An idiot is potentially in trouble over a disturbing (now-deleted) Vine video of a toddler smoking weed— if the internet can find the original uploader, anyway. So far, the Reddit investigation is going only slightly better than the time Reddit solved the Boston Marathon bombing.

"After watching this I immediately downloaded the video, took screenshots and reported it to CPS in California as it is where the user is from," wrote redditor skidoorider21. "This is no environment for a child to be in. He needs a good parent not someone to hurt him or bring him down."

Skidoorider21 apparently didn't read the caption on the Vine, which explained that the uploader had only reposted it—he wasn't the one who let the baby smoke or filmed the incident. Other redditors figured this out and called off the witch hunt.

The clip of a small child sitting on a toilet and appearing to take a hit from a blunt was first uploaded 3 days ago by Viner ChiefSmokes with the title "Wow fucked up parents smh."

The version made popular on reddit was a re-vine by NikoWavy, who made it clear he wasn't the original poster.

How can you not read my caption an know I didn't film that video?

— I Aint Seen Shit! (@NikoWavy) April 11, 2014

The search for whoever smoked out the baddest baby on Vine continues, as some redditors have discussed involving the police.

They tryna get a real nigga locked down smh pic.twitter.com/pukIrJ55xj

— I Aint Seen Shit! (@NikoWavy) April 11, 2014

[H/T: Daily Dot]

Huffington Post has pulled an infographic and article suggesting a link between U.S. killings by vets and their war service, after Gawker and Business Insider debunked them. "We regret that the data as presented in our graphic was incomplete and misleading," a HuffPo editors' note read.

Anti-Google activists are at someone's front door again today: Jack Halprin, a top member of the company's legal squadron, is allegedly forcing parents, children, and teachers out of a San Francisco property he owns.

The scene seems like San Francisco's class hostility in microcosm: a halted Google bus, the apparent menace of a wealthy tech executive, ordinary citizens on the verge of homelessness. Protest organizers explained today's blockade to me earlier via email:

Jack Halprin, Head of E-Discovery for Google Inc., recently moved into 812 Guerrero and proceeded to evict tenants, using illegal methods. After evicting two tenants, he recently issued an Ellis Act eviction to the remaining four tenants, two of which are teachers in the community. Following the Google Bus block, housing activist and a large coalition of endorsing organizations will reconvene at 20th and Dolores for a
March to End the Displacement of San Francisco's Educators, two of which, live in 812 Guerrero and are being Ellis Act Evicted by Jack Halprin.

Johnny, long-time SF resident and tenant of 812 Guerrero fighting his Ellis Act eviction stated, "I don't think rich Google lawyer should be able to come into a neighborhood and buy a piece of property that is a rental property and then quickly evict everyone there to make a bigger profit. I think it's unethical."

This morning's protest is the 3rd in 2 months to single out a Google employee at their home. pic.twitter.com/AvHPMQFOp0

— Jeff Elder (@JeffElder) April 11, 2014

It's unclear right now whether Halprin is evicting the renters—illegally or otherwise—exactly as protestors contend. I'm waiting to hear back from both the activists and Halprin himself. But property records show that he does indeed own the building at 812 Guerrero Street, making him the landlord of some of these accusers.

A group of SFUSD teachers are being evicted by Google lawyer Jack Halprin pic.twitter.com/6NM9EJVS7w

— Julia Wong (@juliacarriew) April 11, 2014

Top photo via David Zlutnick/Twitter

It's been about 48 hours since teenager Alex Hribal stabbed dozens of his classmates at a Murrysville, PA high school. With even the critically injured expected to survive and police announcing that Hribal will be charged as an adult, one main question remains: Why did he do it?

That is a question that may not be answered for a while, if ever, and those who knew Hribal seem to be puzzled. Yesterday, his attorney, Patrick Thomassey, told Good Morning America that Hribal's parents "can't figure it out." Later, Thomassey later told a local television station that "it just didn't fit." An anonymous student who says he was friends with Hribal told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he had "never seen any anger from [Hribal] ever," continuing on to say that Hribal "never seemed like someone who would do anything violent."

Of course, "shy" and "quiet," which is how Hribal was also described to the Gazette, is often how boys who conduct mass violence at their schools are perceived. It's also no surprise that Hribal's mother and father find themselves in a state of shock: the parents of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and Adam Lanza had no idea what their sons were planning in their bedrooms.

It is all still conjecture now, so news networks like NBC are trotting out criminologists to diagnose Hribal from states away. Even Thomassey, who is the only person relaying Hribal's disposition to the media, is speculating. In that local TV interview, Hribal's lawyer said that there has been "a substantial amount of discussion about bullying." But in an earlier interview with CNN, he said of Hribal: "All the students liked him. He wasn't a loner. He worked well in groups."

We do know that Hribal seemed to attack at random, even stabbing someone described as a good friend of his. A boy named Nate Moore, who says he witnessed the attack, said that Hribal was "emotionless" during the attack, in which he stabbed one boy in the side and all the way back to his spine, piercing his liver and diaphragm.

Hribal has been charged as an adult with four counts of attempted murder and 21 counts of aggravated assault, so he may one day explain himself in court, or to the state before that. Until then, there are only straws to grasp at.

[image via AP]

A San Diego woman who was outbid on her dream home faces felony charges for pulling a series of insane "pranks" against the home's new owner, including inciting rape, listing the victim's home for sale, and advertising high school parties at the house.

According to a felony complaint obtained by NBC 7, Kathy Rowe became enraged after the home she wanted was sold to another family. So Rowe did what any sensible person would do: She created an online ad in the new owner's name, inviting random men to break into the house—the address for which was provided in the ad—to rape her. Two men responded to the ad, and one actually showed up at the house.

"I also love to be surprised and have a man just show up at the door and force his way in the door and on me, totally taking me while I say no," she told one of the men. "Just stop by anytime Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I like the element of surprise."

Rowe also allegedly posted online advertisements for a a free fireworks giveaway and a high school New Year's Eve party at the home. More than $1,000 in unsolicited magazine subscriptions were sent to the house, which Rowe also allegedly listed as for sale. And the complaint said Rowe sent Valentine's Day cards in the victim's husband's name to different women in the neighborhood.

An attorney for Rowe dismissed her actions as "prankish behavior," though prosecutors disagree; Rowe was charged with soliciting forcible rape and forcible sodomy, among other crimes.

[via New York Daily News]

In an earth-shattering breakthrough, senators in Columbia, S.C., sent a gun-nut particle colliding into an abortion-nut particle, and the two fused together in a brilliant release of energy to produce a new, hitherto unknown super-heavy mass of conservative stupidity.

ThinkProgress reports that the new experiment in right-wing fusion is to expand the Palmetto State's Stand Your Ground law so that certain citizens—namely, mommies to be—can shoot to kill anyone who threatens their fetus:

The proposal would grant pregnant women protection from prosecution if they were defending their "unborn children," defined as "the offspring of human beings from conception until birth."

Proponents of the legislation claim that it's necessary because the state's current Stand Your Ground law isn't broad enough. Although South Carolina already authorizes deadly force to protect against "imminent peril of death or great bodily injury," some Republican lawmakers argue that doesn't go far enough to protect pregnant women from all of the physical attacks that may harm their fetus, like being punched in the stomach.

You could argue that any possible attack on the life of a gestating fetus is an attack on the life of the woman bearing the fruit-filled womb, and that's already covered. And apparently the GOP response to you is that the law doesn't cover gut-punches, which they assume to be fatal to fetuses, although that's debatable. The point is, now we need a law to permit deadly force against people who appear prepared to give pregnant women gut-punches.

ThinkProgress notes that this measure—which was advanced by a state Senate committee yesterday—is part of a nationwide trend by anti-abortion activists to codify "fetal homicide" as a crime, because it's a step closer to getting broader cultural acceptance for the idea that abortion is murder.

Which is all well and good, except that South Carolina isn't talking about criminalizing fetus-killin': It's talking about legalizing the killing of alleged fetus-threateners, which is a pretty bizarre cause for a group with a name like Americans United for Life.

There are also weird moral philosophy implications, such as: If a pregnant woman endangers herself or her fetus, should she kill herself to stop it? Apparently she'd be legally justified. Conundrum!

On the other hand, maybe it's not a conundrum. One conservative politician thought this one through a long time ago:

Our campaign bumper sticker: If babies had guns, they wouldn't be aborted. http://t.co/dr3Nt9Can7 #gosnell #tcot pic.twitter.com/CVaYrQAeK9

— Rep. Steve Stockman (@StockmanSenate) April 12, 2013

Things accelerate quickly in the supercollider of stupid.

[Photo credit: Shutterstock/ostill]

Peter Dinklage dropped in on Reddit on Friday to start an Ask Me Anything and make the end of the work week 10,000 times better. Here are some highlights. He really likes hummus.

On how he gets his hair to look so good:

It's called not owning a brush. Or a comb. That's my secret. Just don't buy a comb.

On his relationship with Lena Headey, who plays his wicked sister Cersei on Game of Thrones:

Sometimes we have to avoid eye contact so we don't crack up!! It's funny that sometimes people think with these serious scenes, people think the mood on set is very serious, but sometimes the most serious scenes can produce the most laughter on set.

On how he was asked to play Tyrion:

I told him I didn't want a really long beard and pointy shoes, and they assured me this character and this world wasn't that. They told me about his complexity, the fact that he wasn't a hero or a villain, that he was a womanizer and a drinker, and they painted a flawed and beautiful portrait of him, so i signed on.

On meeting fans:

I've met some people who have dogs named Tyrion.

On his personal life:

I'm not a cat person but I had a cat for ten years. Because I had a rat in my apartment and I don't like killing creatures. So I got a cat. I thought my roommate was going to take the cat but he moved out with his girlfriend and left the cat there. So I have this cat.

On his dream role:

I have a huge soft spot in my heart for Atticus Finch. It's so hard to say something like that, though. I don't see myself in the role since Gregory Peck did such a good job with it already.

On being a vegetarian:

It's funny, I'm one of those vegetarians that doesn't go to vegetarian restaurants. I guess you could say I'm a bad vegetarian.

So let's see....I like chopped salad? If you go to a really good restaurant, the chopped salad is really good.

But yeah, for the most part I'm a pretty bad veg.

On why he went vegetarian:

I decided to become a vegetarian when I was in my teens. At the time I was doing it because of my love for animals, but also for a girl. Of course.

I have continued to stay with it out of my great respect for animals, though. Any form of animal abuse is pretty upsetting to me. As a New Yorker it's hard to see horse drawn carriages every day, and I hope we can make more progress towards solving that issue.

On interesting facts about himself:

I love hummus?

On doing an AMA:

I just figure that there are already a million mainstream places to check if someone wants to know whether I've read the book series. I'm enjoying this as a place to weigh in on other, more important matters. Like hummus.

On unexpectedly running into Fresh Prince star Karyn Parsons on Reddit:

Hi Karyn! We should go out for hummus soon.

On why he does indie movies:

I think it's almost the duty of an actor to help out with smaller films and tell these stories that are infinitely better than some of the larger films.

On being an inspiration to other people with dwarfism:

Thank you but I'm just an actor. There are people out there trying to cure cancer, but I appreciate the love.

[Image via AP]

A series of MIT Media Lab maps are percolating through the internet, showing the locations and "walksheds" of independent coffee shops in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Cambridge. These shops play an important role in urban life, as the researchers explain in their project description:

Independent coffee shops are positive markers of a living community. They function as social spaces, urban offices, and places to see the world go by. Communities are often formed by having spaces in which people can have casual interactions, and local and walkable coffee shops create those conditions, not only in the coffee shop themselves, but on the sidewalks around them. We use maps to know where these coffee shop communities exist and where, by placing new coffee shops, we can help form them.

This is all true—walkable, independent coffee shops are great!—and it's easy to imagine the sort of cute, laptop-packed establishments that the researchers are referring to. If coffee shops are a marker of a healthy community, those brightly colored communities must be healthy, and the densely packed parts must be super healthy.

Those barren neighborhoods? The researchers pretty plainly state that they could maybe use some more coffee shops, but coffee shops have, in many, many cities, been a bellwether of gentrification. In fact, an increase in coffee shops is such an excellent marker for gentrification that it's been used as a proxy for the process by researchers.

Let's take another look at those coffee shop-deprived areas. Here's the Brooklyn coffee shop map again, overlaid on the borough's racial geography, via the excellent Racial Dot Map (based on 2010 census data):

And here's the same comparison for San Francisco:

The coffee shop-less neighborhoods in these cities are predominantly non-white. If you spot a mixed neighborhood with a heavy concentration of these shops—Bushwick and Crown Heights in Brooklyn, for example—chances are it's rapidly gentrifying.

Coffee shops certainly can be "positive markers of a living community," but these maps sort of gloss over that they're really a positive marker of one fairly specific type of a living community. Informal gathering places that can make neighborhoods thrive—what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls "third places"—can come in all shapes and sizes, and this diversity of communities is what makes great cities great. To one resident, a new independent coffee joint might be a welcome neighborhood amenity. To another resident—a resident who may already have a community-building space in a church, or a park, or a bar, or even a chain coffee shop—it's the gentrification equivalent of a red sniper dot.

A simple piece of tape: one side smooth to the touch, the other sticky. It binds for us, but it does not bind us. How does the sticky side taste? The man who knows is forever silent.

The koan: "Incense Burner"

A woman of Nagasaki named Kame was one of the few makers of incense burners in Japan. Such a burner is a work of art to be used only in a tearoom or before a family shrine.

Kame, whose father before her had been such an artist, was fond of drinking. She also smoked and associated with men most of the time. Whenever she made a little money she gave a feast inviting artists, poets, carpenters, workers, men of many vocations and avocations. In their association she evolved her designs.

Kame was exceedingly slow in creating, but when her work was finished it was always a masterpiece. Her burners were treasured in homes whose womenfolk never drank, smoked, or associated freely with men.

The mayor of Nagasaki once requested Kame to design an incense burner for him. She delayed doing so until almost half a year had passed. At that time the mayor, who had been promoted to office in a distant city, visited her. He urged Kame to begin work on his burner.

At last receiving the inspiration, Kame made the incense burner. After it was completed she placed it upon a table. She looked at it long and carefully. She smoked and drank before it as if it were her own company. All day she observed it.

At last, picking up a hammer, Kame smashed it to bits. She saw it was not the perfect creation her mind demanded.

The enlightenment: Kame is an alcoholic.

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." Like bad gum.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

President Obama walks with outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and his nominee to replace her, Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, as they leave the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, April 11, 2014, where the president made the announcement on Friday. Image via Charles Dharapak/AP.

Today, Bloomberg cited two anonymous sources to report that the National Security Agency has been using "Heartbleed" to "gather critical intelligence" from protected internet traffic. The NSA is denying that report. Okay. But what is Heartbleed, exactly?

Despite what it sounds like, it's not a Florida hardcore band. Heartbleed is a terrifying security breach in one of the internet's foundational technologies, and it's been giving hackers—and, according to Bloomberg, the NSA—an opening for over a year. Here is what non-techies need to know:

What is "Heartbleed," exactly?

Heartbleed is the name given to a flaw in a widely used security script called OpenSSL. That little lock icon you might see in your URL bar when you visit about a variety of fine internet media/content/social media/porn properties? The "s" in "https://"? That's SSL, or secure sockets layer, a security protocol used to protect transmissions on the internet.

The little lock icon, and the "s," serve a simple function. They indicate that, thanks to SSL, the data you exchange with that website—which includes passwords, credit card information, etc.—is encrypted.

But it turns out that in many cases the little lock icon has been lying to you.

Heartbleed is a backdoor in OpenSSL, one of the most widespread implementations of SSL. Put over-simply, Heartbleed could allow a hacker or a government official or your next-door neighbor to ping the website you visited—in what's called a "heartbeat"—and pull your data from it. This bad actor could then reconstitute passwords and other sensitive information from the data.

How does it work, exactly?

Gizmodo has a more in-depth explanation here, but in a nutshell: Heartbleed allows a hacker to lie to a server about how much data it's sending in a ping. The overly trusting server will then send too much data back to the hacker—including data that it's supposed to keep private.

When you say "widely-used," do you mean every website on the internet?

Not every website. Amazon, for example, was not affected, nor were most banks. But Google, Facebook, Tumblr, Dropbox, and countless others were—even some routers. So the situation is something like Defcon Level Godfuckingdamnit, but not quite Fuck Everything just yet.

This sounds like something the NSA and other intelligence agencies could exploit.

Well: Today Bloomberg reports that

[t]he U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.

The NSA initially declined official comment. UPDATE: Through its Twitter account, the NSA is denying Bloomberg's report:

Statement: NSA was not aware of the recently identified Heartbleed vulnerability until it was made public.

— NSA/CSS (@NSA_PAO) April 11, 2014

Wait, are Gawker Media websites vulnerable to Heartbleed?

Gawker Media sites have been patched: "We offload SSL to both a third party service (our CDN, Fastly) and to a vendor's network appliance (a citrix netscaler)," our Director of Tech Operations Jim Bartus says. "The former was patched quickly (link), the latter was immune." As for Kinja accounts, VP Engineering Peter Hausel writes "we send only the username and a short-lived token over HTTPS, so our users (including burners) should not be affected."

Has it always been this way? Have I been handing out the keys to my personal online castle for years on end?

No, only possibly for the last year or two. The flaw in the code—the "bug"—was apparently added to the code in late 2011. That version of OpenSSL was made available to the public in March 2012. Any website that updated to that version of OpenSSL was affected, but since they may have updated sometime after the release it's hard to say how long your data has been vulnerable, and it depends on which website.

Should I change all of my passwords immediately?

Yes, on affected websites, but you should wait until those places have upgraded to the latest version of OpenSSL. If they haven't, your new password could be as vulnerable to Heartbleed as your old one. Gizmodo's been keeping a list, and they also recommend this Mashable list which I also like.

How can I find out if my information has already been hacked?

You likely can't. One reason why the Heartbleed vulnerability is so frightening is that the hacker can gather your information and leave little to no trace behind.

That leaves me feeling as though I have no control over this situation.

We have control over precious little in this life.

Is there someone I can blame nonetheless?

There is a German software developer who is taking responsibility for introducing the bug. He bears the inauspicious name of "Dr. Robin Seggelmann." Some people early on were suggesting he possibly introduced the flaw in the code maliciously, which he denies.

By some people, you mean, "Reddit"?

Sure. That said they are not the only ones feeling paranoid about the bug.

How can I stop feeling frustrated that the digital underpinnings of modern existence make me so vulnerable to invasions of privacy?

There is, always, the option of going off the grid. Otherwise, a combination of Zen Buddhism and a nice therapist might help.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

Al Jazeera America is laying off "a few dozen staff employees, as well as freelance employees," probably due to the fact that Americans do not watch Al Jazeera America, because they vaguely suspect it of terrorism.

Firefighters battling an 8-alarm blaze in East Boston also had to contend with some asshole's brand new BMW, which was parked in front of a fire hydrant they needed to access as quickly as possible. They smashed the car's windows and ran the hose right through the front seat.

No one was injured in the Lexington Street fire, but 3 dozen residents were left homeless after a Toyota engine caught fire in an alley, sending several buildings up in flames.

With homes already engulfed and the closer hydrants all taken, Boston Fire couldn't waste time moving the car. But even once they got the hose through the BMW's windows, it was still kinked.

"You can move the car a short distance, which is what they did to get the kink out," the fire department's Steve MacDonald told CBS. "Again, this is all effort that should be concentrated on putting the fire out."

Neighbors said the BMW's owner—who had bought and registered the car just 2 days prior—drove it away from the scene with busted windows and a large dent on one side. He was fined $100 for the parking violation.

"He was mad," a friend told CBS. "I wanted to cry for him. Of course, he brought that on himself."

[Photo: WBZ-TV]

Carol Grimaldi, one of the co-founders of Grimaldi's Pizzeria, died on Thursday. She was 75.

El Niño is on its way...probably. The Climate Prediction Center released its latest forecast yesterday and gives the ocean warm-up a "greater than 50%" chance of occurring. Slate's Eric Holthaus did a great job the other day explaining why the potential El Niño "could be a monster."

An El Niño occurs when warm water travels from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific and warms the surface water by at least 0.5°C for an extended period of time. This abnormal warmth can greatly alter weather patterns across the world, including a decrease in Atlantic hurricane activity and the chance for very heavy (and much-needed) rainfall to the western United States.

[Image via CPC]

Like all the most basic human interactions, rap beefs have moved online, where rappers can insult each other (or journalists) to their hearts' content on Twitter and Instagram. That is exactly where the year's most intense rap beef is happening, with two L.A. rappers threatening to kill each other in 140 characters.

It started earlier this week, when a rapper named 40 Glocc, or someone posing as him (we'll get to that in a bit), posted to Instagram a photo of Tiffney Cambridge, the ex-fiancée of The Game, whom you know from 2005, and her children. (In an unrelated event, The Game is reportedly being investigated for domestic violence against Cambridge.)

As you can read in the caption, 40 Glocc (or whoever) said some shitty things about Cambridge, a button he pushed further in a subsequent Instagram (pictured at top) where he brags about having just put The Game's kids to sleep (in the literal sense).

As these photos spread across hip-hop blogs, 40 Glocc took to Twitter to claim that he had been hacked

MY INSTAGRAM IS HACKED!.. ON MY MOMMA.. I HAVENT FUKED THAT NIGGA WIFE. ALL THOUGH I DONT LIKE THE BITCH NIGGA.. I DONT LIE ON MY DICK!

— BIG BAD 40 (YON JU) (@40GLOCC) April 9, 2014

MY INSTAGRAM IS NO LONGER ATTACHED TO MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.. SOME1 POSTING ALL THIS SHIT ACTING LIKE ME! I HAVE CONTROL BAK OF MY TWEET

— BIG BAD 40 (YON JU) (@40GLOCC) April 9, 2014

Of course, "I've been hacked" is the social media version of "the dog ate my homework." Still, both photos and captions are still up on 40 Glocc's Instagram account, meaning that he's lying about being hacked and doesn't care about covering his tracks, or he really was hacked and whoever is now controlling his account is enjoying his anonymous moment in the spotlight.

In any event, The Game did not take it lightly that a rival rapper is asking him to pick up his kids so that they don't have to see their mother giving him a blowjob. Yesterday, The Game posted the below photo of a green stoplight to Instagram, which has been widely accepted as in implication that he put a hit out on 40 Glocc.

In a since deleted tweet, 40 Glocc acknowledged The Game's Instagram post and said he would give him his exact location. In a since deleted Instagram post, he threatened to put a bullet in The Game's head. The two do have a physical history: in an infamous video that went online a few years ago, The Game is seen stalking and attacking 40 Glocc down an L.A. street.

Hip-hop purists have bemoaned the death of rap beef (amongst other things), but the internet is where we are all heard now. If this feud was carried out over beats, it's likely that few people would care. And what would be the point of that? On his new Instagram page, 40 Glocc pleads for this sudden attention to be funneled in a certain direction. "HACKER NOT EVEN PROMOTING MY NEW SHIT DROPPED!" he writes. "CLIK THE LINK ON MY PROFILE PAGE TO SEE MY NEW VIDEO."

The "Let Me Google That For You Act" is a real bill wending its way through Congress now. It shutters a 50s-era agency that distributes government information that's mostly available for free online now. It could realize enough annual savings to buy 22 to 37 percent of one fighter jet.

Thanks to sloth expert Lucy Cooke–creator of Slothville.com and author The Power of Sloth—we now know what baby sloth squeaks sound like. And, unlike what the fox actually says, it's every bit as cute as you're imagining.

These are orphaned animals from sloth sanctuaries in Colombia and Costa Rica, where Cooke started her one-woman PR campaign to make sloths popular so people would donate more money for their conservation.

Her plan is working.

BuzzFeed says sloths are "a thing" that "we need to talk about," and Time says Cooke has succeeded at promoting sloths "perhaps more than anyone has succeeded at anything. Ever."

[H/T: Tastefully Offensive]

Emmis Publishing, the publisher of the Texas Monthly, initiated a lawsuit on Friday against the Monthly's current editor, Jake Silverstein, and the New York Times for breach of contract. Last month, Silverstein was hired as the editor of the New York Times Magazine. UPDATE: Emmis claims they're only suing the Times.

One business's swift decline into debt and eventual liquidation should, hypothetically, become the treasure of a faction of art school kids with too much pocket change to blow. But Coldwater Creek, the Idaho-based company known for sensible slacks, can't seem to find any investors. Why?

2006 was the last year that the mom hotspot Coldwater Creek registered any fiscal profit, and in their filing for bankruptcy, the company reported $361.3 million in debt. But where are the RISD students? Where are the New School social justice warriors from Connecticut? Why hasn't Annelise's dad, who is a total cock with no understanding of the struggles of Bushwick life, put in a chunk of his Silicon Valley nouveau cash as a way to reach out to his estranged performance artist daughter?

The last dying breath of Coldwater Creek and its natural bi-stretch crops will come, in a twisted tragedy, near Mothers Day, as the business is planning a liquidation sale. That's May 11 for all you motherlovers out there.

Buy your mom a top rated refined mini-check jacket. She'll love it and think you were worth having.

[Image via Chicago Tribune]