The new Beirut video looks like a Belle & Sebastian album cover. Which, of course, is a very good way to look. There’s a also a funny man-trying-to-catch-chicken scene like from Rocky II. And, since it’s Beirut, lovely, lovely horn arrangements. So all, in all, pretty great!

“Fears that the male Y chromosome could be wiped out within five million years have been undermined by new research showing the drop in genes has stabilised.”

“Earth’s clouds are sinking lower in the sky, with fewer clouds at high altitudes and lower cloudtops in general, says a new analysis of satellite data. The coming fog means that Earth will cool down more efficiently — so the lowering of clouds could slow the effects of global warming.” Please don’t anyone make a “sky is falling” joke.

Behaviors Cited As Quirks Or Oddities In An Article About Single Living That Are Actually Totally Normal Things That Lots Of People Do Even When They Live With Other People

1) Standing naked in kitchen at 2 a.m. eating peanut butter from jar.

2) Singing Journey songs in shower. (Especially “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” That’s the jam.)

3) Working 24 hours straight for days on end.

4) Letting apartment fall apart on you and not washing dishes.

5) Having nobody care.

6) Wearing specially designated home-wear that you change when company comes over.

7) Not closing the bathroom door. (Well, at least for just peeing.)

8) Talking aloud to pets.

9) Subsisting largely on cereal, nuts or seeds.

10) Staying up working on computer until 4 or 5 in the morning.

11) Having a baked potato for a meal.

“The more you fear a spider the bigger it will appear to be, according to new research.” Click through: if the picture here seems tiny to you you’re doing just fine. [Related]

As we settle into the long, cold, dark days that come with the final slog through winter, we — your pals from The Awl and The Hairpin — will be bringing you some of our favorite casserole recipes (and crockery recommendations). But these won’t be just any old casseroles! No, no, that won’t do at all. These are fancy casseroles — or at least, not-gross ones.

Be a love and come sit by me so we can have a quiet discussion about how Martha Stewart’s recipes are terrible. Shhhhhh, not so loud! Cripes, she might hear you and then we’ll all be done for. Death by glue gun and glimpses of Baby Jude.

This recipe was inspired by a Martha Stewart orzo casserole recipe gone wrong. I mean, it didn’t go wrong because of anything I did — I know how to follow instructions, thanks — but as with every single one of The Marth’s recipes I’ve ever tried it just… didn’t turn out. In this case, I found that the use of lemon zest waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpowered the dish, and the next-day leftovers were virtually inedible because it was like lemon oil central in there. And as we’ve established around these parts, I’m a pretty big lover of lemon.

The thing is, though, there were two elements to the recipe I liked: (1) the feta, which mellowed significantly in flavor during cooking and gave the dish an amazing creamy quality; and (2) the technique of pouring boiling stock over raw chicken and orzo, which meant no pre-cooking was required.

So I used my imagination and tinkered and came up with this really awesome and incredibly easy Greek-style orzo casserole.

Step 1: In a small saucepot, bring 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock, 2 tablespoons butter, ½ a teaspoon dried marjoram or oregano and salt & pepper to taste to a boil.

Step 2: Put the following things into a 3-quart or larger lidded casserole dish:

1 pound boneless chicken breasts, cubed
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained OR 1–2 cups diced fresh tomatoes (it being winter here in New York I went for the canned goods)
1 small zucchini, diced
1 small onion, sliced
5–10 kalamata olives, chopped
2 cups orzo, uncooked
½ cup crumbled feta

Step 3: Pour the boiling stock mixture over the chicken, vegetable and orzo and stir well to combine. You’ll notice that the chicken will start to cook, which is so creepy and gross for some reason. Chicken squicks: do you think there will ever be a day when we collectively get over the chicken squicks? Because I seriously doubt it. Once everything is stirred, put the lid on your casserole dish and put the whole thing in a 400 degree oven; cook for 25 minutes covered, then uncover it and cook for another 20 minutes. That’s all! I know, doesn’t that seem too easy?

Serve it with a spinach and red onion salad and some flatbread while wearing a toga to complete the effect.

Jolie Kerr can’t seem to stop taking swipes at Martha Stewart and is truly worried for her safety.

“For example, joking that you need to starve yourself after Thanksgiving or that you wanted to kill yourself after a humiliating date is fine, but recommending techniques for self-starvation or self-mutilation is not.”
 — Hmm, this new Tumblr policy is… gonna get complicated. Tumblr users are, as should be expected, divided.

“Grizzly cub hitches a ride on his mother’s back to keep his paws from getting cold,” and IT’S A SERIES OF PHOTOS! Need I say more?

Why do French feminist groups have such awesome names? (As noted in this story on the au revoir to the term ‘mademoiselle.’) For instance, is “Les Chiennes de Garde” a pun, in French? (I don’t have any reason to think so particularly; it just LOOKS like it would be some sort of super-cute complicated French double-pun.) Also “Paroles de Femmes,” which is an “aid group” not an activist group;. Can I translate that in my mind as Words With Lady Friends? That’s much more fun. Oh France.

Here’s a look inside the rationale behind the single most disgusting cultural event of the year! Yes, it’s Act of Valor, the bloody shoot-em-up starring “real life Navy SEALs” (but only hot ones, and apparently mostly white ones) that is opening in a theater near you quite soon. This quote by one of the film’s two directors (two!) is amazing: “The film has no politics in it and it’s not a war movie.” Nope, how could such a thing be political??? Just Navy SEALS, stylizedly blowing stuff up to protect your homeland, hugging their little angel children, blowing down the doors of some Arab-looking dudes. On the plus side, this whole thing has made me forget about how mad I was about the Amazingly Loudly Close Incredibly trailer or whatever that thing was.