Police in Georgia say a homeowner shot and killed a man who accidentally ended up on his driveway after following GPS directions to the wrong house.

22-year-old Rodrigo Diaz was driving with friends to pick up another friend in Lilburn so they could all go ice skating. But Diaz was unwittingly led to the wrong address by his GPS.

According to the car's passengers, after waiting a short while in the driveway, they suddenly spotted homeowner Phillip Sailors, 69, coming towards them.

"The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air," recalled 15-year-old Yeson Jimenez.

They reportedly tried to drive away, but Sailors fired his .22-caliber pistol again, striking the car and killing Diaz.

Sailors then called the police and held the car's three passengers at gunpoint until their arrival.

Sailors' lawyer said his client believed he and his wife were in danger, but the passengers dispute this claim, saying Sailors never said anything except "shut up."

Sailors, a Vietnam vet with no criminal history, was booked into jail on charges of malice murder and is being held without bond.

[mug shot via AJC]

15-year-old Ellen-admirer Laurel was understandably nervous about how her parents would react to her coming out, so she baked them a cake to sweeten the blow.

But not just any cake — a gay cake (or "gayke," if you will).

Good morning parents, I'm gay. I've wanted to tell you for a long time. I thought doing it this way would be a piece of cake. I hope you still love me. I mean, it's hard not to love someone who baked you a cake.

All my friends know and still love me. Your acceptance would be the icing on the cake. I hope you, much like this cake, are not in tiers.

I hope we can look back on this and say "boy, this one really takes the cake."

It gets batter.

Love, Laurel (sorry for so many puns)

Naturally, both Laurel's mom and dad were ecstatic... about the cake. Oh, and the lesbian thing was OK too.

My dad saw the cake and came into me room and hugged me and laughed. He said he loved me and the cake and the letter and everything was perfect.

My mom saw it and cried of happiness. We hugged and cried together. Then, we all ate the cake and talked. I am very luck to have such supporting parents and to have so much support from you guys. Thanks everyone! Have a gay day!

No lie: This is pretty awesome.

[H/T: Happy Place via JoeMyGod, photo via Tumblr]

Google has just released its first, detailed maps of North Korea. You know what that means: ROOAAAD!!! TRIIIP!!!

A team of amateur mapmakers populated North Korea with roads and landmarks on Google Maps, which, while completely unhelpful to the citizens of the country with the most restrictive internet policies on Earth, are pretty fun to play with from the comfort of your office desk.

Play a few rounds at the Pyongyang Golf Complex just southwest of Pyongyang. This is where Kim Jong-il once scored his legendary and completely real 34 under-par, with 11 holes in one.
Drive quickly and silently past the utter inhumanity of Hwasong Gulag, which, at 212 square km and an estimated population of 10,000 political prisoners, is North Korea's largest prison camp.
Cool off in the new Rungna People's Pleasure Ground, complete with elaborate water park, roller coasters and Kim Jong-un's favorite dolphinarium!
Nervously avert your eyes as you pass the Punggye-ri nuclear test site where North Korea is reportedly preparing for a new bomb test which would bring the world that much closer to nuclear world war. Nothing to see here!

A couple weeks ago, when Barbara Walters slipped and cut her head while leaving a party at the British Ambassador's house, we were all secretly jealous of her because knowing British people is so fancy.

Now it has been revealed that Walters is more than just an elegant drunk woman with poor balance; she's also a medical marvel who has contracted chickenpox at 83.

Not shingles, the disease that occurs when the chickenpox virus is reactivated in adults. Regular, itchy dot chickenpox. (She never had them as a child.)

According to medical experts, the fact that she's contracted chickenpox now makes Barbara Walters A FREAK OF NATURE.

A physician who specializes in geriatric medicine at the University of Pittsburgh (and who's not treating Walters but probably would very much like to meet her because who wouldn't), told USA Today that medical literature documents "only a handful of cases" in which people older than 60 contracted the bloody pox.

Barbara Walters hasn't been 60 for more than two decades now. She can barely remember her naïve, carefree sixties. The chickenpox vaccine wasn't invented until Barbara Walters was 65, and, even then, it was thought of as the devil's dealings.

We don't even know how chickenpox affects people in their 80s. Maybe it's great for them. Maybe it's like an invigorating facial scrub. The data simply does not exist. The data is Barbara Walters.

ABC-News says that Walters is expected to be released from the hospital soon.

She can never be ended.

[USA Today // Image via Getty]

I never want a boyfriend until I meet him; Charles* got me effortlessly. He enlivened me. I felt free to say whatever as we swapped pop-cultural obsessions, revealing ourselves in the process. Or at least, that was the idea. I told him I was nasty like the dirt under SWV singer Coko's fingernails. I meant it.

We got coked up on flattery and communicated in the breathless fervor of Julianne Moore and Heather Graham in their bedroom scene in Boogie Nights. We bonded over recent breakups. We focused on similarities, and I pretended that our differences were superficial. (He prefers classy, full-voiced Mariah; I prefer the trashier, imperfect person she has become. He works in fashion, which might as well be football to me; he hates horror movies, but I watch them all the time.) He told me he looked up our love signs: "The stars say we are getting married." I briefly suspended my disbelief in astrology.

And on it went. Three-hundred-fourteen iPhone screens' worth of exchanges and close to a dozen Skype and phone conversations. But it was all a lie. I knew it and I did it anyway. If Charles bore any blame, my investment in our fate in the first place far outweighed it. If I was misled, I was misled willingly. With a country separating us, I wove narrative scraps into a reality, believing we were closer than we were. My behavior was an example of amplified living, an extreme case of business as usual. The self is unknowable, the other is awesome and inconceivable. Relationships are faith-based endeavors, and when they work out it feels like an act of God. Modern existence depends on taking outside cues and arranging them so that they make sense in our own heads. Without this imperfect process, we'd wander around in chaos.

During most of our active association, Charles and I weren't in the same place. We met at a party. He almost immediately went away for weeks on a business trip/vacation and all I had in his place were words. We texted about wanting to be together immediately, lamented that we had to wait endlessly and affirmed frequently that we were on the #samepage. By encouraging me generally, he encouraged me specifically to invest and believe that we were embarking on something truly special. We liked each other, and in the absence of the normal implicit signals you might give a new potentially special someone, we had no other choice but to commit it to writing.

I didn't suspend my life for Charles, but I fantasized about doing so when he was back. I was convinced that he was my ideal, that he'd look great as my future, that we'd make beautiful babies by combining our sperm and shaking up a test tube. Yahtzee! I had won this round. Charles was, I decided, perfect for me.

Charles was not perfect for me. I knew that as soon as I finally kissed him hello with my tongue all those weeks after we had met. (I had been out of town immediately before his return, too, and rushed directly to his place from the train station.) The barest of intimate acts undid weeks' worth of words and a metastasizing fantasy that couldn't be tethered to reality. But whatever, he was hot, a 10. I was willing to pretend, play along for as long as he'd have me. I was ready to laminate a new polyurethane fantasy over the last one, like our perfect future was as changeable as a subway poster.

I think Manti Te'o knew more about the hoax supposedly pulled on him than he let on, but the narrative of being duped that he's selling is so human and indicative of the way things are that I almost wish I believed him more. We are surrounded by narratives of fraudulent narratives: Catfish: The TV Show, The Imposter, news coverage Beyoncé's lip-synching, the professional-wrestling truths of reality TV. No one is innocent: not the liar, the lied to, or the spectator who creates a market for the perpetuation of lies in the first place.

We're narrative addicts, and we have been for a while. Ben Yagoda's 2009 book Memoir: A History details the makings of a centuries-old medium and its inherent shortcomings, how all truths come with lies or just are lies. It's incredibly insightful and a maddening argument against investing too much stock in anything that people say, be it publicly or generally:

Beneath the account of every incident, episode, or character is an interpretation of one's life. Beneath that is the implied need to justify the whole enterprise of putting that life on paper, to show that in some way it makes a good story. The result is all kinds of internal suggestion. Even assuming such a thing as accurate memory existed, how could it fail to give in to such temptations?

Yagoda also warns against believing in quote-heavy writing that comes from the author's mind (the argument is that one couldn't precisely reconstruct a conversation he or she had earlier in the day, much less years ago) and, most mind-blowingly, cites evidence revealing how little we could possibly know regarding fact and fiction:

A recent review of more than one hundred psychological studies found that when subjects are presented with examples of lying and truth-telling, they could identify the liars only 54 percent of the time—nearly the results you would get by flipping a coin. That credulousness is on the whole a good thing, probably, but it leaves us vulnerable.

I wasn't duped by Charles, per se. I don't think that he went out of his way to misrepresent himself. I don't know if he was particularly cognizant of how many layers our relationship occupied in my head as a result of our text-based foundation. I felt like his faith-based enthusiasm matched mine. Yet nothing of our interaction predicted the way things would pan out. The circumstance was louder than our voices in unison.

After we kissed, we fooled around and made each other cum. We had a meal. We fooled around and came again. He went to sleep, I watched TV, we said we'd meet up and we never did again. When I said goodbye that evening, it was the last time I saw him.

We texted sporadically for the next few days. I went to Fire Island that weekend, swept myself up in something else and moved on, but the narrative wasn't sitting right with me. After a few more days without any communication, I decided to continue the useless human folly of uncovering the truth. Knowing he'd soon be leaving town for yet another vacation, I wrote Charles this email:

I'm hoping to grab you here before you leave town just for the sake of closure. That's a dramatic word, I know. Really, I don't want to give the impression that I'm stressing/sweating you or the situation. I am, though, really curious about what happened between us — it's a very strange situation to go from texting everyday from afar to falling out of that and being virtually out of touch when we are in close proximity.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't weird you out, because I know it's a potentially awkward question. I'm just puzzled about our arc and would love clarification.

His response:

You are not crazy/this is not creepy/i am glad you wrote and yes we should totally talk. You are awesome ;)

When are you free? I am about to be busy for the rest of the night. Tomorrow?

I told him I had time the next day, but I didn't hear back until I was already on my way out for the night. When Charles returned from his trip, we tried again with similar scheduling conflicts. Then, on the eve of yet another trip of his, we decided we'd Skype when he checked into his hotel room. "Just like old times," I texted him. I don't think he got that I was just being stupid for effect.

That never happened, either. We never had another discussion and after we didn't Skype, we never communicated again. It bothered me until I realized that it didn't. Not every narrative is worthy of closure, especially one that spontaneously materializes and combusts on sheer will.

There is no big reveal. Charles wasn't married, my creepy neighbor, a man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man. The facts he told me about his job, his whereabouts, his interests, they checked out. The way he said that he felt about me, and more importantly us, didn't, but that only mattered because I wanted it to. If I was catfished, it was by my own hook. I ended up dining alone.

*Not his real name.

Image by Jim Cooke.

Semi-nude selfies and jokes about on-campus drug use are just some of the things found on one Colorado math teacher's Twitter page.

23-year-old Carly McKinney, a first-year teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, also raised eyebrows among district officials with tweets like, "Just got called Ms. McCutie. Points for being clever, however you are still jailbait."

McKinney was busted by a viewer tip to local NBC affiliate 9News, and subsequently deleted her account, CarlyCrunkBear.

But not before the news station managed to gather up several examples of McKinney's more "provocative" tweets.

McKinney, who was apparently fond of making references to drug use, suggested in one tweet that she was grading papers while stoned. In another, McKinney jokes, "Watching a drug bust go down in the parking lot. It's funny cuz I have weed in my car in the staff parking lot."

Reached for comment by 9News, McKinney claimed @crunk_bear was a parody account she created with a friend. She denied using drugs while on school grounds, and blamed all controversial comments and photos on her friend who she alleges posted "without her knowledge and consent."

However, a final tweet posted just before the account was removed suggests McKinney was fully aware of the content being posted online in her name. "Local news station just called me..." she wrote. "Tweeking out..."

The school district will meet with McKinney today to discuss the possibility that her actions violated school policy.

[H/T: The Daily Dot, images via Twitter via Westword, video via 9News]

Welcome to our science-like new feature, "Hey, Science," in which we will have our most provocative scientific questions answered by real live scientists (or related experts). No question is too smart for us to tackle, theoretically speaking. This week, experts answer the question: Do animals get mental illnesses, just like humans? Or is your dog just dumb?

THE QUESTION: Animals act weird sometimes. There's even a flourishing industry of pet psychologists. But do animals actually become mentally ill, scientifically speaking, in the same way that humans do? Do we even know that? Or is this whole thing a bunch of speculative pseudoscience? Also, I gave my dog some of my Prozac, is that cool?

Michael Oglesbee, Professor and Chair, Department of Veterinary Biosciences, Ohio State University:

Interesting question. [Ed.: indeed] I am not aware of pet psychology as a recognized discipline in veterinary medicine. We focus on behaviors (the domain of behaviorists). There is no question that we encounter behavioral problems in domestic animal species, but to what degree that reflects mental illness per se (as a biochemical/neurobiological entity), versus a manifestation of suboptimal training and environment would be very difficult to tease apart. We start with what we know, and that is training and environment. Are there animal models of mental illness that are the focus of neurobiologists? You bet. For example, there is a rat model of schizophrenia. There are non-human primate models of schizophrenia, but to extrapolate from experimental models in rats and primates to dogs and cats would be a stretch.

Meghan E. Herron, veterinary behaviorist, Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Ohio State University:

We definitely see mental health issues in dogs and cats, not necessarily the same as in humans, but I do diagnose and treat dogs and cats for anxiety problems, phobias, compulsive disorders (similar to OCD), aggression, etc. The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists is a well established specialty in veterinary medicine. Currently there are 57 board certified veterinary behaviorists in the country. They see a variety of species for many behavior and mental health problems. The owners are an integral part of diagnosing and treating these problems as our patients cannot "speak" for themselves. That said often their behaviors and body language speak a thousand words. We sometimes prescribe antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications for animals, but I would not recommend owners give their pets their own medications as there are specific drugs we know are safe for animals, but some may be dangerous. The dosing is also quite different as is best left to a veterinarian to determine.

Christopher L. Mariani, veterinary neurologist, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University:

I'd say the majority of the mental illnesses you mention do not occur in the majority of the animal kingdom; an exception might be primates, although this is a little bit outside of my area of expertise. Dogs and cats can have a variety of behavioral disorders, including things like compulsive or stereotypic disorders (often repetitive, abnormal behaviors), aggression, fearful behaviors, etc. For some of these disorders, certain human medications such as anti-anxiety drugs (e.g., valium, tricyclic antidepressants) or anti-depressants (fluoxetine [Prozac], clomipramine) are prescribed.....I certainly wouldn't advocate that people give these to their pets unless prescribed by a veterinarian, as there are specific contraindications and risks/adverse events associated with the use of these meds.

Hugh McClelland, emergency veterinarian, Affiliated Pet Emergency Services, Gainesville, FL, also we used to light off fireworks together when we were kids:

Can animals have mental illnesses, like people do?
The simple answer is yes. It's hard to say so with certainty because you can't ask the animal about his thoughts, feelings or perceptions. But you can observe his behavior. Abnormal behavior such as excessive aggression, fearfulness, or destruction can indicate anguish or distress. If the behavior is truly excessive and cannot be solely attributed to a medical condition, then the animal may have a mental disorder. Separation anxiety and thunderstorm phobia are well known mental disorders that affect animals.

Are all those "animal psychologists" real, or just pseudoscientists?
The title of Animal Psychologist is bogus, since the root word psyche refers to the totality of the human mind. A legit animal psychologist would, therefore, call himself an animal behaviorist to respect the difference between the animal and human mind. Do legit animal behaviorists exist? Absolutely, but any schmuck can legally call themselves an animal behaviorist or animal psychologist or whatever, so you can't go by the title. Instead look for the all-important letters after the person's name. The gold standard in the US is DVM (or VMD) followed by DACVB. This means the person has completed a degree in veterinary medicine followed by advanced clinical training in animal behavior, and is licensed and certified to diagnose and medically treat animal behavior problems. They can tell you what's wrong with your animal and get you the good drugs for it. The next best is a PhD in Applied Animal Behavior. These folks are formally educated in animal behavior (good), but can't prescribe medications (lame). And if the dude or chick or dudish-looking chick lacks any of these qualifications, beware, they may be selling snake oil enemas for all you know. And just to be clear, the terms "Animal Psychologist," "Animal Trainer," "Dog Whisperer," or "Pet Analyst-Therapist i.e. Pet Anal-rapist" in and of themselves do not necessarily mean that the person is licensed or certified or has had any formal education or training in diagnosis or treatment of animal behavior problems.

How much do vets really know about mental disorders in animals?
For your average vet such as myself, not too damn much. The average vet is too busy fixing broken bones, removing swallowed G.I. Joe action figures, and containing eruptions of urine/diarrhea/vomit/blood to delve deep into his patient's subconscious. As you can imagine, the animal mind is a freakishly hard thing to study, and I have great respect for legitimate Animal Behaviorists because of that. Have you ever tried to psychoanalyze your own pets? If not, I'll save you the trouble, here's how it would go down. First you skim read the Cliff's Notes version of a second-rate Sigmund Freud biography, so you feel totally prepared. Then you run into your first problem, the damn cat won't hold still long enough for you to initiate his hypnosis session. You finally corner the fidgety bastard, you start swinging the gold pocketwatch slowly back and forth in front of his nose while talking to him all calm and shit ("niiiiice kitty"), but suddenly he springs forth and violently assaults the swinging watch like it's a catnip-flavored tuna mouse. So, you give up and start feeding him an extra can of food per day until he's so fat the mental problems just seem less important. And it doesn't go any better with the dog. You call him into your comfortable office and ask him to hop up on the red couch. You start with some easy questions about his feelings, just common things like, "Why do you hump my leg, is it because I remind you of your bitch mom?" And, "I don't allow you to eat the cat's warm poop out of the litter box, how does that make you feel?" And the most perplexing question of all, "Whoooooooo's a good boy? Whoooooooo's a good boy?" You are making really good progress, and he starts really opening up to you about the trust issues with his father and the lack of emotional support he feels from you sometimes, until you remember he's not ALLOWED ON THE COUCH BAD DOG and whack him with a rolled-up newspaper until he submissively urinates and you feel bad so you give him a treat. So no, the average vet doesn't know much about mental disorders in animals. Thanks for asking.

THE VERDICT: Animals do suffer from mental illnesses. Caveats: 1) not necessarily the same mental illnesses as humans, and 2) diagnosis of animal mental illness is based on animal behavior, a trickier task than the diagnosis of mental illness in humans. If you want to get your pet's mental illness diagnosed, go to a certified veterinary behaviorist, not a bullshit "pet psychologist." And don't give your dog Prozac unless he's been a very good boy.

[Thanks to question-asker JRL and to all of our experts. Do you have a question for "Hey, Science?" Email me. Image by the talented Jim Cooke.]

After two scandalous years of dealing with an extramarital affair, an illegitimate son, and a high-profile separation, Arnold Schwarzenegger was all set to wipe the slate clean with a wholesome Hollywood comeback story.

Well, so much for that.

The New York Post is reporting that hedge fund manager Jeremy Frommer recently purchased a New Jersey storage locker once owned by late Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione, and stumbled upon a salacious photo of Schwarzenegger among Guccione's possessions.

In the photo, a young Schwarzenegger is seen "engaged in what appears to be a sex act."

Guccione's treasure trove also yielded several other interesting artifacts, including unpublished nude photos of Madonna and actress Lauren Hutton, information concerning Guccione's decision to release controversial nude shots of then-Miss America Vanessa Williams, and correspondences with Dick Cheney, the Unabomber, and Fidel Castro's alleged lover.

No word from Frommer if he plans to put any of the items up for auction.

[screengrab via YouTube]

This brash young zoot-suiter Justin Bieber had better learn something more than baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby—he had better learn some respect. Respect for rules. Respect for society. Respect for propriety. Here a nice young man like Justin is, parading around without a shirt on, torso unclad as you please. We fear that one more promising young man has fallen prey to the lure of orgiastic fashion malefaction.

Ensconced in and no doubt aesthetically influenced by the "gangsta" culture of the "anything goes" music industry, the pubescent Bieber, in full view of onlookers, removed his "tee"-style shirt and openly displayed his "abdominals"—the mythical musculature covering his bowel area. The purpose of Bieber's grotesque antic is unclear. What we do know is that professional scribes at the NY Daily News, upon viewing the nigh-pornographic photographs of Bieber's exposed upper body, declared in print that "Bieber is getting bulky."

Justin Bieber is bulky compared to what?

• A will-o-the-wisp.
• A whippoorwill.
• A whip.
• A will (written upon a single sheet of paper).
• Caity Weaver.

Has Justin Bieber's swagger grown too bulky to be contained?

[NYDN. Photo: Getty]

Lots of things were raw yesterday, during Oprah's sit-down with Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy. Things like Cissy's Houston's disapproval of Bobby Brown. Things like Oprah Winfrey's raw-ass raggedy old face.

At least, that's how one viewer felt.

During the broadcast, Twitter user @kp1lady, whose profile identifies her as being both #TEAMWEEZY and #TEAMIPHONE, publicly observed that Oprah Winfrey was not looking her best. That she did in fact look "old as hell tonight!!!!!!"

Oprah has more than 16 million twitter followers. Oprah doesn't have time to read all her @-replies. Oprah's not going to ever see the dumb things you tweet at her. Right?

Wrong. Oprah has enough time to read all her tweets because Oprah has enough money to do nothing but read all her tweets and Oprah has enough energy to read all her tweets because Gayle got her these great candles that release energizing scents for Christmas, and she just loves them.

How old is hell? According to geologists, the Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. Some Bible enthusiasts feel the number is closer to 6,000 years. Splitting the difference, we'll assume that Earth is about 2,250,003,000 years old.

Hell's probably a little newer than that, since the Bible mentions Satan being cast down to Earth; we'll peg it at 2,250,002,999 years old.

Did Oprah really look 2,250,002,999 years old last night? No. 2,250,002,999-year-old Oprah would manifest herself as a small pile of sand. Last night, Oprah looked pretty much as she has for the last few years. She was wearing a dark blue dress. Barely any sand on her.

Good fact check, Oprah.

[Twitter, h/t @shani_o]

A stylish Shiba Inu named after Patrick Swayze's character in Point Break is teaching humans a thing or two about looking presentable biped.

With a little technical assistance from his poop-scoopers Dave Fung and Yena Kim, Bodhi dispenses free fashion knowledge on his Tumblr blog, Menswear Dog.

According to the website's About Page, the clotheshorse canine is as serious as a hug attack when it comes to looking fresh, but he always makes time to enjoy his other interests: "Never washing his selvage denim, lurking around Soho for someone to notice his steez, and sniffing fine a$$ bitches."

[H/T: Uproxx, CR Blog, photos via Tumblr & Instagram]

Justin Bieber has a giant chip on his perpetually shirtless shoulder. He isn't doing much press for his new Believe Acoustic album, but he did sit down with Billboard's Bill Werde for a Q&A. Werde describes him as "unfailingly polite, though occasionally he flattens himself down into a black leather couch, hands jammed into his pockets, and seems bored," and "every bit a normal 18-year-old kid." Which is to say, he's a little bit of a dickhead.

For example, he wants you to know that he is very talented:

If you really don't enjoy the type of music I make and that's not you, OK. But don't say I'm not talented. If you haven't noticed, I wasn't made-I was found.

If you need proof of his talent beyond his word, consult his chart success:

[Believe Acoustic] is just an acoustic album of an album that I've already put out and it's going to go No. 1-that shows people that I'm still here and that talent rises above everything else. There's so much going on. Talent rises above all of that.

But he also doesn't quite have all his numbers right:

They say there's a sophomore slump. I didn't have one. It was really good to see [2012's Believe] at the top. When I was going on all these different talk shows when it was the No. 1 album of the year, just hearing that: No. 1 album of the year, Justin Bieber? That's a really great feeling.

(Believe was, in fact, the No. 1 album of 2012 only if you subtract 10 – it placed at No. 11 on Billboard's year-end chart.)

Being of such great talent, he was just as perplexed as his managing no-homo Svengali Scooter Braun, when he didn't receive any nominations for this year's Grammy Awards. Scooter tweeted, "I just plain DISAGREE. The kid deserved it. Grammy board u blew it on this one." Bieber tells Billboard:

I felt the same way that Scooter felt, I just can't really... it's good that he can put it out there and say that. He had my back just like any manager would. My whole life I've dreamed of winning a Grammy. At this point, the excitement of that has gone down. I'm more excited to just make great music for my fans. That's just something that if it happens, it happens.

He adds that he's "happy for the other artists who got nominated and have won Grammys. I'm 18 and I think that I have a lot ahead of me, so I'm not worried," but as to whether or not he'll attend the ceremony this year:

I will not be there.

When his career does start to sag, he assures us it will be of his choice:

I don't think that I'm going to be boiling hot for the rest of my career. I think that, if I'm not on top. it would be because I didn't want to be. It would be a time when I wanted to take a break and do movies or take a break and raise a family. When I'm doing music and I'm really focused, I'm not going to not be where I am.

The life of a child star is unenviable – the white-noise hiss of public approval and disdain is a hell of a backdrop for the still-forming mind. You spend so much time swimming upstream for your humanity, and then you wake up one day and you find yourself on a stage yelling, "I'm fifteh!" and refusing to come out for a second time or something.

That said, what a conceited, graceless little punk. No matter how much of an asshole adult he seems to be transforming into, he can't quite shake his inner brat.

[Billboard]

[Image via Getty]

When the latest New York magazine cover story on leading New York City mayoral candidate Christine Quinn came out this week, it quoted current Mayor Michael Bloomberg as telling a reporter to "look at the ass on her" while gesturing toward a woman at a holiday party. Elsewhere in the piece, Quinn spoke briefly about the frequent comments the mayor makes about her clothes and appearance:

[S]he said, "The mayor is going to yell at me when I get out of the car because I have flat boots on. The mayor has no use for flat shoes." Really, I said. Why would he care? "I was at a parade with him once and he said, ‘What are those?' and I said, ‘They're comfortable,' and he said, ‘I never want to hear those words out of your mouth again.' " Everyone in the vehicle, including the security detail in the front seat, cracked up. "He likes me in high heels. Let's see how long it takes before he notices." She scrolled through her BlackBerry. "Another big thing with the mayor, when I am rooting … like, the couple of days a week before I need to get my hair colored, he'll say, ‘Do you pay a lot to make your hair be two colors? Because now it's three with the gray.' And I'm like, ‘Did you wake up being this big of an asshole? Or did it take, like, all day to ramp up to it to be able to insult me like that?' "

Some were shocked that Bloomberg, with his endorsements for President Obama and progressive stances on gun control, seems to have a mean streak of misogyny coursing just underneath his billion-dollar bankroll and diminutive size. Not shocked was anyone who's worked around Bloomberg for any significant amount of time. Those are the people who know the Independent mayor's other side, the one forged in the cutthroat, chest-thumping world of Wall Street, where Bloomberg made his billions and sat atop a company that—allegedly—encouraged female employees to wear short skirts and "fuck-me shoes."

Here is a rundown of some of the more notable allegations of sexism leveled against Michael Bloomberg throughout his career. As you'll see, "look at the ass on her" appears to be merely the tip of the anti-woman obnoxiousness.

1996-97, Bloomberg LP: "I'd do her."

• In 1996 and 1997, four women filed sexual harassment suits against Bloomberg LP. One of them, a sales executive named Sekiko Garrison, alleges that Michael Bloomberg told her to "Kill it!" when she shared with him that she was pregnant. Asked by Garrison to repeat himself, Bloomberg said again, "Kill it!" Garrison says that Bloomberg went on to lament that she was going to be the sixteenth woman in the company to be taking maternity leave.

  Garrison further stated that Bloomberg antagonized her even before she became pregnant, asking her of her engagement ring, "What, is the guy dumb and blind? What the hell is he marrying you for?" and, a week later, "Still engaged? What, is he that good in bed, or did your father pay him off to get rid of you?" In a deposition, Bloomberg is reported to have conceded saying "I'd do her" in relation to Garrison, but he insisted that he thought "do" meant to have a personal relationship with someone. Other reports from the deposition say Bloomberg almost stormed out of the proceedings when the opposing attorney asked him if he thought the porn film Debbie Does Dallas meant Debbie has a personal relationship with everyone from Dallas.

  Eventually Bloomberg settled with Garrison out of court for an undisclosed sum, though he maintains his innocence to this day, saying he passed a lie-detector test. The results of that test have never been made public.

• 1998 and 2007, Bloomberg LP: "I don't recall ever using the term 'meat' at all."

• Another of the women behind one of the late '90s lawsuits was Mary Ann Olszewski, who claimed that "male employees from Mr. Bloomberg on down" routinely demoralized women at Bloomberg LP. Olszewski said that the harassment culminated in her being raped in a Chicago hotel room by her direct superior, a top Bloomberg executive. In a 1998 deposition relating to the Olszewski case, Bloomberg testified that he wouldn't call the rape allegation genuine unless there was "an unimpeachable third-party witness." "Describe for me your conception of how there could be a third-party witness to confirm or deny the truthfulness of her allegations," the attorney asked Bloomberg. Bloomberg responded, "There are times when three people are together." Later asked if he'd ever made a comment to the effect of "I'd do that piece of meat" or "I'd "do her in a second," Bloomberg said simply, "I don't recall ever using the term 'meat' at all." The Village Voice reported in 2001 that a federal judge dropped Olszewski's case after an internal Bloomberg LP effort to smear Olszewski as "flirtatious" and a "sex hound." But the Voice's Wayne Barrett says he believes there are signs suggesting Bloomberg secretly settled with Olszewski.
• In a 2001 New York Times article about the lawsuits, Bloomberg characterized them as: "If you don't give me what I want, I'm going to make a fuss."
• In 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg LP on behalf of 78 women who claimed that Bloomberg—who at that point was not involved in the day-to-day company operations, despite being a majority shareholder—and Bloomberg LP "fostered, condoned and perpetuated" a hostile work environment for female employees. The suit charged that Bloomberg LP systematically demoted women and excluded them from growth opportunities if they became pregnant. Manhattan judge Loretta Preska tossed the suit in 2011 citing insufficient evidence, but she allowed some individual complaints to proceed.

• 2001, The Portable Bloomberg: "That horsey faced lesbian"

• In September 2001, less than a year before Bloomberg would first be elected mayor, then-New York magazine columnist Michael Wolff got his hands on a book called The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg. Dated Valentine's Day 1990, Bloomberg's 48th birthday, the book was reportedly a gift from Bloomberg LP staffers who wanted to canonize some of their boss' most famous quips and anecdotes. Anyone looking for uplifting bon mots, however, would be sorely letdown. As Wolff wrote at the time, the book "represents, I think, an institutional acceptance of the arrogance, cruelty, carelessness, and rulelessness of the CEO." Also, sexism. A lot of sexism. Here are some excerpts, all of which Elisabeth DeMarse, a former Bloomberg executive, corroborated as "direct quotes" from Bloomberg himself:
  

  The Royal family—what a bunch of misfits—a gay, an architect, that horsey faced lesbian, and a kid who gave up Koo Stark for some fat broad.

  The three biggest lies are: the check's in the mail, I'll respect you in the morning, and I'm glad I'm Jewish.

  If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they'd go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale's.

  I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site and doesn't get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one.

• When Wolff asked DeMarse how Bloomberg liked his book, DeMarse said he got a real kick out of it. "He was touched," she said. "He loves things that are about himself."

  Know of any other instances of Bloomberg's attacks on women? Have a copy of The Portable Bloomberg? Email me.

Dazed and Confused star Jason London had a very bad weekend — he was punched by a bouncer and arrested for disorderly conduct. Still! The cops who arrested him had a worse one, given that they had to clean Jason London's shit out of the back of their cop car.

Yes, Jason London, the more successful of the London twins by dint of not being an abusive addict, shit his pants in the back of an Arizona cop car. From TMZ:

On his way to the police station ... Jason uttered a homophobic slur to the cops ... saying, "Guess what fa**ot? I f***ing love this. I f***ing own you guys so hard. I'm rich and I'm a motherf***ing famous actor! F***ing look me up, bitch."

Jason continued ... "It smells like s**t in your car and your breath smells like diarrhea." According to the police report, Jason then leaned to the left and crapped in his pants. Jason then said, "I told you I'm happy as s**t."

According to the police report London was in the car because he'd sneezed on a bouncer, and then, instead of apologizing to the bouncer, punched the bouncer; according to London, "I got jumped by three 250 pound bouncers. They knocked me out and beat me for several minutes. [...] I hate Arizona." Something we can all get behind!

[TMZ]

A teen from the northeastern Oregon town of La Grande has been taken off life support a week after he attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself from a play structure near a local elementary school.

At a candlelight vigil held last Wednesday for 15-year-old Jadin Bell, dozens of students from La Grande High School gathered to express their support for a kind-hearted kid who volunteered to help others and never forgot his friends.

But family friend Bud Hill, who considered Jadin his nephew, said that underneath his perpetual smile hid a boy being tormented on a daily basis by bullies for being gay.

Hill told KOMO News it was bullying — both online and off — that drove Jadin to hang himself in the Central Elementary School playground.

"He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones," he said.

After a passer-by brought him down, Jadin he was rushed to Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland and put on life support. But after little brain activity was detected by doctors, Jadin's family made the decision over the weekend to remove the life support.

Despite the tragic circumstances, Jadin's family hopes some good will still come from their heartache.

"We always knew that Jadin is a special person," Jadin's mother Lola Lathrop told the La Grande Observer. "Now everyone knows."

[H/T: Towleroad, photo and video via KOMO]

America's SweeTart Lindsay Lohan is poised to miss her first court date of 2013 in California tomorrow due to a life-threatening case of the blahs.

TMZ reports that Lohan's attorney Mark Heller (who, unlike Lohan's longtime, recently-fired attorney Shawn Holley, is not licensed to practice law in California) has submitted documents informing the judge that Lindsay is too ill to fly.

Heller reportedly submitted a note from a New York physician stating that Lohan has an upper respiratory infection, as well as this story from the New York Post explaining that the flu has hit "epidemic" levels in New York City.

A more thorough packet of information would also have included a link to the Wikipedia entry for "disease" as well as a brief, free-form essay meditating on the fragility of the human condition, but this guy's no Shawn Holley.

TMZ reports that Lohan's doctor allegedly diagnosed her on Saturday. However, as the website points out, Lindsay was photographed observing Saturn's day by shopping in SoHo and smoking out-of-doors.

If the judge rules that Lohan's excuse for skipping her court date is invalid, she could issue a warrant for the actress' arrest; another judge did this in 2010 after Lohan blamed a missed a court appearance on a stolen passport.

Lohan is due in court Wednesday to answer charges that she violated her probation by lying to police officers following a car accident last June.

She has entered a plea of not guilty and, off the record, of Not Givin' a FUCK.

[TMZ // Image via Wenn.com]

At the root of the unimaginable tragedy in Brazil — in which 234 people died and at least 120 others were hospitalized in a fire at a nightclub called Kiss — is wanton carelessness for others. According to police in Brazil, the fire was ignited by flares that were intended for outdoor use. Why did Gurizada Fandangueira, the band playing that night, set off those flares inside the club? Because they were cheap.

Penny-pinching by a band known for its onstage pyrotechnic displays may have cost more than 230 people their lives at a nightclub in southern Brazil, according to a police inspector leading the investigation into this weekend's deadly blaze.

Inspector Marcelo Arigony told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that members of the band knowingly purchased flares meant for outdoor use because they cost a mere $1.25 a piece, compared with the $35 price tag for an indoor flare.

"The flare lit was for outdoor use only, and the people who lit them know that," said Arigony, adding that members of the group acknowledged regularly opting for the less expensive flares. "They chose to buy those because they were cheaper than those that can be used indoors."

Arigony, whose cousin died in the fire, added: "The pyrotechnics were part of their show - the guys even wore gloves onstage so they wouldn't burn their hands."

Pyrotechnics were also the cause of the famous 2003 fire at The Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island. That fire was set ablaze by the manager of the band Great White, and it killed 100 and injured 230. Daniel Biechele, the band's manager, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. One owner of the club, Michael Derderian, was sentenced to 15 years in prison (plus probation and community service) but was released in Sept. 2009. The other, Jeffrey Derderian, received a 10-year suspended sentence to go along with probation and community service.

The families of the victims of the fire at The Station also settled for millions of dollars with various parties, including the band, the maker of the flammable soundproof foam that became ignited and a Providence television station whose cameraman allegedly blocked the exit to the club and didn't assist in evacuation.

The process of both criminal and civil litigation stemming from the Brazil fire is still far down the road, but is lingering in the distance nonetheless. According to the AP, the owners of Kiss had also lined their club with a flammable foam that wasn't proper soundproof lining. The club also did not have a fire alarm or a sprinkler system, and only one open exit.

[via the AP, image via AP]

If you're a dude in your 20s, you may be fond of the Adam Sandler film "Billy Madison." For anyone too mature for pee and armpit jokes (and whatever else happens in "Billy Madison" — I swear when I was 11 I thought it was hilarious) or just generally averse to Sandler, this is basically what happens: Sandler plays a manchild forced to repeat elementary school by his mega-rich father. Hilarity ensues. Chris Farley drives off of a cliff (or something). Sandler gets to screw Bridgette Wilson. This happens.

Over the last month, St. Louis resident Veronica Williams, pictured above, has been forced into a hellish, "Billy Madison"-esque existence. Except she doesn't get to see Bradley Whitford shot in the ass at the end. Williams' fourth grader attends Barack Obama Elementary (Barack Obama Elementary!), and administrators there allege he has been disrupting class. The school's solution, apparently, has been to require that either Williams or her partner sit in class with her son. Every single day. Believe it or not, Williams has not been able to swing that!

Veronica Williams says she went to school with her son for awhile, but can't afford to do so anymore for fear of losing her job.

She says when she stopped going to class her son was kicked out of school and he hasn't been back in over a week.

Veronica Williams says she can't believe an administrator at Barack Obama Elementary said her 10-year-old son cannot return to school unless she or another adult sits in class with him every day.

"It's frustrating. It's stressful. It's ridiculous. I done it for two weeks", said Williams.

According to Williams, when she sent her son to school by himself, he was suspended. She says she was told that her son could not come to school unless he was accompanied by an adult. This is, of course, completely and utterly ludicrous. But such are the solutions in overcrowded and understaffed American public schools.

[via FOX 2 St. Louis]

As you slip into bed tonight wondering how you spent another night watching television for six hours, think about the other types of fun you could be having. Like, for instance, getting hammered and stealing multiple vehicles, including an ambulance and two cars. And also trying to steal two horses. Definitely trying to steal two horses.

That was the kind of fun had this weekend by Matthew Anderson Todd, the upstanding 24-year-old resident of Boaz, Ala. somberly pictured above. Oh, did good ol' Matthew live his life.

Police say it all began when Todd was arrested for DUI after a car crash. He was taken to Marshall Medical Center South for treatment. Police say while at the hospital, he walked out, got into a running ambulance and drove away.

Totally solid idea. After stalling the ambulance, Matthew wandered off...

"He walked across a pasture and got into a barn where he tried to saddle up two horses," says Boaz Assistant Chief Todd Adams. "One was too wild for him and the other he appeared to be too intoxicated to properly saddle the horse."

I'd imagine that he was also too intoxicated to properly saddle the wild horse, but that was the least of his problems.

Police say Anderson then stole a car, which he crashed. They say he then stole another car and got away.

TWAS THE PERFECT CRIME.

However, on Saturday police say Anderson started bleeding from his original injuries. He sought treatment back at the hospital, was recognized and then arrested.

Or not. But he should become a party planner.

[via WHNT 19]

Mad Men is all set to perform a tipsy cha-cha-cha back onto our TV screens for its penultimate season April 7. In the meantime, AMC has released a slew of promotional pictures designed to remind everyone very clearly that this show features beautiful costumes, beautiful people, and lots of cigarettes.

Let's take a look at the dark plot points around which season six will revolve:

1. Joan's wallpaper-skin begins melting off her neck.

2. PEGGY'S FEET GET CHOPPED OFF.

3. Don marries Sally.

4. Due to a small clerical error at the office, Don is un-made, i.e. ceases to exist/have ever existed in the universe.

Looks great. Can't wait.

[Images via Frank Ockenfels/AMC]