When Bill de Blasio arrived late to a memorial marking the anniversary of the crash of Flight 587 last week, he came with an unlikely excuse: his boat to the site was delayed by fog. The mayor has since backtracked—he had a "rough night," he said later—but has maintained that weather played a factor. A new report suggests it didn't.

Sources contacted by DNAinfo's Murray Weiss place the blame for lategate squarely on the oversized shoulders of de Blasio himself:

De Blasio's press aides initially blamed the delay on "heavy fog," which they said made the normally 35-minute trip take 50 minutes.

But sources said the fog had virtually no impact on the trip.

"The fog played a minimal, if any, role," a law enforcement source said.

(De Blasio's admission that he had a "rough night" and was feeling "really sluggish" that morning should be read with a hint of [mimes smoking weed]—it's widely rumored in the City Hall press corps that DeBlasio's chronic lateness problem is exactly that.

The mayor's ferry was reportedly scheduled to depart from a pier near Gracie Mansion at 8:05 Wednesday morning—and had been ready to go as early as 7:35 a.m.—but the mayor didn't arrive at the boat until 8:35, according to Weiss' NYPD sources. Fog, they added, was never going to be an issue:

And even with a threat of fog, the NYPD was not worried because their boats recently underwent millions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art radar and Global Position System upgrades capable of navigating "through pea soup," one source said.

Ultimately, de Blasio showed up at the ceremony about 20 minutes late, missing a crucial portion of the service. The mayor, DNAinfo notes, has been early to every appearance he's had since.

[Image via AP]

While rich baby North West may never get any treats, she could soon be in possession of her very own private island with a custom-built amusement park. According to Australian tabloid New Idea, Kim Kardashian has been eyeing Turtle Island off the coast of Queensland while promoting her new perfume Down Under.

The Daily Mail explains:

[Kim] will most likely name her sanctuary the Isle Kardashian...the island already boasts luxurious views of the Great Barrier Reef and exclusive privacy perfect for a famous star.

According to Private Islands Online, the island worth $5 million AUD and spanning 9.4 hectares is "fit for a movie star or recluse celebrity."

With already a state-of-the-art three bedroom house, the island still has space for Kim's theme park plans, with New Idea reporting a water slide and ferris wheel are key attractions the socialite is hoping to build for her 17-month-old daughter North West.

A water slide AND a ferris wheel? Christmas is coming early for this baby.

While Kim hasn't confirmed that she's buying a private island to build some kind of Neverland for a child who barely walks, let's look at this family's history. Kim did create an amusement park for North's first birthday, called "Kidchella." The Coachella-style party probably cost one gagillion USD, so 5 million "Australian dollars" is nothing.

Maybe we will all get to visit Isle Kardashian one day.

[Photo via Getty]

Building a house is stressful. Building a skyscraper is a nuclear bomb of stress, problems, and carefully-coordinated chaos—chaos that is closely tied to the economy, and that is easily derailed by war, politics, and financial downturns.

It's not an uncommon story. There are plenty of super-tall (over 984 feet) buildings that were proposed but never made it through to reality. Humans have a tendency towards bombast when it comes to skyscrapers. But recently, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat looked at a unique subset of these failed projects that are especially interesting: Super-tall buildings that actually did begin construction, but were never completed.

Below you'll find a few of the buildings that, as proposed, would have become the world's tallest (or close to it). Keep in mind, there are plenty of other stalled or on-hold projects out there—CTBUH defines unfinished as "when site works had begun, but were completely halted, and no reports indicate that construction will continue." You can check out CTBUH's full study in PDF form here.

Nakheel Tower: Pilings Begun

Nowhere was the 2008 financial crisis quite as visible as Dubai, where dozens of high-profile projects ground to a halt. One of those was Nakheel Tower, a proposed 3,300-foot-tall skyscraper with 156 planned elevators. Nakheel was designed to be the visual and economic focal point of the man-made Palm Jumeirah, the fake series of islands off of Dubai that is now experiencing extreme erosion and other environmental problems.

Image: Inhabitat

India Tower: Foundation Under Way

India Tower, on the other hand, was a purely post-Recession idea. The 2,356-foot tower was planned for Mumbai in 2010, but was halted the following year after construction had begun. It's currently on hold.

Image: Skyscraper City

Russia Tower: Digging Begun

Yet another victim of the 2008 crisis: The 2,008-foot Russia Tower was already under construction when the downturn hit the following year, and the building's developer announced he'd be unable to put up the $3 billion needed for the building work. The construction site was turned into parking.

Image: Foster and Partners

Doha Convention Center Tower: Foundation Finished

At 1,808 feet, this tower in Doha was destined to become one of the world's tallest buildings. Just one problem: It was so tall, officials worried it would make it tough for pilots landing and taking off from the new airport. Construction was halted until Doha'sn new airport was finished... Until the project was abruptly cancelled anyways.

Image: World Visits

Burj Al Alam: Pilings In Place

Again, Dubai makes many appearances on this list. The city's real estate boom was growing exponentially leading up to 2008, and dramatic and expressive towers like this one were en vogue. Burj Al Alam was a flower-shaped tower proposed to rise 1,670-feet into the air—it was cancelled in 2013 after a long, slow, much-denied decline.

Image: Skyscraper City

Palace of the Soviets: Building Started

The Palace of the Soviets was to be antithesis of the aristocratic Russia—a people's palace built on the ruins of a demolished church where delegates from the newly-formed Soviet Republic could meet. It would be enormous: At 1,624 feet, by far the tallest building in the world. It actually made it to construction, extraordinarily, but was halted by the onset of World War II.

The circular foundation was eventually turned into the Moskva Pool—the world's largest for decades.

Image: Pabouk

A video showing sketchy men trying to take advantage of a woman who was acting drunk in public made the rounds last week, but the directors of the "prank" video neglected to mention that the "creepy" men were paid actors. Two of the men told Inside Edition they're upset at being made to look like predators.

Like the first actor to expose the video as fake, these guys say they were asked to act in a college comedy skit, and weren't told it would be presented as real. They both consented to let the filmmakers use the footage of the "skit," but would have turned it down if they'd known it was going to turn into a "hidden camera" prank.

Inside Edition didn't talk to Stephen Zhang and Seth Leach, the viral marketers behind the video, but The Smoking Gun obtained some Facebook messages they sent to one of the actors who complained.

"The important thing to consider is that this video is going to get you well known and have a future with us and our company," Leach allegedly wrote.

That might be true, but this isn't exactly what they thought they'd be well-known for. One of the men told Inside Edition he walks down Hollywood Boulevard every day, and he's been getting dirty looks since the video came out.

[h/t Reddit]

Four workers died after a dangerous chemical leak at a DuPont plant in La Porte, Texas early Saturday morning. A spokesman for the plant told reporters that a valve "somehow failed" on a container of methyl mercaptan, a chemical used to make insecticide.

All four employees died on the scene; one additional plant worker has been hospitalized, and is expected to make a full recovery. Among the killed were brothers Robert Tisnado, 39, and Gilbert Tisnado, 48. "For us it was a double whammy," Gilbert Tisnado, their father, told the Houston Chronicle. "They died on the same shift in the same unit."

Wade Baker, 60, the crew's supervisor, also died in the chemical leak; another woman who had worked at the plant just eight months died as well.

More from the Houston Chronicle:

The chemical, methyl mercaptan, is used to give natural gas its rotten-egg smell. Symptoms of exposure include severe respiratory, skin and eye irritation. It can also cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, coma and death, especially when exposure occurs in poorly ventilated, enclosed or low-lying areas, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

KHOU reports the leak occurred around 4 a.m. local time Saturday, and was eventually contained at around 6 a.m. In those two hours, the five employees were exposed to the chemical. Aaron Woods, the plant's spokesman, told the TV station that surrounding areas were safe from the chemical, saying that "once it goes into the air, it dissipates to the point where it is no longer hazardous."

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board announced Saturday that a seven-person investigative team has already been dispatched to the plant. "It's a toxic material. It's on multiple lists. It commands the highest level of regulatory scrutiny, so when there are this many deaths associated with a chemical like that it raises all sorts of questions," Daniel Horowitz, the agency's managing director, told the Houston Chronicle.

Four DuPont locations have been investigated by the agency since 2010.

"There are no words to fully express the loss we feel or the concern and sympathy we extend to the families of the employees and their co-workers," plant manager Randall Clements told KHOU. "We are in close touch with them and providing them every measure of support and assistance at this time."

[Screengrab via KHOU]

First, the good news: After years of being really, really, really bad at Internet, the Republicans may have finally figured out how to use the web smartly. The bad news: They did it, predictably, for evil and probably broke federal laws against coordination between campaigns and outside money groups.

Chris Moody, lately of CNN, broke the story this morning about how several of this year's congressional candidates' campaigns, coordinated by the national GOP, used fake Twitter accounts "hidden in plain sight" to share expensive internal polling numbers with soft-money allies like Karl Rove's super PAC, giving the money groups the info they needed to release targeted advertising:

The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged.

The law says that outside groups, such as super PACs and non-profits, can spend freely on political causes as long as they don't coordinate their plans with campaigns. Sharing costly internal polls in private, for instance, could signal to the campaign committees where to focus precious time and resources.

The groups behind the operation had a sense of humor about what they were doing. One Twitter account was named after Bruno Gianelli, a fictional character in The West Wing who pressed his colleagues to use ethically questionable "soft money" to fund campaigns.

A typical tweet read: "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52—>49/476-10s." The source said posts like that — which would look like gibberish to most people — represented polling data for various House races.

Moody's sources say the groups involved included Rove's American Crossroads GPS super PAC, as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee, the RNC electioneering arm responsible for keeping Republicans' congressional majority safe.

Is this level of coordination illegal? It certainly seems to violate the spirit of the campaign finance laws. No one seems to know for sure, because no one's been caught pulling this sort of stupidity before.

But the Republican political operatives who ran the Twitter accounts sure must have thought they were living dangerously: According to Moody, the accounts were suddenly deleted from Twitter on November 3, "minutes after CNN contacted the NRCC with questions."

Sometimes innocent people are wrongfully convicted of serious crimes. Sometimes they're released from prison after many years. How much money do they deserve?

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Anthony Ortiz and Danny Colon, who each spent about 17 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a double murder ("key witnesses were found to have implicated the pair after accepting deals from prosecutors"), have reached a settlement with the city. Ortiz is reportedly getting $6.5 million, and Colon is getting $2.5 million. For context, the Journal also cites the case of Jabbar Collins, another man who spent 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder, who received $10 million from the city and an additional $3 million from the state.

Are these figures fair (besides the fact that Danny Colon should perhaps get a better lawyer)? It depends on how you value freedom. A little rough math shows that if Anthony Ortiz spent 17 years, or 6,205 days, in prison, he's getting a wee bit more than $1,000 per day of his incarceration. At $10 million for 16 years, the city paid Jabbar Collins a little more than $1,700 per day.

An immediate reaction might be that $1,700 per day seems like an exorbitant amount. It's highly unlikely that someone would earn that much money on their own in the free world. But consider what the payment is really for: freedom. It is not unfair to put a somewhat exorbitant price on one's on freedom, particularly if it has been surrendered against your will. This is not a case in which two parties entered into a contract based upon mutual consent; this is a case in which a miscarriage of justice caused someone to be deprived of freedom for many years. Everything short of these men's very lives was taken from them unjustly. Payment should be high. And the steeper the penalty to the government, the higher the incentive to avoid putting people in jail unjustly.

A million dollars per year works out to around $2,700 a day. That seems about right. It's a high price. And it should be.

[Photo: AP]

Normally Michelle Williams is the person in Beyoncé's sphere who is regarded with the most pity. Over the weekend, however, that distinction went to Solange Knowles, whom God would not allow to be more beautiful than her sister, even on her wedding day.

Following an elegant, white-clad celebration photographed for Vogue, Solange apparently suffered an allergic reaction that caused her to break out in hives on the car ride home.

Oh no poor Solange gets nasty hives on her face on her wedding day http://t.co/4F1Rf1niLa pic.twitter.com/OWN3hvsMrb

— Mirror Celeb (@MirrorCeleb) November 17, 2014

It is not known what caused Solange's face to erupt in welts. Nor is it known why Beyoncé—radiant as always, though particularly resplendent in bridal white—was spared.

Poor Solange.

Poor Michelle.

[Image via Splash/KDNPIX]

New York's cover story this week proclaims, "Smile, You're Speaking Emoji." But are you? Do you understand the difference between the tongue-out emoji and the winking tongue-out emoji? Today's children communicate almost exclusively in these little smileys, and soon the weak emoji-illiterates in our society will be left behind.

As Adam Sternbergh writes in New York, the "elasticity of meaning is a large part of the appeal and, perhaps, the genius of emoji. ... These seemingly infantile cartoons are instantly recognizable, which makes them understandable even across linguistic barriers. Yet the implications of emoji—their secret meanings—are constantly in flux."

Good news: We know the secret meanings of emoji. Before you find that you're unable to express your feelings to anyone, familiarize yourself with the true meanings of the 12 most confusing emoji faces.

The Grimace

Emojipedia classifies this one as a "grinning face with smiling eyes," but it's a grimace. There are shades of anxiety in there as well, as in I get my LSAT scores in 2 days :grimace emoji:

The Whistle

While this is technically a "kissing face," it is never used that way. The whistle emoji is appropriate to use when someone asks you if you ate the last of the Skittles, and you have no good answer because you did. Not me :whistle emoji:

Flirty Blush vs. Pillsbury Dough Boy

Two blushing emojis, two different meanings. First is the flirty blush emoji, which is appropriate to use when you are flirting. (?? I've heard.)

Next is the creepier cousin of the flirty blush, the Pillsbury dough boy emoji. It tickles! :Pillsbury dough boy emoji: Don't use this.

The Shrug

This is the closest emoji to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but it's imbued with slightly more sadness. It's Jim Halpert looking at the camera. Your friend: Did you hear The Newsroom got a third season? You: :shrug emoji:

Neutral

This signifies an inability to relate to the subject at hand.

The Overexertion

Technically, this emoji is classified as "triumph," which couldn't be more wrong. You could reasonably interpret it to mean "mad" or "steaming mad," but its true meaning is "I'm struggling on a treadmill rn."

Panting vs. Silly Wink vs. Poison Control

The three tongue-out emojis are easy to get confused. First is the simple tongue-out face, which signifies panting. It comes off as creepy in most situations and should be avoided.

Next is the silly wink emoji, which means "hey I just made a slightly off-color joke, don't be mad" or "I'm on poppers!"

Last is the poison control emoji, which signifies extreme distaste with the subject at hand. Your friend: Fucking DEREK booty called me last night. You: :poison control emoji:

The Sweaty Smile

This is not Singin' In the Rain. This is the nervous, sweaty smile—the *tugs collar* emoji. Off to dinner with my girlfriend's parents! :sweaty smile emoji:

The Man Baby

The official classification of this emoji is "tired face," but it actually signifies someone throwing a tantrum.

Get it now? If you're still confused, don't worry, you'll probably die soon.

Art by Sam Woolley

Airbnb, the popular hotel-tax dodging application and apartment-renting service that artists use to gouge tourists and finance their careers, has launched a print magazine, the Times reports. It is called Pineapple (?) and its purpose, it explains in a note to readers, is "to explore our fundamental values: sharing, community and belonging."

Pineapple, which "includes an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, on 'architecture's role in bringing us closer together and what the idea of home means to him,'" does not much sound to my personal taste. (It "got mixed reviews from publishing and travel experts," the Times writes.) But make fun at your peril. Profitable print magazines are dying. Pretty soon the only publications left on the magazine rack at your local hologram bookstore will be those underwritten by businesses and unstable people with too much money, too little sense, and an obsession with branding—in other words, start-ups.

So where will magazine editors and writers be working 15 years from now? Portfolio types will head to Venmo Magazine, of course; Men's Health can head to MyFitnessPal Magazine or maybe Breeze. Less lucky will be the staff of New York and the New Yorker, who will be forced to help launch Yelp Magazine, only to be replaced at launch by...Yelpers. Wired will be forced into emphemera, and a more punishing schedule, with SnapChat Weekly. Women's magazines like Cosmopolitan and Glamour will simply become period-tracking apps. I would subscribe to Dark Sky: The Magazine, a beautifully printed art magazine with photographs of storms. None of them would be profitable, except for Yik Yak Magazine. (Yik Yak: Call me!)

Spurred on by a Tennessee resident who is concerned about the Ferguson protesters and their catchy chants, supporters of police officer Darren Wilson have donated more than enough money to post a billboard in the heart of the St. Louis suburb reading "#PantsUPDontLoot."

The phrase and hashtag, popularized by pearl-clutching National Review conservatives as a retort to the protesters' "Hands up, don't shoot" rallying cry, apparently seeks to redirect attention from alleged excessive police force to alleged "violence and mayhem" by demonstrators.

The idea to toss the phrase onto a billboard "in the heart of Florissant," where most of the Ferguson protests and police counter-actions have occurred, is being spearheaded by an IndieGoGo campaigner from Brentwood, Tennessee, named Don Alexander:

This crowdfunding campaign is for the purchase of a billboard in the Ferguson, MO area. The billboard will display black text on a white background with the text "#PantsUPDontLoot". After some initial confusion we are working with other, undisclosed companies in the area that are willing to create and display this image. The funds collected from this campaign will be used to purchase this billboard for as long as possible. Lamar originally quoted us ~$2,500 for 1 month but others have come in under that amount. Whatever funds we receive will go directly to keeping the billboard campaign up as long as possible. If we come to an agreement with a company and can fund it for 3 months, 5 months, 7 months..., we will.

Alexander initially sought $3,000 to get the billboard up; he was assisted by social media, including posters on St. Louis Coptalk, a commenting board for area police and their supporters.

"There is an effort to crowdfund a billboard in the Ferguson area against the rioting and looting with the hashtag #PantsUpDontLoot on it," one Coptalk commenter wrote on November 13. "It is coming down to the wire of getting it up before the Wilson announcement."

That same day, Alexander announced that the billboard had exceeded its goal, gathering $3,081 from 29 funders so far. Shortly after, one supporter commented: "we did it guys!"

Alexander hasn't run any other IndieGoGo campaigns, but ominously, records show he is tracking the progress of the "Ferguson Legal Defense Fund," a campaign supported by Talib Kweli that's attempting to raise money for bail for any demonstrators who get arrested on the city streets.

So far, that campaign has only reached 5 percent of its $25,000 goal.

[Photo credit: IndieGoGo]

Weird internet polymath Neil Cicierega (best known for his hilarious '90s mashup nightmare "Mouth Sounds," which features five different remixes of Smash Mouth's "All-Star") has gifted us another nugget of strange brilliance in the form of this Lenny Kravitz lyrics video.

It's just like every other poorly edited excuse to put an mp3 up on YouTube "(with lyrics!)"–until it's not.

Look, explaining the way this thing descends into madness is only going to spoil it. "Fly Away (Lyrics)" is to YouTube lyrics videos what "Too Many Cooks" was to '80s sitcom intros— a tribute to and perversion of a dumb trope we've all grown to love. Or at least tolerate.

[h/t AV Club]

Just as the Baby Name Critic was finishing her morning Americano, she received word that an American disc jockey who performs as "Diplo" (aka Thomas Wesley Pentz) had spawned a child.

Now, the Baby Name Critic prefers not expose her ear canals to the latest in laptop plainsong, so she is not familiar with the delectus of Mr. Diplo. A laptop, after all, is for typing blog posts and playing Snood, not composing pleasant, melodic sounds to which one can gently and non-sexually move their hips. While working or relaxing the Baby Name Critic prefers to listen to the symphony or opera. If celebrating, perhaps Sheryl Crow.

I digress. This man who goes by the moniker of Diplo, the current beau of Katy Perry, has had a son with his ex-girlfriend, and they have named the son Lazer Lee Louis Pentz, which sounds not like music but something an inebriated Murray Hill resident might say after you abscond with his taxi cab. According to Us Weekly, "Major Lazer" is the name of Mr. Diplo's "electronic music project," which has produced such odes such as "Pon de Floor" and "Bubble Butt." Little Lazer Lee Louis, baby/marketing opportunity, has a lot to live up to.

When I was born, my father worked at a pork company. I do not think he considered naming me Pork Company Finnegan, but I can't imagine that would have worked out well for anyone.

This has been Baby Name Critic.

Leah Finnegan is Gawker's Baby Name Critic.

[Photo via Getty]

Earlier this year, Steve Ballmer bought the L.A. Clippers for more than $2 billion. He may be able to write $1 billion of that off his taxes. Uhhh. "Some... experts believe that owners get too many tax breaks."

You may have heard, Solange Knowles got married this weekend in New Orleans. Photos from the intimate affair had Twitter and Facebook buzzing Sunday night with praise for Beyonce's little sister. So much so that I'm pretty sure, ten years from now, when you look up "Slayage" in the dictionary this photo will accompany the definition.

But perhaps even more impressive than the wedding photos was the dance Solange performed during the reception. Accompanied by her 10-year-old son Daniel Juelz, the pair choreographed a routine to "No Flex Zone." And yes, it is as amazing as you imagine.

No word yet if Beyonce and Blue Ivy rocked out to "Tuesday."

On Monday's episode of Dr. Phil, the talk doc grilled "Mama" June Shannon about her relationship with registered sex offender Mark McDaniel, who molested June's daughter Anna Cardwell. Regarding the public knowledge of her relationship with McDaniel, which led to the cancellation of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, June said, "There's some truths and there's some lies that's out there, and there's the truth between that." She then danced all over the margins she set without ever leaving her seat.

Predictably, June repeatedly denied a relationship with McDaniel. She says that she has met up with him twice since he's been out of jail. One time was "by coincidence" when their respective families were visiting "the mountains," and the second happened while June was house-hunting. When Phil asked exactly how their paths crossed, June said, "Because I went and gave 33 packs of diapers to his son, and he happened to be there." Seriously, that was her explanation.

June said that McDaniel raised her daughter Pumkin from the time that Pumkin was two months old to the time that Pumkin was 6. And then June said that McDaniel left when Pumkin was 5. When Pumkin appeared on the show alongside her mother in a later segment, Pumkin said that McDaniel raised her until she was 4. June alleged that she allowed Pumkin to have a "five-minute conversation" with McDaniel to get answers about him leaving the family. Pumkin said she spent an hour with him.

Their accounts of a simple, supposedly air-clearing meeting simply do not match.

"I had a lot of questions, like I asked Mama what happened," said Pumkin on meeting with McDaniel. "I guess I wanted closure on actually who he was. I wanted to actually know for sure if he did what he did." She then said she didn't ask him about the molestation.

Phil asked June if she felt like she had failed to protect Anna. June said, "I do in a way feel like I did fail to protect Anna, but I didn't know. And she admitted that too. I was at work when this happened so I knew nothing, and she never did come to me, anything, the whole time it was happening."

Whatever the age Pumkin was when McDaniel left the family (presumably to serve his jail sentence for raping a child), it was during the time before that in which June's oldest daughter Anna was molested. June claims she was not aware of Anna's molestation until a few years ago.

"Anna did not tell me, my mother didn't tell me what he was accused of," said June. "I didn't hear Anna's side of the story until she moved in with me two and a half years ago." She also says her daughter "lied about certain things."

June stood by her claim that the picture of her and McDaniel in bed together, which TMZ used to break this story, was Photoshopped. "If you look at me, I am totally laying in the bed, and if you see the full picture, he is fully dressed," is how she explained it.

Regarding the cancellation of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, June said that even before this scandal, her family was starting to feel "wore down" by the show's filming demands. She says she doesn't think her association with McDaniel was the "full decision of why the show" was yanked off the air. (Logic dictates that it was—Season 4 was filmed in its entirety when TLC pulled the plug. They wouldn't have shot an entire season of a show if they weren't certain that it would broadcast.)

Toward the end of the interview, Dr. Phil asked June, "What do you say to the haters?" June responded, " The haters are gonna hate. The people who hate us don't really know us and then the lies now that I tried commiting suicide by taking over-the-counter pills with Alanna. I have never had a suicidal bone in my body. I would never take pain pills. I don't do that, you know I'm sayin'?"

On Friday, a Golden Retriever named Buddy did what dogs do and chased a cat into a cat house in Long Island. Unfortunately for him, Buddy got his giant dumb head stuck in the cat house's tiny door, and cops had to rescue him.

Suffolk County Police officers used a crow bar and a hammer to free the pooch, who escaped humiliated but unharmed.

[Image via Suffolk County Police Department|h/t Daily Intel]

Popular (and wacky!) radio DJs John and Rasheed from Berlin's JAM FM know—just like you and I—that the single defining characteristic of every single human woman is their breasts. So in an attempt to see what it would be like to trade a Y chromosome for an X, the two got pumped with a saline solution to give them 24-hour C-cup "breasts." They learned a lot.

After buying bras together (and having the saleswoman feel them up), they went to...the gym. It's hard to run with breasts, they learned. "Bras are torture and every woman should get a medal for wearing this monster," the two told the UK's Mirror. So, a good learning experience for everyone.

[H/T WTFark]

For controversial companies, the tactic of the moment is clear: attack! Attack! Attack your opponents, and smear them! The latest PR firm to offer this advice is Edelman, which advised an oil company client to attack the vicious, uh... community groups that oppose their plans.

Edelman is one of the world's biggest and most powerful PR firms. You may remember it for its work shilling on behalf of Walmart, or advising clients how to capitalize on Robin Williams' death. But those transgressions only scratch the surface of Edelman's soullessness. Today, the New York Times reports on documents made public by Greenpeace, in which Edelman advises its client TransCanada, a Canadian energy company, to go on the attack against people and groups that opposed TransCanada's plans to build an oil pipeline called Energy East. (TransCanada is the same company that seeks to build the Keystone XL pipeline as well.)

"We cannot allow opponents to have a free pass," Edelman, which touts "integrity," "respect," and "citizenship" as its core values, told its oil company client, in reference to people who sincerely believe that building new oil pipelines may be detrimental to life on earth as we know it. (Edelman also frequently touts its own commitment to stopping climate change!) From the NYT, a bit of Edelman's citizenship in action:

Edelman, in its documents, proposes a campaign directed at opposition groups like the Council of Canadians and the David Suzuki Foundation, as well as a small community group in Ottawa that usually fights for more bike lanes and park enhancements.

In its proposal, Edelman proposed "a perpetual campaign to protect and enhance the value of the Energy East Pipeline and to help inoculate TransCanada from potential attacks in any arena," according to the documents. The language, at times, invoked a military battle, one that would "add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources."

At least an oil company is proud of being in a dirty business.

Update: You can see some of the documents for yourself here and here.

[Pic via]

In a popular viral video from last week, men appeared to aggressively try to take advantage of a "drunk" woman on Hollywood Boulevard. Although it was presented as a real "social experiment," the men in the video were paid actors who thought they were doing a comedy skit. And now the model who played the fake drunk girl says she was tricked the same way.

Jennifer Box posted a YouTube video to apologize for participating in the deceitful prank, and to clarify that all the guys in the video were "perfect gentlemen." She claims she was told it the shoot was for "a lighthearted prank show."

One of the men told Inside Edition Sunday that Box was the one who approached him and asked him to be in the video. "The actress came up to me and said 'I've seen you around before, seen you in a couple things. Would you mind acting out a role?'" he said.

The directors, Stephen Zhang, 20, and Seth Leach, 22, are viral marketers. Leach has deleted his Twitter and Facebook accounts since the hoax was exposed. Zhang's channel, where the video was posted, has been wiped clean and renamed "video productions," and the original video is now private. It had been viewed 11.5 million times.

Leach initially tried to do damage control after the men in the video complained. "We are going to be huge and you are a part of it. Just go with it dude, you are in our team now and we will take care of you," he told one of them, according to The Smoking Gun.

[h/t Reddit]