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Did Taylor Swift "feed" rum and Coke™ to Lorde—ostensibly an 18-year-old girl, improbably but not impossibly an immortal witch—during a Golden Globes after party? Star Magazine says yes.

From Star:

"Taylor was drinking rum and coke and then switched to Meiomi wine," the source tells Star. "And she was feeding her rum and coke to Lorde!"

According to the insider, Taylor told the "Yellow Flicker Beat" singer she didn't have to drink if she didn't want to, but gushed that, "Rum is so good!" And once Lorde took a sip of the concoction, she ended up ordering one of her own!

A few strong pieces of evidence for both the believers and disbelievers of this refreshing piece of Coke™ gossip.

On the believer's side, it is near-impossible that "Rum is so good!" is not a direct quote from Taylor Swift.

On the disbeliever's side, Taylor Swift is the spokeswoman for Diet Coke™ and ordering a rum and Coke™ may violate the rum and Diet Coke™ terms of her contract. Plus, no woman in her twenties drinks full-calorie Coke in 2015.

On the believer's side, rum and Coke™ seems like something Lorde might like. Who wouldn't?

On the disbeliever's side, are we truly meant to believe that, in her centuries of life, Lorde has never once tried even a sip of rum and Coke™?

On the believer's side: Taylor Swift "switched to Meiomi wine." You're damn right she did. In In the past, Taylor Swift has said that drinking wine makes her "feel classy," and she has so many cats and no boyfriend.

On the disbeliever's side: Hard to imagine a night that ends with Taylor Swift drinking wine that does not start with Taylor Swift drinking wine.

Much like a satisfying glass of Coke™ and a chain restaurant that supports bottomless refills, we may never get to the bottom of this Coke™ mystery. One thing we can be sure of, however: rum is so good and wine is also good and I love you Lorde and I love you Taylor, no, like I love you, Lorde.

[image via Splash]

A woman who helped run an incestuous child sex ring in Alabama for years was sentenced to 219 years in prison today, the maximum penalty in her case and an effective life sentence.

Wendy Holland, 35, was convicted last month of a host of charges, including sodomy and sexual abuse, the AP reports. She "showed no emotion" during the sentencing, which reportedly ensures she'll serve at least 50 years before an opportunity for parole arises.

The horrifying details via Alabama.com:

Holland and Brownlee were both convicted by separate Baldwin County juries for sex crimes late last year. In both cases, victims testified about the horrifying sexual acts they were involved in since young ages.

Prosecutors have since said the sexual abuse spanned at least three generations within the same family and that the defendants, in some of the cases, might have been victims themselves more than 30 years ago.

Teresa Heinz, an assistant Baldwin County District Attorney, said after last month's conviction of Holland that victims viewed the sexual abuse akin to everyday activities, like going to the grocery store.

Despite the de facto life sentence, the case isn't exactly over. Holland still faces sentencing on other charges, and the family of one abused girl presumed to be dead is still looking for closure.

"We know she's been behind Brittney's disappearance and she knows where Brittney is," the girl's stepmother tells Alabama.com. "Even though this doesn't bring Brittney to us today, we know this is a victory for Brittney."

[image via AP]

A female soldier visiting the North Miami Beach police department's shooting range last month was reportedly horrified to discover officers were using her brother's mugshot for target practice.

Sgt. Valerie Deant, a clarinet player in the Florida Army National Guard's 13th Army Band, was at the range for her annual weapons qualifications training when she recognized the target, NBC Miami reports.

North Miami Beach Police Chief J. Scott Dennis admitted that his officers could have used better judgment, but denies any racial profiling.

He noted that that the sniper team includes minority officers. Dennis defended the department's use of actual photographs and says the technique is widely used and the pictures are vital for facial recognition drills. But the Deant family questions why officers were firing targets with images of real people, in this case African-Americans, especially at a time when relations between minority communities and law enforcement are so tense.

Dennis tells the news outlet, "Our policies were not violated," but says he'll encourage his officers to remove the photos when they leave the range.

[screenshot via NBC]

Antibiotic-resistant flesh-eating infection Lanny Davis published a column in the Hill yesterday deploring the media's terrible rush to judgment against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Because the NFL's self-commissioned investigation into the Ray Rice scandal failed to find evidence that the league had done wrong, Davis wrote, all the various outlets that had reported on the other evidence of the league's wrongdoing owed Goodell an apology.

It's a classic specimen of Davis' patented deceptiveness and smarm—at one point, he notes that if the league had seen the video of Rice's domestic assault, which it claims it had not, "the NFL might have been accused of interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation."

But more than just showing Davis' talents as a static bullshitter, the column turned into a demonstration of the dynamic crisis-management skills that have made Lanny Davis a well-paid go-to liar for all the worst people on the planet. When Davis promoted his Goodell column on Twitter, National Journal's Ron Fournier responded with a simple question: "Have you worked for NFL or a NFL team?"

Davis replied with a dumb and obvious lie:

@ron_fournier no Ron - never. If I had or do work for NFL, I would have disclosed in tag line. I am surprised you asked.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

Lanny Davis, of course, has taken money from the worst owner in the NFL, Washington's Daniel Snyder, to help Snyder concoct fake support for his doomed and racist crusade to discredit the Native Americans who want the team to stop using a racial slur as its name.

Because he is a professional liar, Davis could—and did!—argue that he had only denied working for the NFL, not for one of the individual teams that make up the NFL and fund its operations, including paying Goodell's salary. That was what he tried to do in the back end of the tweet, after he directly answered Fournier's direct question with "no," falsely.

Ethics, Davis argued, did not require him to disclose that particular financial relationship with a professional football team in the course of his defending professional football.

Media-relations expert that he is, Davis publicly tried to get Fournier to take their conversation off Twitter:

@ron_fournier why don't you email me rather than communicate on Twitter?

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

And then had a full-on Twitter tantrum in response to the various people who'd pointed out that he was lying:

@ron_fournier @JakeSherman no one paid me Mr. Sherman. You don't even read English. I write this column weekly—I don't work for NFL.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

@polyphonique you are an idiot. No one paid me - you don't read English. I don't work for NFL. Try reading.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

@ProgressiveKim1 @SalenaZitoTrib @ron_fournier for last time - I disclose if I write a column about a client. I don't work for NFL or RG.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

@JakeSherman what is not classy is for you to ignore my answer to Ron and not admit that you ignored it. I don't work for RG or NFL.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

"You don't read English," Lanny Davis wrote, after having responded to the question "Have you worked for NFL or a NFL team?" with "no ... never."

He also threw in a complaint about "vicious Twitter":

@Rose_Marie_Holt @ron_fournier Ron- can you retweet to the idiots who are now accusing me of being paid - don't you vicious Twitter?

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

Despite Davis' furious insistence that there was no reason for him to disclose his relationship with Snyder, the Hill added an editors' note to his column at 5:27 p.m. today, making the disclosure. And Davis immediately took credit for it:

@pareene @ron_fournier thanks for advice Alex. Already updated my tag line that I represented Redskins in 2010 and 2013. Nothing intentional

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

Technically, he left off the noun that would say who updated the tag line. But what had been a matter of ethical principle at 4 p.m. was "nothing intentional" at 5:45.

See my updated tagline that I represented Snyder/Redskins in '10 and '13. http://t.co/6u5oLOyRkR Thanks to @ron_fournier—just missed this.

— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) January 15, 2015

"Just missed this." If you're counting, that's Lanny Davis lying about lying about a lie he told.

As France reels in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks last week, coroners grapple with a separate issue—what to do with the bodies of the dead French alleged terrorists.

According to the New York Times, the bodies of three of the men involved in the attack—Amedy Coulibaly, Chérif Kouachi, and Saïd Kouach—are currently in limbo, so to speak.

Their bodies are thought to be in a police morgue in Paris, and the Paris prosecutor, who is in charge of the counterterrorism investigation, has not made any official request to bury them. Nor have the families of the gunmen — some who have condemned their actions — made public how they want to handle the burials.

The U.S. faced similar issues disposing of the body of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. According to reports, he was eventually quietly buried in a Virginia cemetery, which local officials say caught them "totally off-guard."

Already, the Times reports, officials in several French towns connected to Coulibaly, Kouachi and Kouach have publicly declined to accept their bodies for burial.

"If I'm asked to bury Saïd Kouachi, I will refuse categorically," said Arnaud Robinet, the mayor of Reims, the city in northeastern France where Mr. Kouachi, the elder of the two brothers, had settled several years ago. "I don't want a grave in Reims to become a place of prayer and contemplation for some fanatics."

Still, others have promised to uphold French laws, which offer Muslim burials—even for terrorists—when the family requests one.

"If his family gets in contact with us, we will respect French law," one official told the paper—on condition of anonymity.

[image via AP]

A heroin-addicted FBI agent ingested the evidence against at least 28 alleged drug dealers, leading the agency to dismiss dozens of charges—and as many as 150 defendants could go free as a result, the Washington Post reports.

The agent, Matthew Lowry, worked on a heroin task force, which enabled him to steal seized heroin from the evidence room for his own personal use for more than year, investigators say. According to the Post, Lowry was allegedly able to hide his thefts for at least 14 months, in part because of lax FBI regulations that enabled him to transport the drugs, alone, in his personal vehicle.

Lowry's system was basically quite simple, according to the FBI documents and a summary of his statements to investigators, in which he told them how he took drug evidence from cases with code names including Broken Cord, Family Matters, Tequila Shot and Smellin Like a Rose.

He checked out drugs from cases he had worked on the pretense of taking them to a lab to be tested for trial. He kept the drugs — sometimes for days or weeks, other times for months — and used a little bit nearly every day, he told investigators. He eventually submitted the drugs to the lab and took them back to the FBI office when testing was done.

Lowry described for investigators a painstaking process used to circumvent rules and procedures and avoid detection, court documents state. He said he forged signatures of supervisors to authorize withdrawals and of colleagues to reseal evidence bags he had cut open, taking time to practice the signatures. He often targeted cases that were already resolved, making it less likely another agent would need the drugs and notice that evidence was missing.

Lowry told investigators he routinely used a filler to repackage bags of heroin. He said he often added an over-the-counter laxative but also used creatine, a chemical commonly mixed with heroin before it hits the street. An FBI memo said Lowry used a digital scale — taken from a drug house — to ensure that he repackaged the drugs at close to their initial weight.

And Lowry isn't the only one circumventing the legal chain of custody required to prosecute criminal cases: according to the Post, a recent FBI investigation "found that every one of the nation's field offices had problems tracking gun and drug evidence and that in some cases, drugs disappeared for months without notice. The Washington field office was among those with the highest error rates: 90 percent of drug evidence examined had been mishandled or had record-keeping problems."

"I think that over time the controls begin to loosen. It never occurs to them that somebody would make off with the drugs and steal the money," a retired Justice Department inspector general tells the Post.

[image via AP]

Why does Larry David love living in hotels? "I got one word for you: transients."

David continues:

And by the way, Dave, the hotel, if you have a sexual encounter—needless to say, of course I expect to—if you have a sexual encounter, they're over, they're over, they're gone, they go home, they go back home. There's no messy goodbyes or emotional scenes, it's all done.... Hotel sex, it's different, it's engaging.

"But here's the thing, here's the beautiful part about this, and forgive me if I'm filling in blanks you've already filled in," Letterman chimes in, knowingly. "The encounter is over, 'Oh, look at the time, I've got to get to the theater.'"

Don't say you haven't been warned, ladies of New York.

[h/t Uproxx]

In the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, more than two dozen people were arrested by police across Europe on Friday, who launched raids on locations of suspected Islamist extremists in France, Belgium, and Germany.

Raids in Paris and Berlin follow yesterday's shootout in Verviers, Belgium, where two suspects were killed and another injured; police claim the three had been under "jihadist-related" surveillance.

France
Police arrested 12 in raids on five towns in the Paris area. Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor, told the New York Times that the group is believed to have "provided logistical support" to Amedy Coulibaly, who was connected to Charlie Hebdo shooters Cherif and Said Kouachi. Coulibaly took hostages inside a kosher deli last Friday, killing four before being gunned down by police in a dual assault on the market and the Kouachi brothers.

Belgium
In more than a dozen sweeps across the country Friday, 13 were arrested by Belgian police, who also "found four military-style weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles," federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt told the Associated Press. Belgian authorities are insistent that the raids are not connected to last week's attacks in Paris. From the AP:

Belgium has seen a particular large number of people join extremists in Syria, and is "the worst affected country in Europe relative to population size," said Peter Neumann of the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization. He estimates 450 people have left Belgium to fight with Islamic radical groups in Syria, and that 150 of them have returned home.

Germany
Following raids by 250 officers on 11 locations in Berlin, police arrested two suspects believed to be "preparing a serious act of violence against the state in Syria," authorities told the BBC. Police also told the Associated Press that multiple military-grade weapons were seized. From the New York Times:

One of the detained men, identified only as Ismet D., 41, in keeping with German privacy laws, is suspected of serving as an "emir," or leader, of a radical Islamist group that was not identified by name. "He is suspected of radicalizing this extremist group through 'Islam lessons' he held, and encouraging participation in jihad against 'unbelievers' in the war in Syria," prosecutors said.

The other man, identified only as Ermin F., 43, is suspected of providing financial support to members of the group and of helping them prepare for travel to Syria.

[Image via AP]

Earlier this week, Duke University announced that it would allow a weekly three-minute long Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from its campus chapel tower. Now they have reversed that decision, proving that Duke University's primary values are intolerance and fear.

In their original announcement of the decision to allow a common little bit of chanting to be broadcast on campus for a few measly minutes per week, Duke said that "This opportunity represents a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is at the heart of Duke's mission." Apparently Duke's mission has changed in the past three days. Yesterday the school baldly reversed itself. "Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students," lied Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. "However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect."

If you take Duke at its word, it is a school now committed to canceling or erasing anything that does not have the effect of "unifying" its campus, which is populated in large part by upper class Southern bros and bro-ettes. By this standard, Duke has little choice but to shut down all extracurricular activities except the frat houses and the basketball games. Anything else, if you think about it—anything that threatens the settled beliefs of Southern racists—could pose a danger of not "unifying" the student body, which now seems to be against Duke's code of conduct.

The university reportedly received an outpouring of "quite vitriolic" emails in response to their original announcement, as well as criticism from fundamentalist Christian leaders like the Rev. Franklin Graham, who accused Duke of promoting Sharia law, and who is a fool, as his ignorant outrage very clearly illustrates.

I live down the street from a mosque that broadcasts the call to prayer daily. You barely even notice it. It's not a big deal, guys. It's certainly no worse than having to endure the sight of Easter hats.

What have we learned from all of this? An honest reading of the facts of this case tell us that: 1) Duke University does not support Christianity and Islam equally; 2) Muslim students at Duke University should feel discriminated against not only by the religious idiots who populate North Carolina, but also by their own University. They should feel discriminated against because they are discriminated against; and most importantly, 3) Duke University will cower and fold in face of intense vitriol and hatred. Hatred and vitriol work. Duke University will not stand up for marginalized groups. Duke University will cower in fear of damage to itself and its own reputation, and will give in to the most ignorant elements of its own community before it will stand up and do something that might require the tiniest bit of backbone or belief in the principles that it so cheaply espouses on paper.

As if anyone needed another reason to dislike Duke University.

[Photo: Flickr]

There's nothing God hates more than a liar, and that's exactly what Alex Malarkey—protagonist and co-author of The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven—has just copped to being. In an open letter posted on a Christian website Tuesday, the alleged paradise tourist says "I did not die. I did not go to Heaven." Wow, we have a little sinner on our hands.

The book, probably hoping to make hay of the vast American Gullibility Industrial Complex that made Heaven Is For Real a successful text and movie (and a family called the Burpos very rich), has been mainstay in Christian book stores, the Washington Post reports. No longer:

The bestselling book, first published in 2010, describes what Alex experienced while he lay in a coma after a car accident when he was 6 years old. The coma lasted two months and his injuries left him paralyzed, but the book — with its assuring description of "Miracles, Angels, and Life beyond This World" — became part of a popular genre of "heavenly tourism," which has been controversial among orthodox Christians.

Earlier this week, Alex recented [sic] his testimony about the afterlife.

This very true story, which has an outstanding 4.3 rating on Amazon and many glowing (like an angel's crown) reviews, includes passages like this one:

"The devil's mouth is funny looking, with only a few moldy teeth. And I've never noticed any ears. His body has a human form, with two bony arms and two bony legs. He has no flesh on his body, only some moldy stuff. His robes are torn and dirty. I don't know about the color of the skin or robes—it's all just too scary to concentrate on these things!"

How could someone make all that up? But in an open letter on the website Pulpit and Pen, Alex wrote that this did not actually happen to him. He didn't visit the Devil, or God, or Heaven—he didn't even die! What the heck:

"An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven."

Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.

I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.

It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.

In Christ,

Alex Malarkey."

This makes Colton Burpo the only little adorable liar to still claim he died, saw God, and then came back and cashed in.

Poop on Mission Street. Poop between cars. Poop in the alley. Poop in the Tenderloin. Poop in the escalator—so much poop that the escalator breaks down under the strain of all that poop. Everywhere you look, San Francisco residents are saying, there is poop, poop, poop.

The latest doodoo dispatch comes via a New York Times op-ed by Allison Arieff. She begins:

This past fall, a project started called (Human) Wasteland, which maps reports of human waste throughout the city of San Francisco. Yes, a disproportionate amount of poop on the streets is not from dogs but from humans.

Some in the blogosphere tended to play this for laughs, but the reality isn't very funny.

Counterpoint: it's a little funny. There's a nice poetic justice to the gilded paradise of new-money tech-dudes teeming with the inescapable waste of people left behind or displaced by the awful march of disruption.

But the jokes come as a consequence of a pressing and critical problem: Homelessness. And a sore lack of public facilities that homeless people are accessible to homeless people. Will Kane at Ratter, the local-reporting site launched by former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio, dove into the issue last month:

By an unofficial count there are just five public restrooms in all of the Tenderloin, said Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of Coalition on Homelessness, a local advocacy group for the city's poor.

While tourists and shoppers can sneak into a hotel or store and use the bathroom many people who don't have access to a bathroom during the day "get turned away because they are poor, and they are black," Friedenbach said. "Human beings do not want to defect or urinate in public. It is not natural and they do so out of desperation because they have no where else to go."

Besides the mess, Friedenbach said, people who relieve themselves in city streets can't wash their hands or keep themselves clean.

Since that article, Kane has launched a "Today's Turd" feature, chronicling the craps that Ratter writers and readers encounter on their daily goings-about. Arieff's op-ed mentions (Human) Wasteland, a graphic that uses shit-colored clouds to map waste complaints throughout the city. If you didn't know better, you might think you were looking at a map of some imaginatively-named city called "San F____o." The rest of the name is engulfed in one enormous brown spot.

[Image via Ratter]

Don't forget: Gawker is trying out a new publishing system where we post less often to the front page. Read about the change here. Happening elsewhere: Newsfeed "Wow," Shouts Man Trying to Fuck a Mailbox at the Mall | Defamer Kaley Cuoco Is Still Not a Feminist, But She Feels Like She Has It All | Justice The Streets of San Francisco Are Covered in Human Shit

It's Rush Week at many colleges and universities, a special, meaningful time for bonding, sisterhood, meeting some new best friends and IF YOU DO NOT APPLY MAKEUP I WILL DO IT FOR YOU. I don't care if you're late for class. I will stop you.

That's the message from a truly delightful and entirely unhinged email we received from an anonymous tipster, which outlines the appearance guidelines for the women of the Alpha Chi Omega chapter at University of Southern California.

The directives break down each and every way the AXO ladies need to look their best during "polish week," the week before they start meeting potential new members (dubbed PNMs in the email). That includes a tireless commitment to full makeup, waxing, Spanx, non-visible roots (and no hair colors "not found in nature," obvs). The email was sent in 2013 and the letter-writer, who we won't identify out of kindness, has graduated, but, our tipster adds, "They're definitely still doing it."

Here are some of the most cogent pearls of beauty wisdom; the full email is at the bottom. All bolds are mine for emphasis, all capital letters were in the original.

On Spanx

I cannot stress how important spanx are to make you look your best. Even if you are very thin, Spanx will give you a better "line" when you wear clothes (no awkward bumps!) Plus you don't have to worry about sucking in all the time or being bloated!

On Head Hair

Remember: your hair needs to be one normal color. No crazy ombre, no color you wouldn't see in nature. (Also, if you're thinking about going from blonde to black or vice versa, do so after recruitment. You won't know for sure what it will look like, and if you hate it/your hairstylist does a bad job, that won't fly.) You cannot have roots during recruitment, so if you dye your hair like me, please take care of that before arriving back to school.

And here, a picture of Drew Barrymore with brown roots is inserted, along with the word "NOPE."

On Eyebrow Hair

Eyebrows shape your face. Bad eyebrows will make you look less beautiful than you actually are! Your eyebrows need to look neat (as in not messy) for recruitment. I know "full" eyebrows are in style right now, but "full" does not mean "BUSHY" or "WILD."... Alternatively, if you have SPARSE eyebrows then you need to fill them in.

On Health (meaning thinness)

Being sick or feeling gross during recruitment sucks. Start eating healthy today and you'll feel so much better by the time polish week and recruitment starts. Stay away from fried and super sugary foods. Your face will seriously brighten up. Also, exercise. Start now and you'll have way more energy and endurance for the long hours of recruitment.

On Hair Styling (NO WAVES)

For recruitment, your hair has to be curly or straight. No waves. In this case, you either need to have a curling iron (for our curly gals) or a flat iron (or a blow dryer if you have pin straight flat hair and you're super good with hair so you can blow your hair out.) Don't count on other girls letting you borrow theirs or doing your hair for you because then she's going to have no time for herself because she's stuck doing everyone else's hair (God bless [redacted]). If you're not good with these tools, now is the time to practice. Note: if you have straight hair and you want to wear it curly, don't. Your hair needs to be able to hold for 15 hr days and hairspray crunchy or limp hair is not acceptable. Also, get some heat protectant and shine spray. Damaged, frizzy hair is not going to attract PNMs. If you have bangs, they need to be styled correctly. If they're long and you're afraid they're going to be in your face the whole time, get some bobbi pins that match your hair color (except on house tours day/door chant, obvi). We don't want to look "emo" or like we're actually trying to flirt with PNMs by touching our hair all the time.

On Makeup

You need to have foundation, concealer, something pinky/neutral for the lips (stain, gloss, etc), BLOT POWDER/OIL BLOTTERS, eyeliner (BLACK or BROWN only), mascara, neutral eyeshadows, bronzer, and (optional but recommended) blush. If you are not wearing the required makeup, I will stop you and apply it myself. I don't care if you're late for class. I don't care if you're a sophomore or a super senior. I will stop you. If you don't know how to apply all this makeup, check out my Pinterest board. I picked out all the videos and products with you guys in mind!

On Nails

Neutral pinks, french manicures (toes can be a little brighter but no blue or green, etc.) GET GELS. It's a great investment. Your nails will not chip and that's one less thing to worry about.

On Glasses (Don't wear them, obvi)

We would like to strongly encourage that you wear contacts during recruitment. Obviously if that is not an option for you or if you are uncomfortable doing so it is by no means mandatory. However, we want the PNMs to be able to see your lovely eyes the best they can and strongly encourage wearing contacts over glasses. Poking your eyes is worth it just this once, promise!

On Social Media

Please make your profile pics, cover photos, etc. something cute and Alpha Chi. Don't use a picture where we're making ugly faces or are in a visibly not sober state!

That does indeed cover every square inch, doesn't it? Anyone else feel like you need a nap? Or suddenly like dyeing your hair, nails and pubes a brilliant emerald green?

Got more Rush Week tips? Email us.

Image via screengrab/Party Rock Records

Sorority Appearance Guidelines

Welcome to Cool Freaks' Wikipedia Club (CFWC)—an absurdity hub.

Cool Freaks' Wikipedia Club is the leading Facebook group for delivering the weirdest Wikipedia articles, from Tarrare to 52-hertz whale, to the top of every member's Facebook News Feeds. No longer will Belphegor's Prime and Potoooooooo languish in the doldrums of obscurity—instead, they can reach a new audience hell-bent on trivial pursuits and complete world knowledge.

Since its founding a year ago on 24 September 2013, the group has grown from a humble abode of esoterica to a sizable community of nearly 32,000 members. As the group has grown, so has its moderation, ensuring that the future of Cool Freaks sticks to its founding ideal of a "safe-space" for its thousands members—many of whom are queer, transgender or people of color.

While reposts (or "retoasts") abound for regulars—List of animals with fraudulent diplomas, List of inventors killed by their own inventions, and List of lists of lists—new gems like South-up map orientation and Impossible colors surface every day, new and sparkling treasures from the arcane depths.

To help introduce a wider audience to our community, we've listed below some old favorites and recent posts shared equally among both the membership and the moderation.

Kentucky Meat Shower

Not a terrifying new sexual act but an incident of anomalous weather. For several minutes in Bath County, Kentucky on March 3rd, 1876, pieces of meat, appearing to be beef (although some claim it tasted like "mutton, venison, or lamb"), rained down on an approximately 100 by 50-yard area. The meat was later identified as either lung tissue from a horse or a human infant, yet many theories linger over the identity and origin of the flesh related weather. [image via Super I.T.C.H.]

Rain Queen

The queen of the Balobedu people, from northern South Africa. The Rain Queen is believed to have powers over the clouds and precipitation. Since 2005, the throne has been empty, due to controversy over the illegitimate children of the most recent Rain Queen, the late Makobo Modjadji, and criticism of Modjadji's "modern" lifestyle.

List of guest stars on Sesame Street

A few interesting guests over the show's 45 years:

• Ralph Nader, who sang on the 1988 musical special Put Down the Duckie: The Sesame Street Special
• James Earl Jones, in 1969 recited the alphabet on the show's first season
• Former First Lady Laura Bush, who not only starred on Sesame Street, but its Egyptian and Indian adaptations, Alam Simsim and Galli Galli Sim Sim, respectively.
  

AVE Mizar

The nightmare lovechild between a Cessna Skymaster aircraft and the notorious hatchback car, the Ford Pinto. Given that the AVE Mizar went on to later kill its two inventors, the roadable aircraft influenced a scene in the 1974 James Bond film, The Man With The Golden Gun.

Hundeprutterutchebane

A Danish roller coaster at the theme park BonBon-Land in Zealand, Denmark. The name translates to "Dog Fart Switchback," in reference to the candy, Hundeprutter, a dog fart themed candy. One CFWC member reminisced, "They had all those as candy when I was a child, and the BonBon-land is named after the candies. Dog farts, boogers, diapers, stuff like that. Loved it back then." Hersheypark, please take note.

Drukpa Kunley

Tibetan Buddhist and poet, "the Madman of the Dragon Lineage," and "The Saint of 5,000 Women." He has been reported to transform demonesses into protective deities though hitting them with his penis, also known as the "Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom." Drukpa Kunley is also credited for the esoteric practice of painting phalluses on walls in Bhutan. [image via http://balkhandshambhala.blogspot.com]

Witch window

Also known as a Vermont window, due to its prominence in the state, a witch window is a diagonal window placed parallel to the roof slope on a house. The name stems from the superstition that witches cannot fly their broomsticks through tilted window, a reasoning a CFWC user finds suspect, because "Only the HARDCORE witches can fly through these windows, which is unfortunate because practically all witches are hardcore."

Funny Animal

A staple genre of comics, animated cartoons, and pretty much a great deal of media everywhere. A funny animal is an animal who lives like a human, walking on two feet, wear clothes, live in houses, etc.—like Goofy, but not Pluto. But the funny animal genre has its roots in blackface, the former becoming more and more popular in lieu of the latter's decline and lack of social acceptance in the 20's and 30's. The Wikipedia page writes,

"Early black-and-white funny animals, including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey Mouse (perhaps the most enduring of the kind), Foxy the Fox, Felix the Cat and Flip the Frog, maintained certain aspects of the blackface design, including (especially with the advent of sound film) heavy emphasis on song and dance routines. The increased use of Technicolor and other color film processes in the 1930s allowed for greater diversity in the ability to design new "funny animals", leading to a much wider array of funny animal shorts and the near-total demise (except for Mickey Mouse and a few other Disney characters of the era) of the blackface characters."

George Herriman

Easily one of the most influential American cartoonists of the 20th century, Herriman was known for the comic strip Krazy Kat, and its titular character (a "funny animal"). Herriman identified himself sometimes as Greek, or being of French, Irish, or Turkish descent, but his birth certificate lists him as "colored" and he is of mixed-race descent, reportedly Creole and Spanish or Native American (his parents are identified in his Wikipedia article as being mulatto). His hesitancy towards acknowledging his heritage, coupled with some Herriman's more controversial work, opens up a conversation about race, anthropomorphism, and identity in cartoons that will be totally civil and without issue and held in the comments section.

Abdel Halim Hafez

One of the most notable and popular Egyptian and Arab singers, and is considered one of the Great Four of Arabic Music. His music believed to have inspired the 2011 Egyptian revolution, is known as "the son of the revolution," and whose death in 1977 reportedly lead to suicides. The world would never have the 2000 classic "Big Pimpin" without Abdel Halim Hafez's Khosara Khosara, for that we are eternally grateful for him.

Stylite

The Christian ascetic answer to Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta." (The Stylites had a bit more staying power.) St. Simeon Stylites the Elder, who lived for 37 years upon a small platform on a pillar in Aleppo, Syria, starting in the year 423. Other Stylites, women included, would ascend up pillars for centuries afterwards, and later inspired David Blaine's Vertigo stunt in 2002. Blaine came down from the 100 foot high, 22 inch wide pillar after 35 hours.

Directional drilling

Instead of drilling downwards for oil, why not extract it diagonally from the earth? While there are advantages to the practice of directional, or slant, drilling, like the reduced environmental impact or accessing reservoirs underneath towns or lakes safely, directional drilling has its downsides, companies and countries literally stealing oil from underneath each other, and the attempted murder of a beloved and wealthy nuclear power plant owner.

Phantom time hypothesis

Like something direct from a Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel, the "phantom time" hypothesis proposes that the events of the early Middle Ages never happened (or were wrongly dated).

John Munch

John Munch, the ever-cynical conspiracy theorist on the Law and Order franchise and early 90's tv show Homicide: Life on the Street, has been on television for over two decades. Munch is currently the only fictional character, and by extension the actor Richard Belzer, to appear on ten different shows as the same character. A major branch of the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis tree.

John Harvey Kellogg

The inventor, along with his brother Will Keith Kellogg, of the breakfast cereal staple Corn Flakes. Kellogg's influence isn't limited to end of the body, as chief medical officer of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, he "made sure that the bowel of each and every patient was plied with water, from above and below. His favorite device was an enema machine that could rapidly instill several gallons of water in a series of enemas. Every water enema was followed by a pint of yogurt — half was eaten, the other half was administered by enema, 'thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service.'" Famous patients of Kellogg's include Amelia Earhart, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.

Thomas Kinkade

The "Painter of Light," and the shouter of "Codpiece! Codpiece!" at a Siegfried and Roy performance. Approximately one out of every 20 Americans owns a copy of the late artist's paintings, and his images have appeared on everything from calendars to Walmart gift cards. Some of the pages that are linked on Kinkade's Wikipedia page include American scene painting, Indianapolis 500, and territorial marking.

William McGonagall

An example of a real-life Vogon poet, William McGonagall was often criticized for being deaf to metaphor, rhythm, and poem writing in general. Despite this, McGonagall was famous for recitals where the audience would throw vegetables at him until he finished reading.

Demon Cat

Lurking in the nation's capital: ghost cat! Nicknamed "Demon Cat" or "D.C.", this feline phantom has been reported to range from the size of a "regular housecat" to that of "a giant tiger."

Toast sandwich

This article has transmogrified from a merely annoying repost to an endearing meme ("retoast") in the hearts and minds of many Cool Freaks. While proclaimed by the Royal Society of Chemistry as "Britain's cheapest lunchtime meal" valued at 7.5p, the new contender of the title is (according to Historic Heston [2013]): "an oatcake flavoured with peanut butter and beef dripping" at a whopping 7p.

Dollar Cravings

Perhaps my most mundane contribution to Wikipedia: I wrote an article on Taco Bell's new value menu since an Adweek review called the "Cheese Roll-Up" the "toast sandwich of Taco Bell cuisine." Given Wikipedia's notability guidelines, I spruced up the article with citations galore and nifty facts as: "Magazine Time pointed out the increase in price from 99¢ to a dollar.[2][10]" or the contest "Everlasting Dollars" for a "lifetime" of free food timed out at only 46 years.

William James Sidis

A child prodigy born in 1898, Sidis researched and wrote under several assumed names in myriad matters spanning cosmology to constructed languages. Utterly fascinated by public transport systems, Sidis wrote an entire tome on the subject (Notes on the Collection of Transfers [1926]) under the name "Frank Folupa" explaining how one can ride the rails indefinitely.

Fearsome critters

From the best bestiary on North American mythical creatures of lumberjack lore— Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts (1910), "Fearsome critters" lists the fantastic animals ranging from the "Axehandle Hound" to "the Squonk," considered "the most melancholy of creatures which because of its deformed countenance refuses contact with all life and will dissolve in tears if ever gazed upon.[4]" This list spawned one of the first instances of fan-inspired music among the Cool Freaks community.

The relationship between John Kerry, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, and Francois Hollande, the president of France, has been on the rocks since Kerry stood up Hollande at the Je Suis Charlie rally in Paris last weekend. But in a grandly Richard-Curtisian gesture, Kerry flew to Paris today to make things right. This deeply intimate hug is their touching reunion.

#relationshipgoals

Kerry told Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, that he just couldn't make it to Paris last week for the rally. He was busy, and already had plans in India and Bulgaria. "That's why I couldn't come," Kerry said. "It's good to be with you. We have a lot to talk about."

He then traveled to Élysée Palace, the Parisian White House, where Hollande was waiting (because he lives there). Their reunion, mired in tension from the week before, was awkward at first.

Both men tried to conceal their emotions. Stifle what they were feeling. "I don't want you to see how much I'm hurting," Hollande might have been thinking. "I'm such an idiot for letting you down," Kerry could have thought.

In the gravel lawn of the Palace, photographers flashing their cameras, reporters typing furiously on their iPhones...

they crept slowly toward each other, arms cautiously extended, eyes locked into the other's gaze...

and embraced once again...

and for the first time, in a long time (a week), Hollande felt like himself.

Their hands together, they turned to the crowd.

"God, this feels so right," Kerry could have said in his head, making a fist in the air.

Together, they walked off into the Parisian dusk.

The passion for their diplomatic relationship burning brighter and more fiery than ever before, Kerry revealed a surprise that maybe brought tears to Hollande's eyes: the singer James Taylor singing "You've Got a Friend."

[Images via AP]

America has money. Which is better than not having money. But all of the money in America is going to the rich. This is our basic problem.

We have prosperity, in the aggregate, but we do not have much equality in the distribution of all of that prosperity. This is America's most pressing economic and social flaw. It is important to keep talking about it and talking about it some more, until it changes. If you have a taste for soberly presented data, you should explore this new report from the Center for American Progress (accompanying analysis by David Leonhardt here), which takes a very "mainstream" look at the growth of economic inequality in America and in much of the rest of the Western world, and presents various "mainstream" proposals for fixing it. ("Mainstream" here is defined as "maybe something Hillary Clinton might say at some point.") It is a useful reminder of some basic facts about how we got here. For example: the decline of organized labor and the rise in power of corporations relative to workers.

Declining worker bargaining power, for example, appears to be a global trend. A job in many European countries can be offshored as easily as a job in the U.S. Midwest, which has been the case for workers across the manufacturing sector in high-wage countries. Yet nations that have robust minimum wages and protections for workers that empower their voice in the workplace have not seen such a strong divergence between worker productivity and worker pay. Indeed, Australia's workers face the same global trends, yet its switch to collective bargaining over and above a strong set of minimum conditions has helped workers keep more of their productivity gains in take-home earnings.

And an important effect of the current corporate incentive structure:

The shift to large equity-based compensation practices is a logical outcome of the shareholder-value movement, which purports that the share price of a publicly traded firm is an accurate market valuation of how well it is managed. In principle, tying executive pay to market valuations aligns the incentives of managers and shareholders, though experience suggests it is not so simple, and the shift to equity-based pay has caused management to devote resources to maximizing short-term share prices at the expense of the long-term value of the firm.

A testable prediction of this theory is that firms where managers and owners have similar information and incentives will be more responsive to market forces and more profitable in the long run. A recent study that compares similar privately and publicly held firms found that private firms invest nearly 10 percent of total assets annually, about twice as much as public firms, which invest closer to 4 percent of assets. Interestingly, the study's authors note that not only do private firms invest more, they invest better, responding strongly to changes in investment opportunities, while public firms barely respond at all.

Issues like CEO pay and general corporate governance are important not just because of how they affect the performance of a single company, but because the incentives that they put in place drive the behavior of the corporate leaders who ultimately drive much of the performance of the national and global economy.

When you consider also the role that the financial sector of the economy plays in leeching money away from everyone else like a great big, uh, leech, you may be encouraged to learn that earnings of the largest Wall Street banks are almost uniformly lower now. The banks tend to attribute this to various one-off problems that can quickly be corrected, but there is also the chance that it will turn out to be attributable to the long-term evolution of our society towards rationality and fairness and downright efficiency, and away from bloodsucking rent-seekers.

But it's hard to say for sure just yet.

[Chart via CAP]

Hi, whores. If it is or about to be rush week at your school, you've no doubt received upwards of 9,000 freaking annoying emails from your sorority's recruitment chair lately, some of which are rude, like this one extolling the virtues of Spanx posted to Jezebel this morning. We would like to read them.

If your recruitment chair, president, or some other made-up chapter authority figure has asked you to get a french manicure, stop making ugly faces in photos, or generally ruined your life by sending you an ungodly schedule of MANDATORY rush events, send it to us. Anonymity guaranteed. You don't even have to feel that bad—famed deranged Delta Gamma emailer Rebecca Martinson is now getting her unhinged ramblings published in a book.

That being said, we will accept sorority correspondence from anyone, no matter how you found it—this includes emails, memos, rush handbooks, passive aggressive signage posted on bathroom mirrors, etc. Send to allie@gawker.com or tips@gawker.com. May rush season bless you with many more sisters to love.

[Photo via Shutterstock]

You gotta hand it to Andy Cohen: In between promotional Real Housewives questions and screwing his fingers into his cheeks to make dimples, the guy extracts information out of celebrities that no other interviewer does. Case in point: During a rapid-fire "Plead the Fifth" segment on last night's Watch What Happens Live, he got Gwyneth Paltrow to admit that the "hardest" drug she's ever taken is ecstasy.

It sounds like a big revelation from an uptight celeb who carries herself like the only air fit for her nostrils is artisanal. Gwynny has been particularly loose-lipped this week, too. But what does it actually mean when the "hardest" drug you've taken is ecstasy? How telling is that regarding one's drug history? What else can we glean from this information? Where are the receipts hidden? Let's investigate:

Marijuana

Any normal person person on drugs would say that ecstasy is harder than marijuana, so it is fair to assume that Gwyneth has partaken in the devil's weed. Though to be fair, I've ingested pot that put me on a 12-hour trip, like acid without the hallucinations. That was was stronger than any ecstasy I've experienced.

Cocaine

Is cocaine strong? No way. It's so not strong. It's so not a big deal. It's actually amazing how not a big deal it is. It's a big deal, even, that it's, like, no big deal. You do it and you're fine, you're fine, you feel great, and you're fine and you're normal and you're just hanging out talking, and maybe it loosens you up in various ways in various situations including the one that you're in right there just talking, but you're still you, always you, just, like, a more enhanced version of you. You look great, and I know I do, too. Right? Yeah, we're great. We feel great and we're just gonna finish this bag and then never do coke again, because it's like so not a big deal that it's like why are we even bothering with this in the first place, but then if we weren't doing this what would we be doing? How's my hair?

(Gwyneth Paltrow has probably done cocaine.)

LSD

LSD is very strong and it lasts what feels like an eternity. Wanting to get off the ride and not being able to for hours is a tremendously awful, strong feeling. If ecstasy is the hardest drug you've ever done, you have not done LSD, unless you had a stale, wack batch.

Shrooms

Shrooms can be strong, but they're organic or whatever, so probably not as "strong" as chemicals to the delicate, whole-food-munching sensibilities of Madame Goop. Gwyneth Paltrow has probably done shrooms.

Salvia

Gwyneth Paltrow has definitely done salvia. Again: natural.

Ayahuasca

Ditto.

Ketamine

How insane is it that people take tranquilizer as a party drug, and that for some people it actually works? Brain chemistry is wild. For the hangover alone, which can mean days of feeling depressed and pissy, K qualifies as stronger than ecstasy. Gwyneth Paltrow probably has not done K.

Meth

Now we're getting crazy. This is basically the hardest drug of all for what it does to your face alone. Methface doesn't fly in Hollywood. It's basically the polar opposite of Botox and Restylane. Gwyneth Paltrow has never done and will never do meth.

Heroin

Track marks do not pair well with gowns, and nodding off whenever the fuck is not a good look. Gwyneth Paltrow has never done heroin.

Crack

Gwyneth Paltrow makes too much money to ever smoke crack.

Prescription meds

As Gwyneth is not a Scientologist, I assume she has at some point taken prescription meds, and probably strong ones. She probably doesn't even need to ask to get a prescription for whatever she wants. And then it's a slippery slope from popping a Vicodin to crying, "Sparkle, Gwynny, sparkle!" to yourself in a dark alley, all because you thought pills didn't count as drugs, let alone strong drugs, because they're legal. Gwyneth Paltrow is in my thoughts and prayers.

The New York Times Magazine has a fantastic story up today about a male model named Brad Kroenig, who has been a muse and (platonic) companion to legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld for over a decade. The story follows Kroenig, pictured above, and Lagerfeld to a runway show in Dubai, and provides us with utterly incredible Lagerfeld quotes and anecdotes along the way.

For instance, here is Lagerfeld succinctly explaining why he travels with a small group of young, extremely attractive male models:

"I hate ugly people," Lagerfeld told me. "Very depressing."

(Same.)

At one point in the story, writer Irina Aleksander, Lagerfeld, Kroenig and Kroenig's young son Hudson—a Lagerfeld model himself—meet at an airport to take a private plane to Dubai. Lagerfeld arrived in good spirits but was quickly deflated by the size of the private jets splayed out across the runway.

"Hello!" Lagerfeld said. He glanced at the field of small planes and frowned.

In the back of the private plane, a bed had been arranged for Lagerfeld. When Hudson, Kroenig's five year old son, noticed Lagerfeld's bed, he asked where he was going to be allowed to sleep. To that question, Lagerfeld responded:

"You sleep on your seat, darling," Lagerfeld replied in his heavy German accent. "I have to arrive fresh, you don't have to. Don't be selfish."

At a lunch the day after, Lagerfeld gave Hudson a printer for his Polaroid camera. Lagerfeld has one too, and according to Aleksander, he printed a photo of his Siamese cat while Hudson printed one of his own face.

That prompted Lagerfeld to deliver the following statement about selfies, the greatness of which you must acknowledge even if you disagree:

"I hate selfies," Lagerfeld said. "Don't use your film for ugly purpose."

When Aleksander describes Kroenig's house, we are remind of one of Karl Lagerfeld's best-known eccentricities:

A fax machine sits in the corner — until a few years ago, Lagerfeld communicated with friends only by fax

Later in the story, we're set in a room where Lagerfeld is overseeing fitting for the clothes Hudson will model on the runway.

This scene is just perfect:

Lagerfeld presided at a table at the far end of the room. When Hudson was sent out in a long white tunic and pointed Aladdin-like shoes, Lagerfeld leapt out of his seat.

"Ah, our little prince!" Lagerfeld said. "But I think he needs much more diamonds."

Don't we all?

[image via Models.com]