Courtesy of HBO, here's your first glimpse of True Detective Season 2, a forthcoming television event based on a popular Twitter meme. True Detective's first iteration kept devoted fans guessing at the identity of the true detective until the final episode—and we can only guess the show's extremely likable creator will repeat that winning strategy the second time around. Who will be the true detective in True Detective Season 2?

Rachel McAdams

After some bluesy vocals, softly strummed minor chords, and a helicopter shot of a quintessentially Californian highway interchange—we're not in Louisiana anymore, even if the music is exactly the same—we see would-be true detective number one: Rachel McAdams. Show creator Nic Pizzolatto's unshakably masculine worldview would seem to preclude a woman from seriously contending, but her placement at the beginning of the trailer bodes well.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 3:1

Vince Vaughn

Actor's actor Vince Vaughn displays little recognizable emotion throughout the trailer, indicating that his character will be mysterious, hardboiled, averse to authority but not about to get all whiny about it. His demeanor certainly fits the true detective archetype, but if anything, Vaughn might be too stoic for the contested role. He does shove someone at one point, so that's a good sign.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 7:4

Colin Farrell

Now this guy—this guy is a detective. He smokes, he drinks a lot (probably), he has a mustache, he dons brass knuckles and punches a guy in the face. His first appearance onscreen occurs at precisely the same moment the lyric "You never were the type to keep a rulebook near" crosses the singer's lips on the soundtrack. Christ, he wears a bolo tie! Who wears a bolo tie? This guy does. Three words: True. Fucking. Detective.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 1:1

Taylor Kitsch

I'll be honest: I haven't the slightest idea who this person is. Where is Taylor Kitsch? Is it the redheaded lady? The guy in the mask at the end? The placement of Taylor Kitsch's name following the word "starring" in HBO's description of the show would seem to indicate that he or she is some sort of famous actor, but the longer I look at it, the foggier and more mysterious everything becomes, like I'm Rust Cohle after one too many shots of Jameson and boinks of my partner's wife. Taylor Kitsch is not the true detective. Maybe he's the killer.

Odds of becoming the true detective: 66:1

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Severe thunderstorms are rapidly firing up across the Upper Midwest this afternoon, with tornado watches in effect from central Missouri through the western shores of Lake Michigan. The largest cities under the risk for tornadoes this afternoon are Chicago and Milwaukee. Some of the tornadoes could be strong in the most well-organized supercells.

An enhanced risk for severe weather—a three on a scale from zero to five—is in place across a huge portion of the central United States this evening, and it does not look like a dolphin this time around, as about 750 of you pointed out yesterday.

The main threats include large hail (some up to the size of golf balls), damaging winds in excess of 60 MPH, and tornadoes. While hail and winds are dangerous in their own right, tornadoes are the threat we tend to focus on the most.

Tornadoes

There's a 10% risk for significant tornadoes across the southwestern Great Lakes, including most cities in central and northern Illinois. The same region is under a threat for 'significant' tornadoes, which are ones that produce damage equivalent to an EF-2 or stronger on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

A 10% risk for tornadoes is different from a 10% chance of rain. A 2% risk is worthy of concern, let alone 10%, and these risks also correlate to climatological probabilities. The climatological risk for tornadoes across the region is about 0.40% today (meaning that tornadoes occurred within 25 miles of any point in the area 0.40% of the time on April 9 between 1982 and 2011), so today's risk is 25 times higher than normal (10% risk ÷ 0.40% climatology = 25x higher). The risk for significant tornadoes is 66 times higher than normal (10% risk ÷ 0.15% climatology = ~66x higher).

Watches

Here's an overview of severe weather watches as of about 4:21 PM EDT:

Counties under tornado watches are shaded in red, while counties under severe thunderstorm watches are shaded in blue. These watches will grow, shrink, and disappear through the evening as needed to keep up with the evolving threats, and future watches are likely in other areas that see the potential for a thumping. You can keep up with the latest watches by checking the Storm Prediction Center.

A severe thunderstorm or tornado watch means that conditions are favorable for the development of large hail, damaging winds, or tornadoes in any thunderstorms that develop over the next couple of hours. Watches are typically in effect for six hours at a time. Warnings, on the other hand, mean that the threat for severe weather is imminent and you need to take immediate action to ensure your safety.

Here's How It'll Happen

The area was socked in clouds for a good part of the morning, but the clouds started to break up, allowing the sun to shine in and warm the atmosphere enough to allow air to rapidly rise and begin producing thunderstorms. The wind shear (change in speed and direction with height) over the region is strong enough to permit any storms that develop to turn into supercells, which carry the risk of large hail and will be the likely culprits of any stronger tornadoes that form this afternoon.

The severe weather threat, as we see so many times, will come in two batches: discrete storms with a squall line behind them. The discrete (individual, standalone) storms carry the greatest threat for hail and tornadoes, while the squall line's predominant threat is damaging winds and possibly a tornado or two.

In this case, the squall line is forming along a cold front that extends from Des Moines through northeastern Oklahoma, and the line of clouds and storms is awesomely visible on the satellite image a few paragraphs up. Don't let your guard down if one storm blows through—this is a situation where you could see three or four different thunderstorms (each with their own set of hazards) before you're in the clear.

Friday

The threat shifts east tomorrow along the cold front, where thunderstorms and one or more squall lines will pose a threat for damaging winds and large hail for most major cities from Philadelphia to the Rio Grande River. Many of us have seen our first thunderstorm of the year—there was golf-ball-size hail near Raleigh, North Carolina last night—and this one should do it for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of listening to rumbling thunder yet.

As always, pay attention to your forecasts and know where to go and what to do if you're threatened by hazardous weather. The only time you should ever leave the safety of a sturdy building ahead of a tornado is if you live in a mobile or prefabricated home, in which case they are neither safe nor sturdy. If you find yourself in the path of a tornado while you're in a vehicle, don't get out and go into a ditch to ride out a tornado; instead, drive to the nearest safe building (like a school) or get away from the tornado by driving perpendicular to its motion.

[maps: author | watches/satellite: GREarth]

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

In 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly lauded a Colombian free trade agreement—the same deal she'd condemned as being bad for labor rights back in 2008. So why the change of heart? According to a report from the International business Times, it could be because the country's largest oil company was dumping millions of dollars straight into the Clinton Foundation.

It wasn't just the oil company Pacific Rubiales itself, though. Its founder, Frank Giustra, has had a long, fruitful friendship with the Clintons—one in which he's reportedly donated over $130 million to their various philanthropies and become a Clinton Foundation board member. Which makes it all the more suspicious that Hillary only slammed the deal while she was still a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Once out of the race and confirmed as Secretary of State, Clinton was quick to support the deal just two years later.

Then, in 2011, Pacific Rubiales workers striked only to be "forced off picket lines at gunpoint by members of the Armed Forces... and allowed to return to work when they had renounced the union.”

From the International Business Times:

Though Clinton has never explicitly explained her change of position on the U.S.-Colombia trade pact, she acknowledged “concerns” about Colombian “human rights abuses, violence against labor organizers, targeted assassinations, and the atrocities of right-wing paramilitary groups” in her 2014 book, “Hard Choices.”

But, she asserted, “By the time I visited Bogota in June 2010, violence was down dramatically.” She said that she met up with her husband while he “was traveling through Colombia on Clinton Foundation business” and the couple “went out for dinner with friends and staff at a local steakhouse, and toasted Colombia's progress.”

Pacific Rubiales has denied the charges, despite contrary reports from human rights watch groups.

Of course, none of this is particularly shocking. The Clintons are notorious for selling themselves to the highest bidder, particularly when it comes to their deep ties to Wall Street. But considering the buzz surrounding Hillary's email concerns has barely even died down, Hillary's (maybe probably potential) candidacy is off to a shaky start. [IB Times via The Hill]

Image via AP.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

Deadspin Don't Believe The Hype: Mayweather-Pacquiao Is Not Good Vs. Evil | Gizmodo Edward Snowden Tells John Oliver How to Generate the Best Passwords | io9 Is Han Solo's Coat Blue Or Brown? It's That Damn Dress All Over Again | Jezebel Fox News Enigma Megyn Kelly Slams Rand Paul's Sexist Behavior | Kinja Popular Posts

"Wha gwan, Jamaica?" President Obama greeted an evidently delighted crowd in Kingston today, speaking after a meeting with Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller. John "Ich bin ein Berliner" Kennedy had nothing on this guy.

Obama saying "wa gawn jamaica" bout to replace the airhorn as the defacto dancehall sound effect

— Desus Nice (@desusnice) April 9, 2015

[Image via AP, h/t Bucky Turco]

It seems like Kit Harington, actor and world's most reluctant hunk, has changed his hunk tune. No longer is his hunk tune, "To always be put on a pedestal as a hunk is slightly demeaning." Now his hunk tune is, "I've decided i'm going to ... shut up." Ahh, I love a good tune.

Harington spoke to Good Morning America today about his hunkiness, the blowback he received for speaking out against being noticed for his hunkiness, and his plans for the future:

"I've kind of decided I'm going to be a good little hunk and shut up," Harington, 28, said, adding that he "did get into trouble" for complaining about his heartthrob status.

"It's one of those—you say something and then didn't realize people would jump on it," he explained.

This guy.

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

This afternoon, Massachusetts Senator and presidential non-candidate Elizabeth Warren spoke to a crowd of 200 sweaty fans at the Strand book store in Manhattan. Everything she said was true, which is fairly remarkable, for a politician.

Wearing a teal green jacket ( Jacksonville Jaguars fan? Check this.- ed.) over a black pantsuit, Warren—who is both photogenic and teacherly at once, a favorite schoolmarm with an unlined face—read a bit from the new paperback version of her book, took audience questions, and dropped what is no doubt a condensed version of her stump speech on the appreciative crowd, many of whom took what may be the last plausible opportunity to wear their RUN WARREN RUN t-shirts. She said quite a few things that are absolutely correct.

She began with a light passage from her book about being an inept and harried young mother prone to starting kitchen fires with the unreliable toasters of the 1970s. She went on to say that decades later, there's no way that you could buy a toaster that had a one in five chance of burning your house down—but you could get a mortgage that had a one in five chance of pulling you underwater and taking your house with it. That's true.

She pointed out that after the Great Depression, America regulated Wall Street, built strong government consumer protections, and made vast investments in public infrastructure and research. This led to five decades of prosperity for the middle class. She said that we need to raise our public investments in infrastructure once again. That's true.

After 1980, we decided to deregulate and curtail public investments. This has led to four decades of prosperity for the very upper classes. That's true.

"Washington works for everyone who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers," she said. "For everyone else, not so much." That's true.

She warned that the financial institutions that were Too Big To Fail during the last financial crisis are significantly bigger and even more potentially dangerous to the public treasury when the next systemic economic crisis comes. "That can't be our goal as a people, to support the biggest financial institutions," she said. That's true.

"Income inequality is a direct result of the decisions our government has made over the past 80 or so years," she said. That's true.

"We have to expand Social Security benefits" for the middle class, she said. That's true.

"We need to raise the minimum wage," she said. That's true.

After she made any particularly salient point, she do an awkward mom version of the Tiger Woods celebratory power uppercut, to the delight of the crowd. Elizabeth Warren is not some socialist firebrand. She talked about things like bringing down student loan interest rates, and investing in roads. Common sense things. She doesn't want a revolution. She wants a system that works for the majority of the people, instead of for a tiny minority. By the standards of the United States Senate, that makes her a god damn radical. She speaks the truth.

[Photo: Getty]

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Wednesday afternoon, BuzzFeed published a post by staff writer Arabelle Sicardi that openly criticized a bizarre advertising campaign by Dove. (A sample passage: “The soap manufacturer wants to tell us how we feel about ourselves. And then fix it for us. With soap.”) Thursday morning, however, BuzzFeed deleted the entire post and replaced it with a single sentence: “We pulled this post because it is not consistent with the tone of BuzzFeed Life.”

This is a familiar story for the web giant. Last year, BuzzFeed deleted more than 4,000 older posts that “didn’t age well” or plagiarized other outlets. The site never restored those posts, but its editors later vowed to stop deleting posts that became inconvenient. “The BuzzFeed Editorial Standards And Ethics Guide,” published in January 2015, explicitly states (bolding in the original): “Editorial posts should never be deleted for reasons related to their content, or because a subject or stakeholder has asked you to do so.”

As you can see in a copy of Sicardi’s original post preserved by the Internet Archive, neither her content nor her “tone” were actually objectionable. Dove is a cosmetics brand owned by Unilever, a consumer goods manufacturer with a standing market capitalization of $130 billion. And Dove sells beauty products by exploiting the insecurities its advertisements help to create—in this case, a TV spot in which women are seen choosing between a door that says “Average” and another one that says “Beautiful.”

Sicardi rightly hammered on this very point—“Dove has a long and fabled history of experimenting with the shame women feel about their bodies and posturing that they are the way out of it”—and supported her argument with plenty of evidence.

So then why was her post deleted? BuzzFeed didn’t immediately return our emails, but the site has a documented history of disappearing less-than-positive content on behalf of Unilever—whose suite of brands have placed major ad buys on BuzzFeed.

As former BuzzFeed employee Mark “Copyranter” Duffy wrote in 2013, the site’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith “made me delete [a post critical of Unilever brand Axe] one month after it was posted, due to apparent pressure from Axe’s owner Unilever.” In a subsequent email to Gawker, Smith did not deny Duffy’s explanation for the post’s removal.

The deletion of Sicardi’s post—again, due to a “tone” inconsistent with other BuzzFeed content—is particularly baffling given the editorial flexibility and daring that supposedly defines BuzzFeed. In a July 2014 memo addressing the firing of Viral Politics Editor Benny Johnson, Smith wrote: “We will always have a more forgiving attitude toward bold failures, innocent errors, and misfired jokes than more skittish old media organizations.”

But Sicardi’s post was not a bold failure, or an innocent error, or a misfired joke. Her post was legitimate criticism of a exploitative marketing campaign underwritten by one of the largest and most powerful advertisers on the planet. In other words, the reason her post was necessary—in a way so many BuzzFeed posts are not—seems to be the very reason BuzzFeed deleted it.

Update 4/9/15, 11 p.m.

Buzzfeed Life editors Peggy Wang and Emily Fleischaker sent out an email to staff members explaining that the post was deleted because it failed to "show not tell" with crowdsourcing.

Hi guys!

Just wanted to let you guys know that we ended up pulling the piece that Arabelle wrote about the most recent Dove ad campaign, which spawned from an interesting conversation we had in the Life Slack.

When we approach charged topics like body image and feminism, we need to show not tell. (That's a good rule in general, by the way.) We can and should report on conversations that are happening around something that we have opinions about, but using our own voices (and hence, BuzzFeed's voice) to advance a personal opinion often isn't in line with BuzzFeed Life's tone and editorial mission.

This is not something we or Ben have made as clear as we need to. We've never had to pull a post before, and it's something that came with a lot of back-and-forth debate. In other words, it wasn't an easy decision. But it is where we ended up at when thinking more about our editorial mission and how we can further chip away at what we do and what we don't do.

The main takeaway is: When we write about news-related topics revolving around class, race, and feminism and other heated topics, it's important that we show the conversation that is happening, or find other people who can give smart and valid quotes to make the point, or, ideally, add to the conversation with something substantively new. BuzzFeed Life has had such a huge positive impact on people's lives by communicating our values in a fair and demonstrative way, rather than telling our audience how to think and feel.

We are more than open to discussing this and want to hear your questions, and we are grateful to Arabelle for identifying a topic so emotionally charged for women and giving us a reason to have these important conversations.

- Peggy & Emily

Or, as Ben Smith puts it on Twitter: "We are trying not to do hot takes."

Email or gchat the author: trotter@gawker.com · PGP key + fingerprint · Image credit: BuzzFeed

Police today released dash cam footage showing the traffic stop moments before North Charleston police officer Michael Slager fatally shot Walter Scott in the back Saturday.

In the four-and-a-half minute clip, Slager can be seen pulling behind Scott's Mercedes in a parking lot and approaching the vehicle:

Scott, the car's driver, can be heard telling the officer he is planning to buy the car – and so does not have insurance for it.

Slager then returns to his vehicle. The driver's-side door of the Mercedes opens and Scott begins to run. The passenger in the car remains inside.

CNN reports the passenger—reportedly Scott's coworker—was detained and placed in a police car.

Contact the author of this post at gabrielle@gawker.com

And so continues one of the most confusing relationships of my adult life: that between myself and Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. Once again Kelly brought out her “sensible adult” side during an interview with Rand Paul, taking him (as well as other male journalists) to task for sexism.

You’ll recall Rand Paul’s dickhead interview with Savannah Guthrie on Wednesday, where he tried to explain to her in the middle of an interview how exactly to conduct an interview. Later that day, Business Insider pointed us to Paul’s appearance on Megyn Kelly’s show—in which she promptly took him to task for his petulant behavior towards female reporters. You can watch the video here. (She starts in at around 6:08.)

Paul tries to blame his behavior on the general contentious nature of television interviews, referencing talking heads and reporters yelling at each other for eight minute segments, but Kelly isn’t having any of that spin.

“Those women were not yelling at you,” she says calmly, to which Paul replies: “Well I wasn’t yelling at them either.” Good one, dude.

Kelly goes on to argue that, “Savannah Guthrie is not exactly known, you know, for her aggressive unfairness,” which is at once both excellent shade thrown at Guthrie and a great argument against Paul’s treatment of her. As Paul tries to talk over her, which is the official handshake of MRA’s around the globe, Kelly keeps talking over him until he finally shuts up.

If that wasn’t enough, she then asks Rand Paul: “Did you get overly emotional?” which is brilliant when you consider how often that same barb is thrown at women.

Later, Kelly calls out male reporters, including Chuck Todd, who argue that Paul should be more polite to female reporters because they’re female reporters, and that dealing with the ladies requires a delicate hand.

“Savannah Guthrie doesn’t need your help,” Kelly said. “Kelly Evans doesn’t need your help. And you are entitled to push back on the interviewer just as much as you would if it were a man. So these male commentators can butt out. We can give as good as we can get.

DAMN YOU MEGYN KELLY AND YOUR CHOICE BOUTS OF LOGIC.

Megyn Kelly reminds me very much of this scene from The Boondocks back when The Boondocks was good, about Ann Coulter’s secret life as a “down-ass bitch.”

I feel like Megyn Kelly is deliberately fiddling with my heartstrings because despite the mountains of stupid bullshit she spouts—she’s got to keep people entertained on camera, after all, and sell the whole act—she does have her moments where the storm clouds part and she says something smart and fair. Granted, she’s usually coming to the defense of well-off white women, but I’ll take it. I generally don’t like giving people cookies for doing the bare minimum or shit they’re just supposed to be doing as a decent human being, but this is Fox News after all, and I’ve adjusted my standards.

Perhaps what we’re seeing, as my colleague Erin Gloria Ryan brought up earlier today, is that Megyn Kelly’s success has allowed her to be less of a stringent blowhard for inane, conservative talking points. She is climbing her way up the Fox News mountain, and maybe now is allowing herself to show some nuance in her reporting because she’s not fighting for airtime.

I may never get to the bottom of the enigma that is Megyn Kelly, but dammit if she doesn’t make me want to watch.

Image via Fox

Adam Sandler's most recent project is a movie called The Cobbler. In it, Sandler plays a washed-up cobbler named Max Simkin who finds a magical shoe-fixer machine that allows him to walk in other people's shoes. Here are several more movie ideas for Adam Sandler.

The Chocolate Guy

James McNamara owns a chocolate shop but he's allergic to chocolate. By accident he eats a square of chocolate and saves the neighborhood from gentrification. He dies but that's okay because the neighborhood is all good now.

The Dildo Maker

A man working in a ramshackle dildo factory in the Lower East Side (played by Adam Sandler) finds a magical dildo. When he accidentally sets it to vibrate, the man discovers that he can travel back in time. He travels 30,000 years back in time, invents the dildo, and becomes a millionaire in the future. He feels guilt when he meets the woman of his dreams and cannot explain how he amassed his fortune. He decides he is happier making dildos in the basement of the ramshackle dildo factory and gives all his money to a melanoma charity. The woman of his dreams is played by Sofia Vergara. They get married at Shea Stadium (CGI).

Hot Dog

Adam Sandler plays an animated hot dog named Curly. He falls in love with a park bench.

Big Mommy

It's just Big Daddy, but with a lady.

I'm a Construction Worker

Joe DiJolio is a construction worker in Queens and no one fucking likes him because he's a no-good loser. He finds a magical jackhammer and jackhammers all the way to China. In China, he meets a lot of people but man, do they not get his New Yawk demeanor. DiJolio befriends a local woman who looks like Sofia Vergara and she shows him how to appreciate Chinese culture. The pair jackhammer back to Queens and they marry at Shea Stadium (CGI). She does not stuff her bra, if you know what I mean.

Happy Gilmore But With a Lady

She's not as good at golf though.

Franglish

A French family emigrates from France to work for a bigshot business guy. I didn't see Spanglish so that's about all I got.

The Brave Little Toaster

Everyone loves this movie and would love it more if Adam Sandler was somehow in it!!!!!

An alleged horse thief went down in a swarm of San Bernardino Sheriff's deputies Thursday while an NBC helicopter captured the brutal scene from above.

NBC reports the cops began chasing the man when he fled the scene of a search warrant—apparently in a Dodge minivan. Eventually he abandoned the car and continued his escape on stolen horseback.

Officers were eventually able to tase him off the horse—and thus commenced a two-minute beatdown so large some officers had to step back to let other officers get a chance to hit and kick the man.

The group surrounding the man grew up to five sheriff's deputies as several appeared to kick, hit, and punch him dozens of times over a two-minute period. In the two minutes after the man was stunned with a Taser, it appeared deputies kicked him 12 times and punched him 29 times. Eleven blows appeared to be to the head as seen from aerial footage. The allegedly stolen horse stood idly nearby.

After the frenzy subsided, the man reportedly lay still, without any medical attention, for more than half an hour. A sheriff's spokesperson tells NBC two officers were treated for dehydration and one may have been kicked by the horse.

[video via NBC]

Contact the author of this post at gabrielle@gawker.com

Have you read the all the best literature, in all the best libraries? If so, good for you, my friend, but perhaps you'll allow me point you to a gem you may have overlooked: the Reddit story about a man who decided to pretend he'd never seen a potato before.

Originally posted on Reddit's Today I Fucked Up Forum, the strange potato story is undoubtedly not real, but still it should be read. The unabridged tuber tale in all its grandeur:

Let me tell you that I have made a bad mistake this evening.

My girlfriend (who let me tell you is only my 2nd girlfriend of all time) said I am "invited to dinner" with her and her parents. I was very aghast, nervous, and bashful to be invited to such a situation. But I knew it must be done.

I met them nicely, I should tell you, and it started off in a good way. The idea slapped my mind that I should do a comic bit, to make a good impression and become known to them as a person who is amusing.

When I saw that baked potatoes were served I got the idea that it would be very good if I pretended I did not know what potatoes was. That would be funny.

Well let me tell you: backfired on my face. I'll tell you how.

So first when the potato became on my plate, I acted very interesting. I showed an expression on my face so as to seem that I was confused, astounded but in a restrained way, curious, and interested. They did notice, and seemed confused, but did not remark. So I asked "This looks very interesting. What is this?"

They stared at me and the mother said "It's a baked potato." And I was saying "Oh, interesting, a baked....what is it again?"

And she was like "A potato."

And I was like "A 'potato', oh interesting. Never heard of a potato, looks pretty good."

And then they didn't see I was clowning, but thought I really did not know what is a potato. So I knew I would be very shamed, humiliated, depressed, and disgusted if I admitted to making a bad joke, so what I did was to act as if it was not a joke but I committed to the act of pretending I didn't know what a potato is.

They asked me, VERY incredulous, did I really not know what a potato is? That I never heard of a potato. I went with it and told them, yes, I did not ever even hear of a potato. Not only had I never eaten a potato I had never heard the word potato.

This went on for a bit and my girlfriend was acting very confused and embarrassed by my "fucked up antics", and then the more insistent I was about not knowing what a potato is was when them parents starting thinking I DID know what a potato was.

Well let me tell you I had to commit 100% at this point. When I would not admit to knowing what a potato was, the father especially began to get annoyed. At one point he said something like "Enough is enough. You're fucking with us. Admit it." And I said "Sir, before today I never heard of a potato. I still don't know what a potato is, other than some kind of food. I don't know what to tell you."

Well let me tell you he got very annoyed. I decided to take a bite of the potato, and when I did I made a high pitched noise and said "Taste's very strange!"

That is when the father started yelling at me, and the mother kept saying "What are you doing?" and my girlfriend went to some other room.

Finally the father said I should "Get the fuck out of his house" and I said it was irrational to treat me like this just because I never heard of a potato before. Well let me tell you he didn't take that kindly.

Now in text messages I have been telling my girlfriend I really don't know what a potato is. The only way I can ever get out of this is for them to buy that I don't know what a potato is.

I wish I never started it but I can't go back. I think she will break up with me anyway.

[image via Shutterstock]

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

A large tornado tore through communities southeast of Rockford, Illinois, on Thursday evening, part of a larger outbreak of severe thunderstorms gripping the eastern half of the United States. Numerous videos show the strong tornado scraping across the landscape, and several buildings in the area were heavily damaged or destroyed.

The above video was taken by Stephanie Sego Curtis near Rochelle, Illinois, and posted to WIFR-TV's public Facebook page, showing the tornado as it moved through a neighboring community. The large, wedge tornado is accompanied by a well-defined rotating wall cloud, which is quite a sight from afar, but even more intense and impressive up close like this.

The Illinois Emergency Management Agency reports that one person died and several people were transported to the hospital as a result of the tornado; the fatality occurred in Fairdale, a very small community in rural DeKalb County, about 14 miles southeast of Rockford.

Local news is reporting that a Rochelle-area restaurant called Grubsteakers was destroyed by the tornado, and tweeted out the following picture showing firefighters sifting through the rubble.

Another photo from Grubsteakers on 64 & 251. #Rochelle #ilwx pic.twitter.com/JRLcMKOM4C

— 23 WIFR (@23WIFR) April 10, 2015

Firefighters from Rockford said that they're having a hard time reaching the areas struck by the tornado due to debris blocking the road.

Having difficulty getting access due to damage and debris. pic.twitter.com/amwLnvLOoW

— Rockford Fire (@RockfordFire) April 10, 2015

As usual, The Weather Channel has been on top of the situation this afternoon, and the live coverage from Dr. Greg Forbes and Carl Parker was (before sunset, at least) supplemented by various live streams from storm chasers in the region. One chaser, Matt Salo, closely followed behind the storm and provided incredible footage of both the tornado and the damage it left behind.

Here's a clip from TWC's coverage while the tornado was moving into Fairdale:

...and the resulting damage to Fairdale:

Since it's getting dark and the event is still unfolding, we don't have a full picture of the extent of the damage. This was fairly strong tornado (one of those "significant" tornadoes the Storm Prediction Center warned about this morning) that was on the ground for a while, so the path of damage could be more than a dozen miles long. A team of meteorologists from the National Weather Service will survey this and all areas of tornado damage around the country tomorrow or Saturday in order to assign each tornado a rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

The above image shows the radar's reflectivity product (showing precipitation) as the supercell and its tornado tore through Rochelle and Fairdale. Meteorologists were able to confirm the tornado using data collected by Doppler weather radar; in addition to the strong rotation, the radar was able to detect debris swirling around in and around the tornado, as it reflects back to the radar as a stronger area of returns.

Recent developments called "dual-polarization" allow the radar beam to determine the size and the shape of the objects, further allowing meteorologists to confirm that there was indeed debris circulating in the tornado. Below is the correlation coefficient product, showing the dreaded blue dot that indicates debris lofted in the air.

The Storm Prediction Center has received 16 reports of tornadoes through 9:50 PM EDT, with at least five confirmed tornadoes so far: one west of Shreveport, Louisiana, one west of St. Louis, Missouri, one just northwest of Davenport, Iowa, one near Peoria, Illinois, and the one covered above near Rockford, Illinois.

The threat for tornadoes will continue through the night, but start to evolve into a damaging wind threat as we get deeper into the overnight hours. Severe weather will shift east tomorrow, posing a damaging wind and large hail threat for most major cities along the coast from Philadelphia to the Rio Grande River in Texas.

[Videos: Stephanie Sego Curtis/WIFR-TV via Facebook, The Weather Channel | Radar: Gibson Ridge | Corrected to add Rochelle, Illinois, to the second paragraph. | Updated to include correlation coefficient radar imagery and casualty information.]

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Photographic evidence suggests that Joe Biden recently put a baby’s pacifier into his very own mouth. He was not related to the baby.

Georgina Bloomberg, daughter of billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, took the photo and posted it on Facebook. That is her son, Jasper, looking perplexed as he stares at a man he does not yet know as the vice president of these United States. He only knows him as the adult who has, rudely, just stolen his binkie, thereby upsetting the natural order of little Jasper’s universe.

According to Business Insider, Biden recently attended a ceremony in Washington, D.C., where Grandpa Bloomberg was made an honorary knight of the United Kingdom. Presumably that is where this photo was taken and also explains why Jasper is wearing a three-piece suit.

It seems Joe Biden shares the same kids-and-germs philosophy as one of my parents, who will remain anonymous (it’s my mother), who once admitted that when our pacifiers fell out she’d pop them in her own mouth right quick and them stick them back in ours. I’M FINE, OKAY.

Photo via Getty.

Contact the author at kelly@jezebel.com.

Life is a series of stark choices. None starker than this: Would you rather be fat, or stupid? Do not try to weasel out of this. Science demands that you choose one, and only one.

Though I have not been accredited with a white lab coat by any of the leading scientific "insider" organizations, I have written brief and misleading blog posts about many a scientific study—none, perhaps, more alarming than the findings of a new study published in the Lancet, which bodes ill for your body and your mind.

You may be fresh, lively, and youthful now, but imagine yourself in middle age. Do you think that you will be the sort of fit, active adult portrayed in pharmaceutical advertisements? You will not. You will either be fat, or you will be on the cusp of mental oblivion. Your treasured "middle way" ideal is little more than a childish dream. The Washington Post reports:

A surprising study contradicting all previous research found that being fat in middle age appears to cut the risk of developing dementia rather than increase it, the Lancet scientific journal has reported...

Underweight people had a 34 percent higher risk of developing dementia than those of a normal weight, the study found, while the very obese had a 29 percent lower risk of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility.

Obesity or dementia? Superficial outward beauty accompanied by the brain of a mouse, or a healthy mind that shall not know happiness due to the cruel world's shallow condemnation of your size? Total satisfaction is as impossible as squeezing a slippery water balloon—whichever side you get a solid grasp on will only cause the opposite side to swell in grotesque proportion.

Fat or stupid? What will it be? Choose wisely. Or choose poorly. Either way, we all know where you will end up: in a shabby rented room in Spartanburg, South Carolina, surrounded by half-eaten "Tater Biscuits."

[Photo: Flickr]

Late Tuesday, news broke that yet another unarmed American, a black man named Walter Scott, was killed by a white police officer. As with Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Rodney King nearly 25 years ago, the brutality was captured on video for the world to see. The New York Times put the damning evidence at the very top of its homepage and it quickly spread throughout social media networks provoking outrage, disgust, horror, grief. These reactions have come most vocally from black Americans. The silence from white activists, elected officials, public figures, and citizens has been deafening.

If you're white and have made it to this paragraph you might be thinking, or headed to the comments to write, "not all white people…" To be sure, there are white Americans active in efforts toward police reform. That population is, however, nowhere near the critical mass needed for change. Take for example New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. He made some unprecedented comments expressing "pain and frustration" after a grand jury failed to indict the NYPD officer who choked Eric Garner to death on film. He was quickly pressured to walk back that sentiment and, without the support he needed, did exactly that.

The bottom line: The majority of white Americans believe the nation's police are doing a good job despite that work often ending in the deaths of unarmed black people.

In every major speech on race that President Obama has delivered during his presidency, he has reassured Americans of our collective will to form a more perfect union. When his 2008 campaign was in danger of being derailed by his Chicago pastor, Obama remarked on the "vast majority" of Americans who want a more equitable country. After George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin, Obama reminded us that, "Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race." And, when a grand jury failed to indict a white officer for choking a black Staten Island man to death, the President instructed: "...it is incumbent upon all of us, as Americans, regardless of race, region, faith, that we recognize this is an American problem."

Black Americans are largely on board with making police brutality an issue of urgent national interest. We've always been desperate for change. White Americans, not so much.

According to Harris polls, white Americans have been slow to accept that racism plays a harmful role in policing. Between 1969 and 2014, white Americans understanding that blacks are generally discriminated against by the police has only increased from 19 percent in 1969 to a paltry 48 percent in 2014. Progress, but still short of a majority. Meanwhile, black endorsement of that statement has stayed relatively stable, increasing just 10 points from 76 percent to 86 percent during the same period.

When we can't complete a news cycle without learning another unarmed black person has been killed by police, one wonders: Where are the reasonable white Americans? Where's the religious right, those patriots and lovers of life and liberty? Even more, where are those good white cops, and what do they have to say about the one who executed Scott and then had the clarity of mind to possibly plant a weapon near him and falsify a police report?

There is a remarkable dearth of outrage from white Americans when their countrymen of color are denied the most fundamental right—life—by the police. City-level polling data from Los Angeles and New York reveals that white approval of the police is consistently high in those cities—despite the checkered history of their police departments. It drops on average somewhere around 10 points when there are high-profile cases of police brutality but, irrespective of what remedies follow, it recovers to pre-incident levels in no time.

And make no mistake about it, police reform in this country is dependent on white Americans taking incidents of abuse seriously. White people are the nation's largest and most empowered racial voting block, and their perception of crime, fairness, and justice is perhaps one of the most influential factors in law enforcement. Public sentiment aside, white Americans make upthe vast majority—nearly 80 percent—of this nation's police force.

So, what do they think? Well, it seems we have a system of policing—brutality included—that the vast majority of white Americans approve of, or, at the very least, tolerate.

Whites rate the nation's police force among the three institutions in our country that inspire the most confidence, behind only the military and small business, according to a survey by Gallup. In fact, white Americans admire the police more than they do clergy. With that in mind, it should be no surprise then that 70 percent of white Americans say they can imagine a situation in which they would approve of a police officer striking a citizen. Nearly the same share approve of police hitting suspects trying to escape from custody.

Sixty percent of white Americans surveyed by ABC News in December said that the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Garner in New York City were isolated incidents. Robin DiAngelo is a professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and the author of What Does it Mean to be White? In a her work on white silence in racial discussions, DiAngelo explains that such reduction of systematic racism to a series of similar but isolated events aids white silence. She writes, "much of the rationale for white silence is based on a racial paradigm that posits racism as isolated to individual acts of meanness that only some people do. This dominant paradigm of racism as discrete, individual, intentional, and malicious acts makes it unlikely that whites will see our silence as a function of, and support to, racism and white privilege." White silence around race, as a result, functions to maintain white supremacy and ultimately harms people of color, she argues.

That brings us back to an unarmed Scott, stopped for a busted tail light in a state where you're only required to have one, struck five times from behind as he ran away from a man who'd later appeared to plant evidence on his dead body and lie about administering CPR to him. And, of course, Scott brings us back to Miriam Carey, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Ezell Ford, John Crawford, and so many others. How many more must die, how close together, and under what circumstances before the most empowered Americans feel compelled to advance, legislate and execute police reform? Or is this the system they want?

Donovan X. Ramsey is a multimedia journalist whose work puts an emphasis on race and class. Donovan has written for outlets including The Atlantic, The New Republic, MSNBC and Ebony, among others. He's currently a Demos Emerging Voices Fellow.

[Image by Sam Woolley; Photo via Shutterstock]

On Tuesday evening, CIA director John Brennan spoke at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Micah Zenko, writing for DefenseOne, passed on an exchange between him and Graham Allison, the school's top policy wonk (and frequent government official).

Allison pressed Brennan repeatedly about whether the United States is winning the war on terrorism and why the number of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups has only increased since 9/11: "There seem to be more of them than when we started…How are we doing?"

Brennan replied:

If I look across the board in terms of since 9/11 at terrorist organizations, and if the United States in all of its various forms. In intelligence, military, homeland security, law enforcement, diplomacy. If we were not as engaged against the terrorists, I think we would be facing a horrendous, horrendous environment. Because they would have taken full advantage of the opportunities that they have had across the region…

We have worked collectively as a government but also with our international partners very hard to try and root many of them out. Might some of these actions be stimulants to others joining their ranks? Sure, that's a possibility. I think, though it has taken off of the battlefield a lot more terrorists, than it has put on.

One could make fun of Brennan's disjointed answer, or ask (as Zenko did) how we can even determine how many terrorists are on the battlefield—let alone if there are "a lot more." But I find more pressing things wrong with these statements and justifications:

1. The slippery rationale for success is perfect for Washington and terrible for the United States and the rest of the world. They say things aren't worse, therefore we must be doing the right thing. This is the rationalization of the forever war that brushes aside the reality that the world unravels and our security never substantially improves. I love a quip an admiral friend of mine made, now more than 10 years ago, that before 9/11, 100 percent of the people in the Arab world hated us and after, 105 percent hated us, so we must be doing better. But irony and cleverness aside, does any normal person think that the problem of terrorism is more under control today than 15 years ago? Only the head of the CIA could gaze at the horizon and disregard the ground in front of him.
2. "Horrendous, horrendous" is code for weapons of mass destruction, for terrorists with nukes or chemical weapons or even creepier biological weapons. In other words, it is the same Cheney so-called "One Percent" doctrine that followed 9/11 and justified torture, extraordinary rendition, and mass surveillance. It became the same phantom justification for going to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003. "They" supposedly know secret things about the threat of terrorists with WMDs and we are supposed to get out of the way – the veracity of the threat and the proper strategy to combat it are not even a part of the debate. In addition, the historical record of how things have come about is so wildly disputed—9/11, Iraq, ISIS, etc.—that we spend more time arguing about the past than carefully dissecting what is going on today and why.
3. "Terrorist organizations" is purposefully and strategically used in official arguments. When pushed further—and I've had this discussion many times with intelligence officials—the justifiers and rationalizers of their own activity hide behind the word organization to mean al-Qaeda or AQAM (al-Qaeda and Affiliated Movements) and then do their own private equations: killing "x" many number 1-, 2-, and 3-level high value targets has disrupted their operations, stopping the big one, unraveling their command and control. I can hear Brennan now: If I look across the board in terms of since 9/11 at terrorist organizations... He looks where he wants and ignores the rest.
4. "The terorrists" is uttered as such a normal and accepted part of our lexicon, the head of the CIA can refer to a vast world of bin Ladenism as if it's a sovereign nation state, with a location, a capital, and even a census. Pushed further, they happily retreat to the war against terror being not just a war against the very organizations they mentioned earlier, but also the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizballah and Hamas and violent extremism and lone wolves and homegrown whatevers. The big brains keep one score, and one score alone—the number of additional 9/11s in New York City—but when confronted with the it's-not-just-al-Qaeda argument, they're thrilled when others pile on because it builds an even greater threat picture—terrorism—that requires them to continue to hold down the fort. In other words, poking at their definition just strengthens their hands.

When the United States started fighting in Afghanistan and beyond, the now-discredited Rumsfeld was quoted as using the rationale that fighting "them" over there meant we didn't have to fight them at home. It seems the Obama administration hasn't managed to create a more sophisticated argument.

Bush and Company spoke of a full court press, of unprecedented inter-governmental cooperation, of doing better to describe the exact same rationale 14 years later: We keep them on the run because when they are running they can't plot. And so we are stuck.

If I were the CIA director speaking at Harvard, I might have said: "I take your point, and as a nation, we don't want to be fighting this war forever. So we have a lot of work to do in terms of figuring out how to get off this treadmill, how to address the root causes, how to shape the future in some meaningful way. It's great for me to have a scorecard that says we've achieved x but I'm not happy with that as an outcome. We, the government, need the help of academia and the great minds of our nation to put forth a grand strategy. Right now, there isn't a good answer to your good question because it is so small; the points we are discussing are so tactical and in the weeds, I fear we are missing the big picture."

It's not what the CIA director said, though, not even close. As a direct participant in the "war" against terrorism, the Agency is on the run itself, so busy fighting and doing there is little room for the intelligence part—the thinking part. And they are so busy with their singular objective and their achievement, they can't see the world on fire.

When Brennan uses the word "stimulant" to refer solely to battlefield actions and reactions, he also ignores his very own map of the world that says that the battlefield is everywhere. In other words, the ivory tower of Harvard is also a battlefield and stimulant. If I believed in conspiracies, I'd almost think that he is being so dense that it's purposefully aimed at provoking would-be terrorists to go ahead and try another significant strike, the kind they feel so confident about thwarting. Of course he doesn't mean any such thing, but it is clear he is fighting the last war, allowing for the intelligence agency to transform into an illegal and unauthorized combatant.

You can contact me at william.arkin@gawker.com, and follow us at @gawkerphasezero. If you are into the theater of being underground, you can anonymously deliver tips through the Gawker Media SecureDrop. I've got a book on drones coming out in July called Unmanned: Drones, Data and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare. I'm open to your input and your questions, tough questions.

Blake Lively recently bore a girl child with her husband Ryan Reynolds, and the two decided to call that gal James. It seems to me like that's punishment enough, but now Us Weekly is reporting that Lively has named all three of her co-stars from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 godmothers to her baby.

That's right—Lena (Alexis Bledel) Carmen (America Ferrera), and ??? (Amber Tamblyn) are all godmothers to Bee's baby. Tamblyn confirmed the news in an interview with Nick Lachey, who himself is not a sister of the pants, on VH1's Morning Buzz.

"You're still very close with your Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants costars and the three of you are godmothers to Blake Lively's baby—is that a fact?" Lachey asked. "Yes, that is a fact," Tamblyn responded.

Another fact is that now when Blake Lively dies, each godmother will get the baby for three weeks before mailing it on to the next one.

Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Hollywood is full of liars. They'll tell you "let's do lunch" when they don't want to do lunch. They'll tell you "I love your idea" when they think your idea is not good. They'll tell you you're not beautiful enough when you are beautiful inside and out. But perhaps the biggest liar in Hollywood is: Johnny Depp.

Johnny Depp. You may know him from such films as: Chocolat. However, his Chocolat costar Juliette Binoche revealed in a startling interview with The Hollywood Reporter recently that Johnny Depp didn't even like chocolate when he made that movie:

To tell you the truth, the shop was all fake chocolate. Because of all the lights, chocolate wouldn't have been able to stand up with that heat. But of course we did have to eat some. I discovered that Johnny Depp actually didn't like chocolate. He was spitting it out after each take, and Alfred Molina didn't like chocolate that much, either. It was a funny experience dealing with them and the faces they would make.

Incredible.

Johnny Depp also starred in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I'll have you know.

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