evidence of something bad going on. It ain't the end of the world.

It would be nice if they would cut the solid-gold toilet seats in the football team locker room rather than the adjunct professor's minimum wage salaries, but you can't have it all.

[Photo: BTP/ Flickr]

VAWA died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. America got a telegram from the House: Eric Cantor let the Violence Against Women Act die with many points between it and the Senate bill unreconciled. Maybe it was last week.

Last year, the Senate voted to reauthorize the bill—which first passed in 1994 and was renewed with minimal fuss in 2000 and 2005—while expanding provisions for lesbians, gay men, immigrant women and women on Native American lands. The House responded with a bill that ignored those new provisions and gutted existing ones, then sat and waited out the clock. In a culture that heightens almost anything sex-related to a fever pitch, you probably heard all this in passing, if at all.

You might expect Cantor and other conservative leaders in the House to leap all over renewing the VAWA as kind of a gimme. There's less political liability to reauthorizing an 18-year-old bill than in getting bogged down in congressional debates about the provisions of a new one. Rubber-stamping offers far fewer opportunities than new debate for alienating women via foot-in-mouth disease.

That's critical for the GOP these days, because they have a women problem—the political equivalent of not being able to hear the words "women problem" without thinking of some broad getting cranky, rubbing the small of her back and walking down the beach in soft focus. Their most outspoken voice on women's issues this last year was arguably a reactionary cretin who believes in the Magical Uterus theory. Then, in November, the gender gap in presidential voting was the largest in history.

Now, if you wanted, you could make the case that the House let the bill lapse in order to address structural flaws in it. For instance, maybe declines in some forms of domestic violence since the bill's 1994 passage are attributable to a trend of overall crime reduction preceding its inception. Maybe funding needs to be directed away from law enforcement programs to counseling and family assistance. Of course, assuming this was the House GOP's intent requires that you ignore everything you have ever learned about the House GOP. Still, you could make a case for it. You could make a case that Angela Lansbury was the Zodiac or that Domino's pizza is full of "electbrolytes," which is why it's so killer. You could do a lot of stupid things.

Fantasies aside, it's far likelier that Cantor and the House Republicans let the VAWA lapse for three reasons:

One, they know that killing the bill forces the Democrats to re-introduce it and begin discussion of its provisions anew. While that increases the risk of some paleoconservative standing on the House floor and wondering why women domestic violence victims don't squeeze their breasts and lactate Spiderman webbing at their attackers, it also means that they get to negotiate. More specifically, they get to negotiate with Democrats and Barack Obama, who, recent bluster aside, has approached conflict like Stalin in reverse: "Not one step forward."

Two, opposing something called the Violence Against Women Act is just a good culture war tactic. The GOP is on Year #20 of Rush Limbaugh's "feminazis" slur, and it even evolved last year into Rush's claim that feminism and "chickification" is making your—yes YOUR—penis smaller. This is the same zero-sum attitude that turns every Black History Month into a lamentation that there is no White History Month. There is a fixed amount of justice in this world, and if we give it to women, we'll have to take it from men. Unviolated vaginas will shrink your dick. What do you tell a woman without two black eyes? Nothing, because you can't see her because someone had to give both black eyes to you instead.

What makes this absurd is that the VAWA is gender neutral. The name is a bit of salesmanship ginned up by Joe Biden in 1994. The bill targets domestic violence of many stripes; it just so happens that women constitute about 85% of the victims of those crimes, so the name worked better. VAWA includes programs that educate police about the signs of domestic violence and how to interpret crime scenes and witness testimony; it targets elder abuse; it funds shelters and outreach groups and even helps support victims with housing costs when their attackers provide the bulk of household income. These are all things that benefit men as well as women: even young, strong men—it has to be repeated, endlessly—can also be victims of domestic abuse. The VAWA helped people of both sexes and multiple backgrounds. Which brings up the next problem.

Three, the VAWA helped people of both sexes and multiple backgrounds. While it had other culture-war aspects to it that could have incentivized letting it lapse—extending more protections to gay men, immigrants and migrant workers—the fundamental problem with it is that it intervened in people's lives in ways that could be of tangible benefit to them. Bureaucracy stepping in to improve people's lives or protect them is an existential threat to a very particular vision of America's future. Picture Ronald Reagan saying, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help," only he's not being sarcastic, and he's also a Democrat.

Why the VAWA's lapse has not dominated headlines is probably the fault of the "fiscal cliff" in more ways than one, but the easiest is that it's just not sexy. TV pundits didn't dream up domestic violence and come up with their own nickname for it. The stakes are immediate and personal and neatly point up the aloof vacuity of someone like David Gregory.

Fiscal cliffs are much more fun. They're things that can be distorted and exaggerated into a multitude of apocalypses. They're things people don't understand and or have concrete experiences with—profound, terrifying, violent experiences that make millionaires sitting in a studio on a Sunday TV circlejerk unseemly. You can sit on a Sunday talk show and call for rapid, regressive austerity and never worry that the person next to you will feel the slightest budget pinch. Statistically, though, if you show up on enough of them, you'll meet a woman or a man subject to domestic abuse. And that makes blithely handwaving away suffering so much more difficult. Suddenly you have to put your whole arm into it.

If the upcoming Lindsay Lohan/James Deen vehicle The Canyons is half as entertaining as Stephen Rodrick's New York Times Magazine piece about it, it's going to be fantastic. The 8,000-word article reads like an exhaustive documentary on the Paul Schrader-directed, Bret Easton Ellis-written film (that has since been rejected by Sundance). It is what those on Twitter would refer to as a "great read."

It's also a de facto profile of Lindsay Lohan, which you are tipped off to immediately by its title, "Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie." As such, it is the most humanizing portrait of her that we have seen in a while, possibly ever. Amidst confirmation of what we already know about her tendency to be late, blow off important work and otherwise trounce her legacy are some very revealing, mostly untold details. Here are some things we learn about her:

She has a sense of humor about her…situation…s:

Lohan's private doubts did not diminish her public enthusiasm. She had a thousand thoughts on Tara. Schrader mentioned the character was a failed actress.

"Rejection for an actress is formative."

Lohan snorted a laugh.

"Well, it's nothing like going to jail, I can tell you that."

She owns coasters that say, "I used to worry, but now I have a pill for that."

She talked of a recent photo shoot where she was asked to wear stripes. She shifted into her best Joan Rivers imitation.

"I said, ‘Hello, stripes after jail, so not a good idea!'"

...But not all of her situations:

One afternoon, [Schrader] shot some of the lead-up to the movie's pivotal sex scene. Lohan wasn't happy.

"I hope you got my triple chin on that one," Lohan said to no one directly. "That shot was hideous."

She hated doing Liz & Dick as much as we hated watching it:

At their second meeting, Lohan complained to Schrader about a biopic she was shooting for Lifetime, in which she played Elizabeth Taylor, one of her role models. She proclaimed the director a jerk, her co-star a nightmare and the crew unfriendly.

That said, she relates to Liz Taylor, or rather Lindsay Lohan playing Liz Taylor:

"There was a line in the Elizabeth movie where she says, ‘I'm so bored, I've never been taught what to do when I'm not working,' and I'm kind of figuring that out now."

Left to her own devices, she will make herself look like a clown:

Lohan's visage had a Kabuki quality to it. She had chosen to wear layers of mascara and catlike eye makeup with black lines pointing out toward her ears.

She harnesses her rough upbringing:

After a while, Schrader cut in to show Deen what he wanted, lightly moving Lohan and turning her toward the floor.

"James, you see that?"

Deen nodded, but Schrader wasn't convinced. So he grabbed Lohan, tripped her over his left leg and body-slammed her to the floor. Lohan screamed, and the crew gasped. But she bounced up with a smile.

"That was great! Want to do it again?"

...After three shots, Schrader said he was satisfied, and Lohan fumbled for a cigarette. She headed downstairs, and someone complimented her work.

"Well, I've got a lot of experience with that from my dad."

To get her to disrobe, you must disrobe:

…But then [Schrader] realized that there was one thing he hadn't yet tried. He stripped off all of his clothes. Naked, he walked toward Lohan...

Lohan shrieked.

...Pope heard the scream and ran up from downstairs. He turned a corner, and there was a naked Schrader. Pope let out a "whoa" and slowly backed out of the room.

But then a funny thing happened. Lohan dropped her robe.

She holds grudges:

Schrader was already scouting the location by the time Lohan arrived at the suite with her entourage. She smiled and waved to everyone and then noticed a magazine with Oliver Stone on the cover. She picked it up and ripped it into pieces, cursing. (Lohan had been considered for a role in Stone's "Savages," but the director eventually passed.)

She seems genuinely aware of what she has done to her career and what havoc she can wreak on makeup:

I mentioned the scene at the house where she dissolved into tears. I may have said that she still had a gift and that it shouldn't be squandered. Lohan's eyes filled.

"I know. I'm trying. I'm really trying."

But then she shook her head.

"I can't cry. I've got makeup on."

She eventually wants to direct:

"I eventually want to direct."

[Image via Getty]

65 years ago, Betty Billadeau and her kid brother Clifford Boyson were torn apart by fate and sent to two different foster homes.

Clifford never gave up hope of finding his big sister, and, this week, his dedication finally paid off.

On a whim, Clifford asked Eddie Hanzlin, the 8-year-old son of a neighbor, to search for Betty on Facebook. Within a few days, Eddie gave Clifford the good news: He found his long-lost sibling.

Betty did her part too: The 70-year-old included her maiden name — Boyson — in her Facebook profile, which helped Eddie locate her.

"An eight-year-old; that's just mind boggling," said Billadeau, who plans to make the trip from Florissant, Missouri, to Davenport, Iowa this Saturday so she can give her brother a long-overdue hug.

[screengrab via KSDK]

Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to address the nation this afternoon about his meeting with NRA officials to discuss new gun control policies in this country—an initiative that President Obama asked him to oversee after last month's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. But before anyone could react, news broke of yet another school shooting. Fox News was practically mid-"Guns don't kill people; people kill people" when they cut away to break the news that a gunman at Taft High School in Kern County, California shot 2 people.

Meanwhile, both Headline News and CNN were covering Biden's press conference before news of the shooting broke.

The owner of a goat that was spotted eating pizza around New York City is being charged with sexually assaulting a woman he brought home from a nightclub.

51-year-old Cyrus Fakroddin of Summit, New Jersey, is accused of assaulting a "physically and mentally incapacitated" 19-year-old woman whom he met in a Manhattan nightclub.

The woman claims she awoke hours later in Fakroddin's house with no recollection of where she was or how she got there. Suspecting that she had been sexually abused, the victim returned to Manhattan with the aid of a friend, and sought medical attention.

Police subsequently arrested Fakroddin, and he is presently being held in the Union County jail.

Prior to this incident, Fakroddin made headlines for bringing his pet Alpine Pygmy goat Cocoa to NYC to take in the sights and eat pizza in the Village.

There was no comment from officials on whether Cocoa was with Fakroddin in Manhattan on the night of the alleged assault.

[photo via @ReporterLeslie]

The Heritage Foundation has released its annual list of the world's freest economies and, wouldn't you know it, the Asia-Pacific region is number one. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are all on top while the world's largest economy, America's, barely cracks the top ten.

The ranking is based on 10 indicators like government spending, trade and labor market freedom. The top ten are:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Denmark
10. United States

No members of the financially-troubled Eurozone can be found in the top ten. Ireland, however, comes in the 11th spot.

The United States' overall score is 76.0, down from 76.3 last year. America lost points in all categories of regulatory efficiency, but actually picked up points in government spending.

But, hey, it could be worse. North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Eritrea, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Turkmenistan and Iran received the ten lowest scores.

[Image via AP]

Every Monday after they finish rehearsing, members of the Barbershop Harmony Society's Oakville Chapter head down to their favorite Tim Hortons and order a cup of coffee and a donut.

Danfi Parker also frequents the same Timmies, and happened to be there during The Entertainers' weekly visit.

"They had a little whistle thing to set the pitch and then they just started singing," he told the Toronto Star.

Parker said he was caught off guard when the elderly gentlemen first launched into song, but by the time they moved from Sinatra tunes to Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?," he was ready with a camera in hand.

"It just goes to show beauty can be captured at any moment in the most random places," Parker said.

[H/T: Reddit]

Meet Robin Verrecas, an 18-year-old owner/creative designer from Oostkamp, Belgium, who has worked for Coca Cola since birth, or so says his Facebook. This would be amazing in itself, but no matter what Verrecas accomplishes in life, it will always be overshadowed by his freakish resemblance to Justin Bieber. He seems at peace with this: one day when he was "B o r e d," he did a Chimpmunks-style lip synch to Bieber's "Girlfriend" and uploaded to Vimeo, and he often poses in pictures with the same, "I'm constipated...but should I be at this age?" look that Bieber is fond of.

Still, Verrecas learned the downside of doppelgängerdom earlier this week when TMZ reported that Biebs had been spotted smoking dope. Some Beliebers decided that the picture of Swaggy Doo holding a blunt was not of Bieber, but in fact Verrecas. So say people the comments of this post, for example.

(An alternate theory can be found in the poll in that post: "Could be a cigarette or pencil, not sure!")

Verrecas strongly denied the allegations suggesting that he is a pot addict:

And then a new theory emerged: The person in those pictures isn't Bieber or Verrecas:

Verrecas says the photo is fake, although maybe it's a third party — perhaps Dani Shay, who became a viral sensation thanks to her own capitalizing on her resemblance to Bieber? At least she's a lesbian, as God intended Justin Bieber doppelgägners to be.

I don't know if we'll ever know the truth, but Verrecas seems to feel exonerated by this screenshot of a rambling defense of him. This pictorial comparison of his and Bieber's sweatshirts (or, "sweaters," as they say in Belgium) seems to have calmed him, as well. He's entered what seems to be a Zen mode, Instagramming a shot of himself calmly captioned "stop the rumors." In it, he is cloaked in shadows, brooding and only the outline of the bottom half of his face is visible. Because what Verrecas isn't telling us is that he doesn't just look like Justin Bieber; he is also Batman.

[Via ATRL and ONTD]

[Images via Instagram]

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 to caity.weaver@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."

I write this to you after having done the despicable and the unforgivable. The other day I lied to a guy I was carpooling with about how the carpool no longer exists (and it totally still does) just so that I could stop carpooling with him.

A couple months ago, I asked a guy I worked with if he wanted to join this carpool I was already in. He was elated (I should have known then when he got so excited that this was going to be effed up) Anywho, the first couple of weeks things were going fine. Then, the douchiness began. He began asking me questions like "How should I break up with my girlfriend?" or "What should I cook for dinner?" Then, to the rest of my ALL MALE carpool, "Did you see that game last night?" or "Wow look at that truck!"

If you're not catching my drift, I'M NOT OKAY WITH TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLE STEREOTYPING.

Then other stuff started, like making me climb into the back seat when I had a skirt on, which of course had my ass sticking up in the air to high heaven. Or, when I had my hands full, of coffee, my purse, my laptop, he never opened the door for me into work....ever. Or, when I'm running late to meet him in the lobby of our office, he thinks it's appropriate to go on an office-wide search for me and tell my other co-workers that he's "just looking for a woman that's running late."

After the holiday he texted me and asked me who's driving this upcoming week. I told him that the carpool is not happening due to scheduling conflicts. His next text talked about how much he enjoyed carpooling with me and he hopes that it's nothing he did.

I'm thinking…why would anyone say that unless they KNEW they were guilty??? So far, I haven't regretted telling him this because the past week has been BLISS. The other guys I carpool with didn't like him either, so really I feel like the martyr in this situation. Is that okay?

Thatz not okay.

First of all, I must compliment you on your unique and beautiful definition of the word "martyr (n.): one who betrays another (but just so you know that other person is allegedly not liked by some people)." By this definition, Judas Iscariot is a martyr. The Book of Acts should be rewritten until it is one long story about a carpool slowly unraveling. Crucifixion, being burned at the stake, manipulating carpool composition: these are the most common pathways to martyrdom.

However, I must point out that, at least in the traditional sense of the word, you have to die in order to become a martyr, so unless this story takes a real turn for the macabre, you are not one.

(Also, while I guess there's nothing strictly prohibiting you from identifying yourself as a martyr, it does seem a little gauche to self-nominate. Like buying your own "#1 Dad" mug.)

From your description of his crimes, it sounds like your former carpool buddy was very guilty of not being smooth. Holding the door for a woman and moving so that she doesn't have to go mountain climbing over car seats are both things a polite gentleman should do. However, they are also examples of TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLE STEREOTYPING, so maybe you're okay with it when it directly benefits you? (Also, girl, going behind a guy's back to get him fired from the carpool because he hurt your feelings in an abstract way, then writing a letter to another girl to ask if it's okay? Come on, you LIVE gender role stereotyping. But I love you for it. Thank you for bringing me into your world.)

While it was perhaps a little overbearing on his part, and certainly embarrassing for you, to have him run out in search of you every time you were late to carpool, I don't know that it's right to fault him for describing you as a "woman" when he was looking for you. Would you have preferred he identify you as "a person?"

"What are you doing here, man I've never seen before?"
"I'm looking for a person who's running late."
"Man or woman?"
"Just a person."

I suppose he could have gone with a racial description: "I'm looking for a White who's running late."

In any case, the way to avoid him careening around the back halls of your office was to Not Be Late to Carpool. That's rude. At least give your fellow passengers a heads up via text. Carpool is a bus, and you're thinking of it as a limo service.

While we're analyzing his alleged bad behavior, how exactly did he make it clear whether he was addressing the men of the car or The Woman while observing the many fine trucks of the road?

"BOYS ONLY, look at that truck! Jessica, cover your eyes, it'll scare you. It's like a giant car!"
"GIRL ONLY, what should I make for dinner tonight?"

Were you upset that he didn't want to talk to you about sports because you actually love sports? Insert yourself into those conversations. Were you upset he was talking about sports because sports are a snoozeroo? Bring up another topic.

Yes, it sucks that he asked you how he should break up with his girlfriend, because that conversation is both awkward and boring to have. But is it possible he felt comfortable engaging you with personal topics because he felt closer to you, the nice girl who invited him to join her carpool, than to the herd of two-year olds who greet every new truck—WOW LOOK THAT TRUCK—like it's something they've never seen before?

I suppose it's your prerogative to disinvite him from your carpool (with the approval of everyone else in the carpool, whose gas fare he was partially paying), since you're the one who invited him. Polite? Moral, on the grounds that he sort of bugged you: no.

Moreover, it's definitely not okay to have lied to him about it, if for no reason other than: THIS IS THE MOST UNTENABLE LIE, EVER. For one thing, you've written in describing your set of very specific circumstances to an online gossip column on a reasonably popular website. Even if you hadn't, don't you think he might notice that you and the old team always seem to arrive at and leave work together? That only one of you ever has a car at a time? That all the guys are talking about that great truck they saw on the way in—classic truck, very big, what a beaut—? Mightn't he suspect that you all still belong to the carpool that doesn't exist?

I don't think his saying "I hope it's nothing I did," is an admission of guilt. I think it's his way of saying "I understand that you are lying to me and I am not sure why." Because, again, your lie is very, very easily debunked.

I guess you're just lucky he didn't convince the other guys (and why didn't they like him? It's not clear. Do they hate amazing trucks?) to ditch "the girl" first.

As we all know, walking is a way of life in Manhattan. But the sidewalks these days are filled with people walking while looking downwards reading/texting/checking their various handheld devices. This drives me insane. Have we really reached a point where it's common and acceptable practice to walk down the street, face pointing downward, essentially oblivious to your surroundings? To me it's a giant fuck you to the rest of us. Lately I've begun my own little protest by declaring to myself that, should I encounter someone occupied by their device coming right toward me, I will not swerve to avoid them. Sometimes I simply stop in my tracks and yell "look up" right before impact rather than make contact. If we slam into one another so be it. I, obviously, will have the benefit of bracing myself before impact while the other party will not. We're not talking a major collision here - no one has fallen down and now one has gotten hurt. The collision is technically avoidable, but I feel the other party should lose the benefit of the doubt for treating the rest of us like a collective after thought. Is that okay?

Thatz not okay.

(lol omg TNO #smh)

Here's what's going to happen if you continue to bump into strangers on purpose: you're going to get your ass kicked (I'm assuming you won't just target people smaller than you, right? You have Honor.) or someone is going to fall. I know you've already decided that no one is going to fall. However, someone still might fall.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure bumping into someone on purpose constitutes some form of assault, even if no one is injured. Like, hitting another car with your car because your foot slipped off the brake: that's an accident. Hitting another car with your car because that other driver seems pre-occupied and you want to teach them a lesson: that's illegal and also crazy.

For the record, I take issue with your use of the word "technically" in, "The collision is technically avoidable." No adverb needed, hero. These collisions are regular avoidable.

I suppose your goal in purposely bumping into your fellow pedestrians is to get them to put away their phones; to appreciate the architecture of every block; to doff their cap to the greengrocer and greet every passerby with a warm howdy-do? Maybe word of your vigilante justice will spread throughout the city, and the mayor will erect a statue of you (posed mid-stride, chest puffed out to brace for impact) in the middle of a busy pedestrian thoroughfare. Maybe people will get to know their neighbors and start painting their picket fences with gleaming white lead again.

But probably what will happen is that the bumpees will look up for a second, mumble "Sorry," and then start writing a tweet about how some lunatic just bumped into them on purpose.

If you're determined to let people know that you hate their handheld devices, I suggest sticking with your "Look up!" plan. It might not work every time, but it will probably work some of the time. When it does, the person will stop, look up, feel chastised, and maybe take better note of their surroundings for the rest of the walk. The key here is to use shame rather than brute force to change their behavior.

While I do empathize with your frustrations about people who walk and text (especially if they're walking slowly too, urrrrrgh WALK FASTER), the cops who one day stop you after bumping a girl's phone to the ground and shattering the screen are more likely to sympathize with her, an innocent pedestrian, than you, a crazy person.

(And what does it say that the less ridiculous of these two plans involves screaming at strangers? Come on.)

Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions here. Image by Jim Cooke

Crashing his car into a pizza shop wasn't a good enough reason for one Nebraska man to skip lunch.

Employees at a Valentino's To Go in Lincoln say the elderly driver asked them if he could order a pizza while he waited for emergency crew to come.

"His foot had stuck on the gas and he was going to go ahead and order some pizza, so he wasn't too upset about it, evidently, but it sure was a surprise to us," Don Brouse told KLKN-TV.

Officials from the fire department were worried about potential injuries to the lunch crowd, as the accident took place just before noon on Wednesday, but were relieved to find there were not.

"We all had concerns and talked about it in route-that this time of day, this particular eating establishment-the lobby would be full," said Battalion Chief Leo Benes.

Even more surprising was the fact that the unnamed driver rammed his Honda into the front door in such a way that no structural damage was caused.

The man was transported to a local hospital, but his condition was not released. It also remains unclear if he ever got his pizza.

[H/T: Guyism, screengrab via KLKN]

How's your 1996 Honda Accord? Good? Still hanging in? Bumper doing alright? Got those wiper blades switched out finally? Good, good. Oh, me? The wealthy global upper crust? Well, I absolutely cannot stop buying Rolls-Royces. You know how it is.

It might seem weird to you since you've been out of work since the crash of '08, but Rolls-Royce sold more cars (priced from a quarter million dollars up) last year than any year in its 108-year history of selling cars. And, strangely, so did Mercedes. And Land Rover. And Audi. Bentley sales were up 22% last year.

In conclusion, take a moment to reflect upon the vast diversity of this world in which we all live.

[WSJ. Photo: Wapster/ Flickr]

Irish news anchor Aengus Mac Grianna is RTE's most beloved presenter, but not so much for his ability to deliver the day's events in a thoughtful yet succinct manner as for his repeated on-air bloopers.

Mac Grianna has already racked up enough slip-ups to piece together a two-minute compilation (see below), but his latest "technical difficulty" might be his worst best one yet.

Thinking he had enough time to reapply his make-up while a news clip aired, Mac Grianna took out his compact and began rubbing bronzer on his forehead.

"But when the clip ended and the cameras went ‘live' in the RTE studio," writes the Irish Independent, "nobody told the presenter who continued to apply the make-up and then started to fix his tie."

It gets better (or worse, depending on which side of the camera you happen to be on).

[H/T: Know Your Meme]

It's a smurf eat smurf world out there, as one Australian man recently discovered. Police in the Australian state of Victoria are looking for Papa Smurf and three of his blue disciples who are accused of committing two crimes at once.

According to police, a 37-year-old man was walking out of a 7-Eleven at 1 a.m. when he was approached by a magical creature from his childhood. But it was not Smurfberries that adorable Smurf was after, no, it was a mere cigarette. The Smurf Smurf's friends were busy hot-wiring a car, as Smurfs do.

The man, ever a friend to mythical Belgian creatures, offered the Thug Smurf a smoke. This greatly offended the Smurf however, as they only have four fingers and cannot light their own cigarettes, who proceeded to beat the man unconscious.

Police are confident they will bring the Smurf criminals to justice, thanks in part to a new recruit: a cat named Azriel.

[Via LiveLeak.com]

This infographic speaks for itself, but in case you're Fox News and need it spelled out, the so-called "Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin" won't weigh 17,774 tons, because, for one thing, there isn't nearly that much platinum in the whole world.

For another, that's not how fiat money works.

As Daily Intel notes, Fox probably borrowed the idea for these staggeringly (purposely?) misleading statistics from the NRCC, which just yesterday claimed "the amount of platinum needed to mint a coin worth $1 trillion would sink the Titanic." What even.

[image via @dceiver via ShortFormBlog]