The venerable St. Louis Post-Dispatch dropped George Will's column after the opprobrium heaped on his latest musings on nonconsensual touching. But he will not be silenced after this violation by the Twittocracy. Victims must speak out. Here's George Will taking back the night.

Will proudly stands by his defining-downward of "sexual assault," scare quotes and all, according to Dylan Byers:

In an interview with CSPAN, Will said the Post-Dispatch's decision simply reflected the paper's desire to keep the uproar over his op-ed going.

"They know how to perpetuate the rabble," the columnist said.

You see, Will's column—in which he lambasts "victimhood" of the new "sexual assault" as "a coveted status that confers privileges"—is not the problem; permissive online culture is the problem:

"[The Internet] has lowered, erased the barriers to entry into public discourse, that's a good thing. Unfortunately the downside is that among the barriers to entry that have been reduced is that you don't have to know how to read, write, or think you can just come in and shout and call names and carry on," Will said.

Indeed, the democratization of online publishing means, regrettably, that anyone is free to challenge a nice old rich columnist who merely wants to defend America from the scourge of "capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching."

"I think I take sexual assault somewhat more seriously than the senators do because I think there's a danger now of defining sexual assault so broadly, so capriciously that it begins to the trivialize the seriousness of it," Will said. "When remarks become sexual assault, improper touching … we being to blur distinctions that are important to preserve if you believe as the senators purport to believe, that this is a serious matter."

You see? Sexual assault is totally different from bad touching. And also, words are completely trivial. As nice old rich columnists well know.

[Photo via]

It's summertime and the European Union is feeling its damn self. Days after another complaint with the EU about Google's anticompetitive behavior, German publishers decided they've had enough of Silicon Valley as well.

According to Ars Technica:

Several of Germany's largest newspaper and magazine publishers have instituted legal proceedings against Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. They're seeking an order that would make the search engines pay them an 11 percent portion of their "gross sales, including foreign sales" that come "directly and indirectly from making excerpts from online newspapers and magazines public."

The publishers are asking the courts to help them get a cut of their own content because legislative attempts haven't panned out. That's troublesome for Google since the European Court of Justice last month ruled that citizens have a Right To Be Forgotten by search engines. Ars Technica says:

The demand comes at a time when Google just doesn't seem to be popular with European judges and regulators.

But don't pity the GOOG. It still has one loyal thinkfluencer in the form of new media hawk Jeff Jarvis, who is calling the complaint: "The German War Against the Link." If news organizations want a fair playing field, they should be the ones paying Google to scrape them. No, really. That's what he argues:

Their demands are as absurd as they are cynical and dangerous. First, of course, Google is sending the publishers plenty of value as well. That is, Google is sending the publishers us: readers, customers, the public these news organizations allegedly want to serve. So what are we, chopped liver? I'll be posting an essay soon that argues that one reason media have a problem building new digital business models is that we still think value is intrinsic only in content; we have no marketplace and metrics for valuing the creation of an audience for it (now that those functions are unbundled). If the publishers really want a fair exchange of value, then they should also be paying Google for the links — the readers — it sends their way. But, of course, that would create a moral hazard and corrupt search; that Google does not charge for placement in search and Google News is precisely what set it apart from predecessors and built a valuable and trusted service.

Sure, demanding 11 percent sounds absurd, almost as goofy as that time Marissa Mayer testified in the Senate that Google has been great for the news biz. But its another sign that overseas regulators aren't as complacent as our homegrown variety.

The German publishers are asking for 11 percent from both direct and indirect sales. The latter seems to point to advertising revenue that the search giant amassed by becoming the default portal for news. But Jarvis assumes the only way to find articles is news dot google dot com:

Note, by the way, that Google does not place advertising on Google News. Are the publishers seeking 11% of 0? Note as well that there is data to say that longer samples of content could end up sending *more* traffic to creators (more on that, too, in a later post). These are facts that will need to be discussed in any suits.

Note also, by the way, that Google paid Jarvis' travel expenses to speak at a Google Big Tent event in Berlin earlier this month. "I do not accept other payment from Google," he clarifies. Please, the author of What Would Google Do? has some standards.

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

[Image via Shutterstock]

Summer is hot, which makes it prime time for two things: popsicles and anger. That they will, on occasion, combine and combust in popsicle-related crime is perhaps inevitable.

This type of crime began in the 20th century. Popsicles, as you may be aware, date only to the 1920s. It is not relevant to the nature of popsicle crimes that I tell you the story of how they were invented, but it is amusing, so: a San Francisco 11-year-old named Frank Epperson left a mixing-stick in a glass of soda outdoors overnight. It froze solid, and so haunted was he by the deliciousness that six years later he began marketing the product commercially.

He could not have known what future mayhem he'd inspire. Consider the following cases, which are mostly mid-century. (I would theorize that they dropped off thereafter because of the miracle of air-conditioning.)

Philadelphia, 1935

An item ran in the Philadelphia Tribune of June 13, 1935, with the following headline:

Evidently two men were arguing. One had leant the other a dime. The borrower, a popsicle vendor, refused to pay. The lender demanded payment in kind: two popsicles. The borrower refused, so the lender shot him. Fair enough. It was the Depression, after all.

Washington, D.C., 1950

A man was accused of embezzling $34.50 from the Goody-truck he ran in Washington, D.C. He tried to explain to the judge:

The judge was unsympathetic about this profession of popsicle generosity and sentenced the man to pay a $100 fine. One also learns from this item in the Washington Post that "popsicle butcher" was once the name of this proud profession, which has overtones of violence.

Birmingham, 1952

The victims of these crimes were of course not all adults. 1952 saw a roving gang in Birmingham, Alabama, hold up a popsicle wagon run by a 13-year-old boy. The group of 14-to-16-year-olds brandished knives and a nickel-plated revolver.

They took $4 and six dozen ice cream sandwiches from him. That seems wasteful, if you ask me; they cannot possibly have consumed all of those ice cream sandwiches before they melted.

Los Angeles, 1952

One fine day in August, a young boy named Marvin tried to take a couple popsicles to the local swimming pool at the Seminole Hot Springs resort. But Eddie, the 11-year-old son of the resort's owners, was manning the pool turnstile, and he would have none of it. Both Eddie's and Martin's mothers got involved. Grown adults apparently threw popsicles at each other.

It seems the police declined to lay charges, but the dispute did reach the attention of the courts when Marvin's parents sued Eddie's for damages totally $40,500:

It took the jury 8 hours of deliberation to reach that verdict.

Washington, D.C., 1955

A 14-year-old stole a popsicle from a corner store and fled on a bicycle. The storekeeper, determined to catch the thief before he got away with his 5-cent bounty, hopped in his car. He managed to run the thief off the road and called police. But then it turned out that the storekeeper didn't have a driver's license.

Moral of the story: Popsicle vigilantism is risky.

East Hampton, 1975

12 popsicles were reported stolen from a local school kitchen, with no sign of a forced entry. The Hartford Courant went pun-wild:

Miami, 1991

Two expert burglars tripped up when police noticed one of them was visiting pawn stores with fair regularity. The police followed them to the next house with their . Per the Miami Herald:

The two detectives radioed for help. Twelve squad cars arrived. Six lined up on each side of the street. Baker and Reilly drove out of the garage, eating chocolate Popsicles they took from a refrigerator, Davis said.

The police cars converged on them. The pair, Popsicles in mouths, were arrested, said Lewis.

Hilton Head, SC, 2014

I'll let the Island Packet take this one away:

Deputies responded to a home on Pinecrest Lane on Saturday evening after a mother reported that her 17-year-old son was eating all the popsicles in the home and started a fight with another person when asked to share, according to a Sheriff's Office report.

No injuries were reported in the incident and the mother did not want to pursue charges, according to the report.

In short, be safe this summer, everyone. Although popsicle-related crime has abated in recent decades it is not yet extinct. Follow the New York subway rules: Do not display cellphones, other personal electronic devices, or frozen sugary treats.

[Image by Jim Cooke.]

Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, who was accused of sexually assaulting a subordinate and pleaded guilty in March to having improper relationships with two other Army women, will retire honorably in the next few weeks at the reduced rank of lieutenant colonel, according to an Army spokesman.

Sinclair remains eligible for full retirement benefits, though they'll be lower than the $832,000 he would have received had he retired as a general.

Army Secretary John McHugh said today that the decision to demote Sinclair was "legally sustainable," and that federal law prevents a harsher punishment. When Sinclair was convicted in March, he was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for abusing a government credit card while having improper relationships.

The complex sexual assault case against Sinclair was ultimately undermined in March when his primary accuser failed to turn over cell phone evidence to the government. The lead prosecutor later dropped out, and Sinclair was able to strike a deal by pleading guilty to having an adulterous affair with the primary accuser and improper relationships with two other subordinates. His primary accuser maintains that Sinclair sexually assaulted her twice while the two were deployed in Afghanistan, and that he threatened to kill her when she tried to end their relationship. All of this played out while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tried (and failed) to get Congress to take military sexual assault cases outside the chain of command.

Today is the first time in ten years that the Army has demoted a general by two ranks.

[Image via AP]

We have brought you quite a few firsthand accounts of the misery of working for Amazon at all levels, from the corporate offices to the warehouses. Today, we bring you tales of woe from the people who answer Amazon's customer service calls.

We present to you two stories from customer service agents. The first:

I am sure some of the folks that actually emailed you probably have quite a bit more to deal with by being in the office, but I am not sure if you've heard anything from the Work From Home folks. We don't have as difficult a time as some of the people that work onsite, but there are other troubles brewing for us that make the job less than desirable, and it's based off our customers. Let me begin by explaining how our metrics work. We are timed on all our calls & have goals set for hold times, talk times, and after call work (just like all call centers are). But the biggest issue we have going on right now relates to the metric we get from customers answering the survey at the end of our emails. We are expected to have a certain percentage of "No" responses. Obviously the lower the percentage, the better we are doing, in management's eyes, to keep people happy. This system is FLAWED. Why? Because we have some customers out there that decide, even though we solved their problem, to click "No" instead of "Yes" and we have no information on WHY unless the customer leaves any additional comments (98% of people that say "No" don't seem to bother, even if we fulfilled their request). So basically, if the customer does not leave any feedback as to why they chose "No", we are stuck with management telling us our tone wasn't nice enough, or our apology was insincere (yes, really). We have asked our upper management to change the formatting so that in order to click NO, you need to explain why you are saying No. Unfortunately that didn't fly.

To add insult to injury, that is our TOP determining metric. As of March of this year, if our percentage for this metric is so high that it puts us in the "lower 15%" of our work group, we immediately get our first written warning. After 4 weeks of "Performance Improvement Plan" which is supposed to include 2 coachings from our Leads each week (and we only ever get 1), if we slip into that 15% again we are given our final. So now is where we run into being overly stressed & very unhappy. It's not uncommon to hear that some of us are on anxiety & depression meds, or experience frequent migraines. We have agents that have been leaders on other teams seasonally, and top performers who are now on their final warnings, all because we have NO way of knowing why people are clicking no if we resolved their issue (yes, there are customers that don't like our policies, or that we can't do exactly what they request of us, I'm not referring to these, as they are expected). And the worst part is we are expected to take ownership of those responses, even if we did nothing wrong. The management team refuses to do anything about it, and the worst part is, the new policy went into effect without any notice to us. Not only that, but when we asked for the new policy in writing, we are told that things can change at will & we are not required to be notified prior to these changes taking effect. How can we "follow" the rules if they are changed at a moment's notice? How can they enforce policy that isn't even written or available for us to review?

And another:

I have worked in several call centers over the years and absolutely loved Amazon when I started in 2011. I could work from home and not have a manager hovering over me. I was able to shuffle out of bed, get coffee, and still be in my pajamas until lunch. It was laid back and the only thing we really had to do was make the customer happy; remail a lost package, help a customer place an order online, or refund orders.

We were ranked on a system they called EDR (Expressed Dissatisfaction Rate) which was based on the customer survey sent out that states "Did I Resolve Your Problem?" Most reps loved EDR, it took into account for every single call you had taken. Now, they rate you on NRR, the Negative Response Rate. They take the number of NOs you receive and divide them by the number of Yesses received. They provide you with "goals" that most people have difficulty meeting. If I took 80 calls in one week and only received 15 Yes responses and 3 NOS my NRR is 20%. Anyone in the bottom 15% is being written up and eventually fired.

Even if you meet their "goals" and have one bad week it can ruin you. I would assume that a rep that has the least amount of disappointed customers and less NOs would be a great employee, but unless you get 10 customers to say YES to for each NO you receive, you are above goal. It appears that anyone that has recently used FMLA, or been here longer than a year is being targeted. They are asking people to write their letters of resignation instead of being fired. I'm assuming this is to prevent unemployment payout.

Most employees are so stressed that they are getting sick mentally and physically. Anytime we are messaged or asked to chat with our CSMs, we wonder "Is this it?" We are belittled and told that "we should know our stats and where we stand in ranking," yet the site that shows those figures doesn't work. They will tell you how great your tone is and then when you are written up they tell you just how awful you sounded. There is no consistency to the way they manage anything. They have different departments doing so much that it's no wonder people don't have the right information to provide to their customers...

The hiring wage in Washington in 2011 was $12.10 an hour. Now, they are hiring at $10.00. Anyone above that is struggling to keep their jobs as Amazon wants to remain frugal. For those of us that have put in a good two to three years, this is the end of the Amazon road. We are told our stats are terrible, but not able to see where we rank. We just have to believe what they tell us...

When we get NOs we are told we should try harder! Even if there is absolutely nothing we can do. I've had customers call and yell about their video not playing and come to find it it was purchased from iTunes, yet they are dissatisfied. Would many of us work at Amazon if we had known this? Nope! It is like being in a relationship and finding out they weren't serious about the relationship after two and a half years. It is soul crushing!

[Photo: Getty. You can email the author of this post at Hamilton@Gawker.com]

Since taking Mosul earlier this month, the Islamic militant group ISIS has robbed banks, committed mass executions, and burned oil refineries as Iraq slides closer and closer to all-out war. According to NYPD counterterrorism chief John Miller, New Yorkers and other Americans are marching in their ranks.

Miller estimates there are more than 100 Americans currently fighting alongside groups like ISIS in Iraq and Syria, though he has not said exactly how many or how he came about the information. The terror chief expressed worry that American jihadists would attempt violence upon their return to the country. From the New York Daily News:

"I would be hyper-concerned about the people over there from New York City on the presumption they're going to return to New York City," John Miller, said Thursday.

Miller said he is just as worried about American jihadists from "Chicago, Minnesota, Portland, you name it."

"If their mindset is to return to America and to engage in terrorist activities, they're likely going to end up in New York anyway," Miller said.

This morning, what appears to be an ISIS recruitment video titled "There Is No Life Without Jihad" surfaced online, featuring a group of British and Australian jihadists urging Westerners to join the movement.

[Image via AP]

Even an unscientific ESPN poll tells an enduring truth sometimes. Apparently the only places where a majority of hypothetical Washington NFL fans really couldn't brook a hypothetical name change for the team are the deep South and Utah. Maybe that changes if we leave a link to the poll here.

Miami police have arrested 3 people in connection with an underage group sex video allegedly filmed Wednesday. One of the suspects, 19-year-old Bianca Byndloss, is a self-described "porn diva" and "foot goddess" who does sex shows on Skype and runs a Tumblr dedicated to her feet.

Byndloss was arrested Thursday night following the previous arrests of Christian Hernandez, 19, and Bryan Yanes, 18. The three are accused of orchestrating a sex party with three young girls (ages 12, 13 and 14). Hernandez allegedly posted clips and photos of the session online.

The foot goddess has a number of previous arrests, on charges including burglary, theft, and battery. She was recently accused by a Skype client of taking his money and running.

She saves her more explicit photos for her Twitter account, where she describes herself as "Miami's po$hprincess aquarius goddess up-cumming porn diva born and raised in miami dade baby!"

Byndloss has been charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a minor and promoting sexual performance of a child. Each carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

[H/T Daily Dot]

Circa, a news app, has opinions about how news should be covered, and contributing editor Evan Buxbaum has taken to Medium to explain them. It's quite an explanation:

When a mass shooting happens, the trend among media outlets has been to cover the event and then shift focus to the sensationalized aspects of the perpetrator. The victims, mourning and any heroes that emerge often become a sidebar as attention turns to the deranged worldview of an unstable person.

The raw tragedy of mass shootings warrant our attention. The perpetrators do not.

The attention that mass shooters win through their shootings is a real problem. Adam Lanza's scoreboard made it clear, if it wasn't already. There's a contagious element to people deciding to act this way, and the idea of the attention they'll get clearly is part of their motivations.

But it's only part of the motivation. So Circa's analysis of the problem quickly melts into sanctimonious nonsense:

Unfortunately two instances this month have necessitated Circa to work on this strategy, with shootings taking place in Nevada and Oregon. Circa decided not to name the deceased killers or lend credence to their homicidal actions by reporting on lurid elements that materialized. We don't think anything valuable was lost by this approach. Our updates focused on the victims and survivors, on steps taken that may have saved lives, and how communities gathered to mourn those lost.

In Oregon, OK, sure. Some kid shot another kid to death and wounded a teacher at school. Deprive an angry teen of attention, why not? We're not going to remember the difference between this one and the next one anyway.

But Nevada? In Nevada, the "lurid elements" were that the perpetrators assassinated two police officers, then reportedly shouted about "revolution" and covered the bodies with a Gadsden flag and a "swastika-stamped manifesto." There was explicit political content to the murders. One of the killers, Jerad Miller, had participated in the Bundy Ranch standoff—a fact that became known because the public learned his identity and the outlines of his motivations.

Here's the Circa coverage that Buxbaum proudly linked to:

A man and woman fatally shot two police officers who were eating lunch before walking to a nearby Walmart and killing another person. After a shootout with police who responded to the scene, the woman killed her partner and herself in an apparent suicide pact, police said. Their motive wasn't clear.

This is self-parody. Someone did something. Something bad. A terrorist act is reduced to something to be sad about—a generic source of pain to its victims, like an earthquake or tornado. In place of ideology, Buxbaum reduces the impulse behind mass murder to "the rantings of a crazed person" ... "an unhinged person" ... "disturbed individuals" ... "the mind and crimes of a maniac."

Sensitive news sounds an awful lot like apathetic news. Or outright ignorance. Circa wants you to know it cares so much about the victims, it's not interested in why they died.

[Image by Jim Cooke, photo via YouTube]

People fear showing themselves in public without clothes. But why? Can you imagine if horses did the same thing? Horses with clothes... the hooved folly.

The koan: "Children of His Majesty"

Yamaoka Tesshu was a tutor of the emperor. He was also a master of fencing and a profound student of Zen.

His home was the abode of vagabonds. He had but one suit of clothes, for they kept him always poor.

The emperor, observing how worn his garments were, gave Yamaoka some money to buy new ones. The next time Yamaoka appeared he wore the same old outfit.

"What became of the new clothes, Yamaoka?" asked the emperor.

"I provided clothes for the children of Your Majesty," explained Yamaoka.

The enlightenment: "I see," said the emperor. "Are these the same 'children' that got my microwave? And the missing jewelry?"

Yamaoka averted his eyes. "I'm clean, I swear."

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." The force of constant propulsion.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

One of the go-to "fun facts" of the weather so far this year is that tornado activity is well below average, with this year's preliminary tornado reports clocking in nearly 400 below normal. This week, though, proves more than ever that it only takes one tornado to make it a bad year.

In the past week, we've seen at least four EF-4 tornadoes, three EF-3 tornadoes, and more than two dozen weaker tornadoes. The number of violent EF-4 (and possibly one EF-5) twisters surpasses the tornadoes seen in late April as the strongest outbreak so far this year.

Stanton-Pilger-Wakefield Tornado Family

Ground zero for tornado activity this week was northeastern Nebraska, where no fewer than six tornadoes touched down and tore up several small communities. The worst storm in the outbreak occurred on Monday, June 16 when one supercell produced five tornadoes — two of them at the same time (pictured above) — in what's known as a "tornado family."

On the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which estimates the tornado's winds based on the damage the produce, four of the five tornadoes clocked in at the second-highest rating of an EF-4 (166-200 MPH), with surveyors leaving the door open for the possibility of the Pilger tornado receiving an EF-5 (201+ MPH) rating when they conclude their study of the damage. The fifth tornado near Stanton, not included on the map above, was a weak EF-0 (65-85 MPH).

The worst of the five tornadoes was westernmost of the twin twisters that hit Pilger, which destroyed more than 75% of the town, killed two people, and injured nearly two dozen more. One of the victims was five-year-old Calista Dixon, who was at home with her family when the tornado hit. She passed away as a result of her injuries. Her mother is still in a medically-induced coma, and her brother was seriously injured. The second fatality in the storm was a gentleman in his 70s who was involved in a weather-related traffic accident, according to CNN.

If the Pilger tornado is ultimately rated an EF-5, it will be the first top-of-the-scale twister since the devastating storm that hit Moore, Oklahoma back in May 2013, and only the 11th since 2000.

The Coleridge, Nebraska Tornado

One day later, a similar scenario played out when a solitary supercell formed over northeastern Nebraska. The storm took full advantage of the unstable air around it and produce at least two large tornadoes which barely moved while they scoured the earth near the small town of Coleridge.

The tornado destroyed several buildings but thankfully left behind no casualties. One of the tornadoes was at least an EF-3, but the NWS in Omaha is still investigating the damage it left behind before it releases its report.

Wessington Springs, South Dakota Tornado

On Wednesday, June 18, yet another strong tornado touched down, this time in the small town of Wessington Springs, South Dakota. The tornado had an incredible structure to it, with up to five suction vortices — smaller, intense whirlwinds within the rotation of the tornado — seen dancing around in the fields as the storm moved through the area. These suction vortices are the reason why tornadoes can destroy one house and seemingly "skip" the house next door.

More than three dozen homes were either damaged or destroyed by the storm, including one home where a group of storm chasers were able to pull a family out of the rubble. The chasers aided the family before taking the above picture of the battered neighborhood, complete with a rope tornado in the background. An excerpt of the story Chad Cowan posted on his Facebook page tells the scene they encountered while trying to help the victims:

As I was about to move on to the next house, I heard a muffled woman's voice yelling from near the front door. I had to climb over a bass boat to get to where I could hear her, and she was in the basement talking through a small window in the foundation that was covered in debris. I asked how many people were down there and if there were any injuries.. she said there were 6 of them, 4 adults and 2 little girls and everyone was okay but debris was blocking the stairway and they couldn't get out. I promised her I would get them out and ran around looking for a way in the house but saw no way of getting to the stairway through the thick debris piles. Looking around and seeing all of the damaged houses and feeling helpless, I tweeted "People trapped please send help". Then I saw a neighbor who had just emerged from his slightly damaged house, and called out and waved him over. He asked if I had tried the front door, and I told him it was locked to which he replied "not anymore" and kicked it in. There was a refrigerator that had somehow ended up on the other side so the door wouldn't open more than 6 inches. The back door was unidentifiable among the wreckage so the garage was the only possible entrance and exit.

Carter County, Montana Tornado

A strong EF-3 tornado touched down in southeastern Montana on the evening of Tuesday, June 17, destroying numerous structures and tossing around cars like toys. This was the strongest tornado ever recorded in southeastern Montana, according to the National Weather Service, and it dispels the myth that tornadoes — strong ones, at that — cannot cross mountains.

Madison, Wisconsin Area Tornado

Yet another EF-3 tornado touched down very early in the morning on June 17, this one threatening downtown Madison, Wisconsin. The storm produced two tornadoes; the first, an EF-3 that produced heavy damage in Verona, Wisconsin, and the second touching down ten minutes later in Madison proper, producing EF-2 damage.

The storm was incredible to watch on weather radar, pictured above. The tornado occurred in the "comma head" of a squall line, which forms when the northern end of a squall line curls back like a comma head and develops a fairly pronounced spin on radar imagery. Tornadoes can form in these comma heads, and that's exactly what happened around Madison on Tuesday morning.

As the Storm Prediction Center's data shows, we are still 30% below the 8-year average for tornado activity as of yesterday, with only 682 reports of tornadoes (note that reports of tornadoes are different from documented tornadoes) so far this year.

Even if it's been a slow year and we're still below average, it only takes one tornado hitting one populated area to make it a bad year.

[Images via StormChasingVideo / NWS / Gibson Ridge / Chad Cowan / via NWS by Meagan Reedy / Gibson Ridge/ SPC]

You can follow the author on Twitter and send him an email here.

When news broke yesterday that the fifth installment of the Bourne series was pushed back to 2016, hopeful rumors arose—and quickly spread—that the delay might be in an effort to accommodate Matt Damon's schedule. Could it be? Our Bourne baby, back again as Jason Bourne? Bourne producer Frank Marshall says no.

Marshall told the Hollywood Reporter that the fifth installment will feature the Aaron Cross character played by Jeremy Renner in 2012's The Bourne Legacy, adding, about the Damon rumor:

"It's simply not true. [Director] Justin Lin is working with Andrew Baldwin on an Aaron Cross script/story that they pitched us a few months ago. I talk to Justin all the time and the script is not ready. It's a summer movie, and if we don't start preproduction now, we can't make next summer. Therefore, it's a wise decision to move to 2016."

Hmm. But did he have his fingers crossed? I think it's wise to continue thinking of the rumor as a "maybe" until we are sure that he didn't have his fingers crossed.

[image via Getty.]

When we last checked in with Frostie the Snow Goat, the little guy was fighting off a serious infection that had robbed him of the use of his back legs. His rescuers at Australia's Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary hoped that by getting mobile with the help of a wheelcart, he'd one day walk again.

Frostie has exceeded all expectations. Not only can he walk unaided, but he can jump, frolic, trot, explore, and do all the other adorable things a healthy baby goat should enjoy.

Seize the day, little man. Seize the day.

[H/T Edgar's Mission]

This weekend on the tube we've got tragic ballerinas, Kid Presidents, clones having babies, British aristocrats, French revolutionaries, and Oprah's serving up both Lionel Richie and Sheila E. Read on for your guide to this weekend's entertainment.

FRIDAY

At 8/7c. there's the third-season finale hour of Betty White's Off Their Rockers and I guess you could also watch the episode of Dog With A Blog about food trucks. Both blogs and food trucks are going to be huge one of these days, so it's best to get onboard with that now. (Dogs, though. On their way out imminently, I'm sure of it. Even the cute little ones. Even the genius ones.) Then at 10/9c. you've got the penultimate Continuum on Syfy, a new Crossbones on NBC, or a special on Tanaquil La Clercq, the tragic ballerina who was Balanchine's wife but that is not the only thing about her. Then at midnight, another two Half Hours on Comedy Central.

SATURDAY

At 7/6c. Youtube star Kid President premieres his show on The Hub. I like America and I really like that kid. I have no real concept of what will happen on his show, but I bet it will be fun. There's a new My Cat From Hell at 8/7c., opposite a Lifetime movie called Stolen From The Womb that probably has a happy ending, but likely a very upsetting first act. (Tom Cruise rappels down through the surgical theater, upside down. Into a womb.) Then at 9/8c. basically what you have is Orphan Black—no excuses—followed by the double-episode premiere of Almost Royal on BBC America, which is less annoying than it looks, or Life With La Toya on OWN, which features a mysterious proposal.

SUNDAY

At 7/6c. Fox completes the run of Enlisted—and good on them for sticking with it—or you can start early on Wipeout's family edition with a two-hour premiere on ABC.

At 9/8c. you have two kinds of premieres mainly. There are the seemingly interesting ones that you might leave on your DVR forever anyway—TNT's Last Ship, BBCA's Musketeers—and the ones you won't tell anybody you watched—Rising Star on ABC, and of course True Blood. Failing those, Nurse Jackie just got really good and Californication may well have too; there's lso a truly exciting Oprah: Where Are They Now? about Scott Hamilton and quote "legendary singer-drummer Sheila E." (No offense Sheila E! "Legendary singer-drummer" is a fucking fantastic—one might even say "glamorous"—life to lead.)

At 10/9c., TNT follows up its postapocalyptic submarine show with postapocalyptic firefighter show Falling Skies, now beginning its fourth season, while Oprah's Master Class continues the OWN excitement with a talk by Lionel Richie. (Pay attention! You can always make your giant Lionel Richie head sculptures afterwards, during John Oliver at 11/10c.) But me, I'll be watching Penny Dreadful lying down, as I do every Sunday, in the hopes it will more easily invade my dreams.

[Image via Warner Bros]

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Gordon Lish, for those of you who do not follow literary gossip, was a famous editor in the 1970s and 1980s. Nowadays, he is primarily remembered as Raymond Carver's editor, whose short stories he shaved down to knife-edge minimalism. For no apparent reason at all, Newsweek just profiled Lish. He's a bit of a hater, it turns out.

To be fair, the article charts Lish's decline, which perhaps accounts for his cranky attitude. Here are the things Lish hates:

Lish dismisses Philip Roth's assertion that literature has been eclipsed by a "voraciously consumed popular culture": "Roth is full of shit," he says without hesitation. Jonathan Franzen is undeserving of his reputation, as is Jonathan Lethem. The postmodernist Lydia Davis is "ridiculously overrated." Paul Auster, too: "I can't read him anymore." The subtle redesign of The New Yorker has been a "dreadful error." The upstart Brooklyn lit mag n+1 is a "crock of shit."

Lish also believes, according to this article, that Raymond Carver himself was "a fraud. I don't think he was a writer of any consequence."

Well, then.

I sometimes find this genre of profile, the old-man-yells-at-cloud type, to be entertaining. But this one is depressing in frame. The writing is nostalgic — the opening line is "Gordon Lish is a traveler from a country no longer extant, a country where editors were princes and writers kings" — and that's the wrong way to look at this. James Wolcott at Vanity Fair calls it "a Twilight of the Gods frame on the glory that was once publishing and the preeminence of print," which about covers the tone-deafness of it.

Maybe there was indeed a time when literary men were Men, Capitalized. But if this guy is some signal of what that was like personality-wise, well, I for one won't miss it terribly.

[Image via Getty.]

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Pinterest moved into new offices two years ago, but thanks to venture capital-fueled growth, the San Francisco-based company is already planning another relocation. Only this time, the move would be into an already occupied building, forcing dozens of home design businesses out.

The company has already signed a deal to move into the San Francisco Design Center, the anchor of the city's Design District "Showplace Square." Zoned for "production, distribution and repair" (PDR), the building serves as a showroom for many skilled trade companies—and currently has a 90 percent occupancy rate. But as property owners across the city enviously ogle at SoMa's high office rents, other neighborhoods are looking to cash in, city Supervisor Malia Cohen told the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The market is changing and the landlords are seeing dollar signs," Cohen said. "They want to push everyone out. That kind of displacement sickens me, and it's the kind of displacement that has San Francisco in a crisis."

Ordinarily a tech company couldn't move into a building zoned for PDR. However, SocketSite reports the landlord is having the building designated as a historic landmark, exploiting a loophole that allows historic structures to be rezoned for preservation purposes.

[Another] key objective of the Showplace Square/Potrero Hill Area Plan is to ensure the economic viability of historically significant buildings, providing an exception for the conversion of such buildings to office use. And as such, the owners of [the SF Design Center are] planning to seek a Landmark Designation for the building which would clear the way for its conversion.

The move might be entirely legal, but it is a raw deal for San Francisco's middle class:

While the showrooms may not have the on-site blue-collar jobs commonly associated with PDR, the buildings are the underpinning of an ecosystem of skilled trades for people who are able to earn a living wage without a college education, [Jim Gallagher, general manager of Garden Court Antiques] said.

"There are upholsterers, refinishers, manufacturers, fabrication workrooms and movers, all of which are good-paying PDR jobs throughout the city," Gallagher said. "We are at the heart of that network. If you shrink us down, you shrink those jobs. Not just in this building, but all across the city."

The issue is not without debate. While some designers feel the Pinterest move could be good for area businesses, as the site often serves as a digital showroom for designers, others feel losing its anchor would mean the "death of the district."

Regardless, Supervisor Cohen is considering an amendment to the loophole which would reduce the amount of office space allowed in converted historic buildings. She's also holding up the building's landmarking until the legislation is introduced, potentially killing the Pinterest move altogether.

[Photo: Google Street View]

Peanut, a 2-year-old mutt, competed against 29 other garbage dump dogs to win the coveted title of the Sonoma-Marin Fair's "World's Ugliest Dog." Congratulations, Peanut! You little monster!

The dogs were scored by a three-judge panel—composed of Brian Sobel, a member of the fair board, San Francisco Giants' in-game television reporter Amy Gutierrez, and Good Morning America's Cameron Mathison—based on special or unusual attributes, personality, and "natural ugliness." Peanut was the runaway favorite in the just-for-fun online poll, and was crowned the winner on Friday night.

Peanut, who is described by the AP as sweet and energetic, lived in an animal shelter for nine months before he found a home. He was seriously burned as a puppy, and his owner, Holly Chandler of Greenville, North Carolina, hopes that his win raises awareness. She said, "We're trying to use him as a poster child for what can happen to animals who are abused."

Chandler plans to use the $1,500 prize to pay for other animals' veterinary bills.

[images via AP]

Pope Francis, the cool pope who still has some uncool policies, is in Cassano all'Ionio this Saturday to speak on the endemic problem of mafia violence in Italy. After the pope announced his reform agenda last year, an anti-mob prosecutor said Pope Francis might be under threat of attack by the mafia.

The town of Cassano all'Iono was in the news this January after a three-year-old child was gunned down in a shootout that involved the 'Ndrangheta, the mafia organization that dominates Calabria on the southern tip of Italy.

The pope landed by helicopter Saturday morning and has since met with hospice patients and visited the father of the slain toddler in jail, all amid fears that his life might be in danger. The 'Ndrangheta has historically had connections with the Catholic church, a relationship Pope Francis is eager to sever.

Via USA Today:

In April, bishops in Calabria raised eyebrows by issuing a statement calling the mob a "cancer." Francis is expected to further probe that sentiment as he seeks to sever ties between the church and crime gangs. Previous popes have denounced the mob's influence in Italy but none have been successful in curbing it.

Several people in Pope Francis's circle have spoken out against today's trip, claiming that the visit could lead to violence. Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia prosecutor, said she was "very nervous" for the pope.

"For many years, the mob has laundered money and made investments with the complicity of the church," Gratteri said, noting those activities have become more difficult due to recent reforms. The Vatican has downplayed the threats.

Somewhat symbolically, while Pope Francis was visiting hospice patients at a local hospital, he asked a doctor to remove a splinter from one of his fingers that had been bothering him.

[Image via AP]

A Canadian woman who parked her car in the left lane of a highway to help ducks by the side of the road has been charged with two counts of criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing death after a motorist crashed into her car, resulting in the death of the driver and his 16-year-old daughter.

Emma Czornobaj, 25, was convicted by a jury and could face up to life in prison. When Czornobaj stopped on the side of a provincial highway south of Montreal to aid the wandering ducks, Andre Roy, 50, slammed into Czornobaj's car on his motorcycle.

The woman told the court that she is an animal lover and intended to take the ducks home. She has been released until her pre-sentence hearing on August 8.

The case's prosecutor, Annie-Claude Chasse, told the court, "What we hope is that a clear message is sent to society that we do not stop on the highway for animals. It's not worth it."

[Image via National Post]