Today's New York Times article on Munley details the 5"4, 34 year-old SWAT-team member's hobbies thusly:

...A woman with a fierce love of hunting, surfing and other outdoor sports..

So, we have a hunter, a surfer, and an outdoorswoman. Who's also got more balls than anybody you will probably encounter over the course of your life:

Sergeant Munley...bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Major Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and Major Hasan went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.

Whether Sergeant Munley was solely responsible for taking down Major Hasan or whether he was also hit by gunfire from her partner is unclear, but she was the first to fire at him, the authorities said.

Bang bang. The name of the training which Munley received is called "active shooter protocol," from which you could probably surmise is what they teach you to do when somebody is firing bullets at other people and/or you. Most people's "active shooter protocol" is to get the fuck out of the way as quickly as you can and start every foxhole prayer you've ever learned. Munley went after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and opened fire. She's already got a reputation for this kind of bravado:

Her partner in Wrightsville, Investigator Shaun Appler, recalled how Sergeant Munley saved him one night when she wrestled a large man off him after the man had pinned him down and was trying to take his gun. She earned the nickname Mighty Mouse for that, he said.

Damn. She's been hunting since she was 11, her husband is in a Special Forces unit, she's got a 3 year-old daughter, and she chases would-be burglars around her neighborhood when she's not working.

One neighbor, Sgt. First Class William Barbrow, said that about a year ago Sergeant Munley chased down a burglar who had been prowling around the neighborhood.

Not only that, but she's got about 3,540 more Twitter followers than you. Is there anything this woman's afraid of?

Naturally. I always feel creepy and weird when placing the designation of "hero" on anybody, because, you know, that's just strange. It's a word that gets thrown around, especially here in New York, where our "hero" cops are often just a bunch of thick-necked, jacked-up crooks using intimidation tactics and barely subtle racism to enforce their own brand of "justice" upon our fair city. But I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that we've found ourselves The Real McCoy in this one, wouldn't you?

Portfolio.com is getting some new bloggers. Good sign! Ryan Avent from The Economist is replacing the departing Felix Salmon, and investigative biz reporterman extraordinaire Gary Weiss is also coming over. He's good!


Ha, jolly-looking NYT editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal is answering letters from readers this week. Paul Bilsky asks: Why can't you guys get a "serious" female columnist? Oh and he loves Verlyn Klinkenborg, btw! Rosenthal responds: "I'm answering this because it's a slow, hanging ball. First, I love Verlyn, too. And second, I would be the last person alive to suggest that Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins are not serious columnists. They are indeed, very serious." Allow us to answer as well, Paul: Verlyn Klinkenborg is the single most annoying op-ed writer at the NYT and takes up valuable space that could be dedicated to anything else, anything at all. Dowd is not serious, Collins is. And Andy Rosenthal just wanted an excuse to say "hanging ball."


The Philly papers are $300 million in debt, and bankrupt. They just offered their creditors $50 million to call it even. Newspaper investing, hey! Jack Shafer points out that people have seen newspapers as a dying business since at least 1918. They were prescient.


Disney's strategy to lure in more boys as viewers: "more science." This is contrary to the normal strategy, "more tits."

Roxana Saberi is an American-Iranian journalist who's going on trial in Iran soon, charged with spying for the US. She's worked for the BBC and for NPR. US diplomats are reportedly trying to help her get set free, but Iran doesn't sound very receptive. Good luck, Roxana.

• Erections Can Hurt Balls Prolonged sexual arousal can cause a temporary fluid congestion in the testicles. Known as "blue balls," this is unpleasant.
• Erections Make Balls Harder When blood is flowing to that region, testicles become firmer.
• Balls Emit A Slight Odor To prevent this, shower regularly.
• There Should Be Two Something is wrong if there is only one.
• Hair Grows There Don't feel bad if your balls are hairy. They're supposed to be! Unless of course you're encouraging a specific activity.

[image via Queerty's Morning Goods]

I clean the house yesterday and I find la crema of odour genitales Nodoro, at the Simon Cawell house from Americano Idol. He not a nice man, so I was laughing so hard!!! ;P

I help clean temporary many different house. This house is [redacted] en Beverly Hills. Please you cannot say my name. Gracias, [Redacted].

Having been unfamiliar with the ball-stench-combatting properties of miracle ointment NodorO™, we didn't immediately know what our tipster was referring to. Luckily, after conferring with a highly placed Defamer operative well-versed in the condition, we were guided to their website. That we learned there of the product's heavy sponsorship of Howard Stern's show, however, did little to convince us of the authenticity of our helpful, Defamer-savvy housekeeper. Still, if there was even a slim chance that the acerbic Idol judge—whose balls we always imagined to smell of an intoxicating mixture of juniper berries and talc—is or has ever suffered from embarrassing nutstink, we were relieved to learn he can now lead a healthy and fulfilling existence thanks to NodorO™.

Draped sensitively over the makeshift Dr. Pepper pipe he used only moments before, we think it's safe to say that the Ralph Lauren company can expect a steep uptick in sales of their fetching Polo boxer shorts after the Xtreme stunt idiot's manplums wind their way 'round the internet.

• Steve-O = Comic Genius [SplashNewsOnline]

After all, there are plenty of things he could to that would change his trajectory! For example, he could quit blogging. He could quit dating Julia Allison. He could quit blogging about dating Julia Allison. Those are three things!

But doing all those things is just part and parcel of Jakob continuing to be his terrible self. So he probably will continue snowballing! Or maybe not. We talked about this a lot over here. One of us thought this: "Jakob has *NO IDEA* what he's talking about. Once he hits 30, he'll notice all the missing seats in the front row of fame, conspicuously not occupied by all his fameball cohorts."

Jakob's having a moment, a moment he'll be unable to sustain for much longer unless he takes things to the next level by, say, dumping Julia for Heidi Montag and marrying her on live TV.

But whatever. He'll probably still be rich, though. And maybe he'll make yet more money off this whole "fameball" concept. It's at least as punchy as "The Long Tail" or "The Tipping Point," right?

· Add "corpses" to the list of fun things the Sunset Tan people will bronze, right below "grade-school girls with crazy moms." (And in an amusing side note, our tipster found this clip while searching YouTube for clips of "hot blondes" doing stuff.)
· Mayor Villaraigosa is separating from his wife. Our knee-jerk reaction to this news is the blame this photo of him posing with Paris Hilton.
·A South Park promo puts an unnamed network's "balls policy" to the test.
·Brad Whitford has made peace with Studio 60's demise. We just hope that Tom Jeter's brother gets out of Iraq alive.

• Grey's Anatomy Went "Nuts" Last Night [Towleroad]

"Ballgate," Mr. Adler called it, reached by phone at his Malibu residence. "Everyone's been really supportive." He laughed a little. "No, I mean—shit, I think it's pretty rock 'n' roll. You know, if it was like yesterday I would've freaked out, but then I looked at the picture and I was like, 'Oh, that's from like 2001. Whatever.'" How'd it happen?

"Paris' shit got stolen, and somehow she had a picture of me naked in there," he said with a sly snigger. "That's Paris Hilton to you!" The photograph would have hardly caused a blip were it not for the aspiring rock star's extraordinary genitalia. But Mr. Adler didn't care to discuss this topic other than to say: "I just went to Chicago, and I felt like every older woman at the airport had seen my balls—which was weird." He continued: "I'm a naked dude! I don't give a fuck."

Perhaps Kim Kardashian, still working through the public denial phase of her sex video, will gain some comfort from Adler's embracing of his gigantic balls, knowing that she'll eventually be able to conquer the paranoid feeling that every doorman in Hollywood has seen her being doggystyled by Brandy's brother.

• Ball-ywood [NY Observer]
• Cisco Adler Nude [Two Girls and a Gay via Fleshbot]