After "seriously looking into" flying members of the Westboro Baptist Church to Iraq, and checking with both the U.S. and U.K. governments, Australian comedian Adam Hills discovered his plan wasn't going to be feasible.

The WBC claimed they "had their bags packed," but neither government was "too happy with the idea of sending professional shit-stirrers into a war zone," Hills said on his show The Last Leg Friday night.

In the week since his original offer, he learned what should have been obvious from the get-go: that all publicity is good publicity to the "God Hates Fag" people, and antagonizing them only makes them stronger.

So this battle, which started when Westboro Baptist threatened to picket the funeral of beloved comedian Robin Williams, will end the way it was destined to end all along—with Hills donating the cost of the flights to St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Williams' name.

I just donated to Remembering Robin Williams: A Benefit For St Jude. Please donate to this amazing cause here: https://t.co/My9N8DxbFP

— Adam Hills (@adamhillscomedy) August 22, 2014

It may not provide that satisfying sense of schadenfreude, but it's a much more effective use of Hills' money.

[H/T BuzzFeed]

If you've been trying to look up your forecast on the National Weather Service's website this afternoon, you may have noticed that the forecasts are days out of date or not loading at all. Apparently, this is the result of a single "abusive" Android app overloading the agency's servers.

The National Weather Service's Telecommunication Operation Center sent out an alert on its status page this afternoon:

NOXX01

KWBC 251835

TO - ALL CUSTOMERS

SUBJECT - POINT FORECAST ISSUES

WE ARE PROVIDING NOTICE TO ALL THAT NIDS HAS IDENTIFIED AN ABUSING ANDROID APP THAT IS IMPACTING FORECAST.WEATHER.GOV. WE HAVE FORCED ALL SITES TO ZONES WHILE WE WORK WITH THE DEVELOPER. AKAMAI IS BEING ENGAGED TO BLOCK THE APPLICATION. WE CONTINUE TO WORK ON THIS ISSUE AND APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE AS WE WORK TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE.

. NIDS - KM

In other words, a single Android app took down the most visited portion of the National Weather Service's website, and the agency is in the process of using an anti-DDoS service to block the app.http://thevane.gawker.com/the-national-w...

Major telecom issues are nothing new for the National Weather Service. The agency experienced its most public communications failure earlier this summer when several forecast offices couldn't issue severe weather warnings in a timely manner. In one case, an EF-3 tornado near Albany, New York went virtually unwarned due to the communications outage.

The update from the NWS claims that forecasts are currently available on a "zone" basis (countywide forecasts as opposed to the hyper-local gridded forecasts that cover one or two square miles), but as of this post's publication, all local forecasts are still unavailable.

[Screenshot via weather.gov]

It's a good thing luxury RVs are on the rise among Burning Man fans: the whole dust-and-MDMA bonanza is rained out because of shitty weather.

Organizers say a freak rainstorm is to blame, and local cops are turning burners away at the gate of Black Rock City:

BRC is closed until midday Tuesday due to rain and standing water. At the request of organizers, law enforcement is turning cars back.

— Burning Man (@burningman) August 25, 2014

This means a whole bevy of San Francisco geeks, CEOs, and old-fashioned unfortunate-white-people-with-dreadlocks are now stuck in Reno, a fate perhaps worse than whatever tacky art-hell they were prepared to erect in the desert. When will it be dry enough to start building geodesic domes, drink iced coffee, and look for celebs on Segways?

The reaction on Twitter is a mix of disappointment and sadistic joy:

Burning Man closes entrance gate due to rain, but I blame the reporters.

— Josh Constine (@JoshConstine) August 25, 2014

Wow, that really sucks about @burningman’s unpredictable weather 😟

— ✩ Sharon ✩ (@lalasdfghjkl) August 25, 2014

Now burning man can do the right thing and close forever

— Toaster (@toddbert) August 25, 2014

Radical self-reliance has been temporarily postponed on account of rain. http://t.co/UZs2dtwNbq

— Jorge Ortiz (@JorgeO) August 25, 2014

Okay. I'm officially bummed I'm not on the playa. Burning Man heartache sucks.

— ZackDarling (@ZackDarling) August 25, 2014

Our thoughts are with the residents of Reno, and Nitasha Tiku.

Top image of Burning Man IRL via Burners.me

A Fort Lee soldier who caused an "active shooter" alert at the Virginia base this morning has died after reportedly shooting herself while barricaded in an office. The Associated Press reports that the soldier "went on a rampage" in an office and shot herself. No other injuries have been reported.

Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lyons told the AP, "This situation could've been worse. We are sad for our soldier in arms that she faced those kinds of challenges she had to resort to those kinds of actions." The soldier's name has not yet been released. She was a sergeant 1st class who served for 14 years, including three at Fort Lee. Lyons noted that the gun she used was not a "service weapon."

[Image via AP]

It's been almost exactly six months since the Sochi Olympics wrapped up and the world promptly moved on to speculating about the Rio 2016. Since then, the town of Sochi has been left holding the proverbial bag—which as Russian photographer Alexander Belenkiy shows us, is full of too many buildings and not enough people to occupy them.

Belenkiy traveled to Sochi in early August to shoot the town on its six month anniversary of the Olympics, and he describes what he found as a "ghost town," a "huge wasteland" that's "abandoned." Now, in fairness, it's the summer season in Sochi, and it's worth pointing out that Sochi is preparing to open Russia's first F1 racetrack, which could serve to bolster tourism in the city. Still, his photos paint a bleak picture, showing a neighborhood—Rosa Khutor—that's all but abandoned, strewn with toilets that were never installed and stacks of bricks that never made it into actual walls.

It's a sad scene—and it's one that's been repeated across the world as Olympic host cities struggle with the economic burden of their investments. A few weeks ago, we looked at how the Olympic Village in Athens is now in ruins. Unless something changes, it seems Sochi could eventually follow in its path. [Alexander Belenkiy]

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Tonight nobody at any network really cares what is on, because they are all going to be giving each other handjobs for the 66th Annual time in a row, so they haven't really counterprogrammed much, which is smart because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways: Nobody's watching because there's nothing to watch, we all just wanna see what the Television Arts & Wizardry & Witchcraft Academy has to say about who should live and who should die.

At 7:30/6:30c. the long dark night of the soul known as the Emmys begins, with NBC's (and e!'s) preshow antics that will run until 8/7c. and then there will be the awards themselves, which will thenceforth run forever and ever, until you are drunk. At my old job they always wanted you to give a letter grade to the episode of television that you were talking about, and in twelve years I could never quite figure out how people do that. I think it must be some kind of Myers-Briggs thing where I am not wired that way. What I can tell you is that awards shows are the same thing to me: We conflate "I Like it" with "it is Good," and then... get really invested in what other people think about that.

I don't understand it; I don't judge it but I just literally don't get it. It's like sports, you are rooting for laundry. Or in this case, you are rooting to see if some random group of people who only care about money and haven't seen half of the things on the list agree with you about a bunch of things you probably also have not seen. It's incomprehensible to me. But just like sports, I see the joy in other people's eyes when they talk about awards shows, so I know it is real and not just a phantom, and I salute you for gettin' out there and involving yourself in a group activity.

At 8/7c. otherwise, you are talking about Masterchef's Top 7, Bachelor in Paradise, or Love & Hip Hop Atlanta. So basically the universe is like, "Yeah we know you're going to watch the Emmys. Go with God."

Alternately, you could watch last night's shitty True Blood finale, superlative penultimate Leftovers, or very challenging/rewarding Masters of Sex. That's probably something like what I will do, despite having already in fact done them once, in the recent past. (Or maybe I'll just watch Zach's ouster from the Big Brother House for the fifth time, as some kind of aversion therapy thing where I train myself not to cry full-on, scratchy-throat, hot-eyed unglamorous sobs because of dumb reality shows. A lesson I apparently have yet to learn.)

At 9/8c. there's the second America's Next Top Model, another Dallas on TNT, Hotel Hell, and two events: The summer premiere of TI & Tiny: The Family Hustle on VH1, and the first part of the Real Housewives of Orange County reunion, which I honestly thought would never come. How many episodes of that show have there been, this year alone? Easily three dozen. (Nah, just 18, but that means it started in mid-April! Who were you that long ago? Where did you live? What kind of music were you into? Can you even remember?)

At 10/9c. it's mostly your basic: The very weird Jersey Belle on Bravo, the very stupid Under the Dome that I will make you stop watching if it's the last goddamn thing I do, and there's Mistresses which I don't watch but fully support. Over on PBS, though, there's a very interesting and I think pretty important documentary called Big Men about oil industry exploitation in Ghana, and how it has changed and evolved over generations (featuring Brad Pitt as a relatively small, but important man).

At 11/10c. is the e! afterparty for whatever went down, which is sure to be bleak as hell that late in the night, even by PST time, or—most confusingly and vexingly—the Wolf Watch aftershow connected to last night's weirdly timed shitstorm/episode of Teen Wolf, which itself appeared at that strange time because of another awards ceremony I can't figure out. It's going to be so weird too, because those things are filmed ahead of time, so DJ Cole Plante is going to be really feeling last night's revelations but to us—to we happy mad few who've watched at least 12 hours of award ceremonies in the last two days alone—it will seem like he is overdoing it, and the show's already so hard to handle as it is.

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.

Uber, Lyft, and other on-demand taxi startups are on a lobbying blitz this week as California lawmakers consider two pieces of legislation that would strengthen insurance and background check requirements on the companies.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Silicon Valley startups are fighting a bill that would specify what type of insurance "ride-sharing" drivers would have to carry, and how much they would be covered for.

Sacramento's powerful insurance lobby enlisted Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla (D-Concord) to author a bill that would boost the dollar amount of coverage required by the state and prohibit drivers from using personal policies instead of commercial ones when carrying fare-paying passengers.

"The real point of the bill is to say that personal insurance policies should not be bearing the cost for this business model," she said. "It should be the company that pays."

Uber and other allied tech startups have reportedly hired seven public relations and lobbying firms to battle Bonilla and her insurance bill. According to the Los Angeles Times, the companies have gone so far as to send out mailers to her Assembly district, describing her legislation as "anti-tech" and "anti-consumer choice."

Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick has also been been personally shaming a lawmaker who was arrested late last week for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, suggesting that Sen. Ben Hueso wouldn't have been arrested had he been an Uber supporter.

You just can't make this stuff up - https://t.co/oyUg117kfZ - CA Senator votes to kill @uber and arrested for DUI just hours later

— travis kalanick (@travisk) August 25, 2014

Beyond the proposed insurance legislation, Uber and Lyft are also actively battling another bill that would shore up background checks for on-demand taxi startups, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

The other bill up for a vote Thursday — AB612 by Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D-Van Nuys — would require deeper background checks, participation in a DMV program that lets employers monitor workers' driving records, and drug and alcohol testing of these companies' drivers. It would bar the companies from using drivers with past convictions for crimes including forgery and credit-card fraud.

It's "a burdensome approach that is backed by the taxicab lobby, really, to try and shut us down," [Sidecar CEO Sunil Paul] said. "If it passes, it is a disaster — it would literally spell the end of the ride-share industry."

If beefing up background checks and insurance requirements means the end of companies like Uber, then what does that say about the safety of their services?

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

Photo: Getty

Jesean Morris was wanted by police in Omaha for violating the terms of his parole. They found him after someone saw his video for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge—the dousing that has captured the nation's attention and clicks—on Facebook and reported him.

According to the Omaha World-Herald, after learning of Morris' location, police arrived and saw him get into a PT Cruiser and be driven away.

Police followed, pulled the car over and arrested Morris, who allegedly first gave officers a fake name and spit in their face. Morris also allegedly kicked down the partition between the front and back seats of the police car.

The Smoking Gun, citing state records, reports that Morris was released in March of this year. He was tried and sentenced as an adult for his involvement in a shooting in 2010, when he was 16.

[Image via Omaha World-Herald]

If there's anything to be learned from last year's "most deranged sorority girl email ever," it's that the internal communications of sororities are endlessly charming, fascinating, and full of the word "cunt." The Louisiana State University chapter of Tri Delta has proven that once again this week with a leaked parody song trashing the "fucking lards" and "poser cunts" in every other sorority on campus

The words to the song, apparently meant to be sung to the tune of Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," have been circulating through the bro internet since they were leaked this week on LSU message board Tiger Droppings and frat news site Total Frat Move. TFM reports that Tri-Delt has already "delivered a tearful apology to all LSU sororities at their new member meeting."

Here are the full lyrics:

FINAL SENIOR SONG YEAH

Running up and down the row,
Our heads turning as we go,
Look there’s fucking Alpha Phi,
WHO THE FUCK IS ALPHA PHI?
They don’t even have a house,
Desperation all throughout,
We welcome y’all to our row,
That’s because we know y’all blow.

Here comes Chi-O-O God,
those Bor-ing chodes
They su-uck.
Oh well
Every bod-y knows
Hoot and hollar blows, It’s NO
blind tie.

Last Boys Bid Night
Yeah, we saw those DZ sluts,
They were sucking KA’s nuts
Probably took it in the butt

Last Boys Bid night
Pi Phi smoked a ton of blunts,
What a bunch of poser cunts,
Dressed in tie dye, what the fuck?

Last Boys Bid night
Theta maxed out all their cards
Eating Pluckers by the bars
There they are, those fucking lards.

Last Boys Bid night
Zeta no-ones changed their name
Now we call them ZTA
Oh-oh-oh? (SNAP SNAP)

This Boys Bid night
Do it all again
This Boys Bid night
Do it all again

Stepping up y’alls kappa game
Even though your skit is lame
Got a lazy pledge class
Who only smokes a bunch of grass
Young and foolish, yah okay
Put your hipster act away
When comes rush, your chapter bails.
That was such a fucking fail.

Pretty Girls, Yeah Right
You’re all Her-maph-ro-dites
Phi Whoooo
Oh well
With your lions’ fur.
But we’re pretty sure YOU’RE IRRELEVANT
Damn

Last Boys bid night
Delta Gamma didn’t go
Cause they’re used to hearing no
Kiss your anchor, fucking GO.

Last Boys bid night
Kappa Delta you’re all cray
Know y’all like it when boys spray
when comes Sunday y’all all pray

Last Boys Bid night
KDs getting DUIs
Spreading all those fucking lies
Yeah we know how hard y’all try

Last Boys Bid night
Y’all said we danced on table tops
Will y’all ever fucking stop?
Y’all will never be on top

This Boys Bid night
Do it all again
(Do it all again)
This Boys Bid night
Do it all again
(Do it all again)
This Boys Bid night

F.U.C.KD.
F.U.C.KD.
F.U.C.KD.
F.U.C.KD.
F.U.C.KD.
F.U.C.KD.

The obvious parallel is to Rebecca Martinson's infamous "cunt punt" email, written while she was a member of Delta Gamma at the University of Maryland. In a fortuitous turn of events, Martinson now writes for BroBible, which means we get to read her assessment of this new generation of cunt punters.

How'd they do? "Rhymes pretty well," possibly "the next Weird Al," and "literally shits on every sorority."

That's high praise coming from the undisputed master of the unhinged-sorority-communiqué form.

[H/T BroBible]

NBC News just broke the fascinating news about a 33-year-old Southern Californian with a crazy Twitter account who has been killed in Syria fighting for ISIS, Al Qaeda's uglier, nastier little brother:

The battle in itself seemed tragically normal. Two Syrian opposition groups fought and there were heavy casualties on both sides. Then victorious rebels rifled through the pockets of the dead. One contained about $800 in cash — and an American passport.

Douglas McAuthur McCain, of San Diego, California, was killed over the weekend fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to the Free Syrian Army. Photos of McCain's passport and of his body — which feature a distinctive neck tattoo — have been seen by NBC News. According to an activist linked to the Free Syrian Army who also saw the body and travel document, McCain was among three foreign jihadis fighting with ISIS who died during the battle.

White House officials and family members of Douglas McAuthur McCain—could there be any name less befitting a jihadist?—helped NBC News confirm that he had, in fact, died fighting with the same Islamic forces that have beheaded American journalists, engaged in ethnic cleansing and mass executions, and imposed a draconian version of Islamic law on the territories they've conquered.

McCain reportedly grew up in Minnesota before a full conversion to Islam in 2004:

After he graduated, McCain stuck around the Twin Cities for at least a while. Public records searches show several run-ins with the law. One mugshot of a Douglas McAuthur McCain details an arrest in 2000 at the age of 19 in New Hope on charges of disorderly conduct. Another arrest record – also from New Hope - shows the same man was arrested again in 2006 and booked on charges of obstruction. The mugshot from that arrest also clearly appears to be McCain – and has the same neck tattoo that is seen in Facebook photos of McCain on his "Duale ThaslaveofAllah" account - and the body found on the Syrian battlefield.

At some point this year, after bouncing around jobs and around countries, McCain appeared to be on his way to the jihad:

On June 9, Duale wrote to an alleged ISIS fighter on Twitter: "I will be joining you guys soon." He also asked if another self-proclaimed ISIS fighter had made it to "r town" – an apparent reference to Raqqa, the militants' Syrian stronghold.

Then came another post: "I'm with the brothers now." Later, he retweeted: "It takes a warrior to understand a warrior. Pray for ISIS."

McCain was prolific on Facebook and Twitter:

I reverted to Islam 10 years ago and I must say In sha Allah I will never look back the best thing that ever happen to me

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) May 15, 2014

He apparently sometimes found it hard to cope with the strictures of his religion and distance from America:

Wallahi I wants fried chicken

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) December 12, 2012

When life sucks I just enjoy the head

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) January 25, 2013

Though he held some bigoted beliefs common to many hardcore religious militants:

Why do these fags keep saying that they were born gay no bitch you choose to put a dick in your ass just saying

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) January 15, 2013

It's funny to me how all these so call Muslim claim that they love Allah but always curse the one who try to implement his laws

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) June 8, 2014

But McCain apparently knew fighting for ISIS was a dead-end, at least in waking life:

Ya Allah when it's my time to go have mercy on my soul have mercy on my bros

— Duale Khalid (@iamthetooth) May 15, 2014

[Photo credits: Facebook]

Rikers Island has been under scrutiny for its violent treatment of inmates lately, but Norman Seabrook, who heads the union representing New York's correction officers, wants you to know that guards don't exactly have it easy.

Seabrook told Capital New York in an interview published today:

"The bottom line is, do you want shit thrown in your mouth? They're not just talking shit to us, they're dousing us with it. We want people to know what we do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

That colorful quote served to explain a social media campaign, launched by the Correction Officers Benevolent Association this week, to publicize assaults on prison workers. Today, it posted on Facebook about nine officers who were sent to the hospital with injuries from inmates and two who were splashed with "possible feces/urine/blood"; yesterday, it was a 15-inmate fight and three CO's hospitalized.

Being a correction officer, especially in Rikers, must be a terrifying, enormously stressful job, and many of the men and women doing it are brave and admirable people—no one is disputing that. But all the terror, all the feces/urine/blood in the world, doesn't make dragging a mentally ill prisoner away from security cameras and beating him to death excusable.

[Image via AP]

After being attacked by a leopard in the northern state of Uttarakhand in India, a local woman refused to admit defeat, instead returning blows and killing the animal in under a half an hour with only farm tools.

Kamla Devi, 56, had been collecting water from a canal and was carrying it back to her field when she was confronted by the leopard.

Via the BBC:

She said she managed to smash some of the animal's teeth during the struggle.

"I fought head on with it for almost half an hour. Then I came to know it was dead," she told reporters from hospital in the nearby town of Srinagar Garhwal.

Doctors were surprised she had survived.

Devi's body was covered in bite marks and deep injuries to her head and legs, doctors told the BBC. The leopard reportedly pounced on her as she was returning home on Sunday morning.

When the leopard attacked, Devi didn't submit. Instead, she fought back.

"I thought I was dead but I did not lose patience and courage," she said to the media after getting attacked. With a sickle alone, the leopard was killed and Kamla Devi became my hero.

[Image via BBC]

Earlier this year, the Storm Prediction Center announced that they're adding two new categories to their severe weather maps in an attempt to better convey the threat for severe weather to the public. They recently announced a date for the transition, sounding the death knell for ridiculous maps like we have today.

For years, the SPC has issued severe weather forecasts (called "convective outlooks," or just "outlooks" for short) using four basic categories:

• General thunderstorms (green)
• Slight (yellow)
• Moderate (red)
• High (magenta)

The green category — general thunderstorms — indicates the chance for run-of-the-mill storms that probably won't turn severe. Slight risk indicates a low risk for severe weather, with moderate and high significantly ramping-up the threat.

The problem is that these categories are terrible, and at 11:00AM EDT on October 22, they'll get a little less terrible.

Just a little, though.

The green shading that indicates "general thunderstorms" is misleading, which is why the SPC has to print a "see text" stamp over certain areas. The "see text" tells users that the threat for severe weather in this area isn't zero, but it's not high enough to warrant the issuance of a slight risk; users should see the scientific text written by the forecaster that explains the threats present in the "see text" areas.

Today's "see text" zones are mostly for the low chance of large hail or damaging winds. The probabilities (which I explained here a few months back) are sitting at 5% this afternoon — high enough to worth mentioning but lower than the 15% threshold for issuing a slight risk for severe weather.

Here's one of those blocks of text the SPC is telling the general public to refer to on its maps, this one valid for areas around and south of Chicago:

A NNE-SSW-ORIENTED BAND OF TSTMS MOVING THROUGH THE CHICAGOLAND AREA AS OF 16Z HAS EXHIBITED SOME FORWARD-PROPAGATING CHARACTERISTICS WITH ISOLATED WIND DAMAGE REPORTED ALONG ITS TRACK. BY AFTERNOON...A SUBSET OF THESE STORMS WILL LIKELY MERGE WITH A DOWNSHEAR CLUSTER OF SLOWER-MOVING TSTMS ONGOING OVER IND.

DAYTIME HEATING COUPLED WITH THE PRESENCE OF A VERY MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER WILL ONCE AGAIN YIELD A STRONGLY UNSTABLE AIR MASS AHEAD OF THESE STORM CLUSTERS WITH MLCAPE APPROACHING 3500-4500 J/KG. AND SIMILAR TO MONDAY...EXPECT STORM MOTIONS TO BECOME MORE SLY WITH TIME AS ACTIVITY IS DRAWN INTO THE BACKSIDE OF A MID-LEVEL ANTICYCLONE CENTERED OVER THE OZARKS. VERTICAL SHEAR WILL ONCE AGAIN REMAIN WEAK...BUT THE PRESENCE OF THE STRONG INSTABILITY AND HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT WILL FOSTER INTENSE WATER-LOADED DOWNDRAFTS CAPABLE OF DAMAGING SURFACE WINDS.

Unless you're a hardcore weather geek or degreed meteorologist, odds are you don't understand most of what they're talking about, and that's a big problem in a world where good communication skills are almost as important as good forecasting skills.

Starting on October 22, forecasts like this will go from making users "see text" to telling users there is a "marginal risk for severe weather."

Instead of looking like this:

Today's forecast would look like this instead:

It'll look better than a terrible map hastily made by a blogger, but you get the gist. The change will better convey the threat for severe weather on any given day, and even though there is a debate over the subjectivity of the terms "marginal," "slight," "enhanced," "moderate," and "high," almost everyone agrees that those terms are better than "see text."

[Professional maps by the SPC, crappy maps by the author]

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

If you are unfamiliar with "Bert the Farting Hippo," then just ask your dad: it's a recurring prop on his favorite CBS procedural, NCIS. The makers of the plush hippo that makes farting noises and costs $45 are suing the network and Delivery Agent Inc., the company that operates their online store, for alleged copyright infringement and for lost profits.

It is, ostensibly, the most convoluted lawsuit involving a stuffed, farting hippo ever. Folkmanis, Inc. is the creator of the plush hippo, which was first used as a prop on NCIS in 2003 (yes, NCIS has been on that long!). Bert the Farting Hippo went on to appear as a recurring sight/sound gag on the show; Folkmanis went on to "retire" the toy in 2006, only to design and release a new, updated version of Bert in 2009. That's when the opportunity for further profits first made itself even more obvious. From the Wrap:

A year later, CBS figured that the Bert had become so popular, they might as well cash in on it by selling farting puppets to dedicated "NCIS" fans. They contracted with Folkmanis to make a new version — one that had a spiked collar and a little internal box that made the prescribed fart sound effect.

The company produced 30,000 stuffed hippos for CBS and their online store operator Deliver Agency Inc. to sell; in 2011, they even commissioned the creation of a Bert keychain. Everyone was just swimming in stuffed hippo money. But not for too long, apparently. From the Wrap:

According to the lawsuit, Delivery Agent Inc., one of the named defendants, teamed up with another defendant, S.F. Global Sourcing, to contact Shanghai Orlind Toy Co., a company in China. Their alleged mission: procure unlicensed Bert the Farting Hippo toys to sell for CBS.

So now, Folkmanis claims in their suit, they've lost out on $733,000 in hippo riches, and they want CBS and Delivery Agency Inc. to pay out. This Chinese production of stuffed hippos, the Hollywood Reporter writes, "allegedly violates the plaintiff's [Folkmanis] exclusive rights."

If you wanted to buy a Bert the Farting Hippo, you're too late: they appear to have been pulled from CBS' online store. Let's all hope they can work this out. Without this hippo, that's one less Father's Day present option for thousands of Americans.

[Image via CBS]

On a special "Sports Heroes" episode in Drunk History's new timeslot—right after tosh.0, now that Nathan for You's finished up its great second season—there's not only Jason Momoa from North Shore, but also Zach "Matt Saracen" Gilford and Emily "The Other Sister" Deschanel.

Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

Preston Flagg, one of our favorite DH storytellers, supplies dialogue for Momoa's Jim Thorpe story, and we learn about feminist hero Babe Didrikson from the genius Karey Dornetto and about the one-armed pitcher Jim Abbott from the excellent Matt "Mom" Jones.

In other DH news, guess who's comin' back? All-star JEN KIRKMAN, for the season finale on 9/2.

[Images/video via Comedy Central]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

A new day has dawned, and with it, a new draft of a new United Nations report on climate change has leaked unto the world. Like the turning pages of a calendar as one draws closer to death, the report brings tidings that grow worse, and worse, and worse.

If you had to characterize for a mass audience what technical stage of global warming we find ourselves in now, it would be "The final stage where we decide if we will even attempt to try to do anything to make the looming disaster marginally less disastrous for our grandchildren, or whether we will simply fuck around and allow doom to sweep over them, because we will be dead by then." We are already well past the "Is global warming real?" and "Global warming is real but we need to figure out how to convince the public that it is real" and "Okay we all understand that global warming is real but we can still plausibly pretend to not believe it is real in order to continue to drive our Toyota Highlanders" phases of belief. Even the most non-hippie institutions now say that global warming is real, it is here, and it is coming to swallow our cities in its humid maw.

The draft of the latest UN report (the official version of which will be released in November) is just like all the past reports, except, you know, more so. More doom, more apocalypse, more lapping waves sneaking over the front steps of your beachfront compound, Mr. Bush. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of all of this is that, even if we do find the political will and the popular will to actually enact some of the sacrifices that will be necessary to hold global warming to less awful levels, we still need to either compel or convince the energy industry to leave hundred upon hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term profits on the table. The New York Times notes that "The report found that companies and governments had identified reserves of these [fossil] fuels at least four times larger than could safely be burned if global warming is to be kept to a tolerable level."

If you believe in humanity's ability to rein in our short term impulses in order to preserve at least a bit of long term stability, you should dump your oil stocks. We need to leave at least 75% of the oil in the ground if we are to avoid disaster. One way to do this is to, at a certain point, outlaw drilling and extracting oil. That is unlikely, given the size of the oil and gas lobby in DC. Another way is to pass a carbon tax, which is our only hope. Or, we can all just sit on back and watch the tide come in.

Did u see that movie Noah?

[Photo: Getty]

Here is a nightmare that is also real: The severed head of a cobra snake reportedly jumped out of the kitchen trash in a restaurant and killed the chef who was preparing its body as a meal. The chef, Peng Chen, had removed the head from the Indochinese spitting cobra a full 20 minutes before it bit him. One diner told the Daily Mirror, "We ... could hear screams coming from the kitchen."

The diner, Lin Sun, continued,

There were calls for a doctor in the restaurant but unfortunately by the time medical assistance arrived the man had already died. After we heard that we did not continue with our meal.

While this kind of accident is (obviously) rare, it's not impossible. The video below—which, warning, will haunt you forever—demonstrates how the severed head can act on its own.

[Image via YouTube]

Technicians at the Oklahoma Army National Guard base in Tulsa accidentally triggered the fire suppression system in a hangar on Tuesday morning, causing foam to comically flood out of the hangar onto the tarmac. In a freak coincidence, a dust devil formed on the base and kicked up a foamnado.

News 9 reports that technicians were testing the fire alarm and fire-fighting systems when one of workers accidentally triggered the hangar's fire suppression system. Ten Black Hawk helicopters were affected by the foam, some of which were in the hangars with their doors open when the flood of foam swept through.

The station's news chopper pilot also flies Black Hawks at the base, and he says "it will take weeks to get all the choppers cleaned and cleared for flight."

This isn't the first time an airport experienced a major foam spill. Back in 2008, a spill at the Long Beach Airport in California filled up a good portion of one of the property's hangars, covering both people and vehicles in the fluffy fire-fighting chemical.

[Images via News9]

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Alec Baldwin, former celebrity still involved in things only famous people get to do, attended the U.S. Open match between Maria Sharapova and Maria Kirilenko last night and when a stray ball went flying into the stands, he calmly reached out and caught it. It was no big deal. "I don't play tennis well, but I can catch a slow-moving tennis ball," Baldwin told ESPN.

[H/T Huffington Post // GIF via Dane Carbaugh]