The name and face of a man thought to be involved in the brutal attacks
Abdeslam Salah, a 26-year-old man born in Brussels, is reportedly the brother of one of the suicide bombers. France’s National Police tweeted the image out, asking people to look out for the man who is “likely to be involved in the attacks.” They also warned people not to interact with him, as he’s likely armed and considered “dangerous.”
The attacks
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
Vincent Margera, the uncle of Jackass star Bam Margera, died on Sunday morning at 59.
Margera, known by the nickname “Don Vito,” has been struggling with kidney and liver failure for years, and slipped into a coma last month in Philadelphia, according to TMZ.
Margera often appeared as a side character on both Jackass and on his nephew’s show Viva La Bam. He was known for his incoherent, rambling speech, which earned him his nickname, after Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.”
More recently, Margera had run into problems with the law, earning a ten-year probation sentence after he was ound guilty of two counts of sexual assault on a child in 2007. He also was ordered not to appear as his “Don Vito” character from the shows, and had to renounce his public persona over the course of his probation.
Margera’s death follows that of another Jackass star in recent years — in 2011, Ryan Dunn was killed in a car accident at 34.
As it happens, the two of them produced and starred in a full-length project together called Dunn and Vito’s Rock Tour. Here’s a clip of the two ice fishing, which is a nice way to remember them.
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
A scare at a Paris memorial in the Place de la République on Sunday sent crowds running in panic, fearing another terror incident after the attacks on Friday night
Police cleared the memorial on Sunday, without telling mourners why, according to witnesses who were there. The area was cleared after the initial panic, with reports saying that there was not another attack. One reporter told CNN that he’d “never seen anything like it” before.
The area is calm now, and officials have yet to say why it was cleared in the first place.
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
More and more eyewitness testimony is coming in from those who escaped the terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday. The latest such account, which was posted by Isobel Bowdery, a women who reports she was at the Bataclan during the assault, details her struggle to remain alive while the shooting was going on around her.
Bowdery, from Cape Town, South Africa, believed (like many in the venue) that the attack on the Bataclan was actually part of the show when it first began. She posted her story, as well as a photo of her bloody shirt, to Facebook to let others know of her tragic experience as well as to highlight those who helped her and others during the atrocities that occurred.
From her Facebook post, via Buzzfeed:
You never think it will happen to you. It was just a Friday night at a rock show. The atmosphere was so happy and everyone was dancing and smiling. And then when the men came through the front entrance and began the shooting, we naively believed it was all part of the show. It wasn’t just a terrorist attack, it was a massacre. Dozens of people were shot right in front of me. Pools of blood filled the floor. Cries of grown men who held their girlfriends dead bodies pierced the small music venue. Futures demolished, families heartbroken. In an instant.
She goes on:
Shocked and alone, I pretended to be dead for over an hour, lying among people who could see their loved ones motionless. Holding my breath, trying to not move, not cry - not giving those men the fear they longed to see. I was incredibly lucky to survive. But so many didn’t. The people who had been there for the exact same reasons as I - to have a fun Friday night were innocent. This world is cruel. And acts like this are suppose to highlight the depravity of humans and the images of those men circling us like vultures will haunt me for the rest of my life. The way they meticulously aimed at shot people around the standing area I was in the centre of without any consideration for human life. It didn’t feel real. I expected any moment for someone to say it was just a nightmare.
Bowdery, whose post has been shared almost 600,000 times by now, has struck such a chord with fellow Facebook users (including Randi Zuckerberg), that she’s received well-wishes and gratitude from people all over the world. Not only that, Buzzfeed reports, but she’s also maxed out her friends count on Facebook and can’t accept any new requests. Hopefully, those who are trying to add her are doing so because of the following passage from her post:
But being a survivor of this horror lets me able to shed light on the heroes. To the man who reassured me and put his life on the line to try and cover my brain whilst I whimpered, to the couple whose last words of love kept me believing the good in the world, to the police who succeeded in rescuing hundreds of people, to the complete strangers who picked me up from the road and consoled me during the 45 minutes I truly believed the boy I loved was dead, to the injured man who I had mistaken for him and then on my recognition that he was not Amaury, held me and told me everything was going to be fine despite being all alone and scared himself, to the woman who opened her doors to the survivors, to the friend who offered me shelter and went out to buy new clothes so I wouldn’t have to wear this blood stained top, to all of you who have sent caring messages of support - you make me believe this world has the potential to be better. To never let this happen again.
Or her tribute to those who did not make it:
But most of this is to the 80 people who were murdered inside that venue, who weren’t as lucky, who didn’t get to wake up today and to all the pain that their friends and families are going through. I am so sorry. There’s nothing that will fix the pain. I feel privileged to be there for their last breaths. And truly believing that I would join them, I promise that their last thoughts were not on the animals who caused all this. It was thinking of the people they loved. As I lay down in the blood of strangers and waiting for my bullet to end my mere 22 years, I envisioned every face that I have ever loved and whispered I love you. Over and over again. Reflecting on the highlights of my life. Wishing that those I love knew just how much, wishing that they knew that no matter what happened to me, to keep believing in the good in people. To not let those men win. Last night, the lives of many were forever changed and it is up to us to be better people. To live lives that the innocent victims of this tragedy dreamt about but sadly will now never be able to fulfill. RIP angels. You will never be forgotten.
Contact the author at mark.shrayber@jezebel.com.
Image via Facebook
![Two Zebras Are on the Loose After Boldly Escaping From a Circus in Philadelphia [Updated]](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Rwwn-MAT--/1520429394734742928.jpg)
ZEBRA WATCH™ has begun.
A pair of zebras escaped their human captors on Sunday, fleeing in a blaze of striped glory from the the UniverSoul Circus outside the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
According to NBC News, at 2:20 p.m. that one zebra had been caught and another was still on the run.
People have been tweeting amazing videos of the zebras, running wild and free in just the way that the good Lord intended. The story is oddly similar to the great llama lam that captivated the internet last February. Maybe we should all take these stories as a hint that we should stop trying to keep these animals caged up. Freedom for ungulates!
For what it’s worth, the UniverSoul circus is not well known for good animal welfare. Earlier this year, I wrote about disturbing animal welfare conditions for their elephants. Maybe the animals are finally starting to rise up against the circus that has kept them locked up.
Run, zebra, run.
Update 3:22 p.m.
The zebras have both been corralled, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. No injuries to the animals have been reported, except for the broken heart of a caged bird.
[Image via Twitter]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
A man who gave a total of $718,000 to two New York City psychics in cash and gifts has come forward with a real doozy of a sad story.
Niall Rice, a 33-year-old British consultant, made headlines anonymously last June when court documents revealed the bizarre situation. Now, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has suggested that one of the psychics who swindled him, a 26-year-old woman named Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, could plead guilty in exchange for just one year in jail. Rice came forward in an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday.
Rice said that the psychics lured him in by promising to help with his problems, and to help him reincarnate an ex-girlfriend who had recently passed away.
It began at a psychic shop on Delancey Street, Rice said, where he quickly dropped thousands as well as a $40,000 ring from Tiffany’s when asked by a psychic named Brandy.
She asked for $2,500 that day, and he withdrew it from a nearby Chase bank. She said he would have his money back soon.
Things just got weirder from there. When Rice’s ex-girlfriend Michelle died from an overdose, Delmaro, who was going by the name Christina, denied it.
Mr. Rice said he had just paid Christina $90,000 that she said was needed to build a bridge of gold in another dimension to trick an evil spirit that was haunting Michelle. He called her and told her Michelle was dead.
“Christina said, ‘Don’t believe it,’ ” he said. “ ‘If you believe it, it’s true.’”
The whole thing is a bizarre twist of false pretenses and weird happenings, and is well worth the read.
[Image via Flickr]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
French military planes carried out a series of airstrikes on ISIS strongholds on Sunday in the wake of the attacks on civilians in Paris. CNN reports that targets in Raqqa, Syria were hit by 20 bombs delivered by 12 planes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government is sharing so-called “targeting packages” with France, feeding the country detailed information about Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
President of France François Hollande said that the attacks are “in the name of self-defense” after the attacks that killed 132 people
France controls fighter aircrafts at bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. According to France’s defense minister Mickael Soria, Sunday’s airstrikes targeted a command center, a recruitment center, an ammunition storage base and a training camp for the Islamic State.
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
Whenever The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart had to report on a tragedy like Friday’s terrorist attacks on Paris, he would temporarily drop the jokes and speak candidly. Serious Jon was a little jarring to watch, at least the first couple of times, and that successfully conveyed the gravity of situation.
But Jon Stewart was on Comedy Central. John Oliver is on premium fucking cable, which gives him access to high-quality HBO-level cusses. So fuck it, he can say what he wants: The Paris attackers were fucking assholes.
Bloomberg is launching a new “fast commentary” section that is explicitly dedicated to hot takes. Just what the media needs.
On Friday, seven sororities joined whistleblower Alpha Phi in protesting the “Safe Campus Act,” a nonsense campus sexual assault bill that would make things measurably worse for victims. This bad PR blitz forced the National Panhellenic Conference, the sororities’ umbrella organization, to drop its support of the bill.
http://gawker.com/one-sorority-f...
The Huffington Post reports that the national offices of Phi Mu, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Chi Omega, Delta Phi Epsilon, Gamma Phi Beta, Sigma Delta Tau and Delta Gamma all announced Friday that they would not support the Safe Campus Act—a bill that would, at its core, prevent colleges from punishing rapists unless victims agree to go to the police. The Safe Campus Act is a redundant piece of legislation concerned entirely with the rights of the accused, and it is universally opposed
The National Panhellenic Conference and the North American Interfraternity Conference have spent $200,000 lobbying for the Safe Campus Act since July (with the help of former Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott). Now, both groups say they have dropped their support of the bill due to a “groundswell of concern” from the organizations they represent.
But the NPC and NIC still have a legislative agenda when it comes to campus sexual assault. In statements released late Friday, both groups announced that they would maintain support of the Fair Campus Act, a similar bill to the Safe Campus Act with one exception: The Fair Campus Act does not require victims to go to the police in order for colleges to investigate sexual assault allegations.
The Fair Campus Act, however, is still curiously and conservatively concerned with the rights of the accused. Per the Huffington Post, it “would allow colleges to use a stricter standard of proof than is currently required to decide whether a student committed sexual misconduct.”
Several sororities have already stated that they do not support the Fair Campus Act, so it’s not clear how long the NPC will be able to get away with lobbying for it. In its statement Friday, the NPC closed by insisting, “We stand ready to work with all to ensure all students feel safe and supported on their college and university campuses.”
Photo via Delta Gamma. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.
The governor of the brave state of Texas has announced that his state will refuse to accept any refugees who have fled war-torn Syria. In a letter announcing his decision, Gov. Greg Abbott “demanded” that President Obama consider a similar tactic following Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris.
From Abbott’s letter:
As governor of Texas, I write to inform you that the State of Texas will not accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris.
Further, I and millions of Americans implore you to halt your plans to accept more Syrian refugees in the United States. A Syrian “refugee” appears to have been part of the Paris terror attack. American humanitarian compassion could be exploited to expose Americans to similar deadly danger. The reasons for such concerns are plentiful.
Yesterday, the governors of Alabama and Michigan announced that they were suspending the relocation of Syrian refugees to their states.
http://gawker.com/alabama-and-mi...
Obama, for his part, seems unfazed and said at a press conference today that he remains committed to helping Syrian refugees.
“The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism,” he said. “It it is very important..that we do not close our hearts to those victims of such violence and, somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.”
“We don’t have a religious test to our compassion,” he added.
UPDATE 12:06p.m.: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order on Monday morning to prevent Syrian refugees from being resettled in Louisiana.
Image via AP. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.
Since its release last week, One Direction’s new album Made in the A.M. has echoed loudly over the hot, muddy shit pits of hell. “I’ve got fire for a heart, I’m not scared of the dark. You’ve never seen it look so easy.” On the beat, the devil cackles and takes a coal from the fire, tossing it onto Harry Styles’s boyish torso. Simon Cowell knew this was coming.
Earlier this year, Zayn left One Direction to pursue a career in, I assume, graffiti t-shirt clothing line. His departure plunged the rest of the boys into hell’s molten core where they remain seated at the devil’s left hand, left to entertain him in myriad humiliating and painful ways. We know his. However, did you know Simon Cowell, One Direction’s manager, knew Zayn was going to leave before the rest of us did? It’s true.
“I knew Zayn was going before it happened,” Cowell told some magazine, via Us Weekly. He continued:
“He was unhappy. My concern was actually for the boys. Zayn wasn’t in a great place but it was his decision to leave, he wasn’t kic—
Blah, blah. Uh, yeah, Simon Cowell—WE KNOW IT WAS ZAYN’S DECISION TO LEAVE.
This guy thinks he’s the only know who knows anything about Zayn.
Images via Getty. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.
Every now and then an unjustly overlooked film will resurface and garner the praise it deserves. Last week it was the Denison, Texas Police Department’s 2014 recruitment video that belatedly caught the attention of national audiences. Though Radley Balko had featured it in the Washington Post shortly after its initial release, Denison Police Recruitment remained a box-office sleeper until an enthusiastic YouTube viewer created a petition urging Denison’s police chief and mayor to take their film to Sundance. Oh wait, no—the petition in fact urges them to delete the video and “recruit guardians instead of warriors.” OK, that’s harsh criticism. Almost two-star-Fandango-review harsh.
Times are tough for creators of police recruitment videos; they face increasingly stiff competition from low-budget indie documentaries like California Cops Punching Unarmed Woman For Seatbelt Violation, and Cop Shoots Unarmed Man In the Back, and the surprise summer blockbuster Officer Pulls Gun On Teens at Pool Party (featuring breakout star Eric Casebolt, the former McKinney, Texas Police Corporal who does all his own stunts).
So it’s nice to see official police recruitment videos finally generating some buzz. They’re an under appreciated genre: what they lack in broad audience appeal, they make up for with their charmingly strict adherence to formulae. Here’s a quick critical tour, starting with:
All the classic elements are here: The soundtrack, reminiscent of a higher-quality video game or a regionally popular grunge metal band. Sirens. Darkness. Static-filled radio dispatcher messages. Strobe lighting. Car chases. Foot pursuits. Crime scene photography. A drug bust that’s blocked like West Side Story, but with armed bicycle cops. The obligatory police dog, because everyone loves dogs. And weapons. So many weapons.
The stock themes are handled expertly, and further developed by the addition of a dramatic secondary plot about a police sniper on a rooftop preparing to shoot some poor, white hostage-taker through a plate glass window (sadly, the production budget wasn’t big enough to show the shooting). The film’s creators also strike a nice literary note by framing their work with inspirational quotes from Edmund Burke and George Orwell—both of which, unfortunately, are apocryphal.
But this minor slip is easily overlooked, so adroitly does the Denison Police Department wield its arsenal of filmmaking tools: Fog. Shooting. Yelling. More shooting. Pointing. Handcuffs. A blonde police lady using a computer in a car (more compelling than it sounds). A lights-flashing highway motorcade at dusk that seems to be just aimlessly driving around.
For the target audience—people who want to be cops and are willing to live in Denison, Texas—this film hits all the right notes. It’s a solid effort and a model of the genre. Though the production team in Denison might want to brush up on their Orwell a bit. I’m pretty sure he was anti-fascist.
Rating: Four flashing sirens
Cons: All the “suspects” appear to be white. REVERSE DISCRIMINATION.
Pros: They are careful to let us know that there is at least one black police officer in Denison, Texas.
Good as it is, Denison Police Recruitment is hardly the most impressive offering in the cop recruitment film category. Consider this 2012 effort from the...
You may already be familiar with this one; it was featured in the Guardian after a Portsmouth cop shot an unarmed 18-year-old at a Wal-Mart last May. Film aficionados, however, will remember Portsmouth Police Department Recruitment Video’s daring use of nonlinear narrative.
It opens with a standard guitar track, a dispatcher voice, a car chase and then a cop running after a suspect (white). But then we jump to an unexpected sequence of Cops At Home, doing normal everyday non-cop stuff like cooking and yard work. (Hey, look, a dog!)
Then we’re in a committee meeting, where a decidedly non-urgent-sounding conversation takes place about two murder suspects holed up in a house. Then, suddenly, there’s a sniper covered in mosquito netting and a bunch of guys in body armor on an armored troop carrier with automatic weapons out the wazoo, busting in windows and doors and arresting the shit out of a (white) suspect who is extremely respectful as he is handcuffed at gunpoint. The dog does some official police dog barking.
But then we jump back to the cop in the car from the very first scene—remember him? It turns out he’s chasing the other (white) murder suspect! Everything in between has been a flashback! Is that innovative or what? Our protagonist finally catches the suspect, pulls his gun and shouts, “Down on your knees!”And after all that, the driving, chasing, shouting, gun-pointing cop returns home to his million-dollar colonial house (it must have at least five bedrooms, implying an impossible amount of overtime) and his little blonde daughter hugs him and says, “Hi Daddy! How was your day?”
“Just an ordinary day,” Daddy replies, smiling complacently.
Then he changes his shoes, puts on a sweater, and takes us on a magic trolley ride to the Land of Make-Believe.
Rating: Three flashing sirens
Cons: The absence of the little girl’s mother is never explained. Did her father kill his wife and frame the two (white) suspects for the crime?
Pros: Innovative narrative form stretches the boundaries of the filmmaker’s art.
Few directors dare to embrace the structural fluidity found in Portsmouth Police Department Recruitment Video, perhaps because cop recruitment videos are directed at viewers whose IQ is under 110. Most do not hesitate to give the audience what they want, like this 2015 release from...
DISCIPLINE. PRIDE. TEAMWORK. TRAINING. OPPORTUNITY. RESPECT. LOYALTY. HONOR. DEDICATION. INTEGRITY. Film students, if you worry about how to communicate subtle themes to an audience, do not scorn the technique of spelling them out in big shiny letters that explode in reverse. Just look how impressive that is, especially with the fog. Orson Welles would have done that all the time if he’d had the technology.
In between the shiny words, we see a dog, darkness, flashing lights, cops driving, cops walking, cops doing paperwork, and, of course, weapons. Some other hallmarks of the genre stand out: Gear that won’t kill anyone but is still cool, like infrared scopes and surveillance cameras. Cops shoving a suspect up against a brick wall—this scene is to cop recruitment videos what the Awkward First Kiss scene is to romantic comedies. Close-up shots panning across badges and patches. And kids—cops love kids, or at least they need to be able to act like they do when people are watching. All this action is packed into a brisk 2:12.
Rating: Four flashing sirens
Cons: Isn’t that one cop pointing his rifle at a gas pump?
Pros: This video makes looking at surveillance cameras seem like an awful lot of fun!
A very different aesthetic is explored in...
Spoiler alert: THIS VIDEO HAS A BEAR. A CRIMINAL BEAR. And there are other surprises. After a standard sirens-and-badges intro we get some gorgeous scenery. Ski lifts. Kayaking. Waterfalls. Then we switch gears to a SWAT team playing follow the leader in a parking lot. Then we see people trying on gas masks (Gas masks in Vail? Wouldn’t that make more sense in Denver?). Note the directors’ intriguing choice to randomly speed up the footage in places. It gives the distinct impression that they persuaded a vacationing Hollywood studio executive to edit this as community service. The vibe is...jittery.
Rating: Three flashing sirens
Cons: Sadly, the whole bear plot line goes unresolved, which is really frustrating and sort of ruined the whole thing for me.
Pros: Skiing, kayaking, and bears. Why any cop works anywhere but Vail is a mystery.
In the “unintentionally revealing” category, we have...
First comes the explainer: “The Oakland Housing Authority Police Department Is The Premier Police Presence For The Entire Housing Authority Community It Serves.” Then they show us what they mean by “serve,” with a shot of four officers—two aiming rifles directly AT THE CAMERA—advancing behind a guy with a blast shield. It’s a truly breathtaking vision of “community.”
After this bold aesthetic statement, the video settles into information mode. Oakland Housing Authority cops, we learn, “Require A Diverse Skill Set And Unique Ability To Protect And Serve The Communities They Work [sic].” Those unique abilities appear to include:
Holding a stick
Hitting things with a stick
Holding a gun
Riding a bike
Shaking hands with children
Tailgating civilians’ cars
Holding boxes
Dressing up as McGruff the Crime Dog
Holding blast shields
Shooting automatic weapons
Then a spokeslady cop talks about vacation days and the great work environment. She says, “We’re so small, we do everything. We write the search warrant, we do the surveillance.”
The subtext seems to be, “There is no judicial oversight of the Oakland Housing Authority Police.” That’s good to know! Because one common failing of cop recruitment videos is that they don’t address important questions prospective recruits are likely to have, such as “Who am I allowed to rape?” and “What are the opportunities for graft and corruption?”
More skills: Waving. Driving. Driving and waving. Handing out business cards to children who look dubious about your intentions. Standing in front of a patrol car with your arms crossed.
Rating: Four flashing sirens
Cons: Glass buildings, a lake, a boat, palm trees, blah blah blah. We get it. You’re in California. It’s still OAKLAND. Face it, you’re not going to compete with Vail on scenery.
Pros: McGruff!
But the film that most fully explores every possible artistic angle of police recruitment has to be UM Police Recruiting Ad, from the...
This timeless 2006 triumph opens at a blistering pace: Guitars. Guns. Pointing. Marching. Shin guards. Nightsticks. Shooting. Riot shields. Computer animation of Chairman Mao (I think). “Discipline.” More animation. A teacher lecturing a class. You know what, I just realized this whole segment is basically a shot-by-shot reconstruction of the riot scene from Pink Floyd—The Wall. An homage, almost. Very classy.
“Why be a cop?” asks the narrator. “Because it’s what you want.”
Know that potential University of Maryland cop recruits, despite their proximity, don’t want to be college students; they want to conduct high speed car chases through campus, and shoot things on campus, and dress up in riot gear so they can advance in a line, thrusting their batons in front of them and shouting “BACK! BACK! BACK!” at whoever might need to be told to move back, on campus.
“I’m not scared to get in a fight, I’m not submissive in any way,” says a blonde lady cop, which is great to hear, really—Girl Power!—but kind of an odd attitude for an adult whose job is to protect a bunch of people barely out of their teens. But what do I know? I’m just a civilian.
The training process for campus cops at UM is to “break you down from a civilian and get you in the police officer’s mindset. There will be heroic music playing the whole time that you “jump-start” your career—another common theme in the cop recruitment genre. Unfortunately, the ideal audience for these videos is composed of people who are both (1) very bored in their current situation and (2) very interested in shooting things. So it’s a good thing that all police departments rigorously screen job candidates for psychological issues before hiring them (like psychologist Carole Busick, who has been giving Harris County Sheriff’s Office workers “psychological evaluations” for $100, sight unseen and no ID needed).
“If you can handle the training,” the narrator says, his tone implying that we probably can’t, “if you can handle it all—the gear, and the guns and the cars,” then “the University of Maryland can put you on the front lines of police work.”
The front lines are actually Fraternity Row, but if you add some tear gas and imagine that the rioting basketball fans are Nazi storm troopers, it’s pretty darned dramatic.
Rating: Five flashing sirens
Pros: During the nighttime car chase sequence, at 1:48, you can distinctly hear someone say “One Adam.” I think they honest to God stole footage from an old episode of Adam-12. That’s pretty ballsy.
Cons: This thing is over eight minutes long. It’s good, sure, but it’s not Dr. fucking Zhivago.
Susan Schorn is the author of Smile at Strangers, and Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly; she also writes the column Bitchslap for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
Where’s that nanny? No, not this nanny
All of that was months ago, however. Where is Christine Ouzounian now?
According to an EXCLUSIVE REPORT from Entertainment Tonight, Ouzounian is living in the Bahamas with her ex-fiancé. His name is Christoph Albury and he is a fisherman.
Now you know.
Photo via Splash News. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.
Iowa Congressman Steve King continued to raise doubts about Barack Obama’s place of birth long after the president released his longform birth certificate. As late as last year, he was still asserting that wherever Obama may have been born, he was “not raised with an American experience.” Which is presumably why King just endorsed a real American—Canadian-born Ted Cruz—for president.
Rafael Edward Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to a mother from Delaware and a Cuban father (who was not a U.S. citizen at the time, but would become one in 2005). Ted Cruz had dual Canadian-American citizenship at birth, and moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of 4.
Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship after the Dallas Morning News discovered it, and as of May 2014, was solely a citizen of the U.S.
Obama, born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and an American mother, was never a citizen of any other country.
Why do the circumstances of Cruz’s birth meet with King’s approval when Obama’s didn’t? Because Cruz is our formerly-Canadian savior, the chosen of God.
“I believe Ted Cruz is the candidate that’s the answer to my prayers,” King said Monday, “A candidate whom God will use to restore the soul of America.”
That’s the narrative that King hopes will help Cruz cut into reformed stabber
Oh, and King is also certain that Ted Cruz is also the Calgary-born leader we need to “secure our borders.”
Any port in a storm, right? Even a Canadian port.
Here are the best of today’s deals. Get every great deal every day on Kinja Deals, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to never miss a deal, join us on Kinja Gear to read about great products, and on Kinja Co-Op to help us find the best.
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If you were hoping for a Black Friday deal on Garmin’s excellent
Garmin Forerunner 225 ($266) | Amazon
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Garmin Forerunner 220 with Heart Rate Monitor ($170) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Forerun...
Garmin Forerunner 620 ($200) | Amazon
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Garmin Forerunner 620 with Heart Rate Monitor ($240) | Amazon
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Today only, Amazon’s offering huge savings on a ton of flash storage (and a few USB battery packs) from PNY.
The most exciting deal here is probably a 128GB microSD card for $40, which is the best price we’ve ever seen for that capacity, but you’ll also find great prices on SD cards and flash drives as well. Even if you’re all set on storage, these could make for easy gifts and stocking stuffers for the holidays. [PNY Storage Gold Box]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Note: There are also a few USB battery packs available in this Gold Box, and while their prices are okay, they aren’t particularly amazing.
We’ve posted several of these paracord survival bracelets in the past, so if you want one, you’ve probably already bought it for yourself. But if you have any outdoor enthusiasts on your holiday shopping list, this is a cheap and easy gift idea. [Attmu Outdoor Survival Paracord Bracelet with Fire Starter Scraper Whistle Kits, Set of 2, $7 with code 3FTQQHQZ]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q84F520/...
Odds are, you’ll be going to see a movie or two in the next couple of months, so if your preferred theater is an AMC location, here’s your no-brainer deal of the day.
All you have to do is buy this $25 AMC gift card for full price, and you’ll get a free $6 popcorn voucher tossed in for free. It’s not much, but if you go to an AMC theater anyway, there’s really no downside. [$25 AMC Gift Card + Free Popcorn Voucher, $25]
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2915306486...
We all know that that Apple’s Lightning connector is reversible, but sadly, the USB connector on the other end is not. Until now, that is. [Omaker Lightning Cable with Reversible USB Port, $9 with code 8JWSSURK]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01533QYGC
We know you guys like Velcro cable ties, but if you’re interested in a different option for keeping your wires organized, these neoprene zip-up sleeves seem like a great deal. [5-Pack Sumsonic 20” Neoprene Cable Management Sleeve, $11 with code ADIG6F8Q]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B012CHCG5K
http://www.amazon.com/VELCRO-ONE-WRA...
I would never accuse you, dear reader, of wanting to own a selfie stick. But the holidays are coming up, and these would make nice stocking stuffers for all of the narcissists in your family. [SelfieGo Bluetooth Selfie Stick, $4 with code R74O7SXD]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011R74J42/
External hard drive enclosures are a great way to repurpose old hard drives and SSDs into external storage, and we’ve found great deals on two today. One even includes a built-in USB hub, so you can plug in even more storage devices.
Inateck 3 Ports USB 3.0 Hub with 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk Case combination ($22) | Amazon | Use code 5WT5DIBV
http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Ports-...
Inateck 2.5 inch USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure Simple case for HDD SSD ($10) | Amazon | Use code 77O2JA85
http://www.amazon.com/Tool-free-Inat...
Today only, Amazon’s offering great deals on a handful of popular personal hygiene products
Crest 3D White Luxe Whitestrips Professional Effects - Teeth Whitening Kit 20 Treatments ($30) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Braun Series 7- 790cc Pulsonic Shaver System ($125) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YJAZZ4/...
Braun Silk-épil 7 7-561 - Wet & Dry Cordless Epilator ($70) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X164MHW/...
Oral-B Professional Healthy Clean + Floss Action Precision 5000 Rechargeable Electric Toothbrush ($75) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002HWS9GG/...
Braun Series 3-3170 Silk Epil Epilator ($27) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
For a limited time, if you purchase an Xbox One bundle from Amazon, you can pick an extra game for free, including recent blockbusters like Star Wars Battlefront, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Halo 5. Unfortunately, Fallout 4 is not included as an eligible bonus game, but it is available as part of the Xbox One Fallout 4 bundle, so that’s really just a matter of semantics.
If you wait for Black Friday, you’ll be able to score a handful of pre-selected bundles for $300, but none of those deals will offer this much flexibility. [Xbox One + Free Game]
Everyone loves those adorable Funko Pop! vinyl figurines, and you can get a free Storm Trooper, Boba Fett, or Chewbacca from Best Buy when you purchase Star Wars Battlefront. [Free Funko Pop! Star Wars Character when you buy Star Wars Battlefront at Best Buy]
History’s most popular board game meets history’s most popular movie franchise. At $24, this is a great gift idea for the Star Wars fan with everything. [Star Wars Chess Game, $24]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SDJG57M/...
It wasn’t one of your five favorite mechanical keyboards
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZE2PJS/...
http://co-op.kinja.com/your-five-favo...
If you haven’t watched Orphan Black yet, all three seasons are down to $15 today on Blu-ray, which is the best price we’ve ever seen.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already bought
http://www.amazon.com/Aukey-Bluetoot...
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Hands down, Nespresso is the easiest way to make decent espresso at home, and their high-end VertuoLine model will make regular coffee too. If you’re curious to try it out, the red model is down to an all-time low $125 on Amazon today. [Nespresso VertuoLine Coffee and Espresso Maker, Red, $125]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
http://gear.kinja.com/buying-guide-n...
Anker’s ubiquitous Astro series of USB battery packs are some of the most popular items we’ve ever posted, but today we have a deal on the smallest member of their newer, more powerful PowerCore line. [Anker PowerCore 10400 Portable Charger, $16 with code XCWT4JFT]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Z9QVE4Q/...
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Last Friday, Islamic State terrorists attacked several locations in Paris, France, killing more than 120 people and injuring hundreds more. Over the weekend, as more information emerged, reporters and analysts began to speculate that the terrorists used an unlikely tool for coordination: the PlayStation 4. As it turns out, that was all based on a reporting mistake.
Anyone can log into a PS4 and use Sony’s online service, PlayStation Network, to communicate by text or voice with others on the platform. The service is both easy to use and difficult to track, which would presumably make it perfect for people who want to plan criminal activity. There’s been no proof, however, that ISIS used PS4s to plot out what happened last week, despite the wave of media reports this weekend.
So why have so many people linked the PS4 to last week’s attacks? The speculation appears to have started with a rather silly Forbes article titled “How Paris ISIS Terrorists May Have Used PlayStation 4 To Discuss And Plan Attacks.” The article, which has over 475,000 pageviews and theorizes that a terrorist could also “spell out an attack plan in Super Mario Maker’s coins and share it privately with a friend,” reports that a Belgian official drew links between the PlayStation and the Paris attacks.
Forbes originally wrote:
The hunt for those responsible (eight terrorists were killed Saturday night, but accomplices may still be at large) led to a number of raids in nearby Brussels. Evidence reportedly turned up included at least one PlayStation 4 console.
Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon said outright that the PS4 is used by ISIS agents to communicate, and was selected due to the fact that it’s notoriously hard to monitor. “PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,” he said.
What Forbes missed was that Jambon actually made those comments on November 10, three days before the Paris attack. Jambon was speaking in the broader context of Belgium’s security weaknesses, not drawing a connection between the PS4 and last week’s terrorism.
And as for the PlayStation 4 that Forbes says was found in the raids? Turns out that was an error, which they’ve since edited out.
“This was actually a mistake that I’ve had to edit and correct,” writer Paul Tassi told me this afternoon. “I misread the minister’s statement, because even though he was specifically saying that PS4 was being used by ISIS to communicate, there is no public list of evidence list of what was found in the specific recent raids. I’ve edited the post to reflect that, and it was more meant to be about discussing why or how groups like ISIS can use consoles. It’s my fault, as I misinterpreted his statement.”
The timing of Jambon’s statement—and some misleading reporting—has led to a wave of unfounded speculation that’s blown up all across national media, from CNN to Fox News. (Just today we were contacted by MTV News for comment on the story.)
All that said, there’s plenty of evidence that terrorists have been taking advantage of online video game services. The Edward Snowden leaks in 2013 revealed that the NSA kept tabs on games like Second Life and World of Warcraft
When we asked Sony for comment on all this, they sent over a mundane statement:
PlayStation 4 allows for communication amongst friends and fellow gamers, in common with all modern connected devices. We take our responsibilities to protect our users extremely seriously, and we urge our users and partners to report activities that may be offensive, suspicious, or illegal. When we identify or are notified of such conduct, we are committed to taking appropriate actions in conjunction with the appropriate authorities.
Of course, whether or not the Paris attackers used PlayStation 4s to coordinate, the possibility will always be there. Short of strictly monitoring every bit of communication between the PlayStation Network’s ~65 million active monthly users, there isn’t much Sony can do to prevent terrorists from using their service to coordinate attacks. It’s a chilling thought.
Photo: Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.
According to reports, Charlie Sheen will go on the Today show tomorrow to announce he’s been diagnosed with HIV—just one day before a National Enquirer report discussing his sex life is scheduled to drop.
The appearance has been billed as a “revealing personal announcement,” and although NBC has not clarified what that announcement is about, several sites—including TMZ and the Daily Mail—indicate it involves his HIV status.
“Charlie Sheen will reveal to the world that he’s HIV positive. Sources connected to NBC’s ‘Today’ tell TMZ ... Sheen will sit down with Matt Lauer on Tuesday morning to make the announcement,” TMZ reports.
The morning show appearance does seem to be timed to beat a National Enquirer report accusing Sheen of contracting the virus before spreading it to dozens of women in a “multi-million dollar cover-up.”
It’s the culmination of a dogged 18-month investigation that has uncovered how television’s one-time highest paid star potentially spread the devastating virus to dozens of unsuspecting women.
Sheen, 50, has already begun a regimen of medication meant to counteract the effects of the disease, sources said.
Neither Sheen’s manager, Jeff Ballard, nor his attorney, Marty Singer, have returned requests for comment.
Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
This is how the bad times start.
An act of terrorism. A spike in fear and confusion. The public turns to political leaders for answers during a fraught time. Political leaders, scared of making a mistake or being seen as weak, stoke fear and promise vicious retaliation. The public turns to the media for analysis. The media, scared of making a mistake or being seen as weak, falls in line behind the political leaders. A consensus is thereby formed: Vengeance. Anger. A concerted push to brand one section of the populace as dangerous, and to crack down on them. A dismissal of all of society’s other issues as less pressing than the issue of terror and violence. A warping of priorities.
A group of less than ten fanatics attacked civilians in Paris with guns and bombs. More than 100 people were killed, and several hundred more were injured. It was an act of terrorism. It was a low-tech lashing out by a religious extremist group that France has attacked in the Middle East. It was an awful, terrible incident, perpetrated by criminals, who should be tracked down and rounded up and punished like criminals. It was an attack on an open and free society that can only be successfully countered by a society that remains open and free.
A terrorist attack by a fanatical extremist group against Western civilians is nothing new. September 11, 2001 brought this threat into the public consciousness in the strongest possible way, but such attacks had happened even before that. Terrorism will always be a tactic of choice for weaker groups that want to attack stronger ones. It is a way to even power dynamics using sheer brutality. For nearly 15 years, we have all known that such attacks were possible. They have been visited upon cities in Europe periodically over the past decade. All told, hundreds—but not thousands—of European civilians have been killed in London, and Madrid, and now Paris. These attacks are awful. But they are not new. They are a part of the world we have occupied for a long time now. And though they have existed in our world for years, the West has still been able to eke out happiness and prosperity and economic growth at the same time.
It would be nice if the advanced societies of the West—we who pride ourselves on commitment to democracy, personal freedom, rule of law, and steady progress—would at some point become able to absorb these terrorist attacks without reacting with insanity. We should not fail to mourn. We should not fail to do everything necessary to prosecute those who carry out these crimes. But we should not be drawn into the temptation to change our society into what we claim to despise in a misguided effort to seek revenge and to seal ourselves in a cocoon of safety that is nowhere to be found in this world.
Today, America is poised to decide whether or not we repeat the mistakes of our recent past. The rhetoric has already begun.
William Bratton, the head of the NYPD, said that the Paris attacks are “game-changing” for law enforcement. No law enforcement measure can be considered too invasive once the game has been changed.
Ted Cruz, a serious candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said that our collective enemy is radical Islamism, which “will not be deterred by targeted airstrikes with zero tolerance for civilian casualties, when the terrorists have such utter disregard for innocent life.” In order to fight those who disregard innocent life, in other words, we must ourselves become like them. We must become less squeamish about killing civilians, in order to show the terrorists that we are superior.
Other Republican candidates are calling for war and jockeying to see who can be the most unwelcoming to refugees fleeing the violence of Syria. Only by being inhumanly cold to the suffering of outsiders can we protect ourselves in this new era of fear.
The political media almost immediately shifted its conventional wisdom to hold that serious candidates must now be focused on fighting terror, again; that issues like health care and inequality and taxes and all the other more pedestrian and objectively more important issues must now be sidelined in the campaign narrative. The public’s vague fears must be caressed and catered to, even by those who know better.
Nobody—nobody—wants to sit idly by while ISIS wreaks havoc across the world. Those who would characterize any political opponent as advocating such a thing are not being honest. The truth is that there are two possible paths for us now. One is to demonize Muslims as enemies; to turn away needy refugees because they come from a country we fear; to cast aside civil liberties so that law enforcement and spy agencies can know everything about everyone; and to wage war in a fashion more merciless than those we decry as too merciless. The other option is to be all of the things that we tell ourselves we are in our national mythology: the land of the free; a welcoming spot for the tired, poor, huddled masses; a nation ruled by constitutional rights; and the beacon of civility in a harsh and dangerous world.
Our mythology has never been true. But as an ideal, it sure beats cruelty, hatred, and demonization. Let’s try.
[Photo: AP]
