...7,8, better stay up late. 9, 10, location, location, location.

It was the house where iconic movie monster Freddy Krueger first infiltrated the nightmares of unsuspecting sleeping teens, but a Los Angeles real estate company hopes it will be a different kind of dream home for at least one brave buyer.

The three-bedroom, two-story "traditional/modernist fusion" home in Hollywood's Spaulding Square neighborhood may be better known to horror film buffs as the site of 1984's seminal slasher flick A Nightmare on Elm Street (as well as at least two sequels), but Rodeo Realty swears the scariest thing about this $2.1 million house is how reasonably priced it is.

Appropriately, the house which bares the same street number (1428) as its fictional counterpart was once a real-life nightmare for current homeowner Angie Hill.

"It was horrible," she told AOL Real Estate. "It was the only house on the street that looked beaten up. The pool looked like it hadn't been touched in 10 years — it was black."

The interior of the house underwent a total remodeling, with nearly every square inch gutted and redone.

Except the furnace in the basement where Hill keeps the dusty old bladed glove she lifted off a child murderer who used to live in the neighborhood until all the parents got together and burned him alive.

[photo via Redfin]

Tina Fey's Liz Lemon abides by a diet that is notoriously unhealthy, and often on the outer boundaries of "food." She famously received a false positive on a pregnancy test after gorging on "Sabor de Soledad" cheese-puffs, a fictional Mexican snack made with evaporated bull semen. She composed a song dedicated to "night cheese," the cheese she ate on her couch at night. In the episode "Sandwich Day," Lemon eats tinfoil, because it is acting as a barrier between her and a sandwich.

So, when Ben & Jerry's announced plans to release a commemorative 30 Rock ice cream flavor, fans psyched themselves up for the bizarre: a sweet dessert with the tang of extra-sharp cheddar. That offered flakes of tinfoil covered in chocolate. Is bull semen a legal ingredient in the United States? We couldn't wait to find out.

Instead, we get Gwyneth Paltrow-flavored ice cream.

Ben & Jerry's "Liz Lemon" is fancy. It is ostentatiously refined. It is probably a little mean, but not in a way that's openly hostile, just, like, sort of patronizing, and braggy, and "Oh, wow, I have a really similar top in silk but yours is too cute. I love how your style is so casual."

For starters, it's not even ice cream. It's frozen yogurt—ice cream's healthier, more mature, slightly aloof older stepsister. (Technically, it's Greek frozen yogurt, like Tina Fey is a Greek frozen American.)

It's also lemon-flavored, which, OK, it would be hard to get around that one.

But the lemon base is complemented with "a blueberry lavender swirl." What?

Lavender is right up their with opium poppies and marijuana trees in the pantheon of nature's most relaxing plants. The entire plot of the 30 Rock series finale revolves around the fact that Liz Lemon is psychologically incapable of relaxation. And blueberries? When has that woman ever eaten a fruit that wasn't made out of gummy?

Let's be clear: this frozen yogurt is probably delicious. It probably tastes very elegant, like something Tina Fey would serve in her swanky Upper West Side apartment to subtly remind you that, in real life, she is not like you—a slovenly fast food junkie who wears pajamas to dinner dates—but a very wealthy famous person.

A portion of the profits from the froyo (which hits Ben & Jerry's shops in February, and grocery stores soon after) will benefit Jumpstart, a non-profit that supports early education in low-income neighborhoods, so it's hard to hate on it.

But let's be real. Liz Lemon is way more likely to wolf down pints of vanilla-and-rum flavored Schweddy Balls than this.

[via Ben & Jerry's]

Welcome to How To Discipline Your Cat 101.

Lesson 1: Ha ha you can't discipline a cat ha ha are you crazy ha ha.

Class dismissed.

[Reddit]

Do you know who the youngest female billionaire in America is? No, of course you don't. That's why you read this website. To learn that she is the heiress to the In-N-Out Burger chain fortune, and she is colorful.

This top-notch story by Bloomberg's Seth Lubove on 30 year-old Lynsi Torres, who's inherited the entire In-N-Out chain herself after various deaths in her family, reveals:

• At 30, she's on her third marriage.
• "Torres has little formal management training and no college degree."
• Her uncle, who took over the company in the 1970s, died in a plane crash at age 41. Her father, who took over the company after her uncle, died of a drug overdose at age 49.
• Last year, Torres bought a "$17.4 million, 16,600-square-foot mansion" in California with seven bedrooms and 16 bathrooms.
• She is a competitive drag racer.

[Bloomberg. Photo: AP]

The economy added more than 150,000 jobs in January, but unemployment still rose to 7.9%; if you count those who have given up and stopped looking for work, the rate is much higher. Each week, we bring you true stories of unemployment, from those who have lived it. This is what's happening out there.

I still exist

I don't know where to begin, because somedays I have to pinch myself to even know that I exist. Life today is so different since 2011. My first rendition of HELL HAS NO FURY. I can truly testify that I feel so lifeless in my will to exist beyond my circumstances UNEMPLOYMENT. Almost 50 years old in less than 2 years, I wake up trying to gravitate where do I fit in. My job/ career didn't validate me as a person but more so gave me a sense of purpose and allowed me to contribute to society. Family, friends and some people can not comprehend that unemployment is almost like experiencing the death of a love one. You grieve, become depress, try to work and push through your barriers without giving up, but then it hits you all at once, all over again NOT WANTED, REJECTED. Then here comes the generic compassion of DON'T WORRY, it is going to get better soon. It is not that folk don't mean well, they just run out of things to say that holds truth. I don't know about others that are unemployed, but I can honestly say that I don't Want or need self pity, just a fair opportunity to become apart of society again. CREDIT CHECKS, VARIOUS DISCRIMINATIONS, 60 MINUTES INTERVIEWS, QUESTION BY NOW A GROUP OF PEOPLE, that want to know, what have you been doing since your last job. OK, what about trying to survive this unfortunate situation. What about trying to keep a roof over my family head and my utilities on. Lets see, trying to keep food on the table without resorting to animal can food. What about, continuously praying that I don't give up and kiss this madness GOOD BYE. The nerve, of some folks. WHAT DO OLDER UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE DO. Try to maintain the balance to keep from falling through the cracks.
Please stop rejecting us and just accept us for being once dedicated workers with tireless work ethics, dependable and still trainable.

Understand that I did not request an early retirement/ without benefits (LAID OFF) to have my new title read (OLD AND UNEMPLOYED)

I still exist and others like me still matter and we still can make a contribution in today's workforce.

Tips from the front lines

I have never really been unemployed [until recently]. I have been working since I was 15. I worked my way through college. I did once take a 3 month leave from a job to do some travelling, and once I was between jobs in a good economy for about 3 weeks. But that was it. My wife had only recently been unemployed for 4 months and has a good understanding of what it is like. Her warnings and advice have been invaluable. That said, I was not prepared for the full brunt of it. I make a point of applying for at least 2 jobs a day, maybe more. These are not necessarily jobs on my formal career path, but are jobs I am qualified to do based on my career or based on my experience over the last 15 years. Anything and everything. The Kitchen Sink approach. Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. I call these "Joe Jobs". Meanwhile, keep an ear to the ground for the dream job, or at least the job that represents where I was in my career when I left the last place. Same level, same industry, hopefully more money. Use my networks, friends, and industry connections. The results are most interesting.

As 8 months have now gone by and I remain unemployed, I have a few interesting observations to share. On the subject of technology, I am torn as to it's being a help or a hindrance. Back in the pre internet days, or even in the early internet days, you had to hoof it into the workplace yourself to apply. This would sometimes involve meeting someone face to face. If they " liked the cut of your jib" they would give you a shot, and this was often the single bit of serendipity that got you a job. Although there were less ways to find the jobs and less ways to apply than there are today, there was not a machine filter that searched your resume and cover letter for keywords before even passing you onto a human. And there was less competition. You had to compete with maybe 20 people when things were posted in walk-in job centers and in news papers. On the internet, those 20 competitors are now 3000 competitors including folks from neighboring states. So you learn, you learn to tweak each resume and cover letter to hit the keywords for the filters. It becomes a bit of a game.

With the internet being the main medium for getting a job, you get exposed to the world of those whose business it is to take advantage of the unemployed. Posting up your resume for recruiters to see also exposes it to scammers, who then contact the desperate with vague offers of at-home employment at generous salaries "forwarding packages" or laundering money. Not all resume farming is so evil however, many of it is just invasive marketing on behalf of for-profit diploma factories who want to get the desperately unemployed to indebt themselves more for a useless degree nobody will recognize. Others just sell your information to telemarketers. When you are unemployed, you want your phone to ring. It will. Robo calls mostly.

You can also sign up for email notifications from services that scan the internet job boards for you. This will work. Especially if you are interested in hearing about jobs that have nothing to do with you, your experience, skill set, or anything you set up during the configuration of the service. After all, there is no harm in the forensic accountant hearing about the cruise line that is hiring ship-board barbers and the lawyer being notified of the exiting new opening for a pipe fitter in Zaire. Especially if that information comes in endless emails.

I have had literally a few dozen interviews in the last 8 months. Several a month. I interview very well in general, and I tend to be confident about it. However, despite the great interviews, I have not gotten the job. This happens in many ways, but mostly it happens in the simplest way possible. No follow up. I understand that companies cannot personally reject each person who applies. I can even understand them not contacting each person who interviews..but when you are two or three interviews in, there really is no excuse for that. An email would be nice. I accept that sometimes it may be me, but I have reason to think that most of the time it isn't. When you check the boards every day, you being to see patterns. How long an ad has been up, how many a company posts up, and you begin to see that some of them are ads that not only did you respond to and apply for, but interviewed for. And 5 months after you had the second interview and never heard back, you see the ad is is still posted. Not only did you not get the job...NOBODY got it. You begin to suspect that some companies like to post ads but hate to actually hire.

Being overqualified has been interesting. It leads to more polite rejections than most. I have had several incidences of it. I actually want to do the job. I may be more qualified and a few steps ahead of the job in my career, but I hated what I did and want to go back a few steps to where I was happy. Recruiters will say that they like my resume and will pass it onto their own boss because it was very good, but they didn't think I would be happy taking a step back. Ok..but you had my resume since the day I applied. There are no surprises here. Why interview me in the first place?

Then, there is the old adage that it is easier to get another job while already employed. I know Obama has a new law that says employers cannot discriminate against someone just because they are unemployed, but it is not that enforceable. People ask me what I have been doing. I have re-enrolled in school, just to SAY "I went back to school"..but I am not sure how I am going to pay for it. The longer the unemployment goes on, the bigger the gap in the resume seems. I sometimes think I should pick up in another country..or get some odd jobs ( I cannot even seem to find those) and back pack around South America like a 22 year old. Have a few lost years. Might as well, if I am going to be sitting around at home anyhow.

The experience is one of extremes. There are moments of incredible shame and despair. Being 40 and unemployed. Having my wife support me. Having nothing to do much of the time. The sense that your neighbors know your shameful truth. The feeling that the world is moving on outside everyday and you are doing nothing. As in the workaday world, Mondays are the worst. On Mondays, there are no new job ads. You are looking at the same ones that were posted up on Friday. You already applied. But everyone else is off to work and there you are. You can forget you are unemployed on the weekends, but come Monday, that reality crashes back in hard. There are moments of elation too. The feeling that you have kicked ass in an interview is unbeatable. That call back for the 2nd and 3rd one. Heck, sometimes even that first call is great after a few days of feeling like nothing has been happening. It lifts your spirits for awhile.

I find that keeping up a routine is important. Don't stay up late. Get up at the same time as everyone else. Look for work between 9 and 3. Then use the gym (there is one in my building). Clean the apartment. Run errands. It is very very tempting to be lethargic. It is tempting just lie in bed and give up. I have found myself slipping down that path more than once.

Beauty in struggle

Sadly, I've done relatively well in this recession - because I've been adapted to poverty a lot longer. My parents were immigrants who strove to advance from lower to the middle class. While other kids wanted to "hang out" with peers, I either focused on school or helped in the family business - I was 9 years old when I first learned how to tile a kitchen. School was still primary though. When I got to college, I had 3 scholarships waiting for me as a reward for my effort - happy endings, right?

My father died my sophomore year, throwing the entire household into dire financial problems - we sank back to poverty immediately. My brother had no hope for college - he acquired a security job for a few weeks, then ran away and eventually reappeared two months later to announce he was leaving for the military. I had to quit school - you can't really study if you have no food or shelter - and began working 40 hours at a warehouse with a pothead and a dropout. Being intelligent, I actually improved a few processes my second day on the job - saving time and effort - the reward being that the boss fired the unnecessary "extra workers" since I "clearly" could handle the work of 3 guys (for the same pay). I switched to various terrible jobs in which I excelled but had no hope of advancement or reward (just a lot of employers surprised at their luck, who soon tried to work me overtime without overtime pay). My family moved into a very impoverished neighborhood whose public library was smaller than a Gamestop; where a landlord had a scam with the towing company (towing visitors, charging & then splitting the profits); and where I recall being hit by a car while walking (luckily I landed okay). I lacked public transport so I was on foot for years, walking about 4 hours daily (a couple hours to & from work). I saw roadkill daily on streets with no sidewalks. Sometimes I ate mildly spoiled food (partly out of hunger; partly because I've got an iron-stomach now thanks to gradual exposure). The best job I found paid less than minimum wage but I took it because it was an office job (so I hoped it'd look better than fast food and warehouses on a resume). I slept on a floor. On a few occasions when the power went out on our block, I'd walk to the nearest gas station just so I could read while outside. All this and the recession hadn't properly even started.

I kept striving. We managed to move again closer to my old college and I got a new job in sales - the pay was still terrible, but it was only 3 miles away, easy walking distance in the sweltering Miami heat. Five days a week I walked to and from work; two days a week I walked to and from college, carrying every single book for every single class all day. Where "6 credits" is Part-Time and "12 credits" is Full Time, I managed to do 15 & 18 credit semesters out of sheer frustration to escape circumstance. I acquired 2 Bachelors (Foreign Affairs, Criminology), 2 Minors, a certificate in National Security; I'm fluently bilingual (English & Spanish), with elementary Arabic & French (from college); I'm self-taught in basic web-design (HTML, CSS, PHP, Photoshop, etc) and coding (mostly Java for Android). I'm also versed in construction. I cannibalize information on any topic I find a book on - and I graduated during the recession.

Out of college, I smoldered at my sales job, that had become horrid as cronyism had flourished. I was upset that I had neither transportation nor free time to pursue internships like some of my peers - frustrated hat it's impossible to share "all the above" on a resume, as if my ability to fight against circumstance doesn't matter against another student with no such concerns. Eventually I managed to leave sales for an office job unrelated to my fields of study (which was interesting but despite my increasing responsibilities & upward transfers, they refused to renegotiate pay until I was already out the door) - ironically, the job I took after that (thinking it was more stable) was the one that let me (and several other employees) go a handful of months later. I've been unemployed half a year now. Work related to my fields is a perpetual challenge - budget cuts have butchered our local police departments, so logically, staff that are let go are now competition for other related positions. All the while, my family are firmly American but still immigrants - how do you explain how the first in the family with so much education can struggle to find work? Some job applications take 1-3 hours and are online only but they're still mentally locked in a period where people would just knock on a door, fill out a 1-page form and have a job within the hour. How do you explain continued attempts at self-improvement when they think you're "competitive enough" - they see it as a luxury as if constantly working for free is fun.

The main reason I write is not to complain - rather, I see so many talk about suicide. We'll all be dead a long time - why rush? There is beauty in struggle. I could have given in to despair years ago but I refuse to kneel to circumstance. For quick movie wisdom, I recommend "Revolver" (disguised as an action film, it's actually a psychological critique on the "ego" and how pride gets us into most problems); I obviously recommend "Fight Club" (I've seen it with all the commentary & bonus languages - the "things you own end up owning you" mantra I credit to keeping me sane time and again). A quick search and read on "Minimalist Living" and even "Minimalist Design" can help you downsize and adapt while still finding beauty in spartan environments. And with a huge portion of all our incomes going to rent, I suggest many readers reconsider their local public colleges - for example, as a "non-degree seeking student" for a simple 1-credit course. Compare the fees (which will cover you 1 semester or 4 months) against your monthly rent. As a student you have access to the gym (and its showers & rest rooms), lounges (for students to nap), library (self improvement, napping & computer access), health center (reduced or free services) and parking (to keep your car). It still requires some cash, but it's a lot cheaper than some of the situations I'm reading people deal with. My point is, experiment. Consider fields seemingly unrelated to your focus. I remember years ago seeing some computer-science students dreading the cog-like programming jobs that awaited them; meanwhile, at work, the business-majors turned managers were bemoaning corporate pressure. The only guy who seemed serene was a computer-science guy who ditched software development for sales - thanks to his specialization, he excelled at matching high-end equipment and software to business clients and was mostly 'untouchable' at work. Rather than seek "the ideal profession" that "obviously" matches your schooling, it may be wise to translate your aptitudes to offer new services to other professions that normally lack the bonus. Keep your chin up.

#Foreverbroke

First off, more than likely, I've had more jobs than you since I'm up to 34 jobs in the past 11 years now. And I'm just 28 years old, which means, by time I'm 30 I should be at 45 jobs. I'm from ghettoburbs of South Central LA and most likely should have taken the drug dealer road than the education one...

I use to have normal emotions like normal people, but since I'm mentally numb from the economic situation and educated in fields that people often are confused by. I had to be a black male within a 1500 miles radius that decided to get a Bachelors in History to become a history teacher because I wanted to give back to my community. However, our Governator screwed up everything for new teachers and I gave up that dream to try and become a Librarian. Why? I love organizing books, comics, video games....and anything that's a puzzle to me since I have some organization disorder I don't understand yet.

Did I mention that I have a Master's degree in Library Information science. Did I also mention I'm a oversize muscle bound geek. I would like to be a Librarian one day. A library of video games, arcade PCB's as well books and magazine that are related in one place, with me as the head is one my goals.

Do you how does it feel to be 6'3, body built like I'm a football player, balled wearing glasses and knowing that every got damn interview, in this field, you will have the same setting? Two women, looking terrified as if I'm about to engage in some kind of fornication act right there, interviewing me, a male who wants to work in a library. Library....a field that's pretty much dominated by women these days...

Do you know how it feels to sit in a chair where you, the person that's being interviewed, knows more information about the field and the position than the person that's interviewing you? I've had 8 of these type of interviews in the past 12 months. The person interviewing me is lost and looking at me as if she found out that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person. This counts as a threat since I can replace them pretty easily...

I hustle, I grind and I can't help but to cry on my 28th birthday (June 11) because I'm still in the same trap. No job or hope for this black man. I'm already preparing to start breaking into people's home since I'm tired of driving all the way to the valley twice a week to sell plasma for a total of 70 bucks.

I've done everything what America told me do.....go to college, have fun, meet new people, screw someone until you graduate, and rack up a bunch of college debt that guarantee me open doors in the job market. I thought I was V.I f*cking P in the education system against the people who just went and got H.S diplomas. But it backwards it seems these days. Especially in my field. The only field where you can work anywhere in the library (except Page position) and make as much or more money than teachers with a High School diploma, but still need a MLS just to be a librarian. No college degree require at all for anything else. What. The. Deuce?

I just want to live the typical black man American dream for a little bit. Just make a lot money, screw some white women and worry about tomorrow. You know, that stuff that rappers talk about in their songs. All I can do is just laugh because at this point I'm delirious and I kinda wish I was in jail.....at least I don't have to worry money, debt or the stress of living....just have to worry about who I'm turning out next and if I'm gonna turn full blown sissy from the jail life.

But still, I sit here and keep trying. I just submitted a resume to a site, which then makes me fill out the information portion of the same shit I just submit . Not explaining sh!t or what I'm doing it for?

WHAT was the point of submitting the resume? Why the f*ck do I have to enter my f*cking name, address, phone number, education, jobs and job description when all that sh!t is on the GOT (GOD for some people) DAMN RESUME. Who's gonna read this? I'm not gonna get into the personality test that I have to do.

At this moment right now, I'm not for sure if I should blow my brains out or hang myself because I'm starting to believe that I will never find that game changer I've seek for the last ten years. I don't believe in hashtag or care it since I grew up on the terms "number" and "pound" as the idea for #. But....

#foreverbroke

Bad job vs. no job

For the past 3+ years I have been in a job with a horribly abusive and manipulative boss. Worse than any situation I ever would have imagined myself in.

I am highly conflict averse and my boss thrives in conflict. He makes shocking personal attacks and wild accusations. He has driven people to tears. He has even gone off on a couple of my clients for imagined slights, and lost me major deals. In 3 years, more than half our staff has turned over. My job is stressful by nature; the addition of an unstable boss who doesn't understand my job (and thus makes nonsensical demands and judges me on imaginary criteria) makes it nearly unbearable.

I would have quit after a year but I didn't because it's so hard to find another job, and I've searched for 18 months. I've tried to move internally but everyone knows how awful my boss is and they assume I'm so desperate to get out that I'll apply for anything. I am also in a perverse position of being overqualified for a lot of jobs in my field but under-qualified for areas that interest me, with no way to get professional development.

I have read stories here where people say "stop complaining about how stressed you are, I would give anything for your job." But a situation like mine is nothing to shrug off. I have had serious physical and mental repercussions; I reluctantly went to a therapist and she suggested I have post-traumatic stress disorder, which I thought was silly... but maybe it isn't.

I have sympathy for unemployed people and I know I'm lucky to have a decent salary and benefits. But I feel trapped, unwilling to tap into modest savings to live unemployed for a while, since it's unlikely I would find a job quickly (if at all). I would likely have to move as well, incurring a mess of new expenses. I have little alternative but to stay in a job I dread that's giving me an ulcer and autoimmune problems at the age of 28. And, if I quit out of misery I won't even get unemployment benefits.

Previously
The entire archive of our "Unemployment Stories" series can be found here.

[Thanks to everyone who wrote in. You can send your own unemployment story here.]

A typical Changing of the Guard ceremony outside Buckingham Palace yesterday morning was briefly interrupted by a man waving around two large knifes and ranting unintelligibly.

Police say 54-year-old Talhat Rehman of North West London was standing among ceremony onlookers when he suddenly burst forward and began gesturing towards his own neck and chest with a pair of knives.

"He was shouting but it was quite unintelligible. Police were clearly telling him to drop the knife and instructing public to get back," said eyewitness Josh Greenberg.

An officer eventually managed to seize a moment of distraction, and fired a Taser barb into Rehman's back, sending him to the ground. He was quickly subdued, and the drama concluded without incident.

"He was not making threats to members of the public but he was challenged by police. He acted aggressively and a Taser was discharged," a Scotland Yard spokesman said in a statement. Rehman was charged with two counts of possessing a bladed weapon in public, and one count of affray.

In 2002, Rehman ran unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for a council seat in the London Borough of Brent, according to his son.

[video via Grant Shepherd]

On August 31, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA public affairs officer Marty Bahamonde emailed his boss, then-FEMA chief Michael Brown, to make sure he understood how dire the situation had become in the Superdome, the New Orleans football stadium that was housing thousands of evacuees. "[T]he situation is past critical," he wrote in one of several emails he'd sent colleagues outlining the emergency. "We are out of food and running out of water." The stadium was overcrowded and undersupplied; there had already been three deaths, and Bahamonde expected more to die "within hours."

There was no response. A few hours later, Brown's press secretary emailed some FEMA employees, instructing them to book Brown on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show, and to make sure he had enough time to get a good meal at a restaurant, since "restaurants are getting busy" in Baton Rouge. The next day, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco sent in the national guard on local school buses to begin evacuation. On September 2, two days after Bahamonde's ignored warning, President Bush told Brown he was doing "a heck of a job." Three more people died before the stadium was fully evacuated on September 4. A week later, Brown resigned.

Anyway, he's not ignoring the Superdome anymore! The stadium hosted the Super Bowl last night, and Brown was watching:

Rolling Stone's most recent issue has Rihanna on the cover, with an accompanying profile by contributing editor Josh Eells. For the piece, Eells goes to a comedy show with the loudly expressive pop star, waits two hours to eat spaghetti with her, and grills the expert decision-maker about rekindling her love affair with Chris Brown, who is "disgusted" by his past behavior, Ri swears. (If you'd like to be filled with unspeakable rage, by all means, her Chris Brown quotes are here.) But there's another very important aspect of Rihanna's recent past that's addressed in the story, over a plate of calamari: the infamous Rihanna Plane.

Apparently Rihanna had a "great time" on the Rihanna Plane. She insists she had no idea the Rihanna Plane ever teetered on the edge of becoming Lord of the Flies Plane. It was the Rihanna Fun Plane, in her mind, not the Rihanna Starvation and Sleep-Deprivation Plane.

From the Rolling Stone feature, which unfortunately isn't freely online in its entirety:

I asked if she'd been following the drama online.

"What?" she says, like it's first time hearing of it. "I knew a couple of people got worked up, but only found out toward the end."

You didn't hear about the rest? They couldn't sleep, they didn't have food, it smelled bad. . . there was almost a riot!

"On the plane?" she says. "That's crazy!"

In that case, what was it like for her? "Oh I had a great time," she says. "The fun never stopped for me. I enjoyed every minute of it. And it definitely brought a lot of awareness to the album—which was the whole point."

Oh right. The Rihanna Plane was not the Rihanna Reporting Plane or the Rihanna Exclusive Access Plane, it was the Rihanna Raising Awareness Plane, as if Unapologetic was a string of human-rights violations or a medical condition that needs research funding. And that momentary confusion that the junket was some sort of journalism experience? Not Rihanna's fault. She had a great time!

[Rolling Stone]

Kids today. They're either silently pleading down their boners while other kids, clad only in underpants, rub up against them in public bars, or they're busy making sandwiches. Everyone has a different skillset.

One Direction sex gremlin Harry Styles celebrated his 19th birthday over the weekend by entertaining the ass of a stripper on his crotch. He was wearing a shirt with white hearts printed all over it. Sir Bob Geldof's daughter was there.

A couple days ago, Taylor Swift made a sandwich.

The stripper's services were allegedly purchased by one of Harry's friends a British radio D.J. According to the Daily Mail, her strip tease lasted ten minutes, to the tune of £100, which is bananas because 1) she looks like a bottom-dollar stripper at best and 2) so many tweens would gladly have filled in for free.

While the stripper arrived dressed as a policewoman, it quickly became apparently she was not, in fact, an officer of the law, when she began taking off her clothes for money. (Also, no proper law enforcement credentials.)

On Friday, Taylor Swift dressed up like a policewoman and arrested a sandwich for being too delicious, just kidding, she wasn't dressed up and also "too delicious" is not a crime.

Styles described the encounter to The Sun as "great," adding that he was "in stitches."

"It was really funny. We had a great night."

Harry also said that one of his friends recognized the stripper from college, and expressed disappointment that the former scholar had been unable to stand completely naked in the bar:

"She stripped down to her underwear but unfortunately there was a no-nudity policy in the bar."

Styles and Swift stopped sharing sandwiches in January.

[The Sun / Daily Mail // Images via JessBesst/Twitter and Getty]

The annual list of America's safest cities has been updated by CQ Press and the country's most crime-free metropolitan areas have something in common: you probably haven't heard of most of them! So lets get to know these very safe cities: their history, their culture, what famous people have been there and the unique laws that keep these cities safe.

Logan, Utah-Idaho

History and Geography: Logan was founded by Mormons in 1859. They were under direct orders from Brigham Young to find a good place for a fort. Instead they founded what would become a city of about 48,000 in far north Utah. It is also the home to Utah State University.
Most Notable Person: Evelyn Wood, speed-reading teacher
Stupid Law: Women are not allowed to swear in Logan.

Provo-Orem, Utah

History and Geography: Provo, located in the Utah Valley south of Salt Lake City, is known as home to Brigham Young University. It is also known as the most conservative city in America.
Most Notable Person: The Osmonds. Every. Single. One.
Stupid Law: It is illegal to throw snowballs in Provo.
We promise not all these cities are in Utah.

Appleton, Wisconsin

History and Geography: Appleton was initially settled by fur traders. It is located along the Fox River near Green Bay. It had the first residence powered by a "centrally located hydroelectric station." So good for them!
Most Notable Person: American patriot Joseph McCarthy
Stupid Law: Minors in Appleton cannot be outdoors later than 10 p.m. What a buzzkill.

Sheboygan, Wisconsin

History and Geography: The city was founded on the shore of Lake Michigan by a whole bunch of German people in 1846. Now there are a lot of Hmong people living there. They still eat a lot of bratwurst though.
Most Notable Person: Father of the "space opera" E. E. Smith
Stupid Law: You are not permitted to sprinkle water to the annoyance of others.

State College, Pennsylvania

History and Geography: State College, also called Happy Valley, is a college town in central Pennsylvania. It is home to the main campus of Penn State.
Most Notable Person: Jerry Sandusky, professional rapist
Stupid Law: It is illegal to sing in the tub in Pennsylvania.

Oshkosh-Neenah, Wisconsin

History and Geography: Oshkosh-Neenah is basically Appleton except Oshkosh is named for a Menominee Indian chief whose name means "claw" so see above.
Most Notable Person: Brothers Howard, Kenneth and William Hawks all grew up in the area. All three became major players in Hollywood later.
Stupid Law: Livestock have the right of way on Wisconsin roads, so get ready to travel pretty slow.

Nassau-Suffolk, New York

History and Geography: Nassau-Suffolk refers to Long Island. Specifically, the part of Long Island that's not the Hamptons, Brooklyn or Queens.
Most Notable Person: Take your pick. My favorites are the brothers Baldwin.
Stupid Law: In Head of the Harbor in Suffolk County, it is illegal to have a picnic in public.

Edison, New Jersey

History and Geography: Edison was named in honor of Thomas Edison who had his research lab there. In 1994 the area made news when a natural gas pipeline exploded in the area, forcing 1,500 people to evacuate.
Most Notable Person: Susan Sarandon, American gem
Stupid Law: Nothing is more stupid than the law that makes it illegal to pump your own gas statewide.

Harrisonburg, Virginia

History and Geography: Harrisonburg is located in the Shenandoah Valley. It was named for an early settler of the area, Thomas Harrison, and, according to Wikipedia, is sometimes called "The Burg" which is a pretty lazy nickname.
Most Notable Person: NFL linebacker Akeem Jordan
Stupid Law: Dayton, Virginia — a part of the Harrisonburg metropolitan area — still has a law on the books that says a person of color may not be oustide or within the city limits after 7 p.m.

Green Bay, Wisconsin

History and Geography: Again, Green Bay is basically Appleton. It is one of the oldest permanent settlements in America. They like cheese. And football. A lot.
Most Notable Person: Detective Adrian Monk Tony Shaloub
Stupid Law: Owners of leaky cars can be fined $1 per drip on the pavement.

The list also provides us the the most dangerous metropolitan areas. Any guesses where Detroit lands?

1. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Michigan
2. Pine Bluff, Arkansas
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas
5. Stockton, California
6. New Orleans, Louisiana
7. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
8. Little Rock, Arkansas
9. Mobile, Alabama
10. Jackson, Tennessee

Of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, New York City fares best at 128, followed by Washington, D.C. (192), Los Angeles (215), Boston (222), Dallas (229), Atlanta (279), Houston (300), Miami (310), and Philadelphia (311). Chicago was not ranked.

[All images via Flickr]

A candid cover letter penned by a South Korean job seeker is getting some serious attention today.

Not because of how polished it is. Quite the contrary: It is riddled with grammatical errors, having likely been translated verbatim from the author's mother tongue.

Still, through the broken English, a clear portrait of a hardworking, hard-feeling wild bear lifter emerges.

In all seriousness, his passion, ambition, and, perhaps most importantly, willingness to work without pay for an indefinite period of time make him an ideal candidate.

If you're looking for someone who has service, retail, manufacturing, and farming experience and can run faster than a train, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone better.

[H/T: Copyranter]

The seven-day stand-off between a survivalist and Alabama and federal authorities has come to a close. Jimmy Lee Dykes, who kidnapped a five-year-old boy in Midland City after shooting his school bus driver last week, is dead; the boy he had kidnapped is alive.

Dykes, who has been described as a "survivalist," "disturbed" and "unstable," was holding the five-year-old named Ethan in an underground bunker since Jan. 29. Initially Dykes was cooperating with authorities, even letting authorities get medication to Ethan, who has ADD and Asperger's syndrome, through a PVC pipe. But Steve Richardson, a special agent in charge of the investigation, says communication broke down sometime early Monday. In the afternoon, he was seen holding a gun, which is when FBI agents forced their way into the bunker, killing Dykes.

"The child appears physically unharmed and is being treated at a local hospital," Richardson said while reading a prepared to reporters. He did not take any questions.

Neighbors say Dykes dug the bunker himself, saying it was a tornado shelter; the door was booby trapped.

Dykes' motives behind the killing and kidnapping remain unclear. However, there have been reports that Dykes initially told negotiators he'd trade Ethan for a chance to "tell his story."

Ethan turns six on Wednesday.

[Image via AP]

We're all jealous of Kate Middleton now. The shiny hair. The castle home. But in 500 years she'll be just another monarch buried underneath a Pizza Hut parking lot, so who cares, really?

Researchers in England confirmed Monday that the skeletal remains found underneath a dirty old car park in the city of Leicester belonged, not to The Keeper of the Cars, a lovable neighborhood scamp with a dying wish to be buried under the machines whose whirr was the only music he ever understood, but to King Richard III, the English monarch whose bloody rise to power inspired one of William Shakespeare's best-known plays.

We've all lost things in parking lots. A nickel. Our virginity. A receipt that we didn't need anyway. The body of King Richard III of England; it happens.

Back when the skeleton was buried in the late 15th century, the area wasn't even a parking lot yet; it was Grey Friars Church, Site of Future Parking Lot. The remains were interred near the altar. Records of the site were lost in the 1530s, when Henry VIII, king of England and inadvertent parking lot visionary, ordered the dissolution and destruction of monasteries.

Then, late last summer, a University of Leicester archaeologist excavating a trench cut into a municipal parking lot uncovered remains that many suspected could be King Richard, and everyone was like "Oh, right, that's where we put that guy."

On Monday, the lead archaeologist on the bone-identification project, told reporters that tests have now indicated "beyond reasonable doubt" that the body is "indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England."

"We're certain now, as certain as you can be of anything in life."

You want some evidence?

DNA samples taken from the remains matched those of two modern-day descendants of Richard III. Carbon dating of the skeleton's rib bones indicated they belonged to an individual who had died between 1455 and 1540; Richard III died in battle 20 miles from Leicester in 1485. The skull featured a gaping hole, where Richard III was said to have been killed by a blow to the head with a halberd, a terrifying medieval weapon that consists of a long pole fixed with an axe blade. The skeleton's curved spine indicated a sufferer scoliosis; Richard III is remembered as a hunchback. The remains belonged to someone whose diet was rich in meat and fish—almost certainly a nobleman.

Also, a random woman said she "felt a chill" when she walked over the site before it was excavated and "knew" it was Richard's grave, so what more do you need?

Richard III will likely be reinterred at an Anglican cathedral in Leicester early next year.

Hopefully in the parking lot, because parking lots are his fave.

[Telegraph // NYT // Image via AP]

Lord Jamar of the '90s political-minded hip-hop group Brand Nubian (and who also acted on Oz) has at last weighed in on the skirt Kanye West rocked almost two months ago at the 12-12-12 benefit show at Madison Square Garden (not to mention the several times before that on his Watch the Throne tour with Jay-Z). Yes, finally we have Lord Jamar's voice in the mix, so at last we can put this issue to rest. Jamar isn't a fan, as his new track "Lift Up Your Skirt" attests. Here are some of his lines:

Somebody mad at my hashtag
Black man lookin' half a fag
With a blazer and vest
I'm just amazed at the mess
Pioneer of this queer shit is Kanye West
He introduced the skinny jeans to the rap scene
Then he wore a fucking skirt on the video screen
Then he wore it again at a memorial
I can't pretend that this shit ain't deplorable
I bet this nigga thinkin' he looking adorable
Your music's good but your ego is horrible

Jamar goes on to say:

I rebuke all this gay shit
Some are scared to say shit
You might lay and take this
But I'm not to be played with

Homophobic sentiment is hardly surprising from a member of Brand Nubian. On 1993's infamous "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down," Jamar's groupmate Sadat X famously rapped, "I can freak, fly, flow, fuck up a faggot/I don't understand their ways; I ain't down with gays." The line was later removed from the song in subsequent pressings of the album, and doesn't appear on the version included on the compilation The Very Best of Brand Nubian.

Jamar started harping on this subject about a week ago, when he posted a picture of a different black man in a skirt on Instagram with the caption, "Y'all Cee where the Kanye shit is takin us right? #halfafag." He later clarified his stance to SOHH.com:

First of all, it's not just jabs at Kanye West. It's anybody promoting the feminization — of the Black man in hip-hop culture. Anybody that I see out there, rocking dresses and all of that type of shit, I might shoot a jab at. But Kanye is one of the ones right now that's representing that movement. He's one of the first ones that you see in a skirt. Now you got other people following suit and rocking full-out dresses or they're trying to rock kilts. We're not Irish. We're not Europeans. Rocking kilts and all that is just another excuse to introduce that skirt style. You understand what I'm saying? And I'm not with it. This has nothing to do with sexuality, who they choose to be with and all that, I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking specifically about, what is hip-hop? And that's not hip-hop. Rocking dresses with mean faces, that's not hip-hop.

So not only is he extremely late to the game, he's using the "this isn't hip-hop" argument against someone who is infinitely more relevant to the culture right now than he is. Being gay isn't a choice, but being an asshole is. Cool guy. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from him. Kanye may be wearing a skirt, but Lord Jamar is showing his ass.

Incidentally, if you are wondering why the art accompanying this post is not of Kanye in that infamous kilt, it's because it is now impossible to purchase a picture of him in it from a photo agency. Getty confirmed that they were asked to scrub their site of the several shots of Kanye from the 12-12-12 show they hosted. They wouldn't say why. If this somehow came from Kanye, and the mockery he faced afterward made him ashamed of his bold move (clearly made with the knowledge that strong reactions like Jamar's, however backward, were possible), that makes him weaker than any skirt possibly could suggest.

Listen to Jamar's track below if you feel like rolling your eyes until they hurt:

[Image via Getty]

Beyonce and voodoo have been ruled out as potential culprits in the bizarre 33-minute blackout during last night's Super Bowl. But what about hackers? It took just a few minutes after the lights went out in the Superdome for hackers to begin hinting they had something to do with it. "#TangoDown Superbowl XLVII," tweeted the most popular Twitter account of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. It's an outlandish claim and almost certainly a troll. But it's possible, and here's how it might have happened.

To be clear, there's no reason to suspect hackers are to blame for the blackout according to Entergy, the power company that supplies electricity to the Superdome. "We haven't seen anything at this time to suggest that this is a cyberattack," Entergy spokesman Michael J. Burns told me this afternoon.

But the fact that Entergy doesn't completely rule out hackers says a lot about the potential for malicious nerds to wreck real-life havoc these days. During the blackout, computer security experts unleashed a flurry of speculation on Twitter, most only half-serious, that some hacker had taken over the Superdome to show off their skills.

"It is entirely possible that a negative actor" shut off the lights, said James Arlen, a senior consultant at Leviathan Security Group who advises clients in the financial and utility sectors on computer security. "Is it likely? No."

It's especially unlikely given what we know so far of the blackout. It's been traced to a problem with a sensor on the power lines that feed into the stadium, which are operated by Entergy. The sensor detected an unidentified "abnormality," then cut power to part of the Superdome in order to "isolate the issue," according to an Entergy statement. This would suggest that if hackers were behind the blackout, they somehow tricked Entergy's sensor into shutting off power. Which means hackers would have had access to part of the power grid itself.

This is theoretically possible: experts have warned of cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid with increasing urgency in recent years. Hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in the supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA systems that control power utilities, along with dams and other industrial facilities. But this would be an enormous feat, and to date there have been no confirmed attacks like this in the U.S., according to Arlen. (Though the U.S. and Israeli-created Stuxnet virus was able to disrupt Iranian nuclear weapons facilities by attacking their SCADA system.)

An easier route than taking over the power grid would have been for hackers to break into the network of the Superdome itself. Most large buildings like the Superdome manage their utilities using what's known as a building automation system, or BAS, Arlen said. Often a BAS is connected to the internet to allow remote access by maintenance personnel and to monitor the efficiency of heating and lighting systems. BAS systems are not always as secure as other sensitive computer networks. Theoretically, a hacker who broke into the Superdome's BAS could shut down the lights, Arlen said. This could happen remotely, by hackers chancing on an unsecured network through a Google search, or through a physical intrusion. Arlen recalled one security audit of a large stadium during which he discovered an unsecured network port connected to a vendor kiosk outside the stadium. If a hacker had plugged their laptop into the port, they could have made their way through the network and screwed with the BAS.

From a spectator's point of view, what a hacker did once they got into the building is far more interesting than how they did it. And as much as any technical unfeasibility, it's the blackout's lameness that suggests a boring technical glitch, and not a mischievous hacker is to blame.

"If you're going to do that, you do something a little grander," Arlen said. "What would be funny would be turning off half the lights, then turning them back on, then turning off the other half," Arlen said.

That's one of the few things that could have topped Beyonce's performance.

Ah, babies.

Young enough to be endlessly enthralled by the perpetual motion of a Playskool Busy Ball Popper, too young to realize it's all downhill from here.

According to this euphoric infant's mother, this video was once a finalist on America's Funniest Home Videos, but lost out to a boy who knew the names of all the presidents.

"[Y]ea we did get ripped off at afv! that other kid memorized his lines for his video," she groused on YouTube. "[I]t was soooooo set up by the kids parents, the mom even told me so , but oh well."

Yet another one of life's great injustices: Old enough to know that you've been robbed of $10,000, too old to alleviate the sting by staring at a bunch of colorful objects going around in a circle.

[H/T: DPAF, Clip Nation]

Hey, guys. Have you heard about this guy J.C.? He's a cool dude with some pretty radical ideas. He wanted everyone to be chill to one another, like the TOMS shoe guy, and he wore strappy gladiator sandals everywhere. He ended up getting betrayed by one of his best bros. Yeah, I guess you could say this J.C. was pretty neat.

What does J.C. stand for? Nah, playa, not Chasez. We're talkin' Jesus Christ.

According to Us Weekly, fat blunts and their eyes aren't the only things Hollywood's baddest teens are rolling these days; they're also rolling themselves right through the door of a respectable bible study meeting.

Regular attendees of Hollywood's hottest and boringest club night are said to include Selena Gomez, a guy from 90210 whose Twitter bio describes him as "Christian" and Vanessa Hudgens – the Mary Magdalene of the group who probably thought "bible study" was code for something cooler. ("'Bible study' huh? Maybe I can bring my 'friend' 'Molly' haha...")

Justin Bieber and his mother Pattie are also rumored to have attended past meet-ups.

The group is said to be organized by E! correspondent Jason Kennedy, who earns his meager pittance reporting on who his young charges are smooching and with whom they are doing the hanky panky.

According to US, the group meets once a month in the conference room of a Beverly Hills hotel for "coffee and conversation."

And probably a little coke in the bathroom, right?

[US // Images via Getty]

Donald Trump, last seen around here giving props to and then having his feelings hurt by Deadspin, is a well-known idiot. Even Brian Williams thinks so. But still, here Trump is, doing dumb things in public and here we are, posting about it. Donald's most recent offense? Suing Bill Maher over a clearly fake bet Maher made on The Tonight Show last month.

During his interview with Jay Leno, Maher joked that he would pay $5 million to charity of Trump's choosing if Trump provided proof he's not the "spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan."

This was a clear reference to Trump's worthless "October surprise," in which the toupee'd buffoon made a bet of his own.

"I have a deal for the president, a deal that I don't believe he can refuse, and I hope he doesn't. If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give, to a charity of his choice-inner-city children in Chicago, American Cancer Society, AIDS research, anything he wants-a check, immediately, for $5 million."

So Maher was making a joke, one that was obvious to everyone except Trump.

"I don't think he was joking. He said it with venom. That was venom. That wasn't a joke. In fact, he was nervous when he said it. It was a pathetic delivery," Trump said on Fox News.

Pathetic delivery or not, Trump actually filed a lawsuit in a California court after providing proof that he was not, in spite of the evidence, the son of an orangutan. In fact, this is what Trump's attorney said:

"Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump's birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan," Balber wrote in the letter.

Glad that's settled. As for the lawsuit's possibility of success, not even Trump is optimistic.

[Image via AP]

Last Friday, not one, not two, but three members of the MacNeil family were detained after smoking aboard a Sunwing flight from Halifax to the Dominican Republic. David, 54, Donna, and David Jr, 22, were all allegedly smoking mid-flight, something that has been banned for over twenty years now.

"My understanding is that these passengers were smoking in their seats, which is unusual to say the least," said [Sunwing spokesman Daryl] McWilliams.

"It's been 20 years since people were allowed to smoke on an aircraft. The only thing I can think of [is] maybe they wanted to stage some sort of display that 'we're opposed to this law.'"

When the clan of air smokers were confronted by shocked flight attendants, they became unruly, with the elder David reportedly shouting, "You fucking asshole, I just pissed on the floor." While the floor pissing remains unconfirmed, the three MacNeils reportedly continued to disobey Sunwing crew members (a witness described "lots of screaming and swearing"), forcing an emergency landing in Bermuda.

MacNeil Sr was charged with and pleaded guilty to behaving in a disorderly manner and "using abusive and insulting words," which is apparently an offense. Donna MacNeil pleaded guilty to disobeying lawful commands. Both were sentenced to pay a $500 fine or spend 10 days in prison. As for Lil David Jr., he "denied the charge" of smoking on the plane and was set free. A fourth MacNeil (yes, there are more), a teenager, was not charged with any crimes.

But the MacNeils aren't in the clear yet. Sunwing has plans to sue the hell out of them.

"We're going to sue them," [McWilliams] said. "It's something that we don't do very often. We do it in cases where we think the activity has been flagrant. It usually requires going beyond verbal abuse."

McWilliams estimates that the cost of diverting the flight could be as much as $50,000.

That cost apparently includes fees for landing in Bermuda, flying a mechanic to Bermuda to deal examine the overweight plane (it hadn't burned off enough fuel to land, apparently), overnight accommodations for all the passengers, and hiring a crew to search the plane for cigarette butts.

"The passengers involved in this ridiculous situation refused to say what they did with their cigarettes so that meant that there was a potentially hazardous material, which was an incendiary, onboard the aircraft," said McWilliams.

And if you're at all curious about the location of the MacNeil's home, Huffington Post Canada is here to help:

Owain Johnston-Barnes, a reporter for Bermuda's Royal Gazette who was in the Hamilton court Monday, said the three MacNeils are from Mabou, Cape Breton, and that the family lives together off of Route 19.

So future travellers considered yourself warned: Stay away from Route 19 in Obscure, Canada.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Late Monday evening, NBC's Michael Isikoff released a report detailing a confidential Justice Department memo obtained by NBC News. The memo, called the white paper, discusses the legal justifications for the use of drone strikes and other lethal attacks against American citizens believed to be members of al-Qaida, offering explanations that expand on public statements previously issued by Obama's nominee for CIA director John Brennan and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Whereas Brennan and Holder have both stated that such targeted killings were "consistent with the inherent right of self-defense" (Brennan) and used when the target poses "an imminent threat of violent attack" (Holder), the white paper offers a much broader justifications for such attacks. For instance:

"The condition that an operational  leader present an ‘imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future," the memo states.

Instead, it says,  an "informed, high-level" official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American  has been "recently" involved in "activities" posing a threat of a violent attack and "there is  no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities." The memo does not define "recently" or "activities." 

The memo also reiterates a three-part test previously mentioned by Holder that would make the targeted killing of an American citizen legal.

1) The above very vague definition of "imminent threat"
2) That the capturing of the target is decided to be "infeasible"
3) The attack must be done within the "law of war principles."

But whereas Holder's public statements were vague, the white paper goes into specifics.

For example, it states that U.S. officials may consider whether an attempted capture of a suspect  would pose an "undue risk" to U.S. personnel involved in such an operation. If so, U.S. officials could determine that the capture operation of the targeted American would not be feasible, making it lawful for the U.S. government to order a killing instead, the memo concludes.

The white paper also clarifies, or attempts to anyway, why such targeted killings aren't war crimes or assassinations, which are banned under executive order.

"A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination," the white paper reads. "In the Department's view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban. Similarly,  the use of lethal force, consistent with the laws of war, against an individual who is a legitimate military target would be lawful and would not violate the assassination ban."

It's worth noting that the white paper is not an official legal memo, but it's considered to closely resemble classified memos used by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Obama administration has rejected repeated requests to release those classified documents to Congress or the public, and has denied their existence.

Human right advocates are, as you might expect, upset with the document's revelations.

"This is a chilling document," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which has sued unsuccessfully in court to obtain administration memos about the targeted killing of Americans.  "Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it's easy to see how they could be manipulated."

Jaffer goes into greater detail in a post on the ACLU's website, writing:

It takes as a given that the target of the strike will be a "senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force of al-Qa'ida," and it reasons from that premise that judicial process is unnecessary. This is a little bit like assuming that the defendant is guilty and then asking whether it's useful to have a trial. Perhaps the white paper omits analysis that appears in the Justice Department's legal memos, but again the legal memos are, inexcusably, still secret.

My colleagues will have more to say about the white paper soon, but my initial reaction is that the paper only underscores the irresponsible extravagance of the government's central claim. Even if the Obama administration is convinced of its own fundamental trustworthiness, the power this white paper sets out will be available to every future president-and every "informed high-level official" (!)-in every future conflict.

Expect to hear more about the memo throughout the week; John Brennan has his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

[Image via AP]