Earlier this month, Kanye West wore a Givenchy Kilt while performing at the 12-12-12 benefit show at Madison Square Garden. Everyone lost their collective minds over it. A behind the scenes video was released last week to let his fans know how serious his kilt game actually is.

But now 'Ye probably has some more explaining to do after his performance this weekend in Atlantic City. Yeezy took the stage at the Revel casino (where Beyonce held her first post-baby show) and managed to upstage his Scottish inspired look with a wintery outfit that hid his face entirely.

In an ensemble that made him look a bit like the abominable snowman, Kanye First showed off a white feathery hood that completely masked his face, save for some eye slits.

Then Kanye showed the crowd a second hood, which was a full face mask made out of crystals — think the greenman from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but fancy.

The mask is actually from Maison Martin Margiela's fall 2012 couture runway show. The masks were a surprise hit of the season and were shown in a bunch of colors.

Someone over at Lady Gaga's camp is surely getting fired for not getting this glittery veil into her hands before anyone else wore it.

[Source Images via Instagram 1, 2]

If that bulky headline didn't give you warning enough, prepare to jump down the rabbit hole now. Cast your mind back to a few days ago. Neetzan Zimmerman noted that local New York paper the Journal News' decision to publish the names and addresses of gun owners in Rockland County had come under criticism:

"I guess nobody could object to people putting the newspaper staff's addresses on the Web now, right?" Instapundit inquired, rhetorically.

Because everything that can happen does happen, Dylan Skriloff, the editor-in-chief at the competing Rockland Times ("Rockland's Official Paper Since 1888"), has gone ahead and done so, publicizing the home addresses and phone numbers of the reporter, editors, publisher and CEO involved with the original story. "What You Don't Know About the Agenda-Driven Journalists in Your Neighborhood" points out that a number of other papers have also published personal information of registered gun owners in the last few years.

The Journal News plans to continue running the series and has announced that additional names are forthcoming. According to Reuters:

The original map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City.

Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.

The next batch of names will be permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.

This, of course, is only the beginning. In the future, having your home address published online will replace the entire criminal justice system. Teenagers who say racist things on Twitter will have their most inflammatory comments tattooed across their forehead and forced to wander the earth, deathless and hopeless, unable either to forget or to atone. Prominent publications will rebrand themselves as "the Yellow Pages for people you disagree with politically." Real estate agents will become grotesquely powerful, offering to divulge the names of interested buyers who may someday reside at particular addresses for a price.

The one bright spot in all of this is that there are still towns in America with not just one but two thriving local papers.

[Image via AP]

A rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, involving some members of the city's beloved football team has drawn national attention. The Times said that it was a notable case because it was "a sexual assault accusation in the age of social media, when teenagers are capturing much of their lives on their camera phones ... and then posting it on the Web, like a graphic, public diary." There were some images of the crime uploaded to Twitter and Instagram that show the unconscious girl being carried around.

A sub-group of the hacker collective Anonymous called KnightSec has taken up the case and has planned a protest in Steubenville this afternoon. Over the past month, they have hacked the football team's website twice and released some personal information about the accused members of the football team.

Former Presidential candidate and television star Roseanne Barr is now aligning herself with the group after seeing their support of the Stubenville victim. She gave herself an extreme Twitter makeover over the holiday weekend, changing her background and display picture to a mashup of her face and the Guy Fawkes mask. She has previously said that V for Vendetta is the only movie that she likes.

When complimented on the profile change, Barr had only one word to say:

Barr is a manic Tweeter and she often spends hours at a time responding personally to her fans and critics. She told some members of Anonymous how she truly felt about their organization on Thursday night:

But this isn't Barr's first experience with the group. Earlier this year, she had an all out brawl with Anonymous after a simple misunderstanding led the popular account @YourAnonNews to call for her head:

It seems she has let bygones be bygones and is now fully in support of a group that once attacked her. Also, "Pedos r in charge," in case you didn't know:

[Image via Twitter]

The fiscal cliff is imminent. We are hurtling, not to mention barreling, toward it. Also, it's looming. Every news organization has been churning out folksy little cartoons explaining the situation at the rate of thousands a day since August. There have also been a lot of Wile E. Coyote jokes, and for that alone we deserve as a people to be bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We approach the January 1 deadline with no official plan in place. From the Washington Post:

After failing to persuade their fellow Republicans last week to let taxes rise on income over $1 million, GOP leaders offered no guidance on the shape of a package the House could ultimately accept. "The House will take . . . action on whatever the Senate can pass, but the Senate first must act," the leaders said in a joint statement.

"After you." "No, after you." "Oh, I simply couldn't." "Please." "No, I can't. You first." "I really insist." One thing is certain: if no one in Washington takes swift and immediate action, the following things will absolutely happen.

• An episode of House Hunters will air where the couple can't agree on a house. "But I -" one of them will begin, then fall silent as she realizes with growing horror that she and her husband are no longer speaking the same language, becoming mutually unintelligible and hopelessly isolated.
• All upper-middle class families will become lower-upper-middle class. All lower-middle class families will have to trade health insurance policies with the working poor. The working poor will become the sprinting poor. This will solve the obesity epidemic. They will steal new shoes from the rich. This will solve Toms.
• John Boehner will be forced to attend House sessions in old-timey sad clown makeup. The black-and-white kind, with the sad mouth and the busted hat and the floppy shoes and the empty bindle. A hobo clown. With the worn-out gloves that don't have fingers on them anymore. When he opens his wallet little flies will zoom out to show how empty it is. Same thing happens when he pulls out his pockets.
• They (you know which they I mean, don't get cute) will take away the two-dollar bill, the most charming of all bills.
• George H.W. Bush will not only recover from his latest illness and be released from the hospital, he will declare himself King of Maine and build a lobster army. Not just lobsters. Crabs, too. Crayfish and crawdad sentries. A crustacean bodyguard elite, impervious to pain. The North will become a hissing byword designed to strike fear into urban conservatives.
• Ben Bernanke will be made to sell off all redundant consonants in his name to the staff of Forbes. They will force those letters to do terrible things.
• Newsweek will come back, stronger and more terrifying in its fey power than ever before. Print editions; anthology editions; hardcover editions. Tina Brown will multiply. Her pantsuits will blot out the sun.
• France.
• Everyone who has ever written a memoir, no matter how good it may have been, will be forced to dig ditches in a 1930s prison chain gang, in Georgia.
• Defense spending will go up, or possibly down, while also remaining exactly the same, but not in a good way.
• Wal-Mart will acquire all other -Marts, finally completing its stranglehold on the -Mart market.
• The wealthy will sell both Alaska and Hawaii to each other in secret backroom deals, absconding with the profits and the best parts of California.
• All lunches will become free lunches.
• Obama will awaken from a four-day-long nightmare in which he finally learns the importance of leading. He'll start leading. Leading on everything, leading everyone everywhere, all the time leading.
• Taxes will be raised on all households with yearly incomes over $250,000; the minimum wage will be raised to $250,000 and tipping will become mandatory, even at coffee shops (tips must be equal to or greater than $250,000).
• Everyone will get a pony, so in a very real sense no one will get a pony.

  [Image via AP]

Katt Williams has had the worst holiday season ever. His month of hijinks included a mic-throwing incident, a police chase, a smack across the face of a Target employee, and a tearful retirement (and un-retirement) from comedy. His rampage makes 2007 Britney Spears look like child's play.

Last night, Williams was held in jail for child endangerment, after LAPD officials found numerous guns and illegal drugs in his house. Katt Williams needs to relax. Here are some things that he can do to chill out for a while and get his life back together.

Stop Calling Jamie Foxx Gay

This week, Williams spent a portion of a comedy show he actually showed up to calling out Jamie Foxx for his role in Quentin Tarentino's Django Unchained. "They offered me the script," said Williams. "And I said, 'Any ni—a that do this deserves to die.' And the next thing I heard, Jamie Foxx was in makeup."

This makes him seem jealous and bitter but an even worse moment came when he told the crowd that Jamie Foxx was a closeted homosexual. Williams claimed that Marcus Anthony, an artist on Foxx's record label, is Foxx's secret lover. Offering up information like that as gossip during a standup performance makes him seem like he's losing it. This makes him seem super crazy.

Stop Buying Guns And Weed

Williams was handcuffed by police outside of a Subway in West Hollywood less than two weeks ago while he was waiting for his manager Suge Knight to get out of a manicure/pedicure (which is a really great image when you think about it). Although he only walked away with a citation for parking too close to a fire hydrant, cops initially confiscated some weed and a gun that he was carrying. He had a medical marijuana card and a permit for the weapon, so they let him go. But c'mon, leave the stuff at home until you're a stable human being.

Stop Not Paying Your Taxes

Yesterday it was revealed that Williams has been slapped with a lien by the IRS alleging that he has not paid almost $4 million dollars in taxes. If you're going to be a professional crazy person, you need to pay your taxes so these little things can't hold you up. Having permits is all good and fine, but if you're an incredibly unstable person, it's best to leave that stuff at home.

Stop Talking To TMZ

Harvey Levin's army of paps seem to have a tracking device on this guy. Right after almost every major incident, TMZ has been there to interview or record Williams being insane. And he seems more than happy to oblige. After his weapons related arrest last night, Williams supplied them with the cringeworthy quote, "How do you keep kids safe without guns?"

Williams needs to go hide somewhere for a while, prefereably rehab, or some other place that won't have a lot of guns or weed.

Stop Hanging Out With Suge Knight

Katt, let's get serious here. Most importantly of all, you have to dump your friend/tour manager Suge Knight. He is the most bad-news thing in your life right now. Right after you got out of jail last night, you and Suge went out to the club and got involved in a fight on the sidewalk.

You're more reliable with an AK-47 and ounce of O.G. Kush in your hands than you are hanging around with this guy. Remember, he once (allegedly) dangled Vanilla Ice from a hotel balcony and may or may not have orchestrated the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. This is the man controlling your life right now. Get rid of him.

[Image via Getty]

What we lost: Romantic comedies
Who took it: Audiences, Gerard Butler, Tucker Max, Netflix, sequel-based franchises. Vulture charts the steady decline:

In 2002, the top five highest-grossing romantic comedies alone - My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sweet Home Alabama, Maid in Manhattan, and Two Weeks Notice - collectively took in a whopping $555 million in domestic box office. There were seven rom-coms in the top 100 films of that year, and this septet averaged a $96 million take. In 2008, there were eleven rom-coms in the top 100, with an average domestic gross of $77 million. By 2010, there were fourteen rom-coms in the top 100 highest grossing films - but their average domestic gross had dropped to $53 million. This year the average gross in the top 100 is up a hair to $54 million, but that's based on only four movies that have cracked that list. (Many more did not.)

Also, millenials:

[M]any execs...believe that audiences are rejecting these light romances because they are increasingly unrelatable given how dating and courtship have morphed in the 2010s. "I think it's because the whole entire dating scene has changed," says the head of production at one major studio...In America, people have never waited longer to get married. For brides, the median marriage age is 26.5 years, and for grooms it's 28.7 years, according to the Pew Research Center's analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data: For both genders, that's about six years higher than it was 50 years ago.

What ever shall we do now: Nothing to be done. The hands of the trend clock cannot be moved back. It probably doesn't even have hands. Why would the trend clock be analog? The only movies about love and romance you can expect to see in the future will make mumblecore look like German Expressionism. Flannel 8-tracks will fall in love with the abstract concept of anxiety. Hands will wring themselves for hours on end in high-definition montages.

What we lost: Indie R&B
Who took it: Sadsack dudes, pensive gentrifiers
What ever shall we do now: Deal with "life in the moment," listen to "Losing You"

What we lost: Books, coffee, smells, satisfaction, nuzzling, cigarettes, carbon paper, human gatherings, relationships, the little plastic sleeve newspapers come in during bad weather
Who took it: Hashtags, "the blogger-Twitter hordes"

Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post wants everyone to remember that paper "is real," not like digital devices, which are "hard and cold to human flesh." I know not what terribly warm and liquid books are pulsing and seething against her hands, but I fear them and welcome their disappearance.

What ever shall we do now: Start watching The Newsroom; smell more things; go back to writing "e-mail" with a hyphen; take comfort in the fact that physical book sales just had their strongest week in three years

What we lost: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
Who took it: The Rt. Rev. Justin Welby, women, gays.

In his final broadcast before his departure, Dr Williams defends his outspoken attacks on successive governments, including his strong opposition to the Iraq war.

"Risking unpopularity, taking the flak, is what archbishops are here for - it is the stuff of the job," he says. "It is something you realise the more you work here, that maybe Britain benefits from having someone to get angry with, and that compared to my predecessors I have got off lightly."

In 2008 Dr Williams was widely criticised for suggesting that the adoption of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in Britain "seems unavoidable", although in an interview earlier this year he admitted he had "failed to find the right words" and "succeeded in confusing people".

What ever shall we do now: Mourn in ashes and sackcloth. Where will we find the equal of a man who once said "it is very easy to be despondent about the church" while leading that very church? After trying and failing one last time to broker an agreement on the status of female bishops, Williams had this to say at the end of his tenure: "I know that I've, at various points, disappointed both conservatives and liberals...Most of them are quite willing to say so, quite loudly. That's just been a background to almost everything, a pretty steady 'mood music'." No pope, no imam, no goateed megachurchian can ever hope to match Rowan's delightfully depressive approach. He and his eyebrows will be missed.

What we lost: Luxury developments
Who took it: A.I.G., a deceased Georgian billionaire's estate, disgruntled investors, the Vanderbilts. "Some brokers fear Fisher Island is missing out on high-priced sales in Miami" may be the greatest sentence ever written in the English language.

"We have the best moat in the world," said Tom Murphy Jr., a resident and chief executive of the Coastal Construction Group.

An aviary on the island houses about a dozen species of birds. A gourmet market sells Russian caviar. The island's day school charges $26,000 a year for tuition and requires children as young as 2 years old to learn Mandarin and Spanish.

The best aviary in the world, bound by the best moat in the world, all lying unused and wasted. Withered trilingual urchins wander the island, desperate to increase their real estate holdings, denied even the smallest condo development.

What ever shall we do now: Wait and pray. "Fisher Island Holdings, the developer, is hoping to begin sales of Palazzo del Sol, the next 10-story building in line to be built, by the middle of 2013," according to the sales director of Fisher Island Real Estate. Build your own island. Ford the moat and take Fisher by force.

[Image via AP]

And as the "perfect snow" falls all over New York and the day comes to a close, there's good news coming out of Houston tonight. CNN reports:

Former President George H.W. Bush was moved on Saturday out of the intensive care unit of the Houston hospital where he has been for over a month.

Bush entered the hospital in November for bronchitis and was kept in ICU because he was having trouble with shaking a persistant fever. "The Bushes thank everyone for their prayers and good wishes," said the former President's spokesperson to Reuters.

Those wishing to send gifts to the former President must remember that he has a lifelong hatred of broccoli. Also he wears really awesome socks, so you should probably just get him more of those:

[Image via AP]

Hurricane Sandy relief efforts continued over the holidays with volunteers dropping off meals on Christmas eve and confidential documents being returned from the wreckage to their rightful owners. But good will can only go so far and victims in the north east are still waiting for federal aid to trickle in.

Almost two full months after the end of the storm, the Senate has finally approved a plan that will give states $60.4 billion in emergency aid. But House Republicans are already organizing against the legislation, says The New York Times.

New York Senator Charles E. Schumer, said, "For the House to go home without taking up this bill would be unconscionable."

House Republicans say that their worried for all the typical reasons: there was not "enough time for hearings and debate," it puts pressure on the "already-strained Treasury," and that there's not going to be a way to pay for it. But the thing about this stimulus package that sets it apart from normal ones is that it's emergency money. This aid is needed for stuff like making necessary repairs to bridges and providing cash to damaged small businesses to get them going again.

Even the most casual viewer of the fiscal cliff debates knows that House Republicans look totally uncooperative and partisan right now. Not only would passing this bill help out a lot of people, it would be a great way for Republicans to attempt to show the American people that they're not impossible to work with, they can get stuff done, and they actually care about their constituants.

If they choose to just let this bill expire, they're going to look more ineffective than ever before.

[Image via AP]

Dashboard cameras placed in Russian cars have revolutionized the Internet in ways we could have never imagined. Thanks to them, we now have up close footage of yesterday's plane crash in Russia that killed four people.

The craziest thing about this video is that the car in front, the one that gets smacked with debris from the plane, just keeps on driving.

Eight crew members from Red Wings airlines were the only people on board when the plane veered off the runway at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport. Russian officials are still trying to figure out what caused the crash.

[via Reddit]

President Obama appeared on Meet The Press this morning to talk about the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. His 30 minute conversation with host David Gregory was pretty cordial and never really got heated at any point. Those looking for Obama to show anger at Republicans were probably disappointed, but he dug into them at several moments for their inability to take any of the deals that he offered over the past month.

There were really three pivotal moments in this interview that made Obama look like a car salesman who has been dealing with the world's most picky and frustrating customers, which is what this interview was really meant to do.

The quote that made Obama's advisors fist pump behind the camera:

They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.

The quote that made John Boehner spit out his Sunday brunch:

I put forward a very specific proposal to do that. I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain. I offered over a trillion dollars in additional spending cuts so that we would have $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of increased revenue. I think anybody objectively who's looked at this would say that we have put forward not only a sensible deal but one that has the support of the majority of the American people, including close to half of Republicans.

The quote that made everyone pretty angry at Republicans for not taking this deal:

I offered not only a trillion dollars in — over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years. And would solve our deficit problem for a decade.

Obama was also asked about his goals for his second term. He said that he wants gun violence measures and immigration reform passed in the first year. He also stressed the importance of stabilizing the economy and putting a new focus on producing energy.

Over on Fox News Sunday, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was already offering his concessions to President Obama saying, "The president won. The president campaigned on raising rates and he's going to get a rate increase."

"He stood his ground. He's going to get tax rate increases," Graham said. "It will be a political victory for the president."

NBCNews, BuzzFeed [Screencap via NBCNews]

It is for moments like this one that the word "wacky" was created. A man in Queens has an offer he would like the students among you to consider (with thanks to reader Lindsey G., who is keen-eyed and true.):

i am a mature male with mild osteoarthritis and i am willing to swap this rare 1950s poster for a nice 2 hour massage and internal cleansing. this would make a fantastic christmas gift for someone! have other things for swap as well so this could be a steady thing. ideal situation for student who is learning. if interested please email your contact info and the best time to call. thank you kindly.

What is perhaps the most telling aspect of this ad is that it was posted yesterday, the 29th of December, but suggests that the poster would make a "fantastic" Christmas present. This means one of two things: either the poor man is desperately confused, or his mind is so razor-sharp that he is already planning out next year's Christmas gift-giving strategy. Both possibilities are terrifying.

Another detail to note is that the picture appears to be a generic version of this decidedly not-rare image. Before offering two hours of your time, eager young masseuses and colon hydrotherapists (are the two hours inclusive of the enema, do you think, or is that separate?), ask for a picture of the poster itself (is it at least framed? Is it damaged in any way? Is it really from the 1950s?), preferably with a copy of today's newspaper within the shot for verification.

Alternately, of course, that same image is already available in T-shirt form for $13.99. Should your sexy art interests lie elsewhere, consider purchasing this pair of "horny cats," also available on Craigslist (they are drawings of cats with penises).

For what it's worth, New York residents suffering from osteoarthritis may qualify for disability benefits and free or reduced-cost physical therapy, which includes heat treatments, massage, anti-inflammatory drugs, and traction. No need to sell beloved objets d'art in order to find pain relief.

It feels so good to bring that headline back again. We have new developments and origin stories; ice-bound catastrophes averted and mysterious crimson disks identified. For all of these stories we have caves to thank (say thank you to the caves. Go on. Say it).

In China, plants have come one step closer to throwing off the harsh tyranny of the sun. A recent study published in the science journal PhytoKeys discusses several new plants in the nettle family that have been found growing in deep gorges and caves under an almost complete absence of light.

"When we stepped into our first cave, Yangzi cave, I was spell-bound. It had an eerie moonscape look to it and all I could see were clumps of plants in the nettle family growing in very dark condition."

According to the researchers, the plants do not grow in complete darkness but do grow in extremely low light levels, deep within the entrance caverns of the caves.

This seems like a rather unnecessary dig at the plants; quibbling over whether they grow in total darkness or merely nearly total darkness. But we will let the rudeness pass. Smug lightless animals that huddle around the smoking black vents on the ocean's floor would do well to watch themselves; plants are learning to do without the sun as well as they.

What other secrets have caves given us this week, you ask eagerly. For one thing, cave art is getting older, old enough to make your brain clutch with dizziness trying to count the years as they recede in a cold and vicious stampede:

Measuring the age of the cave paintings found across Europe is confounding because most images are made from inorganic pigments that leave few clues. In June archaeologist Alistair Pike, now at the University of Southampton, described a clever way to get answers: Analyze the breakdown of radioactive uranium-234 embedded in the natural mineral crust that forms on top of the artworks. Pike and his team applied the technique to drawings from 11 caves in the Cantabria and Asturias regions of northern Spain. They pegged the age of one illustration-a red disk in El Castillo cave-at 40,800 years old, making it the oldest known piece of European art by more than 5,000 years.

That is almost exactly the time when Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe. If modern humans made the drawings, then they must have arrived with artistic proclivities already developed, although there is no such cave art in Africa. Another possibility is that the art is not the work of human hands. Previous evidence has hinted that Neanderthals had a highly complex culture.

I cannot decide which possibility is better: the idea that Neanderthals were busy squirreling away art of their own into every grotto and hollow they could find before Homo sapiens came along and started smearing hand-turkeys on every available rock surface, or the idea that modern humans were so excited to start painting that they had to walk out of Africa before they could calm down enough to draw a freeform red circle with a steady hand. Either way, The Red Disk of El Castillo would make an excellent science fiction novel.

In Antarctica, scientists have been unable to gain entry to an ancient subterranean lake:

An international team of scientists have reportedly called off a research mission aimed at determining whether life exists in an underground lake in Antarctica.

Researchers working on the project cited a number of setbacks, including an attempt to create their first bore hole. The British Antarctic Survey project had intended to drill through the ice using near-boiling water to reach the lake, which they believed to have been sealed off from contact with the surface for as much as half a million years.

Let "no, this is a truly disappointing setback for scientific inquiry" contend with "what black and lurking masses would we have awoken there" inside of your breast. It's taken them sixteen years (sixteen years!) to meet this fresh new failure.

The mission was watched closely by scientists around the world. Biologists had pondered the possibility of discovering life in the underground lake, which they say has been in a state of perpetual isolation for more than 500,000 years. Lake Ellsworth, the site of the project, lies under 2 miles (3 kilometers) of ice and has been largely sealed off from the outside world. Scientists have been engaged in a 16-year gambit to drill down and take water samples from the lake. Researchers have suggested that life able to exist under such environmental conditions may help researchers better understand the origins of life on Earth and the possible forms life could take on other planets.

The team noted that the mission, which represented the cutting edge of science from the start, was largely an attempt to test the boundaries of current technology. The harsh Antarctic environment, coupled with the complete darkness of winter, translated to the team working at the site only during the comparatively mild months of austral spring and summer, from November through January.

I am all for discoveries, for science, for increased cave access. Whenever "more science" is the option, I click yes decidedly, appreciative layman that I am. But a scientific expedition plagued by setbacks, conducted entirely in the freezing dark, attempting to open something that has not been opened for thousands of years sounds eerily and ominously familiar. Perhaps it is for the best that we leave this slumbering lake to its own devices.

No, but I'm sure everything is safe and normal and fine. They're all fine down there. Nobody looks different after their encounter with the ice. Nobody's changed. Everyone's moving and talking and smiling and blinking and breathing like normal humans always do.

[Image via AP]

It's 2012 and The Federal Aviation Administration still doesn't allow electronic devices to be used during takeoff and landing. Of course, phones — the F.A.A.'s worst nightmare ever, aren't allowed to be used even when you're at the gate and your plane's not moving. Just ask Alec Baldwin about that. This is the dumbest rule ever.

The F.A.A. and some superstitious captains still think that a text message or a Kindle will take down an transatlantic flight. But as The New York Times' Nick Bilton points out today, there's just no scientific proof that anything bad like that would actually happen.. Bilton is rightfully really pissed. He just wants to read some goddamn Michael Chabon on his Kindle, you idiots.

Bilton points to two significant scientific studies to show how stupid the F.A.A. and these spooked pilots are. One was done by EMT labs, an independent company in California, and they said that there was "no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200." This proves that if a whole plane is plugged into their devices, there won't be an electromagnetic death cloud forming anywhere on board.

NASA recently released an annual report that said that no cases involving electronic devices on plans have ever "produced scientific evidence that a device can harm a plane's operation." Boom.

The F.A.A. is still standing by the fact that you're supposed to be super attentive during takeoff which is so insane. If the plane is going down, there's no way that you'd want to be sitting in your seat focusing on your imminent demise. Let's face it, you'd rather be beating that one last frustrating level of Angry Birds.

President Obama, please do us all a favor and appoint Nick Bilton to be the executive of the F.A.A. in 2013.

The New York Times [Image via Pressmaster/Shutterstock]

PR email blasts take on a kind of terrifying, poetic majesty at this time of year. Some caps become all caps; "don't-miss" becomes "can't-miss"; I have now read the words "burlesque" and "cabaret" so many times that they have lost all meaning. Everything is burlesque. All things are burlesque. Nothing is burlesque. Endless cabarets. The limit does not exist.

I will not engage in a debate here about whether or not New Year's Eve is a "good" holiday. If you like to go out, go out. If you like to stay inside eating maraschino cherries you've soaked in bourbon until you can't find the door, take a seat and open a jar.

Most Inscrutable: Lumen Chicago's "Ciroc presents PYRAMIDS!"

This event offers the chance to ring in the New Year with, among other things:

• A live harpist as you enter a room of opulence
• A massive Egyptian ice sculpture
• Enormous Pyramid backdrop for photo opportunities
• Live hieroglyphic artist

Oddly enough, the oldest-ever drawing of a pharaoh was discovered in Egypt this weekend. This bodes either very well or very ill for this particular party.

Most Disrespectful of the Dead: Umphrey McGee at The Tabernacle in Atlanta

• Face Melting and Jimmy Stewart improv
• An Etta James tribute

Most Imprecise Use of the Word 'Vintage': PERCH

Please join me for a Great Gatsby inspired NYE 2013!! If your tired of the Hollywood Nightclub scene and looking for a more elegant, sophisticated affair, then this is EXACTLY what your looking for!

• Djs, LIVE Bands, Burlesque and Cabaret at PERCH
• The GRAND OPENING of the 13th Floor Speakeasy Lounge (Think a Vintage French Inspired version of The Sayers Club)
• FULL Complimentary Premium Bar (Grey Goose level brands+)
• FULL Complimentary Premium Hors D'oeuvres (Kobe Beef Sliders, Oysters+)
• Complimentary Cigar Rolling Stations and Scotch Tastings
• Midnight Balloon Drop
• Burlesque and Cabaret by the Bella Donnas

My questions are as follows: what are oysters plus? What kind of dress code is "Jackets, Flappers & Vintage Preferred"? When will someone throw a Great Gatsby-themed party that's less "over-the-top jazz bash" and more "Valley of Ashes"?

Least Comprehensive Pricing Structure: Baller Alert

$100,000 will buy you the following:

"In The Studio" with FUTURE Package

• Meet & Greet FUTURE with 4 of your friends at his recording studio
• $100,000.00 (tax and gratuity included)
• Includes all the amenities of General Admission for 50
• 10 bottles of Belvedere
• 50 bottles of Moet Rose Champagne
• 10 bottles of Patron

No other table packages are mentioned; presumably everyone at this event will have paid $100,000 to do so and will be barely visible behind their mountain of Belvedere bottles.

Least Annual/Most Geographically Insecure: 1st Annual 3-Day Kevin Hart Block Party

Alright, alright, alright! Listen up. Kevin Hart is shutting it down this New Year's Eve at LA LIVE. That's right - 3 days of parties & concerts all weekend long featuring: Christina Milian, LaLa, Ludacris, Kelly Rowland & many more!!!

This New Year's Block Party is the West Coast's answer to New Year's Eve in NYC. He's the only comic who brings this type of fire!

West Coast, don't be so hard on yourself. You're an excellent coast. New York didn't invent New Year's Eve. This block party will stand or fall on its own.

Most Hopeless: Nick Cannon

Comedy Central will be giving viewers a special opportunity to get to know the cast of their new sketch comedy show, Incredible Crew. All day New Year's Eve, Shauna and the gang will be offering up their favorite sketches as they count down to a sneak peak, one-hour preview of the all new Incredible Crew. The special event starts at 8:00 p.m. (ET/PT) on December 31st. The official series premier of Incredible Crew, featuring Shauna Case, will be January 24th at 8:00 p.m.

Incredible Crew, is a live-action, half-hour, sketch comedy series from producer and entertainer Nick Cannon premiering on Cartoon Network THURSDAY, JANUARY 24 at 8:00 p.m. (ET, PT). Every episode of this high-energy, fast-paced show delivers hilarious comedy bits, outrageous hidden camera pranks, original music videos and commercial parodies all with a distinct attitude – a contemporary blend of internet sensibility mixed with kid imagination. Incredible Crew showcases six up-and-coming young comedy stars featured in diverse roles in every genre: a rap video called "Running Errands with my Mom", a skit about a sensitive Viking named Olaf, a riff on school bus news and an absurd pizza dance.

This email does not make it clear if Nick Cannon, who is an endlessly fascinating human person, is going to be at this party. He probably won't be, of course; he'll probably be recreating Lohengrin with his strange and beautiful family, riding a ruby-and-flute-encrusted swan boat with Mariah and bellowing Wagner at the top of his crystal lungs. But maybe he will. I don't know. It's ridiculous to think he'd show up, right?

I don't even think it's a party. I think it's just a television premiere cleverly disguised to look like a party.

I'm never going to get to meet Nick Cannon.

[Image via AP]

Les Misérables has already made off with $67 million at the box office since debuting on Christmas day, but a lot of people have found the sweeping musical largely problematic. Many are quick to criticize the performance of Russell Crowe. He can't really sing that well after all and some really judgmental critics feel that he ruined the whole movie.

The Atlantic Wire described Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen's performance as the Thénardiers as "an awkward sore thumb in an otherwise serious production." Amanda Dobbins over at Vulture stated her feelings about the director succinctly: "Tom Hooper ruined Christmas." The New York Times said that the chemistry between characters, as well as the movie in its entirety, "lacked spark."

But the one thing you can't say is that Anne Hathaway didn't absolutely slay her performance of "I Dreamed a Dream." The Times invoked the image of goatse and said that Hathaway "devours the song, the scene, the movie, and turns her astonishing, cavernous mouth into a vision of the void."

Unfortunately, there's no reliable clip of the scene online right now, but here's a Spotify link to the audio of it. Just imagine Jesus kissing Beyonce and you've got the visual aspect of the performance (make sure you try to picture Hooper's dramatic and unnecessary camera movements for the full effect though).

Well the one person who really didn't think Hathaway's performance was anything special was in fact Hathaway herself. The L.A. Times spoke with her about the filming of the song, which took 20 takes to produce (mostly at Hathaway's own request):

Asked if she is pleased with the version that appears in the final cut, she shrugged half-heartedly.

"Eh."

"Eh," eh? Well there's no Academy Award for modesty! Get over it and start bragging about how awesome you are. Everyone's already saying it.

[Image via Getty]

Actor and profesional crazy person Charlie Sheen recently hosted the opening of his new bar in the El Ganzo hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, was on hand to watch Slash perform. What a party!

Too bad Sheen ruined the night with a homophobic slur.

When greeting the crowd, Sheen asked, "How we doing?...Lying bunch of faggot assholes, how we doing?"

Sheen quickly gave a two bullet-pointed apology to TMZ:

1. "I meant no ill will and intended to hurt no one and I apologize if I offended anyone."

2. "I meant to say maggot but I have a lisp."

A lisp you say, dear Charlie? Well let's take a look at some quotes from Sheen's 2011 public meltdown and see if he really can't pronounce that "ma" sound that's in the word "maggots":

• "I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total bitchin' rock star from Mars."
• "If you borrowed my brain for five seconds, you'd be like, ‘Dude! Can't handle it, unplug this bastard!' "It fires in a way that's maybe not from, uh… this terrestrial realm."
• "Look what I'm dealing with, man, I'm dealing with fools and trolls."
• "I'm sorry man, I got magic and I've got poetry in my fingertips, you know, most of the time, and this includes naps."

Charlie, it's safe to say that you can say that word, and other crazy dumb things, just fine after all, ya maggot.

[Image via AP]

You can never be too rich or too thin or have enough portmanteaus for your post-adolescent generation. It's Twixters, now. Who is a Twixter? Everyone, probably. Any woman who has ever listened to music while wearing a hat is a Twixter. Any man who has ever looked at a picture of Mila Kunis is a Twixter. You are, just for having read the word. Welcome to the Twixter generation. Here is your knit cap and sense of purposelessness. Characteristics include "ESPN" and over-employment.

People in this group are over 18, but as they head toward 30 they still act and think like adolescents. They bounce from job to job and relationship to relationship, live with parents at home or in a house with five friends, watch ESPN and play video games (the boy-men) and read "Twilight" and ponder whether he's just not into you (the girl-women), while all of them sprinkle "like" and "'n stuff" and "ya know" in their speech.

You know, all those superfluous, bounceable jobs that everyone in their twenties has nowadays (many of which have been featured here). The point is, these young people are having too good a time "playing Quidditch" at their reasonably-priced colleges and reading E.L. James instead of Jeffrey Eugenides and living at home for fun and definitely not because they're being slowly squeezed out of the middle class. Sadly, none of the Twixter men have ever learned to read, and any Twixter woman who attempts to play a video game disappears into a pile of shrieking sand. The only thing that can save this nation of Lotus-eaters now is a book. But what kind of a book? According to CNN:

a frolicking comic novel that submits the interests and longings of pre-adults to whimsy, burlesque and farce. Not gentle humor, but all-out comedy or satire that casts the whole experience and habitat of pre-adults as both ludicrous and avoidable...

This comic novel will amuse and sell well, for the better elements of our culture and our youth have grown impatient with the travails and aggrandizing of Twixter books, movies, music and TV.

It will serve a larger purpose, too, the same one that motivated satirists from Aristophanes and Juvenal to Swift and Pope to Mark Twain and the creators of "Dr. Strangelove": to curb self-indulgence, deflate pretense, and expel stupidity. To take down a popular genre or a representative figure or a trendy pose, one good belly laugh works better than pages of strict criticism.

There you have it. We need a Swiftian novel of Kubrickian proportions (something that reads like Kingsley Amis and John Kennedy Toole and Gary Shteyngart and Philip Roth and H.L. Mencken, a demographically diverse group with very little in common) full of delicious pratfulls to prick the overweening twentysomething spirit; please text your completed manuscripts to Mark Bauerlein immediately.

[Image via AP]

When George H.W. Bush was released yesterday from the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital, most news outlets reported the event in a straight forward enough fashion, with some even taking the opportunity to compliment the 88-year-old on his excellent taste in socks. Germany's Der Spiegel, however, took a different approach; instead of reporting his improving health, the magazine accidentally published their pre-written obituary for the former president.

Making matters more interesting, the unfinished obituary included several (not untrue) digs aimed at Bush, calling him a "colorless politician" whose reputation improved only after his son George W.'s historically unpopular presidency.

The magazine quickly removed the post and Tweeted an apology.

"All newsrooms prepare obituaries for selected figures," the magazine said on its Twitter feed. "The fact that the one for Bush senior went live was a technical mistake. Sorry!"

Of course, as a Bush, the former president is well aware that sometimes announcements are made a bit pre-maturely.

[via Daily Intel//Image via AP]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a hospital Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot during an follow-up examination related to a concussion she suffered earlier this month.

Her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said Clinton is being treated with anti-coagulants at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she will remain for the next 48 hours in order for doctors to observe her progress.

"Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion," Reines said. "They will determine if any further action is required."

Clinton was also diagnosed with a blood clot in 1998. She would later describe the incident to the New York Daily News as "the most significant health scare [she'd] ever had."

When news of Clinton's concussion first broke two weeks ago, many conservatives were quick to question both the diagnosis and its timing, which coincided with Clinton's scheduled testimony about the attacks in Benghazi. Media Matters has a video rundown of the various Fox News pundits who attempted to spread conspiracy theories about the incident, and Buzzfeed has a list of eight people who thought the concussion was faked. There was also a Twitter hashtag game called "#HillaryProverbs," which several conservatives used, as recently as Saturday, to make "jokes" like "A concussion a day keeps congressional investigators at bay."

Clinton had been scheduled to return to work this week.

[Image via AP]

Earlier this year, we asked if you remembered Afghanistan. The answer then, obviously but somewhat unofficially, was no. Now, with the release of several news organization's year-end top stories lists, we know that, objectively, no one gives a shit about the 11-year-old war.

As the New York Times reports, the Afghan war was barely mentioned in Associated Press's annual poll of its editors and news directors, and it failed to make Yahoo's list of the top news stories of the year (or its list of top international stories of the year). The war was also absent from the Pew Research Center's list of the year's top 15 stories.

Why? A combination of lack of interest and coverage.

"We are in a period where the American public is intensely focused on domestic economic concerns," said Michael Dimock, the associate director for research at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "On top of this, the public is having a hard time staying focused on foreign engagements that have been ongoing for over a decade."

Basically, we don't notice or care about the fate of American soldiers, unless a whole lot of them die at same time.

The exceptions to what he called this "war fatigue" are mass killings of Americans in the war zone, "which continue to draw public focus for short periods of time," he said.

But, for better or worse, there were few, if any, events like that this year. Also noteworthy: Americans were equally bored with "the secret American campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia."

So what was the top story of the year, according to the Associated Press? Another terribly depressing story, the shootings in Newtown.

[Image via AP]