There’s a lot more to ATI—the insane fundamentalist homeschool program used by the Duggars and thousands of others—than just bad science. In addition to revelations about cancer-causing semen, you’ll also be getting a whole section of fashion tips. Because if there’s anything god hates (more than lust and sex and logic and just you in general), it’s hairstyles that don’t complement the shape of your face.

Ladies, keep those knees together, makeup on, necklines modest, shoulders straight—the list goes on. And gentlemen, keep your hair short and... well, bathe mostly. Here’s everything you need to know to be able to claim your heavenly reward in style. And please note that this falls under “Medicine Resource.” It’s science!

1) “Wear a smile.”

People hate a Debbie Downer. Who wants to look at sad, lifeless eye? (Not the Lord that’s for sure.) Instead, let them gaze upon your happy, lifeless smile.

2) “Choose colors which enhance your skin tones.”

God made color palettes so you wouldn’t look like shit.

3. “Choose a hairstyle which complements the shape of your face.”

Oval faces go to heaven.

4. “Wear special accents near your face.”

As long as it’s drawing attention above the neckline—god thinks you look great.

5. “Wear clothing that fits properly.”

It would seem that god also hates skinny jeans.

6. “Avoid eye traps.”

Don’t draw attention to yourself in any way ever.

7. “Practice personal disciplines of neatness, cleanliness, exercise, and weight control.”

Bathe.

8. “Stand tall—sit gracefully.”

Ladies: Keep your head high, neck straight, stomach sucked in, knees together, ankles crossed, shoulders back, and baby-maker pointed straight down at the floor. We advise just never moving.

9. “Match your choice of clothing to the occasion or activity.”

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that we are, once again, learning about “Medical Resources.”

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

On May 20, a Kentucky grade schooler was eating lunch with her friends in the cafeteria when a school employee took away her hot lunch and dumped it in the trash in front of her. The teacher gave her a cheese sandwich to eat instead. Although the student didn’t know it, her lunch account had had a negative balance.

The girl’s aunt, who’s also the PTO treasurer, had stopped by Bedford Elementary School that day and heard what happened from an employee.

“It was awful to think about her being there, sitting there and she was crying. She’s a shy girl anyway, she’s 10 years old and she knows what’s going on,” Leslie Chilton told local NBC station WAVE 3.

Another Bedford mom, Kim Wright, started a petition to change the school’s policy on overdue accounts to avoid situations where school staff waste food and bully students in front of their friends. She says other parents told her their kids came home upset that the girl’s lunch was trashed.

“How is it ethical? How is it moral to do this to children who have no control over the situation, whatever the situation may be?” Wright told WAVE3. “Whether it’s the fault of the school or the parents, the child does not need to be in the equation.”

The girl’s family had money to pay the lunch bill, WAVE3 reported, they just didn’t know their daughter’s account had run out.

Wright’s petition, which now has more than 1,000 signatures, seems to have gotten through to the school board, which has scheduled a public meeting for next month to discuss the lunch policy.

[h/t Opposing Views, Photo: WAVE 3]

We brought you a story earlier this week, via TMZ, about actor Jeremy Renner crashing a wedding in Houston, Texas and hitting up the open bar. His publicist, Susan Patricola, reached out to us shortly after. She was unhappy!

To recap our story—again, via TMZ—Renner, in town for Comicpalooza, stayed at a hotel where a wedding was taking place. He walked into the wedding’s reception, which is rude, got a drink from the open bar, which is rude, refused to take photos with the bride and groom, which is rude, and chatted with some of the guests. (Not rude necessarily.) Here is what Ms. Patricola had to say in response:

From: Susan Patricola
Date: May 27, 2015
To: Kelly Conaboy

Completely inaccurate story that you posted and snarky – but I guess that is expected from your site. Perhaps it would be wise to check before you print something completely inaccurate and maybe, just maybe you might get correct facts. Check People Magazine – they got an answer and got it right!!

Susan Patricola
Patricola Public Relations, Inc.

[A detail absent from our initial post but included here for the sake of completeness: An anonymous TMZ reader posting under the pseudonym “1213,” who claimed to have been a guest at the wedding Renner crashed, stated on TMZ’s website, in response to commenters giving Renner the benefit of the doubt: “First of all, it was the Magnolia Hotel, not the Regency. It was NOT the same as the hotel bar. It was a private room, and he stayed a LOT longer than 15 minutes. He said if he took pictures with the bride and groom, then he’d have to take picture with all the guests. Way to keep it classy!” While we cannot confirm that this person was, in fact, a guest at the ceremony, he or she did leave several comments on the TMZ article indicating such, and did correctly identify the location of the ceremony as Houston’s Magnolia Hotel.]

“Snarky” is expected from our site—it’s true. However, if People Magazine’s version of events (“Jeremy Renner Crashes a Couple’s Wedding in Houston”) is correct, as Ms. Patricola says it is, the only deviation in stories is an explicitly stated “openness” of the bar—a note we took from the TMZ story which we quoted and to which we linked in the post. Otherwise, People Magazine’s version was the same—he still went to a wedding he wasn’t invited to; he still refused to pose for pictures; he still had a drink—only with a rosier take. According to People, Jeremy Renner “suited up for a little wedding action down South”; according to TMZ (which provided photo proof), Jeremy Renner wore a “t-shirt and sport coat.” Oh, Jeremy Renner didn’t take photos because it was “the bride and groom’s special night”? O.K. Jeremy Renner.

We should note here that, while Ms. Patricola praises People for “getting it right,” People’s item in fact contains at least one easily identifiable error (as pointed out in the article’s comments section by a reader): While People claims that, this past December, the members of Maroon 5 “spiced things up in Los Angeles, showing up uninvited to ceremonies around the city,” to film adorable surprises that were eventually arranged into a music video for the band’s single Sugar, Cosmopolitan.com confirmed months ago that much of that “uninvited” footage was actually staged, and took place at entirely fake weddings.

Of course, unlike People, we would love to get the facts in order to present an accurate picture of the world. So we responded to Ms. Patricola:

From: Kelly Conaboy
Date: May 28, 2015
To: Susan Patricola

Hi Susan—

If Mr. Renner would like to give his firsthand account of the events, we’d be eager to set him up with an editor for a guest-authored post or, alternatively, we could publish his words untouched. We’re doing our best to get the facts to present an accurate picture of the night.

I’d also be happy to speak with him on the phone this week if he’d like.

Let me know—

Kelly

Would Jeremy Renner write a post about crashing a wedding and possibly having a drink at the open bar for Defamer.com? Anything is possible, my friend.

However, no—he certainly would not:

From: Susan Patricola
Date: May 28, 2015
To: Kelly Conaboy

A little late for that. It’s been said and done. Perhaps you will check next time the way every other outlet did.

Susan Patricola
Patricola Public Relations, Inc.

Every other outlet, like TMZ? Hmm.

Ah, who knows. As Ms. Patricola said, it’s all been said and done. In search of truth and facts, though, we’d still love to get an accurate picture of the night. Were you there? Did Jeremy Renner crash your wedding, or perhaps your friend’s wedding, or maybe this was your cousin’s wedding? Did he have a drink at the open bar, or was the bar a cash bar, or perhaps there were two bars and he chose the one that was not open? Was he nice? Did you know what you recognized him from? Jeremy—are you reading this and would you like to guest author a post for Defamer.com? Please get in touch with me at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

In a 2012 interview for Vulture about “How to Build a Lasting Movie Star,” Ms. Patricola emphasized the importance of media training for actors “because, as Patricola insists, today, ‘nothing is off the record.’”

In 2015, Ms. Patricola’s client The Dreaded Jeremy Renner insisted many times that the character Black Widow—the only female member of the Avengers in Renner’s new film The Avengers: Age of Ultron—is “a slut.”

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

Yesterday I woke up confused, like I’d been bludgeoned with a turquoise bangle in my sleep. It turns out that I was just remembering a blog post on People’s website titled, “9 Reasons Kristin Cavallari Is Even More Stylish Than We Thought.” Is she? Even more stylish than we thought? Please hand me two baby aspirin and we’ll discuss.

As previously stated, we will be analyzing each of People’s nine reasons separately. Two days ago, we considered the fact that Kristin “is getting ready for long hair again” as a reason that she is even more stylish than we thought.

Today’s reason?

“She’s not superstitious about her game day outfit (or meal!)”

Kristin, who is married to Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, explains:

I’m pretty boring, but Jay has one. He usually eats sushi the night before a game. That’s been the last couple of years. But no, I don’t have anything. I guess I should get something.

Boring is a style, I guess.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photos via Getty]

Hamdi Ulukaya, the creator of the execrable yogurt brand Chobani, has pledged to donate most of his billion-dollar fortune to charity, when all we really want is our $1.69 back for that nasty cup of Chobani.

Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Occasionally, against all odds, you’ll see an interesting or even enjoyable picture on the Internet. But is it worth sharing, or just another Photoshop job that belongs in the digital trash heap? Check in here and find out if that viral photo deserves an enthusiastic “forward” or a pitiless “delete.”

Image via Imgur

DELETE

After years of drought, record rainfalls hit Texas and Oklahoma this month, resulting in deadly flash floods that have claimed the lives of 23 Americans so far. And, like any major news event in 2015, a side-product has been a surge of bullshit photos.

Some, like this widely-shared image of Houston’s submerged highways, are real but misattributed, showing the damage caused by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Others, like the improbable shark picture seen above, are just dumb photo manipulations.

As Snopes explained on Wednesday, this image has been in circulation for years, previously said to have been taken in Puerto Rico after 2011’s Hurricane Irene. In reality, the picture is a simple cut-and-paste job, lifting the fearsome fish from a decade-old photograph by Thomas P. Peshack.

Image via Twitter

FORWARD

Of course, actual photos of this week’s flooding are plenty cinematic on their own. As one Reddit user noted in his caption for this picture by David J. Phillip for the Associated Press, the destruction in Texas looks like a scene from post-apocalyptic fiction. Other images, like the below photo of Houstonians navigating the city by kayak, are positively surreal.

Images via Twitter/AP Images

FORWARD

But this week wasn’t all death and devastation. On Friday, Ireland voted to legalize same-sex marriage, the first country in the world to do so. And it was seemingly done with divine approval, a rainbow appearing above the nation’s capital on the day of the vote.

However, as many noted over the weekend, rainbows aren’t just a symbol of gay pride in Ireland, but a cornerstone of the country’s leprechaun-based economy.

Image via Twitter

DELETE (ALSO NSFW)

For whatever reason, fake photos of Marilyn Monroe (who, it should be noted, was fairly well-photographed in real life) abound on the internet, rivaled in number only by fake Marilyn Monroe quotes.

Many of these images, like the photograph by Andre de Dienes seen above that rocketed to the top of Reddit’s /r/Pics page on Sunday, show entirely different women who just happened to be blonde in the ‘60s.

As Monroe historian Marijane Gray writes in her mass-debunking of bogus Marilyn pictures, de Dienes was never able to photograph the starlet nude. From Buzzfeed:

He writes about her refusal to do nudes in his published journal. Chuck Murphy, the sole owner and copyright holder of the de Dienes estate, has stated definitively that Marilyn never posed nude for Andre and that the woman in this photo is an unknown model that is absolutely not Marilyn.

Image via Twitter

DELETE

Finally, this month’s dumbest fake photo comes from popular Twitter shitpic mill @OMGFunniest_, which shared an altered version of this image by Albanian photographer Bess Hamiti.

As internet ombudsman @PicPedant pointed out on Wednesday, this particular photo is notable for being physically impossible, showing a moon supposedly reflecting the light of the star that’s also backlighting it.

Image via Twitter

You may have just seen this headline, or a related one: “Sepp Blatter Re-elected as FIFA Boss Despite Charges” What does it mean? Which of those words are nouns, which are verbs, and which refer to human beings? Allow me to guide you, non sports fan.

Many Americans describe soccer as: boring, slow, nonviolent, “not really my thing,” dull, very boring, almost impossibly boring. And while it is true that soccer is all those things, sometimes, there’s at least one more way to describe it: incredibly corrupt.

On Wednesday, U.S. Department of Justice officials announced a wide-ranging indictment against more than a dozen officials connected to soccer’s reigning body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, also known as FIFA (pronounced FEEFA) (or Fife-ah if you are a schmuck).

You don’t have to be a soccer fan, or even a sports fan, or even a fan of non-English-language acronyms, to announce to your friends at a tetherball game or during a breezy happy hour, “It’s time we learned the important tidbits of the FIFA controversy. I have seen all the headlines and know that something has hit the fan, but what is it and how big is this item? Can the enormous quantity of information be reduced into a small, digestible package? Appearing knowledgable in front of ones friends is essential to success, but my knowledge of FIFA’s corruption, lawsuits, and arrests is as small as a tiny bumblebee that I can fit in my pocket.”

As Americans begin to “enter the conversation” about soccer simply because we cannot stand to be left out of anything—especially anything sports-related—it is better to be informed than to be left with visible grass stains on the knees, not knowing it until an opposing defender points it out and laughs.

So let’s get down to brass tacks of the FIFA controversy. Meet me on the pitch (field) for a match (game) of information (knowledge) exchanged among friends (enemies). Blow the whistle—goal!

What exactly is FIFA, and what does it do?

Formed in 1904, FIFA—as I said above, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association—is the worldwide governing body for soccer (or, as it’s known to pedants, association football). Its essential function is to organize tournaments on both regional and international levels. The biggest of these, the men’s World Cup, is held once every four years. The women’s World Cup is also once every four years. Is this relevant information? That’s really up to you to decide. FIFA is also the governing body of futsal and beach soccer, whatever those are.

So why should I—who have, in all likelihood, stumbled upon this page accidentally, while attempting to click on a sexy photo I saw on Facebook—care about FIFA?

I appreciate you, dear reader, for you are honest about your interests. You don’t, by any means, have to care about the current scandal embroiling FIFA, because one of the many truly beautiful things about knowledge is that you can choose to dismiss it or participate in its existence. But here are a few reasons why it might behoove you to appear interested.

FIFA has its hands in everything. As you might expect from an enormous governing body in an incredibly lucrative multibillion dollar industry, FIFA is tied to (read: has its hands in the pockets of) advertisers, athletes, laborers, referees, TV networks, media, slaves, and any single person who is a participant, viewer, or fan of soccer on a national level. Because any country that bids to host a World Cup is expected to build stadiums to accommodate upward of five million new people in its cities, FIFA can change their landscapes in one year.

Can you tell me some facts about FIFA that will shock and anger me?

• There are 209 senior men’s national teams and 129 senior women’s national teams under the umbrella of FIFA, with many, many more teams beneath that. These senior national teams are affiliated with six confederations that span the globe. These six confederations operate and answer to (occasionally are bought by) FIFA. The sport of soccer would not exist without FIFA’s paternal and financial oversight.
• In 2014, it was estimated that FIFA made over $2 billion profit from the World Cup alone. That’s a tournament that lasts for barely one month of the year. In FIFA’S 2013 finance report, they made $72 million profit off of $1.3 billion dollars in revenue. The World Cup is a monolithic cash cow for FIFA, but with it or without it, money is being made for the organization.
• FIFA operates under Swiss law, though money is dealt in American dollars. It’s headquarters is in Zurich.
• Reports say that in preparation for the 2022 Men’s World Cup, migrant worker deaths in Qatar have already risen to above 1,000 workers since construction for the World Cup began. The International Trade Union estimates that this number will rise to at above 4,000 workers before the tournament even begins.

Let’s talk about the more recent news. What’s the deal?

FIFA is an immensely corrupt and thoroughly poisoned organization, due in large part to the huge mountains of money that it sits on. Though I recognize it’s hard to swallow, soccer is the world’s biggest sport. Imagine the power that comes with being ostensibly in control of everything and anything that occurs under that football-shaped sun—including tons and tons and tons of cash.

As we know, power corrupts and money poisons, so the men in charge of these dealings have gotten themselves into a little bit of trouble regarding how cash within and around the org is being dealt with. Though investigations of corruption have been ongoing for many years with FIFA, on Tuesday, the hammer definitively fell when long-suspected (and alleged) corruption, racketeering, and bribery was exposed during the arrest of nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives. The FIFA officials are suspected of accepting kickbacks and bribes to the tune of $150 million over the course of 24 years. The full indictment, and all its juicy details, is here.

Who was arrested?

You don’t exactly need to know these names, given your overwhelming lack of interest in this information anyway, but just in case you are being quizzed at gunpoint, here is a breakdown (via the Department of Justice’s indictment) of who was arrested (or will be arrested) due to Tuesday’s shakeup. Some were in Zurich, while others were in Miami, Trinidad, etc., when the news broke:

Jeffrey Webb: Current FIFA vice president and executive committee member, CONCACAF president, Caribbean Football Union (CFU) executive committee member and Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) president.

Eduardo Li: Current FIFA executive committee member-elect, CONCACAF executive committee member and Costa Rican soccer federation (FEDEFUT) president.

Julio Rocha: Current FIFA development officer. Former Central American Football Union (UNCAF) president and Nicaraguan soccer federation (FENIFUT) president.

Costas Takkas: Current attaché to the CONCACAF president. Former CIFA general secretary.

Jack Warner: Former FIFA vice president and executive committee member, CONCACAF president, CFU president and Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) special adviser.

Eugenio Figueredo: Current FIFA vice president and executive committee member. Former CONMEBOL president and Uruguayan soccer federation (AUF) president.

Rafael Esquivel: Current CONMEBOL executive committee member and Venezuelan soccer federation (FVF) president.

José Maria Marin: Current member of the FIFA organizing committee for the Olympic football tournaments. Former CBF president.

Nicolás Leoz: Former FIFA executive committee member and CONMEBOL president.

Four of the defendants were sports marketing executives:

Alejandro Burzaco: Controlling principal of Torneos y Competencias S.A., a sports marketing business based in Argentina, and its affiliates.

Aaron Davidson: President of Traffic Sports USA Inc. (Traffic USA).

Hugo and Mariano Jinkis: Controlling principals of Full Play Group S.A., a sports marketing business based in Argentina, and its affiliates.

And one of the defendants was in the broadcasting business but allegedly served as an intermediary to facilitate illicit payments between sports marketing executives and soccer officials:

José Margulies: Controlling principal of Valente Corp. and Somerton Ltd.

In sum: Rafael Esquivel, Nicolas Leoz, Jeffrey Webb, Jack Warner, Eduardo Li, Eugenio Figueredo, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, and Jose Maria Marin are the FIFA officials. Alejandro Burzaco, Aaron Davidson, Hugo Jinkis, Mariano Jinkis, and José Margulies were the corporate executives.

Wait—did I hear correctly that the U.S. was responsible for the arrests?

You did indeed. This was a U.S. Department of Justice operation—though some officials were arrested in Zurich, Switzerland in what looked like the most chill arrest in recent history. (One of the arrested FIFA officials was allowed to take his luggage with him through a back door of the hotel, and Swiss officials, acting on behalf of the United States, arrived in Nissan Leafs to pick up their targets.) Why were Swiss officials acting on behalf of the U.S.? The Washington Post has a really nice explainer on the topic:

In the case of the FIFA charges, the alleged crimes include wire fraud. In an e-mail to The Washington Post, Prof. Jennifer Arlen of the New York University School of Law pointed out that the need for jurisdiction in that case is fairly rigid. “With wire fraud, one needs a wire that originates in the US,” Arlen wrote. “This means that most of the acts of bribery that occurred [within FIFA] over the years would not be covered.” On Wednesday morning, the FBI searched the offices of CONCACAF, FIFA’s continental confederation located in Miami. Among the companies alleged to have been involved in criminal activity is Traffic Sports USA Inc., which also is based in Florida.

Several of the FIFA officials who were arrested were members of CONCACAF, which is the North, Central America and Caribbean football association. It’s likely in this indictment that the U.S. government found paper trail or dealings that were done on American soil or through our banks, thus giving Attorney General Loretta Lynch reason to get involved.

But why did it take the U.S. to take on an organization everyone agrees is corrupt? Americans don’t even care about soccer!

At Above the Law Redline, Elie Mystal convincingly argues that the U.S. DOJ, rather than another country’s regulators, handed out these indictments specifically because the U.S. doesn’t care about soccer—and isn’t worried about hamstringing its own soccer development programs, as these indictments almost certainly will.

Tell me about this guy that I keep hearing about, Step Ladder. What’s this about him being re-elected?

Sepp Blatter, yeah him. He has been president of FIFA since 1998, then was reelected in 2002, 2007, and 2011—and again, today. What can you say? The guy knows how to make friends by lining their pockets with Swiss Francs and other goodies. An important note from the New York Times that came out prior to his re-election:

FIFA’s president is elected by a one-country, one-vote system among its 209 member associations. That has allowed Mr. Blatter to use his popularity, the relationships he has cultivated over a 40-year career at FIFA and his ability to deliver millions of dollars in development money as an effective counterweight to his unpopularity in Europe.

During his Thursday speech, Mr. Blatter did not directly address the election but indicated, in several different ways, that he believes he is the best person to lead FIFA’s change.

Just because he personally believes he is the best person to “lead FIFA’s change” does not mean he is. The president of the European confederation, UEFA’s Michel Platini, has called for Blatter to step down, saying, he was “disgusted” and “sickened” by the corruption and scandal erupting within the organization.

Sepp Blatter is not going to step down.

What is this Bladder guy saying about all the corruption malarkey?

He is saying exactly what you’d expect, which is that he had no fucking CLUE that there was any corruption or controversy going on in his organization. His full statement, released a day after the arrests of the nine FIFA officials, can be read here, but here’s a taste:

This is a difficult time for football, the fans and for FIFA as an organization. We understand the disappointment that many have expressed and I know that the events of today will impact the way in which many people view us.

LOL I mean Okay.

So what now?

In November of last year, the NY Daily News wrote on Chuck Blazer, the man who ratted FIFA out to the DOJ. Blazer, a former FIFA executive turned FBI informant was caught by authorities for more or less the same shit that is currently going down with these other officials (racketeering, bribing, money laundering). This guy seems fun. It’s likely that some of the information Blazer gave feds is what led to this week’s arrests. Will the other officials turn? To be determined. Could this bring FIFA down? Let’s hope so! Will it be a slow process regardless? Yes.

As for the 2018 and 2022 men’s World Cup tournaments, these issues are a little bit sticky. There is no way that the 2018 World Cup will be moved to a different country, though it’s almost certain that votes were bought in order to get the World Cup hosted by warm, welcoming Russia. The 2022 Qatar World Cup possibly could go somewhere else, a place where there is a soccer culture and heat that isn’t oppressive. FIFA, however, says there will not be a re-vote and both World Cups will stay where they are.

There are rumblings that England plans to boycott the 2018 World Cup in response to Blatter’s being voted in as president once again. People are incredibly eager for change within the organization, but people are also incredibly eager for cold hard cash in their hands. Which one will win out is still on the table. But all of this mess is certainly a beginning to a long, drawn-out, and possibly never-to-be-seen-in-our-lifetime end to the organization of FIFA as we know it.

And the Women’s World Cup? How’s that going?

It all begins in seven days. Find it in your heart to care.

Image via Getty. Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.

A few weeks ago we started using the hashtag #PZintel to report (and speculate about) things of interest in the world of spying and killing. Follow us on Twitter @GawkerPhaseZero in order to keep track of these secrets large and small, as well as rumors that have echoed from the depths. If you have intel to share, contact me at sultana@gawker.com or Bill at william.arkin@gawker.com.

Here is a round-up of the tweets we’ve published so far:

#PZintel: Shibboleth program allows automatic determination of native language for border patrols and ship boarding.

May 29, 2015

#PZintel: Map of commercial satellite imagery currently being purchased by @deptofdefense for #ISIS coverage. pic.twitter.com/wlPDNgmhHi

May 29, 2015

#PZintel: August 2013 Pentagon directive changed focus of 82nd Abn Div training rotation at NTC to an Iran #WMD scenario

May 28, 2015

#PZintel Request: Anyone have any idea what STRATCOM WATCHCON Change Reports (WCR) are used for? Specifically?

May 28, 2015

#PZintel: @dhs_ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) creating a Joint Intelligence Operations Center (JIOC) just like, umm, the military

May 28, 2015

#PZintel: @NoradNorthcom has 17 national level contingency plans in support of "defense of North America."

May 27, 2015

#PZintel: Tower Hawk weapon system - another emerging autonomous killer robot #decepticonsunite pic.twitter.com/KFOyzggWz0

May 27, 2015

#PZintel: Sudden Spirit, a @usairforce intel prgm that looks at connections between known terrorist groups and foreign civil air carriers.

May 27, 2015

#PZintel: @AirtronicUsa of Elk Grove Village, IL producing RPG-7 anti-tank launchers for @USArmy

May 26, 2015

#PZintel: Test of low collateral damage bomb at China Lake range inCalifornia. pic.twitter.com/OsKiaDdCic

May 26, 2015

#PZintel: @ICEgov 24/7 intelligence watch center under the watchful eye of a contractor McMannis and Monsalve

May 26, 2015

#PZintel: @ODNIgov Summer Hard Problems Program (SHARP) investigated use of social media as "covert communications channels” for terrorists

May 26, 2015

#PZintel: Defense Continuity and Mission Assurance (DCMA) sly expansion of emgcy functions into everyday critical infrastructure protection

May 22, 2015

#PZintel: Naval intelligence Naval Undersea Research and Threat Analysis Center (NURTAC) being connected to the cloud

May 22, 2015

#PZintel: @CENTCOM has 23 ops plans in its file cabinets: 10 Campaign Plans, 7 Contingency Plans, 6 Functional Plans

May 22, 2015

#PZintel: JCS J34 "Foxhole" Watch Cell responsible for force protection in the field and green-on-blue threats

May 21, 2015

#PZintel: According to @FBI, Exit 14 area in NJ is highest concentration of critical infrastructure, industrial sites, population in the US

May 21, 2015

#PZintel: Intel community ramping up video production departments like everyone else – next stop no one to read ever again #idiocracyisreal

May 20, 2015

#PZintel: DHS Regional Resilience Assessment Program (RRAP) collecting data on private sector under guise of critical infrastructure safety

May 20, 2015

#PZIntel: @deptofdefense (DOD) Consolidated Intelligence Guidance directs a review of Defense Clandestine Service foreign partnerships

May 19, 2015

#PZintel: 37 Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) tethered aerostat surveillance balloons now over AF & Iraq pic.twitter.com/14XG2XDyaW

May 19, 2015

#PZintel: @DefenseIntel (DIA) nows has #HUMINT at more than 70 Embassy and non-Embassy locations worldwide, including 12 African countries

May 19, 2015

#PZintel: New anti-money launder & CT-finance program aimed at Iranian-owned, Dubai-based Money Service Businesses (MSBs) dealing with #WMD

May 11, 2015

#PZintel: RC-135 Rivert Joint, Combat Sent and Cobra Ball #NSA aircraft and systems have cost #3.2B since 1981 and still flying #RAF too

May 8, 2015

#PZintel: #FBI Special Flight Ops Unit flies #Gulfstream V's on recon, #VIP and courier missions #gettingslizzard pic.twitter.com/FInMth8AmF

May 8, 2015

#PZintel: FBI aviation flies 30+ recon arcft that have been involved in DC Sniper, #OKC, and police corruption cases. pic.twitter.com/WPgeuYSCMI

May 7, 2015

#PZintel: Before #JadeHelm, Abraxas mngd $80M prgm teaching SOF personnel in SW US to conduct clandestine collection pic.twitter.com/EYQGMHSHUH

May 6, 2015

#PZintel: Not just #FBI planes over Baltimore- #NationalGuard Joint Incident Awareness and Assessment (IAA) Team (JIT) brokered other recon

May 6, 2015

#PZintel: Super-secret #JSOC activates Task Force 9 to replace Task Force 27 as #counterterror force in the field. More info, anyone?

May 5, 2015

#PZintel: #Predator and #Reaper #drones currently flying 11,000 combat air patrols annually, 30 a day worldwide,

May 5, 2015

#PZintel: The real #NCIS has a $450 million budget, 2300 personnel, over 194 offices, agents in over 40 countries.

May 4, 2015

TIL #PACOM monitors 600+ infrared events/year, assessing #Chinese #Russian #DPRK launches to determine immediate threats- 2 a day! #pzintel

May 4, 2015

At a court hearing on April 22, a Kentucky judge ordered that Adam Horine be transported from the Carroll County Detention Center to a Lexington hospital for a mental health examination and treatment. Horine, who’d been arrested for disorderly conduct and making verbal threats, was hearing voices and had thoughts of suicide. Hours after the court order, police picked up Horine from the jail, but instead of taking him to the hospital, they put him on a Greyhound bus with a one-way ticket to Florida—a 28-hour ride away. What happened?

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting has the whole bizarre story. According to KyCIR’s sources, Carrollton Police Chief Michael Willhoite proposed a deal to Horine and Judge Elizabeth Chandler before the April court hearing: If Horine—a repeat offender who’d been arrested for theft, drunk driving, and drugs in the past—would leave Kentucky for Florida permanently, the most recent charges against him would be resolved.

In a video of the hearing obtained by KyCIR, Horine can be heard saying that he is mentally and physically ill, claiming repeatedly that his kidneys are failing and that he has been “peeing blood.” After initially expressing interest in the Florida deal, he backed off, asking to be hospitalized instead, and Judge Chandler agreed.

The same day, Carrollton police officer Ron Dickow arrived at the detention center, took him to the bus station, and handed him a ticket and $18 cash. (KyCIR has video of Horine’s departure from jail as well.) Dickow was reportedly acting under orders from Chief Willhoite, who also provided the money for the ticket. Horine arrived in Florida safely.

The Kentucky attorney general’s office is now investigating Horine’s case, and a special prosecutor has been appointed to examine “allegations of misconduct and other criminal violations of Chief Mike Willhoite and Officer Ron Dickow.” Horine was arrested near St. Petersburg and taken back to Kentucky this month after the Kentucky AG issued a warrant alleging, somewhat bafflingly, that he had escaped from jail. According to KyCIR’s R.G. Dunlop, the office may have issued the charge as a ploy to get Horine home after learning of potential misconduct: “The justice system that sent Horine to Florida had to charge him with a new crime in order to extradite him to Kentucky.”

Horine is currently hospitalized at Lexington’s Eastern State Hospital—the facility to which he was originally supposed to be transferred—and awaiting his next court date.

Screengrab via KyCIR. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

After feds announced indictments against ex-House speaker Dennis Hastert yesterday for illegally funneling $3.5 million to an unnamed person from his past as a high-school wrestling coach, an obvious question lingered: What was the cash for? For covering up male-on-male sexual abuse, naturellement.

So the L.A. Times reports, according to two unnamed federal officials involved in the case against Hastert—one of very few GOP House speakers, or speaker-aspirants, in a long stretch since the ’90s who hadn’t suffered a mistress-related scandal in office. Hastert retired from Congress in 2009 and has had a lucrative second life lobbying for big industries like ethanol.

In the realm of political payola scandals, $3.5 million is a lot of hush money, especially for a guy who’s out of public office and not especially high-profile in Beltway media circles these days. It seems a bit steep as a service charge to conceal your average vanilla marital infidelity, too; the Times report seems to imply that Hastert’s alleged misconduct is a little more flavorful than that:

One of the officials, who would not speak publicly about the federal charges in Chicago, said “Individual A,” as the person is described in Thursday’s federal indictment, was a man and that the alleged misconduct was unrelated to Hastert’s tenure in Congress. The actions date to Hastert’s time as a Yorkville, Ill., high school wrestling coach and teacher, the official said.

“It goes back a long way, back to then,” the source said. “It has nothing to do with public corruption or a corruption scandal. Or to his time in office.” Thursday’s indictment described the misconduct “against Individual A” as having “occurred years earlier.”

Asked why Hastert was making the payments, the official said it was to conceal Hastert’s past relationship with the male. “It was sex,’’ the source said. The other official confirmed that the misconduct involved sexual abuse.

These may or may not be the same unnamed officials who told NBC News today that Hastert had definitely had a sexual relationship with a male student at Yorkville High.

Mind you, that’s a lot of anonymous sourcing, but it goes a long way toward explaining why prosecutors literally want to make a federal case out of the way Hastert withdrew his own money from personal accounts. And it adds color to some past reporting on Hastert’s tenure in Congress.

Hastert lost his leadership job in large part because of allegations he covered for Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who confessed a penchant for young male pages before resigning from office in disgrace in 2006. “The people who want to see this thing blow up,” Hastert reportedly complained of the media frenzy surrounding Foley, “are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros.” The following January, amid a voter backlash of disgust with the GOP, Hastert handed his gavel over to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

There have also been dubious whisperings in the past that Hastert himself was a member of a closeted gay cadre on Capitol Hill. “Hastert’s penchant to receive anal sex is well-known to our sources in DC’s gay community,” reported professional conspiracy theorist and Infowars friend Wayne Madsen, as part of a long, lightly sourced, and somewhat mean-spirited 2006 frisking of Hastert’s private life. Madsen alleged, among other things, that:

Hastert, while working from 1964 to 1980 as a popular history/government teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School, in Yorkville, Illinois — a suburb of Chicago — was the subject of persistent rumors about inappropriate contact with male members of his high school wrestling team.

Elaborate as Madsen’s case against Hastert was, it was hampered by the author’s talent for “just mak[ing] shit up” and contradicted by other Hill sources, according to once and future Gawkerer Alex Pareene. But it’s probably getting scrutinized anew by journalists this week, after news of the indictment. And in light of this 2014 video of Hastert getting a “strange” call from “Bruce” in his hometown of Yorkville while live on C-SPAN:

Hmm!

Are you a YHS alum? An ex-Hill intern from those heady days? If you have any additional information that could illuminate Hastert’s current legal woes, or rumored past, share them with us. We’ll run down and publish the best ones. Email adam@gawker.com or comment below.

[Photo credit: AP Images]

Contact the author at adam@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: FD97 D50A DE57 3943 4534 1A49 FA8B 74B4 A7A0 07BE

Dustin “Screech” Diamond, child star turned adult-alleged-stabber, is currently on trial in Port Washington, Wisc., accused of knifing a dude in the hand during a Christmas Day bar scuffle. His defense got off to a great start Wednesday when the judge ordered his attorney, Thomas Alberti, to remove the message “good luck to Dustin and Amanda” (Screech’s fiancée) painted on the rear window of his car.

“I’m telling you right now, anymore shenanigans like that and you’ll find yourself in contempt faster than fast,” said Judge Paul Malloy, according to E!

Things didn’t get any less dramatic Thursday, when Alberti and District Attorney Adam Gerol presented their cases. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports Diamond’s attorney was warned “for misrepresenting witness testimony and disrespectful conduct,” and he snapped at the D.A.—who registered frequent objections during defense questioning—for stepping on some of his evidence.

“You just finished stomping on my exhibits and didn’t apologize,” Alberti said.

The judge ordered the two to take a break.

As for the merits of the case, Diamond’s defense is that the victim was drunk and trying to take photos of him, and that he invaded Screech’s space.

“We’re here over a nick in a drunk guy’s shoulder,” his lawyer summed up.

On the other hand, cops testified that Diamond told them 9 times that he had been holding a pen, not a switchblade. His story apparently changed once he learned someone had been injured and there was video of the incident. (The video is reportedly too blurry to be of much use to the jury.)

The D.A. painted Diamond and his fiancée (who’s charged with disorderly conduct) as belligerent, and argued they’d been “eyeballing” the victim and his friends all night.

If convicted, Diamond faces 5 years in prison, plus 5 years of supervised release.

The thing he regrets most is starring in the mid-2000s pornographic film Screeched.

[Photo: Getty Images]

It’s rare for a video game to hang dong. Cobra Club, the newest game by developer Robert Yang, doesn’t just feature dicks: the game is fundamentally about dicks, how they look, and the many ways people try to make them look good. (NSFW warning!)

“As a gay dude, dick pics are mundane and funny to me,” Yang told me over email. “It always fascinates me that so many dick pics are performed within bathrooms—there’ll be a toilet and a dirty sink in the photo at the same eyeline as a cock, which is soooo not sexy, but at the same time it’s important that those things are there because that’s what makes it seem real and not staged.”

Fittingly, Cobra Club takes place entirely within a bathroom. You play as a dude who wants to take a picture of his dick, in the hopes of impressing other people who send you messages on your phone. Your tools are simple and straightforward: you can move the camera to frame your picture, and you can apply filters and extra effects as needed. Actually getting a good dick pic, however, can be more difficult than beating a Souls game. I’m serious.

Cobra Club is the latest in a line of erotic games for Yang, which include Stick Shift, where you have sex with a car, and Succulent, a game where you make a sexy music video. Cobra Club is more straightforward than either of those games—and there’s a reason for that, Yang says.

Yang’s previous games have had the fortune of being picked up by major YouTubers, meaning that millions of gamers around the world are familiar with his work. But Yang doesn’t feel comfortable with the way in which some YouTubers treated his creations.

“[Cobra Club] is more ‘direct’ in response to all these dudes playing my abstract gay sex innuendo games and saying ‘this is so gay! eww’…basically, when people are being homophobic and gross, the proper response is to be even gayer at them,” Yang told me.

“As a gay dude, dick pics are mundane and funny to me.”

Curious about his claims, I set off into YouTube to see how people were actually covering his games. I walked away unsure of what exactly it was that I’d watched. It’s practically a cliché for YouTubers to react to things they play in over-the-top ways, particularly when it comes to silly, glitchy, or sexual games—and Yang’s games check off all three boxes. It’s also worth nothing that extreme reactions are the sort of gimmick that many YouTubers like to employ, regardless of content or subject matter. They’ll scream ridiculously at horror games, or shout uncontrollably at competitive games. It’s part of the show. Because of that, I don’t feel comfortable calling any of the videos I watched outright homophobic, even if I did see some people play up the supposed ‘gross’ factor in games that have gay overtones or content. But I also don’t feel comfortable simply waving away Yang’s concerns, because some YouTube reactions did give me pause. You can view some of the videos for yourself here.

“I can’t really name any names, they’re all the same to me,” Yang told me. “When a gay or queer person laughs at my games and says it’s disturbing, it’s a compliment, because I know they’re talking about my game rather than the game’s political context. When an 18-34 smirking ‘angry nerd’ straight male Youtuber persona says that, of course it’s going to come off differently; maybe there’s no ‘right way’ for them to laugh at this, they’ll just always sound like an asshole.”

Yang described a situation where one of his games got dropped from a showing because “organizers were afraid that drunk dudes would take it as an opportunity for barely veiled homophobia.” Yang said that because he had witnessed firsthand how some people reacted to the game on YouTube, he was inclined to agree.

“That’s the difficult part of participatory art,” Yang lamented. “The player can be really gross and you have to accept that as part of the art.”

Still, Cobra Club feels like Yang fighting back against the YouTube culture that brought his games so much attention in the first place. Since the focus is on dicks, the game cannot be broadcast on YouTube—players would have to censor the game to upload the video. “If you blur the dick pic, then there’s no point to your video,” Yang said. “If you don’t blur it, you have to hide it behind an age gate, assuming YouTube even allows it to stay there.”

I spent an hour playing Cobra Club yesterday, and it’s probably one of the most interesting games of 2015.

Okay, seriously. This is where the parade of dicks really starts—you’ve been warned!

Cobra Club is a singleplayer game that will have you taking a virtual dick pics, which you can then share with a bunch of other characters who, you hope, will love your best pics.

When you first start the game up, you are greeted with this screen:

Obviously, I consented. Which brought me to this page:

In order to navigate the network of anonymous dick pics, you’ll need a username. Amusingly, Cobra Club’s built-in system is pretty good at automating handles…

Being that Dragon Ball Z is a sure-fire way to get things hot and heavy, I happily accepted the username ‘GokuElectrical833.’ Once I did, things immediately got real.

Boom. This is the game. This is Cobra Club. It’s staring at a weiner. It’s hoping against hope that there’s a way to make your wang look good to other people. Just your dick. Your face doesn’t factor into the equation; the game blurs it out.

“In gay dating networks, your body pic / dick pic is a promise as to how great the sex is going to be, while your face pic is where you show how attractive and normal and safe you are,” Yang wrote in a post-mortem on the game.

“Purpose-built gay male dating sites like Adam4Adam let you ‘lock’ certain photos from most users unless you specifically unlock it for them. So the typical use-case is to chat someone up, and then unlock your dick pic for someone to show them that you mean business... except some users are closeted or “DL” (down-low), so instead of locking their dick pic, these guys are locking their face pic. Yes, their dick is more public than their face.”

Initially, in addition to letting you frame the picture and add extra effects, the game also lets you pick a skin color and adjust your erection at-will:

Is the erection slider is the most important video game innovation of 2015? Possibly. I couldn’t marvel at it for too long, however: almost immediately, the game sends you requests by other members of the Cobra Club:

The game gives you four reply options: two are positive (e.g. “whut up,” “bonjour”), and two are negative (e.g. “bye-bye,” “thx but no”). Each one will typically consist of no more than a couple of words, and the game decides what phrases you can say in every interaction. After playing it for an hour, I’m impressed by the number of things everyone can say in this game—it’s all so goofy, in the best way.

If you happen to be nice to your suitors, they will reward you thusly:

The game then lets you react to the picture you’ve been sent. As much as you may prefer being nice to other people, Cobra Club often gives you the best troll answers, making it difficult to fight the urge to be mean or ridiculous:

Characters that send you dick pics will of course also expect something in return. Which, you know, fair! I feel bad for the first few people I spoke to in Cobra Club, though. I had no idea what I was doing, and I’m convinced I took the sort of dick pic that would make Madeleine Holden, better known as the creator of Critique My Dick Pic, wince:

As far as dick pics go, Critique My Dick Pic is the golden standard—people send pictures to the website, and Holden evaluates them. Every picture I took in Cobra Club, I mentally asked myself, “what might Critique My Dick Pic say about this?” And sure enough, the website was a huge influence on Cobra Club. Yang says he’s a fan of Holden’s trans-inclusive, race-inclusive, no-shaming policy.

“[Holden’s] critiques are often funny and disarming in how formally they treat dick pics, but they always seem honest and earnest,” Yang wrote on his blog.

[A review on Critique My Dick Pic]

“In her dick pic reviews, she makes a case for a certain progressive feminist dick pic aesthetic: one that values the whole of a body, the posture, the hand placement, the lighting, the background. She has a particular distaste for gag dick pics, characterizing them as lazy, and she harshly grades ‘log’ pics that prioritize size above all.”

As wonderful and welcoming as Critique My Dick Pic may be, I don’t actually have such a good relationship with dick pics in my day-to-day life. I associate the term with jerks who send unwanted and unsolicited pictures, and pompous twats who are convinced their junk is god’s gift to man—so why wouldn’t I want to see it? Or worse, I associate dick pics with assholes who show you their cock because they want to make you feel powerless.

I have no love for people like that, but playing through Cobra Club did make me feel for people who just want to consensually send sexy pictures to someone. It’s very easy to judge a dick pic; most are terrible. Turns out, that’s because it’s genuinely difficult to take a great dick pic! Especially in a bathroom like the one in Cobra Club.

Eventually, I stopped being such a jerk to other (virtual) dudes in Cobra Club, and started exchanging dick pics left and right. Soon, the picture swaps meant that I was drowning in more virtual wang than I could mentally process, but I was surprised to find that some people offered me more than just dick pics.

Every so often, someone in Cobra Club will tell you about a hidden function in the game. Click on something X number of times, or in a specific order, and bam! You unlock special functions that let you take more sophisticated dick pics. I wont give away too much here, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t long before these secret functions got out of control:

I was also pleased to find that the computer was capable of sending me a half-decent dick pic every so often too:

Eventually, I found myself inviting my girlfriend to take a dick pic for me, in the hopes of learning what other people find attractive in a picture. This is what she came up with:

Overall, it’s fascinating to see what other people think makes for a good dick pic. One of Cobra Club’s hidden mechanics is that it uploads some of your pictures to a public Tumblr, a mechanic which is as revealing as it is interesting. Here’s a look at some of the pictures that other people have taken:

“As I see it, there are three play strategies in Cobra Club,” Yang wrote on his blog. “(1) make a really weird ‘funny’ dick, (2) make a ‘good’ dick pic, (3) recreate your ‘actual’ dick (if you have one) as faithfully as possible.

“People who play in public will likely go for option 1 to diffuse awkwardness, but without an audience that’ll probably get kind of boring. Even option 2 is surprisingly intimate, it forces you to visualize and articulate what your ‘ideal’ dick looks like, to expose your supposed fantasy.”

Whichever option you choose, I recommend giving Cobra Club a shot. You may not manage to create the best dick pic in the world, but you’ll almost certainly learn something along the way. I know I did.

You can download Cobra Club here.

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Ross Ulbricht, the young “California geek” who became the internet’s most notorious drug lord and began a still-raging debate over online privacy and liberty, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The New York Times reports Ulbricht, who was convicted of multiple narcotics-related charges early this year, was just sentenced:

Mr. Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by the judge, Katherine B. Forrest, for his role as what prosecutors described as “the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.”

He also faced a mandatory minimum 20-year sentence on one of the counts for which he was convicted.

A life sentence for a man in his early 30s is way past 20 years. The fact that Ulbricht brazenly documented his crime in a series of journal entries didn’t seem to have endeared him with the judge:

Forrest took a jab at Ulbricht for keeping a journal. The audience laughed in the overflow court room where I was watching. #SilkRoadTrial

May 29, 2015

Ulbricht’s attorney says he will appeal the decision.

Hulu has pulled all episodes of 19 Kids and Counting “for the time being,” according to CEO Mike Hopkins. He says the company is just following TLC’s lead in the wake of Josh Duggar’s recent admission that when he was a teenager, he molested some of his sisters. TLC pulled 19 Kids from its lineup last week.

There are no more cops in riot gear in Baltimore, but the severe shift in their presence —from armored cops policing peaceful protests to their laidback distance during the high homicide count this month— can’t help but feel like a silent counter-threat to some citizens of West Baltimore. The end of May marks the city’s deadliest month in over 15 years, with more than two dozen people shot over Memorial Day weekend, many in the neighborhood where Freddie Gray was killed by police force and where protests in his memory ended in riots and a mayor-requested state of emergency.

“The city wants people to die, they don’t care about us,” a mother and resident of the Gilmor Homes, where Gray grew up, tells me. We talk about the 9-year-old boy who was shot in the leg on Memorial Day. (Yesterday, on May 28, a 7-year-old boy and his mother were both shot in the head and died.) “First they bring in military as we mourn the loss of a young man, like we gon’ try to get another one of our kids killed. And best believe that when the TV [cameras] go away, the [cops] do too.”

If it’s surprising, it shouldn’t be. The last time I was in Baltimore, during the week of the Freddie Gray protests and the State’s Attorney’s decision to charge the six officers involved in his arrest and subsequent death, the sense of community between locals was strong, supportive, and vibrant. The suspicion and distrust of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was at an all-time high: In the span of a few days, she described teenagers who were corralled by police in riot-gear as they left their school as “thugs,” suggested citizens act as community peacekeepers between riot-gear cops and violent citizens, showed distrust of peaceful protesting by instituting a city-wide curfew, and even butted heads with the officers from the Baltimore City Police Department.

Some of the same confusion that plagued the community then persists today, because Freddie Gray’s death hasn’t explicitly brought about local political transparency or policing policy change. Not yet, at least—and probably not for a long time, if ever. What is clear is that last month’s protests embroiled Baltimore’s local government in a nationally televised ideological PR scandal, as Gray’s death rightly added to the rally-cry for a national movement against police brutality. Even as government-friendly outlets like CNN and FOX have told the story in ways sympathetic to local government, though, residents know that the problems were deeply systemic. There are Bad Cops and Good Cops, but the latter often silenced by the former; community police are pitted against the public by informal arrest quotas; the mayor’s word is only as good as the camera following her; and the sorts of policy changes that allow the political class to position itself as responsive to the citizenry are often the kind that prevent police from protecting and serving effectively.

We’re now a few weeks removed from the state of emergency, and with all six officers involved in Gray’s death indicted by a grand jury on various charges. (Two —Edward Nero and Garrett Miller— were indicted on second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office for “failure to perform a duty regarding the safety of a prisoner,” and illegal arrest.) This news was shared with the public and officers alike on May 21, the day before the long holiday. By the end of the month, the city would suffer the highest number of violence-related deaths (35) in the city since May 1999.

“See all these bodies dropping?” a Baltimore police officer asked me when we spoke earlier this week. “People wanted a kind and gentler police department. Well, they’re receiving a kind and gentler police department.” He sighs before continuing. “That’s basically it. For real.”

After the overwhelming national coverage of the Freddie Gray protests, the police, the mayor’s office, and the Fraternal Order of Police have been called to task and, as a result, are constantly on press-conference parade. Department meetings with the FOP and internal memos are frequently made public, both in response to criticism about the opacity of internal decisions and as a result of increased violence through the city. A memo from Police Commissioner Batts noted that the spikes in violence were highest in “neighborhoods historically impacted by violent crime” (i.e. the Western District, which includes Gray’s Gilmor Homes), and sent veteran officers from the neighborhood out to rebuild trust and community relationships.

While Western District vets were put to work in their old stomping grounds, other police were told to centralize downtown and around tourist centers, about three miles southeast of the most violent part of the city, as the department placed “high emphasis on key commercial corridors” closer to City Hall and the Inner Harbor. When I shared this information with the same Gilmor Homes resident, she gave a resigned laugh. “What a show, I mean, Lord, what a show,” she says. “This isn’t the kind of thing you smile and shake hands over. Justice hasn’t come yet. These are people scrambling to cover their butts because they know they’re being watched now. We are still waiting for justice.”

Meanwhile, members of the alleged “kind and gentler” department bristled with anger at the orders as violence continued to spread around them. One officer I spoke with blames the mayor’s office for the lack of an organization and support for the department, citing resentment over how officers were told to play nice while watching City Hall support charges against their peers.

“We weren’t told not to do our jobs, if you know what I’m saying,” he says. “But you’ve got officers who are scared now. Officers who are in fear of being charged with shit. Officers are scared that another incident might happen. It’s not a common thing, but the uprising and the riots that have been going on for years. That’s been common. Freddie Gray is a recent example, but we’ve had blocks of fights all times of the year.”

The cops aren’t wrong in feeling unsupported by those at City Hall. According to one BPD street cop, the city has continued to handle basic internal affairs disastrously. He says that low-ranking cops, many of whom are activated on holiday-weekends, are still being shorted on regular-hours pay.

“They fucking ruined our paychecks again. We were always screwed from the state of emergency money, [but] two weeks ago we didn’t get paid regular working hours. A week ago we didn’t get regular [work hours] overtime, say if someone worked 15-hours. It’s so fucked up. Everybody’s shit is fucked up,” he says. “No one picks up when you call. When we complain, nothing happens. The city can cut checks, but they only cut checks for sergeants. They didn’t cut checks for everyone who needed to get paid. They only cut checks for the supervisors and said ‘Fuck y’all,’ to the rest of us.”

He goes on to say that communications within the department are severely lacking and that basic procedural issues are addressed only for show, specifically referencing protective gear issued to cops.

“People are missing crotch protectors and leg protectors and helmets. So now, they’ve got half of this stuff and everyone has to go ask for the other half,” he says. “They order shipments but it’s nobody’s job to make sure that officers have what they need. Nobody. When we’re called to put gear on, they just put everything in a box truck and then come to you and say, ‘Come get your shit.’ It’s crazy. Then two days later, you can’t ask for what’s missing.”

The theme here is how much is being done for show, and how little of it has to do with working with the community at large. As the unrest within the department is starting to make itself known, the city has started backpedalling in an effort to show support to the FOP. Commissioner Batts apologized to the police union earlier this week. From the Baltimore Sun, who obtained a recording of the closed meeting:

“People think we’re down. People are giving up on us,” Batts said. “I mean this with all my heart: We need to show how fucking good we are. ... I stand ready to lead you out of this.”

Elsewhere, the Fraternal Order of Police released another statement, claiming that police are “under siege”:

The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest. Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty. Right now they can go to jail for following Supreme Court decisions such as Illinois v. Wardlow. The Baltimore States Attorney’s Office essentially overturned the Supreme Court’s decision. We hope that all leadership will come together to support the police to move the community forward.

The memo was perfectly timed, as more and more police officers have begun to talk to the press. The ever-conservative Sean Hannity interviewed an anonymous police officer on his FOX show, while GQ, Esquire, and other culture magazines have recently interviewed former BCPD officers about the current turn of events. A non-profit called Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance (POPPA!) has even sent NYPD officers to Baltimore over the past few days to help them get through this ... difficult time.

The BCPD officer I spoke with warns that people from within the department flip-flopping so regularly will only increase tension. “[Officers] are like, ‘Man, fuck this place!’ You know what I mean? People are just doing what they gotta do,” he says. “Officers think, ‘We got to take care of our own. We got to take care of each other.’ The mayor and State’s Attorney are the first to sell us out to the press. It’s like, c’mon. I know you had to charge [the officers involved with Gray’s death], but at least defend us on TV and shit. I get it. I get the charges. But if they can’t pay us and are also on TV fucking us, making our jobs harder, fuck that.”

I ask the mother I had been speaking to what she thought about this—the behind-the-scenes tension between cops and the mayor’s office, between cops and citizens, between citizens and the media. “Let me be clear, this is nothing new,” she says in a serious tone. “Who knows what will happen next? We just live our lives every day, we protect our kids. The rest of this? Who knows. It’s good now but here we’re always living one senseless death away from it all going to hell.”

Photos via Getty.

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Iggy Azalea, comin’ straight outta Mullumbimby crack rock to the pop-pop or whatever, has finally thrown in the towel on her embattled Great Escape Tour, she announced in a public statement today. All dates will be canceled, and money will be refunded to anyone who paid to see ... whatever this is:

And if certain rumors are true, that’s really not a lot of refunds.

Although the official story has been that Iggy delayed the tour for months to make sure it lived up to her exacting standards (that may be half-true, because word is she’s really not much fun to work with), it also might be that Iggy Iggy is not biggie enough to headline an arena tour.

Here’s a graphic from March purporting to show that her ticket sales were in the toilet:

That’s a half-full Staples Center, and tickets had been on sale for more than 3 months.

“There will be a new tour planned around Iggy’s new record to be released in 2016 and we apologize for any inconvenience,” Iggy’s statement threatens.

“It’s my first arena tour. And I’d like it to not be my last arena tour,” she said in March, when she initially rescheduled the entire thing.

Best of luck with that.

[h/t Gossip Cop]

For about the first 15 seconds of Bob and Bev Holwager’s rendition of “Blank Space,” you figure you’re watching a pretty ordinary fan-made Taylor Swift video. The background graphics are pretty trippy, yes, but you’ve seen weirder. Then the squished-up sports car drives past the ancient ruins and a rose-hued mushroom cloud rises on the horizon.

Bob and Bev Holwager, so far as I can tell, are a karaoke-loving middle-aged couple from New Castle, Indiana. They’ve uploaded 318 videos across two separate channels in their five years on YouTube, and nearly all of them feature Bob and Bev—accompanied by the occasional guest singing popular songs with varying degrees of comprehensibility. The couple’s taste in music is wide—they sing Robin Thicke and Shania Twain and Nickelback and Rammstein—but the videos are unified by an uncanny visual aesthetic: green screens, Bob ‘n Bev avatars multiplied several times over, gradually shifting backgrounds, Sega Dreamcast-era CGI. In other words, this is just the sort of low-budget oddness that you are by now used to seeing parodied on Tim & Eric Awesome Show and Portlandia and Tumblr and YouTube itself—except that this appears to be the genuine article, whatever that means.

I first came across Bob and Bev when a redditor posted their “Tik Tok” video to the site’s “delusionalartists” board, a self-described “collection of awful work produced by artists that fail to realize that they lack any measurable talent.” I don’t think they fit in with the self-aggrandizing hacks that the forum is meant to skewer, though. They obviously don’t take themselves very seriously, for one thing, and while their animations won’t win Oscars, they’re more impressive than anything you or I could pull off. It’s easy to laugh at their videos—and they are very funny—but there’s some sweetness there too. Try not to get choked up when Bev wishes Bob a happy anniversary in the intro to their insane version of “SexyBack,” or when she dedicates Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” to Brownie, her deceased German Shepherd.

“Royals” - Lorde

“SexyBack” - Justin Timberlake

“Blurred Lines” - Robin Thicke

“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” - Green Day

“Kryptonite” - 3 Doors Down

(No green screen on this one)

“Fuck You” - Cee-Lo

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Media gadfly and would-be mogul Michael Wolff has a new book out, or maybe coming out soon, presumably with a title and so on. Here are the blurbs:

The blurbs for Michael Wolff's new book pic.twitter.com/PHERgmsUeD

May 29, 2015

While we appreciate our inclusion in this murderers’ row of “big shots,” we feel this quote only scratches the surface of Gawker’s extensive writings on Michael Wolff, which date back to this site’s earliest days (when it devoted more energy to covering minor local media figures like Michael Wolff).

Here, then, is our suggestion for a revised and extended edition of Wolff’s book jacket, featuring a bit more of our commentary on the man through the years. His publisher may feel free to use any or all of these for the paperback.

Art by Jim Cooke

Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been memorializing the hottest and most famous among them in wax. The figures created by Madame Tussaud and her army of artists and are so lifelike that you might find it impossible to tell them apart from the real thing. Don’t believe me? Check out the sliding images below and see if you can tell the difference between living celebrities and their perfect wax counterparts.

Ryan Gosling

Pharrell

Jimmy Fallon

Jennifer Lopez

Lorde

Taylor Swift

Zayn Malik

Anne Hathaway

Chewbacca

Beyoncé and Barack Obama

Pretty tough, huh?

Images via Getty/AP/screengrab.

Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.