Good news: It's World Octopus Day! Bad news: they're taking over. Get your affairs in order, hug your kids, smoke a cigarette (jk, don't) and watch the octopus army roll up onto the beach. Maybe you've always loved the octopus, but that won't save you from our Underwater Overlords. Prepare yourself mentally for the takeover with these videos that outline their strategies and techniques. If you start to get freaked out, just remember: somewhere in that mass of muscular suction cup arms is a sharp little beak looking to bite you.

1. The Explorer: He's testing the "waters."

2. The Land Walker: Think there's nothing to be afraid of if you stay on land? THINK AGAIN.

3. The Crab Eater: We said, THINK AGAIN.

4. The Great Escaper: Even if you capture the enemy, you can't hold him.

5. The Illusionist: Oh, good, no octopus here-AIGHH!

6. Secret Ops: All these octopus attacks are stressing me out. I'm just gonna kick back with a beer-AIGHH!

7. The Defense: Yes, they use tools.

8. The Pugilist: Ever been punched in the face by eight fists at once?

9. The Silencer: No one can hear you scream...under the sea...if you're being strangled by an octopus.

About 7 years ago, Dan Maurer started to notice something pretty crazy: he had a giant scrotum and it was getting more giant all the time. While it beats having no penis, having a super-sized scrotum eventually became such a drag that Maurer went to see a doctor, who told him he just needed to lose weight. Then one day, Maurer caught a TLC special, The Man With the 132lb. Scrotum, starring Wesley Warren, Jr. Eureka! Maurer realized he was experiencing the same condition as Warren, which is called scrotal lymphedema and is a form of elephantitis. And he's finally had it removed!!!!!

The process will soon be aired on his very own special for TLC, and Maurer has written about his public exposure on a GoFundMe page to cover the huge costs of his operation:

"since I found out what I had from a guy that was brave enough to share his to help change my life forever. If my story helps just 1 person it will have been worth it after the show airs I will post pics and more current info.

just know with out your love and support none of this would have been possible. My wife and I will forever be in your debt. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and god bless."

Great! Helping people is great. But you know what his operation also means? Dan Maurer gets to sex his wife again! Mindy has stood by him for ten years, though she confesses they haven't had sex since 2009, which is about the last time Dan saw his penis. Now that he's recovered, it's game on. In addition to the swollen scrotum, they removed a significant amount of fat, leaving him about 150 pounds lighter overall. There's a photo below that shows what a huge difference the operation made on Maurer's body. It's definitely NSFW, but paints a vivid picture of his transformation. 

Super big congratulations to the Maurer's and best of luck to Dan on his plan to "surprise" his wife again.

Photoshop is a powerful tool if you're a lingerie company like Victoria's Secret, because you can ensure that your models look exactly how you want them to in your underwear. That's true even if the look you're going for is "woman so perfectly proportioned that she couldn't ever actually exist." But with great power comes great responsibility. Specifically, the responsibility when you're Photoshopping a woman's butt to make sure you digitally alter both sides so she's not left as some cheek-less mutant. That is, however, exactly what Vicky S (that's what I call them; we're friends) did in this photo that they posted to their Facebook account. The caption on it was "Truly. Madly. Cheekly." and they must be truly mad not to have noticed they deleted a cheek:

Aren't butts in? Did Vicky S not hear about that? Maybe they just refuse to give in to peer pressure when it comes to appreciating the bodies they sell clothing for.

Kourtney Kardashian bared her backside for an artistic series called "Metallic Life" by photographer Brian Bowen Smith. The photos are printed on metallic paper and are on display at the De Re Gallery in Los Angeles through November 19. She's not the first Kardashian to do a professional nude photo shoot, or even an amateur one shot by Kylie on Snapchat. However, Kourtney's picture seems to be all about the art instead of the publicity.

Well, a Kardashian can't get naked without creating a little publicity, especially if it's from their estranged lover. Kourtney's ex Scott Disick caused a bit of a stir when he weighed in on the photo on Instagram:

Scott has been under the watchful eye of the paparazzi following his split with Kourtney. Mostly because he's reportedly doing some heavy partying and womanizing. There's no better way to patch things up than by calling the mother of your children "hot mama." While we should be focusing on the tasteful and brave picture for which Kourtney posed, let's also take a minute to note that Scott's Instagram handle is "letthelordbewithyou" because he purchased a phony lordship title on a trip to the U.K. Hope you're OK, Scott. Kourtney, you seem to be doing fine.

Tara Cali, a mom in Bakersfield, California, was furious when her seventh grader was sent home with a homework assignment that required him to learn about Islam. Instead of filling in the 5 Pillars of Islam, she wrote a note loaded with triple-underlining and six seemingly unrelated bible verses. She then snapped a pic and shared it to the Facebook page of local news station KGET-TV 17. 

She writes:

My son will not be part of this in any sort of way. This is bad teaching material. He will not partake. If you have a problem with it, call our lawyer...How about Christian practices? That sheet has never came [sic] home, this year or last!

She also circled a QR code that can be scanned to "hear the call to prayer from the Blue Mosque in Istanbul" and wrote "seriously?" As in, "Seriously? But those ancient melodies are hypnotic and persuasive!" 

The post has since been removed from Facebook, but not before accruing nearly 40,000 likes and starting a conversation with almost 20,000 comments. See? We are having a national conversation about religious diversity. It's just taking place in a comment thread on a local news station's Facebook page. Next step: progress.

One commenter noted that the textbook does, in fact, include several chapters on Christianity, and included a screenshot of their child's assignments for the year:

Just a reminder: Teaching about religions (even the ones parents are scared of) in public schools is not a violation of the separation of church and state. If a public school teacher was presenting Islam as the one true religion, rather than a historically significant civilization, that would justify underlining the word "not" three times in an angry letter. As it is, there's nothing wrong with the assignment, except that QR code. Stop pandering to seventh graders, textbook people. They're not gonna get excited about history class just 'cause they get to use their phones.

Something weird happened in Congress today. Following the announcement by Rep. John Boehner that he would be resigning as Speaker of the House by the end of the month, most people assumed that the next Speaker would be Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who had said he would seek the post. Today, McCarthy announced he was abruptly abandoning his bid, at least in part due to disastrously received comments he made about the Benghazi committee's impact on Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, which he admitted "didn't help."

The surprise announcement apparently caught Republican members so off-guard, they were weeping with rage and confusion in the Capitol:

In addition to being next in line by virtue of his Majority Leader position, McCarthy was also seen as the last chance the GOP establishment had to keep control over its more radical Tea Party wing. His odds immediately took a dive after McCarthy, speaking about his accomplishments with the Benghazi committee, bragged about how it had damaged the poll numbers of the "invincible" Hillary Clinton.

Now the ball is in the air, and the very conservative Freedom Caucus has already convened its 40 members (2012) to discuss options as the establishment does the same. John Boehner has already postponed his retirement date, and some members are pressing him to stay on until 2016. 

Who could take the role next is unclear. Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's former running mate, would likely win the spot if not for the fact that he is completely uninterested in getting yelled at by conservatives for doing anything and by the rest of the country for doing virtually nothing.

Florida Republican Daniel Webster has been nominated by the Freedom Caucus and is a favorite of the Tea Party. He is seen as possibly appealing to the general GOP caucus for his deep institutional knowledge of the House, but is still a very conservative member.

The consensus now seems to be that a "caretaker" should fill the slot—someone respected but who is unlikely to stay longer than it takes to find a more vibrant new Speaker, like the Education and Workforce Committee chairman John Kline of Minnesota, who is not running for re-election.

So why did McCarthy do this without warning today, surprising his fellow Republicans with an announcement in a room with such bad acoustics that many weren't even sure what happened until after the conference ended? There are three options: 1) The Benghazi comments really did reduce his support, to the point that (as he said in his statement) he only had 220 votes in his party, just 2 more than are needed. 2) Like Boehner himself, perhaps McCarthy realized the job is not worth the headache currently attached to it. 3) There's an as-yet-undiscovered damaging news item that McCarthy chose to avoid. It's probably a combination of 1 and 2, but politicians don't surprise people like this that often, so there's always the cynical hope (from a blogger's perspective) that it could be door #3.

Ryan Phillippe, actor and early-aughts angsty heartthrob, got a surprising new tattoo this week. He now has late rapper Sean Price's face on his arm, which is exciting for Brooklyn hip-hop fans and devastating for the makeup artists who will have to diligently cover it up for his future movies. Photos of the tattoo were shared on Instagram by Phillippe as well as Sean Price's widow Bernadette and friend Dallas Penn.

Apparently Phillippe was a fan and friend of Price, and got the new ink as a tribute. Not that he's asking for suggestions, but I can think of an iconic image for his other arm too. 

If you've been following the latest NFL domestic violence debacle, you probably know the saga of Dallas Cowboys player Greg Hardy, who was accused and convicted of dragging his girlfriend through his house, choking her and throwing her on a pile of guns. Hardy appealed the decision and it was overturned when the defendant Nicole Holder didn't show up to court (it's suspected she was "paid off" not to). He was then given a ten game suspension which was inexplicably reduced to four, and Greg will be suiting up this Sunday. Katie Nolan, on the other hand, is the host of Fox Sports 1's Garbage Time, and she was quick to explain who at the NFL is a garbage person:

The short answer is Greg Hardy, but the long answer is the PR team at the NFL and whoever makes decisions about how to handle the depressingly frequent domestic assault cases springing up amongst their athletes. She makes a great case in under 4 minutes for why the NFL needs to listen up and start giving a crap about its female viewership. If she seems emotional, it's probably because she's a woman. HAH PSYCH! It's because she cares:

Way to go, Katie. You even made a bunch of comedy nerds interested in sports for a second.

URBN, the parent company of such retailers as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People, is facing a tidal wave of Internet criticism over a leaked email sent to employees. Once you read it, you'll understand why. On Tuesday afternoon, salaried workers of URBN's home office in Philadelphia found this chestnut in their email inboxes:

From: URBNcommunity

Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 12:01 PM

Subject: A Call For URBN Volunteers!

A Call for URBN Volunteers!

URBN is seeking weekend volunteers to help out at our fulfillment center in Gap, PA. October will be the busiest month yet for the center, and we need additional helping hands to ensure the timely shipment of orders. As a volunteer, you will work side by side with your GFC colleagues to help pick, pack and ship orders for our wholesale and direct customers.

In addition to servicing the needs of our customers, it’s a great way to experience our fulfillment operations first hand. Get your co-workers together for a team building activity!

The Details:

Who: Home Office URBN salaried employees

Where: URBN’s Fulfilment Center - 766 Brackbill Road, Gap, Pennsylvania 17527

What You’ll Be Doing: Pick, pack and prepare packages for shipment(please wear sneakers and comfortable clothing)

When: October 17, 18, 24, 25, and 31 Lunch will be provided

Two shifts each day: 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM or 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM

(you can volunteer for one or multiple days)

Transportation: If needed, URBN will provide transportation to and from GFC (details provided after sign up)

How: Sign up using this link and we will be in touch with more details. Please do not show up without signing up.

If you read between the cheerily worded lines of this email, it's very easy to see what's going on. URBN is asking their full-time, salaried employees to do hourly work on their weekends off for the rate of $0/hour. And not fun work like planning an office party or goofing off on Facebook, but manual labor like packing and shipping boxes. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing manual labor, as long as you're being adequately compensated. If you're not, there's something very wrong with it.

Of course, the work isn't mandatory. And URBN volunteered to provide free lunch and transportation for any volunteers, which should be a sufficient reward for giving up your hard-earned weekends. What's more, it's a valuable team-building exercise! Imagine what an effective team you and your co-workers would be after not leaving each other's company except to sleep for 14 days.

After the story leaked to the news, URBN released a statement. As Gawker reports, the company's approach was to double down on insulting everyone's intelligence.

After successfully opening our new fulfillment center in June, we asked salaried employees at our home office to volunteer for shifts that would help support the new center through a busy month of October. Unsurprisingly, we received a tremendous response, including many of our senior management. Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in – an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations. The dedication and commitment of URBN employees are second to none, and their response to this request is a testament to their solidarity and continued success.

You see! Everyone loves working for free! Even hourly employees! If URBN had any chance of convincing people with this B.S., they lost it with that claim. If there's one thing hourly freight employees will never do, it's work for free.

Strawberry Fields is probably one of the worst places in Central Park if you hate the song Imagine, because there's an acoustic guitarist constantly playing it in tribute to the late John Lennon there. Lennon was killed nearby at landmark building The Dakota in 1980, and a place for buskers to give away "free hugs" and sell carnations year-round in the park was born. October 9th of this year would have been John Lennon's 75th birthday. To honor his life, Yoko Ono organized a tribute to him at that sacred Beatles-themed spot.

Almost 2,000 people showed up to make the giant peace sign, which was also an attempt at getting into the book of Guinness World Records. They fell short, because the last record holder for number of people in a peace sign was about 5,000. Still, that's pretty good for New York: everyone here is waaaaaay too busy to give peace a chance. And who cares? It still looked beautiful:

When most of us buy grapes at the grocery store, all we get is some fresh, delicious fruit. But when Leanne Preedy bought grapes at her local Tesco's in London, she received an unexpected bonus: a lizard friend, or as I like to think of it, a tiny dinosaur living in a land of giant grapes.

Preedy said on Facebook, "Tesco found it hilarious when I took them back" and offered to give her another container of grapes. But why would you want another container of grapes when the first container had your new BFF inside?

Houston police officer David Carter is apparently a big believer in "work smarter, not harder." The 13-year veteran of the Houston PD has been temporarily relieved of duty pending an investigation into his ticket-writing activities, which have been allegedly taking place without actually pulling anyone over for speeding first.

The probe was instigated when Houston resident Emanuel Morfin received a ticket in the mail for going 90 mph on a 60 mph section of the North Freeway in Houston. This struck Morfin as odd, since as he points out, "Actually, I was down south in South Texas, so I'm like, well how am I speeding in Houston if I'm out of town? It was kind of ridiculous. I was kind of shocked.” Soon, local news discovered he wasn't the only one receiving mysterious tickets in the mail.

Officer Carter stuck to a well-delivered "I have no comment" response to the KHOU 11 news team's repeated questions. But answers he gave to police investigators have made things even worse. Carter alleges he clocked Morfin speeding by matching it in his (Carter's) personal vehicle, not in his patrol car.

Criminal Justice Professor Larry Karson of the University of Houston-Downtown noted, "He's actually making the situation worse, because what he's doing is he's becoming another vehicle flying down at 90 miles an hour and no one knows that he is a police officer. All they know it's another crazy person on the highway."

And that's if Carter's claims are true. Professor Karson elaborated on the further problems if he is indeed just mailing people tickets. "You have an officer who is abusing their discretionary authority. You have no idea who's driving that car. You're sending that ticket to a registered owner, who may or may not be behind the wheel.”

The city has dismissed all the tickets mailed to residents by Officer Carter. Randy Zamora, chief of the criminal law division of Houston's legal department, said, “I do not believe the citizens had any knowledge of the citations. Therefore, I did not think it was in the interest of justice to prosecute the cases and asked that all of the citations be dismissed." Carter is still being paid by the police department, although he has no police authority during the investigation.

The fashion world has never been super kind to women, favoring dangerously skinny models over real ladies. Recently, however, it's been more common to see plus-size female models on runways and in magazines and catalogs. But what you might be less aware of is that there has also been a lack of "average" and plus-sized male models, with either super-skinny or ultra-muscular dudes being the norm. Enter Zach Miko, a 6'6" actor and model with a 40-inch waist who also happens to be Target's only plus-sized male model.

According to Mic, Miko's work for Target attracted the attention of Bruce Strugell at Chubstr, "a lifestyle website dedicated to helping men of size find, create and share their style with the world." Sturgell told Mic that he was surprised and pleased to see Miko on Target's site, since "You tend to see the tall side of big and tall." Meaning: heftier dudes rarely make it to fashion shows, catalogs, and magazine spreads.

In the interview with Mic, Zach's wife Laura noted that Zach's struggles have been similar to those of female models and actresses, but that she wasn't always aware of that: "I didn't realize that he had the same pressures that a lot of women have. He's told he needs to lose weight. He's told he has to be more muscular. He's told he has to be certain things." But, she noted, the Target shoot has helped Zach feel more comfortable in his skin. And, according to Strugell at Chubstr, it's helping other dudes feel more comfortable in their skin, too. 

You can read the entire piece about Zach over at Mic.

When she was just a baby, Jill the squirrel was knocked out of her nest during Hurricane Isaac. Luckily for her, a kind human rescued her. And luckily for us, that same kind human created an Instagram account that's filled with photos and videos of Jill's antics, rescuing us from our work through the magic of procrastination. Oh, what's that? Procrastination doesn't actually rescue you from your work, it just pushes it off until later?

Hmmm. I think I'm going to look at some squirrel pictures instead of thinking about that.

If you're reading this, it's too late to unsee this resemblance. Abu Bilal al-Maghribi, a deceased member of ISIS, who got enemies, got a lot of enemies, would have been pissed to learn that in this lifetime, he looked a lot like a Canadian Jew who is one of the biggest pop culture stars in the Western World. Earlier this week, @SayWallah pointed out that al-Maghribi, a suicide bomber (it's unclear what bombing he was involved in) whose photo was recently revealed, looks like Drake.

Soon after, "ISIS Drake" was trending on Twitter with its woes. If Drake puns could defeat ISIS, the Internet could save the world. Maybe Twitter was using the app?

Neil Patrick Harris shared a video of his adorable family being cute and having a charming time. He captioned it "Good morning, everybody!" because celebrities and their families probably don't even get grumpy in the a.m. The video was shared via the social media platform that NPH's adorable son calls "Bookface," and includes singing, smiles, and aspirational apartment vibes. This is the level of quality and delight we should be consistently demanding from our Internet videos.

Donald Trump's racism toward Latinos and harsh immigration policies have been as big a part of his campaign as his hat and hair. With his anti-Latino views so strong and well-known, it is wild to see him bring a woman from Colombia onstage literally jumping and screaming for joy. After escorting her onto the stage, Trump makes sure to turn directly towards the microphone and say, "And is this a setup? Did I ever meet you before?" Her answer to the question? ""I'm Hispanic and I'm voting for Mr. Trump! We vote for Mr. Trump! We love you all the way to the White House!"

Still on-brand with same casual misogyny, Trump says "I think she's totally beautiful and great, I never met her before I swear," and after she leaves the stage with an autographed copy of People, he adds, "That's my relationship with Hispanics."

This seems like a pre-written Taran Killam-Cecily Strong sketch. The SNL writers continue to be indebted to you, Mr. Trump.