Did you know that American Ninja Warrior is an anagram of Nicki Minaj Anaconda? Tonight what is on the TV is cooking people, on both cooking shows and not; Bear Grylls attempts to teach a yeti the alphabet; The Fosters takes it all the way there; and we revisit the triumphs of American Ninjas past and present.

At 8/7c. it's the Top 10 Masterchefs and the second episode of Disney-themed sex party Bachelor In Paradise, Channing Tatum's Running Wild With Bear Grylls puts Ben Stiller's mugging appearance even more to shame, Padma Lakshmi headlines the Whose Line? crew and Switched At Birth references post-impressionist Augustus John's The Girl on the Cliff. What is she doing on the cliff? Looks like she's peeing to me, was that a thing ladies did in 1936? (Or claiming her natural right to some vitamin D, à la Shailene Woodley. Haven't heard from her in a while. It's been nice.)

When you think hilarious do you immediately think Padma Lakshmi? I think she's awesome, and that often translates into funny as in "a funny way of being enjoyable to be around," but I wonder what it will be like, overall: Improvisationally speaking, Padma Lakshmi may or may not have "the goods." Gotta be funnier than Shailene, though. Or Channing. Those two can go to the moon for all I care. The supermoon.

At 9/8c. American Ninja Warrior gives us the best runs of the season, it's the finales of Hit The Floor and Major Crimes, Hotel Hell visits the Hotel Chester, and in real talk news there's I think the penultimate Fosters on ABC Family and a new Real Housewives of Orange County on whatever network that show is on.

Tonight's Fosters is a special one (even for the continually special The Fosters) because it involves Wyatt and his hair plus Callie running into her very viscerally awful ex-foster brother Liam, who also plays Hot Nerdy Drug Dealer on Pretty Little Liars, which demonstrates almost infinite range. I hope that instead of Wyatt punching Liam in the nards it is Callie who punches the nards. I hope instead of just one person punching Wyatt in the nards it is all of the people on the show. Just 44 minutes with commercial breaks of Liam's nards getting punched, followed by Connor's dad breaking down in apologetic tears for being such an ongoing creep to poor little Jude. "I bought you this nail polish, Judicorn," he'll say, and Jude will deliver some kind of speech about what a family really is. #JudeSpeaks.

At 10/9c. NGC's got another unstoppable technique from David Rees, this time about how to light a match unstoppably, the second Jersey Belle tries to figure out what it even is, there's the finale of TNT's Murder in the First—which is the one with Taye Diggs and Claire from 90210 that dated Gregg Araki, like who didn't in the '90s—and the Mistresses continue their distressin' a-mistressin' like they do. There's a new Teen Wolf and Wolf Watch—the former leading up to next week's shocking reveal of the Benefactor and the latter starring, as usual, the effortlessly perfect Jill Wagner and her best friend in the entire freakin' world DJ Cole Plante—while Under the Dome defies expectations with an especially brief episode entitled "Going Home," to wit:

Bored Teen: "I am sick to death of being under this dome all the time!"
Observant Teen: "Yeah fuck it, let's go home. Wait it's just over there, because we are under a dome."
(Exeunt, pursued by a dome.)

[Image via Getty]

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.

On June 22, Michael J. Hudson published a tweet for the ages. "hell yeah benihana up in this bitch," it reads, with an attached image of some chicken cooking directly on an electric range. Yesterday, the office of Rep. Keith Ellison retweeted it.

hell yeah benihana up in this bitch pic.twitter.com/n9vwx4r9yn

— michael (@michaeljhudson) June 23, 2014

The apparent slip-up was caught and corrected after just 25 seconds, but not before Politwoops, a site that catalogs deleted tweets from politicians, caught it. From there, it was a short hop to Twitchy, the terrible "cutting-edge Twitter curation website" from conservative pundit Michelle Malkin. Hudson, Twitchy is careful to note, "claims he is the nephew of musician Slash." (He also claims to star in the "hit lacrosse movie Crooked Arrows," so.)

Today, Talking Points Memo picked up the story, and received, incredibly, a statement from the Minnesota Democrat's spokesperson: "It was an aide and it was a mistake. The congressman had nothing to do with it." The aide, it turns out, was Ellison communications assistant Isi Kirshner-Breen, who, for the record, loves Benihana:

The tweet deleted from @keithellison last night was my mistake. For the record, I love Benihana. http://t.co/3cw15W55X9

— Isi Kirshner-Breen (@isikirshner) August 11, 2014

Last week, Michael J. Hudson put some weird stuff on a pizza and ended up on Good Morning America's blog.

[Image via AP]

Earlier today, the chief of the St. Louis County police issued what I think he imagined as a call for sanity:

"I understand that the public has a right to be skeptical, and I appreciate that and I would expect that the public be skeptical oftentimes of government or some forms of it," he said. "But I would also ask the public to be reasonable because it takes a long time to make sure we do this investigation the right way."

It is a curious word, this "reasonable." For many people, and the police chief must know this, it is entirely reasonable to be "skeptical" that an investigation will be performed "the right way." That is especially true in this case. The shooting of an unarmed black teenager is something that until very, very recently, there seemed to be no call on anyone to explain. And even in a post-Trayvon Martin, post-Renisha McBride, post-Eric Garner world, there is a sense that when these things happen, power will close ranks.

You could see it happening already today, actually. Asked by an L.A. Times reporter about the shooting at 2 p.m. this afternoon, the chief apparently said he "planned to identify officer in Michael Brown shooting today, if he can reach the officer to notify him." Michael Brown died on Saturday. Already you can see that they are in no real rush, these police officers, to get to the bottom of what happened.

While they have been dallying, reporters on the scene have managed to dig up a significant accumulation of facts about Brown. For example, that he was reportedly pretty quiet, had plans to go to college, liked to make music.

And here is the last message he left on his Facebook wall, earlier this week:

"if i leave this earth today," he wrote to a friend, "atleast youll know i care about others more then i cared about my damn self."

And here is how the others he cared about learned that he was dead:

They saw photos of him lying in the street on Canfield Drive where his body remained for hours. Some joined the crowds of mourners and protesters who had gathered there since the shooting in protest of how Brown had died: black, unarmed and from multiple gunshots.

Investigations are slow, painstaking things, yes. Reconstruction of events will take a while. But there comes a point where "reasonableness" starts to feel like a cover for something. In this case, already, 48 hours in, it feels like things are moving rather more slowly than they ought to be. The FBI has been brought in to "review" the shooting and look into civil rights violations, which is a good thing.

But expecting people to be "reasonable?" Not this time. Not again.

[Image via AP.]

Daniel Radcliffe, the boy who lived through playing Harry Potter and continued to have an acting career, is his own worst critic. He told the Daily Mail on Sunday that growing up onscreen as the star of the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time was "an incredible blessing," but didn't do much for him as an actor.

"The moments I'm not as proud of, mistakes other actors get to make in rehearsal rooms or at drama school, are all on film for everyone to see," he said.

And he didn't stop there. He's seriously hard on himself because, he says, he doesn't trust others to be straight with him about his work.

"It's hard to watch a film like Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, because I'm just not very good in it. I hate it," he continued.

"My acting is very one-note and I can see I got complacent and what I was trying to do just didn't come across. My best film is the fifth one because I can see a progression."

But Radcliffe is starting to see a light at the end of the Potter tunnel. With his stage performance in The Cripple Of Inishmaan and his recent role in the big-screen adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns, he says "the debate as to whether I can do things outside of Potter is near to ending."

Being taken seriously as an actor hasn't put an end to jealous guys trying to fight him at the pub, though. Hashtag #hundredmillionaireproblems.

[H/T Guardian, Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures]

Do you work in an office? Do you work in an office with harsh, artificial lighting? Do you know when you will die? Younger than you need to, I bet.

The sun is a gentle smiling giant casting its warm glow upon the earth; we all must bathe in its refreshing beams and fill ourselves with their life force. For if we don't, we surely shall die of rickets. And you know Pete Drucker's first rule of management: "Employees who are dying of rickets are bad for productivity."

So I invite all corporate managers to turn their attention to this new study out of Northwestern University, that found that office drones who are allowed to feel the sun's warming rays on their sickly flesh enjoy "longer sleep duration, better sleep quality, more physical activity and better quality of life." What does it take to provide your minions with such drastic health improvements? A hot new architectural commodity:

Employees with windows in the workplace received 173 percent more white light exposure during work hours and slept an average of 46 minutes more per night than employees who did not have the natural light exposure in the workplace. There also was a trend for workers in offices with windows to have more physical activity than those without windows.

Ehh... we don't have the budget for windows.

Back to work, Golem.

[Photo: Flickr]

Lucky, the Conde Nast magazine "about shopping," looks like it's turning into a straight-up catalog. In a slightly convoluted press release today, Conde announced that it's spinning off the mag into The Lucky Group, "a wholly independent entity, which brings together Lucky and e-commerce platform, BeachMint." So, a shopping site. But what will happen to the print mag?

Big news! @LuckyMagazine is adding ecommerce starting in early 2015... start saving now because it's going to be dangerously good🙆

— Eva Chen (@evachen212) August 11, 2014

Conde says Lucky editors will still put together a magazine, and that this new e-commerce venture is just a fun, money-making addition to the brand. There are a few reasons that seems unlikely.

In the press release, Conde announced that "all of Lucky's editorial and business teams are expected to join" The Lucky Group, and that Lucky editor-in-chief Eva Chen has been named the Chief Creative Officer of new company. Lucky is not moving to Conde's new offices in One World Trade Center—Chen told Adweek that The Lucky Group is looking for space in Flatiron, "closer to other fashion and tech start-ups." She also said, perhaps defensively, "My fashion editors won't suddenly become merchandisers."

Back in April, Page Six reported that Lucky was folding, and Conde and Chen denied it. In a memo to staff, Chen called the report "recycled rumors from years past" and linked to this video:

So, what's going on? If the print mag kicks the bucket, I'll always remember the happy summer days I interned there during college, refilling a certain editor's water glass while she was in the bathroom because she didn't like to see my face. Maybe it's better they're all getting out of Conde Nast.

If you know anything about what's happening at Lucky, email allie@gawker.com.

[Image via Lucky]

First, a parody Twitter account called @BicycleLobby convinced the Associated Press it was claiming responsibility for the white flags that appeared mysteriously atop the Brooklyn Bridge last month. Then, it convinced the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

Friday, BicycleLobby—created in response to Wall Street Journal writer Dorothy Rabinowitz's memorable use of the phrase last year—published a subpoena it was issued on Scribd. The DA's office, like the AP and the New York Daily News before it, had evidently taken seriously a joke that the anonymous owners of the account were responsible for the flags, and was commanding the John Does behind it to hand over "any and all records" associated with the nefarious Bicycle Lobby.

Earlier today we hoisted two white flags to signal our complete surrender of the Brooklyn Bridge bicycle path to pedestrians.

— Bike Lobby (@BicycleLobby) July 22, 2014

On Monday, Twitter alerted this account that it had received a subpoena from the office of the District Attorney of the County of New York.

— Bike Lobby (@BicycleLobby) August 8, 2014

Knock knock. (Who's there?) The DA's office. (The DA's office who?) Come out with your IP address & password where we can see them.

— Bike Lobby (@BicycleLobby) August 11, 2014

It should be noted, perhaps, that BicycleLobby clearly identifies itself as a parody in its bio. Last week, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said the department has a "very good idea who's responsible" for the flags. Read the full text of the subpoena below.

[Image via AP]

Now that San Francisco has successfully shut down predatory parking apps, city officials are turning their regulatory eyes towards a new crop of startups: weed delivery apps.

Marijuana has recently received the Silicon Valley treatment. One recent startup, Eaze, is already seeking investors for its "Uber for pot" app, which advertises itself as delivering dank buds to worthless layabouts in under 20 minutes.

However Eaze, which is being developed by a former Yammer executive, is drawing the attention of San Francisco's health department for operating without permits. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Department of Public Health regulates and permits medical marijuana dispensaries, inspecting each of the 28 permitted pot dispensaries twice a year and responding to any complaints about them. Obtaining a permit requires filing a pile of paperwork, obtaining a criminal background check for the owner, providing a business registration certificate, and providing plans for security, lighting and ventilation. [...]

Rachael Kagan, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, said that whether Eaze and similar startups will need permits is "a developing question" and that public health officials are examining the issue. The law, shockingly, doesn't address companies that deliver medical pot to homes and lack a fixed storefront.

Despite regulators investigating Eaze, the company is quickly growing. Having just launched in late July, the startup already has "dozens of drivers" and advertises itself as paying their mobile "caregivers" $45 an hour, San Francisco Magazine reports. And Eaze already has plans to expand to Southern California, Colorado, and Washington.

Eaze states that they only connect licensed dispensaries with card-carrying medical marijuana patients. However, one member of the city's former Medical Marijuana Task Force is already criticizing the app, telling the Chronicle "it's not fair that traditional dispensaries have to jump through so many hoops to be legal, but that Eaze doesn't."

In a statement to the Chronicle, a spokesperson for Eaze dismissed the regulatory gray-area as just another disruption. "If the Department of Public Health has any questions or concerns, we welcome the opportunity to speak with them. In the true spirit of Silicon Valley disruption, we recognize we are opening up new dialogues."

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

Photo: CNBC

An epic of moral decay, the Senate Intelligence Committees's 6,700-page investigation into the CIA's use of torture is longer than all but one of the world's great works of literature. It's also classified, probably forever. Right now, the Senate is only contesting CIA redactions to the 510-page executive summary.

What does the CIA want blacked out? Roughly 15 percent of the words in the summary. Here's the best current assessment:

• The first big-ticket redaction is any-and-all code names and pseudonyms used in the summary that refer either to CIA personnel or to countries that aided the CIA in its "extraordinary rendition" program.
  
  As an anonymous federal official complained to McClatchy's D.C. bureau, "The story is partly about names and places. All of a sudden you wouldn't be able to tell that story."
  
  "Essentially it just becomes a bunch of verbs. 'Something was done but nobody did it and it wasn't done anywhere.' It's similar to 'Mistakes were made.' There's no accountability in the narrative. It would make it incomprehensible."
• According to the Washington Post's sources, the CIA (and, it seems, the Obama administration) would like to redact material illustrating how certain key pieces of intelligence—that were long thought to be derived from the rendition and "enhanced interrogation" programs—were not. Despite many media appearances to the contrary, by Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration, it sounds like the committee discovered that there were intercepted communications, unenhanced interrogations, and other forms of non-torture-based intelligence (or NOTORTINT) that led to these national security victories.
  
  "The redactions obscure or prevent the report from sharing other forms of information that contributed to counterterrorism successes," which included disrupting terrorism plots in progress and capturing certain terrorist suspects, the Post was told by another, presumably different, unnamed U.S. official.
• The CIA would also like to redact the committee's evidence pertaining to novel and "improvised" torture techniques, employed by the agency, but not listed among the ten techniques authorized by the Justice Department's infamous "torture memo." Two (again unnamed) officials told VICE News that these never-before-released torture methods are vital to the report, as they help convey the overall "cruelty" of the program.
• Evidence suggesting that the agency intentionally leaked information about "phantom terror plots" allegedly foiled by the torture program's intelligence.
• Information pertaining to how the program originated.
• Information that is already publicly available in the Senate Armed Services committee's 2009 report on detention, according to an interview with Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in the New York Times.
• Like, one would have to assume, information pertaining to that one time they kidnapped a 12-year-old girl and her family, just because her dad was a political opponent of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

A lot of stuff, in other words.

It is a pretty long executive summary of a pretty long report, after all.

What Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) originally thought would be a six-month review into the CIA's use of torture has metastasized into a protracted five-year-plus battle with the U.S. intelligence community and the executive over ethical and legal breaches that she now calls "chilling," and "far more systematic and widespread than we thought." It's important to note that this is coming from a woman who called Edward Snowden's disclosures last year "an act of treason." Feinstein, like her Republican ally in this investigation, John McCain, is pretty much a defense hawk—which makes some of the CIA's angry baby recalcitrance a little hard to take.

Beyond the broad redaction requests, and the admission that they were illegally spying on the Senate committee's computers, we have a former senior CIA official whining to the Washington Post that the investigation has gone on "longer than the CIA held detainees."

Talk about torture. Goodness gracious.

You will not hear all this wounded, pathetic noise when the intelligence committees finally get around to an investigation of all those creepy extrajudicial tactics conducted by the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command over the past decade. No one at their Rumsfeld-created parallel CIA wing, the Strategic Support Branch, or their personal signals intelligence division, The Activity, are going to go crying anonymously to the Washington Post.

They'll probably just do what they do best: discreetly kill people.

[photo: an unmarked 737, likely a Janet U.S. Air Force plane, parked at Gold Coast Terminal in Las Vegas, and photographed from nearly a mile away by Trevor Paglen via WIRED]

To contact the author, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key.

Actor Robin Williams was found dead from an apparent suicide in his Tiburon, California home earlier today. He was 63.

From the Marin County Sheriff's Department:

On August 11, 2014, at approximately 11:55 am, Marin County Communications received a 9-1-1 telephone call reporting a male adult had been located unconscious and not breathing inside his residence in unincorporated Tiburon, CA. The Sheriff's Office, as well as the Tiburon Fire Department and Southern Marin Fire Protection District were dispatched to the incident with emergency personnel arriving on scene at 12:00 pm. The male subject, pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm has been identified as Robin McLaurin Williams, a 63 year old resident of unincorporated Tiburon, CA.

An investigation into the cause, manner, and circumstances of the death is currently underway by the Investigations and Coroner Divisions of the Sheriff's Office. Preliminary information developed during the investigation indicates Mr. Williams was last seen alive at his residence, where he resides with his wife, at approximately 10:00 pm on August 10, 2014. Mr. Williams was located this morning shortly before the 9-1-1 call was placed to Marin County Communications. At this time, the Sheriff's Office Coroner Division suspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia, but a comprehensive investigation must be completed before a final determination is made. A forensic examination is currently scheduled for August 12, 2014 with subsequent toxicology testing to be conducted.

Williams battled depression and substance abuse throughout his career. In July, he checked into rehab facility.

Williams' publicist released a statement this afternoon confirming the actor's death:

"Robin Williams passed away this morning. He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time."

His wife, Susan Schneider, also confirmed the news: "This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions."

[Image via Getty]

Mixed martial arts fighter War Machine is still on the run and tweeting apologies after allegedly attacking his ex-girlfriend, porn actress Christy Mack, on Friday. Today, Mack—who is still recovering in a Las Vegas hospital—posted a series of graphic photos and her own horrifying account of the attack on Twitter.

War Machine—also known as Jon Koppenhaver—allegedly attacked Mack and a third, unnamed party on Friday night, breaking Mack's face and kicking and stabbing her body.

Earlier today, Mack, who is reportedly unable to speak due to her injuries, posted a long account of War Machine's attack on her Twitter account.

At about 2 am Friday morning, Jon Koppenhaver arrived unannounced to my home in Las Vegas, NV, after he broke up with me in May, he moved out of my house and back to San Diego. When he arrived, he found myself and one other fully clothed and unarmed in the house. Without a single word spoken, he began beating my friend; once he was finished, he sent my friend away and turned his attention to me. He made me undress and shower in front of him, then dragged me out and beat my face. I have no recollection of how many times I was hit, I just know my injuries that resulted from my beating. My injuries include 18 broken bones around my eyes, my nose is broken in 2 places, I am missing teeth and several more are broken. I am unable to chew, or see out of my left eye. My speach is slurred from my swelling and lack of teeth. I have a fractured rib and severely ruptured liver from a kick to my side. My leg is so badly injured I have not been able to walk on my own. I also attained several lesions from a knife he got from my kitchen. He pushed the knife into me in some areas such as my hand, ear, and head. He also sawed much of my hair off with this dull knife. After some time, the knife broke off of the handle and continued to threaten me with the blade. I believed I was going to die. He has beaten me many times before, but never this badly. He took my phone and canceled all of my plans for the following week to make sure no one could worry about my whereabouts. He told me he was going to rape me, but was disappointed in himself when he could not get hard. After another hit or two, he left me on the floor bleeding and shaking, holding my side from the pain of my rib. He left the room and went to the kitchen where I could hear him ruffling through my drawers. Assuming he was finding a sharper, more stable knife to end my life, I ran out my back door, shutting it behind me so the dogs didn't run inside tot ip him off. I hopped the fence to the golf course behind my house and ran to a neighboring house. Naked and afraid he would catch me, I kept running through the neighborhood knocking on doors. Finally, one answered and I was brought to the hospital and treated for my injuries.

Mack also posted a series of graphic photographs of her injuries.

War Machine—who remains a fugitive—appeared to confirm his involvment on Twitter, writing, "I'm not a bad guy, I went to surprise my gf, help her set up her show and to give her an engagement ring and ended up fighting for my life," and adding, "I only wish that man hadn't been there and that Christy & I would behappily engaged.I don't know y I'm so cursed.One day truth will come out,"

[h/t Uproxx, images via Twitter]

According to the Associated Press, the DEA spent nearly 20 years buying confidential passenger information from an Amtrak employee in an effort to screw over the railroad behemoth.

The employee, identified only as a "secretary to a train and engine crew," apparently began selling confidential information about Amtrak passengers to the agency in 1995.

The information—which includes names, credit card numbers, emergency contacts, itineraries, and baggage information—-could have been obtained for free, had the DEA formally requested it through legal channels.

But the DEA instead reportedly paid off the employee so that it wouldn't have to share any money seized during drug arrests with the Amtrak police department.

According to the ACLU, the Amtrak police department typically takes 10 percent of recovered cash when its information leads to an arrest.

The AP reports that the employee was recently allowed to quietly retire and was not subject to any administrative discipline.

[image via AP]

A McDonalds in North Carolina was forced to issue a public apology this week after one of its employees burned a swastika on the inside of a customer's chicken sandwich.

The customer, Charleigh Matice, told local news station WTCI 12 that she found the swastika when she opened the bun of her southern-style chicken sandwich to add mayonnaise.

When the self-proclaimed "loyal McDonalds customer" returned to complain, the store's owner issued her a refund and apparently fired the employee.

And lest you assume the greasy hate symbol is just another potential fast-food joint hoax, WTCI 12 is pretty sure they've cracked the buttered bun story wide open: "We've been working on this story in our newsroom for several days now, making calls and talking to McDonalds," says reporter Juliana Valencia.

[image via WTCI 12]

Tensions in Ferguson, Missouri were cloaked in a cloud of tear gas Monday night as police and protestors continued their stand off over the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager who was shot multiple times and killed Saturday by a police officer.

Between 200 and 300 police officers came out in full force Monday, armed with tear gas, dogs and tanks to combat the protestors, who were joined this morning by the hacker-activist group, Anonymous.

"I'm down here at the protest and they start throwing tear gas and shooting rubber bullets at all the protestors, telling us to go home, and we live here. They need to go home. We live here. We're looking for justice. Where's the justice for this boy's death?" a protestor named Samantha Broomfield told the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch.

People on the scene—including the New York Times' Julie Bosman—confirmed that police appeared to be indiscriminately firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd.

Police shooting rubber bullets at crowd, including reporters and photographers. #Ferguson

— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) August 12, 2014

At least 5 gunshots heard from #Ferguson neighborhood. People trapped here scatter and take cover. "Where are we supposed to hide?" one says

— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) August 12, 2014

Tear gas Right now in #Ferguson https://t.co/ZeNa4xxYY7

— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 12, 2014

Earlier in the day, the protestors—many of them young black men with their hands raised in mock surrender—chanted "Don't shoot," at the police officers.

Men armed with nothing but phones ordered to get on their knees. I witnessed tear gas thrown at them in #ferguson pic.twitter.com/DNOK0yRt93

— Liz Peinado (@LizPeinadoSTL) August 12, 2014

Group of roughly one dozen men approached police with hands raised. Lots more tear gas. #Ferguson

— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) August 12, 2014

Right now in #Ferguson https://t.co/9FleEWiKmY

— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 12, 2014

The FBI took over the investigation into Brown's death this morning, and the publicly available details surrounding Brown's death remain unclear.

Witnesses say Brown had his hands up when he was shot, while the official police statement claims Brown was "physically assaulting" the officer. All parties agree he was unarmed and shot multiple times by an as-yet unidentified police officer.

On Monday afternoon, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told CNN that he will release the officer's name at some point on Tuesday.

t[h/t @antoniofrench, image by Fox 2 via Twitter]

Last week, a good ol' boy chef named Lenny McNab won the current season of Food Network's reality show The Next Food Network Star, which makes it a bit awkward that the history of a hilariously vulgar message board poster that appears to be McNab includes the proclamation that he'd "fuck" one of the network's current hosts "in the ass."

McNab's alleged internet history was first flagged by the website Food Network Gossip, which tracked down his apparent posting history on forums attached to the SiriusXM radio program The Ron & Fez Show (which runs on the network's "Raw Dog Comedy Hits" channel).

The posts—which have appear to have been deleted or deactivated but were sent to Gawker by a source—were made by a user named "chuckwagoncook," who identified himself as McNab in the below post. Later in the same post, he announces to the board's "cock sucking, faggot sticking, pussy licking, ass dragging, mouth breathing, knuckle draggin, keyboard jizzing, assholes" that he would be on the upcoming season of a Food Network program.

Now, it's possible that there was a fake Lenny McNab posting on the forums of a satellite radio show before his reality TV debut. McNab clearly can be seen on the episode of Guy's Grocery Games referenced in the above post and on his website he does identify himself as "TheChuckWagonCook." Of course, that seems highly unlikely.

When another poster joked that "chuckwagoncook" would be taking over for host Ree Drummond on her show The Pioneer Woman, he responded by saying that he'd definitely "fuck her... IN THE ASS!!!!!!"

That's right, he said it. Along with his alleged postings on the Ron & Fez Show forums, McNab also maintained a Photobucket account under the name "chuckwagoncook_2008." Someone was smart enough to scrub the contents of the account recently, but not before Food Network Gossip noted the following videos:

• Here is a video of Lenny with his friend, where he says, "That's just the size of your cock"
• Here is a video of Lenny shouting, "What?? Fuck you Twitter!"
• Here is a video of Lenny smashing a glass and saying, "Fuck you D-Bag!"
• Here is a video of Lenny shotgunning a beer
• Here is a video of Lenny stuffing his face and shouting "Fuck You (not sure what he says, Waxbag?)"
• Here is a video of Lenny sitting on the toilet.

The Food Network has perhaps unwittingly signed up its very own Larry the Cable Guy, which is really pretty great. McNab won the episode in large part because of his relatability to viewers, and what's more relatable than shotgunning beers, sitting on the toilet, and stuffing your face while shouting unintelligible insults?

Fried chicken. Fried fish. Fried potatoes. Fried vegetables. Fried dough. All popular staples of the American diet. Hey guys, one question: why no fried fruit?

Think about it: fried fruit. I bet it would be good.

Sure, some fried fruits enjoy a minor or tertiary form of popularity. "Fried apples" are popular—but they're really fried in a pan. Fried bananas are good—if you can find em. Fried McDonald's fruit pie? Don't get me started! But none of these are real live official forms of fried fruit: fruit, breaded and deep fried, just how America loves its other fried foods. Why not?

Fried fruit should just technically exist. Fried fruit should be popular. You could eat it a lot.

Imagine dipping strawberries in a light batter and frying them. Bet that would be good. Imagine dipping pineapple, or apple slices, or mango, or peaches, or pears, in that same batter. Frying them up? Yes indeed. Visualize placing them into your mouth and eating them. Mmm... tastes good, doesn't it? I bet it does (in your mind).

Fried plantains are a relatively popular food. Think of plantains as a bridge between the vegetable and fruit worlds. Now, continue all the way to the other side of that bridge—to banana land. A fried banana would be just as delicious as a fried plantain. If not more delicious. Bananas have natural sugar that tastes good. People would like to eat them fried. When I worked at a pizza restaurant we used to toss whole bananas into the deep fryer for about five or ten seconds each, and eat them. How did they taste? Good. If you battered them they would taste even better, I bet.

People might ask: could we fry cherries, too? Yes, yes you could.

Fried fruit. Why not? Fried fruit.

[Related; Related. Photo: Shutterstock]

On Sunday night, the network of hactivists known as Anonymous released an impassioned video demand for justice in the killing of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. But a specific Anonymous threat against Police Chief Jon Belmar this afternoon backfired in a big way.

Amid street unrest and massive police action in Ferguson today, Anonymous' #OpFerguson campaign took a serious turn when the hacktivists addressed the police department's reluctance to swiftly identify the specific police officer who had shot Brown, 18, repeatedly as he held his arms up in the middle of a Ferguson street.

Media outlets, activists, and the Brown family's attorneys immediately called foul on the police department for not identifying that shooter, who could face civil or criminal action for his role in Brown's death. In solidarity, one Anonymous account made a specific threat tied to the release of that information:

Jon Belmar, if you dont release the officer's name, we're releasing your daughter's info. You have one hour. #Ferguson

RT so he sees this.

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

A subsequent tweet suggested Anonymous was not kidding around.

30 Minutes...

(Somebody better tell him. #Ferguson)

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

The threats, however, brought a swift backlash from other Twitter users, who failed to see the fairness in potentially exposing Chief Belmar's daughter to scrutiny.

@TheAnonMessage why? What's his daughter got to do with this?

— Brian Biscieglia (@BrianBiscieglia) August 12, 2014

@TheAnonMessage that's fuckin cowardly bro. Fuckin low.

— AnonyMc (@Anonymac) August 12, 2014

@TheAnonMessage this is not ok, idc. Stop the violence and blood shed. Ferguson should release his name, but this is just wrong and pathetic

— Cum in Peace ☮ (@Yaremisxo) August 12, 2014

.@RustBeltExpat @TheAnonMessage that's a bullshit argument. Leave the persons daughter out of it. #Ferguson

— M-Bola (@brooklynmike21) August 12, 2014

oh piss off pic.twitter.com/WRIydEXoTS

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) August 12, 2014

Importantly, other users purporting to be connected with Anonymous—which is not an organized group—were not united in supporting that @TheAnonMessage's tactics. (Update: A reader informs us that @AnonRelations is known in the community as an anti-Anonymous troll account):

@TheAnonMessage how about we release ur info and rip that sense of anonymity from ur followers? retract your statement threatening a kid.

— Anonymous Relations (@AnonRelations) August 12, 2014

Apparently, that onslaught convinced @TheAnonMessage to rethink its strategy:

We have recognized that releasing vital information on Belmar's family is damaging to the overall message of justice for Mike Brown.

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

Thereafter, the account's users attempted to articulate their position:

We will therefore cease in releasing any more information on Belmar's family. We still continue to demand the release of the officer's name.

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

We recognize that Jon Belmar has had enough damage done to him. We will save the rest of our energy for the true perpetrator. #Ferguson

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

We cannot be responsible for jeopardizing the investigation or demoralizing the movement.

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

Jon, I hope you learned your lesson. #Ferguson

— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

Major flooding is ongoing near Baltimore this afternoon after areas south of town have seen more than seven inches of rain in a short period of time, and amounts could approach ten inches before the storms stop. A similar situation unfolded in Detroit last night.

Of the two metro areas that flooded, the most dire situation is in parts of eastern Maryland between Washington and Baltimore. BWI Airport reported just under six inches of rain at 3PM.

Doppler radar estimates confirm the airport's reading, showing that more than six inches of rain has fallen over a large area south of Baltimore. Given the nature of the training thunderstorms, it wouldn't be much of a surprise if totals approached ten inches in a few spots.

The pictures coming from Baltimore are something else.

Heavy flooding in southern Baltimore, cars attempting to drive through, via @blueagavebalto pic.twitter.com/kBLz5LcolK

— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 12, 2014

The heavy rain even flooded out the long-term lots at Baltimore Washington International (BWI) Airport.

#AACoFD Engine 5 (Waugh Chapel) operating in the area of the BWI Long Term Parking Lots; heavy rain continues pic.twitter.com/oHv3fVoJ1R

— Russ Davies (@AACountyFirePIO) August 12, 2014

Areas in the Detroit metro area saw a similar situation last night, with "unprecedented" flooding occurring across the area. According to the Capital Weather Gang, the four-and-a-half inches of rain reported at city's airport makes yesterday the second wettest day ever recorded in Detroit.

Twitter was flooded (pun unintended) with pictures of drivers boneheadedly trying to traverse the flooded roadways.

I'm sorry car pic.twitter.com/gC6NG6cwhH

— Melissa Schreiber (@Schreibertalk) August 11, 2014

Never drive through a flooded roadway. It's very hard if not impossible to judge how deep the water is, and it takes surprisingly little water to disable a car and make it buoyant. Anyone who chooses to drive through a flooded roadway not only risks their lives, but the lives of the rescuers who have to hike out there and save the idiots who thought they could make it.

The weather should clear out by tomorrow and allow the flooded areas to dry up. Tomorrow's flash flood threat shifts to Maine in the east, and Colorado/Utah in the west.

[Radar images via Gibson Ridge]

Note: I've disabled comments due to the sick bastard(s) hitting the Gawkersphere discussion threads with horrific images of gore and porn. I'll reinstate the comment threads once they figure out a fix. Thanks for your understanding. — Dennis

The Summer of Hand-wringing About America's Reading Habits continues apace with Tim Parks of the New York Review of Books arguing against what his title calls "reading upward."

In short, Parks rejects the idea that if you spend your time reading Twilight, Fifty Shades of Gray, or even Stieg Larsson, they might lead you to Dickens, Faulkner, or Joyce.

This has always struck me as an empirical sort of question and one it would be nice to read a properly sourced study on. Parks has mostly rhetorical questions on offer:

Do people really pass from Fifty Shades of Grey to Alice Munro? (Through how many intermediate steps? Never to return?)

Though he also seems aware that he'd be better off with hard data, he has none other than:

With no studies or statistics available to settle the question—at least I have not come across any—I can only resort to anecdotal evidence, as a father of three and a university teacher for many years. And the first thing to say is that no one has ever spoken to me of making this progression.

Huh. Well, I guess I'll step up and be the first.

Fifty Shades did not exist when I was a young reader but I did manage to get from V.C. Andrews to Alice Munro, a comparable journey. My intermediate steps went all over the map, to L.M. Montgomery and Thomas Hardy, R.L. Stine and Anne Michaels. I was handed Munro in school, of course, but I do sort of think of the entire of my reading history as cumulative. Certainly, I can't go back to Flowers in the Attic at this point without noticing Andrews's failings as a, uh, prose stylist.

I guess I did not realize that this was an unusual path to take.

Am I just a stooge of the kind of marketing-speak Parks identifies as the main source of this wisdom? Was I just indoctrinated by some kind of evil Canadian socialist "kids should read more" campaign? Am I some kind of reading mutant? Is this why I just can't get as upset about YA fiction as every other self-respecting NYRB subscriber out there?

[Image via Shutterstock.]

Comments have been turned off on this post because some asshole keeps posting gore and porn GIFs and we don't have an adequate way to stop him. Sorry.

It's Tuesday night and you know what that means: Bad Girls, pregnant ladies, drunk biddies tossin' legs, little liars, megasharks and opting out of your own dating choices forever. Just another Tuesday, sorry to repeat on you but it's been a bear of a day.

At 8/7c. the Bad Girls Club does whatever mysterious things Bad Girls do during a waning Supermoon, and a little person meets Rocco Dispirito as part of her ABC Extreme Weight Loss situation. You got the finale of the three-part reunion for the Real Housewives of New York, which is generally when somebody's marriage is revealed to have been crumbling this entire time—which will definitely be the case this week; couldn't happen to a nicer gal—but for me it's all about the PLL, as usual.

Tonight, a strange beautiful man has handed himself over to the cops for a crime we know he didn't commit, which means he's got to be another A toy or catspaw. But if he's innocent, which he is since the thing he's talking about never happened, why is he surrendering? Spencer tries an end run around Alison, Emily tries to save her from as many burning buildings as possible, Aria sucks on her burnt fingers after last week's wedding fiasco, and I'm guessing Hanna is mainly just like, "Fuck it." These girls, they're so pretty, you know? But they're all such little liars.

At 9/8c. there's a Discovery special called Alien Sharks, which is two things I'm pretty sure aren't even real, and some premieres: Below Deck, a Bravo doculaffer about some hos on a boat, and Sisterhood of Hip-Hop: Femme-C's on Oxygen, a new show whose title is not a lot to go on. There are regular episodes of Rizzoli & Isles and Royal Pains, the America's Got Talent quarter-finals, and Chasing Life ends its ABC Family summer season with, what else, a mortifyingly shitty pun: "Finding Chemo."

At 10/9c. this last month's Teen Tournament on Chopped hits its Grand Finale before the Food Truck Fight foretold in legend next week, and Discovery has another special, Lair Of The Mega Shark. Sounds edifying for sure. But whatever because Drunk History is going to Hawaii for three pretty fascinating stories, and Nathan For You has an insane scheme for a taxi company involving pregnant women.

There's also the usual—Covert Affairs, Perception, Tyrant—and Finding Carter, and the premiere of a bizarre new show on Bravo called The Singles Project where people out here with us in the real world use an app to control the dating lives of some hapless/aimless 7s and 8s. Crowdsourcing your love life: Not a great idea. Let's just leave it at that. But if you're going to make shitty choices anyway, this sounds fascinating: The online people make the decisions, the show gets filmed and aired the same week, and we repeat the process. I don't know how many there are but I bet can find out for you... There are six. And demographically respectable, at that. Or at least, I should say, effort was shown, which is more than I was expecting.

I feel like dating and trying to find friends and people has entered a new phase where it's a beast we poke at and try to study and do experiments on like, "What if you were naked" or "What if you were out in terrifying, filthy nature" or "What if you married the supposedly perfect person for you and they asked you for a threesome immediately." I can remember long ago, when dating a guy you met online was a weird story you didn't want to eventually have to tell, but now everybody literally has a boner detector in their pocket.

No wonder we're going about this in the futuristic, reality-TV sex dystopia way! But I think it's great. I have been told I am a romantic but I also think that the computer I use to determine my choices—the one which lies behind these hazel eyes of mine, staring at you, summing you up, guessing your astrological sign—is probably no more or less faulty than the ones over at ChristianDangle or CougarLyfe or PolyBlend or whatever you're into right now. You know what I mean?

Anyway don't get murdered, I guess is my point.

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