Crooooow

RICHMOND, VA—With the marriage ceremony and the words of advice from several speeches about love still fresh in their minds as they move and bounce to the live five-piece band, everyone on the dance floor at the Elliott–Begneaud wedding recept...

Maya Angelou, Poet, Author, Civil Rights Activist, And—Holy Cow—Tony Award–Nominated Actress, College Professor, Magazine Editor, Streetcar Conductor—Really? Streetcar Conductor? Wow—Calypso Singer, Nightclub Performer, And Foreign Journalist, Dead At 86

i guess all we can do is hope for the best! fingers crossed

ISLA VISTA, CA—In the days following a violent rampage in southern California in which a lone attacker killed seven individuals, including himself, and seriously injured over a dozen others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mas...

As details slowly begin to appear from yesterday's Westdashian nuptials , photos from the Kanyim photo booth have been shared on several celebrity Instagram accounts. Jaden Smith, who was in attendance as a prophet to bless the oxygen particles surrounding the couple, wore a white Batman costume.

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The Giants had a four-run lead in the top of the ninth, which makes it all the more frustrating that reliever Santiago Casilla hurt himself while trying to get a useless infield single.

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A's outfielder Josh Reddick has decided to start using George Michael's "Careless Whisper" as his walk-up song, and it's got everyone in Oakland feeling sexxxy.

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 The Onion – America's Finest News Source

Heard any good jokes lately? No. No you haven’t. Because it has been twenty years-ish (?) since Peewee Herman got busted bustin’ in that porn theater, and I got busted … well you know. I am the last time a joke happened. That was me.

Well, now I am back, to tell my story for money, because I have not been able to get a job in all that time except for the one time I designed purses, which everyone laughed at, because I’m such a big joke. I have been a global punchline since I was 22 years old probably, not sure, would have to look it up. I have been unemployable, undateable, and about 15 years early for the crusade against slut-shaming. That would have been nice.

Am I sorry that my sluttiness occurred on someone else’s husband’s dick? I assume so, probably, sure! But you just try to tell me you wouldn’t have been all up in the Big Dog’s crotch, and I will call you a liar to your face. It was exciting! He’s a charismatic fellow! And you have been jizzed on by so much worse.

It was probably a mistake to remain silent — you never even heard my voice for years after that! — and hope it would blow over. (GET IT? I MADE YOUR BLOWJOB JOKE FOR YOU. Christ.) If I hadn’t remained such a mystery wrapped in a riddle slathered in really cute lipstick, maybe your ungodly fascination in the first president in the history of the universe to get some strange would have faded in time. Maybe I could have done something with my master’s degree from the London School of Economics, or met a nice boy. I could have at least had a reality show. Instead, Kim Kardashian makes millions every time she tweets about a shoe, and she only fucked some second-rate R&B singer. BUT NOOOOOOOO, I had to be too classy and private for that, and apparently, I am also really nice.

Why were you so fascinated, anyway? There wasn’t even Twitter yet. I didn’t even say anything about negroes. I was just a girl with a crush on the president, and did some sex stuff on him, and had some evil shitty friends who betrayed me pretty bad. And I’m the bad guy here? Also, why didn’t I just move to France like 10 years ago? That probably would have been a good idea, that I should have done.

Sure, Bill Clinton still gets cigar jokes once in a while, and “what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” and Hillary still has Maureen Dowd writing batshit insane things about her every time she turns around. But they still are allowed to have “jobs,” and “relationships,” because “reason.”

To recap: I am probably sorry I sort of fucked your husband, Hillary, but eternal banishment from society seems a little overreacty, please buy my book if I wrote one (unsure).

[VanityFair]

Another facet of Millennium Park's 10th anniversary celebration was announced Thursday. [ more › ]

Think of this as the Latin American answer to Louisiana’s Holy Trinity of celery, onion, and bell pepper. It’s an essential cooking base for classic dishes like rope vieja (braised beef) or arroz con pollo (chicken and rice). Goya‘s sofrito is a mix of tomatoes, onions, peppers, cilantro, and garlic, deeply caramelized in olive oil and pureed. Use a heaping spoonful to jump-start a soup or braise, or stir into sauce for enchiladas. Sold at most supermarkets.

If you’d like to make a homemade version, try our Sofrito recipe from our April 2001 issue.

CNN picks a fine assortment of chocolate eggs

intertnet:

my boyfriend sent me this at 4 in the morning 

Did not know what to expect.

Was not disappointed.

A reader sends in this front-row view of the Chorizo Sausage eating it during tonight's Sausage Race at Miller Park.

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This happened back in March, at the 2014 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships, and there is just so much to love about it. What you are watching is a synchronized skating team called the Starlights absolutely losing its collective mind after seeing its score from the short program.

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Your most compelling sports video of the year comes from ESPN, which caught these Phillies fans taunting Dan Uggla—then being rudely interrupted by Uggla's grand slam. It was brilliant enough (seriously, great job ESPN) but we took it a bit further with extreme slow motion.

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Lorde's "Team" has been making it into Local H's recent live sets so they went into the studio to record a proper version of it. [ more › ]

Michael Paul Smith takes photographs of classic cars that evoke feelings of nostalgia for America in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Take a look, these are about as Pleasantville as you can get:

But as you'll discover browsing through Smith's collection, the cars he photographs are scale models. Here's the set-up for that second shot:

And here's further evidence of Smith's trickery:

No Photoshop here...all effects are done in-camera. As Smith notes, "It is the oldest trick in the special effects book: lining up a model with an appropriate background, then photographing it." (via @osteslag)

Tags: cars   Michael Paul Smith   photography

If, like Yr Doktor Zoom, you’re a connoisseur of conspiracy loons, you are of course familiar with the weirdo “sovereign citizen” crowd, who believe that they aren’t subject to the false laws of the fake American government, that typing their names in all caps has magical properties, and that their only allegiance is to the real U.S. Constitution, which was somehow perverted by the adoption of the 14th Amendment or some such nonsense. There are many variations on the theme, but they pretty much just don’t want to pay taxes or be subject to any laws they don’t like, which is most of them.

So anyhow, here is a teevee report from Nashville’s channel 4 about a nice gentleman named Mark Manuel, of Franklin, Tennessee, who was convicted in federal court in February along with two others, in a multi-million-dollar scheme to “eliminate” people’s debts through a bunch of phony legal filings — all the debtors had to do was hand over a whole lot more money to the trio, who promised to use secret federal accounts to pay off the debts. As a result, a lot of people took out credit card advances or second mortgages to pay the bogus fees, and several victims ended up losing everything; the three ripped off at least 250 people nationwide. And of course, even though federal money is worthless, the group happily accepted it from their victims. Isn’t sovereignty a beautiful thing?

For our money (which is worthless, since it isn’t gold or silver), the highlight of the video may be when the teevee news team visits Mark Manuel’s home in Franklin, finding a sign on the door with his Official Seal — it’s got an eagle on it, so of course it’s official — on a notice advising that it’s private property, with some fun legalese arglebargle that you can easily find on the Interwebs:

Over This land flies the American Banner of Peace, and the Law thereon is the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian lex non scripta. The Owner has enacted other various ordinances, to which all who enter This land are subject.

Including a $10,000 fine, payable only “in silver coin,” for anyone who comes on the property without an official license issued by the owner. These folks love their pretend legal documents.

Also amusing is this exchange in a deposition for a 2009 case involving a Tennessee couple who Manuel and his brothers defrauded in a Ponzi scheme; Manuel refuses to acknowledge that he is “Mark Manuel,” because if you don’t say your name in a court (whose jurisdiction you deny anyway), you are magically not guilty:

Attorney: “What is your name?”

Manuel: “What is not my name?”

Attorney: “No, what is your name?”

Manuel: “What is not my name?”

(It’s a shame the transcript at Channel 4′s website gets the pronouns mixed up, as if Manuel were asking the attorney “What is not your name?”)

And then there’s the ID cards found on Manuel when he was arrested: A Tennessee driver’s license, as well as a card identifying him as a “Universal Postal Union Diplomat,” an alleged Chrerokee tribal ID, and another claiming to be a “World ID card,” which we have generously screenshotted from the TV video for your enlightenment.

Update: Thanks to Alert Commenter “Guppy” for noticing the strange choice of logo for the “Universal Postal Union” card — wouldn’t have guessed a conspiracy loon would be an admirer of the Vatican. Then again, maybe whoever made the card 1) is a huge troll; B) found the image somewhere and liked how it looked regardless; or III) is a counter-agent from the Vatican itself.

A February story on the trial includes some other choice tidbits, like the business name the three men used: “Hakanumatata For All.” Considering their habit of rounding up victims through church groups, we’d suggest that they could just as well have gone with “Hasa Diga Eebowai Holdings.”

There’s more on the scheme at the link, including details on the legal “gibberish” in sovereign citizen documents — the strategy, if you can call it that, is just to file tons of utter bullshit in hopes of slowing down any legal proceedings — and the tempting description of one of Manuel’s codefendants, Jerry Elmo Hartsoe, whose face

has a steely blue tint because he drank a mixture of colloidal silver and zinc, said James Craig, his attorney. The concoction was recommended as a cure for an illness by a chemist, he said.

“It’s permanent,” Craig said.

Sadly, in one of the great journalistic disappointments of the week, we were unable to find any photos of Mr. Hartsoe. But here’s another gentleman whose skin was similarly affected, but who we wish to emphasize is in no way connected to the sovereign citizen fraudsters; he’s more of a living color swatch:

Sadly for Mark Manuel and his Blue Man group, even though they don’t recognize federal law, federal law recognizes them, and they each face “possible sentences of 30 years’ imprisonment and fines of $250,000 per defendant.” The federal government isn’t picky, and will even accept worthless U.S. currency for the fines. Sentencing is scheduled for May of this year.

[The State / FBI.gov / WSMV-4 via tip from "LZ"]

Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. This is all the Derp he plans to round up today, but at least he won’t demand payment in silver.

danlion-philosaur:

do-black-people-do-stuff:

When I first got my bunny I would shake his cage whenever I would see him do this. I thought he was dying or sick. I wasn’t aware that this was how they lay down.

AW OH MY GOSH

Despite this GIF, and initial reports, the answer is "no." A reporter for WDRB in Louisville initially reported that Scottrade Center security had a run in with the Stanford band and then later backtracked on the claim and deleted the initial tweet.

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