A twitter user named @queendemetriax is having a tough time after tweeting an innocent little Al Qaida joke at American Airlines today, though a Twitter spokesperson says the airline couldn't possibly have the information on her that it claims to have.

Earlier this morning, @queendemetriax tweeted, "hello my name's Ibrahim and I'm from Afghanistan. I'm part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I'm gonna do something really big bye" at American Airline's Twitter account. It didn't take long for American Airlines to reply, claiming that they had her IP address and "details," which they would forward to security and the FBI. This tweet as since been deleted, probably because they do not have either her IP address and "details," as those are details that only law enforcement can request.

But that didn't stop @queendemetriax's immediate freak-out:

@AmericanAir omfg I was kidding

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

@AmericanAir I'm so sorry I'm scared now

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

@AmericanAir I was joking and it was my friend not me, take her IP address not mine

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

@AmericanAir I was kidding pls don't I'm just a girl pls

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

@AmericanAir and I'm not from Afghanistan

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

@seizeavons @AmericanAir yeah I know, and my parents are gonna kill me if I tell them this omg pls

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

But don't worry about Sarah — it also didn't stop her near-immediate prideful turnaround:

Why would I blow up one of your planes, I have my own jet @AmericanAir

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

Wow bc of this I gained 1k followers

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

Okay today was the highlight of my twitter days

— Sarah (@QueenDemetriax_) April 13, 2014

Congrats?

[Image via.]

More than 10,000 people have been evacuated after a fire in Chile's port city Valparaiso killed 11 people and destroyed more than 500 homes.

The fire began Saturday afternoon and spread quickly over 2,000 acres due to strong winds. President Michelle Bachelet put the army in charge of the evacuation after declaring the city a disaster zone, saying "It's a tremendous tragedy. This could be the worst fire in the city's history." Fernando Reseio, fire superintendent in neighboring city Vina del Mar, agrees, saying that it has been "one of the worst fires in history."

1,250 firefighters, police officers, and forest rangers attempted to control the fire, which was contained to the city's hills, while 2,000 Chilean sailors patrolled streets to maintain order. Many of the survivors have suffered burns, and hospitals have treated hundreds of people for breathing problems due to smoke inhalation.

Ricardo Bravo, the regional governor, spoke to the AP, saying: "This is the worst catastrophe I've seen. Now we have to make sure the fire doesn't reach the city center, which would make this emergency much more serious."

[Image credit: AP]

Two shootings have been reported at two separate Jewish-related sites in Overland Park, Kansas, leaving at least three people dead. One man is in custody and was heard yelling "heil Hitler" as he was placed in handcuffs.

The first shooting was reported at about 1PM at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. This was followed by reports of a shooting at Village Shalom, an assisted living center that has since been placed on lockdown.

It is unclear at this moment whether the two incidents are related, and there has been no immediate word on other injuries.

UPDATE 6:25 PM: Police have arrested a man, said to be in his 70s, in connection with the shooting.

KCTV reporter Nathan Vickers tweeted this photo of the suspect:

This is the man in custody pic.twitter.com/vlxx24sM3y

— Nathan Vickers (@nathanvickers) April 13, 2014

UPDATE 5:02PM: Police will hold a press conference at 6PM EST.

UPDATE 4:30PM: A third person has died after being taken to the hospital.

UPDATE 4:10PM: A fifteen-year-old boy is reported to be critically wounded.

[Photo via AP]

The James Franco Did He or Didn't He Try to Sleep with a Teenage Girl, and Do We Really Care? story is entering its second phase: parody.

Seth Rogen hosted this week's episode, and delivered a cameo-heavy opening monologue about how he prepared for the show. Never one to miss an opportunity to parody something with James Franco, Rogen read the audience a journal of "all the major events of the week."

Wednesday's activity? Pranking James Franco: "I posed as a girl on Instagram, told him I was way young. He seemed unfazed. I have a date to meet him at the Ace Hotel."

Although the jury remains out on whether James Franco is also pranking the world, or just had the impeccable timing to solicit a teenager the same month as the release of his film about soliciting teenagers, Franco was definitely game to play along.

Franco and Rogen were later joined onstage by Zooey Deschanel and Taylor Swift, who had the best takeaway of the monologue—"Whenever a man expresses emotion, I appear."

For the season premiere of Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay returned to the scene of the crime: Amy and Samy, the terrifying owners of Amy's Baking Company.

Last year Ramsay traveled to Scottsdale, Arizona to film an episode of his show with Amy and Samy Bouzaglo. Over the course of the show, Samy and Amy exploded again and again at customers, employees, and Ramsay.

For Friday night's season premiere, the show presented an update on Amy and Samy, who are just as angry as ever. The bulk of the episode is a recap of the media hell storm that erupted after the initial show aired, bundled with never-aired clips of Amy and Samy spouting nonsense and abusing employees (starting around 17 minutes in), plus Ramsey confronting Amy with evidence of her serving crappy, pre-packaged food advertised as fresh.

The update comes at the end of the episode, when Amy and Samy consent to a follow-up interview with a local reporter. Unsurprisingly, the restaurant has turned into a tourist site, albeit a tourist site that still regularly kicks out customers. And the Bouzaglos are still as crazed as ever.

At one point, Amy goes on a strange rant about her use of the word "pansy."

The reason I said he was a pansy is because the same reason I call these Yelpers and these people that hide behind the computer screen the [bleeped] mafia. They are [bleeped], they are pansies, and they have no balls because if they had balls, they would come to my face, my husband's face and tell us exactly, all the stuff, the lies, the slanderous stuff that they say online instead of just hiding behind their computer screen. I have said a lot of offensive things. But when a person is completely under attack, I'm sorry, I would love to be nothing but a lady and control my language and not have a severe case of Tourette's Syndrome, but this is what's happened to me because of the pressure. I called that guy a pansy because he was a pale-faced pansy ass willow. That's exactly what I call him. Yes, I'm going to say things if someone attacks me. I'm not going to stop. Then I will be a pansy and I'm not a pansy.

Amy also employs a special kind of logic explaining why she and Samy routinely respond to Yelp and Facebook posts with bitter, often offensive diatribes.

Every single post single post that was written [immediately after the episode aired] calling people [bleeped] and making fun of them for not making money did not come from us. We didn't say those things. Now we are. Because now you have lit the fire inside of us. Now, when we're calling people little trolls and telling them that they have no balls, yes that's us, because I think it takes a very special kind of person, it's called a eunuch, to be able to call someone and bully them over the phone or through the internet when you don't know who they are.

And the Bouzlagos have a message for Kitchen Nightmares: "Gordon Ramsay can go fuck himself."

[h/t Daily Dot]

Good year for write-offs: your chances of getting audited haven't been this low since the 80's.

The percentage of the population that understands the phrase, "Be kind, please rewind," is on the decline, so it shouldn't be as surprising as it is when a group of under-15's mistake a Sony Walkman for a cell phone, a walkie talkie, and a boom box.

After figuring out what the alien device is—"Ooh, like in the movies?"— the kids fumble their way through cassettes, 90's-style headphones, and the pressing of actual buttons.

"I feel bad for people who lived in the 90's, I really do," a nine-year-old says.

So clutch your mixtapes close—this is the future, and it ain't analogue.

[h/t Tastefully Offensive]

I made my husband a birthday party and invited his friends and colleagues. I prepared a bunch of my best dishes including a chocolate cake I have perfected for the past 4 years from various recipes. Now let me tell you about the cake: It's perfection, moist, rich and the frosting achieved the delicate balance for it to be delicious to chocoholics and those of us that aren't. Everyone went crazy for it and now my husband asked me to give him my recipe to pass it to the wife of a colleague. Normally I wouldn't mind—I've given my recipes to people in his office—but this lady rubs me off the wrong way. Ever since I met her there's something about her I can't explain that makes me dislike her very much and I can't imagine she cares that much about me given that we have barely spoken and are not even Facebook friends. So now I don't want to give her my recipe since she didn't even bother asking me personally, but my husband says I'm being childish and should just share it. Is that okay?

Thatz not okay.

This is like question #678 on one of those 800-question personality quizzes. Given your nuanced, innate understanding of ownership, zeal for fair dealings, and refusal to back down in the face of popular opinion, your ideal occupations are: estate lawyer, patent examiner, Project Runway: Under the Gunn guest judge (team challenge episode).

Unless your recipe includes ingredients that exist on Earth in a finite supply (fossil fuels; discontinued candy from the early '90s), your ability to bake a special cake will not be threatened by this woman baking the same special cake. Your cake will not taste like cigarette ash if someone else knows how to make it. Ina Garten's simple, elegant quayside picnic recipes do not suffer because she went on TV and gave away all their secrets.

One reason you say you don't want to share the closely-guarded flour to sugar ratio is that you "can't imagine" the woman seeking the recipe "cares that much about [you]." Unfortunately "YOU DON'T CARE ENOUGH ABOUT ME!" is not a valid, non-insane reason for refusing to share a recipe. Your case is only further weakened by the fact you have given out recipes to people in your husband's office before.

(Side note: "This lady rubs me off the wrong way" makes it sound like this woman regularly gives you handjobs you don't enjoy!!! Don't say that!!!)

People who don't give recipes out are regarded by the rest of the population as petty, childish, selfish misanthropes. These are individuals for whom the phrase "I love to make people happy through my cooking" is completed by the unspoken caveat "BUT ONLY UNDER MY TERMS!" The only man America has ever forgiven for bogarting a recipe is Colonel Sanders.

If you don't give out this recipe, prepare to be made fun of. Know that you will be the subject of an email or two, and that no one will take your side. Know that your already strained relationship with this woman will become even cooler, hardening like day-old buttercream icing made from a recipe you will take to your grave. You cannot guard your recipes like an old troll and be thought of as well-adjusted and normal; you cannot have your cake and eat it too and neither can anyone else because you refuse to cough up the recipe.

All that being said: I probably wouldn't give her the fucking recipe. As a fellow black ops baker, I also don't like giving out recipes I have worked to perfect. When people ask me what's in a batch of cookies, I run through a vague list of ingredients ("Sugar, butter, flour, some other stuff."). If they press me for details, I ask if they have any allergies; otherwise: "Don't worry about it." Even though I know it's intended as a compliment, what I hear when someone asks Can I get the recipe? is: I want to know how hard this was to make and how much it cost.

I could probably come up with some convincing lines in defense of secret recipes—how not knowing the secret is much more fun and exciting than knowing the secret; how no dish tastes as good once you realize you can replicate it yourself—but the truth is that this refusal to cooperate stems from an insecurity; if I'm the only one who knows how to make delicious cupcakes the way I make them, any time people want to experience delicious cupcakes the way I make them, they will have to include me in their plans. This is a personal failing. I am not proud to find myself in your camp. The food is great and I hate it here. Three stars.

Refusing to give out a recipe is not okay, because giving out recipes is a simple courtesy that will not hurt anyone. I know that. But sometimes, even though I know something is not okay, I do it anyway. It is these imperfections that give our personalities color; that make our delicious cakes so difficult to replicate blind.

It is unlikely your husband's coworker will continue hassling him for the details of the cake if your husband never gets around to offering them. If he does, your husband can throw you under the bus: "Ha, this is actually a secret recipe she refuses to share with anyone. I know, it's crazy. Why did I get married too?" Don't have him relay the clause about her needing to friend you on Facebook and ask you personally, because that will make you sound as crazy as you are, and the whole point of polite society is that everyone does their best to hide how crazy they are from everyone else.

Going forward, try not to be so petty. Don't judge people based on whether or not they are your Facebook friends. And please send me the recipe for your cake. It sounds incredible.

I have tickets for a very expensive concert (around $70 with fees and all). My boyfriend purchased four of them, three of which went to him, myself and a friend of his. The third one went up for grabs on my Facebook page and a casual friend messaged me asking to take it. I've been waiting for her to pay up since the tickets were purchased, which was months ago. It's beginning to feel like I'm chasing her around for them, and I feel like, as a grown woman and because she doesn't know my boyfriend at all and he is therefore a complete stranger to her, she should have offered to get us the cash right away. I feel it's really rude and inconsiderate of her to withhold this cash and for me to have to keep asking her to meet up with me for it.

Now a good friend of mine and my boyfriend wants to go instead. I feel like writing this other woman an email and being completely transparent with her and letting her know that I don't really want her to have the ticket—something along the lines of "I've decided you don't seem to have much enthusiasm to go to this concert and frankly I feel it is inconsiderate of you to withhold $70 in cash that belongs to someone you don't know very well, and I would prefer to give the ticket to someone else." After all, it isn't a $20 ticket to some local band, and she isn't a close friend of mine and doesn't know my boyfriend, and she knows it's his money. The concert is a week away. Is this okay?

Thatz not okay.

Did your Facebook post read "For Sale: One (1) ticket to Under the Sun Summer Tour (Sugar Ray; Smash Mouth; Blues Traveler) in Asbury Park. Cost: $70 and u gotta make me BELIEEEEVE that u NEED it!!!"?

This ticket is not a state championship and you are not this woman's football coach; therefore, you cannot penalize her for not wanting it BAD enough. She's not paying for the concert with drive.

She should, however, be paying for it with money. The fact that she's not is a problem. If she agreed to pay you for the ticket months in advance and then never got around to doing that, you are released from your part of the bargain. But if you said "You gotta pay me for the ticket," and she said "I'm gonna," and you said "You gotta!" and she said "I'm gonna!" and you said "YOU GOTTA!" and she said "I'M GONNA!" with no firm date attached, that complicates things. You shouldn't have to hassle her to meet up, but you also shouldn't have to meet up with her in the first place: Unless she was planning on rendering payment with a small bag of gold, there is no reason why, in 2014, you two must perform a monetary transaction face to face. She could send you a check, or PayPal you, or wire $70 (!!!) directly into the Swiss Bank account you opened the same day you bought these concert tickets of untold value. It is possible she wanted to wait to give you the cash until she had the ticket in-hand. These are all details that should have been ironed out a couple months ago.

You can't disinvite someone from an event a week beforehand if they've been planning on attending for months. Further, even though full disclosure sounds like a noble idea, there are actually instances when total transparency isn't necessary. You don't need a bowling ball made from glass-clear polyurethane; you don't need to perform a rap for this woman about the specific ways in which you feel she has been inconsiderate.

What you can and should do is send her an email that reads: "Hey, another friend of mine is offering cash for the ticket and I haven't received payment from you yet. Please get me the money by tomorrow night. Otherwise, I'll plan to sell it to her." If she pays, she comes.

The real lesson here: Don't put event tickets up for grabs on Facebook. Do you really want your freshman roommate coming with you? Your aunt? Your mom's friend's daughter? If you don't want to spend time with someone, don't offer them an invitation.

Thatz Not Okay is a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Please send your questions (max: 200 words) to caity@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay." Art by Jim Cooke.

Frazier Glenn Miller, the man arrested for killing three people at two different Jewish centers in Overland Park, Kansas, over the weekend and allegedly screaming "Sieg Heil!" while he as detained, loved Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, according to an old radio interview.

Miller also praised then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Tea Party—cautiously—in the 2010 interview with liberal broadcaster David Pakman, according to Mother Jones.

MoJo parsed the interview, included in the Pakman video above, for maximum insanity; emphasis added:

During the interview, Miller was unabashed about his anti-Semitic positions. When asked whether he thought the United States would be better off if Hitler had succeeded, Miller responded, "Absolutely, the whole world would... Hitler would have created a paradise on Earth, particularly for white people. But he would have been fair to other people as well." He added, "Germans are blamed collectively because of the alleged so-called Holocaust."

Not surprisingly, Miller denigrated most American politicians, but cited one positively: "If I had my way [all US Senators] would be in jail right now for treason, if not hung from a sturdy oak tree... Ron Paul is the only independent politician, representative in Washington." He also spoke highly of another conservative: "Patrick Buchanan, he's a great man, he's a great historian, he's one of the very few journalists who has the courage to speak out against Jewish domination in the country." Miller called Howard Stern "a Jew liar." When asked whether he supported the tea party, Miller replied, "The school's still out on them. They're a new movement. I'm watching them closely. I suspect, however, they'll be infiltrated by the Jews and therefore led into defeat."

Miller—whose biography of hate has been compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center—is also featured in a political ad in the video, saying: "America belongs to the Jews who rule it and to the mud people who multiply in it. The undeniable proof is at DavidDuke.com."

When asked by Pakman whether he hated Jews or blacks more, Miller answer without hesitation: "Compared to our Jewish problem, all our other problems are mere distractions."

Ironically, two of Miller's victims over the weekend, Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, and his grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, reportedly were practicing Methodists. They had come to the Kansas City Jewish Community Center so Underwood could audition for a singing role in an upcoming community production.

The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced: two reporting prizes for the Washington Post, two photography prizes for the New York Times, and no prize awarded for feature writing. The full list is here. Congratulations to all the winners of this prize we're too cool to care about.

"They are not exactly starting from the gutter" is certainly one way of contextualizing Matthew and Nicole Mellon, fledgling husband-and-wife fashion designers whose last name comes from, yes, the bank. The duo appeared in yesterday's Times, saying the perfect things rich people say in the Times.

"I've never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it," would be one of those quotes, said enthusiastically by Nicole, who met Matthew at a wedding in Palm Beach a few years before they themselves would be wed at Diane von Furstenberg's estate in Jamaica. "I've read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I've watched 'Out of Africa,'" she says. "It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can't recreate the experience without immersing yourself."

The Mellons are the operators of a website called hanleymellon.com, which features outfits for people who yearn to spend tens of thousands of dollars on clothes but have no one to tell them what to wear. They are expanding out to a proprietary fashion line, an area in which Matthew—a one-time creative director at Jimmy Choo—has experience.

But all of that is the window dressing for the details that make the insulated rich feel sophisticated/provides the rest of us with shit to laugh at. Like, for instance, a child named Force. Or Matthew forgetting the name of the artist Sam Taylor-Wood and calling her Taylor Swift. Or this, which represents some sort of new frontier for the airhead rich given platforms in America's paper of record in order to hang themselves.

But Mr. Mellon is an unabashed fan of embracing new technologies, including Bitcoin, which the company accepts as payment and to which he was introduced by the venture capitalists Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

A fairy tale ending indeed.

[image via Getty]

Here is a very special citation from the Pulitzer committee.

The headline pretty much tells the story here, doesn't it? Is this some hijacking (no pun intended) of the US Airways Twitter account by a rogue employee, or simply a fuck-up? (Very Not Safe For Work image below.)

@USAirways actually tweeted the photo out twice, and it's still there as of this writing. The photo was originally tweeted to American Airlines:

So what probably happened is some social media moron at US Airways tried to copy and paste the American Airlines tweet to a friend but instead tweeted it at some frustrated customers.

Update (3:27 p.m.): US Airways responds:

We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.

— US Airways (@USAirways) April 14, 2014

You may notice that your comments on Gawker are now accompanied by an "invitations" field. Read on for more information.

After an outbreak of severe thunderstorms yesterday across the Central Plains made for some beautiful sights from Texas to Iowa, storm chasers took to Twitter to post their best shots.

Beautiful severe supercell in Dublin, Texas this afternoon. @TxStormChasers @reedtimmerTVN @SeanSchoferTVN pic.twitter.com/faMLZatCWp

— Ridgeline Storm (@rstormchasing) April 14, 2014

Join me, @mmichaelswntv , & @KFerrierWNTV as we're tracking storms in Plains. Toronto, KS supercell. @WeatherNation pic.twitter.com/NwjIkBTFBs

— Addison Green (@agreenWNTV) April 13, 2014

Great chase today! Amazing structure on this tornadic supercell in southern Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/4gL8og5l0V

— Rapid Rotation Tours (@RapidRotation) April 14, 2014

Coolest structure I have ever seen on a supercell pic.twitter.com/fTRnIOzoAK

— Storm Chaser Matt (@MattKoket) April 14, 2014

On supercell near Dublin, TX. #txwx pic.twitter.com/GynOF2a5he

— David Drummond (@DavidDrummondTX) April 13, 2014

Amazing structure from this #supercell! Springer, OK at 7:20pm. Trying to have a wall cloud. #okwx pic.twitter.com/yg8b62UKyM

— Jason Cooley (@DrTornadoCooley) April 14, 2014

Southern Oklahoma storm pic.twitter.com/folE3qoEiD

— Von Castor (@vondcastor) April 14, 2014

Amazing shot of Dominators in front of rotating wall cloud near Wilson, OK from @SeanSchoferTVN @weatherchannel pic.twitter.com/9qFS9TLnWy

— Reed Timmer (@reedtimmerTVN) April 14, 2014

Cool Shot MT @TornadoTitans Tornado warned supercell near Wilson, OK. Amazing structure at front end. That's the sun pic.twitter.com/j2KTmPw8Fj

— Chris Scott (@ChrisScottWx) April 14, 2014

Here's a storm we were just on near Wilson, OK. pic.twitter.com/63bJAtMFGZ

— Sean Schofer (@SeanSchoferTVN) April 14, 2014

[Image at top sent to NWS Norman by Stephanie Mavredes]

We've all been there: stuck in a futile, seemingly intractable situation and about to give up hope, when suddenly someone shows us we've been approaching the problem the wrong way. Or actually drunk and trying to climb an actual fence. Happens to everybody.

[H/T: Opposing Views]

Bloodshed was averted and a bunch of freedom-loving, gut-hanging-over-the-brass-belt-buckle, self-styled militia men declared victory Monday in a major armed standoff with federal and local officials over one bubba's right to graze his cattle on taxpayer land in Nevada.

The bizarre Woodstock for amateur minutemen and pistol-packin' cowpokes almost ended in a shootout this weekend after the Oathkeepers—a bunch of militant patriots so dedicated to America that they stand ready to destroy this country in order to save it—gathered in support of an irascible old straw-hatted rancher named Cliven Bundy, and in search of the new civil war they've long been praying for.

For more than 20 years, Bundy reportedly has grazed his thousands of cattle on federal lands maintained by the Bureau of Land Management, disregarding rules set up for endangered species on the land and refusing to pay grazing fees. Bundy maintains that the land, which has been in his family since the 1880s, is sovereign and unbound by gol'durn federal regulations. He owes millions in grazing fees and court fines.

But when BLM officials came out with rangers to seize Bundy's cattle over the weekend, his dispute with the gub'mint became a rallying cry for angry white dudes in search of the next Ruby Ridge or Waco to rally 'round—angry white dudes like this guy in a flannel shirt and trucker cap who came all the way from Idaho not to demonstrate, but to lay down a sniper's position on municipal authorities from a highway overpass.

The tensest part of the standoff began Saturday, with Bundy and his ralliers peppering the otherwise incredibly patient-looking local sheriff with batshit demands, a tour de force performance recorded in the video above.

"Disarm the Park Service," Bundy began, to shouts and hollers:

Take your county equipment and tear down [the walls blocking grazing lands] this morning. You disarm those Park Service people. You take a pickup and all of those arms…we want all of those arms put in that compound today! We want those arms delivered right here under these flags in one hour!…

If they're not done, then we'll decide what we're gonna do from this point on!

What followed was a bunch of twits playing cavalry on horseback, displaying their hatred for federal oppression by carrying the flags of the four armed service branches; twits wearing tactical camouflage and guarding Bundy in formation; and twits on foot in the desert, blocking I-15 with their bodies and cars, wielding Gadsden flags and American flags and OBAMA NO MORE WACOS signs.

This was as Bundy apparently intended. After his one-hour deadline passed, he told the crowd to block the interstate and display its mettle beneath an overpass where his cows were penned. "We're gonna go and take our land back and declare freedom and liberty here in this land," he said. "Is God gonna be with us?"

Around 7:30 in the video above—just after a loose-mouthed women in a DON'T TREAD ON ME T-shirt explains why it's fine with her that some militia-types brought their children to participate in the confrontation with law enforcement—you can see Inner America's id brought to the brink of clash: a screaming, inchoate mass of men with guns and horses and misty memories of watching The Postman on TNT, converging on a single calm, collected police officer who looks like a special forces soldier emerging from the Hindu Kush with the Northern Alliance.

"[N]either side said they anticipated protesters to march toward the corral," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. But freedom is messy, and often violently provocative and stupid.

Fortunately, law enforcement officials weren't. They wisely gave up and let the goddamn cattle graze on the goddamn land, rather than starting a massacre, which is what it would have been, because idiots who can't spell (Bundy's son wore a T-shirt that read "WE SUPPORT THE BUNDY'S") probably can't lay down suppressive fire and maneuver with discipline, either:

Eventually, Chief Deputy Tom Roberts of the Las Vegas Metro Police met with Ammon Bundy at the barricade, where Roberts communicated to Bundy that the BLM had agreed to release the cattle and to immediately vacate the area in order to avoid violence.

Several hours later, approximately 500 cattle were released to the Bundy family. Ammon Bundy said the BLM has agreed to allow his family to continue grazing in the disputed area. BLM officials could not be reached for comment at the time of this report, and it is unclear whether sanctions or criminal charges will be filed against members of the Bundy family or the other protesters.

And so it was over, much as it began. Who won? The protesters obviously believe they struck a blow for freedom and justice and old farts who want to let their cows shit wherever they please. It's probably a victory for law enforcement, too, who managed the situation without Alex Jones taking a potshot at them and without using deadly force in return.

But mostly it's a victory for those of you who are reading this, without moving your lips, someplace where wi-fi runs fast and strong: Maybe, just maybe, these moronic armed brutes will be satisfied with the acres of nothing they just fought over in Nevada, and we on the civilized, productive edges of this thing called America—which they love but little understand—will never have to meet them, or duck out of the way of their terrible aim.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee tasked with investigating the timeline of the General Motors ignition switch recall released more than 600 pages of documents related to the issue. Jalopnik's review of these documents reveal deeply entrenched problems at the automaker.

The documents, which consist of of emails, memos, and diagrams spread over a decade, show engineers dismissive of safety issues who were combative with regulators and their own co-workers, but quietly fixed the issue under the rest of the company's noses. Some of these correspondences are incomplete, so it's possible there are responses that entirely vindicate GM's actions, but if such correspondences do exist it's unclear why they wouldn't include them.

Further, it provides a direct discrepancy between what a now-suspended GM engineer testified in court and what he actually signed off on during his duties.

GM is recalling 1.4 million Chevrolet Cobalts, Saturn Ions, Pontiac G5s and other cars over a faulty ignition switch that, with minimal effort, can switch off mid-drive, which also turns off the airbag. Thirteen deaths and an unknown number of injuries have been linked to the problem, which was known about as far back as 2001 but not recalled until earlier this year.

New CEO Mary Barra has already been hauled before Congress, lawsuits are mounting, two engineers have been suspended without pay, and the automaker has shaken up its senior staff in the aftermath of the recall. Likely, more headaches are coming for GM, as are more disclosures as the House committee releases more documents to the public.

Here's what we learned from our scouring of the first edition of the GM documents:

The suspended chief Cobalt engineer was the one who switched the car off with his knee

Remember how it came out a few months ago that a top GM engineer first encountered the ignition switch problem with the Cobalt way back in 2004? It turns out that engineer was none other than Gary Altman, the program engineering manager for the Cobalt in 2004 and 2005, and one of two engineers currently suspended with pay as part of the investigation.

According to these documents, Altman inadvertently turned off the car after bumping it with his knee. However, he later testified in the lawsuit filed by the family of Cobalt victim Brooke Melton that he did not feel the car was unsafe, and was the one who rejected a fix for the ignition switch because it was too expensive and would take too long.

It makes you wonder what it would take for Altman to consider a car unsafe then.

The other suspended GM engineer's actions don't match what he said in court

Testifying in the Melton lawsuit, the other suspended engineer, Ray DeGiorgio, testified that he did not know who signed off on the change to the ignition switch made to the Cobalt after the 2008 model year that fixed its shutdown issues. He suggests in court that it may have been made on the supplier, i.e. Delphi, side of things.

DeGiorgio must have a short memory, or he wasn't being entirely honest when testifying under oath, because he himself signed off on the part change in a memo to the supplier in 2006. "He provides the approval with GM3360 to implement both changes," the memo says.

How do you explain that one?

Fixing the Cobalt did not represent "an acceptable business case"

We've known about this for a while, but here it is in writing. The problem for GM is that the inevitable lawsuits and fines that will follow this action (or lack of action, rather) will likely prove to be even worse for their bottom line.

GM engineers weighed several solutions to the problem

These solutions included changing the shape of the slot in the Cobalt's key from an arc to a circular hole in order to reduce the load on said key; adding a detent between the ignition switch lock cover and cam shaft; and changing from a "low mount" to a "high mount" lock module. Instead, the matter was closed for lack of a business case.

The feds knew something was up by 2007 too

This email comes from an official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Defects Assessment Division, or DAD. By 2007 they clearly disagreed with GM's assertions that there was no pattern of airbag non-deployments with the Cobalt and its kin, and said there were certain incidents where death or injury could have been avoided had the airbag deployed properly.

Warranty claims over airbag issues were significantly higher for the Cobalt

Check out this graph from NHTSA's DAD group. It shows that Cobalts around 2005 had a much higher warranty claim rate for airbag issues than its GM brethren like the Cadillac CTS and Saab 9-5, as well as its competitors like the Ford Focus and Honda Civic.

A GM investigator tried to figure out why airbag issues dropped off after 2008

As indicated in these documents and as Automotive News reported, GM engineer Brian Stouffer spent two years in 2011 and 2012 trying to sort out the problem behind the Cobalt ignition switches only to receive significant pushback, inaccurate data and a lack of cooperation from his co-workers.

Stouffer tried to figure out why airbag issues dropped off after the 2008 model year even though he could find no documented changes to the cars. We now know this is because GM engineers quietly changed the faulty part in 2006 but did not change its part number.

It would have cost just $10 per part to replace the ignition switches on 2005-2007 Cobalts

Just $10 per part for those years of Cobalts alone, which was about 1.5 million units, according to this email from other suspended engineer Raymond DeGiorigio to Stouffer. I have a feeling GM will be spending a lot more money than that in the long run.

Well, how much torque do you want?

Stouffer asked DeGiorigio what it would take to create a new ignition switch, but DeGiorgio responded by saying he needed to know what the torque requirements for such a switch would be.

This, after we learned supplier Delphi told GM way back in 2002 that the faulty switch didn't meet their own requirements for torque. How about abiding by your own standards, for starters?

This is a matter that later comes up when DeGiorgio is testifying in the Melton lawsuit.

Feds to GM: We don't get this kind of bullshit from the other car companies

Here's an email from NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation chief Frank Borris to GM Director of Product Investigations in 2013. Even though the "new GM" says it does things differently from "old GM," Borris expresses frustrations with the automaker his agency does not face with other companies.

"The general perception is that GM is slow to communicate, slow to act, and at times, requires additional effort of ODI that we do not feel is necessary with some of your peers." Ouch.

And GM was totally caught off guard by that

"What did we do?" is the response here, although to his credit, this GM official recognizes NHTSA's comments as something that needs to be addressed.

The rate of airbag non-deployments was much higher in the 2005 and 2006 Cobalt before the part was changed

Another graph, which shows what a difference the part made in whether an airbag deployed properly in a crash:

People were badly hurt in these crashes

While GM so far has linked 13 deaths to the ignition switch issue, and many of those deaths involved unsafe driving practices, the automaker has not released the number of injury crashes related to the defect. These graphs shine some light on that matter.

As of Oct. 13, there were five deaths and 18 injuries that ranged from mild to severe in the Cobalt and Pontiac G5/Pursuit alone. These numbers do not include the other cars affected by the recall such as the Saturn Ion. At least one person was rendered quadriplegic in a crash. We can only assume that, with more up-to-date data that includes all recalled vehicles, these injury numbers will rise.

It would have cost $81 million to replace the ignition switches on most of the recalled cars

If this chart is accurate, then replacing the faulty ignition switches on the cars would have cost — or will cost — about $81 million. These numbers do not include the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice roadsters.

The current recall costs have soared to $1.3 billion, which is quite a bit more than that, but there's no information in these documents about why that discrepancy exists.

The faulty ignition switch was designed to feel less "cheap" than older GM cars

Here's DeGiorgio, testifying in the Brooke Melton lawsuit:

Have you read through the first batch of GM documents? Did anything else stand out to you? If so, drop them in the comments.

Additional reporting by Mike Ballaban

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