This month, an oil refinery on the Delaware River sought approval from state officials and Army engineers to reinforce its facilities. Why? Because the earth is warming, storms are churning, and the sea level's already high enough to endanger the oil company's business.

In its filing, the Delaware City Refining Company says its shoreline is disappearing. Rapidly. "The extent of tidal encroachment is obvious," the report says, adding: "Review of historical photography suggests that the rate of shoreline erosion is increasing." The only solution, it says, is to build a protective ring of buoys "that has the resilience to deal with Sea Level Rise (SLR) for at least 50 years."

The oil company's report has some ominous graphics, including the one above, showing the progressive erosion of the waterline by tides and waves, egged on by rising sea levels. In some cases, the refinery's storage facilities and vehicle lots are already on the mouth of the new shoreline, thanks to that rising tide:

Once the local Sierra Club managed to stop gloating about the irony of a carbon-producing oil company making preparations to cope with carbon-caused climate changes, it did notice an issue with the company's plan: The proposed buoys would dissipate wave energy from tides, boats, and storms, but they wouldn't do much about the actual sea rise, which is accelerating.

"Delaware's coastal areas could experience sea levels at 0.5 to 1.5 meters above their present level by 2100," the Sierra Club argues. "Adjusting to the new conditions of higher sea levels, the report suggests, should involve planning for adaptation measures and building adaptive capacity." The group suggested those measures might include the oil refinery changing the magnitude of its greenhouse gas output.

Regardless of what coping methods it takes, it's remarkable that a petroleum-producer is acknowledging the effects of climate change on its business. Remarkable, but not unique. For nigh on half a decade now, vintners have been popping up in warmer climes, shippers have been charting new routes through sea lanes once cluttered with ice, and insurance companies are adjusting their actuarials to deal with the new environment.

"Though major international corporations tend to be amoral machines for collecting revenue without regard to fairness or human life," a colleague of mine once wrote, "they do have one thing going for them: when there's money on the line, they don't waste time fucking around":

You will never see a major international corporation prancing around fancy-free and acting as if the seas aren't going to rise and whatnot, because they have assets to protect. Failing to plan for global warming due to some weird anti-science bias could potentially cost them billions of dollars. Therefore they will plan.

Is the planning a little more complicated when your business is essentially what's making the globe warmer? Not especially. Just put out a couple floaters and keep counting the money.

George R.R. Martin claims he hasn't seen the episodes of South Park he appeared in last winter, but he's heard his character is "obsessed about weenies," and he wants to make one thing very clear: Weenies are fine, but it's boobies he's truly obsessed with.

"I've been told that my character on South Park is obsessed about weenies," he told Clevver News at Comic-Con. "I have to deny this as a scurrilous rumor. I have nothing against weenies. Weenies are fine, but I am not obsessed with weenies. I am definitely on the boobies side of the equation."

To reiterate: "Boobies, not weenies."

It appears the real-life GRRM is a lot more like his SNL counterpart than his South Park one:

[H/T TMZ]

Uber has been connected to a number of sexual assaults and kidnappings this summer. The latest comes from Washington D.C., where an Uber driver stands accused of molesting a drunk passenger.

According to court documents obtained by the Washington City Paper, the victim was out partying with friends on the night of July 19th until she decided to go home early. Her friend requested an Uber and Reshad Ahmad Chakari, 32, picked up the victim. But instead of taking her back to the hotel that she was staying at, Chakari stopped the car, fondled her breasts, and fingered her genitals against her will:

In the affadavit, the woman says she passed out in the cab and that when she woke, the driver was rubbing her breasts. She then fell back asleep, according to court documents, and woke up again to the sound of car doors locking. The cab had stopped and the driver was feeling her breasts and pulling down her underwear down to her knees. She says she asked the driver to be let out of the vehicle, but he refused and at one point asked if he could go back to her hotel with her. In a follow-up interview with authorities, she said Chakari briefly penetrated her with his finger or another thin object.

During the alleged assault, the victim was able to text her friend that she was in trouble. The friend was able to call Chakari through the app, "startling" the driver. He then dropped the victim off at a nearby hotel.

Uber issued a statement to the Washington City Paper, saying that "the driver's account has been suspended and that the company is ready to assist authorities in the investigation."

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Adam Fagen

It's time to talk shop with Aisha Tyler!

It's hard to find a woman in Hollywood with more going on than Aisha Tyler. She is the co-host of The Talk, host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? as well as her own podcast, Girl on Guy. She is the voice of Lana on FX's Archer as well as the author of two books, Swerve and Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation.

And she is giving candid insight into her upbringing and life as comedian through the Lincoln Dream Ride campaign as a social media influencer.

Aisha Tyler actually does it all and manages to stay hilarious doing so. Now she's here to answer your questions.

Submit your questions to Aisha below!

Update: That's all folks! Thank you so much for your great questions and thank you Aisha Tyler for being with us today.

Image via AP

When the corporate economy is booming as it is now, mergers and acquisitions happen. Industries consolidate. The cable industry is consolidating. The media industry is consolidating. And now, even the poor people industry is consolidating.

Generally, mergers and acquisitions are great for the following classes of people: 1) bankers and other M&A advisors; 2) executives of the companies in question; 3) shareholders of the company being acquired, at least at first. Great for those people. On the other hand, mergers and acquisitions are generally not so good for employees of the companies in question (who tend to get laid off) or customers of the companies in question (who often see prices raised due to a competitive player being removed from the market). Regular shareholders often get screwed in the long run, too, when it becomes clear a deal was a bad idea.

So, M&A flourishes in boom times, enriching a small and powerful class at the expense of a much larger, less influential class. No one is immune. No one! Today, the big dollar store chain Dollar Tree announced that is paying $8.5 billion to buy the other big dollar store chain Family Dollar, in what the Wall Street Journal calls "an intensifying battle for America's poorest consumers." It is consolidation of the richest of the poorest. Family Dollar was doing poorly. It was not selling enough $1.25 two-liters of Dr. Pepper. Billionaire Carl Icahn will make a boatload on this deal. Analysts say this will enable the new Crap Dollar Behemoth to better compete with competing crap dollar behemoth Walmart, for the individual dollars of people who do not have very many dollars.

In one sense, this is just another acquisition, one multibillion-dollar retailer buying another. But this instance of consolidation will pull a few extra pennies not just from all the usual consumers, but from the sorts of consumers who have no choice but to shop at dollar stores. What do you think happened to 99 cent stores?

Capitalism.

(All day I tried to put my finger on the right twist on this quintessential American business story. I sure as hell failed. Can you? Please try. Thank you. )

[Photo: AP]

Like several of our sister sites, we're wondering: What do you come to Gawker for? What do you wish the site had more of? (Besides sentences that end in prepositions.)

Leave your (intelligent and well-articulated) thoughts below. This is your chance to play editor-in-chief, or at least "well-compensated consultant."

After an ugly court battle between Donald and Shelly Sterling over the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers, Judge Michael Levanas of the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled today to allow Shelly Sterling to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.

Judge Levanas ruled in favor of Shelly Sterling removing her husband from their family's trust, citing his Alzheimer's disease diagnoses. From the Los Angeles Times:

Shelly Sterling wants the judge to uphold the removal of her husband as trustee of the Sterling Family Trust, which owns the Clippers, on grounds of mental incapacitation. That would clear the way to implement her May agreement to sell the franchise to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.

http://gawker.com/former-microsoft-ceo-steve-ballmer-is-reportedly-buying-1583526223

"The doctors certified Donald as incapacitated. That's the end of the matter," Pierce O'Donnell, the lawyer representing Shelly Sterling, said today in his closing argument.

[Image via AP]

Deadspin D.C. Station Remembers The Good Times, When Radio Guys Could Say "Fag" | io9 Senate Abortion Hearing Reveals Junk Science Behind Women's Health Laws | Kotaku What I Learned Turning The Israel-Palestine Conflict Into A Video Game | Lifehacker How to Be More Interesting When Meeting New People | Kinja Popular Posts

After a harrowing launch attempt and some legal wrangling with city regulators, Lyft has finally arrived in New York. Sort of. If you actually try to use the app, there are no rides to be found.

Over the weekend, an NY-based Valleywag tipster told me he'd struck out with Lyft: "I checked every hour in most neighborhoods and no drivers were available!"

Now it's the middle of Monday—"Prime Time," as Lyft describes it. But the Google Map grid of Manhattan, the outer boroughs, and neighboring New Jersey are all desolate. Not a single car is available to take me anywhere. It's like an attempt at ridesharing after the neutron bomb.

Compare this to San Francisco, which is chockablock with Lyfts in every neighborhood:

Or New York's Uber offerings, which are similarly ample:

This is likely because the deal Lyft struck with the city is pretty strict. In an interview with New York magazine, the company's co-founder admitted the startup is operating at diminished capacity:

You just reached a deal with the TLC to follow their existing licensing rules, like Uber does. So you'll be allowed to operate in the city. But that's clearly not the outcome you wanted.

The ultimate vision is still to bring the same peer-to-peer model to New York. The current model is too expensive for the majority of drivers. But it was important to get out there very quickly, while pushing for the ultimate solution.

Unless Lyft can figure out something between "zero way to use the app" and "the ultimate solution," a lot of New Yorkers are going to forget this is even an option.

Tonight we've got a woman looking for love who will not find it on television, a blended family gripped by drama of their own making, teenagers who do not quite turn into wolves except around their faces and fingernail areas, and Idris Elba driving automobiles around for the purpose of delighting us all.

At 8/7c. it's an early start for a full three hours of The Bachelorette, the aims and purpose of which in ten seasons have never been made entirely clear to me. Over on the CW there's the two-hour Young Hollywood Awards, which ditto. Masterchef's up to Top 12, and Switched At Birth goes Abstract Neo-Geo with a reference to Willard's "It Isn't What You Think."

Meanwhile, Zac Efron joins the premiere of a show called Running Wild With Bear Grylls that seems to be about having no shirt on, but in nature. Here is an excellent Australian report, and here are some Daily Mail pictures that are, of course, captioned most incredibly. Zac Efron seems like a good sport, especially about taking his shirt off, and I think I saw Bear Grylls drink some pee one time. This concludes my ready information about the two pleasant, often nude men who will be "running wild" tonight in some fashion or another.

At 9/8c. HBO is airing a special about a couple who neglected their child to death to play videogames, which I don't know about you but that sounds like a downer to me. On the other end of the debate is an episode of Killer Kids, in which kids kill. I have seen this show recently for the first time, and I really enjoy it. It's empowering, in a certain way! Plus, the little dead girl who narrates it has a very evocative voice. I would like for her to do an audiobook of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

American Ninja Warrior heads to Miami, Food Network premieres Food Fest Nation—presumably a show about a country in a constant state of food-related frenzy, and how best to obtain a visa—and Hotel Hell visits the Monticello. In real life, though, it's all about the never-ending calamity and fallout of The Fosters and/or the Real Housewives of Orange County (is it just me or has this season been going for like five years?) plus those twins from New Jersey on Watch What Happens: Live.

At 10/9c. BBC America continues its coverage of Idris Elba driving around in cars, Longmire continues to be about whatever that show is about, Under The Dome continues to take place under a mysterious dome, and LMN's uplifting story of true romance, I Dated A Psycho, continues to be about psychos and the psychos that date them. Teens in the know, however, will be glued to their sets for Teen Wolf and Wolf Watch, where Derek and Stiles are most likely just going to fuck and get it over with, since the bullying of obnoxious shippers always works so well on television professionals.

[Image by Bravo]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching tonight? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

A 16-year-old student in Nagasaki was arrested by police after the dismembered body of her classmate was discovered in her apartment. The student allegedly confessed to police that she sawed off 15-year-old Aiwa Matsuo's head and hand after beating her with a hammer and strangling her with rope. Police are currently investigating a possible connection between Matsuo's murder and a series of incriminating posts on popular Japanese forum 2Channel.

According to Japan Times, police found Matsuo's body in the student's apartment after four posts detailing an apparent murder were posted to 2Channel:

"Oh no, blood keeps pouring out even though I have wiped it away many times," said one of the messages posted, which carried the subject line "I have ended up killing."

The same forum user uploaded seven pictures showing a hand of what appeared to be that of the user and a cloth, both covered with blood.

"I've tried to warm (the body) as it got cold, but it doesn't warm up. . . . Everyone, (do you want to know) what color the brain is?" said another message. The user then posted a message saying: "I'll take good care of the brain and the spinal cord, putting them in a solution."

The four messages were posted between 10:08 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. Saturday, just hours before Nagasaki police found Matsuo's body in the suspect's Sasebo apartment.

The Bangkok Post reports that the student accused of murdering Matsuo has "a history of behavioral problems" and has apparently "tampered with" other student's meals in the past. Police told the Post that she has dissected small animals. She was apparently living alone in preparation for a study abroad program.

Matsuo's parents notified police that their daughter was missing when she didn't return home from visiting friends Saturday, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

[H/T Time // Image via Kyodo/Japan Times]

Pavel Khodorkovskiy's father was, at one time, the richest man in Russia. As the head of the now-bankrupted oil giant Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky amassed a $15 billion fortune before being jailed by the Russian government in 2005. But his father was recently pardoned by President Vladimir Putin following international backlash, and now the younger Khodorkovskiy is building his own energy company: a cleantech startup.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Khodorkovskiy recently wound down his responsibilities at the Institute of Modern Russia, a pro-democracy think tank he created, to "focus" on helping "buildings consume less energy." A noble—if not ironic—goal, given his family made its fortune polluting the planet.

Khodorkovskiy's company, Enertiv, builds energy meters and energy monitoring and management software that has been praised by Betabeat for showing users how much electricity (and money) they're wasting. However, the Wall Street Journal reports his oil baron father was nevertheless "not impressed" the worthy venture.

"He was very skeptical for a while," Pavel Khodorkovskiy said of his father. "He thinks in different orders of magnitude."

It was only until Khodorkovskiy received financial backing from Silicon Valley's notoriously whimsical venture capitalists did his doubtful father have any faith:

The company just closed on a $700,000 seed investment round, as VentureWire reported this morning.

"When we raised money he believed we were on the right track," Pavel Khodorkovskiy said. It was "validation from other investors."

Like they say, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, especially if VCs are cool with the concept.

Photo: Pavel Khodorkovskiy

Freddie Prinze Jr., star of movies that seem to always air on cable at weird hours, decided it was high time to tell us all about his terrible, career-upending experience of working with Kiefer Sutherland on season eight of 24. "Kiefer was the most unprofessional dude in the world. That's not me talking trash, I'd say it to his face, I think everyone that's worked with him has said that," Prinze told ABC News.

Apparently, working with Sutherland just ruined him—he had to take time off from acting. "I just wanted to quit the business after that. So, I just sort of stopped," he said.

In the interim, he worked with professional wrestlers.

"I went and worked for Vince McMahon at the WWE for Christ's sake and it was a crazier job than working with Kiefer," Prinze told ABC News. "But, at least he was cool and tall. I didn't have to take my shoes off to do scenes with him, which they made me do. Just put the guy on an apple box or don't hire me next time. You know I'm 6 feet and he's 5'4."

More from TMZ:

Sources connected with Freddie tell TMZ ... the actor claims Kiefer would regularly show up on set drunk ... sitting in his trailer often for hours, as everyone waited. The sources say it messed with the lives of the family of cast and crew.

Freddie, we're told, claims Kiefer was temperamental and got people fired he didn't like, yet "24" producers consistently cow-towed to him ... as one source put it, "All they did was keep rewarding him."

Sutherland's reps, meanwhile, have fired back: "Kiefer worked with Freddie Prinze, Jr. more than five years ago, and this is the first he has heard of Freddie's grievances. Kiefer enjoyed working with Freddie and wishes him the best."

[Image via Getty]

Rich: Central Park's Loeb Boathouse is the kind of a place an old person would go to for a celebration demarking another milestone. In the process, that only reiterates the oldness.

Caity: It reminded me of the kind of place where two of the Real Housewives would meet to have a peace lunch.

Rich: It reminded me of the kind of place that two people would eat at in a movie and have gentle but profound realizations about their lives, or perhaps remark, "And look at the way we live. I mean, just our lifestyle."

Caity: It looks like the kind of place that is just how you pictured it.

Rich: It's the kind of place where people are constantly spitting out air in that isn't-everything-insane-and-chalky Jennifer Aniston way. "Isn't this ridiculous? And by ridiculous I mean fabulous. And by fabulous I mean ridiculous." Spit. Spit. We are so privileged.

Caity: It felt like boathouse. It did not feel like a boathome.

The best restaurant in New York is

Central Park's Loeb Boathouse.

Menu style

À la carte, with tip included automatically.

Cost including tip, two glasses of sparkling Rosé, and two Diet Cokes

$143.72*

Rich: I arrived alone to a line at the hostess' podium. A line! A man, who I'm assuming was the manager, but maybe was just the rare breed with a shred of sense was telling people that there were no more openings and that they should go get something from the stand outside. "Sorry, you will not be eating halibut today. Go suck on a hot dog."

Caity: We tried to make a noon Thursday reservation online the day before, but the only available time was 2:30. This, I assumed, was the result of a bug in the code of the booking website. Surely a restaurant I previously had displayed no interest in patronizing could not be booked AN ENTIRE DAY except for one window at 2:30 p.m.

Rich: The bug had infected the city, in fact. Everyone wants to go to the Boathouse. Like bugs to a light, burned by the zapper.

While I waited for you, I saw many people complaining.

"I waited an hour and 10 minutes! Can you please just check?" a woman said to the hostess.

"I'm really, really, really sorry," said the hostess.

Caity: You were still waiting when I arrived and ducked into a restroom to wash the subway off my hands. The fixtures in the bathroom were elegant but the room itself was chaotic and disordered. It was like a 5 star hotel being used as a makeshift nuclear fallout shelter. Chockablock with people who just happened to need a place to pee while ambling through Central Park. There was a tip jar in there but the tip jar was unmanned, so actually what it was was just a jar full of dollar bills. A donation to the bathroom's protective spirits.

Rich: As I was waiting for you, I was taking notes and a waiter saw me. He was one of several handsome men with perpetually knowing looks in light denim shirts. It all felt very pre-Stonewall or maybe modern-day Townhouse. I couldn't tell if he had recognized me as someone who was clearly taking notes on the place, or just as another gay man. Did he know what I was doing, or whom I was doing? Was it both?

Caity: This wasn't our waiter was it?

Rich: No, but I had my suspicions about him. He reminded me a bit of ANIMAL New York founder Bucky Turco twisted with Kevin Spacey.

Caity: I got the sense that our waiter knew more than we did about what we were doing there.

Rich: Well, speaking of twists, there was one at the end of our meal that refutes your suspicion, which I will reveal at the end of this post. WAS he Keyser Söze? WAS Gwyneth Paltrow's head in our take-away box?

Anyway, our waiter was wonderful. He never told us his name. I think "Bevin" would work.

Caity: He didn't trust us with his true name, but I would bet anyone five million dollars it actually was "Bevin."

As soon as we sat down, Bevin came over and started gently bragging about himself to us.

Rich: He called himself a "hardcore gastrophile," which, I have to say, was much more pleasant than "foodie."

Caity: Let me be real with you clowns—(snaps metal knife in half over knee)—I'M HARDCORE.

Rich: So hardcore that he, in his own words, would push his "grandmother down the stairs for a bite of that pasta" with clam sauce. He also said the halibut special had "flawless presentation" and that the fish was cooked until it was "as white as the table cloth." It was as if his aim was to efficiently establish the cuisine and type of restaurant we were dining at for the expository sake of this very post. (His sell worked. I got the "Linguini.")

Caity: I frequently felt like he should have been your lunch companion, and I should have been bringing you guys food.

You know what I ordered after his exquisite, delicate sell? Double burgers. "Double burgers please, thanks."

Rich: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bevin. I'm gonna go with the usual." He also told us that the crab cake was probably the best we'd ever eat. The thing was, I was putty in Bevin's hands. "Yes, whatever you say! And can you also feed it to me? I trust you know how to feed myself better than I do."

Caity: I was the insane hobo whose hypothalamus was lighting up like a Christmas tree, who looked at all of Bevin's recommendations like they were railroad bulls sniffing around my boxcar. When Bevin recommended the crab cake, I immediately checked to see if it was the most expensive appetizer. (YEP.) When Bevin volunteered that he'd push his grandmother down the stairs for a plate of pasta, I thought "That's an interesting admission, Bevin. How many women have you killed?"

Most alarmingly (and suspiciously and unbelievably) of all, Bevin saw through my attempt to avoid a plate splitting charge (which the restaurant does not have anyway, apparently) for the arugula salad you and I planned to share.

"...And I'll have the arugula salad" I said to Bevin.

A few minutes later, what should arrive at our table but "my" arugula salad...PRE-SPLIT ONTO TWO PLATES FOR SHARING. BEVIN! WHAT DARK WONDERWORKING IS THIS?

Rich: He was the lover that loves you like he's been loving you all of your life. He's what R&B songs are made for.

Caity: The salad contained dried and fresh strawberries, which I loved because it reminded Special K® Red Berries Cereal. "This salad tastes like Special K® Red Berries Cereal!" I said.

Rich: It was very sweet for a strawberry salad, which I know sounds insane to say, but I've had a lot of salads with strawberries in them and they are usually not this sweet. It was nice. We ate it first, which KILLED Bevin. "I can't wait for the crab cake reaction!" he said as he passed our table while we were chomping on arugula and strawberries and dried strawberries.

We should mention that before our meal, we were given (WITH TONGS), the choice of bread.

Caity: I hate it. Give me all the bread, Bevin!

Rich: Tell 'em what you got, Philly.

Caity: I got a pretzel, of course, which I loved, of course.

Rich: Same. Repping South Jersey.

The crab cake was very good. Among the best crab cakes I've ever had in my life.

Caity: Crab cake was great, but I'd like to live a little longer before I deem it "The Best I've Ever Had in My Life," Bevin.

Listen—let's just get this out of the way right now: Everything we ate was goddamn fabulous.

Rich: It was the best meal we've shared, top to bottom.

Caity: It was executed with a ruthless perfection seldom seen outside 16-year-old Russian girls' figure skating routines. But did I trust the meal? No, I did not. Something unsettling about that level of perfection. Felt like this meal had never had a childhood. Felt like this meal didn't know how to love. Only how to win.

Rich: I didn't just trust it, I turned on my back, opened my legs, and let this meal take advantage of me.

Bevin approached our table against a backdrop of barbecue smog over the water and asked, "So where you guys from?"

Caity: "The rails, Bevin."

Rich: I told him that we're from the city, and always "challenging" ourselves to try tourist-oriented places that other New Yorkers may pass up.

Caity: Bevin told us that actually 60% of this restaurant's clientele is local. Many of the people dining around us certainly looked like they must have had stunning views of Central Park from their penthouses. I can't believe we didn't see anyone's snooty fiancé get decked and flop into the lake while we were shoveling food into our mouths.

Rich: Bevin said my assessment was a "misnomer." Spank my ass, go ahead, I love it!

Caity: There were lots of what looked to be wealthy grandparents dining with gangly, casually expensively dressed preteens. There was a baby wearing a gold bracelet.

Rich: And earrings. And what looked like a giant gift bow on her head. Her face was reminiscent of Cousin Shelly's. I liked that kid more than I like most children who ogle me in public.

Caity: YOU KNOW I CAN READ THIS, RIGHT?

Rich: She really liked the group of five white women in spandex FILA shirts that walked by.

Caity: She pointed at them. "Go home and put on suitable luncheon dress," she said with her chubby baby hands.

Rich: "Go make some money to afford a bracelet as lavish as the one I was born with in my mouth."

Back to our meal. I'd push my grandmother down the stairs for a strand of that pasta, too, since she's dead and wouldn't feel it anyway. It was just solid linguine with clam sauce. The clams were not sandy. That made it great.

Caity: My "Twin Boathouse Burgers" were also great, though I would rather have one burger than eat two small ones. Life is not a tea party; it's a Renaissance faire and I want the biggest piece of meat possible. They arrived with fries and a tray of three condiments: curry ketchup, chipotle mayo, and chimichurri. "Don't ration yourself on the condiments!" Bevin said. "I can always grab more." I did like that, though presumably this is the policy at all restaurants.

The burgers were a very popular dish. In the time we took to eat our meal at least 18 burgers (2 per plate) were delivered to tables in my line of sight. The sight of all those trays heaping with burgers made my heart sing.

Rich: At one point while we were eating, a member of the family next to us flung a piece of garlic bread and it landed midway between our table and theirs. They looked at us expectantly. I think they were foreign.

"Slippery little suckers," was all I could say.

Caity: That felt Marie Antoinette-esque to me. Like they were throwing it at us: "Eat this, trash!" Guess what? I'd love to. I'd murder everyone I've ever met (EXCEPT my beautiful Nana) for a scrap of garlic bread that had been on the floor. I'm a diva!

Rich: The very sexy nordic blonde daughter in Ray Ban aviators took was making eyes at me. Then she looked back and forth between us, trying to figure us out. "I think they're...writing an informal, chat-based column about restaurants in tourist traps," her eyes seemed to say. (Her aviators were off at that point.)

For dessert, I got what Bevin described as a "mind-blowing" "Banana Tart Tatin."

"Heretofore," Bevin told us, he'd never even heard of banana tart tatin.

Caity: I ordered the "Warm Truffle Cake" because it was as close to an Applebee's lava cake as the menu offered. Instead of the standard chocolate sorbet, I got it with popcorn ice cream. The cake tasted like a standard chocolate cake, which means FLAWLESS. The ice cream tasted like "This ice cream has popcorn in it for some reason."

Rich: Ever dip popcorn in water? Well, this is what it would be like to do so in sugary milk.

Caity: I love popcorn as much as the next person, but I would posit that maybe it should not be everywhere. Maybe the world should not be a Candyland-esque fever dream crafted entirely out of popcorn.

Rich: It didn't really work, no.

Caity: Your banana thing tasted like a dessert I could get for slightly cheaper at a Thai restaurant. Delicious.

Rich: It was great. Very banana.

So you left for the bathroom, and Bevin, upon delivering the check, asked me, "Are you guys Yelpers? You should go on the thing and write a review of what you thought." That's the twist. It's like he knew all along! Oh we'll write a review, all right, I didn't say, but I did say, "OK," and give him a knowing look. Only I knew what it meant. I twisted back.

Caity: To be fair, I think Bevin probably knew too because he's a robot who came back from the future to give us outstanding lunch service.

Is Everything Okay?

Questions about the Dining Experience

Would you go back?

Caity: Yes. I would go again just to prove to Bevin that I'm not afraid of him.

Rich: Yes, and when I do, Bevin will feed me grapes, charge me handsomely for the service, and I will love every second of it.

Is it a good first date spot?

Caity: Yes. The only way the meal could have been more romantic is if you'd pulled out a Tiffany box and proposed.

Rich: Yes, especially if you are either Romy or Michele.

Is it a good place to have an affair?

Caity: No. This is a very bad place to have an affair. Every single person in there was a gossip. Would throw their grandmothers down a flight of stairs for a shred of tittle-tattle about a stranger.

Rich: No. Everyone there is looking at you, searching for fodder for the next scene, which will then provide fodder for the scene after, during which a glass of liquid will be thrown on you.

Is it a good place to bring a doll?

Caity: No. There are not enough chairs in this restaurant for paying human customers, let alone freeloading dolls.

Rich: Yes—but only if she is wearing the finest jewels and a sneer to suggest that she knows it.

There are a bunch of restaurants in the world, including some in New York City. But in a city of over 24,000 restaurants, how do you find the best? You begin your search in places that are already popular: New York's hottest tourist destinations. In The Best Restaurant in New York Is, writers Caity Weaver and Rich Juzwiak attempt to determine the best restaurant in New York.

Previously: The Best Restaurant in New York Is: The Tommy Bahama Store; The Bronx Zoo; The Armani Store; The Crown Cafe at the Statue of Liberty; The Campbell Apartment inside Grand Central; The U.N. Delegates Dining Room; Play at the Museum of Sex; Le Train Bleu inside Bloomingdales; LOX at The Jewish Museum; The American Girl Café

[Images by Rich Juzwiak and Caity Weaver]

Michael Peroutka is a former candidate for president of the United States. He's currently running as a Republican for a council seat in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Around 1:55 in the video above, watch him grab a guitar, ask everyone to "stand for the national anthem," and start belting out "Dixie."

The video is of Peroutka is addressing a 2012 meeting of the League of the South, of which he is an important and founding member. A few months back, I wrote about the League—a neo-Confederate club considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—and its campaign to court anti-government American sentiment in a renewed drive for state-by-state secession.

Peroutka—who once ran for president as the Constitution Party candidate and has been called "a wacky-pants anti-gay crusader" by no less than a conservative fellow at the Cato Institute—is still going strong with the League of the South, according to Right Wing Watch:

Peroutka's ties with the League of the South are hardly a secret — he used to sit on the group's board and has asked for its members help in his campaign — but in his 2012 speech, he made it clear that he agrees with the group's stand that the South may need to secede and cause the "destruction" of the current "regime."

In the video, Peroutka also voices agreement with the politics of Dr. Michael Hill, the League of the South's Lee-loving, MLK-hating founder, who prefers Vlad Putin to Barack Obama and insists that "this regime"—meaning the U.S. of A.—"is beyond reform."

So what's an anti-America bubba like Peroutka doing running for county council in Annapolis, just up the street from the state capitol and the U.S. Naval Academy? Well, Peroutka's kind of a missing link between Hill's Dixie-loving sesesh and the Tea Party's most insecure theocratic wing—the folks who, in lieu of expensive pearls, clutch pocket Constitutions every time they see someone to the left of Pat Buchanan on Fox News.

In that sense, if Peroutka—whose "Institute on the Constitution" has coloring books for your kids!—wins, he could represent a sort of gateway drug to secession and nullification for disaffected conservatives who have already been looking farther rightward.

Amazingly, the kid could pull it off, too. Via the Baltimore City Paper:

Anne Arundel County's Fifth Councilmanic District is the whitest, most educated, and richest of the county's seven districts, and its voters lean heavily in favor of Republicans. If that pattern holds true in November's general election for the council seat, the district's 75,000 residents — 87 percent white, 97 percent with a high-school diploma, and about half with a college degree or higher, and with a median household income of $111,000, higher than any Maryland county — will be turning for constituent services and leadership on local issues to the GOP candidate, Michael Peroutka.

Get ready for a heapin' helpin' of Dixie with your crab cakes, Annapolitans.

[Photo credits: Michael Peroutka/Facebook]

It appears that the gods aren't libertarians, as the first and only bitcoin ATM in the state of Arizona has been seriously damaged by a lightning strike.

According to the Arizona Republic, the business that housed the ATM was struck by lightning on Friday night, causing a power surge that knocked out the machine's vital components.

The ATM's owner, Brian Williams, says that he had just installed the $1,000 machine about two weeks earlier.

The machines are still extremely rare—the now-fried Tucson bitcoin ATM is one of only about 25 in the United States and just 145 around the world. Williams says that about a dozen or so people used the machine during its brief run.

"It's kind of like getting punched in the face. I'm trying to pick up the pieces and trying to figure out where we are at," Williams told The Republic.

Williams said that purchasing the oft-troubled money-esque bitcoin is faster at an ATM than it is online, where you have to undergo a series of multiple bank account verifications and wire transfers. He says that most of the transactions on the machine have been for $5 to $25 worth of bitcoin, which is transferred from the ATM to a digital wallet app on the users phone by scanning a QR code.

Bitcoins are currently valued at roughly $580 per coin, which, of course, is sort of ironic.

Williams says that he apologizes to his customers for the inconvenience, and that he should have the ATM up and running again by the end of the week.

Image via AP

"Some people may say it's controversial, especially the theme I've chosen, but at the end of the day, little girls wear swimming costumes to the beach all summer, and that's not a controlled environment. The environment my kids go in is a controlled environment and it is ticket-entry only," explains 33-year-old unemployed mother of two Leann when discussing her decision to dress up her 4-year-old daughter Scarlett as a waitress from Hooters. Scarlett competes in beauty pageants. Obviously.

The clip above comes from the special Blinging Up Baby, which aired last night on UK's Channel 5. The show followed not just those participating in "Britain's blingiest new phenomenon: U.S.-style child beauty pageants," but also mothers who dress their children up as though they are participating in Britain's blingiest new phenomenon, but instead are just, like, sitting around being pretty. One such mother was named Sophia May. She named her daughters Princess Bliss and Precious Belle. Here she is admiringly comparing her daughter to Miley Cyrus in the "Wrecking Ball" video:

The documentary was chock full of ridiculous narration like, "In Essex, Sophia May's talking with friends about blinging up her daughters." It also featured some people who keep the kids encrusted in diamanté. One such person was Liverpool's Marie Fullerton, a dress-maker who employs her son, daughter-in-law, and daughter. Her daughter has a chronic case of bling fever, as she explained to the documentary crew:

It's very big, the bling now. Very big. Once you've got into blingin' you cannot go back. I bling me phone cases, me makeup bag, everything...Honestly, you become obsessed with it. It's addictive. It's very, very addictive. I'd bling the walls if I could.

The Telegraph called this show "snobbish."

Over the past few weeks, we've brought you several installments of true stories from the overworked, underpaid, and ill-treated employees who work at all levels in reality TV. We now offer you an absolute slew of new emails about the dark side of the "nonfiction" TV industry.

In earlier installments, producers, directors, camera people, and others detailed the various ways that they are mistreated, mostly due to the lack of union protection that pervades the industry. In order to try to air as many voices as possible, we offer you the following treasure trove of reality worker emails we've received this month.

No longer a good fit

I had worked on multiple shows over 4 years for a very well known reality tv production company in NYC, and had a great relationship with them.

But then I was hired as lead editor on a show for OWN, with a solid air date.

There was no prep by anyone when i started, and they expected me to do all the writing and figure out the story, sorting through days of footage.

6 weeks went by, I was doing all the work. They brought up working Saturdays to get it done. I said I'd agree, but would like a "producer/editor" credit.

The answer was no, and I was told that I was under contract for 60 hour weeks (no OT).

Even though I had never signed any deal memo, and never heard such a thing when I was booked, they insisted.

The icing on the cake was a week later when my grandmother died. I needed to take off a long weekend for her funeral.

Their response? To fire me as I left for the airport. The reason "it was no longer a good fit."

Raises and other myths

I have over a decade of experience in reality/non fiction/"unscripted" programming. Primarily in casting – here are a handful of stories for you:

- I have worked numerous seasons on a hit network series, never offered a raise, and always get told, oh the network has cut their budgets. When they hire you, it's anywhere from 7-9 weeks, and you don't know when you're going to be wrapped until a day before, hours before, at best. I have often worked myself out of a job by often delivering what is needed sooner than the deadline. No thank you, just another week of work lost. Oh, you have ZERO choice, either sign the agreement or no work. So what do we do? Say we don't agree with the contract and then go without work? We are good at what we do, and yes we chose this, but also are allowed to have a normal life too, right? Or must you choose work vs life?

- Oddly, each season the production is able to take money saved to fund new sizzle reels, etc for shows to pitch. Fine by me, that's smart business, but still no regard for welfare of employees. Typically you work somewhere you get a raise for longetivity and consistency, or is that a myth?

- Schedule – 7 days a week, casting calls on weekends, also this job requires travel, and hours can range from minimum of 9 to 12-14 on a given. You're given a per diem, which allows you to get some fast food. Flights are booked on orbitz/expedia type sites and we are typically relegated to middle seats and back of the plane.

- Family – if you have one, you are shunned

- Healthcare – non existant

- Sick days – what are those?

- I am in my 40's (have been told I am not getting hired despite a flawless track record – b/c of my age) – age discrimination? Hmmm, yep

From a reality TV producer

In case you don't know, there is a Producers Guild, of which I am a member. I only joined last year...thinking there would be some benefits. However, the biggest benefit seems to be mixers and free screenings. Even their job boards don't have jobs for producers - it always seem to be for editors and post people. It's kind of a joke.

I didn't write you to bitch about the PGA though - just to say how ineffective all things/entities seem to be when it comes to producers. We have no one fighting for us. Camera, sound, everyone else has to stop working after a certain number of hours or "turnaround" goes into effect. Not producers. We work until we drop.

We have NO PROTECTIONS as you have been reporting. Frankly, I have no idea how we don't violate OSHA standards, US labor practices, and various and sundry other "protections" that are out there. We are the dirty secret swept under a rug, yet our work comes into your living room every night...

I would never compare what I do to an indentured servant or migrant worker - but the sheer numbers of hours we work "off the clock" and lack of meal breaks and safety "standards" and such definitely violate the most basic US labor practices.

I hope someday it changes. I love what I do, I just hate the way it gets done.

The view from post-production

First off, I want to applaud you for your coverage of the conditions of reality television from the perspective of producers, but I also want to bring up both the plight and progress of post production crews in reality. I've been working in post production for the past seven years and I got my start in reality television. My earliest gigs were night jobs that sometimes worked me so hard that I fell asleep at the wheel and ended up on freeways that I didn't know how I got there. At one point, I dozed off while driving home on the 10 freeway and came to heading south on the 710 near Monterey Park. That's not a joke.

In post, we are the end of the chain. The job delivers with us, which means any footage not shot, any shoot that is compromised due to bad audio, any tape that gets chewed up by the camera or hard drive that goes corrupt becomes our problem, and the deadline stares us down. We hear the dreaded words, "Time to get creative!" Which really is someone saying, "The assets required to accomplish the task are not available. Time to conjure something." Of course, we have our editor's tricks, but a bag of tricks is simply not content. We can chop together a myriad of lines to form new sentences and drop a bunch of terrible, sparkly transitions on shots. The average show can shoot in the average of 300 hours per 1 hour episode, which is a staggering amount of footage to go through. I'm not diminishing the pressure of the field crews, because they are under incredible timelines as well due to location and shooting schedules. That said, amazing progress has also been made in the past years.

One of our most recent victories, "Last Comic Standing" just signed a union contract to get our post crew compensated fairly. Other recent union contracts won include "Naked and Afraid", "Swamp People", and "Fashion Star". I've walked those picket lines personally, and seen some amazing courage displayed by post crews to better our conditions.

One unique situation that happens in post production is sub-contracting post production. One of the highest profile television shows that does this is American Idol. The show is shot on a large stage on a studio lot that has a union contract. The production crew works under a union contract and earns a pension and health benefits. The production company then sub-contracts out the post production to a separate non-union post house because it's cheaper. While, cheaper it may be, it reduces the amount of union work for union workers. Some non-union post houses do provide healthcare, but by and large these facilities are rare and for the vast majority of workers who are freelancers, the union provides the most effective portable healthcare and pension plan which is why it is generally preferred. I wanted to offer some perspective from post production to see the whole of reality TV represented.

Viacom in action

Around 2008 I was a permalancer at Vh1. After they stripped away our benefits and group of us organized a work stoppage. This was at the same time the writer's guild was on strike. Hundreds of us got up from our desks and picketed outside of 1515 broadway. I was approached by a union rep, and he told me exactly what was going to happen next. He said that Viacom was going to cave to our demands a reinstate our benefits, but 6 months later take away our benefits again, knowing that we would no longer have the momentum or motivation to strike for second time. This is exactly what happened.

Once I stopped getting an hourly rate and was moved to a weekly, MTV paid me in what had to be an illegal fashion. It's a bit hard to explain, but they took my weekly pay and figured out an hourly rate that, when given 20 hours of OT a week automatically, would add up to my weekly. This rate was well below national minimum wage. So, even if I did work OT I was not really getting paid for it. I would work an average of 90 hours a week, but never really earn OT.

When I moved to LA things only got worse. We would work 18 hour days 6 days a week with no turn around time, meal penalties or any of the other considerations every other member of the crew was afforded by their union.

If nothing else, I would like to thank you for writing about us. Not that we are some destitute group...in the end I like what I do, but we are not being treated in accordance with American Labor Laws and it is nice to have a voice.

Rich in hypocrisy

I work in non-fiction, but my career has been all documentaries and docu-series - you know, the shit that is supposed to win Emmys and Oscars, go to TriBeCa (and some projects I've worked on have been nominated for Oscars and won Emmys). The distinction is important to make if only that it highlights that this is not just reality tv's problem, but a huge industry wide problem, even among the most progressive and liberal minds in the business.

I find the hypocrisy RICH - production companies and directors that want to make art, who fancy themselves as modern and forward thinking. And in many ways they are. But they don't seem to mind nickel and diming their workers. They don't really care that our health care is second rate and financially we are at a disadvantage (no 401K, no employer matched savings, paid vacations etc). They don't mind taking smaller budgets from a network and ask us to cut our rate, or tell us to not eat too much when we're on the road.

But what about the art? The art, the accolades, are all off the backs of the producers, associate producers and other crew who bust their humps to work physically demanding 20 hour days sometimes without breaking for food, that deal with intense logistics in emotionally complex situations (working with addicts, rape victims, religious zealots, any kind of intense personality you can think of, we've worked with).

I've never been in any serious danger (unless you count conflict zones without real security or hazard pay) but I've done some weird stuff - washing a boss's thong comes to mind. Fine, it wasn't pleasant but I was the bottom of the barrel on a small team, I felt I had to. This is not shit my friends that work in finance would ever DREAM of being asked to do. Drive a crew through a hurricane on 3 hours of sleep - been there, done that. There are no boundaries - if the executive producer or director asks you to do something - you are expected to do it. And they are happy to remind you of how long the line is behind you. I should be grateful, mind you, not entitled. And I certainly shouldn't be getting any ideas about standard rates, over time pay and health insurance.

The icing on the top of the cake is that when you get sick for working 6 weeks straight, you get the pleasure of paying for time off to be sick (If you can afford it), if you're left alone by your team and aren't on some crazy deadline. (You always are, so there goes your dream vacation of being home sick in bed). Not to mention that you're paying out of pocket for your own insurance (I pay just over $300 a month for CATASTROPHE insurance, with a $6,000 deductible)

I could go on and on but you get the picture - the industry is dysfunctional. I love what I do, and I'm not afraid of hard work, I wouldn't even be able to bitch about all this if I wasn't working hard enough to still be here. I just want industry standards that say fair is fair.

How did we get here?

I was a on reality shoot which intended to shoot on the cranes in Long Beach. We proceeded to take an entire crew to the top of one of these cranes for a scout. Not a single person was wearing a harness, nor was a safety representative on the scout. After taking the meeting on the arm of one of these cranes, the scout moved back down to the ground and continued. Mid-meeting, a coke can which someone from our crew had left 300 feet above us came crashing down into our meeting. It could have easily killed or caused serious injury.

That same show, which was basically a cross between the Amazing Race and the Bourne Identity, has a scene planned for the farmer's market downtown. When the two contestants exited the market and fled into the streets of downtown LA, the producers charged, "Follow them!" and several crews spilled into the open-to-traffic streets of Los Angeles. Quite possibly the most dangerous thing I have ever seen, and all to make a silly game show.

Footnote: That show, did turn Union and became one of the best experiences of my reality career. We executed some spectacular stunts safely and everyone was aware of what was going on at all times. It was more a function of some smart people at the head of that production company than it was the Union contract, but it certainly helped.

The point is that there is an illusion of safety inherently built into Show Business. Because "everyone has a boss" there is the assumption that someone above you has your back, but without a union contract, even with the best intentions there is no enforcement, no accountability.

Production Companies and Networks cry poor. There is no line item for safety or "doing it the right way." All production requires compromise, but it seems reality shows tend to look at safety as the one of the first things to ignore.

All kinds of claims that "if this show was Union, they'd shut it down," Meanwhile, small production companies with a few shows on the air are sold for tens of millions of dollars after their hit shows have faded.

How did we get here? To some extent, I think we got here because the expectations of slowly changed. In the beginning, a show was essentially a news crew, 2 cameras and a sound guy, maybe a producer to take notes, but through the years, these shows have evolved, they have been taken "out of the house" and into locations that require more work to make them safe, more permits, more lighting (that could be knocked over in an open to the public location). Basically more. And the budgets have not increased in kind. Networks beat up production companies to make it for less, so production companies make up budgets that are as fictional as the conceits of the reality shows they are selling. Since there is, for all intents and purpose, no back end for the executive producers, they skim their fees off every line item they possibly can. Three shows, one line producer, you bet. Location manager? Why do we need that, we have an associate producer to do that. Nevermind that the associate producer is also responsible for driving talent to set, picking up craft service and logging the footage at day's end.

It's a race to the bottom, and no one sees themselves as accountable, they only see the liability that they could incur. Its a horrible statement on humanity, but there it is.

Previously

Reality TV Stories volumes one, two, three, and four.

[Photo: AP]

Last Thursday, 14-year-old April Millsap was killed while walking her dog along the Macomb Orchard Trail in a rural area north of Detroit. According to police, Millsap texted her boyfriend that night, "OMG. ... I think I'm being kidnapped."

Police have not released how they think Millsap was killed, only that they know she was not stabbed or shot. Her boyfriend and family members have been ruled out as suspects. According to the couple who found her, Millsap's dog, "Penny", was guarding her body on the trail.

WXYZ reports that police have gotten at least 500 tips about the incident so far. As of now, cops are looking for a male suspect with "sandy brown or reddish hair." They are also looking for any person who was riding a motorcycle on the trail on Thursday night.

Millsap graduated from middle school this past year and was set to start high school in the fall.

[Image via WXYZ]

Princess Marks was arrested Friday when police found her children unattended in an SUV parked outside a Louisiana Walmart. When the 25-year-old returned to the vehicle, she allegedly told police she had been in her boyfriend's car, in the same parking lot, going down on him.

Police found the Marks's car with the windows down and engine turned off. Marks, who reportedly admitted she could not technically keep an eye on her kids while blowing her boyfriend, was charged with child desertion and released on $5000 bond the next day. The children, aged five and seven, were placed in the custody of relatives.

The New York Daily News reports that the little ones were "crying hysterically" when officers arrived at around 12:40 a.m.:

"Both of them were crying hysterically," Officer Kim Myers the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office told the Daily News. "While the deputies were trying to calm the children down, Princess walked up about 15 minutes later."

Something doesn't add up here: If cops didn't actually catch Marks in the act, why did she tell them about the blow job? Just making casual conversation, I guess.