Beyoncé's 2011 pregnancy was more than just the buildup to the birth of Blue Ivy—it was also a gestation period for crazed baby-conspiracy theorists. Why did one of the world's foremost experts in self-promotion release only a few arty pictures of her stomach to document the pregnancy? How did she manage to give birth in a Manhattan hospital without any information about the event itself leaking from a third party? And what was with her stomach collapsing during that one TV appearance? All good mysteries, easily solved by the chaise-lounge conspiracy theorist: Duh. Beyoncé was never pregnant.

The No, No, No Baby Theory essentially boils down to three pieces of evidence: 1) the shifting stomach 2) the shifting due date and 3) the dearth of pregnancy photos.

Why would Beyoncé fake a pregnancy? Most theorists point to vanity or possible fertility problems. (She has previously spoken candidly about a prior pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage, and addressed the subject in songs.)

Some say the image-conscious power-wife opted to raise Jay Z's illegitimate child (the product of an extramarital affair with an unknown woman) as her own, rather than get divorced. Others argue (outlandishly, given her appearance) that Blue Ivy is neither Beyoncé's daughter, nor Jay Z's, but rather the offspring of Beyoncé's philandering father, Matthew Knowles, secretly adopted by the Carters.

No matter which school of thought you subscribe to, most conspiracy theorists agree the pregnancé conspiracé officially began on August 28, 2011 when Bey attended the VMA's dressed in a loose orange gown, cradling what appeared to be a pregnancy bump. She ended her performance that evening by unbuttoning her jacket and rubbing her visibly rounded stomach, as a camera cut to Jay Z receiving congratulations from a jubilant Kanye West.

Image via AP

"I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to unveil it. It was important to me that I was able to do it myself," Beyoncé told reporters at the time.

An impeccably planned announcement, as befitting the notoriously detail-oriented performer. But almost immediately, Beyoncé began contradicting herself with statements about the pregnancy's progress. She claimed, in a September interview, that her due date was in February, which would make her four months pregnant at the VMAs. But at a video shoot for "Countdown" that same month, she said she was six months along, making her five months pregnant at the VMAs—the right timing for Blue Ivy's January 7 birthdate.

So she was trying to fake out the press, the reasonable fan says. What else you got?

A pregnant stomach, which Beyoncé seemed to have only occasionally. Despite sporting a substantial bump at the VMA's, there's no hint of it in the music video for Party, reportedly shot earlier that month.

That's easy to explain: Maybe they bound her up and Photoshopped her a little.

But a week after the VMA's, she allowed herself to be photographed wearing a bikini in Croatia with Jay-Z. The bump she was sporting looked significantly smaller than it had at the awards show. I could do that, whispers the burrito-eating theorist.

Even harder to explain were the physics on display at an interview with Australia's Sunday Night. In a bend seen round the world, Beyoncé's bump appeared to deflate as she sat down:

Image via Mommyish.com

At this point, the conspiracy began picking up celebrity followers.

"I dont think she was pregnant. The deflated stomach thing. I watched the video and I don't know. She sat down and she looked up like 'Oh shit'," Tamar Braxton later said.

After conducting a test with two of her pregnant staffers, Wendy Williams concurred:

Now being a woman, I had my baby bump. Many of you have had baby bumps. I never remember [squatting]. Just take a look at the video. She's either giving birth to a frisbee, or Stewie from family guy. What is that, B? I was on bed rest the whole time, I'm not exactly sure. But I can tell you, when I would get out of the bed and sit up at a kitchen table, I wouldn't be able to sit like that. Like, I was so concerned about my back and the baby. Even at 5 months I sat like [stands up and leans back into the chair] this.

Even mommy bloggers jumped into the fray. Said one: "In my experience, pregnant women assume seats slowly and lean back as they ease into a chair to secure a good landing. Generally, they do not lean forward with their big bellies, straining their backs."

"It was fabric that folded—does fabric not fold? Oh my gosh, so stupid," explained Beyoncé.

Well, you may be thinking, surely someone saw her give birth? She didn't pop the kid out at home.

Maybe, but no one's talking!

According to reports, Bey and Jay paid $1.3 million to secure and redecorate the entire fourth floor NICU wing of Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital. On the alleged day of Blue Ivy's birth, January 7, 2012:

After 11 p.m., even doctors and nurses were barred from entering the fourth floor, prompting one doc to complain that he had patients to see.

In an effort to keep images from leaking to the public, hospital workers placed tape over security cameras and are forcing employees to turn in cell phones when they arrive for their shifts, a source said.

Several security guards were spotted patrolling the perimeter of the hospital Saturday night.

A Lenox Hill staffer confirmed that a patient named Ingrid Jackson [Bey's apparent pseudonym] was in a "labor room."

"I feel more beautiful than I've ever felt because I've given birth," Beyoncé later said of the experience. "I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth."

So where are all the pictures of this pregnant woman? Wouldn't a woman planning on launching a maternity line photograph that bump as often as possible? Put short, Beyoncé's response to her changing body was... underwhelming. In fact, it took two years for her to release any private photos at all.

During her 2013 HBO special, Life is But a Dream, Beyoncé finally shared a series of blurry pregnancy photos and delivered a short message about the "rumors," which essentially denied nothing.

And while stylistically intriguing, none of the belly shots—seemingly included to prove Beyoncé was really pregnant at the time—look particularly difficult to fake.

"There's a stupid rumor," Beyoncé says of the surrogacy claims in the film, looking down and shaking her head.

It's actually the most ridiculous rumor I think I've ever had, about me. But there are actually a lot of people that believe this rumor and it's crazy. I guess there are some crazy celebrities in the world, so we get a bad rep, but...um...to think that I would be that vain. And I respect mothers and women so much and to be able to experience bringing a child into this world if you're lucky and fortunate enough to get the opportunity, people should have boundaries. There's certain things that you just shouldn't play around with, and a child, you don't play around with that.

A fine message, but one that doesn't deny the most popular Blue Ivy conspiracy theory: that a surrogate carried the babé. Why not explicitly put the rumors to rest? Beyoncé's statement, in essence, denies only that she would hire a surrogate out of vanity. The message seems irrelevant if say, fertility issues drove the surrogacy.

As Rich Juzwiak points out in his excellent analysis, the choice to avoid hard evidence was hardly unintentional:

Regardless, it makes sense that given the time examined, Beyoncé's movie would chronicle Beyoncé's pregnancy and the controversy it birthed. The problem with Life Is But a Dream's treatment of her pregnancy isn't that it protests too much – it protests too weirdly. We never see a full, clear shot of Beyoncé's pregnant, swanlike body. Instead it's presented in pieces, owing to the limitations of her Mac webcam. When her body is shown in full, it's in grainy, black and white footage in which her face is shadowed.

Why, though? If you're going to present an image of your pregnant self to prove the naysayers wrong, why do it in such an obscure way? Why bother? The footage seems to exist to be described as "beautiful." Is it just art, or more lies?

Since then, at least one woman has come forward to claim maternity of the child, though the Daily Mail reports she's also claimed to be the legal mother of North West, Prince George, and all three of Michael Jackson's kids.

But whoever birthed Blue Ivy, one thing's for sure: that kid is definitely Jay's.

Blue Ivy looks like she came outta Jay Z pic.twitter.com/8e6xZ9cg4j

— Jama (@MadeManJama) October 11, 2014

An Atlanta-area Uber driver says a belligerent passenger hit him in the face, used racial slurs, and told him to "go back to slavery," all because the driver asked the man to get out of his car. The driver later discovered his angry fare was a business lecturer at Kennesaw State University.

Part-time Uber driver Chiddi Stober, whose day job is teaching history, told Atlanta's WSB-TV that the attack happened while he was calling the cops on the unnamed rider. With his racist behavior documented in a 911 recording, the lecturer apologized through his attorney.

"The recording speaks for itself. When made aware of the statements made by him as heard on the recorder, (the client) was mortified. He is deeply ashamed and sorry for the derogatory language he used towards Mr. Stober during the episode," lawyer Jill Polster said in a statement.

No criminal charges have been filed against the alleged attacker. A spokesperson for Kennesaw State told WSB-TV the university is investigating and hasn't yet decided whether to take action.

Uber has apologized to Stober for what happened and permanently banned the customer from catching any more rides.

Pretty cool telling someone who drives for a company that's being sued over its labor practices to "go back to slavery." One can only imagine that this real peach of a man is excellent at his business lecturing job.

[h/t Raw Story, Photo: WSB-TV]

The world outside looks different when you see it through the windows of a police car. And, when you're in one, you can tell the world sure as hell looks differently at you.

I've been in police cars three times in my life, once in 1998 and then twice, in rapid succession, in late 2011.

I was in them by choice, first as a reporter and then as the victim of a crime. And, yeah, I get it. I'm a well-off white guy talking about being in cop cars. I wasn't arrested. I wasn't a suspect. I wasn't harassed. I hadn't committed a crime. The cop cars I was in were safe places for me, but that made them no less revelatory regarding how I think about the good and bad of policing, crime and community.

There's an in-car moment that struck me in the new police video game Battlefield Hardline that I think nails the change in one's connection to the rest of the world that I experienced when I was in a real police vehicle. The game briefly puts you in a virtual one. You're a Cuban-American cop named Nick Mendoza, and your new partner is driving you through Miami. The city's residents have been programmed by the game's creators to interact with police driving through it. You get approached by a man asking for money. You see fellow cops handcuffing a man over the hood of a car. You see a woman rifling through trash.

You drive up to one intersection, and if you look to the right, you'll see this:

You control whether you look at those men. You can't interact with them, though. Still, the ambiguity of the scene is potent. What's their problem with you, with the police pulling up nearby? Is it them? Is it you?

If you're interested in the problems of policing in America, I imagine you're partially interested in issues of empathy, issues of getting into the heads of cops and the people cops interact with. You might wonder about what cops see when they look at the people outside their cars or what they see down the sidewalk as they patrol a beat. You probably have your own feelings about what seeing cops in a cop car means to you. People have been protesting around the country because they are not okay with how policing works in America these days.

To figure this stuff out, we can share our own experiences with police and listen to others. Or maybe you are a cop or, as in my case, have friends and family who have served and can share their experiences, good and bad.

Video games can also play their own bit role. I've argued that the way they simulate environments and let gamers role-play can let them serve as potential engines of empathy. There was a video game, for example, that let you experience the verbal harassment many women hear when walking down a city street. Then there's Grand Theft Auto V, where some players were convinced that the cops bothered you more when you played as the game's black protagonist than when you played as the white ones (the creators maintain it wasn't programmed that way).

I was struck by that moment in Hardline, a game that's otherwise been criticized for not having anything sophisticated to say about modern policing. The whole ride through virtual Miami was interesting because it emphasized those divides between people in cop cars and people outside of them. It shows how different the world can look and, at least there, didn't provide easy explanations.

Obviously, my experience vis a vis the police is my own. I'm a 5'6", 150-lb white guy who has never been treated by law enforcement as if I'm a threat. I've never had the kind of encounters with police or police cars that many people of color talk about.

I don't think I've committed many crimes, either. I've also never been arrested. The closest I ever got was being grabbed by a cop after I jumped a turnstile in a midtown Manhattan subway station in the late 90s. (The cop didn't seem to care that I'd paid my fare but been pushed back through the turnstile by someone exiting the station and that I'd jumped after having paid my way.)

I live in Brooklyn, a borough away from Staten Island, where Eric Garner, who was merely selling loose cigarettes, was horrifyingly choked to death by a police officer while saying he couldn't breathe. I live just a neighborhood away from Bedford-Stuyvesant, where police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were ambushed and murdered by a man from Baltimore who claimed to be seeking revenge for the death of Garner and Missouri teenager Michael Brown. Late last year, I was sitting in my living room and could hear people marching on behalf of Brown just a block away. I went out to see as they went down the street.

My 2011 experiences in cop cars were illuminating and complex. They've been on my mind, partially because of that Hardline scene but also because my experiences happened on the same streets where Ramos and Liu were killed, the same streets where police helped me after a stranger stole my cellphone out of my hands.

It was late fall on a weekday morning, maybe 8am. I was in Brooklyn and had just finished running at a gym in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I ran there all the time, always with headphones plugged into my iPhone so I could listen to music.

I was walking the 15-minutes it'd take me to get home but for the efforts of a man who snuck up behind, unplugged my headphones from my phone, grabbed the phone and ran off.

I chased him on foot, tired as I was from my run. I yelled at him. "Give me back my fucking phone!" He kept zigzagging from block to block. Just about no one was around except for a guy he brushed past who warned me that the man had a gun. "No, he doesn't," I breathed back with foolish confidence.

The thief took a tight corner and lost me in a relatively crowded intersection. I stopped, shouting a question to anyone who could hear, saying what the guy was wearing, and avoiding that he was black because I was a white guy in a mostly black neighborhood and didn't think that'd matter or help. No one replied. Who would want to get involved?

I walked a block, peering around for him or for police. When I saw a police car approaching an intersection, I just walked into the intersection to wave it down. It stopped for me. The cop inside lowered his window, and I explained my predicament. He ushered me into the back seat and radioed a description—no hassle, no skepticism, no curiosity about the panting white guy who just blocked his car.

We drove slowly through a few more blocks of Bed-Stuy. Suddenly the neighborhood had never looked so vast, so full of people, so crowded with possible secrets.. Somewhere nearby was the guy who had just snatched my phone. This is one of the sharpest moments from that whole experience. I remember how different everyone looked, the sense I had that, even on a bright sunny morning, that shadows contained a robber, that a neighborhood contained a criminal. It's not how I'd ever seen those streets.

We'd only been driving around for a few minutes when we got a call on the radio. They'd found someone matching my guy's description.

It seemed impossible. But a woman had called 911, probably a woman who'd heard me yelling about the robber and had seen where he was hiding. We drove a couple of blocks more, toward another police car, an ally, and I saw, beyond, that the man who had stolen my phone was pressed up against a wall. We stopped. An officer approached us holding a wallet—the robber's—and my phone. This was the most effective policing I'd ever heard of.

There was an odd moment. You can't open the doors when you're in the back of a police car. They have to open them for you. They did so that I could see my phone and confirm it was mine. I looked toward the thief and he yelled back... at me? At the police car? At the idea of me being in a police car? I'm not sure.

We drove back to the precinct, where I got my phone back and a policewoman told me I had nice eyes. I don't run with my wallet, and we were now a long way from my home. I asked if any cops could give me a ride. One agreed to, and so I got into a police car for the third time in my life, this time—for the first time—in the front seat. The officer was Asian-American. Years later, I'd later frantically try to figure out if he was Wenjian Liu, who had been killed near the precinct where I'd been helped. He was not.

As we pulled out of the precinct's parking lot, we came to an intersection and stopped. This is where another of my strongest memories begins. We might have been at a red light or a stop sign. That I don't remember. A black man in a hard hat started walking through the crosswalk and looked at us. He said something to the officer driving the car, something about how far into the crosswalk our car was pulled. I didn't think we were that far in, but we might have been.

Whatever he said pissed the policeman off.

"You mean this line?" the officer snarked back, accelerating for a split second and then braking. Our car lurched. Then he did it again. "This line?!?"

The man in the hard hat looked angry. Eventually, we drove on.

"We get no respect," the officer told me.

Maybe I muttered "Yeah."

My mind was racing. None of that seemed productive. None of that seemed like it'd get anyone more respect. I remember thinking I didn't want to challenge him or upset him. His guys had just caught my thief, rescued my phone. He was driving me home.

That moment at the intersection came back to me when I was playing Hardline. I think it's key. Just what is happening there? What was happening at that intersection that autumn morning in 2011?

I can get in a cop car, but I can't really get into officer's head. I can't see through the eyes of the guy in the crosswalk, either. And I sure haven't seen a video game that digs into what his perspective of a scene like that might be like.

Police are exceptional, as the critic Austin Walker described in his review of Hardline. They don't quite fit in, and that's a good word to underscore that. He explains: "I don't mean that as a superlative: I mean that police act in ways we are denied. They speed down highways. They can intervene where social mores (and fears) keep us quiet. They wield the force of legitimized violence."

If you wind up in a cop car voluntarily, you'll see that exceptionalism yourself. And you'll get to wondering who wants you around and who doesn't... and why. Being in cop cars didn't make me like the police more or less, but it helped me feel a little bit of what it's like to be them; what it's like to be given that sort of power, and some of the problems that can come of it.

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. Top illustration by Jim Cooke. Police car photo by Leonard Zhukovsky | Shutterstock.com.

This dude chatted with Justin Bieber on a mountain for twenty minutes, says this dude.

In your wildest dream, you stumble across Justin Bieber on a mountaintop. "Hey Biebs, what's up?" you ask. He sits down with you on that very mountaintop and opines about life, L.A., and fame. Your wildest dream...or this hiker's reality? The incredible story, from TMZ:

The Biebs was roaming Runyon Canyon when he passed a hiker and his wife, who recognized him and said, "Hey Biebs, what's up?"

So began a 20-minute reflective conversation in which Bieber opined about life, L.A. and fame.

Oh my god—that's almost exactly like your dream! And the fan fiction-style story doesn't stop there. The hiker, Mike Maedke, claims Bieber sat with him on a bench overlooking Hollywood, where the young tragedy mused, far away from it all, completely removed from that which plagues him and that which he plagues: "It's so chaotic down there."

Justin Bieber bares his soul to some random dude... weird http://t.co/etr9a1Ddzj pic.twitter.com/Onh2oZByRj

— TMZ (@TMZ) March 26, 2015

TMZ: Justin Bieber conversa por 20 minutos com um "estranho" no Runyon Canyon http://t.co/lUZgtWRbbr pic.twitter.com/EQixJuRGsb

— Bieber Fever Brasil (@bieberfbrasil) March 26, 2015

From TMZ:

Bieber then talked about how much he missed Canada, and then a random woman passed by with her dog. Bieber got down on his knees and played with the mutt.

The conversation continued, as if Bieber had no place to go and no one to talk to. But all good things must come to an end. Two girls came along and started screaming Bieber's name, so he gave Mike a fist bump and started walking away.

As he disappeared into the distance, Mike Maedke could almost hear Justin Bieber say: "You are cool, Mike Maedke—and also handsome."

Image via Getty. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

Just months after NOAA upgraded the American global weather model, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) plans to upgrade their already-superior model so that it wipes the floor with our proud, measly little heap of computer algorithms.

If all goes according to schedule, the ECMWF will implement the upgrade on April 14, 2015, at which point all of us on the other side of the pond will be forced to hang our heads in shame. The Euro consistently ranks as the best global weather model when it comes to forecast accuracy, performing better than its competitors, including NOAA's GFS (American) model.

ECMWF global model lighting up scoreboard w/record high 5-day skill scores (again) 0.972 pic.twitter.com/vzgKwSLh0Y

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) March 15, 2015

You can find a whole list of changes at the ECMWF's website if you're into that sort of thing, but the main takeaways are that they've tweaked the model from the bottom-up to make it more accurate. The model will also begin producing forecasts for precipitation type and precipitation rates for various types of sky water (rain, snow, freezing rain, sleet).

The "money-hungry" American stereotype falls flat when it comes to weather modelling; the Euro is (in)famously behind a hefty paywall, while the American models are free to access. If you want to buy access to the Euro, you have to subscribe to a weather model site like WeatherBELL or F5 Data. Posting images from the model on sites like Facebook and Twitter are against licenses, so in theory, people who don't cough up a pretty penny would never see Euro products that aren't already freely available.

There's a pretty good reason the Euro is behind such a fortified paywall, though—in 2013, it cost nearly $90 million to run the model.

While the Euro is a top-of-the-line product, each weather model has its strengths and weaknesses. If you're interested in tracking thunderstorms, for instance, the North American Model (NAM) or High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model should be your first stop, as mesoscale models handle convection better than global models. Even though the Euro beats the GFS on most fronts, the latter is still a pretty good model.

You can access the GFS (and plenty of other models) for free at Levi Cowan's awesome website, Tropical Tidbits.

[Image: ECMWF]

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

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In 2006, Kristin Cavallari—whose debut book drops in 440 days—hosted a little-watched reality show called Get This Party Started on UPN. Here's a paper advertisement for it. The program ran for only two episodes during the month of February, but at least five more were taped, never to air.

According to Wikipedia, Get This Party Started "set out to throw surprise parties for deserving people by their friends and family [sic]. Hosts Ethan Erickson and Kristin Cavallari worked with Lara Shriftman, a special events coordinator, and a team of celebrity event planners to create a unique and extravagant party for a different person each week." An old casting call for the show is more specific: "These parties aren't for celebs or anybody famous but for regular peeps who have gone through really rough times—and the more tragic their life stories are, the more lavish the parties will be."

Today, we interview a guest who attended one of those unseen parties.

Our tipster, whom we'll call Emily, reports that the party she attended was for the birthday of a deserving set of twins from Ohio. The official reason the twins were chosen is "cloudy to me at this point," Emily says, but it was "not like they both had cancer, or they were separated their entire lives and met at the party. I think it was seriously that one lived with their dad and the other their mom, and [they] had to go to different high schools in the same region of Ohio."

This tragic life story warranted an elaborate roller skating party with sick goodie bags, according to Emily. She recalls:

It was this whole thing in a skating rink, and we all had to sign non disclosure agreements and weren't allowed to know what this mysterious event we were invited to was until we got there. It was very bizarre. A lot of us thought we were going to be on reality TV because of our cheer team[A/N: Emily was a cheerleader on the same squad as one of the twins], and our imaginations went wild. Turns out, it was a birthday party...

So yeah, skating rink party was the theme I guess. In retrospect [it was] not that much more spectacular than a regular middle class, teen birthday party. They did little segments with the Dylan's Candy Bar people and a "stylist" who carried around a poodle, and we skated around to music dead sober, and we got to take our pictures on a real live polaroid camera with Kristin who was super nice, actually. She was tiny, and if I remember correctly wearing a metallic ruched top.

Kristin was nice? Emily elaborates:

She graciously took pictures with all of us, and I remember her talking to some of the girls about boys or whatever, like she was one of us. I took a picture with her and she complimented me, which she obviously did not have to do. It was really sweet and I brag about it all the time lol. "You're really gorgeous, by the way," she said to me afterwards. Wow. So yeah, there were no diva-like tendencies that I witnessed. ...

Also, it was my first time in rollerblades, and before doing some reveal take we were all standing very quietly in a group, and I just fell on my ass. Because of standing. Kristin seemed genuinely concerned that I was okay, which was sweet and embarrassing.

While Emily offers that Kristin might just be "chill unlike her reality TV alter ego," she also provided an alternative theory that might explain Kristin's uncharacteristically nurturing behavior:

Possibly because she also knew this TV show was likely garbage, and maybe she was even a little embarrassed to be there.

Most importantly, Emily walked away with mementos she'll treasure forever.

They gave us gift bag type-things [including] a Kimora Lee Simmons brand lip gloss that I thought was cool because it retailed at $16, [which] I found out after some research. Oh, and a pair of Express jeans with our NAMES embroidered into the pocket.

Emily says that she and her friends didn't realize right away that the episode would forever remain in the UPN vault. "When the show didn't air it was after a really long wait so we kind of forgot about it a little," she says. "We kept wondering what was going on with it, and it got kind of suspicious, and then I remember hearing through the grapevine that it wasn't going to air. I'm sure the twins were pretty upset, but...they got free stuff and a weird party out of it, at least."

Emily notes that the twins had already made it to TV, however, on an episode of Tyra in 2005.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

Indiana's governor just declared a public health emergency after at least 80 new cases of HIV were reported in a county that typically sees around five new cases each year.

Governor Mike Pence authorized an emergency needle exchange program Thursday to combat what he referred to as epidemic. The concerning uptick reportedly began with seven new cases reported in January, and authorities say they still expect more people to test positive.

According to the New York Times, health inspectors pinpointed the outbreak to rural, addiction-plagued area called Scott County, population 24,000. Most of the cases were diagnosed in a small town called Austin, where, a doctor tells NBC, "Used needles litter roadsides, ditches and yards." Reports the Times:

Governor Pence said the cases diagnosed so far had been traced to intravenous drug use, with the virus likely spreading as people shared infected needles. He said those infected had illegally used Opana, a prescription pain medication. A handful of the cases have been preliminarily diagnosed but not fully confirmed yet.

Governor Pence, a Republican, said that he had long opposed needle exchanges, but that after meeting with federal advisers, he decided to allow a short-term program in Scott County.

The Centers for Disease Control is reportedly assisting the efforts.

[image via AP]

Secret Service agents: not the only government men letting it all hang loose in Colombia. Turns out their DEA brothers from another budget also have a habit of flying south for a little DCP&P (drug cartel parties and prostitutes).

In fact, the two agencies are intricately linked in the growing scandal. According to a new DOJ report, a Secret Service agent reportedly told investigators he met one of the prostitutes at the heart of the hooker-and-blow scandal at an "informal" DEA party.

The details, via the Washington Post:

Drug Enforcement Administration agents allegedly had "sex parties" with prostitutes hired by local drug cartels overseas over a period of several years, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Department's watchdog.

Seven of the 10 DEA agents alleged to have participated in the gatherings — most of which took place at an agent's "quarters" leased by the U.S. government — admitted to having attended the parties, the report found. The agents, some of whom had top secret security clearances, received suspensions of two to 10 days.

Former police officers in Colombia also alleged that three DEA supervisory special agents were provided with money, expensive gifts and weapons from drug cartel members, according to the report.

The FBI, US Marshals Service, and ATF were also implicated in misconduct and harassment issues.

[image via AP]

Marijuana. Pot. Weed. Whatever you call it, it's the most popular illegal drug in the world, gaining support for legalization for both medicinal and recreational purposes. But what does marijuana actually do to us? Let's take a look at this fascinating drug, its health effects, and potential concerns about using it.

Marijuana Is a Controlled Substance...Lacking in Controlled, Scientific Research

Before we start, we should note that a whole lot more research needs to be done in this area. Although marijuana has been used for centuries as a medicine and as an inebriant (it's even mentioned in the Old Testament several times as "kaneh-bosem"), we don't know a great deal about the health effects of using it. That's because there haven't been many controlled studies on it, due to the way marijuana is classified by the federal government.

The Food and Drug Administration classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, defined as the most dangerous of all drug schedules, with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." (Fun fact: heroin, ecstasy, and LSD are also Schedule I drugs, but cocaine and meth are considered less dangerous Schedule II drugs.) As such, to do clinical research with marijuana, you need a license from the DEA and your study approved by the FDA, and to obtain research-grade marijuana, you have to go through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Popular Science explains. Otherwise, since it's federally illegal to have marijuana (even in states that have legalized marijuana), researchers working in hospitals, colleges, or other institutions that receive federal funding risk losing their funds to do this research.

There have long been movements to reclassify marijuana and open up the doors for more studies, but, for now, here's what we do know about marijuana and our health.

What Marijuana Does to Our Brains in the First Couple of Hours

The video above from ASAP Science explains how marijuana acts on our brains shortly after smoking or ingesting it. Cannabis contains at least 60 types of cannabinoids, chemical compounds that act on receptors throughout our brain. THC, or Tetrahydrocannabinol, is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana's effects, including the euphoric high. THC resembles another cannabinoid naturally produced in our brains, anandamide, which regulates our mood, sleep, memory, and appetite.

Essentially, cannabinoids' effect on our brains is to keep our neurons firing, magnifying our thoughts and perception and keeping us fixed on them (until another thought takes us on a different tangent). That's why when you're high, it's really not a good time to drive, study for a test, or play sports that require coordination, like tennis or baseball. Like alcohol, caffeine, and sugar, cannabinoids also effect the levels of dopamine in our brain, often resulting in a sense of relaxation and euphoria.

Salon explains a few more ways marijuana interacts with our brains, such as impairing our ability to form new memories, and how cannabinoids cause the classic "munchies."

The effects will depend on the amount taken, as well as how potent the preparation is (common marijuana contains 2 to 5% THC, while ganja can contain up to 15% THC and hashish oil between 15 and 60% THC). At high doses—and if you don't follow the 10 commandments of marijuana edible safety—marijuana can produce scary curled-up-on-the-couch-for-hours hallucinatory states.

As with other drugs, marijuana's effects will also vary by individual. Not all people may find it an enjoyable or relaxing experience; for those who have anxiety or are prone to panic attacks, marijuana could exacerbate their symptoms rather than bring on a sense of calm.

Marijuana Doesn't Seem to Have a Long-Term Effect on Memory and Concentration

The short-term effects of marijuana are generally felt within a few minutes, peak within 30 minutes, and wear off after about two or three hours. The bigger question is: what happens if we use marijuana more regularly, or are occasional but heavy users? Are there permanent cognitive and other health changes? Do we all turn into The Dude from the Big Lebowski?

Again, we don't have many rigorous scientific studies on this, much less many longitudinal studies. A 2012 review of available research, however, published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, finds that the immediate impairments on memory and concentration, at least, aren't likely permanent:

• Attention/concentration: Marijuana impairs light users' attention and concentration but doesn't appear to affect regular or heavy users within six hours of smoking or ingesting it. In the long run, researchers have found that after 3 weeks or more since last using marijuana, subjects' attention and concentration return to normal. "In five of seven studies, no attention or concentration impairments were found in subjects who had remained abstinent from 28 days to one year (Lyons et al., 2004; Pope et al., 2001; 2002; 2003; Verdejo-Garcia et al., 2005)." The other two studies found differences in attention and concentration between heavy and non-users after 28 days, but the reviewers note that the disparate findings could be due to measuring different types of processing skills.
• Working memory: Several studies likewise found no residual or long-term effects on working memory. A 2002 study, for example, tested 77 heavy smokers for days after abstaining from smoking pot. Memory impairment was found for heavy users up to 7 days after using marijuana, but by day 28 their memory test results didn't differ significantly from control subjects. In other words, even if your memory is affected when you smoke up, after you stop it will likely go back to normal with time.
  

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has a brochure on the possible short- and long-term consequences of using marijuana. It reports that there's no strong link between frequency of marijuana use and violence or crime, an unclear or weak link between depression and marijuana use, and no clear link between marijuana use and birth defects. Heavy use of marijuana, however, has been linked to increased likelihood of respiratory problems, schizophrenia development (but some studies suggest a genetic predisposition might be involved in these cases), and, for teens increasing pot use, a harder time adjusting to society. We'll touch on some of these issues below.

Compared to Other Drugs, Marijuana Is Less Addictive and Harmful

Addiction is a very complex topic. It's possible for people to get addicted to anything that gives us pleasure. While marijuana addiction is real, it is a rarer addiction than other (legal or illegal) substances. Statistics say that 9 percent of people (roughly one out of 10) who use marijuana become dependent on it, compared to 32 percent of tobacco users, 20 percent of cocaine users, and 15 percent of alcohol drinkers.

When it comes to marijuana and other substances, some say what matters most might not be how addictive the substance is but how harmful it might be. Former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders told CNN she supports legalizing marijuana, saying it "is not addictive, not physically addictive anyway." Time reports:

As Dr. Elders also said on CNN, marijuana is nontoxic. You can fatally overdose on alcohol, heroin or cocaine, but the only way a dose of marijuana will kill you is if someone crushes you under a bale of it.

By and large, marijuana has been shown to be much less dangerous and addictive than other substances—over 100 times safer than alcohol—but that's not to say it is completely harmless. How marijuana is consumed and prepared can make a big difference on its health effects, for better or worse, as well.

Marijuana Is More Dangerous for Teens

The chances of getting addicted to marijuana increase if you're a daily user or if you start when you're a teen. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana addiction goes up to about 17 percent in those who start using young (in their teens) and to 25 to 50 percent among daily users.

Dr. Damon Raskin, internist and Diplomat of the American Board of Addiction Medicine, advises:

Marijuana these days can cause changes in the brain that impair learning, especially in teenagers as their brains have not finished developing. Brains are not fully developed until the age of 25 or 26. Chronic marijuana use can lead to changes in both personality, judgment, and reasoning skills.

Pot damages the heart and lungs, increases the incidence of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, and it can trigger acute psychotic episodes. Many adults appear to be able to use marijuana with relatively little harm, but the same cannot be said of adolescents, who are about twice as likely as adults to become addicted to marijuana.

Much of the marijuana available today is more potent than it was in the past, so the potential exists for it to have more intense deleterious effects on the user. Medical professionals are seeing more emergency room visits with excessive vomiting, and with adolescents, there is greater risk of psychosis and delirium.

If you're a parent, this is another reminder to talk to your kids about drugs, especially during those formative years.

Smoking Is Riskier Than Other Methods of Using

Marijuana is most commonly smoked, but it can be used in vaporizers, turned into a tea, or used as an ingredient in foods as an edible. Oils and tinctures are often made from the cannabis plant as well for medicinal purposes. Of the many ways to use marijuana, smoking seems to have the most harmful side effects. According to the American Lung Association:

Smoke is harmful to lung health. Whether from burning wood, tobacco or marijuana, toxins and carcinogens are released from the combustion of materials. Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke.

Beyond just what's in the smoke alone, marijuana is typically smoked differently than tobacco. Marijuana smokers tend to inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than cigarette smokers, which leads to a greater exposure per breath to tar.

Secondhand marijuana smoke contains many of the same toxins and carcinogens found in directly inhaled marijuana smoke, in similar amounts if not more.

A review of studies in 2013, however, found mixed evidence linking heavy, long-term marijuana use to pulmonary disease or lung cancer and concluded that there's definitely a bigger risk for these if you smoke tobacco.

Still, regular users might consider other options besides smoking, such as vaping and edibles. Ata Gonzalez, CEO of G FarmaLabs, says:

Traditional methods (joints, blunts, etc), first off, aren’t the most efficient and certainly aren’t the cleanest ways to do it. These paper-based methods can be harsh on throat and lung tissue over time, potentially introduce the possibility of inhaling mold spores, and can be carcinogenic depending on what the cannabis is rolled in. Vaporizers are a much better option if you’re going to smoke it, not only because it’s much more discreet, but it introduces cannabinoids into the bloodstream as a gas through heat, rather than as smoke due to combustion. Vaping also reduces any possible exposure to harmful toxins/byproducts because the marijuana is never burned.

Conversely, there’s always the edibles option. This method is the most efficient way to get cannabinoids into the system because it’s done through the gastrointestinal tracts instead of the lungs – this also means that absorption is slower and the effects seem like they’re delayed, but that’s because the body has to process THC through the liver. The resulting effect, however, is a much more body-focused “high” that’s optimal for pain relief. Tinctures and tonics are sometimes classified in this subset/consumption category. Finally, we have topical solutions made with cannabis oil (e.g. salves, lotions, ointments, etc.) which are best used as anti-inflammatories and analgesics.

Additionally, if you partake, you'll want to know where your marijuana came from—who grew it, how they grew it, how they harvested it, and so on. (Soon you'll be able to buy Willie Nelson's own brand of weed from his stores!) If you don't know, however, consider Global Healing Center editor Ben Nettleton's suggestion to water cure your stuff:

Water curing is basically just soaking your stuff in water and changing the water several times. The water draws out any water soluble impurities. So any leftover fertilizer, pesticides, fungus (recent Smithsonian touched on the prevalence of that), and even innocuous unnecessary compounds like salts and chlorophyll. Pretty much just like giving it a wash. THC is not water soluble so you don't lose any of what you want.

We tend to think of marijuana as a hippy all-natural movement, but today legal marijuana is the fastest growing industry in the US—a multi-billion dollar industry—and the purity and quality of the marijuana can matter a great deal to your health and its effect on you.

There Are Many Possible Medical Uses for Marijuana

Finally, there are the potential medical uses of marijuana for a wide variety of conditions. 23 US states and DC have legalized the medical use of marijuana to treat symptoms of cancer, AIDS, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, migraines, epilepsy, nausea, and other conditions. 76% of doctors surveyed said they would prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes. And Procon.org's analysis of 60 peer-reviewed studies on medical marijuana found 68% of them concluded treatments were positive for the conditions treated.

As with the adverse effects of marijuana, however, the research here is still limited and lacking. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who changed his stance on marijuana to now question marijuana's categorization as a Schedule I drug, says that of the recent papers on it, the overwhelming majority—about 94%—are designed to investigate the harm while only 6% investigate the benefits of medical marijuana.

So what we're left with is anecdotal evidence. Greta Carter, marijuana activist, entrepreneur, and founder of a chain of clinics tells me:

What we know is that the VA has clearly identified the benefits of marijuana on post-traumatic stress syndrome. We also know that parents who have struggled daily with children suffering from seizures and movement disorders go to extremes to relocate their families to states that will allow them access to the medicine. We’ve heard from patients with AIDS and Cancer who find benefits from cannabis. There are studies outside of the US that actually show tumors being reduced with cannabis treatment. I find it unconscionable that we as a country that have over 500 deaths a year to aspirin, and none to cannabis in its entire history would ever try to stand in the way of this plant being readily available to whomever might seek it.

With those being the extreme situations advocating for cannabis, I am more of the position that cannabis is a part of overall wellness for many. … Having served over 1,000 patients a month (40K to date) walking through my clinics and the average age growing older each year, the stories I’m more accustomed to hearing go like this: The aging population who come in and report that they take over 14 kinds of medications (and some of them are meds to offset the side effects of the other meds), in a year after incorporating cannabis, they come back and are down to 2 or 3 meds and enjoying a better quality of life. From those who have suffered from addiction to pain pills, they use cannabis to manage their pain and are off of their pain meds. The stories going on and on.

Opponents of medical marijuana argue that it's too dangerous to use (though the arguments seem to be mostly associated with the effects of smoking rather than marijuana in general or administered in other ways), that marijuana is addictive, and that legal drugs make marijuana unnecessary.

Health professionals and researchers (and lawmakers) on both sides of the debate continue to argue the pros and cons of marijuana use. As for us regular people, over a year ago, more than half of polled Americans said they were in favor of marijuana (recreational or medical) being sold legally, just like alcohol is.

As ever, "further research is recommended" (isn't that how all studies conclude?) In the case of marijuana, though, we really do need more.

Photos by Nemo, Geralt, 887OS (Shutterstock), trawin, Caveman Chuck Coker, GoToVan, wackystuff.

Nicole Krauss, author of the The History of Love and ex-wife of famous vegetarian Jonathan Safran Foer, has done what few literary writers can do: procured a two-book deal for an impressive sum of money—more than four million dollars, our sources tell us.

Given the rumor-laden uncoupling of Krauss and Safran Foer last year (email me if you want to discuss), the subject matter of the proposed books is noteworthy. The first-billed book, Late Wonder, is described as "a searching and metaphysical novel about transformation, about moving in the opposite direction from all that is known and apparent," while the other, How to Be a Man, is "a collection of short stories that weave themselves into a complex meditation on manhood, history, duty, freedom, and being a woman among men."

Terry Karten at Harper placed the winning bid on the books, poaching Krauss from her longtime editors at Norton.

[Photo via AP]

Does your state have a reputation? Is it unique? Does its own flavor, or is it just another drab and indistinguishable land mass? Does it have real character? Well.

STATES RANKED FROM MOST CHARACTER TO LEAST CHARACTER

1. Hawaii
2. Alaska
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Louisiana
6. Maine
7. Colorado
8. West Virginia
9. Utah
10. New Jersey
11. Montana
12. Mississippi
13. Minnesota
14. Tennessee
15. Kentucky
16. California
17. New York
18. Rhode Island
19. South Dakota
20. North Dakota
21. Alabama
22. New Mexico
23. Oregon
24. South Carolina
25. Vermont
26. Arkansas
27. Nevada
28. Arizona
29. Nebraska
30. Massachusetts
31. Georgia
32. Idaho
33. New Hampshire
34. Wisconsin
35. North Carolina
36. Oklahoma
37. Wyoming
38. Virginia
39. Washington
40. Indiana
41. Iowa
42. Michigan
43. Kansas
44. Pennsylvania
45. Ohio
46. Connecticut
47. Illinois
48. Delaware
49. Missouri
50. Maryland

Rankings are definitive. There is no appeal.

[Photo: Flickr/ Flickr]

In the wake of the Germanwings flight that went down in the French alps Tuesday, killing 150, investigators and the media are focusing in on co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who apparently locked the pilot out of the cabin and intentionally crashed the plane. Was he mentally ill? Was he suicidal? Or was he, perhaps, a secret Muslim jihadist?!

Apparently some people really want him to be. Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review contributing editor and author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, tweeted this Gateway Pundit story to his 20,000 followers Friday:

Report indicates #GermanWingsCrash copilot was convert to Islam connected to radical mosque. http://t.co/f0LtnmRHiA

— Andrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) March 27, 2015

Let's take a closer look at what the "report indicates."

Gateway Pundit writes, "A German news website claims Andreas Lubitz was a Muslim convert. Speisa.com reported: 'According to Michael Mannheimer, a writer for German PI-News, Germany now has its own 9/11, thanks to the convert to Islam, Andreas Lubitz.'"

It also cites "the comments at German PI"—on a story about Lubitz that mentions nothing about Muslims, Islam, or IS—as a source for the claim that "Andreas Lubitz was Muslim convert from his Facebook page."

"PI" is a site called Politically Incorrect News, which is not exactly Der Spiegel, and they didn't even run a story about Lubitz's supposed conversion to Islam. That story came from PI-News blogger Michael Mannheimer's personal website, where he put together the following information:

• Lubitz trained as a pilot in Bremen, which is also the home of a mosque that was investigated in December for alleged supporting the Islamic State. (This is true, according to Der Spiegel.)
• Lubitz took a few months off at one point before returning to work and getting recertified to fly. (This is also true: Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr confirmed that Lubitz "took a break in his training six years ago. Then he did the tests again. And he was deemed fit to fly.")

From these two data points—a mosque recently under investigation and a break Lubitz took six years ago—Mannheimer concluded (and this is roughly translated from the German by Google): "Probably Lubitz converted to Islam during this interruption."

If that seems like a tremendous leap, and you're wondering whether Mannheimer perhaps has a particular anti-Muslim axe to grind, here's how he introduces his post:

All evidence indicates that the copilot of misfortune machine in its six-month break during his training as pilots in German Wings converted to Islam and subsequently either by the order of "radical", ie ,. devout Muslims received for carrying out this mass murder, or withdrew the order from the book of terror, the Koran, of his own accord. ... One can bet that the apologists (media, politics, "Islamic Studies") will agree to assign this act a "mentally unstable" man ...

Funny he should mention mental illness: German news reports have described Lubitz as having a history of mental illness, and he reportedly tore up a doctor's note before going to work on the day of the crash. (The significance of that note has yet to be determined, as doctors in Germany commonly issue them even for minor illness.)

Investigators told the New York Times they'd found no "indication of any political or religious motivation."

As for the Facebook page mentioned in the PI-News comments that allegedly proves Lubitz was Muslim, here it is:

A freshly-created French page calling Lubitz a "Hero of the Islamic State." Well, gee, I guess that settles it.

Although all of this information was available at the time Andrew McCarthy posted his tweet, he added that the Gateway Pundit "report" he shared with thousands of people had not been "confirmed authoritatively," and we'll all just have to wait and see if Lubitz was Muslim or what.

It's just a report at this point and hasn't been confirmed authoritatively. We'll need to watch as news unfolds.

— Andrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) March 27, 2015

It's totally a "reasonable suspicion," though, even though there's no "proof."

@fcook640 Yes, it's very reasonable suspicion but not proof. For now, most rpts say mental issues, not ideology. We'll need to wait & see.

— Andrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) March 27, 2015

The racist chant that brought down the University of Oklahoma's chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon originated at a leadership cruise the national fraternity organization held four years ago, according to an investigation by the university.

CBS News reports that, at a press conference Friday, OU President David Boren said the chant was "widely known" at the conference and "informally shared amongst members on the leadership cruise."

Frat members who attended the conference later taught the chant to students pledging the fraternity, according to Boren.

Boren also said he had two questions for the national chapter of SAE following the investigation:

Has the national SAE organization undertaken any investigation to determine the extent to which the chant is being taught in or disseminated by individual chapters across the nation?

If such an investigation has been conducted, what steps have been taken by the national SAE organization to remedy the situation?

Two OU students were expelled and the Oklahoma chapter of SAE was disbanded after video of the chant surfaced last month. Two days ago one of those students, Levi Pettit, gave a half-assed apology during which he refused to say where he learned the song.

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

New York University, a Manhattan property development firm with a promising education wing, charges students a lot of money to attend. Undergraduate tuition, room, and board is currently estimated at $65,000 per year. What if a student wants to attend, but doesn't have the money? Who will pay? I don't know—the teachers, maybe?

Gothamist notes an email from Erin Dodd, executive director of NYU's annual fund, that was sent to university staffers this week. It reads:

Dear Colleagues,

Every day you show your dedication to our students. Today, I invite you to join me in giving those students an additional support. I invite you to make a gift for scholarships.

Our community is enriched each year by deserving students who would not be here without scholarship support. The senior class comes together to leave a legacy of scholarships through the 1831 Fund. Last year the faculty and staff matched their gifts. This year our goal is to provide 80 brilliant young minds with the chance for an NYU education - a dynamic urban experience that you make possible with your daily efforts.

You can make your gift to the 1831 Fund, a scholarship fund at any school, study away scholarships, or the general scholarship fund. Your voluntary participation is most appreciated.

Tomorrow you will see students raising gifts at tables across campus. Please join them and make your gift today.

Thank you for all that you do for NYU this day and every day.

Warm wishes,

Erin Dodd

Executive Director, Annual Fund

Which, were the outrageous sums the university requires of its students funneled directly to its employees, would be fine, I guess. The students pay too much, the teachers make too much—just have the teachers give some of it back! (Or, you know, lower the tuition.)

But alas, of course, it isn't that simple. As the New York Times reported last year and NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller reiterated in a comment to Gothamist, faculty members aren't exactly rolling in it: they received an average 2.5 percent pay increase between 2010 and 2012, while "25 top administrators" got a 25 percent bump. We can only imagine NYU's non-faculty staffers are doing no better.

So where is the money going? NYU's atrocious Abu Dhabi campus, maybe, or the $1 million loan the school gave to pay for university president John Sexton's beach house. Or the school's $6 billion plan to continue its gradual engulfment of the entirety of downtown Manhattan. University stuff. Non-profit stuff. The students will have to fend for themselves. Or the teachers can pay.

[Image via AP]

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

The overwhelming popularity of the HBO miniseries The Jinx has brought down shame on the Durst family name. Dursts everywhere, whether directly related to the NYC real estate family or not, have had to assert their independence from the alleged serial killer. The man most often confused for a murderer? Limp Bizkit vocalist William "Fred" Durst.

As our sister site Jezebel.com pointed out after Robert Durst and Fred were mixed up in a story run by the Associated Press in mid-March, the two Dursts share much in common:

The mistake is understandable. Both men have ruined many lives across America; both are believable killers; both display a shattering ocular coldness that could stymie even the boldest reporter who durst to untangle these harrowing facts.

But don't confuse the two. "I am NOT ROBERT," Fred Durst says, wearing a hoodie specifically printed for the occasion of when people confuse him with a man now in custody for murder.

As Instagram commenter xxl.hotswag points out, "Nice photo i like it so much :D"

[Image via Instagram]

"Gentrification tends to stop when affluent people stop wanting to move into the city," Megan McArdle says in a fine overview of the intractability of the affordable housing problem. The only real solution, it would seem, is to close the gap between the affluent and everyone else.

In a dark meeting of brands, David Hasselhoff agreed to an interview with Yahoo! about his forthcoming Vine ad campaign for Clorox (yes). The Hoff sees himself as the perfect fit for six-second advertisements for cleaning products, and allowing him to explain why and how was a mistake.

Writer Robert Kessler (a former Gawker intern) provides what ultimately proves to be an inadequate preface to the horrors of this interview:

This interview sort of got away from me. David Hasselhoff is like a freight train, you cannot control it, but only hope to use its surplus of energy for good.

Here we go.

Kessler asks, "I was hoping you could explain this partnership with Clorox a little bit to me." Perhaps having heard a different question, a silent question, Hasslelhoff answers something else entirely.

The tone of this thing is a lot of fun. You know, my name is Hasselhoff, so I took the "hassel" out of the "hoff," and I [became] The Hoff. Now I'm taking the hassle out of cleaning and it's a way to kind of interact with my fans and get in people's faces in a fun way.

That...seems like a stretch.

"[Clorox] has a new platform called Homejoy where you can actually order a maid," he keeps explaining. "Actually, you can order topless maids out here in Hollywood, but they won't let me do that." This information is neither here nor there, but a nice tip for anyone living in or traveling to the greater Los Angeles area.

As part of the campaign—admittedly bizarre on it own—three New Yorkers previously "won" a visit from David Hasselhoff to clean their homes. Here is a photo of him "cleaning":

Imagine entering a contest to get your home professionally cleaned and instead having to spend the day smiling next to a hashtag. And no one ever even cleans it? Very rude.

Will The Hoff continue to torment the people of New York by promising to clean their homes and instead covering it with random onions (See: errant onion sitting on the counter)?

Yeah, I think that's hysterical. I've done this before where I just knock on people's doors and they open the door and I go, "Hi! It's The Hoff! I'm here to help you clean. You want some help?" It's just really fun. I've been doing that basically all my life. I actually started when I was literally jogging in the Bahamas. A lady came out to get her mail and she said, "Oh, it's Knight Rider!" I said, "How are you? Got anything to drink in there? It's so hot here in the Bahamas." "Come on in, Knight Rider. Come on in!" Next thing I know, I'm in their house, her whole family comes home, the kids come home from school, it's just the loveliest family from the Bahamas and I ended up [going out that night] with the daughter to the blackest club ever. You know, I can get myself into any situation.

What we can glean from this story: 1) David Hasselhoff apparently refers to himself as the Hoff without the slightest sense of irony 2) "Literally jogging in the Bahamas" is a sentence no one has ever said because 3) This story sounds like a lie 4) It's especially unseemly for him to describe a club as "the blackest club ever" in a story that does not sound true at all.

So why is David Hasselhoff even doing these videos in the first place? "The reason I do these things is because they're fun, they're entertaining, and they reach a wide audience," he says. "It's funny, videos now, honest to God, I don't think I've done any network videos. I've done now like 32 or 33 Internet ones and they just go wacko."

To David Hasselhoff, filming six second clips of himself is the future of the entertainment industry and David Hasselhoff's utopian future, where rotary phones are finally equipped with high speed internet:

It's also the future of television. I have a film coming out called Killing Hasselhoff and that'll probably go to Netflix and I have a TV series called Hoff the Record, it's all going to be on the Internet and that's what I want because then you can take your telephone, plug it into any television set around the world, and that's it. I live off my telephone, watching television series on the airplane.

The future is now.

[Images via Getty]

Ten days ago, the University of Houston suspended its Sigma Chi chapter after what the school's president called "disturbing allegations of hazing within the fraternity." Exactly how disturbing could that hazing have been? Well, the rumor going around campus suggests that Sigma Chi was treating its pledges in a way that even a CIA black site might find a bit excessive: by waterboarding them with alcohol.

We were first alerted to the rumor this afternoon by a tipster who told us "e v e r y o n e is talking about this on campus"—a claim that is supported by chatter on several Reddit boards from immediately after the suspension announcement, as well as in the school paper's reports on the incident.

Our tipster wrote in with the details:

I currently work at the University of Houston, and I just wanted to give you a quick update that we all found out this morning.

The "hazing" that Sigma Chi was charged with was actually WATERBOARDING PLEDGES with alcohol.

The news has been going around different departments on campus all morning.

The person continued:

I've spoken with students today, but I guess technically it's all hearsay—-students who know members of Sigma Chi, who know girls who party there, etc. So nothing is officially documented. But like I said, e v e r y o n e is talking about this on campus today. Our Greek system is pretty small compared to other schools, so I believe it since the information is so specific.

In an email, a UH spokesperson told Gawker that the school is "not commenting on any specific allegations regarding this incident."

Regardless, the rumor is prevalent enough on campus that the video department of The Daily Cougar, the school's student newspaper, included it in a report about the fate of Sigma Chi, which included a demonstration showing what waterboarding looks like. (You can watch that report here.)

It also, unsurprisingly, popped up on Reddit immediately following news of the suspension, with multiple users in different threads saying that they heard the frat waterboarded its pledges.

Said one:

According to /u/Mayron_Gainz in /r/UniversityOfHouston, this is the rumor as to what happened:

Through the grapevine, someone took a video of their pledge(s) being hazed (water boarded with alcohol) and sent it to their nationals. Our school caught wind of it and is expelling several of their members as well as filing charges with the local PD.

Rumor though until we find out.

Said another:

FugaYouDorphin ΣΧ 4 points 9 days ago

Yeah I know guys in both chapters also, and what I heard was just some brothers from SFA were down at UH visiting and the guys from UH told the guys from SFA about the water boarding.

Aside from the school's president calling the incident "disturbing," there have been several indications that whatever Sigma Chi did is bad enough that alcoholic waterboarding seems eminently plausible.

For one, as alluded to in the post by Reddit's FugaYouDorphin, the hazing was so over-the-line that another frat broke the Greek culture of silence to report Sigma Chi. That chapter was Sigma Chi at Stephen F. Austin, which conducted its pledging ceremonies at the UH chapter's house, and in doing so saw something so obscene that they alerted the national organization.

Another Reddit user elaborated on that arrangement:

CRNSRD ΣΧ 6 points 9 days ago

A member who was required to do a mandatory part in the SFA initiation got in a serious car accident and was unable to perform the role. SFA called around to see if any chapters close to them would be willing to combine their initiation weeks. University of Houston volunteered, and the difference in chapter culture became an obvious issue. I can't confirm that they were waterboarding with booze, but I do know that the allegations and evidence were substantial enough to get them kicked off campus for a very long time.

Eventually, the national Sigma Chi organization notified the University of Houston, which did its own investigation that yielded evidence so severe that the school turned it over to the district attorney's office in Houston.

Again, UH would not comment on whether alcoholic waterboarding was the cause of the incident. Miguel Rodriguez, the president of Stephen F. Austin's Interfraternity Council, who praised his school's Sigma Chi members for turning their brothers, also said in an email that he could neither confirm nor deny the specific allegation.

But it's clear that something really fucked up happened at the University of Houston's Sigma Chi house, and alcoholic waterboarding would definitely fit the bill. Though, one imagines, it's not the only way frats have violated the Geneva Convention.

If you have any more information about this incident, you can email me directly at jordan@gawker.com

[image of University of Houston Sigma Chi house via AP]

Zayn—what's going on in his brain? So many thoughts he can't contain. He had to give his mouth free rein, so an exclusive interview The Sun obtain(ed)—Zayn.

Zayn Malik, fresh from leaving the immensely popular boy band One Direction amid rumors of infidelity, has broken his silence about his correct and good life choice (being in a very popular boy band seems like a damn nightmare) (plus he has a lot more time to work on his graffiti room now, which we all know is his real passion) in an exclusive interview with The Sun.

"I can't do this anymore," he told the tabloid, adding that reports claiming his exit was due to tensions with his bandmates "couldn't be more wrong." He continued:

"You know, I did try to do something that I wasn't happy doing for a while, for the sake of maybe other people. Basically, I'm only upset [because] I feel like I may have let them down."

He also feels like he's let his fans down, which is objectively true:

"I feel like I've let the fans down but I can't do this anymore It's not that I've turned my back on them or anything. It's just that I just can't do that anymore because it's not real to me."

However, he says he "has never felt more in control in [his] life," which makes sense, now that he is in control of his life for the first time in his life, adding, "I feel like I'm doing what's right, right by myself and right by the boys."

OK, Zayn.

Zayn—the boy band life he couldn't sustain. Ranter than nonstop complain, he got up and went on his way(n)—Zayn.

[image via Getty]