Despite an earlier claim by a Marine Band spokeswoman that quite possibly invalidated the inauguration, a Marine Corps spokesman is now denying that the Marine Band has the authority to say whether or not Beyoncé lip-synched her performance of the National Anthem.

Speaking with the Associated Press, Capt. Gregory Wolf said the Marine Band used a pre-recorded track to back up Beyoncé because a lack of rehearsal time prior to the inauguration made performing live "ill advised."

"Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter's vocal performance," Wolf said, "no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded."

This comes on the heels of comments made by Marine Band spokeswoman Sgt. Kristin duBois, who claimed that Beyoncé used a pre-recorded version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for reasons unknown to her.

It has been noted that lip-syncing at important events is standard procedure, and even Whitney Houston's legendary take on the anthem at Super Bowl XXV was lip-synched, sparking the same kind of controversy.

[photo via AP]

A woman distracted by a text fell feet-first into a frozen canal in Birmingham — and the entire incident was caught on tape thanks to England's ubiquitous CCTV cameras.

Laura Safe, a newsreader for the Capital FM Breakfast Show, later joked about the tumble on Twitter, saying she "should really be called Laura UNsafe after the day I've had."

She explained that she mistook the icy canal for pavement and kept on texting her boyfriend, oblivious to the impending doom.

"I heard a man called out 'stop' to me and I looked up at him, but it was too late by that point," she said. That man, who goes by Neil, is also credited with pulling Safe out of the water.

"I had to lay down on the side with my arms in the water because she was submerged and pulled her out," he told the Daily Mail. "If you were going to choose a day to go in the canal it would not have been yesterday, it was absolutely freezing and really icy."

Safe spent an hour at a nearby pizza shop drying herself off, and then vowed to never text anyone ever again.

[video via Telegraph, photo via Twitter]

In the hours since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta agreed to lift the nearly 20-year-old ban on women serving in military combat units, a significant number of conservative commentators have come forward to explain why the move is bad for women.

On Twitter, ostensible servicemen have claimed that having women on the battlefield will put all the other soldiers there at greater risk:

Months before Beyoncé murdered millions of Americans by singing over a previously recorded track at the presidential inauguration, someone asked her to sing songs at the Super Bowl.

Now Us Weekly has gotten its hands on her rumored set list.

• Crazy in Love
• Bills Bills Bills
• Survivor
• Nuclear

It's a classic line-up, with something for everyone (except Michelle, who wasn't a member of Destiny's Child when Bills, Bills, Bills was recorded). In other words: it is perfect.

And if she doesn't sing every note live, football in America will be canceled forever.

We're counting on you, Beyoncé.

[Us // Image via Getty]

Katie Couric's much-anticipated interview with Manti Te'o aired this afternoon and while it's hard to say anyone was surprised by the football star's fumbling manner and general stupidity, who knew that Katie could be so vicious?

The hour-long interview was characterized by Manti Te'o saying dumb things about the dumb decisions he had made while Katie found new and interesting ways to tell Te'o that he was, in fact, quite dumb for letting this go on for so long. Te'o responded with a wealth of blank stares, "uh's," and "ums," which were no match for Katie's cold, hard "Are you kidding me?" faces.

If someone testifies against you in court, there are a number of ways you can get back at them. Of course it should be noted that you should definitely not try and get back at them, unless you specifically want to deepen whatever legal trouble you're in. But anyway, the possibilities are almost truly infinite. You could, for instance, "swat" the person. Or you could dump a can of orange paint on the person's car. You could, I don't know, toss a watermelon through the person's front window.

But if you're Dr. Donald A. Holshuh of Keene, N.H., you'll go to the person's office and... piss on his door. Yep, that's what you'll do. Not only that, you'll do it in front of security cameras so he knows just exactly whose piss he was smelling. And why would you do that? Because the person was a state's witness in a hearing to suspend your license. Also, because you're likely insane.

The Keene Police Department launched an investigation into the incident on Aug. 14. Officials said a man urinated on the employee door of a dental office on Court Street, occupied by Dr. Wirant. A surveillance camera recorded the incident and police identified the suspect as Dr. Donald A. Holshuh.

Police said Wirant testified for the State of New Hampshire during a medical license suspension hearing against Holshuh.

Yep, this is what passes for a nearly half-a-year investigation in Keene, N.H. Pissing. But, then again, if this is what passes as retaliation, the police probably don't have much going on anyway.

[via WMUR 9]

The government today kinda-sorta weighed in on the whole Manti Te'o hoax thing by issuing a set of State Department guidelines on how to avoid being the victim of "Internet Dating Scams."

That's all well and good, except for the fact that their "tips" would have done little to help Victim Zero: Manti Te'o himself.

For example, right off the bat, the State Department says a telltale sign of a "sweetheart scam" is when "the scammer and the victim meet online — often through Internet dating or employment sites."

But according to Te'o, he first encountered Lennay Kekua on Facebook in 2009, and hadn't become romantically involved with her until April 2012. Talk about a long con.

The State Department also warns potential victims that a scammer will ask for money "to get out of a bad situation or to provide a service."

Strike two: No money changed virtual hands between Te'o and Kekua. In fact, Kekua once sought to wire some money to Te'o.

The third guideline tells would-be marks to watch out for sweethearts with overly attractive photos that appear "to have been taken at a professional modeling agency or photographic studio."

"Attractive" is a judgement call, but the photos of Diane O'Meara — the 23-year-old marketing exec who unwittingly became the "face" of Lennay Kekua — that were used in the scam were taken from her Facebook page, thus lending a necessary sheen of plausibility to the deceit.

In its fourth bullet point, Foggy Bottom finally catches a bit of a break:

The scammer has incredibly bad luck- often getting into car crashes, arrested, mugged, beaten, or hospitalized - usually all within the course of a couple of months. They often claim that their key family members (parents and siblings) are dead. Sometimes, the scammer claims to have an accompanying child overseas who is very sick or has been in an accident.

But, again, this doesn't apply to Te'o, who was allegedly convinced by his online girlfriend that she herself was dying. And, as we found out today, when he previously learned that Kekua was in a coma following a car crash, he made up some lame excuse not to visit her in the hospital.

Finally, the State Department says a surefire way to identify a scammer is if he or she "claims to be a native-born American citizen, but uses poor grammar indicative of a non-native English speaker."

If that were an actual barometer for the likelihood of a scam, no one would ever trust anyone.

It's becoming increasingly likely that Te'o was in on the scam, at least for the last two months or so. But for that period of time that he was telling the truth — if such a period exists — as far as the government is concerned, he could very well have been dating the girl of his dreams.

[H/T: BetaBeat, photo via AP]

Scotty Maloney is this year's homecoming king at Unionville Community High School in Unionville, Tenn. Maloney didn't win a vote of his peers, nor was he nominated. Instead, Maloney was awarded the crown by the school's three finalists for homecoming king — they wanted to honor Maloney, who suffers from Williams Syndrome, which is a neurological disorder that limits his ability to learn and speak.

It is a rare heartwarming story during yet another time in American history where it feels like the only news to come out of schools involve guns. Unionville student Jesse Cooper, who actually won the popular vote, explained the group's decision to WKRN-ABC in in Nashville.

"I've been blessed with so many things," said Jesse Cooper, who won the popular vote for king. "I just wanted Scotty to experience something great in his high school days."

According to various reports, Maloney received a 30-second standing ovation at a rally in the school's gym last week.

"When they called [Scotty's] name, his eyes got really big and I don't know that he registered exactly what was happening. He knew something was," Maloney's teacher Liz Hestle Gassaway told ABCNews.com. "It was very, very emotional."

Maloney has worn the medal given to the homecoming king to class everyday and will get to crown the winner next year. So, yes, nice things still do happen.

[story, image via WKRN]

Conservatives thought they were going to win the 2012 Presidential Election. Instead, they were trounced by Barack Obama for the second time, sending the party off to search if not for its soul, then at least for a way to win a major election. The GOP has long been hostile to anyone that isn't rich, white and male, and with the country trending against that demographic in just about every way, the GOP needs to rethink what it stands for and who it wants to stand for it. It is, the thinking goes, the only way that they can stay competitive on a national level in a post-Obama landscape.

Oooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr they're just going to try and rig the elections.

You know, whatever works. Led by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus (pictured above), the party is attempting to work state legislatures to award electoral votes by congressional district instead of giving all electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state. As you're probably aware, Republicans win far more congressional districts in presidential elections than Democrats do, but they (more often than not) lose the ones where all the people are. By making the congressional district containing Armpit, Ohio equal in power to the one that holds Cleveland, the Republicans hope to remedy that problem.

The Huffington Post whipped together this nifty graphic that shows what the 2012 electoral map would have looked like if every state adopted the congressional district plan.

In Virginia, a bill to move to this system will likely soon hit the floor of the State Senate. Of course, very few states — if any — will be stupid enough to adopt this plan, but that's not going to stop the Republicans from trying.

See you in 2016, dipshits.

[via Huffington Post, image via Getty]

After a few rumors and some (fairly obviously) fakeouts, the really real lineup for the 2013 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has finally been revealed.

Nope, no Rolling Stones, but The Stone Roses are headlining, so that's something. And The Postal Service will make their first appearance since reuniting, so that's another thing.

Blur, Phoenix, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers will also headline this year's retrial of the double-weekend experiment which did so well last two years.

Also on deck are Modest Mouse, Lou Reed, Jurassic 5, the XX, Sigur Ros, Hot Chip, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (who have a new album coming out!), The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who do, too!), Vampire Weekend, and the Wu-Tang Clan.

Tickets will be on sale here starting Tuesday, January 29th, at 10 AM PST. The festival itself will take place April 12-14 and 19-21 in its Earthly home: The Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

[image via @coachella]

A woman who was stabbed and beaten by a man she met through Match.com is suing the online dating site, alleging that it doesn't do enough screen out violent offenders and warn users of potential dangers.

Mary Kay Beckman of Las Vegas was matched with a man named Wade Ridley in September 2010. But, after just over a week, Beckman, a 50-year-old mother of two, had had enough of him.

Ridley, however, wasn't quite done with Beckman.

A few months later he snuck into her garage and hid there. When Beckman arrived, Ridley attacked her, stabbing her at least ten times. He then moved on to kicking her head because the knife broke.

"When the police arrested him, he said he wasn't there to hurt me. He was there to kill me," Beckman told Fox 5 News. "His intent was to kill me that night."

After a long period of recovery during which Beckman underwent multiple surgeries to repair her skull and save her eyesight and hearing, Beckman decided to fight back.

Ridley had since committed suicide in prison after being convicted of assaulting Beckman (he was also wanted for allegedly murdering an ex-girlfriend whom Beckman says Ridley also met through Match.com), but Beckman wanted to make sure that what happened to her never happened again.

So she filed a lawsuit against Match.com.

"They don't say one in five are part of an attempted murder or one in five are killed," Beckman said. "They don't tell you people are missing." The real estate agent says she wants a disclaimer on the site a la cigarette packages.

Match.com, for its part, calls Beckman's lawsuit "absurd."

"The many millions of people who have found love on Match.com and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is," the company said in a statement. "And while that doesn't make what happened in this case any less awful, this is about a sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other."

In addition to a disclaimer, Beckman is seeking $10 million in damages.

[screengrabs via Fox 5 Vegas]

Every night for the past several years, Jimmy Kimmel has been signing off his eponymous show by apologizing to Matt Damon for running out of time.

The gag was funny to everyone except one person: Matt Damon.

Last night, after being bumped a total of 1,205 times, the actor finally got back at Kimmel by bumping him from the show.

Kidnapping Kimmel and renaming the show Jimmy Kimmel Sucks, Damon took over the late night gig and quickly made the place his own.

First, he replaced Kimmel's sidekick/henchman Guillermo with Andy Garcia, and brought in Sheryl Crow to be his new bandleader.

He hired a ringer — Robin Williams — to do his monologue, and invited his A-list friends Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Amy Adams to be guests on the show.

Along the way several other notables made cameos: Ben Affleck, Reese Witherspoon, Demi Moore, and even Kimmel's former flame Sarah Silverman, who heartlessly compared her relationship with Kimmel to a New York City hot dog that you buy from a street vendor, put inside you, and then later regret it.

Kimmel, who remained tied up behind Damon throughout the show, later hinted on Twitter that there was more to come. "You win this round Matt Damon. But I will win the war," he tweeted.

[H/T: The Hollywood Reporter, SplitSider, videos via Jimmy Kimmel Live]

The "American Dream," which is dead, is to work a steady job for four decades or so, buy a house, watch some football, make some pineapple upside-down cake, and then retire at age 65 with a little pension to enjoy your useless time before death. Every single part of that setup is now crumbling to pieces.

You can't find a steady job. If you can, you can barely afford to rent, much less buy. Football and cake will both kill you. Retirement is a pipe dream. What does this all add up to? The fact that these days, turning 65 means "Here is your Wal-Mart greeter training packet. Please familiarize yourself with its contents." From a new US Census report:

In 1990, 12.1 percent of the population 65 years and older was in the labor force, compared with 75.6 percent for 16- to 64-year-olds during that time. By 2010, the labor force participation rate of those 65 years and older had increased to 16.1 percent, a 4.0 percentage point change. For 16- to 64-year-olds, the national labor force participation rate was 74.0 percent in 2010 (1.6 percentage points lower than in 1990). Within the 65 and over population, 65- to 69-year-olds saw the largest change, increasing from 21.8 percent in 1990 to 30.8 percent in 2010, a 9.0 percentage point increase, compared with a 5.0 percentage point increase for 70- to 74-year-olds and a 1.0 percentage point increase for people 75 years and older.

That's number-speak for "lots of old people have to fucking work now." The only upside is that they're taking jobs away from teenagers (who will rob them) (then fill our jails) (paid for by your tax dollars) (then later be released without skills and unable to find employment) (and rob you).

[US Census. Photo: Elliot Brown/ Flickr]

A litter of tiny Scottish Terrier puppies crowded around the same goat's milk bowl produces a natural phenomenon known as a "Scottie Pinwheel."

Have you ever seen anything more adorable in your life? Wait. Don't answer that.

You haven't.

[Cute Overload via Tastefully Offensive]

A woman in Oregon was charged with prostitution and promoting prostitution after she walked into a police station in Salem to meet with a client.

The client turned out to be an undercover street crimes detective who had solicited 20-year-old Christal D. Smith of Portland through a website as part of a sting operation.

In a press release, the Salem Police Department said the detective had also been communicating with Smith by phone and through text messages, and had asked her to come to Salem to complete the transaction.

The two were set to meet inside the detective's place of employment — the Salem police station.

From the Salem Police Dept. statement:

In order to get to the door where she was arrested, the suspect walked through a courtyard where the clearly marked public entrance to the Salem Police Department is located. She also walked directly past several uniformed police officers.

The arrest took place on January 11, National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Smith was booked into the Marion County Jail and released three days later.

[mug shot via KATU]

Are you there, God? It's me, German Soldiers. I'm growing breasts on one side of my body. Let's rap about that.

According to a report in the Cologne Express (link in German), soldiers from Germany's elite Wachbataillon military unit have found their bodies changing in ways many of us have not experienced since Girl Scout camp: they're growing boobs on the left side of their bodies.

The condition is called gynecomastia. Doctors believe the condition is developing due to a drill that requires them to slam their rifles into their chests, thereby stimulating unusual hormone production.

In other words, German soldiers are growing man-boobs ("Männerbrust") because they can't stop hitting themselves.

Stop hitting yourselves, German soldiers. Stop hitting yourselves. Stop hitting yourselves.

According to the German Herald, Professor Björn Krapohl, director of plastic surgery at the Military Hospital of Berlin, has proposed modifying the battalion's exercises to alleviate the problem:

"There is a very significant link between the activity in the Guard Battalion and the development of the breast on the left side. They need to change the way they drill. The constant slamming of the rifles against the left hand side of the chest is clearly a significant factor."

The military reportedly plans to research the condition further and alter the drills if necessary.

No trips are planned to Victoria's Secret because that place is for fast girls.

[Express.de / German Herald (h/t Newser) // Image via Shutterstock]

New research indicates that paying a lot of money for college is bullshit.

Research presented here by researchers from Wabash College — and based on national data sets — finds that there may be a minimal relationship between what colleges spend on education and the quality of the education students receive. Further, the research suggests that colleges that spend a fraction of what others do, and operate with much higher student-faculty ratios and greater use of part-time faculty members, may be succeeding educationally as well as their better-financed (and more prestigious) counterparts.

Expensive colleges join expensive investment advice, expensive watches, and expensive exercise equipment on the list of bullshit things whose primary benefit to mankind is the amusement provided by laughing at the tortured justifications that people concoct for spending a great deal of unnecessary money upon them.

[Inside Higher Ed. Photo: FB]

A pair of employees at a Scottish oil company had their — and everyone else's — worst nightmare realized this week after accidentally forwarding a series of private steamy exchanges to the entire office.

Receptionist Melanie Anderson was engaged in a raunchy back-and-forth with her fiancé Eric Knisz to liven up a boring workday at Integrated Subsea Services in Aberdeen, when the sandwich van suddenly showed up.

Anderson sent out a quick note to her coworkers to inform them of the sandwich van's arrival, but in a flub to end all flubs, she inadvertently included the entire chain of X-rated emails she and Knisz had sent each other.

As you might imagine, it didn't take long at all for the faux pas to be forwarded far and wide.

Some of the more quotable lines include "I love making love to you its ace!!!," "I adores ya you sexy mofo," and "I loved our session last night...you were very very wet!"

Soon enough the chain made the inevitable leap from oil company listservs to Twitter, where it was mercilessly mocked with the hashtag #sandwichvan.

A human resources rep at ISS released a statement saying the couple was "absolutely mortified" and "apologize for any offense caused," but it seems the shame was overwhelming.

According to Aberdeen-based BBC correspondent Kevin Keane, the couple has since quit their jobs.

[photo via Shutterstock, email via Twitter]

Chicago Public School officials have apologized for an email typo that directed parents to a website dedicated to "explor[ing] and enrich[ing] women's sex lives and sensuality."

The email was sent to parents to inform them of recent changes to the state's standardized test, the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). The email was supposed to direct parents to the website for the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and instead contained a link to isbel.com, an invite-only community designed for women. There's a sexy Kama Sutra book in a sexy unmade bed on the homepage.

Never has the letter L felt so important.

Here is the full email, as posted by CBS Chicago:

From: Internal Communications
Sent: Wed, January 23, 2013 6:03:29 PM
Subject: Important Message From CEO Byrd-Bennett On Changes To ISAT

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), my primary goal is to make sure all of children are capable of success. We must hold high expectations for each of them. It is our responsibility to ensure they receive the supports needed to succeed in college, career and life.

To prepare our students for higher learning, all public schools in the State of Illinois, including CPS, recently began implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These standards were adopted by 45 states and they describe what students are expected to learn at every grade level to be prepared for college.

Based on these new standards, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) will raise the performance levels of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) for elementary and middle school students (grades 3-8) beginning this school year. These new performance levels will align with the more rigorous CCSS in English, language arts and math.

What does this mean for your child? By raising the bar on the ISAT, it is likely that scores for students may decrease. In many cases, some students who previously met or exceeded standards on the ISAT will instead show the need for improvement.

However, even if scores do drop for your child, it does not mean they know less than they did before or are less capable than they were in previous years. ISBE is simply raising the bar on the ISAT in order to align it more closely with standards that better indicate if students are on a path for college and career-readiness.

ISAT testing begins March 4, 2013. As we receive the results of the revised statewide tests, your school staff will be able to provide the appropriate support and help for your child based on the new learning standards, if necessary.

Though ISAT testing may be more challenging this year than in the past, the new higher standards will better position all CPS students for a successful future in college and career.

These changes also pave the way for the state to replace the ISAT tests in math and English language arts with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams. The PARCC exams will line up with the Common Core State Standards and provide better information about students' abilities to master the critical thinking skills needed for college. The new PARCC tests are scheduled to begin in the 2014-2015 school year.

Throughout the coming weeks and leading up to this year's ISAT testing, CPS will be providing parents with information on what this means for your children and how to best prepare for this change in expectations and scoring. For more information on the Common Core, please visit http://isbel.net/common_core/default.htm or http://commoncoreil.org/.

[Image via isbel.com]

Fellow American: have you heard of Rob Ford, portly Canadian football fan and Mayor of Toronto, Canada's version of New York City? If not, you are missing out — and you better get on the Ford bandwagon soon because he might not be Mayor for much longer.

Back in November, Ford had been automatically expelled from office after a justice ruled that he'd illegally voted to let himself off the hook over improperly solicited lobbyist donations to a football charity he'd started. This morning, Ford won his appeal meaning he will stay on as mayor, at least over the weekend. Next week, an independent audit of his campaign finances will be released; if it goes poorly for Ford he could be removed, again.

And while Ford's removal from office would be good for Toronto, it would be terrible for the rest of us. Because without Rob Ford, we wouldn't have these Rob Ford quotes:

Rob Ford on...

...public health:

"If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably, that's bottom line... those are the facts."

...urban planning:

"What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten... Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."

...immigration:

"Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines. That's why they're successful in life. I went to Seoul, South Korea, I went to Taipei, Taiwan. I went to Tokyo, Japan. That's why these people are so hard workers [sic]. I'm telling you, the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over."

...diversity:

"I don't understand. Number one, I don't understand a transgender. I don't understand. Is it a guy dressed up like a girl, or a girl dressed up like a guy? And we're funding this for -– I don't know, what does it say here –- we're giving them $3,210?"

...procuring Oxycontin:

"I'll try, buddy, I'll try. I don't know this shit [Oxycontin], but I'll fucking try to find it. Why don't you go on the street and score it? Fuck, you know, I don't know any drug dealers at all."

...being asked to be quiet at a Maple Leafs game:

"Are you some kind of right-wing commie bastard?... Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?... Green party fucking rules."