WTF?

Remember those octopus tentacles I mentioned earlier? I wasn’t kidding.

The Grey Lady has just published a piece, in the Fashion section no less, about how (shocker!) people in hipster Brooklyn drink Fair Trade (omg!) coffee! No freakin’ way! Seriously guys, was it that much of a slow news day? Amid the wine bars and boutiques that line Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Jonathan Coulton, 36, a musician wearing black rectangular glasses, was hunched over a laptop at Gorilla Coffee, where a blackboard proclaims all its coffees are fair trade.…

AP: NEW YORK (AP) — It was an ordeal that lasted 19 hours. In that span, a man bound a Columbia University graduate student in her apartment, raped her, doused her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids and finally set a fire before fleeing, police said. Police pressed a manhunt for the assailant in the April 13 attack, with investigators hoping any surviving DNA and a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest would produce fresh leads.…

My buddy Nate Cardozo just alerted me that UC Hastings has been evacuated and shut down due to an Internet posting, which might be this one (mirror here): “Date: April 18th, 2007 1:35 PM Author: Trustafarian I went to bed all set for “Bloody Wednesday,” but when I woke — to sun, to flowers in bloom — I just couldn’t bring myself to suit up. Maybe tomorrow; I hear rain’s in the forecast.”

The Associated Press: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday described bilingual education as teaching “the language of living in a ghetto,” and he mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages. “The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up” to vote, Gingrich said. The former Georgia congressman, who is considering seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, made the comments in a speech to the…

Yep, FP Passport has it right. This has to be the best lede ever written: A jazz musician was injured Friday after jumping from a burning motor home driven by a one-time roller skating stripper from Lodi.

NYT: The central bank’s latest response to these problems, announced this week, was to declare inflation illegal.

LA Times: But Southern California’s six-day cold snap took a surreal turn Wednesday as a rare snowstorm brought snowplows to the canyons above Malibu, left parts of the San Fernando Valley with a white dusting and shut down Interstate 5. The snow levels plunged well below 1,000 feet in some areas, blanketing the Santa Monica Mountains with snow and leaving streets and lawns in Venice, Westwood and elsewhere on the Westside covered with ice from pea-sized hail.

The Washington Post: Moscow is not alone in the unexpected warmth — it stretches across the continent. Preliminary data from the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, and the University of East Anglia indicate that 2006 has been the warmest year in Britain since record-keeping concerning weather conditions began in central England in 1659. Trees are sprouting leaves in Switzerland. And low-altitude ski resorts across the Alps look more like springtime meadows. “We are currently experiencing the warmest period in…

[Screen grab taken around 8 am Pacific.] How is it that it’s colder at night in Oakland than it is in New York? And that my aunt in Hartford (where I’m headed later this week) tells me that there’s no snow on the ground? And that the cars on our street got frost last night?!?! What is going on?