On Thursday, Crimea's parliament voted unanimously to join the Russian Federation and scheduled a referendum on the matter for March 16.

"This is our response to the disorder and lawlessness in Kiev," Sergei Shuvainikov, a member of the local Crimean legislature, told the Associated Press. "We will decide our future ourselves."

It's not clear if the decision will have any actual impact—the Ukrainian government in Kiev will almost certainly dispute its legitimacy—though it marks an escalation in the week-long crisis in Crimea.

In Brussels, the European Union held emergency sessions about Ukraine, during which it was announced that the assets of 18 people, including deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and members of his family, would be seized for embezzling state funds. From the New York Times:

Measures to freeze the assets of 18 members of the ousted government of Mr. Yanukovych came into force immediately, targeting figures including former ministers of the interior and justice, the prosecutor general, the head of the security services and two sons of Mr. Yanukovych, according to the European Union's Official Journal. The list of people affected by the measures also included former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his son.

And the United States announced new sanctions on Thursday, imposing bans on visas for Russian and Ukrainians who are "responsible for or complicit in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."

[Image via AP]

Jet aborts takeoff after striking fish.

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A man was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly having sex with a pit bull in his front yard while his terrified neighbors yelled at him to stop.

Tampa, Fl. police arrested Bernard Marsonek, 57, after one of the shocked neighbors called 911.

"When officers arrived on scene, they were greeted by a small crowd of residents who were disturbed by their neighbor's activity with the dog," a police spokesman told Fox13. "Several of the witnesses stated that they yelled at the suspect to stop, but he ignored their commands."

Police searched Marsonek's home, where they found a gun, ammunition, and eight pit bulls.

Marsonek, a convicted felon, faces charges of sex with animals, cruelty to animals, and illegal gun possession. He was released on $17,500 bond.

If this story sounds familiar, that's because several similar crimes have occurred over the past year.

One of America's favorite foods (after partially hydrogenated soybean oil) is sugar, which is a poison to the human body. You will all be pained to hear that the World Health Organization has just halved the acceptable amount of sugar in your diet.

New WHO guidelines released yesterday recommend that sugar make up only 5% of your daily calories— down from 10% in its previous guidelines, published a decade ago. It seems that there has been no scientific findings about the magical health properties of sugar in the past decade. Pity. So uh, how much sugar are you actually allowed now? From The Guardian:

For an adult of average bodyweight, with an intake of about 2,000 calories a day, 5% would equate to 100 calories – which at four calories in a gram would be 25g of sugar, said Dr Francesco Branca, the WHO's director of nutrition for health and development. A standard 330ml can of cola contains 35g of sugar.

The best case scenario response to these guidelines are a collective bemused grin by America. To be clear, the very latest science-based health guidelines suggest you should have less than the amount of sugar in one can of soda per day. This, in a nation that has entire lobbying campaigns dedicated to convincing the public that corn syrup is a natural part of any diet. Friends, I challenge you to go to your average grocery store and find a single jar of fucking pickle relish that does not contain added sugar. You can't do it. The average American diet is packed full of sugar in the same way a goose is force-fed grain to produce foie gras. It doesn't matter if you want to eat sugar; you will eat sugar, unless you want to "cook" your own food, which is an unfashionable ancient ritual based on oral traditions that were lost long ago.

These new guidelines are absolutely correct from a health standpoint, and my conviction that we should all follow them is equal to my conviction that almost none of us will. See you in hell, fellow Americans.

[Photo: Flickr]

Today starts the three-day annual circus known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which Washington journalists scurry like wounded, hungry cooing doves in search of crazy bite from right-wing presidential hopefuls, and also Rick Perry. Gawker is there, too.

Just in case America's welfare dependency is solved there in the next three days, our intrepid legal analyst Gabrielle Bluestone will be bringing us war dispatches from the grounds of this GOP Gallipoli. And wow, what an agenda. Here's what's on CPAC's ambitious schedule just for today:

Panels! Today's include:

• "Does the U.S. Congress Matter Anymore? Executive Orders AND the Hopelessness of EVER Curtailing Federal Spending"
• "IRS Targeting Scandal: Protecting the Voice of the People, Sponsored by Tea Party Patriots"
• "Healthcare After ObamaCare: A Practical Guide for Living When No One Has Insurance and America Runs Out of Doctors (Part 1)"
• "What's the Deal with Global Warming?"
• "Rocky Mountain High: Does Legalized Pot Mean Society's Going Up In Smoke?"
• "When the Fed Stops Building and the Mint Stops Printing: Rebuilding the American Economy After a Real Crash"

Movies! Screenings today include:

• "Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny," sponsored by Citizens United and presented by Newt Gingrich

Prizes! One lucky conservative journo wins:

• "The Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award Sponsored by Citizens United"

Special events! Who doesn't want to attend this:

• "Special Event: Celebrating American Entrepreneurship Reception with Donald Trump Sponsored by Citizens United"

Speakers!

• Ted Cruz is already talking; it's possible he was rolled into the ballroom, already midflow, and simply manually rewound a bit.
• Paul Ryan speaks shortly.
• John Bolton will chat and then sign copies of his book.
• Then come Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, and Rick Perry.

Sponsors! Who's bankrolling this shindig? Everybody. But mostly:

• The Heritage Foundation
• Koch Industries
• Amazing America With Sarah Palin
• Tea Party News Network
• National Rifle Association
• Tea Party Patriots
• National Review (which, incidentally, has a bunch of stories it really doesn't want you to write about CPAC this year, because press freedom.)

Check back here for the latest.

[AP photo: Gloria Wist of Lady Lake, Fla., with the Association of Mature Americans, poses for a portrait while attending last year's Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., Friday, March 15, 2013.]

It's long been taken as a given that Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious "person or entity" who created Bitcoin, the world's best-known digital currency, is a pseudonym—probably for more than one person.

But Newsweek reports that it's finally tracked him down using a method nobody else had thought to try: Looking for people named Satoshi Nakamoto.

They found the person they believe to be Bitcoin's mysterious creator living in a modest California home and building model trains, having long since relinquished any involvement in Bitcoin.

"I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection," Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto told Newsweek's Leah McGrath Goodman. (This is the closest Goodman gets to actual confirmation that her Nakamoto is the Nakamoto who created Bitcoin, though the circumstantial evidence is compelling.)

He's a 64-year-old Japanese-American engineer who's worked mainly on defense and security projects, both for private contractors and the U.S. military. Post-9/11, he worked on security and communications software for the FAA.

"It was very secret," Nakamoto's daughter, Ilene Mitchell, told Newsweek. "He left that job sometime in 2001 and I don't think he's had a steady job since."

Bitcoin's lead engineer, Gavin Andresen, believes that's when Nakamoto started building Bitcoin.

But he's since turned the project over to others. Nakamoto, who'd never spoken to Andresen by phone, cut off all contact in 2011 when he found out Andresen had agreed to speak at the CIA to make the case for Bitcoin.

That fits with the way Nakamoto's children describe him, as somewhat paranoid and very "wary of government interference."

Nakamoto is still sitting on a fortune, though. A Bitcoin wallet many believe to be Satoshi's contains 1 million Bitcoins—$657 million USD at current exchange rates—that haven't been touched since Bitcoin's inception.

Newsweek speculates the reason he hasn't spent it is because doing so could have compromised his anonymity. Another reason might be that converting Bitcoin to real dollars at that kind of volume is nearly impossible, and would make huge waves in the market.

Not everyone is convinced by the big reveal, though. Many on the libertarian-leaning Bitcointalk forums, perhaps hoping for something more mysterious than a person actually named "Satoshi Nakamoto," are calling the article "a fake," "yellow journalism," and a product of the "left wing media." And Andersen has publicly stated his regret over talking to Newsweek:

I'm disappointed Newsweek decided to dox the Nakamoto family, and regret talking to Leah.

— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) March 6, 2014

Of course, Bitcoin believers are still excited that the article could attract mainstream interest and drive the price of Bitcoin up. (It's actually dropped slightly since the story broke Thursday morning.)

Until Nakamoto says anything else, we're left with what appear to be his three Amazon reviews: "royal danish butter cookies in a big 4lb round blue tin can. it has lots of buttery taste." Five stars.

[Photo: AP Images]

We may have a winner for #truedetectiveseason2: Joel McHale and Jim "Dean Pelton" Rash.

Spoiler alert: The Yellow King is going to put the dog in the stack under the drier. Catchy catchy catchy bing-bong. Can opener.

[H/T: The Wrap]

On Thursday, the New York Times, America's controversial monocle pamphlet, made waves when it announced the sizzling new trend among monocles, which is: for people to be wearing them.

All across America, people's monocles popped off their faces and into their Brandy Alexanders with a humorous plop! (in some cases shattering inside them, which was not humorous at all because the presence of glass shards rendered the Brandy Alexanders undrinkable) when they heard the news that the monocle is regaining popularity. And the reason people were wearing those monocles that popped off in the first place is because monocles are popular again! Trends are an ourobouros and time is a flat circle, not unlike a monocle.

Of course, the Times piece hit all its expected marks, like a monocle rolling on its rim across an obstacle course specially designed for monocles: [ACCESSORIES], which were formerly popular with [WEALTH LEVEL] [PROFESSION] and lesbians from [CITY] in [ERA] have recently come back into vogue. [THIS MAN] owns a store that sells them and so does [THIS MAN]. You cannot buy them anywhere.

(Monocles; wealthy; Prussian military officers; London; the 1920s; James Berry; Ray Gallagher.)

Based on the Times write-up and what we can extrapolate from the knowledge that the monocle is a self-consciously precious accessory whose tenuous usefulness is hindered only by its concept and design, here is a list of the types of people who use monocles:

• Aspirant rappers whose monocles fail to help them see the irony in bragging about the uniqueness of their personal style while giving interviews for trend pieces about the surging popularity of their personal style

"I got it just to have my own style, bring something new to the table," said Jose Vega, 23, an aspiring Miami rap musician who can be seen sporting a monocle on his SoundCloud page. "Also, I'm nearsighted."

• Dandified African pirates from 400 years ago, time-traveled to modern-day South Africa

On a recent trip to Cape Town, Mr. Raymond said, he saw such a group carrying monocles along with tiny brass telescopes kept in satchels.

• Restaurateurs who knowingly keep their restaurants inadequately lit; complainers

And At NoMad, a clubby restaurant in Manhattan, a monocle is offered to customers who complain that they can't read the menu in dim light.

• People who painstakingly restore first generation iPods
• People who mispronounce "Reading Rainbow"
• People whose names end in –ert (Albert, Filbert, Dogbert, etc.)
• People whose bespoke professions are coming back into fashion as unisex baby names (Harper, Cooper, Almanac Man)
• People who purchase lead-based paint on the black market because it really makes the white pop
• People who have a lot, like a LOT, of questions for the CVS sales associate about the ingredients in a $4 lip balm
• People who take laudanum as a cough suppressant
• People who buy Sparks "original recipe" (with the caffeine still in it) on eBay
• People who ask their barbers to perform minor surgery in the pursuit of retro cool
• Count von Count

[Art by Jim Cooke]

Last month, the Army prosecutor in charge of investigating sexual assault cases was reportedly suspended after a subordinate accused him of sexually assaulting her at a legal conference two years ago.

Lt. Col. Joseph "Jay" Morse supervised more than 20 Army special victim prosecutors—the lawyers in charge of prosecuting sexual abuse cases, as well as domestic and child abuse cases—before he was suspended in February, according to Stars and Stripes.

Sources told Stars and Stripes that the Army lawyer alleged that Morse attempted to kiss and grope her against her will. The alleged assault reportedly took place in a hotel room at a 2011 sexual assault legal conference attended by special victims prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., before he was appointed as chief of the Trial Counsel Assistance Program.

The lawyer reported the incident in mid-February and Morse was suspended shortly thereafter, according to one source.

"We can confirm that this matter is currently under investigation and that the individual in question has been suspended from duties pending the outcome of the investigation," an Army official who wasn't authorized to speak publicly told Stars and Stripes. "Given that this is still an open case, we are precluded from providing any additional information at this point."

This marks the third time in nine months a military officer in charge of sexual assault prevention has been accused of sexual assault: In May, the head of the Air Force's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program was arrested for sexual assault . Just eight days later, the Army sergeant in charge of sexual assault prevention at Ft. Hood was investigated on sexual assault charges , including allegations that he forced subordinates into prostitution.

[h/t Mediaite/Image via AP]

Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen reportedly shot one of their own men to death, accusing him of collaborating with American spies, and strung his body up under a soccer goalpost near a site where a U.S. drone attack reportedly killed five local residents late last year.

A report on the man's death was first published in English, along with a photo of his body, by the Long War Journal, a terrorism discussion site sponsored by the respected (but neocon-connected) Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The full photo is at the bottom of this post.

Abdul Razzaq al-Jamal, a Yemeni journalist with deep contacts in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claims in an Arabic-language Facebook post that the man in the photo is Amin Abdullah Mohammed, a CIA-recruited informant who was caught passing information on Islamist operations to the Americans.

That, at least, is consistent with what the Long War Journal reported:

Arabic-language news reports confirmed that the man was shot in the head before being hanged for all to see. The Yemeni media said the location where the corpse was found was the site of an American drone strike on Dec. 24, 2013 that killed five Yemenis.

The man was apparently killed because it was suspected that he was working with the Americans. An al Qaeda flag and black banners were found beside his body reading, "American Spy in the Arabian Peninsula," and "Whoever fights with the government or cooperates with it is not a Yemeni, not a Hadrami, but a traitor." Another banner read, "Guider of American planes to kill Muslims."

Arabic reports also claimed that AQAP sources alleged that the man had planted microphones in AQAP vehicles and meeting places in order to guide American drone missiles.

In January, UPI reported that AQAP was intensifying attacks on Yemeni security installations and assassinating spies who collaborated with the U.S.

This is not the first time such an attack has occurred. In 2012, Yemeni militants allegedly crucified another man they believed to be assisting the U.S. with its drone surveillance and attack programs in the country. (Warning: video at the link is extremely graphic.)

Following a bizarre chase through Los Angeles and into the elevator of an Associated Press bureau, engineer Satoshi Nakamoto denied being the creator of Bitcoin, contradicting a major Newsweek story published this morning.

In its story, Newsweek had identified the 65-year-old as the crypto-currency’s creator. Journalists quickly set upon his house in the L.A. suburb of Temple City, where Nakamoto lives his family. Video from the scene showed him leaving with an AP journalist in a Prius—for free lunch, he said.

For reasons not entirely clear, a horde of tech journalists decided to tail Nakamoto and the unnamed reporter, who visited a sushi restaurant before eventually winding up in downtown Los Angeles. They had company:

There is a huge chase going on behind #Nakamoto. Tons of media. All heading west on the 10 freeway

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

Los Angeles Times reporter Joe Bel Bruno live-tweeted most of the chase:

OK, apparently #Nakamoto picked one reporter outside his house to take to sushi. Surreal #bitcoin

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014.

So the AP reporter takes #Nakamoto to lunch for the #Bitcoin scoop, to a sushi restaurant in Temple City. Other reporters chase them.

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

Then reporters barge into the sushi restaurant, confront the @ap reporter and #Nakamoto

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

So #Nakamoto and the @ap reporter flee the sushi restaurant. The rest of the media take chase again. #bitcoin

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

OK, so #Nakamoto and the @ap reporter have just pulled over on a RANDOM street. #bitcoin

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

OK, #Nakamoto and the @AP reporter are back on the move. The great #Bitcoin car chase continues in Temple City

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

OK, the great #Bitcoin chase down the 10 freeway. WHERE IS #NAKAMOTO heading???

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

As it turns out, Nakamoto and his AP companion were heading to: the AP bureau.

So the Great #Bitcoinchase seems to have found a destination at the @ap bureau.

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

But the chase wasn’t over!

The @latimes reporter @byandreachang jumps into the elevator with #Nakamoto in #bitcoinchase

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

Nakamoto now in DTLA. Told me in elevator that he's not involved with #Bitcoin, engaged in weird car chase "all for a free lunch."

— Andrea Chang (@byandreachang) March 6, 2014

Just as quickly as it began, the feeding frenzy dissipated:

OK, the reporters chasing #nakamoto basically just split to grab lunch

— Joe Bel Bruno (@JoeBelBruno) March 6, 2014

Update, 7:35 PM: The Associated Press reports that Nakamoto is strongly denying the Newsweek report:

In an exclusive two-hour interview with The Associated Press Dorian S. Nakamoto, 64, said he had never heard of Bitcoin until his son told him he had been contacted by a reporter three weeks ago.

[Photo credit: Associated Press]

Facebook billionaire conservationist Sean Parker just stepped down from his investor gig at Founders Fund, where he worked for years within one of tech's most prominent venture capital machines. So, what exactly will he do every day now?

In a statement to Fortune, Founders Fund said Parker won't be making any more deals:

"He's been winding down his involvement over the last few years to focus on other projects, and as of the close of fund V he's no longer making any investments on behalf of the firm," says Founders Fund spokeswoman Erin Gleason. "He is maintaining his board seats in his active FF investments, including Spotify."

We all know board positions aren't real jobs. So, what's left? What are these big projects?

Parker's pet project, Airtime, is more or less dead. The company relaunched itself as OkHello, and it took the press almost an entire year to notice. But no one is using OkHello, so it's hard to imagine the startup demands much of Parker's time. The only other substantial "project" anyone can associate with Parker was his wedding, and penning enormous apologias for said wedding. This raises the very real possibility that Sean Parker isn't doing very much beyond waking up at the Plaza Hotel and waiting to see if his FIOS installation is ready.

Photo: Getty

As anyone who scrolled through Secret knows, California's polyamorous roots are alive and licking with the early adopter set. Naturally, someone had find way to scale that, and who better than William Winters, "the de facto king of the East Bay polyamory scene"? (Updated)

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Winters, a regular user, and Kotango co-founder Polly Superstar are trying to broaden the poly user base:

... as interest in open relationships grows, so too does a need to reach a larger, more diverse and perhaps even more vanilla crowd.

Kotango, a new social network for those who asrcibe (or aspire) to something other than monogamy, intends to do exactly that.

Imagine it as something like a kinky mashup of Facebook, OkCupid and Reddit, a place for the sexually venturesome to connect, cruise for dates and seek out advice.

Or, in the words of Polly "Superstar" Whittaker, a co-founder of the site and leader of San Francisco's varied sex scene, it's "kind of social networking for kinky hot nerds."

Her description makes Kotango sound like FetLife, a social networking site that's been around since 2008, and the site's homepage looks about as dated. But this new iteration was launched with the evangelizing agenda so popular with world-changers these days:

"We wanted a safe place for people to meet, connect and share stories," said local IT bigwig Andrew, the brains behind the site (he asked to go by first name only, as his kids aren't aware that he and his wife have an open relationship).

As the polyamory community grows, he said, it needed a "gateway," something more approachable than sex parties or dinner with a room of open-minded strangers.

If the Bay Area is going to build me-too products that mainly service their own needs, at least this one has some sex appeal?

Update: This post previously identified Winters as a co-founder of Kotango. He is in fact just a regular user, not a co-founder.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

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After a segment starring 5-year-old cancer-battling superhero Miles "Batkid" Scott was cut from the Academy Awards, some cast his scheduled co-host, Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield, as the bad guy. Good news, though: Spidey didn't really let Miles down.

When we last left our heroes , Batkid had been flown to L.A. and even walked through a dress rehearsal before his superhero segment was cancelled without warning. Garfield, too, had been cut from the show, and tabloids reported he had "stormed out" because he didn't like his lines.

Garfield is no super-jerk, though. According to his publicists, it was those nefarious ne'er-do-wells at the Academy who pulled the plug, much to the actor's dismay.

Proving himself both friendly and neighborhood, Spider-Man did what he could to make it up to the disappointed kid:

In full collaboration with the Academy and the show writer, Andrew prepared a segment for the Oscars to honor Miles Scott as the true hero that he is. As some point overnight on Saturday / Sunday morning, it was decided by those running the show that the segment didn't work in the ceremony. They decided to pull it – Andrew and Miles were equally upset. The producers arranged for Miles and his family to visit Disneyland on Monday and Andrew drove down to visit them and to bring Miles a personal gift.

Andrew did the right thing for Batkid and anyone saying otherwise is flat out lying.

It's still not clear exactly why the presentation was canceled. Miles's mom, Natalie Scott, said she was never given an explanation.

"I don't know if they ran out of time, or if there was something about the segment they didn't like," she told the International Business Times. "It got pulled so quickly that we didn't have a lot of insight into what was going on."

"Basically, because of the fluid nature of live TV production, ultimately the segment didn't work," an Academy rep told US Weekly, in language that would definitely reassure a devastated young superhero with cancer.

[H/T: Geekosystem, Photo Credit: AP Images]

On Monday, Martha Stewart posted a bunch of pictures of a bloody, crumbling horse tooth on her personal blog. Thursday afternoon, while hosting an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, she offered fans a couple freak-nasty sex tips and mused about the day she will purchase (or steal?) her first dildo.

If Martha's week so far were a network, it would be FX.

Early on in the Stewart AMA (which Martha rebranded as "Ask Me Almost Anything"—perhaps to preclude future charges of insider trading) a reddit user asked if she had "any good sex tips?" She did.

Martha Stewart advocates bathing before and after, bathfucking, and brushing your teeth post-coitus to remove the taste of your partner/s' sex organs from your mouth:

Later, Clean Person Jolie Kerr, prominent user of the Kinja® blog-system, swung by to get Martha's take on some cleaning questions she gives her own take on in her new cleaning advice book. There was a question about "skidmarks" and a question about semen stains.

There was also a question about a dildo. Martha was like: "What's a dildo?"

Kerr advised Stewart to ask her acquaintance Barbara Walters who recently revealed she is the proud owner of such a device, then went ahead and explained that a dildo is a thing 4 when u want 2 cum.

Martha was like: "Barbara and I have better things to talk about."

Kerr thanked Martha for being a good sport to a fellow Barnard alumna.

Martha was like: "When I get my first dildo I'll look up some information."

Then she asked a guy did his house burn down, then she was OUT.

[Image via Getty]

When a woman found out her husband was cheating on her, she decided to hit him and his mistress where it hurts: right in the local Walmart.

Beverly Rolston, 45, told police she made posters showing her husband having sex with a former friend of hers, and then put them at the Middletown, Ohio, store where the woman worked. On each one, she wrote "Hide your Husbands," along with a "vulgar phrase" that police didn't disclose.

Security video shows Rolston posting the nude pics inside the Walmart, although it's not clear how she got them in the first place.

Rolston has pleaded not guilty to one count of pandering obscenities. Her husband admitted to the affair.

[H/T: NY Post, Photo Credit: vvoe/Shutterstock]

The Massachusetts legislature has passed a bill to ban snooping of genitalia in public spaces, aka "upskirting." This follows the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling on Wednesday that Michael Robertson, charged in 2010 for snap-shooting two MBTA passengers' panties, may not have violated the state's current "Peeping Tom" laws.

The first thing you notice about CPAC, the conservative answer to Comic Con, are the lines.

The lines are everywhere. Snaking up the escalators of the massive, airy Prince Georges County, Md., Gaylord National Harbor Resort and Convention Center and down the carpeted hallways, bodies blocking out the waves of the Potomac River lapping outside the center's massive glass atrium.

At the end of the second floor is another endless line for press check-in, where a crunchy-haired Atlantic reporter deftly cuts in front of me.

"Is this really the line?" she complains to a group of Daily Beast reporters ahead of me. "I thought we get special treatment for this stuff."

CPAC not letting in me, Ward, Byron York to watch Cruz. Can't listen by door, either. Tell us all to wait in lengthy line or else. Odd.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) March 6, 2014

The lines for registration stretch all the way down Radio Row, past the announcers in headphones breathlessly describing the scene (which, at 8:30 a.m., is really just people waiting in lines) and past the massive ballroom, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will later brandish a rifle above his head as Bon Jovi's "Living On a Prayer" blares from the speakers.

Nearby, a set of all-American bros in matching bowties and American flag bathing suits pose for photos. It's not clear what political expertise they're offering to the viewers at home beyond their straight teeth and impeccably broken-in dock shoes, but reporters keep approaching them in droves.

The ballroom is the focal point of the event. Because new high-profile conservative speakers rotate onstage at break-neck pace (even the bloviating Ted Cruz is limited to 16 minutes), most attendees stay inside.

For the more adventurous, there's the "CPAC Hub," a fun euphemism for a swag room where anyone can scoop up Citizens United coffee mugs and NRA baseball caps as they play beanbag toss into a barrel marked "Pork." Chewbaccas and stormtroopers roam the floor. Near a table for the Charles Koch Institute, a burly man turns to the attractive blonde on duty and jokes, "Any enemy of Harry Reid is a friend of mine." She smiles, but not with her eyes.

There are also workshops, like the "How to Make Friends and Influence People at CPAC 2014," which promises to teach attendees to "maximize their online footprint" by providing them with a list of people to follow on Twitter.

But what isn't immediately obvious is why people shelled out hundreds of dollars to trek down to National Harbor, Maryland, just across the river from Washington, D.C. Mostly, it just seems like they want someone to talk to.

"I live in Washington, I've worked for years in Washington," Virginia resident Kevin Pigott tells me as he collects signatures for a Congressional run. "There's a heavy liberal bias, you know, cocktail parties you have to limit the conversation a lot. No religion, no politics. It's suffocating. This isn't suffocating."

But as much as attendees say they want to talk about "the issues," there's not a lot of discussion.

Not that I don't try. When I ask Jack Neely, an older attendee wearing an NRA sticker, how he feels about the rise of gay marriage, he replies: "Absolutely not. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Simple as that. Everyone is not promised to, uh, to, uh, everyone is not given... Anyway...."

But how do man-on-man or woman-on-woman marriages harm the "traditional" kinds?

"How does gay marriage hurt traditional marriage? I haven't got an answer for you today on that."

I spot a college-age kid who looks like Augustus Gloop all growed up. Could he explain Benghazi to me? "Uh, Benghazi?" he says, confused. "I don't answer questions about that without the advice of my legal counsel."

He runs away across the swag room to an NRA booth.

Another attendee, John Osbourne, a political science student, sounds like he knows all about Obamacare.

"I'm a little under read on [healthcare] but overall I'd say it's negative since it limits choice," he says. When I ask him about the Dodd-Frank law, he says he isn't familiar.

And therein lies the inherent problem with CPAC, which often seems to amount to little more than a soundbite. Ted Cruz's reference to the law—"We need to repeal Dodd-Frank, a bill you only have to read the title to know no good can come from this."—drew some of the biggest laughs of his speech, despite the fact that Chris Dodd basically bankrolled the conference that he was addressing. Or the cheers when Donald Trump, who couldn't even be bothered to fact-check his speech, declared Jimmy Carter was dead (he's not). But it explains why the biggest round of applause of the morning speeches came for Senator Tim Scott's line: "We don't want Obama telling us how many calories are in our pizza."

[Photo of McConnell via Getty; top photo by Gabrielle Bluestone]