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“In 2013, the Australian police made their largest methamphetamine seizure ever, 1,300 pounds discov


500 Days of Kristin, Day 147: Happy Father's Day, Dennis Cavallari

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500 Days of Kristin, Day 147: Happy Father's Day, Dennis Cavallari

Here’s to the man who raised Kristin Cavallari: her dad, Dennis.

500 Days of Kristin, Day 147: Happy Father's Day, Dennis Cavallari

Photo of Kristin and Dennis courtesy Kristin, who posted it two years ago.


This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

ISIS Fighters Set Mines Around Ancient Ruins of Palmyra

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ISIS Fighters Set Mines Around Ancient Ruins of Palmyra

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Islamic State have planted land-mines and explosives around the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, which was captured in May.

It is not clear whether ISIS are planning to blow up the city and its ruins, or whether the explosives are simply meant to impede advancing government troops.

“They have planted it yesterday. They also planted some around the Roman theater, we still do not know the real reason,” the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdulrahman, told Reuters.

“The city is a hostage in their hands, the situation is dangerous,” Syria’s head of antiquities, Maamoun Abdulkarim, said.

According to the BBC, the Observatory reports that Syrian soldiers have begun amassing outside the city and have launched air strikes against a residential neighborhood, killing at least eleven people.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Police Pursue "Credible Sighting" of Escaped Inmates

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Police Pursue "Credible Sighting" of Escaped Inmates

On Saturday, two men matching the description of escaped prisoners Richard Matt and David Sweat were seen in the Allegheny County town of Friendship, near New York’s border with Pennsylvania, the Guardian reports.

Authorities descended upon the remote, rural town on Sunday, but did not find the escaped inmates. According to the Guardian, New York state police say they have investigated more than 600 tips and leads since the inmates escaped earlier this month.

In addition to police officers called in to supplement the search force, civilians came to Friendship to witness the spectacle of the inmates being apprehended, the New York Times reports. They were turned away at police barriers.

The Wellsville Daily Reporter speculates that another reason for the influx of civilians to the area could be the $50,000 reward offered for information leading to the inmates’ capture.

According to the Times, it now seems unlikely that Matt and Sweat—if they are together at all—are still in Friendship.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

According to the New York Daily News, presidential hopeful and deflated basketball Donald Trump has

Star Wars Child Star Jake Lloyd Arrested After High-Speed Chase

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Star Wars Child Star Jake Lloyd Arrested After High-Speed Chase

Former child actor Jake Lloyd, who portrayed aspiring podracer Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, was arrested in South Carolina on Wednesday following a police chase the exceeded speeds of 100 miles an hour, the Associated Press reports.

According to authorities, the 26-year-old led deputies on a miles-long chase that began in Charleston, South Carolina and ended in another county entirely when Lloyd crashed his vehicle. From TMZ:

Deputies say Jake began passing cars on the double yellow line and began driving recklessly, at high speeds.

Cops say eventually Jake lost control of his car, which ran off the road, through a fence and into a wooded area where it struck several trees.

The fallen padawan now faces charges of resisting arrest, reckless driving, driving without a license and failure to stop for a blue light. As of Sunday, Lloyd reportedly remains behind bars on bonds totaling 10,700 credits.

[Image via Colleton County Detention Center]

The BBC reports that more than 120 people died in Pakistan this weekend after temperatures as high a

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The BBC reports that more than 120 people died in Pakistan this weekend after temperatures as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit hit the country’s Sindh province. In neighboring India, a recent weeks-long heatwave claimed at least 2,330 lives, according to officials.

Fearing Family Dog, Cop Accidentally Shoots 4-Year-Old Girl

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Fearing Family Dog, Cop Accidentally Shoots 4-Year-Old Girl

On Friday, an Ohio woman sought aid from a police officer who subsequently shot her 4-year-old niece while attempting to shoot their charging family dog, the New York Daily News reports.

Authorities say the officer was investigating an unrelated call in the Columbus suburb of Whitehall when he heard the aunt of 4-year-old Ava Ellis call for help. From The Columbus Dispatch:

As the officer was walking from the home to his patrol car, a woman a few houses away called out to him, saying her sister and the girl’s mother, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself.

The officer was at the doorway when a dog charged at him, [police spokesperson Denise] Alex-Bouzounis said.

The officer fired once, missing the animal but striking the girl in the right leg.

The girl was then taken to an area hospital, where she is expected to recover.

“At first I thought maybe he’d shot the dog,” witness Gary Parsley told WBNS-TV, “because she was saying something about ‘Why would you try to shoot the dog?’ and he said something like the dog was attacking him, or something like that. Then, she started saying ‘You shot my kid!’”

Columbus police are reportedly still investigating the shooting.

[Image via WTHR-TV//h/t Raw Story]


"I'm on Fire," Screams Masked Streaker Pouring Milk on Self in Walmart

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"I'm on Fire," Screams Masked Streaker Pouring Milk on Self in Walmart

According to WOWK-TV, two men were arrested in Kentucky this weekend after filming a video where one of them runs exposed through Walmart wearing a Halloween mask while dousing himself in milk and yelling, “I’m on fire!”

Pike County Sheriff Rodney Scott says Timothy Smith and David Daniels are guilty of indecent exposure for making the prank video uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday.

“I wouldn’t want to go in Walmart and see somebody walking around naked or running around naked,” Scott told WYMT on Friday, “so they need to go to jail.”

The original video, which shows nudity, has since been removed from YouTube.

“The first question I would have would be, ‘Why?’” Scott said. “Why would they want to do it?”

[Image via YouTube]

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Fox & Friends Co-Host Throws Ax Directly Into Bystander

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Fox & Friends Co-Host Throws Ax Directly Into Bystander

How could the cast of Fox & Friends, a reality show about several adults who can’t read, get any worse? How about if its anchors started throwing sharp weapons at people on the street?

Fox & Friends Co-Host Throws Ax Directly Into Bystander

For some reason, co-anchor Pete Hegseth attempted to throw an ax at a target just before a commercial break. Several West Point drummers were lined up behind said target, drumming away to celebrate Flag Day.

But instead of hitting the target, or even the wooden wall holding up the target, the ax sailed over and nailed one of the drummers right in the arm—by some miracle not dismembering him. Drummer Jef Prosperie recounted the ax-blow on Facebook:

I was hit by an axe while performing a drum solo live on National TV.....words I never imagined saying! This happened last Sunday and I have been reluctant to post but starting to receive inquiries from concerned family and friends. I am thankful to God that the double sided blade only hit broadside on the outer elbow with significant impact and a couple of cuts as it fell along my wrist. It could have been much worse or fatal. Focusing on full physical and emotional recovery.

Pat, we were doing commercial bumps on Fox and Friends Sunday morning celebrating the Army’s 240th birthday and flag day. My leadership told me they were told there would be no axe throwing. I think the anchor person went rogue and decided to throw it. He had only thrown it once before in practice for an upcoming segment and they told him to throw it with more force. The vid you see is edited showing the Televised portion of the throw and then edited to a portion that was taken on someone’s phone of us being videoed. The part that was actually televised showed the overthrown axe and then segued to us for the drum solo bump, only showing me walking behind the section holding my arm. The actual part where the axe hit me was not televised. Poor decision, obvious negligence, should not have happened, could have been avoided. When shooting or throwing, always know what is behind your target. Basic safety rule. I’m feeling blessed on Father’s day with my 5 children, alive, and with all limbs.

“I think the anchor person went rogue and decided to throw it.”

[h/t Mediaite]


Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

Woman Claims She Was Attacked by Black Men, Actually Attacked by Makeup

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Woman Claims She Was Attacked by Black Men, Actually Attacked by Makeup

This weekend, in the wake of last week’s racially-motivated mass shooting in Charleston, a Texas woman claimed on Facebook that she’d been brutally beaten by three black men outside a Texarkana Walmart store. It now appears as though she made the whole thing up.

In her now-deleted Facebook post, Ashley Casey Martin wrote, “Just got jumped by 3 African Americans ourside of the as Walmart they are in a white ford 150 extended cab. Arkansas tags. They hit me inside Walmart and were cussing. I was very polite and asked them to lower their voices and the cuss words in front of my 3 year old daughter and this is the outcome. What has the world come to...”

The accompanying photo showed Martin with two exaggerated black eyes and a bloody nose that appeared drawn on with makeup. After people started calling Martin out for her apparently made-up injuries, the Texarkana (Tex.) Police Department posted, and then deleted, a Facebook statement saying they “believe the post to be fake” and “the injuries... are highly questionable,” according to the Daily Dot.

In following up on the story, the Daily Dot learned that Walmart wasn’t aware of any violent incidents taking place at the store during the time frame in question, and that Texarkana Police have no record of the attack.

When asked why the Facebook post accusing Martin of faking had been removed, police told the Daily Dot, “We were informed that she is emotionally disturbed and that they are attempting to get her the assistance that she needs. We have removed the post to avoid contributing to her difficult struggle.”

Martin maintained that the beating was real, and posted a second unconvincing photo as proof, writing:

“Here is your police report. Sorry I got jumped by three African American young men. I have 2 black eyes and nose still is bleeding, and somehow I am in the wrong. Enough for people to say it was makeup, how embarassing and very rude quite frankly. I don’t want you pitty (sic) attention anything. I’m just warning there are dangerous people in Texarkana be careful. They did this to me for no reason in front of my 3 year old. At Texas side Walmart.”

She has since deleted all of her social media accounts.

[h/t Daily Dot, Photos: Facebook, Instagram]

Obama Admits: "There Are Black Helicopters"

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Obama Admits: "There Are Black Helicopters"

Appearing on Marc Maron’s podcast today, President Obama addressed what is perhaps one of the longest-living conspiracies in America: the existence of black helicopters. They’re real!

“There are black helicopters,” he said, “but we generally don’t deploy them on U.S. soil.”

(Black helicopters, on the simplest level, are helicopters intentionally painted black, with sound-suppression and low radar signature—the kind of helicopter intended to conduct operations like the penetration of Pakistani airspace, as in the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, and the kind eternally claimed by conspiracy theorists to be used by the U.S. government for various nefarious missions.)

I say hooray for transparency, but, of course, the president is wrong, wrong, and wrong. I don’t just mean on the terminology. They are indeed “deployed” on U.S. soil (that is, they are based in the United States), and they are also used there. Obama was probably referring to the black Army helicopters of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) headquartered at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, but there are actually black helicopters belonging to at least three departments and at a dozen potential locations inside the United States—more on this below.

But what is Obama saying, anyway? That they never train? That they never participate in exercises? That they never “deploy” in support of operations? With all of the news about the fleet of FBI aviation aircraft and the Jade Helm exercise, are you really claiming that “generally” is supposed to mean: Never, or hardly ever? I’m sorry, Mr. President, but you aren’t up to date, and you don’t spend enough time looking at the skies, which are filled with federal and law enforcement helicopters, aircraft, drones, and who knows what else, prying and spying and also engaged in other secret missions: continuity of government, nuclear emergency, border and drug surveillance.

And it doesn’t help matters that one of the main helicopters is called Blackhawk, which leads to headlines such as Black Hawk helicopter to fly over East Massachusetts (which appeared in the Boston Globe this week) because the military is itself confused as to whether the helicopters are Blackhawks (one word) or Black Hawk (two).

We’ve know for decades that the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) which supports JSOC and these types of operations, flies black helicopters. And since 9/11, that Regiment has doubled in size, with the addition of a 3rd and 4th Battalion.

  • 1st and 2nd battalions, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
  • 3rd Battalion, 160th SOAR, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia
  • 4th Battalion, 160th SOAR, Ft. Lewis, Washington

JSOC also has a unit called the Aviation Tactical and Evaluation Group at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, which flies the most secret helicopters in support of clandestine missions.

And then there’s the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) at Quantico, Virginia, which has its own helicopter unit doing most of its work inside the United States. That’s the Department of Justice, but it is about as military as military could be.

And what about the apparatus of something called JEEP, the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan for whisking away presidential successors and VIPs? The helicopters for these missions belong to the Army (at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia), the Marine Corps (at Anacostia Naval Station), and the Air Force (at Andrews AFB, Maryland). And additional helicopters from naval bases in southern Maryland augment that force when middle-of-the-night missions are required.

And that’s not to mention other agencies and departments suspected of having their own black helicopters, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Air and Marine Operations, U.S. Marshals Services, the U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Capitol Police, all of whom would be mobilized to support federal government emergencies and missions in an emergency. Let’s add to that list the helicopters belonging to the DC, Maryland and Virginia National Guards, which all have “wartime” domestic missions. How many of them can fly black?

Obama Admits: "There Are Black Helicopters"

And then there’s weird helicopter units we barely know a thing about. Take the Eastern Measurements Office, part of the Nevada Operations Office of the Department of Energy and based as Andrews AFB in Maryland. Their job is nuclear radiation search/detection program and most of their activities are secreted under special access programs.

Oh, and there’s also Air Force Special Operations Command in Florida and New Mexico and SEAL Team 6/Naval Special Warfare Development Group in southern Virginia; and naval special operators in San Diego, and the Northern Command apparatus at Ft. Sam Houston in Texas that directly supports border control, which of course is surveilled by three dozen helicopters of Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, which also flies Predator drones.

And let’s not forget the DEA. And just regular old cops.

Mr. President, it’s dark out there.

[Top photo courtesy of the Department of Defense. Bottom photo from AP.]

You can contact me at william.arkin@gawker.com, and follow us on Twitter at @gawkerphasezero. If you are into the theater of being underground, you can anonymously deliver tips through Gawker Media SecureDrop.

Retired Baseball Player Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

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Retired Baseball Player Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

Former professional baseball player Darryl Hamilton was found dead in a suburban Houston home yesterday, according to the Houston Chronicle. His girlfriend’s body was also found in the house, leading police to believe the crime may have a been a murder-suicide.

From the Chronicle:

The bodies of Hamilton, 50, and Monica Jordan, 44, were found about 4:45 p.m. Sunday inside the house in the 11500 block of Island Breeze, according to the Pearland Police Department.

Police said officers were sent to the home on an emergency call about a disturbance. When they arrived, they found the body of Hamilton near the front entry way. The body of Jordan was found in another part of the home.

Hamilton had been shot several times, and Jordan died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according investigators who spoke with the Chronicle. The couple’s 13-month-old son was found unharmed in the home and turned over to Child Protective Services. Just hours before his death on Father’s Day, Hamilton reportedly posted a photograph of himself with his sons from a previous marriage to Facebook.

During his 13-year career, Hamilton hit .291 for five teams, including the 2000 New York Mets team that won the National League pennant. He’s worked as a broadcaster for the MLB Network since 2013.


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

Stowaway Cat Sneaks Into An Airplane And Rides The Wing Back To Earth

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Stowaway Cat Sneaks Into An Airplane And Rides The Wing Back To Earth

Just another routine flight in this ultralight aircraft, ‘til a cat pops out of the port side wing and realizes why its sleeping spot got so noisy all of a sudden! Don’t worry, the plane and cat got down safely.

Planes like this are extremely simple; not much more to it than a few control cables, and a frame with some thin material stretched over it. That wing probably made a pretty warm, cozy, and altogether awesome place to nap until it got few hundred feet off the ground.

The cat actually looks pretty composed with a facefull of wind.

Hat tip to Jack!


Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.


The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

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The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

Let’s say you’re a straight woman who just moved to New York. You’d like to meet a guy, but your friend circle is too small for set you up; you hate the bar scene; and you can’t seem to get a match on Tinder. In your dark night of the soul, searching for any connection at all, you turn to the Craigslist personals. Among the first posts you come across is from a self-described 27-year-old “single guy with no kids, living and working in the city.” It is headlined: “GOT BOOBS?”

These are the murky waters that Jamie Cricket Kauget dredges. Kauget, a Brooklyn-based artist, began reading Craigslist’s personal ads nine years ago, when she was in law school. (She’s a personal injury lawyer by day.) The vulnerability on display offered a satisfying contrast to the bluster and strained self-assurance that many of her classmates projected, and soon, she was following Craigslist like a soap opera, noticing recurring characters and vague storylines. Some frequent posters would continually reinvent themselves, presenting a series of new-and-improved identities; others would subtly refine their approach to self-advertising over time.

Six years after her initial voyeuristic attraction to Craigslist’s community of lonely lovers, Kauget began drawing them. In a small room at the Bushwick Open Studios arts festival this month, she displayed a series of funny and sympathetic paintings and line drawings of Craiglists personals posters—all of which were created from the photos that posters attached to their ads. (She’s never actually contacted her subjects.) The works are “studies in loneliness,” Kauget says, but they also make up a “pseudo anthropology project”—a survey of the culture of Craigslist courtship and all its attendant slang, mores, and rituals.

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your Craiglist drawings are very funny, but not necessarily derisive. Do you feel any tension between laughing at these people and exploring their humanity?

I met up with a girl off of Craigslist when I was younger, and it was a really dark time for me, when I felt like an untouchable pariah in society. I’ve really been there, and I still feel that way three times a week. I think the only reason I can talk about having done it myself is that it happened a long time ago. If I was in it right now, it would be too painful.

Like you said, there’s a tension between emphasizing somebody and mocking them. I see a lot of myself in their bravado and eagerness to be liked, and also their difficulty in finding partners. Everybody who posts on Craigslist—for the most part, they are people whom traditional social networks have failed. They’re not meeting partners in real life, through friends. They’re isolated and they’re lonely. In a way, I started drawing them as studies in loneliness. I was feeling lonely myself at the time, so that was what I wanted to explore. The isolation.

I also enjoy them on a more detached, aesthetic level. I really like the poetry of Anne Sexton—this idea of elevating everyday objects into art. Like writing a poem about tupperware, or something. Every bit of trash that floats past our eyes, and every bit of weird cultural detritus, is potentially art. And you can always take something and try to make it permanent, try to redeem it.

I think the Craigslist guys are more extreme versions of everybody—what everybody’s dealing with: the internet, living with a lot of scrutiny, the desire to look good, anxiety about yourself. Being isolated by the internet, and seeking the cure for that isolation on the internet.

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

Tell me about some of the recurring characters you’ve noticed in your nine years of reading these things.

There’s a woman who started out saying really directly racist things, like “No black people.” And now she says “I prefer caucasians.” You watch people clean up their acts. There’s a guy who always posts these lighthearted ads, looking for women to do fun activities with him, and he changes. The title’s always something like “Booze, arcade games, and 420.” Or “Sushi, coke, and cuddles.” It’s like a soap opera, and I’ve been following a lot of people this whole time—nine years—and watching them evolve. Sometimes they change identities, but I can tell by their voice that it’s them. It’s sort of a community.

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

Why draw them, rather than take a screenshot of the ad and present that screenshot as an art object? What happens in the process of drawing a person?

I like the idea that you can see somebody’s history, or their life, written on their face. I try to capture that, and I think line drawings are good for the nuances of people’s faces. I’m trying to get across this weird mix of feelings and thoughts that you can see in their faces.

Every person is as rich in inner life as any other, and I’m especially interested in these macho New York bozos. These guys in their reflective mirrored sunglasses, their pumped-up arms. You think, What’s going through that guy’s head? Their inner world has to be just as textured and evolved as anyone else’s. But what is it? I think in those Craigslist ads, you feel like you can see it.

The cartoons don’t really work if it’s somebody self-aware. The people I draw, part of what draws me to them is that they have no self-analysis, or it’s just blatantly off: The guy who’s just staring soullessly into the camera, and the caption is just “I want to have sex with a lady at her house or another place.” Or the guy who just says “Want to give me a blow job?” or something, and he just thinks that women are going to flock to him.

They’re misguided in their self-conception—and in a smug way, and in a misogynistic way. And that’s why I don’t feel bad knocking someone like that. There’s a lot of sexism underlying a lot of the ads that I’m drawn to. This kind of Come and get it, ladies attitude. Theoretically, I have no problem with mixing and matching the photos and the captions, but I’ve never needed to because people who post the most ridiculous photos also have good, ridiculous captions. Every time. It is kind of a type, I suppose.

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

Craigslist posts are ephemeral, right? After a while, they just disappear from the site. So by drawing them, you’re also saving them from certain death.

They’re gone after seven days. That’s part of what I like about it. I’m memorializing something that would otherwise disappear. I think that’s part of why I like really drawing it, rather than a screenshot, and why painting it is even better: you take this valueless little flicker and turn it into something—this traditionally valued medium.

To this day, people still have a little bit of, Oh, an oil painting. Or, Oh, a drawing. They look at them more than they would look at a printout. It’s meant to last, and to say something. I’m pulling out this image, wading through this sea of filth, to say “Look at this. This says something about who we are as a society, and what our inner lives are like, and it’s worth paying attention to.”

The Beautiful Buffoonery of Craigslist Personal Ads

The Brooklyn gallery Nothing Space will host a solo show of Kauget’s work in fall 2015. Images via Jamie Cricket Kauget. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Kathy Hilton Might Replace Her Sisters on the Real Housewives--Thank God

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Kathy Hilton Might Replace Her Sisters on the Real Housewives--Thank God

DRAMA ALERT: According to new reports, Kathy Hilton might be replacing her troubled sisters on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and to be honest, I couldn’t be more excited to watch her destroy some lives next season.

Hilton—she of the withering glare and apparently irascible son—has appeared on the franchise before in what’s generously called a “Friend of Housewives” capacity. But according to Page Six, she might be replacing a cast member—her sister, Kyle Richards, who has a lovely head of hair but not the best attitude.

“Kyle hasn’t been happy for two seasons now,” a source tells Page Six. “She has ruined any chance at a friendship with the cast mates and she isn’t sure she can stomach another season.”

There are certainly plenty of open spots now: Kathy and Kyle’s other sister, Kim, who is also a Housewives cast member, is rumored to be out after a spectacularly public relapse landed her in jail last month. Brandi Glanville, who has no fans, was also reportedly fired. And—gasp—Page Six reports Lisa Vanderpump—who has not one but two reality shows on the network—is “fed up with the drama” and wants out.

So why hasn’t the show announced this brilliant casting coupe?

“Kathy’s been approached to join the cast, but is undecided,” says a source. “She doesn’t know yet if she wants to be part of all the drama.”

“She doesn’t know yet if she wants to be part of all the drama.”

“She doesn’t know yet if she wants to be part of all the drama.”

This is, without question, the most Housewives thing Kathy Hilton could possibly say. “I’d love to attend your toddler’s wine-tasting event, but I don’t know if I want to be part of all the drama.” “Of course I’ll come support your gay penguin charity, but I don’t know if I want to be a part of all the drama.” “I’m calling you on speaker phone from my car just to tell you, I HATE DRAMA!!!!!!!!

Can’t wait to see you hate all of the drama next season, Kath ;)


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

Gibson Guitar Is a Remarkably Unpopular Company

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Gibson Guitar Is a Remarkably Unpopular Company

The iconic guitar company Gibson faces seemingly endless troubles, which include an easily enraged micromanaging CEO and a product line perceived as shoddy and overpriced. Based on what we’ve heard lately, it is not a great employer or maker of guitars.

A few weeks ago, after hearing a steady trickle of rumors about mismanagement at Gibson, we asked for contributions from you, the Gibson employees and/ or customers. We got quite a few. They do not paint a rosy picture of this company. Based upon our tipsters, Gibson faces two main problems: their employees hate them (particularly CEO Henry Juszkiewicz), and their customers think they’re crap.

The first sign that something might be wrong with the way Gibson is run is that not one but two of our tipsters said that their experiences at Gibson were so bad that they are planning to write a book about them. One woman who had traveled from the UK in order to interview for a job at Gibson earlier this year sent us a brief excerpt about the Gibson hiring process, complete with a cameo by the CEO himself:

I just got a glimpse [of] what felt like the world’s most baffling hiring process. ‘The psychometric test takes approximately three hours to complete. If you have any questions in this process or problems with the testing, please let me know,’ said the email when it plopped into my inbox yesterday. I promptly responded: ‘I don’t really have three hours spare to take tests before tomorrow. Also, please can I have a job description because you haven’t actually sent me anything about the role, and I’d really rather know exactly what you expect before I succumb to being tested for THREE WHOLE HOURS.’ Or something to that effect. It wasn’t quite as stroppy. But seriously, I had other admin to attend to, like answering my Tinder messages.

Anyway, what happened was, HR invited me to meet with three different people in the company in one day (all of whom would explain more), and in the time between these meetings she suggested I take these tests at their headquarters. I hadn’t really planned to spend the majority of a day in a corporate cellblock ...

I’ll admit, I forgot about the test when the CEO stepped into the gigantic conference room, if only because he was even more baffling. It was all I could do to sustain eye contact. The silver-haired, seventy-ish-year-old man looked as though he was having some sort of epileptic fit in front of me as he blathered on and on and on about his history in and before he started with the company. His eyes were rolling around the room, landing everywhere but on me. I wasn’t entirely sure he was sober.

‘So, do you have a social media strategy already?’ I asked him.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, sitting back and smiling knowingly.

‘I’d like to know what it is.’

‘I bet you would,’ he smirked.

‘Well, it would help,’ I replied, trying to meet his eyes, and failing.

‘I’m sure it would,’ he answered.

‘Well... what do you want to be, as a brand, that you think you’re not already?’

‘Even more awesome. We’re already awesome. We just want to be more awesome.’

‘Right.’

As he spoke, the words I read on Glassdoor.com rushed back to me: ‘Run, don’t walk away from even considering working here. The CEO is HORRIBLE - mean, nasty, uber-controlling. If anyone in the company dares to have a different idea than his, you can pretty much guarantee that they will be fired - on the spot.’

She has not taken the job.

And from another person who’s experienced the hiring process:

I saw your latest post on Jun 9 about Gibson and laughed my ass off. I worked for Henry in 2012 and shared much the same experiences that others have detailed. I lasted about 9 months before I had to bail and that was longer than about 20 other guys that year. After you join, co-workers admit that “you are the class of 2012/2013/2014/2015 etc.” and that you are basically toast. Great way to treat people. Move them and their family to Nashville and then trash them. I found a way to stay in Nashville and actually like it here now. However, I would never want to relive the sequence of events I lived through.

We also heard from quite a few of Gibson’s customers. Some, of course, would be more accurately described as former customers. Echoing comments that can be found across the internet, they did not seem to be fans of the company’s current value proposition.

I’m a long time Gibson player and collector. Last year I went into a Sam Ash store to buy either a Les Paul Standard or a Traditional. The sales guy who knows me well told me to open the control cavity first. He knows I like to change pickups and sometimes capacitors to get variations in tone. This is very common among guitar players. When I opened up the control cavity, instead of seeing metal potentiometers and capacitors, I saw a plastic circuit board that the pickups plug into. The sales person told me that they have been turning away customer after customer that wants to change out pickups because the parts to do so aren’t available. Ebay is littered with the new pickup and circuit boards because folks are pulling them out and replacing the guts with what used to come standard in every Les Paul. So, if someone buys a new Les Paul and they would like to change out the pickups, they now have to replace everything which adds an entire new layer to the cost of a pickup replacement.

Thanks to the CEO of Gibson the secondary used market is exploding as the market for new Gibson’s is declining. Gibson has always been the largest manufacturer of highly sought after “boutique guitars”. I was dumfounded when Gibson decided to celebrate Les Paul’s 100th birthday with a lame marketing gimmick of buy a Les Paul and enter a contest to reimbursed. For the purchase price. They could have taken the opportunity to do something special to commemorate the event. The bottom line for me is this: I’m done buying new Gibson Guitars. In my opinion the company has become very exploitative of their customer base and is experimenting and destroying perfection. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The world is full of great used pre bad decision Gibson.

Ouch.

I have been playing guitar for 20 years. The current Gibson lineup and overall status is a complete laughing stock. WAY too expensive, horrible quality control and I would never support them because the CEO is a total jackass. The new auto tuning system sounds like a good idea but a lot of people don’t want it yet its forced – they should make it an option if you want it...

It’s sad that a once iconic brand is run by such a terrible CEO. He is ruining the company.

Dang.

I used to work at a guitar store in Richmond, VA. It was a mom and pop shop that grew to be one of the top selling Taylor retailers in the country. All the while staying in a town home duplex. There isn’t a lot of space, but the guitars never stayed on the wall very long. We sold Martin, Taylor, Fender, Huss & Dalton (custom acoustics from Stanton, VA) and for a short period, Gibson. The shop stopped carrying Gibson for the exact reason you have written here. The quality was crap and working with them was a nightmare. Even after we stopped carrying Gibson, we would have people bring them in, brand new, to be setup. The tuners on the $1,000+ models were as cheap as the Chinese knockoffs. The necks were incredibly off and difficult to keep straight. The frets needed a level & dress from day 1.

Woof.

I have an early 90’s SG. I would never buy another gibson, I’d rather buy a knock off and modify it to my liking (which I have) than spend $4,000-5,000 on a robot made les paul. They are worth maybe $400 at most. If ever a company should disband itself since it sunk into the gutter in the late 70’s it’s Gibson. Over-rated hack company. Try playing one in the store, the frets look like they were put in by chimps, the QA team must drink on the job. Their quality has been a joke since 1975, don’t they get it?

Meow.

Henry Juszkiewicz, call your office (if there’s anyone left).

[Photo: FB]

South Carolina Governor Says Confederate Flag Must Come Down

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South Carolina Governor Says Confederate Flag Must Come Down

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the state capitol Confederate flag Monday, saying one way or another, the flag will come down this summer.

Removing the flag—which continued to fly last week, even as the United States flag was lowered to half-mast after the Charleston shooting—requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the General Assembly.

Haley was joined at the press conference by Senators Lindsay Graham and Tim Scott, and promised the flag would come down even if the Assembly did not vote to remove it.

“It’s time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds,” the governor said, speaking to reporters at the Capitol in Columbia.

While Governor Haley said that residents have the right to show the Confederate battle flag on private property, ”the State House is different, and the events of this past week call upon us to look at this in a different way.”

South Carolina state Rep. Doug Brannon says he plans to introduce legislation to remove the flag from all of South Carolina’s federal buildings, telling CBS, “The switch that flipped was the death of my friend Sen. [Clementa] Pinckney... I’ve been in the House five years. I should have filed that bill five years ago. But the time is now, I can’t let my friend the senator’s death go without fundamental change in South Carolina,”


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

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

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Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

An intense line of thunderstorms ripped, tore, screamed, blasted, and raced through the state of Iowa this morning, producing wind gusts exceeding 90 MPH in spots. Right or wrong, the storm is being touted as a “derecho” in the media; regardless of the name, the storms were brutal.

“THESE ARE VERY DANGEROUS STORMS.”

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

The squall line developed in northwestern Iowa, straddling the Iowa/Minnesota border as it produced a wide swath of wind damage. The area hardest-hit by the storms seem to be the corridor between Waterloo and Dubuque, along U.S. 20 northeast of Des Moines. The above radar snapshot shows the squall at 8:30 AM CDT, as it was nearing peak intensity.

Infrared satellite imagery from around the same time (shown at the top of this post) also shows just how strong these storms were—the deep grays and whites over Iowa show updrafts shoving clouds into the bitterly cold upper levels of the atmosphere, with the system’s vast anvil encircling the system (in black).

Residents had plenty of warning that these storms were coming. The severe thunderstorm warning issued ahead of the strongest part of the squall included the line “THESE ARE VERY DANGEROUS STORMS.” They were moving at 70 MPH and the alert warned residents of wind gusts to 80 MPH. That’s pretty strong language, and unfortunately, the winds played out as expected.

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

The above map shows storm reports received by the Storm Prediction Center between 5:00 AM and 12:00 PM CDT; blue dots indicate a report of wind damage or winds gusting higher than 58 MPH, while green dots indicate reports of hail the size of quarters or larger. As we see with most squall lines, the main hazard here was wind damage as opposed to hail.

A weather station located at a high school in Independence, Iowa, measured a wind gust of 94 MPH as the storm came through, and there were about 70 reports of wind damage collected by the Storm Prediction Center as of the writing of this post. The damage was much more extensive—this just accounts for damage reported to the agency. Officials in Sheldon, Iowa, report that the town’s airport sustained nearly half a million dollars’ worth of damage when winds gusting up to 95 MPH tore through the town. The storm destroyed five small aircraft and several structures on the airport grounds.

Reports of destroyed structures and costly damage are common across the area, both to structures, trees, and especially crops. There are still about 25,000 power outages across Iowa thanks to the storms, and storms this afternoon could serve to delay restoration of service to those stuck in the dark.

Some injuries were also reports as a result of the damage. Robert and Ursula Cole were inside their two-story home when the winds applied so much force to the structure that the first floor collapsed, trapping the 73- and 78-year old inside. Ursula is in the hospital this afternoon, and Robert was rescued without serious injury, according to KCCI-TV.

Damage to crops is something that happens every year, whether by wind or hail. Miles and miles of corn fields mowed down by the strong winds isn’t an uncommon sight across Iowa this afternoon. It remains to be seen how much of it is salvageable—sometimes if the damage isn’t too severe, the plants are able to continue growing even if they’re bent or leaning over.

More Storms Coming (Maybe)

The atmospheric setup was perfect for a destructive line of storms to tear through Iowa this morning. At the time of the storms, we had an upper-level trough moving through the Dakotas, strong winds in the mid-levels of the atmosphere, the edge of a pool of high dew points sitting over Iowa, and a warm front at the surface that served to focus the line of storms.

Areas hit by the strong storms this morning aren’t in the clear just yet, either. The atmosphere is slowly recovering from this morning’s storms, rebuilding the instability necessary for new thunderstorms to develop and tap into the favorable environment for severe weather. If enough instability is able to build back in, there’s an enhanced risk for severe weather across portions of the Midwest and Great Lakes, including cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland.

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

Due to strong wind shear in the lower levels of the atmosphere, there’s also an elevated risk for tornadoes across much of the enhanced risk zone this afternoon. The greatest risk for tornadoes lies along any outflow boundaries that exist across the area; fronts, even those as small as a storm’s outflow boundary, are excellent focal points for severe weather to develop.

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

A 10% risk for tornadoes doesn’t sound like much, but given that values of 2% to 5% usually warrant concern, 10% is nothing to sneeze at. (See this post for a deeper explanation for these risk values.)

Derecho? Squall? Squallrecho Death Storm 2015?

The big question among weather geeks today, though, is whether or not the storm constitutes a dreaded “derecho.”
http://thevane.gawker.com/what-is-a-dere...

A derecho is an intense squall line that produces extensive wind damage over a path at least 250 miles long. Derechos are the polar vortices of summer in that most people only first heard the term a couple of years ago, and the media preyed on this unfamiliarity in order to trumpet these storms as some new, powerful demon we all must confront lest it kill us in our sleep.

The most widely-known derecho in recent years was the one that tore a path from Indiana to Washington D.C. and Baltimore back on June 29, 2012—since the derecho hit such a heavily populated area, the news was all over it, and this was the first time the term “derecho” really made it into the vocabulary of people who aren’t weather geeks. Some of us jokingly refer to a derecho as “the ‘d’ word” for its ability to whip people up into a panic.

Of course, nerds have to ruin the whole thing by arguing over semantics. According to sticklers, if that swath wind damage doesn’t reach the magic, arbitrary 250-mile marker, it’s not a derecho, period, the end. More lenient folks are willing to give storms a pass if they produce extensive damage over a widespread area that’s a bit smaller than 250 miles.

If you measure the main swath of widespread wind damage, the path only comes out to about 180 miles—70 short of the definition of a derecho. However, if you consider a smaller trace of wind reports that extends out toward Madison, Wisconsin, the path just surpasses that 250-mile mark, making the system a derecho by the definition.

Correction: I was wrong when I initially published this post. The main swath of wind damage associated with the squall line started in southeastern South Dakota near Sioux Falls, not in central Iowa. When I downloaded the storm data into Google Earth to measure distance, the data started at 7:00 AM CDT, leaving out at least two hours of damage that extended well to the west toward South Dakota. Sorry about that.

The swath of damage is arguably longer if you include the original complex of storms that formed farther west in South Dakota, but just this main squall alone produced a swath of wind damage that was more than 300 miles long. The SPC reports that there was a 122 MPH wind gust reported by a home sensor in central South Dakota near Hayes, back before the main squall line in question developed. I’m skeptical of that value, though—home sensors have a tendency to not measure winds accurately once they get up that high.

Here’s a radar loop showing the squall from about the time it congealed in southeastern South Dakota around 4:30 AM CDT, until it crossed the Mississippi and lost most of its punch.

Intense Squall Line Produces Extensive Damage, 95 MPH Wind Gusts in Iowa

Again, it’s mostly a matter of semantics and what will gather the most clicks and ratings when reporters discuss the storm in the coming hours. The people who lost their homes this morning don’t really care if it was technically a derecho or not. By the definition, though, this was indeed a derecho.

If you live in the area, continue keeping an eye on the Storm Prediction Center and your local National Weather Service office. If forecasts pan out, you’re not out of the woods just yet.

[Images: NASA, author, Google Earth]


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