"McResource Line" — McDonald's' employee-only resource and advice site — has been dispensing a hot mess of helpful tips in recent months: From advising workers to get a second job, to suggesting they sell their stuff for quick cash, to reminding them to tip their nannies and pool boys generously this holiday season.

Its latest recommendation, however, may be its most useful yet: Lay off the fast food.

An image posted on the site labels a McDonald's-like meal of hamburger, fries, and a coke as an "unhealthy choice," and warns employees against consuming such foods, which are "almost always high in calories, fat, sugar, and salt."

"It is hard to eat a healthy diet when you eat at fast-food restaurants often," the site goes on to say. "Many foods are cooked with a lot of fat, even if they are not trans fats. Many fast-food restaurants do not offer any lower-fat foods. Large portions also make it easy to overeat. And most fast food restaurants do not offer many fresh fruits and vegetables."

So what can employees do to eat healthier? For one thing — stay away from McDonald's.

"In general," the site suggests, "eat at places that offer a variety of salads, soups, and vegetables."

In a statement to CNBC, McDonald's insisted the website's tips "continue to be taken entirely out of context."

None the less, the company said it was "looking into the matter."

[screengrabs via CNBC]

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Shezanne Cassim, an American citizen imprisoned in Dubai since April for making a not-very-funny and not-very-offensive YouTube parody video, was just sentenced to one year in prison — apparently for endangering national security and defaming the UAE's image abroad.

Darden Restaurants is reportedly looking to spin off or sell its struggling Red Lobster business as more Americans opt for cheaper and faster dining experiences at places like Chipotle. Here is Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuit recipe, for posterity.

Whether you're home alone or miserable elsewhere, this is the time of year when the proper music is crucial to surviving the next several days. How is there not a Morrissey/The Smiths holiday album to get us through these dramatic and romantic times? Here's the next best thing.

Presenting Happy Christmas From Morrissey and The Smiths, which is not a real holiday classic (yet), but simply a "playlist" on the Internet. Remember, your parents might've accidentally conceived you to one of these very songs!

1. "Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want"

2. "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"

3. "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference"

4. "I Have Forgiven Jesus"

5. "Girlfriend In a Coma"

6. "Shoplifters of the World Unite"

7. "You Should Have Been Nice To Me"

8. "Late Night, Maudlin Street"

9. "Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together"

10. "Everyday Is Like Sunday"

11. "To Me You Are a Work of Art"

12. "Moon River"

[Photograph via Getty Images.]

[A Scottish reindeer caretaker feeds the herd on a snowy Monday. There are about 130 reindeer currently living in the UK, and their number is kept low by tightly-controlled breeding. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell via Getty.]

According to reports, Kim Jong Un was "very drunk" when he casually had his uncle's aides executed last month.

They don't call it la petit mort for nothing.

A two-year-old virgin tiger named Connor accidentally killed his lover — an older, Bronx-born tigress named Tiga Tahun — after their sex got a little too rough.

The fatal hickey occurred before a zookeeper was able to intervene. Zoo officials have emphasized that the bite was from lust, and not an attack.

But Connor's first time likely won't be his last.

The two-year-old is now the only Malayan tiger left in the San Diego zoo's Tiger River exhibit, and the species is endangered, with only around 500 animals left in the wild.

Zoo spokesperson said that although aggressive behavior during mating is not unusual for tigers, more mature animals learn how to keep their sex from becoming lethal. It's even happened in zoos before — in 2011, a female Malayan tiger killed her mate during sex in an El Paso zoo.

[image via AP]

A Pennsylvania woman who tried to frame her estranged husband with child pornography has now been charged with possession of child pornography.

Six months after exposing the NSA's secret surveillance program, Edward Snowden sat down with a Washington Post reporter, and over meals of burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastries, explained that his personal mission has already been accomplished.

“I already won," he told the Post's Barton Gellman, one of the reporters he initially approached with the leak. "As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”

Snowden told Gellman that he tried to alert superiors at the NSA as far back as three years ago, when he found security flaws as a system administrator and recommended the agency switch to a two-man authorization for administrative access.

He also talked about meeting with superiors and co-workers to air his concerns in October, 2012, when he demonstrated the massive volumes of data being collected on Americans with a heat map called BOUNDLESSINFORMANT.

And when nothing changed, he turned to the media. According to Gellman, Snowden began speaking with reporters as early as December, 2012, but waited until April to begin passing information along.

“All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed,” Snowden said.

At the same time, the NSA was collecting information on hundreds of millions of internet users through the PRISM program, while simultaneously monitoring phone calls and hacking information from the same internet companies with the UK's GCHQ in a program called MUSCULAR.

Snowden says this blind bulk data collecting is his biggest problem — he believes that individual targeting based on probable cause would be more appropriate.

“I don’t care whether you’re the pope or Osama bin Laden... As long as there’s an individualized, articulable, probable cause for targeting these people as legitimate foreign intelligence, that’s fine. I don’t think it’s imposing a ridiculous burden by asking for probable cause. Because, you have to understand, when you have access to the tools the NSA does, probable cause falls out of trees.”

Intelligence officials, for their part, say that enemy targets like Al-Queda have changed their communication methods in the aftermath of the NSA revelations.

They're also concerned over whether China or Russia downloaded the full archive from his computer, and whether Snowden could have a "dead man's switch," set to release documents if he disappears or dies. (When asked, Snowden said that sounded "more like a suicide switch.")

The NSA's incoming director Rick Ledgett estimates Snowden could have more than 1.7 million files — a much higher number than previously estimated.

That could also prove to be Snowden's saving grace: Ledgett has said that he would be interested in offering Snowden amnesty in exchange for “assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured.”

When a 19-year-old out for a midnight joy ride got caught in a speed trap traveling more than 100 miles per hour in a 45 zone, his troubles had only just begun.

Officers immediately stopped the vehicle, and when they pulled Alain Cassagnol out of his Mercedes to arrest him for speeding, they noticed a "strong smell of marijuana emitting from his person," according to the police report.

The cops asked Cassagnol if he had drugs with him and Cassagnol admitted he had 5.4 grams of weed hidden near his groin.

When the police searched the vehicle incident to arrest, they also discovered a bottle of frankincense and myrrh incense spray called "Blunt Block" that — while designed to disguise the smell of marijuana — apparently did not.

[image via Shutterstock]

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Alan Turing, the legendary British computer engineer and codebreaker who killed himself two years after a 1952 conviction for homosexual activity for which he was punished by chemical castration, received a royal pardon on Monday from Queen Elizabeth II.

Most famous for helping crack the German's Enigma code during World War II, Turing is also considered a father of modern computer science and the man responsible for the Turing Test, which is used to judge artificial intelligence.

"His action saved countless lives," British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose government denied Turing a pardon last year, said after the announcement. "He also left a remarkable national legacy through his substantial scientific achievements, often being referred to as the 'father of modern computing.'" Prime Minster Gordon Brown issued a former apology to Turing in 2009.

Turing was convicted on charges of gross indecency in 1952 after he admitted having sex with a man. As an alternative to prison, Turing was sentenced to chemical castration by repeated injections of female hormones. He also lost his security clearance because of the conviction. Two years later, Turing ate an apple he had laced with cyanide. He was 41.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, who formally requested the pardon, announced the news on Monday:

"Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind. His brilliance was put into practice at Bletchley Park during the second world war, where he was pivotal to breaking the Enigma code, helping to end the war and save thousands of lives.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed.

"Dr Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."

What follows is a year-end holiday letter from the Machines.

The New York Times has a fascinating report about the story behind the execution of Kim Jong-un's uncle, Jang Song-thaek: According to the report, Kim ordered the death of Jang and his top lieutenants because of a dispute over North Korea's highly profitable clam and crab fishing grounds, which saw the North Korean military humiliated by Jang's loyalists.

Jang, who, until a few months ago, was considered the second most powerful man in North Korea, gained control of the prized fishing grounds shortly after Kim took power in 2011. Previously, the profits from the fishing grounds, along with other companies, went directly to the North Korean military, which used the money to feed and shelter their troops and pay kickbacks to the Kim family. But Kim, in an attempt to revitalize the North Korean economy, handed over control of several businesses to his cabinet, with his uncle receiving control of the fishing grounds. Profits from the operations went to Jang's bank account, or to the accounts of government departments that he controlled. Jang also dominated the lucrative coal trade with China.

But when Kim witnessed the emaciated state of soldiers stationed near North Korea's western sea border this fall, he ordered his uncle to return the clamming and crabbing grounds to the military. Jang refused and when 150 or so North Korean soldiers arrived to take over the operation, Jang's loyalists fought them off, reportedly killing two soldiers.

The North Korean military returned with more troops and defeated Jang's forces, retaking the fishing operation. Not long after, Kim ordered that two of his uncle's lieutenants be executed by firing line, though they weren't killed with rifles; instead their executioners used anti-aircraft machine guns. Several days later, Jang was tried, convicted, and shot to death, though he was spared the anti-aircraft guns.

[Image of Jang (third from right) with Kim Jong-un via AP]

Still looking for that perfect last-minute Christmas gift? Boy, have I got something amazing to show you. You won't believe your eyes.

Based on the iconic dragon illusion designed by legendary optical illusionist Jerry Andrus, the "Amazing T-Rex Illusion" from brusspup builds on a variation originally created for the third Gathering 4 Gardner conference in 1998:

I've always wanted to try this illusion with several of these at once. I wanted to use 20 or 30 but after I tried a test with only 12, I realized 20 or 30 was going to be too many. So another thing I've always wanted to try was to have a large version. The original file was about 9 feet X 9 feet. I had to split the image into 4 files so the printer as my local print shop could print it. I traced all of the pieces on cardboard which I used to build a support structure for the prints. I used small pieces of cardboard and hot glue to make the structure really solid. One problem that I had was that the paper for the large dragon was really shiny. So if you look closely you can see the reflection of the eyes on the "top" and side panels. I bought some matte spray to try and minimize the reflections. It worked a little. Over all I was happy with the results.

Brusspup has kindly made public all three versions of the T-rex design: Green, Red, and Blue.

Impress your friends! Don't have friends? Show this amazing T-Rex illusion to some strangers. Instant friends!

[H/T: Uproxx]

Remember the Montana judge who gave a lenient sentence to a teacher who raped his student, claiming the student was "older than her chronological age?" Turns out that's not his only, shall we say, questionable ruling.

On Monday, Judge G. Todd Baugh presided over the sentencing for Pacer Anthony Ferguson, who punched his girlfriend and fractured her face in three places. Ferguson has spent the past decade in and out of jail, ever since he was sentenced at 14 for releasing a train car that rolled down the tracks and killed a man. Although a jury in this most recent case did convict him of misdemeanor assault, he escaped more serious charges of felony aggravated assault and felony witness tampering.

For the most part, his sentence for the crime seems appropriate: Baugh ordered him to the maximum six months in jail and $3,800 in restitution for his victim's medical fees. But wait, there's more!

Baugh also ordered Ferguson, Bart Simpson-style, to write "boys do not hit girls" 5,000 times. Ferguson must mail Baugh what must be the most repetitive letter of all time by May 23. (No word on Baugh's attitude toward girls hitting boys, boys hitting boys, or anyone hitting anyone else.)

That's not the only exciting development in Ferguson's life. That same day he appeared for a disposition hearing for violating the terms of his release for an attempted knifepoint robbery in 2003. For multiple violations, including the most recent conviction for hitting his girlfriend, he was sentenced to eight years in prison. The six-month jail sentence will be served concurrently. We hope the Montana State Prison has lots of stationery.

[image via AP]

When she found $1,000 on a chair in her section, Florida waitress Samantha Knight knew the right thing to do would be to track its owner down and return it to him. There was no way she could have known the man she chased after and handed the wad of cash to was the wrong person.

"I wish I had just held on to it and waited for someone to call. But I thought I was giving it to the right guy," Knight told NBC 2.

Unfortunately, as she soon learned, the money's actual owner was a Chicago resident who was dining in the same section, and who had exited the restaurant one minute earlier.

Chuck Behm was already back in his home town when he realized his money was missing.

Knight never expected to see the other man again, but, five days later, there he suddenly was, back at Laishley Crab House in Punta Gorda.

The man, who was visiting from out of town, insisted it was all a "misunderstanding," and that he came in as soon as he saw himself on the news.

"He said, 'I'm from Delaware. The money was in my wallet underneath other stuff. I'm in town buying stuff, so I had that much money,'" Knight recalled.

The unidentified stranger then gave Knight $100 for her inconvenience and disappeared.

But the biggest Christmas miracle was yet to come: Behm, the money's rightful owner, told Knight she could keep it. All of it.

"I called my mom and was like, 'I can't believe it,'" Knight said. "I called the guy and I was like, 'are you sure?'"

He was. Behm told Knight he wanted her to have the money as a Christmas gift to help her with the expenses of her pregnancy.

Knight is due in April. It's a girl.

[screengrab via NBC2]

[A diver dressed as Santa Claus surfaces after swimming in the Coral Garden tank at the South East Asia Aquarium of Resorts World Sentosa, a popular tourist attraction in Singapore. Photo by Wong Maye-E via AP]

On a crack-of-dawn flight from New York City to Seattle recently, I had my first ever, um, altercation with a seat mate. I'd almost missed the plane—I was that person staggering on board just before the doors closed—and I'm sure he thought he was going to have the row all to himself. I flashed him an apologetic smile (I know that aeronautical heartbreak too well!) and pointed to the middle seat. "Hey, sorry, I'm over there." He looked at my body, sort of glared blankly at my hips, but didn't respond or make eye contact with me. Then, as I went to put my bag in the overhead bin, I heard him mutter something sour.

"[Something something] say excuse me."

My adrenaline went bonkers. Was someone being a dick to me? In person? At 7 am? In an enclosed space? For no reason? When I have a hangover? And we're about to be stuck next to each other for the next five hours? I'm used to men treating me like garbage virtually, or from fast-moving cars, but this close-quarters IRL shit-talking was a jarring novelty.

Me: "What?"

Him: "Nothing."

Me: "No, you said something. What did you say?"

Him: "Nothing."

Me: "No. What did you say? Tell me."

Other passengers: [silent screams]

Him: "I said that if you want someone to move, it helps to say 'excuse me' and then get out of the way. You told me to move and then you just [gestures at my body in the aisle]."

Me [head melting]: "I'm putting my bag in the overhead bin. You know, because that's how planes work?"

Him [dripping with disdain]: "Yeah, okay."

I sat down. They closed the doors. I said, "Looks like there's no one in the middle seat, so you won't actually have to sit next to me. Since I apparently bother you so much."

Him: "Sounds great to me."

As soon as he fell asleep (with his mouth open like a NERD), I passive-aggressively jarred his foot with my backpack and then said, "OH, EXCUSE ME," because I am an adult. We ignored each other for the rest of the flight.

It felt foreign to be confronted so vocally and so publicly (and for such an arbitrary reason), but it also felt familiar. People say the same kind of thing to me with their eyes on nearly every flight—this guy just chose to say it with his mouth.

This is the subtext of my life: "You're bigger than I'd like you to be." "I dread being near you." "Your body itself is a breach of etiquette." "You are clearly a fucking moron who thinks that cheesecake is a vegetable." "I know that you will fart on me."

Nobody wants to sit next to a fat person on a plane. Don't think we don't know.

I have, in my life, been a considerably thinner person and had a fat person sit next to me on a plane. I have also, more recently, been the fat person that makes other travelers' faces fall. Anecdotally, I can verify that being the fat person is almost indescribably worse.

This year, for the first time ever, I got on a plane and discovered that I didn't fit in the seat. I've always been fat, but I was the fat person that still mostly fit. I mean, I couldn't fit into clothes (MORE TUNICS PATTERNED LIKE A PARISIAN SUITCASE, PLEASE), and I had to be careful with butt safety (I'll take the chair side, not the banquette, thanks), but I was still the kind of fat person who could move through the straight-size world without causing too many ripples. Until this fall.

It's been an incredibly busy year for me professionally—I've probably flown 20 times in the past eight months—and one day I sat down and it just didn't work. I was on a flight home from Texas, I think, and the flight out there had been fine. Suddenly, on the return flight, I had to cram myself in. I mean, I know I ate that brisket, but I was only gone for two days! I'm no butt scientist (at least, not certified...ANYMORE), but how fast could a person's butt possibly grow!?

If you've never tried cramming your hips into a jagged metal box that's an inch or two narrower than your flesh (under the watchful eye of resentful tourists), then sitting motionless in there for five hours while you fold your arms and shoulders up like an origami orchid in order to be as unobtrusive as possible, RUN DON'T WALK. It's like squeezing your bones in a vise. The pain makes your teeth ache. It fucking hurts.

But even worse than any physical pain is the anxiety of walking up the aisle and not knowing what plane you're on. Am I going to fit this time? Will I have to ask for a seatbelt extender? Is this a 17-incher or an 18-incher? Did I get on early enough that I can get myself crammed in before someone comes and sits next to me? Is the person next to me going to hate me? Does everyone on this plane hate me? I paid money for this?

People's butts might be getting bigger, sure, but it's a certainty that seats are getting smaller. I fit in every other chair. (Some people don't. That's fine too. Those are good bodies too. Those people deserve respect and accommodations too, without caveats.)

I'm sure some fat people are fat by their own hand, without any underlying medical conditions, but a lot of other fat people are fat because they're sick or disabled. And unless you're checking every human being's bloodwork before they pull up Kayak.com, you do not know which fat people are which. Which means, inevitably, if you think fat people are "the problem" (and not, say, airlines hoping to squeeze out an extra $200 million a year in revenue, or consumers who want cheap airline tickets without sacrificing amenities), you are penalizing a significant number of human beings emotionally and financially for a disease or disability that already complicates their lives. To me, ethically, that's fucked up.

A few weeks ago, I went to Seattle's Museum of Flight for my nephew's 6th birthday party. They have the body of an old airliner from the '60s in there, and you can go hang out in it and pretend you're a Mad Man or whatever and honk the buns of invisible flight attendants. Whatever you're into. And you know what? THOSE SEATS ARE FUCKING HUGE. It's like sitting in a normal human chair, but IN THE SKY. The difference was incredible. (It was definitely the most interesting exhibit in the museum, and that place also has, like, the first plane. Which, to be fair, didn't have seats at all. So...upgrade? I guess?)

Soon after that museum visit, I came across this post: "It Is Now Physically Impossible for an Adult to Fit on a Plane." The Wall Street Journal reported that seats are getting smaller and smaller, even on long international flights—some squeezing below an already scrunchy 17 inches. In case you don't know how small small is, that is CRAZY SMALL. That's not just too small for fat people, it's inhumanely small for "normal"-size people too. Another headline: "Airlines squeezing in even more seating."

Southwest, the largest domestic carrier, is installing seats with less cushion and thinner materials — a svelte model known in the business as slim-line. It is also reducing the maximum recline to 2 inches from 3.

My boyfriend is 6'5". His shoulders are so wide that he physically must use both armrests (and then some), and his legs are so long that the person in front of him absolutely cannot recline their seat. He doesn't fucking fit. He fits worse than I do. Even though fat people are always blamed for RUINING EVERYTHING on planes, I realized the other day that—thanks to insecurity and my proficiency at origami-arms—I've literally never used a plane armrest. Even when I'm in the middle seat. I hear it's nice, though!

None of this is news. The should-fat-people-be-allowed-on-planes debate has been raging for years, and I have no interest in pointlessly rehashing it all over again. Some people will always disagree. That's fine.

But I just want to say this: Before the day I didn't fit, this conversation was largely an abstraction for me. My stance was the same as it is now (if people pay for a service, it's the seller's obligation to accommodate those people and provide the service they paid for), but I didn't understand what that panicky, uncertain walk down the aisle actually felt like. How inhumane it is. How much it makes you question your worth as a human being. I've done it a dozen or so times now, and I've also had a fat person sit next to me and squish me a little bit for six hours. There is no comparison.

I'm telling you this right now not to get sympathy or pity, or even to change your opinion about how airplanes should accommodate larger passengers. I'm just telling you, human to human, that life is complicated and fat people are trying to live. Same as you. Regardless of your stance on the "obesity epidemic," these things are objectively true: Airplane seats are too small. They're too small for everyone except for small people. It's bad. Passengers are going fucking nuts. And, sorry, it's not my responsibility to fix it.

That guy next to me didn't call me fat to my face. I don't even know if that's what was bothering him, although I know the way he looked at my body (my body, not my face, not once, not ever). I can't be sure why that guy was mad at me, but I know why people are mad at me on planes. I know that he disliked me instantly, he invented a reason to be a dick to me, and then he executed it. At 7 am. In a flying fart-can. When I HAD A HANGOVER. And, much more importantly, I see other people staring those same daggers at other fat people's bodies every day, in the sky and on the ground. It's just a shitty way to go through life, for everyone.

You don't have to change your mind about fat people. But you could just be fucking kind. You could give it a shot. It's the holidays, and we're all in this fart-can together.