From: Alexis Simendinger [mailto:xxx@realclearpolitics.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 2:49 PM
To: Barnes, Desiree N.
Subject: POOL Report #4 — The Prince and the Duchess in the Oval Office

Pool Report #4 — Oval Office — the Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

March 19, 2015

A pool spray best described as a drive-by. It took longer for the US and UK pools to enter the Oval Office than the time journalists were permitted to remain. In at 2:16. Out at 2:17 pm.

POOL Q. Have you called PM Netanyahu yet?

Obama: "Thank you everybody.” Big smile.

The president leaned in to speak quietly to Prince Charles, who sat in a chair to the president’s right, in front of the fireplace.

Their conversation, thanks to audio recorded by AP Radio’s Mark Smith :

Obama: I think it’s fair to say that the American people are quite fond of the royal family.

Prince Charles: That’s awfully nice to know.

Obama: They like them much better than they like their own politicians.

Prince Charles: I don’t believe that. [pause] I tell you what was nice was going back to Mount Vernon yesterday.

Obama: That’s wonderful.

Prince Charles: Because you know, I was there 45 years ago — in 1970 — so it was fantastic. It is very special there.

Obama: That’s lovely. That’s beautiful.

The prince, in a navy suit with small stripe, shook his head ever so slightly, side to side, gazing at the herd of noisy cameras and journalists crowded into the Oval Office. Camilla, wearing an oyster-colored coat/dress and diamond brooch, wore a smile from her perch on the sofa to her husband’s right. Her hands were on her lap.

Obama and Prince Charles last met in the Oval Office in May 2011.

On this trip, the prince and duchess arrived in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, and will end their U.S. visit in Kentucky on Friday. Among locations they visited in DC were the Lincoln Memorial, the MLK Jr. Memorial, the National Archives, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, in Virginia.

Alexis Simendinger

RealClearPolitics

202-xxx-xxxx

xxx@realclearpolitics.com

Public Pool is an automated feed of White House press pool reports. For live updates, follow @WHPublicPool on Twitter.

Empire wrapped its spectacular, record-breaking first season last night with a two-hour finale. If you've been glued to FOX every Wednesday at 9 p.m. for the last 11 weeks, one thing is very clear: Empire in undeniable.

Let's recap. Lucious Lyon, a former gangster turned rapper turned record mogul, is attempting to take his company public before the ALS he's been diagnosed with kills him. But there's a sharp tongue in a fur coat in his way: Cookie, his ex-wife who's been locked in jail for 17 years, is free and determined to get a piece of Empire Entertainment (Cookie's drug money kickstarted the company). Lucious and Cookie (who finally slept together in episode 7; sorry Anika!) also have three sons: Andre, Jamal, and Hakeem—all of whom want the throne and glory that comes with it. Add into the equation: Andre's unstable mental state, Camilla's control over Hakeem, and the fact that Jamal, who is gay, might have fathered a child. Oh, Lucious also murdered his longtime friend and is trying to keep it a secret, Anika aligned herself with Billy Beretti (Lucious' nemesis), and, for reasons just revealed, Jamal is not Lola's father—Lucious is!

The show's final weeks were marked by constant twists and turns: Andre was admitted into a mental clinic only to eventually find God and join the church (thanks J. Hud!); Camilla (Hakeem's 40-year-old boo-thang) was banished by Lucious, and Hakeem gets revenge by threatening to join a rival label and sleeping with Anika; Jamal, eager to sit atop Empire's throne, threatened Beretti's life and convinced him to give up the publishing rights to Lucious' early albums, which he produced. But by the final episode, all bets are off, and old adversaries quickly become strange bedfellows: Lucious names Jamal, the gay son he'd been ashamed of for so long, his successor; Hakeem, once the heir to the family company, plots a hostile takeover with Andre, Cookie, and Anika (but not before Cookie and Anika duke it out in a fight worthy of inclusion on WorldStarHipHop); Vernon is murdered by Andre's wife; and, on the night of Lucious' comeback concert (his ALS was misdiagnosed—wait, what?—yes!!) he is arrested for Bunky's murder. Lucious and Jamal blame Cookie, who they think is the rat, but all signs point to Hakeem and Andre. It's all so wonderfully and ridiculously and extravagantly over the top that it was hard to stop watching.

The show is helmed by Lee Daniels (The Butler, Precious, Monster's Ball) and has played out like one big game of deception. As a hip-opera, it drew pieces of its narrative structure from Shakespeare's King Lear. Week after week, it was anybody's guess what would happen next. Yet as much as Empire was about deception, family, and the price of success, it was also about possessing (and keeping) power, however poisonous it might be. Call it the dark side of ambition.

Empire's true genius, however, was that it was whatever you wanted it to be. Complex's Justin Charity said Empire wasn't a soap opera, and instead the best show in television. But he was partly wrong. Empire is a soap opera because Empire is what you make it. It's a family drama, sure, but equally a show about black womanhood and empowerment, a coming out story, a show about the bonds of brotherhood, a show about the music industry and the hazards of the business; it is a wholly realized black world (flaws and all). Where one viewer believes the show's main crux is Jamal's coming out, another viewer might find the show's heart to be in Cookie's performative daring. Empire is all these big and bold and sometimes-messy things. At its peak, Empire has something for everybody.

A lot, too, has been made of Taraji P. Henson's portrayal of Cookie, the mouthy matriarch. And all those things are true: that this show would be nothing without her, that she has redefined the image of blackness on TV, that she has tossed every stereotype about black womanhood out of the window and reshaped our understanding of it into something more new, original, and nuanced. That, of course, is to say nothing of the other actors on the show—Terrence Howard as the sly, villainous Lucious, Jussie Smollett as the brave-hearted Jamal, and so on—because they all function just as they are supposed to: damaged but ever determined. The characters are flat and the show moves too quickly, you say. But therein lies beauty of it—Empire upsets you with a poorly constructed, deeply flawed Lucious because it is supposed to (oftentimes, illogical characters fuel our desires to keep watching a show); Empire upsets you because it moves over serious subject matter in mere seconds, but, really, the show would falter if it were any slower; Empire upsets you because its understanding of the music industry, or lack thereof, and the songs it manufactures is basic at best, but, again, that is the point, that you are constantly engaging their presumed seriousness and real-world potential. These are the exact reactions Daniels and his team want from us. Empire, unlike most shows, is not afraid of its imperfections, cracks that would typically discredit any other drama. Instead, Empire turns up the dial, and runs face first into the absurd.

The show's showiness, character complexity, and plot zigzags are a testament to its solid (yes, solid) writing. Before you write it off, consider this: what primetime show in recent memory has been able to be simultaneously dumb and smart? With all respect to Shonda Rhimes, what show has straddled the middle road so well? Rhimes' shows want to be taken seriously, they want to be understood as silver-tongued dramas, and very seldom embrace their own foolishness (which, let's be real, makes for good TV). Where critics might read Empire's writing as shallow and fragmented, I'd argue that it is actually carefully crafted (though not above the occasional cheesiness). Increased viewership, week after week after week, is proof that the show, aware of its flaws but steadfast in its intent, works.

In the era of modern TV-making, Empire is without peer. The show has become a soaring network hit that will likely flood our television screens and social newsfeeds for years and years to come.

I hope the ride never ends.

[Image via Getty]

While Eva Mendes is out here making jokes about how you shouldn't wear sweatpants because it could cause your partner to divorce you, here's an idea: wear whatever you want. Sweatpants. Bag of trash. Classic work of art. Pool noodle.

If the person you're with is telling you to not wear sweatpants all the time, that's probably because it's unbecoming to be constantly draped in fabric held together by elastic. Sure, there's a time and place for everything. For example, probably not a great idea to wear sweatpants to a black-tie event. Just my guess. At home? No big deal.

In an interview with Extra, the actress follows up her declaration that her sense of style is "I guess...maybe...feminine?" by saying that she will "literally" and "figuratively" wear pants, but when she says that, she does not mean sweatpants. Literally OR figuratively. Even at home? her intrepid interviewer, AJ Calloway, wonders. No. Some advice from Eva Mendes for all you wifed-up ladies out there:

"Sweatpants? No no no. You can't do sweatpants. Ladies, the number one cause of divorce in America is sweatpants."

Funny joke, we get what you're going for, but bad advice all around. Wear whatever you want if you're at home relaxing. Wear whatever you want when you're out on a motorbike. Wear whatever you want when you're buying peanut butter at Trader Joe's. It doesn't matter. Wear a towel, wear a dress. Wear a flouncy shirt. Wear a belt made of wrenches and rubies.

Don't listen to Eva Mendes.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.

Everybody hates Starbucks' absurdly stupid "Race Together" initiative, but the people who hate it the most are probably the baristas, who have been asked by their wealthy bosses to bear the responsibility of starting discussions about American racism... at Starbucks. A tipster sent us a photo of what he says is the internal memo distributed to Starbucks workers—here's what "Race Together" looks like from the inside.

It makes yet another great case for why working at Starbucks must be a special shitty hell.

Not only, if you are a Starbucks employee, must you make coffee all day with the efficiency of a machine while dealing with entitled dickhead customers. You must also—at least this week—watch a video of your CEO talking about race, print out a USA Today ad, hand out stickers, then remove the original ad and replace it with a special insert. All so that you can "help foster empathy and common understanding in the country" as "the country faces ongoing racial tension."

If you're lucky, you make $9 an hour. Sounds great.

[image via Getty]

Forecasters have growing confidence that it's going to snow tomorrow in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Some cities from Pennsylvania to Long Island could see five or more inches of snow by the time it's over on Friday night. Oh, and tomorrow is the first day of spring. Nature has a twisted sense of humor.

March is notorious for its strange and constantly changing weather. You could need shorts, a jacket, a snow shovel, and an umbrella all in the course of a few days. Just look at Washington D.C., where it was 73°F on Tuesday, it could snow tomorrow, and then they're predicting temperatures back in the 60s by Saturday.

So, what's going on? A weak area of low pressure moving towards the Northeast is making for a dreary afternoon from North Carolina west through the Ohio Valley. This rain will move into the Mid-Atlantic tonight and start to interact with cold air over the area, slowly changing the precipitation over to snow from north to south as the system pushes farther into the area through the day on Friday.

Moderate to heavy snow will start to fall from Pennsylvania to southeastern New England during the afternoon and evening on Friday, with the worst snow accumulating around the Interstate 95 corridor just in time for the evening rush hour.

Here's a look at the National Weather Service's forecast snow totals from their 4:00 PM EDT update:

The heaviest snow will probably fall from the Appalachian Mountains in southern Pennsylvania east through New Jersey and Long Island. Snowfall accumulations could reach six inches under the heaviest bands of snow, and New York City stands to see the most snow of the major cities affected (around five inches).

Keeping in mind the fact that we do not name winter storms in the United States, The Weather Channel's forecast is pretty close to the one issued by NWS offices above, showing the heaviest snow falling across parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Long Island.

The track of the storm and the temperature profile of the atmosphere could shift the location of the rain/snow line and affect who sees how much snow. As always, the forecasts can and will change through the overnight hours and into the day tomorrow. Many marginal snow events like this come down to nowcasting—predicting who will see what based on observed temperatures. If temperatures are warmer going into the event than the models are showing right now, you can forget a decent snow event.

Prepare for the worst case scenario (shovelable snow) but hope for the best (a cold, dreary rain).

Snow on the first day of spring is a cruel slap in the face after the colder-than-normal winter we've seen in much of the eastern United States, but it's not unprecedented. The average last day with measurable snow at Washington National is March 3; the magic date is March 14 in Philly, March 19 (today!) at New York City's Central Park, and March 30 in Boston. For the record, it can still snow well into April—the latest snow on record at Central Park was April 27, 1967, when a dusting of snow fell.

Stay safe, and enjoy what could be (hopefully will be) the last decent snow event of the year.

[Images: GREarth, NWS, The Weather Channel]

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

A group of New Hampshire fourth-graders who traveled to the state's capital in Concord to learn about the joys of civic engagement were given a surprisingly realistic picture of the American legislative process after one lawmaker used their bill—a proposal to name the red-tailed hawk the official state raptor—as an opportunity to rail against the evils of abortion.

House Bill 373—drafted, again by a group of nine- and 10-year-old elementary school students—was discussed on the New Hampshire House floor yesterday after the class managed to pass it through the body's environment and agriculture committee.

Republican State Rep. Warren Groen said the following of the proposal:

"(The red-tailed hawk) mostly likes field mice and small rodents. It grasps them with its talons and then uses its razor sharp beak to rip its victims to shreds and then basically tear it apart, limb from limb. And I guess the shame about making this the state bird is it would make a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood."

Big man! Don't hurt 'em! Next time those shortstack liberals step into your house, they'll know not to mess with the king! Were the little guys looking for Pokémon court, because that's down the street! Go home, punks! Fuck you! This is big boy shit! Crying is for babies!

Rep. John Burt followed up with the knockout punch to the bill, which, once more, lest we forget, came from a bunch of tiny people born after the year 2005, and is about a pretty bird:

"Now we do have a $10 billion budget and that's why I'm up here against this bill," said Burt. "We should be working on that instead of worrying about what our next bird's going to be. Because bottom line – if we keep bringing more of these bills and bills and bills that really I feel we shouldn't have in front of us, we'll be picking a state hot dog next."

"That (the abortion reference) was probably less than the gentlemen who stood up and made jokes. That was almost more upsetting to them because they understood those references," the school's principal, Mark Deblois, told the Associated Press. "Why didn't they take us seriously? Why were people laughing?"

Hello! Der! Newsflash! Earth to Principal Deblois! The kids deserved it! That's what they get for trying to learn something!

HB 373 was defeated 133 to 160.

Image via YouTube. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Farmworkers in Mexico are on strike for the first time in decades, and they probably have a pretty good reason.

The Associated Press reports that the Yemeni branch of ISIS has claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings at two mosques in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, that killed at least 137 people and injured more than 300.

The al-Hashoosh and Badr mosques were attacked Friday during midday prayers. According to the BBC, at least two suicide bombers attacked at Badr; one detonated himself inside the mosque while the other waited outside the building's main gates to kill fleeing worshippers.

One witness told the Associated Press that "blood was running like a river" after the attack at al-Hashoosh. "The heads, legs and arms of the dead people were scattered on the floor of the mosque," Mohammed al-Ansi said. From the BBC:

Mr Ansi said that many of those who were not killed by the explosion were seriously injured by shattered glass that fell from the mosque's windows.

The rebel-run al-Masirah TV channel broadcast footage from inside the al-Hashoosh mosque showing volunteers using bloodied blankets to carry away victims. Bodies were also lined up in the prayer hall.

ISIS, which established a division in Yemen last year, described the attack as a "blessed operation" against the "dens of Shiites," according to the Associated Press.

Image via AP. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Last week, a young woman on spring break near Panama City, Florida was photographed in the nude, covered in Mardi Gras beads, and surrounded by shirtless men. Images of the woman began circulating on social media, and now authorities have launched a campaign to make sure the unnamed spring breaker is okay, the Panama City News Herald reports.

The photographs don't contain enough landmarks or details to reveal the precise location of the unnamed woman, but authorities fear she may be underage and potentially in danger. A spokesperson for the Bay County Sheriff Office, Ruth Corley, told the News Herald that authorities would like to ID the woman so that they can check to see if she's okay:

"We aren't trying to get her into trouble," Corley said. "We want to make sure she isn't in trouble."

A second photograph shows the woman bent over and dancing naked near the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, the News Herald reports. The photos began circulating on Twitter on March 11. Any person with information on this woman or her whereabouts is encouraged to call the Bay County Sheriff's Office at 850-747-4700 or Crime Stoppers at 850-785-TIPS (8477).

[Image via PCNH]

John Stamos: Full House actor, yogurt commercial actor...sex advice giver? Yes.

Would you like to know John Stamos's sex advice? Why not. He's sort of a famous person, for one, and we're all here, what else are we doing, for two. First, via Page Six, he'd like to let you know what you should not do if you are a woman having sex with him:

"A couple of women have wanted 'selfies' afterwards. ... One girl really wanted my shirt, like a souvenir."

Or, I suppose, not necessarily something you should explicitly not do as much as something a couple women have done. Maybe you can get away with asking for a selfie after having sex with John Stamos. I say, if you have sex with John Stamos and want a selfie after, either:

1. Just ask for it—seems like he might do it.
2. Take it discreetly.

Stamos's actual advice draws heavily on his time spent as Jesse and the Rippers bandleader:

"It's about listening, asking, talking . . . I guess I do approach sex in a musical way. With me, it's more rhythm than melody with a woman . . . but it's all listening . . . With women, you have to listen to their bodies."

It's about listening to a woman's body, more rhythm than melody.

OK.

Now we both know John Stamos's sex advice.

[image via Getty]

Charlotte, N.C. police have arrested a second suspect in connection with the February murder of former America's Next Top Model contestant Mirjana Puhar and two others. David Ezequel Lopez, 19, was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder on Thursday.http://gawker.com/americas-next-...

Puhar, her boyfriend Jonathan Alvarado, and Jusmar Gonzaga-Garcia were found dead last month in Alvarado and Gonzaga-Garcia's Charlotte home. Police first arrested and charged Emmanuel Jesus Rangel, 19, for the murders; officials currently believe, the Charlotte Observer reports, that the killings were drug-related, and that Rangel knew the victims.

It's currently unclear what Lopez's involvement had in the murders, but police told WSOC that he "voluntarily came to police headquarters to be interviewed by detectives" Thursday evening.

[Image via Mirjana Puhar's Instagram/NY Daily News]

Contact the author at aleksander@gawker.com .

There was always something ugly at the heart of the wish-fulfillment in the Divergent series — everybody except me is one dimensional, because I'm special! But where the first movie managed to turn this into a weirdly sweet adventure about trying fit in, the sequel just goes full-on narcissistic. And dreary.

Spoilers ahead...

Divergent and Insurgent are based on books by Veronica Roth, which came out in the middle of the dystopian young-adult book blitz that followed Hunger Games. I haven't actually read the books, but I quite liked the first movie. And I was impressed by how much the first movie managed to make the series' dotty premise hold water. Divergent was surprisingly fun and exciting.

Too bad I can't say the same for the sequel, Insurgent.

So in case you missed the premise, in the Divergent series, there's been a catastrophe and the human race has basically turned into Smurfs. (In the sense of everybody only having one defining characteristic, not in the sense of being tiny and blue.) You can be Brave, or Humble, or Brainy, or Friendly, or Truthful. Everybody has to choose one of those five things to be, for the rest of their life. And there are personality tests, to help you decide.

But our hero, Tris, is Divergent, meaning she can't be fully defined by one single adjective. This makes her a threat to the social order.

In the first movie, the Brainy people engineered a coup, mind-controlling the Brave people to wipe out the Humble people. And now, in this new movie, the leader of the Brainy faction, Jeanine, blames the Divergent people, like Tris, for the massacre, and her people are hunting Tris down. Jeanine (Kate Winslet, with wonderfully severe hair) is trying to consolidate her hold on power.

But that's not the main plot of the movie. The story, this time around, really has to do with Tris going through lots and lots of bad therapy.

Terrible, Terrible Therapy. Really Terrible.

Part of what seems to be going on with Insurgent is someone going, "Hey, everybody liked the personality tests in Divergent. What if the second installment is just one long personality test?" And indeed, this whole film is just one long dreadful therapy session. Every other character does his or her utmost to help Tris get over her issues.

See for yourself:

For much of the film, Tris and her boyfriend Four travel around from one faction to the next. They start out at the Amity faction, then make pitstops with the "factionless" people and the Candor faction. And wherever they go, people try to help Tris get over her issues. Including a lengthy sequence when the Candor people give Tris a kind of "truth serum" which forces her to reveal her innermost trauma (and guilt) to everybody who's standing around watching.

There are many, many extreme closeups of Tris (Shailene Woodley) doing a "tormented laugh-cry" expression while processing her guilt and self-loathing. (As opposed to self-abnegation, because she left that faction behind.)

It doesn't help that every single faction's headquarters, this time around, looks like a cult compound. There's a very creepy vibe from the Amity and Candor people, which probably isn't quite as intentional as it is with the Erudite people. In general, a certain amount of grittiness has been leached out of the post-apocalyptic city this time around — although the long shots of the ruined Chicago are way more beautiful and well-realized this time, there's less of a sense of urban desolation in any of the shots involving actors.

And when Tris isn't having long therapy sessions with various authority figures, she's having dream sequences. Some of the clumsiest dream sequences I've seen in ages, in fact, and they go on and on.

It all culminates in a storyline where the villain, Jeanine, has a McGuffin that will only work if Tris achieves catharsis. And so that's the whole second half of the movie: the villain trying to make the heroine work through her issues. This is done via having tubes inserted into Tris's back, which put her into a virtual reality therapy-scape that looks a lot like her earlier dream sequences, except with more CG confetti.

I think that's one reaosn why this movie fails so horribly: Most of the time, a movie can have dream sequences or virtual-reality illusions. You really have to pick one. Especially if the dream sequences and the VR simulations are covering a lot of the same topics.

Our first clue to how self-absorbed Tris is going to be this time around comes early on, when she cuts off her beautiful long hair — and the film cuts to a hundred birds screaming in agony and taking flight, as if they've heard the unbearable sadness of Tris' hair follicles.

Dystopia, Dat-topia

There are a few assorted moments, here and there, where the dystopian setting feels effective and fleshed-out. The opening shot is terrific: a closeup of Kate Winslet, spouting propaganda on a video screen, which slowly pans out to reveal that the screen is on an armored vehicle which is part of the search for Tris and her friends, in the middle of a barren landscape. Uniformed thugs stomp around nearby, as we see other screens attached to other vehicles.

In assorted moments like that one, the repressive regime feels as though it has some teeth. And the dystopian setting feels somewhat immersive. But the longer the film goes on, the more the bad guys start to feel like Keystone Kops, and the more the dystopia feels like a painted backdrop. And later in the film, the villains are forced to resort to cartoon-villain blackmail schemes in their efforts to entrap Tris — schemes which turn out to be laughably easy to defeat. Which is really the acid test of dystopia: if the mechanisms of social control feel flimsy instead of monolithic, then we're done.

And it turns out that the elaborate personality tests in the first movie weren't even necessary — because the bad guys have neat handheld devices that scan you in a few seconds and then "ping" if you're divergent. They even register exactly how divergent someone is, expressed as a percentage. It's an exact science!

The whole thing is filmed in a sort of washed-out, monochromatic style that's either beige or blue, as our heroes move through the wasteland on their way from one compound to the next. In the first movie, you bought into the faction system largely because it seemed as though all of the characters on screen did, and it had a certain amount of internal logic that carried everyone along. But this time around, that's mostly gone.

Another big part of the problem is that the supporting cast, who were a big part of making all of this work the first time around, are mostly reduced to window-dressing. Especially people like Mekhi Phifer and Maggie Q, who stand in the background and react to stuff.

All snarking aside, Divergent had a point to make about the evils of pigeon-holing people, and the ways that peer-group conformity is a tool of social control for those in charge. But this time around, the dystopia feels both flimsier and more ill-defined, and there seems to be less of a point to it. Meanwhile, the plot twists keep getting more random and nonsensical — so that by the time you reach the end of the film and a huge reveal, it just feels like one more piece of nonsense.

All in all, this time around, hell isn't people trying to force you to choose a rigid path in life. Instead, hell is watching someone else go through therapy, over and over.

Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com.

Her throat was slashed. Then she died. In the words of Robert Durst, "Bye bye." :(

[Snuff footage above via Scandal]

The world got word yesterday that Zayn Malik, the member of One Direction who likes graffiti, exited One Direction's world tour due to rumor-based stress. Today, the world has gotten word that everybody is worried about him.

Zayn, Zayn, Zayn. Our little Zayn. What's going on in Zayn's brain? A good question, asked in vain. With enthusiasm hard to feign, he had to just get on a plane, escape somewhere to remain sane: Zayn.

A source "close to the band" spoke to People:

"The rest of the guys are really worried about him but disappointed he's not there. Their main concern is they want him to get better."

Though all of One Direction is worried, one member—the member who looks the most like Zayn, aside from Zayn himself—is the most worried:

"They don't want him to quit. Louis [Tomlinson] is the closet to him and is the most worried."

Aww. That is genuinely a little heartbreaking and very sweet. Louis!

However, Zayn, I do think you should quit.

Zayn, this job seems very stressful, you have been doing it since you were a child, and I feel like you already have a lot of money—certainly enough money. Maybe you have another interest you can pursue? I know, for instance, that you have a graffiti room. Maybe you can think about doing something with that. Turn your graffiti room into a graffiti museum. Maybe graffiti t-shirts. I don't know, Zayn.

Feel better—for Louis's sake, if not your own.

[image via Getty]

The other day I googled Comcast for a story about the internet. The Google Autofill results were…intriguing. People are curious about how Comcast does many things, namely things that are evil.

The searches revealed a specific and sort of sultry history of Comcast, one that highlights both its triumphant rise to telecom dominance and its many controversial activities since then. But mostly, it's the latter. Let's review.

"How did Comcast start"

From where did this behemoth of a cable company come? Tupelo, Mississippi of all places, in 1963. Before it became the omnipresent and generally detested conglomerate it is today, Comcast was called American Cable Systems (note the foreshadowing), and had only 1,200 subscribers.

Almost immediately, it started buying up all kinds of other companies.

From the early 70s to the end of the century, the history of Comcast (the name changed in 1969; "communication" plus "broadcast") is pretty much a list of companies—and subscribers—it acquired all over the country: smaller cable networks like Group W Cable, Storer Communications; full-on acquisitions like the purchase of E.W. Scripps, Jones Intercable Inc., and Lenfest Communications; even parts of the video game industry after Storecast, the grocery store market company it acquired in 1965, introduced massive franchises like Pac-Man and Asteroids.

But in 2001 things got really gnarly when Comcast acquired AT&T Broadband for $44.5 billion, bringing its subscriber count over 22 million and making it the largest cable company in the US. After a failed bid to buy Disney and also become the largest media conglomerate in the world, Comcast initiated a partnership that would enable it to gobble up NBC Universal. More on that in a bit.

"How did Comcast know I was torrenting"

On top of overcharging customers, harassing them on the phone, and calling them assholes, Comcast has recently developed a habit of throwing the book at subscribers suspected of pirating content. Hence the second Autofill suggestion.

Not long after the NBC Universal acquisition, Comcast decided that it didn't just want to be a cable company but also a copyright cop for the MPAA and RIAA. Subscribers started reporting piracy warnings en masse around 2011 or so—though it's unclear how Comcast's new posture as a content company as well as internet service provider factored into this timing.

By 2013, Comcast had launched a formal "Six Strikes" program, complete with mysterious punishments and a generally Orwellian outlook on how subscribers were using its services. The company sent piracy warnings to over 625,000 customers over the course of the next year. That's roughly 3% of its total subscriber base.

So how did Comcast know that you were torrenting, anyways? That's easy. With help from the MPAA and RIAA, it uses technology to spot supposedly pirated content moving through its tubes and traces the torrent back to your IP address. How do you hide from Big Brother's embrace? Use a proxy.

"How did Comcast throttle Netflix"

If you follow the rules and pay for content—say, by buying a Netflix membership—Comcast can still fuck you over through throttling. In fact, the company already has, though the word "throttling" isn't necessarily the one Comcast would want to use. I think the word "bullying" best represents what Comcast did to Netflix and its customers.

Last year, on the tail end of Comcast's big anti-piracy spree, Netflix customers started complaining about poor performance. Naturally, many of them blamed Netflix and cancelled their subscriptions. Netflix, in turn, blamed Comcast for not providing them with the bandwidth they needed to ensure people could watch House of Cards without any crippling lags.

But there wasn't much Netflix could do since Comcast controls the tubes it needs to carry that content to subscribers' computers. Netflix ended up paying Comcast cash money for a more direct route between its servers and its customers. Guess who ends up paying for that kind of deal in the long run? You do.

That sucks. Though ultimately it was the outrage over deals like this that helped elevate the conversation about net neutrality. Netflix CEO even took to the pages of Wired to vent his frustrations with how the growing oligarchy of big cable companies stood to ruin the internet as we know it.

Almost exactly a year after news of Comcast strong-arming Netflix emerged, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed the strongest net neutrality rules in American history. However, the simple fact remains that most Americans only have one, maybe two choices for a broadband provider. More often then not, that one and only choice is Comcast.

"How did Comcast become a monopoly"

Alright, Google Autofill, now we're talking brass tacks. How did Comcast become a monopoly? Well, if you scroll up to that part about how Comcast got started, you'll remember that it was dead set on expansion from the start. Comcast wants it all. It established such a stranglehold over the American cable industry by buying everything the government would let it.

In the company's half-century in existence, Comcast has chosen to acquire its competitors instead of duking it out on the open market. And now Americans have one choice for internet service—a service so crucial it's increasingly considered a public right and regulated as utility. This is a big problem. And if Comcast gets its way, the situation will only get worse for consumers.

Right now, Comcast is the middle of another, more massive acquisition, one that would enable that little cable company from Tupelo to swallow Time Warner Cable whole and go from being the Goliath of the cable industry to a siamese twin version of Goliath. Thankfully, this might not happen. But who knows what its corporate lobbyists are capable of.

"How did Comcast buy NBC"

Speaking of media consolidation and lobbying, how did Comcast manage to thwart antitrust concerns and acquire NBC? Money. Lots and lots of money. Billions of dollars for the acquisition and who knows how much to grease the palms of the folks in Washington that decide whether or not these kinds of deals should go through. Add the cost of counterintelligence operations into the mix and you've got a deal. Comcast is good at deals.

Of course, Comcast's cable and internet service is not a deal. It's a rip and a monthly reminder that America's internet is fundamentally broken. If you change your Google search from "How did Comcast" to "Why did Comcast," you get a similar list of autofilled questions from harried customers. Why did Comcast raise my bill? Because it can.

Contact the author at adam@gizmodo.com.
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The Great Recession and the rise of the Occupy movement helped to launch a wave of labor organizing among low wage workers over the past few years. A new documentary looks at one single labor campaign at a New York deli.

The Hand That Feeds, a documentary hitting theaters in April, tells the story of undocumented immigrant workers at a Manhattan deli who decided, in 2012, to form a union. Not an easy task, but a worthwhile one. An exclusive clip of the film is above, and the trailer is below.

Si se puede.

Have you ever been to Colorado? You should go. It has skiing, the pot is free, and my sister lives there. It also has Denver International Airport (DIA) (or DEN), the largest airport in the U.S. and the second largest in the world. The airport is also home to a secret underground city built to shelter the world's elite in the event of a nuclear holocaust. And the runways form a swastika.

According to conspiracy theorists—or "truthies," which is the term the truthie who went on a date with my sister's friend told her he prefers, but which is a term I will not be using here—the Illuminati/Masons/New World Order/Reptoids are are biding their time among Earth's civilizations until the inevitable destruction of our world. At which point they will reconvene underground to form a new and perfect world. Beyoncé will be there. Celine Dion will be there. Former Governor Jesse Ventura, who believed the bunker was built to survive the 2012 apocalypse and headed up an investigation into the airport, would sure like to be there.

Where will you be?

Welcome to Denver International Airport

From its inception in 1980, the Denver airport was drama. Because the city already had a perfectly nice and fully functioning airport in Stapleton International, a mere 16 miles away, most locals were against its construction and viewed the whole enterprise as a huge waste of space and money. There were organized protests against the Denver Regional Council of Governments' decision to break ground on a new airport.

Once construction finally began, its opening was delayed several times. The layout and design were constantly changing. There were more protests. Construction was delayed again and again due to inclement weather and an rotating cast of contractors . In April of 1994, one month before the airport was scheduled to open, reporters were invited to the airport to view a test of the state-of-the-art automated baggage system—the bags flew off the carousel and into the air. The opening was pushed back again.

The airport finally opened on February 28, 1995, 16 months late and $2 billion over budget (for a reported total of $4.8 billion). In addition to the costly baggage system—which, according to conspiracy theorists, doesn't even work that well today—an intricate concourse system was also put in. But even that, truthers say, doesn't account for an additional couple of billions.

So where did that extra money go? Why did it construction take so long? Why did Denver even need a new airport when they had one they liked just fine?

The Layout/Design

When you fly into Denver for the very first time, take a minute to look down upon the majestic Rockies below. If you are a conspiracy theorist, you might also look down and notice that the elaborate criss-crossing of the airport's runways come together to form the shape of a swastika.

Here is the sky view of DIA:

Here is the sky view with a swastika: (Highlighting by: Me.)

Damn. Paradigm shift, your world different yet?

The airport covers 53 square miles of sprawling, virtually empty land. As you approach it by car, you may notice two things. The first are the large, rolling hills that surround the airport. But, in fact, they are not hills. The area was fairly flat before the airport was built. Those hills are actually mounds that formed when the area was excavated during construction.

Over 110 million cubic yards of earth were removed from the ground (enough to cover 32 city blocks to a depth of one-quarter mile if dumped into a single pile) in order to build out the tunnels for that for the baggage system and the concourses, or if you're awake, for the New World bunker. According to truthers, that amount of earth exceeds the size of the airport, regardless of the baggage claim system and the various concourses—unless, of course, there is more than meets the eye. And there always is! There always is.

The second thing you'll notice as you approach the airport is an enormous sculpture of a demon horse with an enormous demon dick protruding from its body.

The Demon Horse With an Enormous Demon Dick Protruding From its Body

This horse, lovingly called Blucifer the demon horse, is a blue mustang with glowing red eyes. At 32 feet tall and 9,000 pounds, it cuts a terrifying figure in the stark landscape, where it is surrounded by nothing but the shrieks of passengers driving by. Built by the artist Luis Jimenez, it symbolizes "the wild spirit of the old American West." In that same spirit of the old American west, this is a piece of art of that murdered its maker. In 2006, the horse was being moved when a massive piece broke off and fell on Jimenez, severing an artery in his leg and killing him. Welcome to Denver! According to conspiracy theorists, the horse symbolizes the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse—aka Death—and is indicative of the Earth's eventual demise. According to me, it's fucking scary to look at.

The Murals

And then there are the murals inside the the airport itself. The airport is sprinkled with strange iconography: a glowering gargoyle by the bathrooms, a tiny devil popping out of a suitcase at baggage claim. But there are two pieces of art in particular (both murals) that are, according to truthers, saturated with "Illuminati symbolism."

Here's the first painting, which is titled "The Children of the World Dream of Peace."

In the foreground we see a soldier who looks, well, he looks like a Nazi soldier. There's a child wearing a Bavarian costume in there. Says one succinct theorist, "You're in the largest airport of America, in the middle of the USA, and this is the mural we display. America joyfully submitting to Germany." A note below the painting reads:

I was once a little child who longed for other worlds. But I am no more a child for I have known fear. I have learned to hate.... How tragic, then, is youth which lives with enemies, with gallows ropes. Yet, I still believe I only sleep today, that I'll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.

It is an excerpt from a poem attributed to a 14-year-old boy who died in Auschwitz.

All of which suggests to theorists that the painting was commissioned by the Illuminati/New World Order and that a Nazi uprising, via the underground bunker, is imminent.

The second painting (with my annotations in blue) is titled, "In Peace and Harmony with Nature."

This painting "addresses the destruction of the environment with one part showing the extinction of life with children and animals in class coffins with the other showing humanity coming together and rehabilitating nature." Here is a closer look at the coffins:

Both murals were painted by artist Leo Tanguma. Tanguma, who denies any conspiratorial symbolism in the paintings, has stated that the murals "depict man-made environmental destruction and genocide along with humanity coming together to heal nature and live in peace," rather than military oppression, total destruction, and ultimate global unification.

So that's the art, mostly. There's also the dedication marker.

New World Airport Commission

Located in the airport's Great Hall—ahem, that's Masonic terminology—there is a dedication capstone. It is inscribed with the date of dedication: March 19, 1994. Conspiracy theorists point out that "if you add up all of the numbers in the dedication date March 1+9+1+9+ 9 +4 you get the number 33." In Freemasonry, this number "represents perfection and the highest degree in Masonry you can hold." Also on the capstone is the Square and Compass associated with the Freemasons. Under the symbols reads, "New World Airport Commission."

According to theorists, the New World Airport Commission does not exist and therefore refers to the Nazi group, the New World Order. Steve Snyder from the airport's public relations office says the New World Airport Commission is "a group consisting of local business and political leaders who sponsored and organized a number of pre-opening events at Denver International Airport." Here's a list of its supposed contents.

The marker is mounted over a time capsule sealed during the dedication of the airport. It is not to be opened until 2094. No truth 'til 2094. No truth 'til 2094.

Who Has Access

Denver International truthers, including former Governor of Minnestoa Jesse Ventura, believe that the bunker is part of "a government plot to save the world's elite." Here the world's elite refers to the Illuminati/New World Order. (Some theories suggest that the bunker is actually reserved for Reptoids or Free Masons, but potato potahto). The bunker will function as an underground city following the destruction of life as we know it. It operates as the headquarters for the Illuminati, or as the headquarters are often labeled, the "Illuminati Temple."

Can They Live

In addition to that damn devil caballo, several white fuel tanks surround the airport. These are used to power the airport. However! Conspiracy theorists point out that the tanks have 40% more fuel than any other airport in the world—including the world's largest, which is located in Saudi Arabia. How come? Because once the world has ended and Blue Ivy is nestled safely beneath Colorado's terra firma, these fuel tanks will power the underground city. They are the power generators for the next world. From the airport's website: "The fueling system at DIA is capable of pumping 1,000 gallons of jet fuel per minute through a 28-mile network of pipes. Each of the six fuel farm tanks holds 65,000 barrels (2.73 million gallons) of jet fuel," which conspiracy theorists say is "absurd" for a commercial airport.

Think about it.

Disrupt Denver. Hail Satan. No truth 'til 2094.

This is Illuminati Month on Black Bag, in which Gawker locks itself in the woodshed and breaks out the red yarn to explore its favorite conspiracy theories. Photo by Photograph provided courtesy of Denver International Airport. Contact the author at leah.beckmann@gawker.com.

Art is whatever people think it is, and what people think it is depends an awful lot on context: For example, whether the work is being displayed in an art museum by a dapper bloke in glasses and a vest, or whether it's sitting alongside other copies of the exact same print in an IKEA, with a listed price of €10.

Lifehunters, the Dutch pranksters who previously tricked a bunch of foodies into raving about new, organic cuisine that turned out to be McDonald's, "placed an IKEA painting in a museum and told art experts it was from the famous IKE-Andrews. Would they notice?"

Nah.

Nobody noticed at all. People viewing the print speculated about its symbolism and the intent of famous artist "Ike Andrews," who they've (of course) heard of, and estimated the work's value at many, many times its retail cost.

"If I could buy this for 2.5 million euro, I'd do it," one of them said. Certainly, IKEA would be happy to hear that.

The trick isn't as clever as it seems at first, though. The piece Lifehunters chose was a work IKEA commissioned from legit Swiss street artists NEVERCREW. Six figures is still probably pushing it, but their original work is certainly in demand.

All the other "Ike Andrews" works that Lifehunters showed their victims are just the usual stuff you'll find in the ready-to-hang section of your local IKEA labyrinth, though.

[h/t Daily Mail]

More than 150 firefighters were called to the scene of a fire in Chicago's Archer Heights neighborhood late Thursday night at a factory that manufactures fire extinguishers.

Apparently, firefighters told CBS Chicago, the area surrounding the fire extinguisher plant has limited access to water, requiring "six fire engines, spaced out over a distance, to pump sufficient water to the building."

And according to NBC Chicago, the fire crew briefly called in a HazMat team to assess the danger of chemicals used in fire extinguishers (they were eventually cleared), but "hotspots underneath the rubble" had to be doused into the early hours of Friday morning.

No injuries were reported; a cause of the fire is still be investigated.

[Image via NBC Chicago]

They took Christ out of the classroom, and now they're coming for your iPhone: the new version of iOS has erased the radiant glory of God from the prayer hands emoji.

Emojipedia, a completely perfect website that does exactly what its name suggest, caught the change in the a recent iPhone software update. What the hell is the point of this emoji now? We've already established that it's not a high five. So what's left? Palm to palm contact without a purpose, an empty jaundiced signifier.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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