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The US Air Force Staged a Beautiful Flash Mob at a Museum

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Normally flash mobs are pretty annoying for anyone who's not involved in them. But the United States Air Force Band became the exception to the rule with a pretty sweet impromptu concert at the National Air and Space Museum on Tuesday.

[h/t NPR]


Inept ATF Uses Children and People With Low IQs In Sting Operations

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Inept ATF Uses Children and People With Low IQs In Sting Operations

ATF agents have been exploiting mentally disabled people, allowing children to use drugs, teaching criminals new tricks, and even employing female agents to hit on underaged males as part of their storefront sting operations, a new investigative report charges.

Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a damning "Watchdog report" on the ATF's activities, conclusions that they say are based on thousands of pages of court documents, police reports, and interviews with dozens of people who were involved in six different ATF operations.

According to the Journal's findings, the ATF routinely uses storefront sting operations, where they open up undercover storefronts in an effort to ferret out guns and drugs.

The high-tech AV-wired fronts take the shape of one of two forms — as stores that sell items like "hip-hop clothing and shoes," cigarettes, and drug paraphernalia, and as pawn shops with reputations for buying anything.

But to make these storefronts seem more legitimate, the ATF apparently regularly employs children and mentally handicapped people, some of whom are later arrested for their involvement in the stings.

In April, the Journal exposed an ATF sting operation that went sour after they used a brain damaged man named Chaucey Wright to hand out fliers to attract people to one of their fake storefronts. The ATF paid Wright — who had an IQ in the 50's — in cigarettes and cash. They never told him the store was a front, although his girlfriend suspected something wasn't right.

"Everything was wrong about that place," she told the Journal. "I told him, 'It's on a dead-end street. There's no windows. Don't you feel something funny about it?' He said, 'These are my guys.' He really thought they were his friends."

At some point, the undercover agents began asking him to procure cocaine and guns for them, which he did. Once the sting was over, they arrested him on federal drug and gun counts, charges which could land him life in prison.

The Assistant US Attorney on the case told the judge that a doctor's evaluation found Wright to be "mildly mentally retarded."

(That case also some separate, jarring issues; among them, a machine gun and other weapons were stolen from an undercover agent's car and were never found, the fake storefront was burglarized, agents arrested the wrong people, and the ATF severely damaged the building, sticking the landlord with the bill.)

The Journal says agents involved underaged children in their operations.

Agents in several cities opened undercover gun- and drug-buying operations in safe zones near churches and schools, allowed juveniles to come in and play video games and teens to smoke marijuana, and provided alcohol to underage youths. In Portland, attorneys for three teens who were charged said a female agent dressed provocatively, flirted with the boys and encouraged them to bring drugs and weapons to the store to sell.

Operations also appeared to spur the very crimes they were trying to prevent. According to the Journal, agents offered such high prices for guns that criminals bought firearms at other stores, then sold them to the undercover ATF agents for profit. The agents running fake pawnshops also regularly paid for stolen goods, even guns stolen "just hours earlier, several ripped off from police cars."

Once ATF agents bust their suspects, they usually put on a media show before quietly pleading out the defendants. The cases rarely go to court, and so the ATF's practices are largely shielded from public view.

The Journal has an exhaustive list of similar cases — including one where two suspicious teenagers tried to get agents to smoke marijuana with them. Instead, the undercover agents encouraged the teenagers — one of whom was apparently mentally disabled — to get neck tattoos, which even the judge overseeing the case balked at.

"I guess I don't make the connection," Judge Mosman said. "They're concerned that if, among other things, they don't smoke marijuana with this guy that they'll be given up as law enforcement, so they think a way to derail that is to suggest that he get a tattoo?"

The judge ended up ordering the ATF to pay for the tattoo removal.

[image via AP]

The Inspiration For "127 Hours" Uses His One Remaining Arm for Bad

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The Inspiration For "127 Hours" Uses His One Remaining Arm for Bad

The inspiration behind "127 Hours," Aron Ralston, a hiker who got stuck, cut off his own forearm, and then further suffered being portrayed by James Franco — was just arrested in Denver, Colorado.

Ralston lost his arm in 2003 when he was hiking in a Utah canyon and became trapped. He survived for five days before he freed himself by breaking and amputating his arm.

Now Ralston is stuck somewhere new — jail. He and a woman named Vita Shannon were both picked up Saturday night for domestic violence and one count of "wrongs to minors," a charge that appears to be unique to Colorado.

[image via AP]

Florida Man Files Police Report over Voodoo Curse

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Florida Man Files Police Report over Voodoo Curse

A Florida man convinced that someone had cast a voodoo spell on him filed a police report last month so that he could have documentation of the curse, just in case. And it appears these types of calls are fairly common in the Sunshine State.

According to the police report, the man "seemed normal at the time of the investigation," when he told police that Haitian community members, jealous of him, had cast a spell designed to steal personal information from him.

Although the man felt the curse had been in place for at least a year, he has not yet suffered any ill effects, according to the police report.

These types of calls are apparently common in Florida, mostly in the Haitian community. In Delray Beach, where 10 percent of the community is Haitian, police "occasionally get calls from Haitian residents fearing supernatural death threats and curses." According to the Sun Sentinel, the "department takes a report and leaves it at that."

[image via Shutterstock]

NY Times Editor Brags About Story, Las Vegas Sun Scoops It [Updates]

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NY Times Editor Brags About Story, Las Vegas Sun Scoops It [Updates]

Earlier this evening, New York Times political editor Carolyn Ryan started hinting that something big would be coming out in Monday's edition.

She seemed reluctant to give details, but hinted that it concerned "humanity".

She also couldn't confirm when the story would be posted.

At 8:45, she gave up.

But as time paused for Carolyn Ryan and Carrie Mathison, the Las Vegas Sun, a subscriber to the New York Times wire, found the story slug and eventually published the full piece on the Sun website around 8 pm.

It's an A1 feature on homeless children living in New York, and it's heartbreaking. The writer describes one shelter, where Dasani — an 11-year-old honor roll student — lives with more than 200 other children and their families.

Her family lives in the Auburn Family Residence, a decrepit city-run shelter for the homeless. It is a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers.

It's an incredible story. But for some reason, only the Las Vegas Sun is reaping the benefits of Ryan's promotional tweets. Maybe the Times was waiting for the west coast airing of Homeland?

[Update 12:10 am] The Sun has pulled the story from its site and posted this message on its Facebook page.

NY Times Editor Brags About Story, Las Vegas Sun Scoops It [Updates]

Total US household wealth has reached $77.3 trillion, a $20 trillion increase in five years.

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Total US household wealth has reached $77.3 trillion, a $20 trillion increase in five years. That's about a quarter million dollars for every person in America. But, you know, not.


Airline Makes Passengers' Christmas Wishes Come True

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With air travel during the holidays a notorious nightmare, one airlines decided to lift their passengers' spirits by surprising them with an unexpected Christmas present.

With the help of over 150 volunteers, Canadian low-cost carrier WestJet spent the past four months putting together this year's "Christmas Miracle" stunt, uploading the result to YouTube over the weekend.

Here's the gist of it:

Passengers heading to Calgary from Toronto and Hamilton were invited to share their Christmas wish with a real-live Santa Claus before boarding their planes.

WestJet then sent its "elves" to various stores around Calgary to pick up the items the passengers asked for.

Finally, upon arriving at the baggage carousel, passengers were greeted with individual gift boxes containing their custom "Christmas miracle."

Of course, the stunt was equal parts naughty and nice: While customers certainly got what they asked for, some would probably have asked for other things had they known they were actually getting them.

[H/T: Reddit]

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

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A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

For the past century, an obscure mathematical principle called Zipf's law has predicted the size of mega-cities all over the world. And nobody knows why.

Illustration by Algol via Shutterstock

Back in 1949, the linguist George Zipf noticed something odd about how often people use words in a given language. He found that a small number of words are used all the time, while the vast majority are used very rarely. If he ranked the words in order of popularity, a striking pattern emerged. The number one ranked word was always used twice as often as the second rank word, and three times as often as the third rank. He called this a rank vs. frequency rule, and found that it could also be used to describe income distributions in any given country, with the richest person making twice as much money as the next richest, and so forth.

Later dubbed Zipf's law, the rank vs. frequency rule also works if you apply it to the sizes of cities. The city with the largest population in any country is generally twice as large as the next-biggest, and so on. Incredibly, Zipf's law for cities has held true for every country in the world, for the past century.

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

Photo by upthebanner via Shutterstock

Just take a look at the top ranked cities in the United States by population. In the 2010 census, the biggest city in the U.S., New York, had a population of 8,175,133. Los Angeles, ranked number 2, had a population of 3,792,621. And the cities in the next three ranks, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia, clock in at 2,695,598, 2,100,263 and 1,526,006 respectively. You can see that obviously the numbers aren't exact, but looked at statistically, they are remarkably consistent with Zipf's predictions.

Paul Krugman, who wrote about applying Zipf's law to cities back in 2006, remarked famously:

The usual complaint about economic theory is that our models are oversimplified — that they offer excessively neat views of complex, messy reality. [With Zipf's law] the reverse is true: we have complex, messy models, yet reality is startlingly neat and simple.

The Power Law

In 1999, economist Xavier Gabaix wrote a much-cited paper where he described Zipf's law for cities as a power law, and showed how the size of U.S. cities could be mapped on a graph, like so:

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

Gabaix noted that this structure holds true even if cities are growing at chaotic rates. But he and other economists also noticed that this tidy power law structure tends to break down once you're no longer looking at mega-cities in the top ranks. Smaller cities, below the size of 100 thousand people, seem to obey a different law and show a more normal distribution of sizes.

At this point, you might be asking: But how exactly are you defining "city," anyway? When you're doing this kind of calculation, it seems arbitrary to say that Boston and Cambridge count as two cities, or that San Francisco and Oakland are separate entities, just because they are separated by bodies of water. Two Swedish geographers had exactly the same question, so they redefined a bunch of regions as "natural cities," based on connectivity of roads and populations rather than political boundaries. And what they found was that even these "natural cities" obeyed Zipf's law.

Why does Zipf's law work on cities?

So what is it about big cities that makes them show such a predictable distribution of population? As I said earlier, nobody is really sure. We know that city size expands via immigration, and that immigrants tend to flock to the biggest cities because they offer more opportunities. But immigration isn't enough to explain the power law that produces that perfect slope in Gabaix's graph above.

The reasons are also clearly economic, as large cities tend to produce the most wealth. And Zipf's law applies to income distribution. But again, we're left wondering why this power law might appear in those top-rank cities.

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

Image by JLR Photography via Shutterstock

There are also exceptions to Zipf's law, as a group of researchers reported in Nature last year. They found that the power law only applied if the group of cities were integrated economically, which would explain why Zipf's law will work if you look at cities in a given European nation, but not at the EU as a whole. They write:

In fact, historically, the geographic level for Europe, at which an integrated evolution is observed, is the national state, while in the US, the whole confederation, not each independent state, has collectively and organically evolved towards a distribution of cities that follows Zipf's Law. From this perspective, the US is an organic, integrated economic federation, while the EU has not yet become so, and shows little convergence to such an economic unit . . . It implies that any system which obeys this law must have internal consistency in its size distribution or its sample.

This would seem to support the idea that Zipf's law is a response to economic conditions, since it only works if you compare cities that are connected economically the way cities in a country are.

How Cities Grow

There's another odd rule that applies to cities, too. You could call it the 3/4 power law, and it has to do with the way cities use resources as they grow. It refers to the way cities become more sustainable as they grow. For example, if a city doubles in size, the number of gas stations it requires does not double. Instead, the city runs efficiently with only about 77% more gas stations. While Zipf's law seems to follow other social laws, the 3/4 power law imitates a natural law — one that governs how animals use energy as they get larger.

The Mathematician Steven Strogatz puts it like this:

For example, suppose you measure how many calories a mouse burns per day, compared to an elephant. Both are mammals, so at the cellular level you might expect they shouldn't be too different. And indeed, when the cells of 10 different mammalian species were grown outside their host organisms, in a laboratory tissue culture, they all displayed the same metabolic rate. It was as if they didn't know where they'd come from; they had no genetic memory of how big their donor was.

But now consider the elephant or the mouse as an intact animal, a functioning agglomeration of billions of cells. Then, on a pound for pound basis, the cells of an elephant consume far less energy than those of a mouse. The relevant law of metabolism, called Kleiber's law, states that the metabolic needs of a mammal grow in proportion to its body weight raised to the 0.74 power.

This 0.74 power is uncannily close to the 0.77 observed for the law governing gas stations in cities. Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not. There are theoretical grounds to expect a power close to 3/4. Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute and his colleagues Jim Brown and Brian Enquist have argued that a 3/4-power law is exactly what you'd expect if natural selection has evolved a transport system for conveying energy and nutrients as efficiently and rapidly as possible to all points of a three-dimensional body, using a fractal network built from a series of branching tubes — precisely the architecture seen in the circulatory system and the airways of the lung, and not too different from the roads and cables and pipes that keep a city alive.

This is terrifically fascinating, but is ultimately less mysterious than Zipf's law. It's not difficult to understand why a city — which is essentially an ecosystem, albeit one built by humans — should follow natural laws. But Zipf's law is something that seems to have no natural analogue. It's social, and as I mentioned earlier, it only holds true for cities over the past 100 years.

All we know is that Zipf's law applies to a lot of other social systems, including economic and linguistic ones. So it's possible that there are general social rules at work driving this odd rank vs. size rule, which one day we may understand. Whoever can puzzle it out may find that they have the key to predicting a lot more than urban growth. Zipf's law may be just one aspect of a fundamental rule of social dynamics that underwrites how we communicate, trade, and form communities with each other.

Annalee Newitz is the editor-in-chief of io9. She is the author of Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction.

Thanks to Mikolaj Szabó for discussing power laws and lognormal distributions!


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Woman Stuck to Home Depot Toilet After Prankster Puts Glue on Seat

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Woman Stuck to Home Depot Toilet After Prankster Puts Glue on Seat

Police in Georgia are investigating a cruel prank at a Home Depot bathroom that resulted in a customer becoming glued to a toilet seat.

Illyanna De La Keur, 40, of Banks County, was apparently unaware that Loctite glue had been smeared on the toilet seats inside the store's ladies room before she sat down.

Attempting to lift herself off, De La Keur noticed that she had become stuck to the seat and was unable to move without ripping her skin.

The stay-at-home mom says it took up to 25 minutes for someone to come to her aid.

Emergency workers were called in to remove De La Keur from the seat, a process which took over an hour and was "really embarrassing," according to De La Keur.

She was subsequently transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

De La Keur told WSB-TV she felt her extraction was mismanaged, and should not have taken place inside the store, but rather in a hospital.

"The bathroom is unsanitary," she said. "There were people in there. There were men in there. Everybody was sticking their head in. And here I am with somebody rubbing WD-40 on me and pulling me loose from the seat."

De La Keur says she is still recovering injuries she sustained during the November 27 incident and finds it extremely difficult to walk.

Authorities, meanwhile, are still searching for the culprit.

An open bottle of Loctite GO2 glue was discovered in a "brown paper sack" on the bathroom floor by store manager Mary Dean.

According to Dean, two other toilets seat were also covered in "what appeared to be some kind of glue."

[screengrab via WSBTV]

[A Frenchman reacts to American-themed Christmas decorations in a small southeastern French town cal

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[A Frenchman reacts to American-themed Christmas decorations in a small southeastern French town called Menton. Photo by Lionel Cironneau via AP.]

George Zimmerman's Girlfriend Has Change of Heart, Wants Charges Dropped

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George Zimmerman's Girlfriend Has Change of Heart, Wants Charges Dropped

It looks like George Zimmerman may get off Scot-free yet again after his girlfriend reversed course on her decision to press charges against him for allegedly trashing her house and waving a gun in her face.

Newly obtained court documents show that Samantha Scheibe, 27, has demanded that Zimmerman's charges and his no-contact order be dropped, effective immediately.

George Zimmerman's Girlfriend Has Change of Heart, Wants Charges Dropped

"When I was being questioned by police I felt very intimidated," Scheibe said in a sworn statement dated December 6. "I believe that the police misinterpreted me and that I may have misspoken about certain facts in my statement to police."

Scheibe goes on to claim that Zimmerman "never pointed a gun at or toward my face in a threatening manner," and insisted she "want[s] to be with George."

Scheibe's affidavit flies in the face of what she told a 911 dispatcher during the November 18 incident.

"I need police right now," she exclaimed during the taped phone call. "He's in my house breaking all my shit because I asked him to leave. He's got a freaking gun, breaking all my stuff right now."

Zimmerman was subsequently arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault, misdemeanor battery, and misdemeanor criminal mischief.

He was released on his own recognizance after paying a $9,000 bond.

A search warrant released the following week showed that Zimmerman was packing a 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, three handguns, and over 100 rounds of ammunition when he visited Scheibe's house.

[screengrabs via MSNBC]

Port Authority Workers Are Running Around JFK With Shotguns

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Port Authority Workers Are Running Around JFK With Shotguns

A number of Port Authority workers have been authorized to use shotguns around JFK to shoot down any snowy owls that may cross into the airport's airspace.

The Port Authority issued the owls' death warrant after one got sucked into a jet turbine last week.

According to the Daily News, there are at most five armed "wildlife specialists" currently hunting the birds with shoot-on-sight authorization.

Opponents of the birdicide question why authorities can't ditch the fowl play and simply catch and release the owls, a process that's been effectively used at Boston's Logan Airport. Snowy owls are usually federally protected, but airports can receive waivers.

[image via AP]

The "Home Alone" Kid Has a Pizza-Themed Velvet Underground Cover Band

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The "Home Alone" Kid Has a Pizza-Themed Velvet Underground Cover Band

We may have just lost Lou Reed, but we did gain the delightfully weird Macaulay Culkin-fronted pizza-themed Velvet Undergound tribute band called the Pizza Underground.

It's not terrible — with co-opted lyrics like, "Oh it's such a pizza day," and a pretty decent Nico impersonation — but like pizza, it's probably much better with alcohol.

Culkin's new calorie-oriented venture also marks a return from the starvation and heroin rumors that started a few years back after particularly gaunt-looking photographs of him were circulated.

And the pizza theme does makes perfect sense for Kevin McCallister.

Concierge Doctors Are Becoming a Real Thing

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Concierge Doctors Are Becoming a Real Thing

There is a small group of elite doctors in New York who won't get out of bed for less than a $25,000 retainer. They are Manhattan's concierge doctors, and their practice model is spreading across the country.

The New York Times just featured two physicians who are opening a new practice next month that lets customers ("various young internet moguls have already expressed interest in becoming patients.") see their Harvard-educated doctors as often as they like, for both medical and cosmetic purposes.

The terms of the service allow patients to call and text their doctors whenever they want, to schedule home visits, and even to fly their doctors out internationally when patients are away on vacation — all for a minimum $25,000-a-year retainer.

According to the Times, there are at least 124 concierge doctors currently operating in New York City. But it's not just for the rich and famous anymore.

In states ranging from Alabama to Vermont to Texas, doctors are shifting their practices to concierge models as well — albeit at much lower subscription prices. In the Houston area alone, at least four offices now offer patients house calls, weekend access, and other concierge options for as little as $75 a month.

But shifting to the subscription model could end up leaving many at a disadvantage.

The concierge model cuts physicians' patient loads dramatically — one Vermont doctor said she went from 3000 active patients to 400 — which experts say could be good because it allows for more personal relationships, but bad because it could leave some people without access to medical care. Vermont, for example, currently has a shortage of primary care doctors.

[image via Shutterstock]


South Carolina Sheriff Refused to Lower the Flag for Mandela Today

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel Seem Hilariously Stoned In this Interview

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Back in 2009, when Paul Rudd and Jason Segel were promoting "I Love You Man," they gave a highlariously random interview to Rotten Tomatoes. Over the seven-minute interview, which is really more of an improv routine, Segel invents an imaginary friend named Gideon who "rides a unicorn" and "visits you in your dreams."

At one point Segel also falls over laughing, complaining, "I'm hungry."

The video was posted back in 2010, but has just started making the rounds again. It's an all-around good time.

Obama, Tens of Thousands Honor Nelson Mandela at Rain-Soaked Memorial

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Obama, Tens of Thousands Honor Nelson Mandela at Rain-Soaked Memorial

Leaders from at least 91 countries gathered along with tens of thousands of South African citizens to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg's FNB stadium. Undeterred by a constant downpour, the crowds, which included four U.S. Presidents, celebrated Mandela's life through speeches, dancing, and music.

In his speech, President Obama expressed gratitude to South Africa. "To the people of South Africa - people of every race and walk of life - the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us," the president said. "His struggle was your struggle. His triumph was your triumph. Your dignity and hope found expression in his life, and your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy."

President Obama went on, challenging himself and other world leaders. "For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe - Madiba's passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate his heroic life," he said. "But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or circumstance, we must ask: how well have I applied his lessons in my own life?"

It is a question I ask myself - as a man and as a President. We know that like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took the sacrifice of countless people - known and unknown - to see the dawn of a new day. Michelle and I are the beneficiaries of that struggle. But in America and South Africa, and countries around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not done. The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality and universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important. For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger, and disease; run-down schools, and few prospects for the future. Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs; and are still persecuted for what they look like, or how they worship, or who they love.

We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.

Perhaps inspired by Madiba's example of reconciliation, President Obama greeted and shook the hand of Cuban President Raul Castro, the first face-to-face meeting between leaders from the two countries in roughly half a century.

At least one leader, however, faced the scorn of the crowd. Current South African Jacob G. Zuma's appearance was met with widespread boos, to the point that the memorial's producers had to replace video of his speech with a photo of Mandela.

[Image via AP]

"Hard-core fans say they are content to brave the low temperatures."

Puzzle Writer Sneaks 'Murdoch Is Evil' Into Murdoch-Owned Newspaper

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Puzzle Writer Sneaks 'Murdoch Is Evil' Into Murdoch-Owned Newspaper

Hidden messages in newspapers are nothing new. Just ask John Forbes Nash, Jr.

But a hidden message calling one of the world's most powerful media magnates "evil" in his own newspaper — that's a cry for help.

It's unclear who first stumbled upon the ballsy Easter egg, but there's no doubting its existence on page 79 of the Sunday Telegraph, tucked inside this week's "Harry the Dog" word search puzzle for kids.

Puzzle Writer Sneaks 'Murdoch Is Evil' Into Murdoch-Owned Newspaper

LIVESIHCODRUM. MURDOCHISEVIL.

According to The Guardian, the theme of this week's puzzle was "amazing animals of Indonesia."

"So was it a mistake? A coincidence?" asks Telegraph rival the Sydney Morning Herald. "Is a “LIVESIHCODRUM” a new Indonesian species? Or was Harry the Dog trying to tell us something?"

Harry may be barking up a storm, but the Telegraph, for the time being, is keeping understandably mum.

[H/T: Daily Intelligencer, scans via Twitter]

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