My grandmother Sophie Pescovitz died when I was 2-years-old so I was blown away to see her in these outtakes from a crazy 1930 newsreel in which she demonstrates a bizarre "weight loss" machine! Bubbie Sophie says with a wink, "Won't my husband love me now when I get home? You know, they like them thin!""Stout ladies try weight reduction" (Moving Image Research Collections at University of South Carolina, thanks cousin Irene Lilien!)

Shelter is a human necessity second only to food on Maslow's hierarchy of needs; but it's also an asset-class that is increasingly relied upon by the world's super-rich for money-laundering, rent-extraction and simple investment -- this creates a dilemma for governments, who are under pressure to ratchet up the cost of a fundamental human necessity in order to enrich a minority of wealthy land- and property-owners. (more…)

Special snowflake Donald Trump has been thwarted in his plan to land a helicopter on Masada, an ancient fortress in Israel that Unesco has declared to be a World Heritage Site; he'll have to ride the cablecar up it just like every other world leader who's visited it since 1998. (more…)

For decades, new US presidents were welcomed to Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents with a robot carved in their honor, and which would deliver a short, recorded speech voiced by the incoming POTUS himself -- but the idea of a talking Trumpbot is so repugnant that the entire show is reportedly being rolled back to an earlier version (nominally to shorten it), eliminating the speaking roles of everyone except Lincolnbot and Washingtonbot. (more…)

If only you could hear what I have heard with your ears.Vangelis's fantastic score was reissued on a beautiful picture disc for Record Store Day 2017. Check your local independent record stores for any that may be left or, of course, Discogs.

UK Prime Minister and noted authoritarian Theresa May has promised that if she wins the upcoming general election, her party will abolish internet access in the UK, replacing it with a government-monitored internet where privacy tools are banned and online services will be required to vet all user-supplied content for compliance with rules about pornography, political speech, copyright compliance and so on -- and search engines will have to emply special British rules to exclude banned material from their search results. (more…)

This fantastic t-shirt was born from a discussion at b3s, "an online community of designers and coders and other rad folks." All proceeds go toward the b3s hosting costs. Brilliant.Buy "The New Dark Times" t-shirt

Subtle Dildo is a collection of photographs wherein dildos may be found by observant viewers. [via]

I believe the track is called "Limerent Death," by The Dillinger Escape Plan. [Thanks, Mr. Raccoon!]Previously at Chuck E. Cheese's.Mob-style beating at Chuck E. Cheese'sChuck E. Cheese targets moms with lattes, salad, and more wine and beerChuck E. Cheese owner agrees to $950 million buyoutChuck E. Cheese Rock-afire robots in MGMT music videoCheese fight at Chuck E Cheese'sThe Original Fight

Sweden's top prosecutor announced Friday that it is dropping its rape investigation of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, because it was "impossible to serve him notice."Assange has been hiding in Ecuador's embassy in London for five years to avoid extradition to Sweden, but he's still wanted by British cops for skipping court and they already warned him they'll arrest him if he leaves the building.The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said Mr Assange still faced the lesser charge of failing to surrender to a court, an offence punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine. But the UK has not commented on whether it has received an extradition request from the US, where Mr Assange could face trial over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.Assange said he'd submit to extradition to the U.S. if Chelsea Manning, a key Wikileaks source, was released—an offer he later made contingent upon cutting his own deal with U.S. authorities. Manning was released this week.

Artist Carson Davis Brown creates rogue art installations, and his latest work in progress does not disappoint: unsanctioned bananas the building lobbies. (more…)

This behind-the-scenes look at the giant practical set built for HBO's 1983 station identification sequence is impressive. It inspired Christopher Johnson at Colossal to dig into the archives for more great examples, including a vintage logo created 63 years ago for Eurovision: (more…)

*boop* *boop* (more…)

New video hit the internet today showing the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, looking on as armed security guards from his entourage violently attacked protesters demonstrating outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington. (more…)

"What has changed... is that the House of Saud is now dealing directly with a member of the Trump family." (more…)

"Hey, let's go to Target." "Why?" (more…)

Art beinArt Gallery in Brunswick, Australia is exhibiting Gerard Geer’s “Chimaephera,” which "features mythically inspired creatures constructed from assorted animal bones and a series of diaphonised wet specimens."

Now and then I stumble upon a book that completely blows my mind. The latest of such lucky encounters has been with Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli.Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist with a solid, international academic career, presently teaching at the University of Aix-Marseille in France. In 2013 he was among the sophisticated minds who were asked the famous Edge.com annual question. The question that year was "What *should* we be worried about?" His reply: "I worry that free imagination is overvalued, and I think this carries risks."Published in 2014, Seven Brief Lessons in Physics has been an immediate smash hit. In less than 80 pages, Rovelli takes the reader on a friendly trip from the far edges of the cosmos to the edges of the quantum world, addressing some of the hottest ideas revolutionizing our present understanding of the world. And he does so with unassuming innocence, and his enchanting prose makes complex subjects a piece of cake.In one of his most rhapsodic fragments Rovelli writes:"There are absolute masterpieces which move us intensely, Mozart’s Requiem; the Odyssey; the Sistine Chapel; King Lear. To fully appreciate their brilliance may require a long apprenticeship, but the reward is sheer beauty."To this list of timeless masterpieces of human ingenuity, Rovelli appends Einstein's celebrated theory of general relativity, which he calls "the most beautiful of all theories".Now, here's the deal: modern physics is an unbelievably complex, impenetrable and obscure "thing," well beyond the comprehension of any layperson, however well-read. It obviously requires a very long apprenticeship to just get a sense of the terrain (sorry, but watching movies like What The Bleep Do We Know?! or The Secret does not entitle anyone to use the expression quantum physics in any meaningful way).That's where Rovelli's act of legerdemain lies: he admirably avoids the trap of pedantically trying to explain his shit, while doing an outstanding job evoking the beauty embedded in such mind-warping intellectual endeavors. The whole book is a moving and unabashed hymn to beauty. Rovelli provides enough contents and context to allow the readers to get excited and marvel at the splendors of modern physics, while acknowledging the open-endedness of the quest, and the ocean of mystery upon which we are ultimately suspended.Counterpoint to the limits of our understanding of reality is a deep sense of aesthetic appreciation, poignantly articulated (although with a more all-encompassing epistemic stance) by psychedelic raconteur Terence McKenna:[Reality] can’t be understood. It is a receding mystery. It cannot be brought under the aegis of rational apprehension. It says in Moby Dick, “reality outran apprehension.” It always outruns apprehension, because apprehension is the primitive functioning of the primate neural network. You do not measure the depth of the universal mystery with the neural network of a primate. Our role is not to understand but to appreciate. We have an immense capacity for resonance with beauty, for aesthetic awareness, appreciation of form, and appreciation of how things go together.It all boils down to this: our immense capacity for resonance with beauty - and our microcosmic craving for it. Carlo Rovelli alchemically distills pure beauty from dark matter. Seven Brief Lessons in Physics is a tuning fork to make the soul resonate with the harmony of the spheres.Image of Blue dragon-glaucus atlanticus for photo collage by Sylke Rohrlach.

Apparently scientists tend to think of themselves as more rational, objective, and intelligent than non-scientists. Makes sense. And laypeople tend to think that of scientists too. But the scientists surveyed in a new study from Tilburg University in the Netherlands apparently see themselves as much more rational, objective, and intelligent than non-scientists. Are they overconfident or, well, right? From Scientific American:The team surveyed both scientists and highly educated nonscientists and asked them to rate the two categories of people in terms of objectivity, rationality, integrity, open-mindedness, intelligence and cooperativeness.Both groups rated scientists higher on every one of these measures, yet scientists perceived bigger differences between the two groups than laypeople did. “That surprised us,” says psychologist Coosje Veldkamp, the study's lead author. “We expected scientists to have a more realistic picture, but they see a larger difference,” she says. (Some of these perceptions may be accurate, of course, but other research would be needed to determine that.)The scientists' positive self-ratings may be partly explained by the human tendency to judge members of groups we belong to more favorably than others. Further investigation showed that established scientists judged their established peers more positively than those at earlier career stages, and female scientists rated researchers of their own gender more highly. “People who identify more strongly with their group display more in-group bias,” Veldkamp explains. “Women are still a minority in science, and minority-group members have been found to identify more strongly with their group.”

This clipper is a great way to cleanly cut off a hangnail. The angled blades make it easy to see what you are doing. I also have the Tweezerman Power Hangnail Clipper. I bought the mini hangnail squeeze and snip nipper for travel ($12 on Amazon) and it's even better.

On Monday, a small plane with two adults and two young children disappeared from radar over the Bermuda Triangle. The Coast Guard has recovered parts from the plane but are still searching for the passengers, Jennifer Blumin, 40, her 3 and 4-year-old sons, and Nathan Ulrich, 52. Since the 1950s, the Bermuda Triangle, an area between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Florida, has been infamous for what many believe is a disproportionate number of mysterious aircraft and boat vanishings or accidents. From ABC News:The plane was scheduled to fly from Puerto Rico to central Florida, but never arrived at its destination, according to the Coast Guard.Miami Air Traffic Control reported that it lost radar and radio contact with the airplane just three hours into the flight, the Coast Guard added in a statement."There's no indication of significant adverse weather at the time," Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Kelly, a Coast Guard spokesman, told The Associated Press.#Update #HappeningNow @USCG Cutter Bernard C. Webber to continue search for survivors east of Eleuthera, Bahamas, through the night. pic.twitter.com/T2MMQOqLN3— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) May 17, 2017#Update @USCG image of debris, confirmed components of an MU-2B aircraft recovered 15 miles E of Eleuthera, Bahamas; search continues. pic.twitter.com/lP0lSX0bld— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) May 17, 2017

In high school, Mike was drinking 8 cans of Coke a day. He quit cold turkey and suffered from "horrible horrible migraines, dizziness, blind spots and tunnel vision." The video was produced by Dress Code.

Here's a time lapse video of the transition from sickening grub to dapper beetle.

This gentleman really didn't want to get caught. In hot pursuit by police, he keeps crashing his car, then taking other people's cars. Eventually he runs out of cars and starts running. He's stopped trying to scale a fence.Takeaway - don't drive with your door unlocked.[via]UPDATE: this happened in 2014 in Denver. The driver was a kidnapping and carjacking suspect. Here's a full 54 minute video:https://youtu.be/rRKOCKsIZUc

By DJ Cumberbund.

Spencer Chen, VP of marketing and business development at Alibaba Group, added the audio from the Blade Runner 2049 trailer to the ad for the new Google Assistant. "I'm scared," he tweeted. "Literally no extra editing involved."Originals:https://youtu.be/VZ9MBYfu_0Ahttps://youtu.be/gCcx85zbxz4

Chris Cornell, the singer of pioneering grunge/metal band Soundgarden, has died of apparent suicide. When I saw them play small clubs in the early 1990s, it was always an incredibly intense and, yes, loud experience. From the New York Times:Mr. Cornell was born in 1964 in Seattle and helped form Soundgarden 20 years later. Sub Pop, then a fledgling record label, released the group’s first single, “Hunted Down,” in 1987, as well as two subsequent EPs. The group’s debut album, “Ultramega OK,” came a year later.“Badmotorfinger,” released in 1991, benefited from the swell of attention that was beginning to surround the Seattle scene, where Soundgarden, along with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, were playing a high-octane, high-angst brand of rock ’n’ roll. Soundgarden’s musical journeys tended toward the knotty and dark, plunging into off-kilter meters and punctuated by Mr. Cornell’s voice, which could quickly shift from a soulful howl to a gritty growl.Three of Soundgarden’s studio albums have been certified platinum, including “Superunknown,” from 1994, which featured “Black Hole Sun,” “Fell on Black Days,” “Spoonman” and “My Wave.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0_zzCLLRvEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNh-iw7gsuIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mbBbFH9fAg

"The key to restoring the rule of law is to blunt Trump's aggression and put him on the defensive," says Bob Ferguson, an internationally rated chess master and the attorney general for Washington State. He says Trump's opening move as president -- a Muslim ban -- was like the King's Gambit, "the most aggressive opening in chess." It's a poor choice in chess and politics, and Trump has been playing defensively ever since.From Time:First, we studied Trump's moves and prepared. During his campaign, Trump said he wanted to create "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." His adviser Rudy Giuliani explained to Fox News, "When he first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'" Like White sacrificing a pawn on the second move, the President telegraphed his intent to act aggressively. Once Trump told the nation he wanted the travel ban, we marshaled our resources and prepared arguments for the move we knew was coming.Second, we did not accept Trump's playing field as he presented it. We blunted his action by moving the field of battle to the courtroom. In that setting, Trump was on the defensive. After all, it isn't the loudest voice that prevails before a federal judge--it's the Constitution.Third, we capitalized on the weaknesses created by Trump's early moves. For example, Trump's team did little, if any, vetting of the travel ban. They failed to ask their own executive agencies to review the Executive Order. In short, it was sloppy.Image used for collage: Michael Vadon

I was approached by The Folio Society last year to see if I would be up for working on some illustrations for their planned collection of stories from H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories', and after a bit of figuring out whether I'd be able to do it justice, due to having preparations for a solo show on the boil at the same time, I jumped right in and ended up having a large hand in its overall design too. (more…)

USA Today reports a brawl at a high school graduation in Tennessee, with grown-ups throwing punches and their weight around as the trio from Pomp and Circumstance plays on.Tammy Mason, superintendent of the Arlington Community Schools, said in a statement Wednesday: "Last night we celebrated 500 students who graduated from Arlington High School. This year’s class earned over $30,600,000 in college scholarships. It was unfortunate that a couple of adults in the audience exhibited the behavior they did prior to the ceremony beginning and thus has caused a distraction from the celebration of our students’ accomplishments."Here's another angle!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnUyCmgl3g4And another!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olArs1qWPvQ

"Think of an avocado like a banana," says Chris Notap, who has a video tutorial on how to cut an avocado and remove the pit without hurting yourself.

The Twisty Glass Blunt is powerful. If you are anything like me, you'll likely need some replacement glass tubes for when you've gotten too twisty, but want to keep on twisting.I broke my TGB on day one. I was so "overwhelmed,' I dropped it 2-3 hours into Twisty Glass Blunt ownership. I was heartbroken. The TGB and I had just been introduced, but luckily Amazon was there to deliver two replacement tubes lickety split! These tubes fit, come with extra o-ring, cleaning tools, and rubber end caps! Huzzah!The Twisty Glass Blunt is an amazing smoking device. A fully loaded TGB should more than last all day at a rock festival, or company off-site. You pack an awful lot of weed into the glass tube, and use the corkscrew to remove the ash and advance good weed to the fore. Not only does it eliminate the need to constantly pack bowls, or roll joints, the TGB makes sure every hit is fresh, green weed.The Twisty Glass Blunt also fits most bong bowls perfectly.Twisty Glass Blunt via the Boing Boing StoreTwisty Glass Replacement 2 pack via Amazon

A very loose definition of "shed" is allowed, ranging from legitimate sheds to Tiny Houses to structures that are explicitly not even sheds, but these garden buildings are both whimsical and awe-inspiring. Pictured above is the Pricklebum, the Hedgehog Palace of Ludlow, winner in the "unexpected" category. [via Metafilter]

Generation Tech has done a few fun videos estimating the costs of items in the Star Wars universe. In the latest installment, they calculate the cost of a star destroyer. Spoilers below. (more…)

If you're intending to build an analytical engine with a six-sided prism to run Charles Babbage's weird cardboard vaporware program, you will need some help with Babbage's notes, as old Charles was inventing a whole technical vocab from scratch. (more…)

You know what would go great with your Voyager Golden Record? A replica of the "galactic greeting card" plaque that rode along with the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes, designed by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan with artwork prepared by Linda Salzman Sagan. (more…)

Sometimes, the simplest idea makes a great video. Case in point: the fine folks at Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory dropped a GoPro into a bucket of water, to the delight of creatures great and small. (more…)

As Donald Trump's national security adviser, one of the first moves Michael Flynn made was aligned precisely with the wishes of Turkey. But Flynn had a secret. He'd been paid half a million dollars to represent the interests of the Turkish government. And team Trump knew. (more…)

Another hour, another bombshell in the accelerating pace of criminal and espionage inquiries into Donald Trump and his team. (more…)

Sand. The indefinite but distinctive quality of Star Trek dialogue. We can beam out of the wilds any time. Space is desaturated now, but still with a brightly diverse cast. 1990s Babylon 5 outfits. Xtreme Klingons. Vulcan on the bridge (Type: Jewish ☐, British ☐, 1950s transatlantic newsreel accent ☑). "Starfleet doesn't fire first." Alien Mason Verger senses death. Looks fine!

The Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including questions about contact between Russian officials and Trump campaign associates. (more…)

Netflix has become one of the main forces for DRM in the world, a driver behind the W3C's dangerous, web-scale DRM project, and now they've announced that their app will no longer run on rooted/bootloader unlocked Android devices, because these devices can run code that overrides Google Widevine DRM (Widevine doesn't work well under the best of circumstances, and it harbored unpatched, showstopper bugs since its very inception). (more…)

Well, this just made my day: Matt Ruff's outstanding anti-racist novel Lovecraft Country has been picked up for development into a TV show by Jordan "Get Out" Peele, JJ Abrams and HBO. (more…)

It's yet another fun-filled, fact-challenged week in the tabloids.Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin have been "caught fleeing the country," FBI files expose Debbie Reynolds' "secret gay life," and singer Cher needs a liver transplant "in order to cheat death!" according to the 'Globe.'"The shocking photo proof!" screams the Globe cover, beside a snap of Hillary and her aide descending an aircraft stairway, reportedly about to flee to Bahrain amid the Benghazi scandal.But the photo was actually taken at Van Nuys airport, California, on August 22, 2016, as the duo arrived in Los Angeles to attend a taping of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live.' I'm pretty sure that if you're flying from Washington, D.C. that Bahrain is in the opposite direction.More bizarre, the 'Globe' ran this same story back in February, claiming that Hillary was caught trying to flee America to avoid indictment by a grand jury. But this week's cover now has photographic "proof" - of Hillary landing in Van Nuys.Great investigative work, guys.Debbie Reynolds' "secret gay life" amounts to one alleged entry in her FBI files, reportedly claiming that an unnamed informant told investigators that her ex-husband Eddie Fisher was homosexual, and Reynolds "engaged in both normal and homosexual relations." What more proof could one ask? Perhaps a photo of Reynolds arriving at Van Nuys airport might clinch the deal?And does Cher need a liver transplant? The tabloids love to find a "top doctor" who has not treated the stars to offer a diagnosis based on photos, but the 'Globe' now has its new toy: the Institute of BioAcoustic Biology, which claims it can diagnose ailments by analyzing a patient's voice. Just listening to recordings of Cher, the experts can tell she "is being ravaged by a mysterious liver disorder and desperately may need a transplant." I expect her flight to land at Van Nuys airport any minute now.What do Bill Cosby, Michelle Obama, Dolly Parton, Sharon Stone and Faye Dunaway have in common?None of them have been treated by New Jersey plastic surgeon Dr. Lyle Back, who has nonetheless commented critically in recent months on all of their alleged cosmetic procedures, which he diagnoses at vast distances for the 'National Enquirer.'He's also turned his scalpel-like eye on Meg Ryan, David Hasselhoff, Daryl Hannah, Olivia Newton-John, Bethenny Frankel and Renée Zellweger for the magazine.And this week he's featured in no less than three 'Enquirer' stories, revealing that Caitlyn Jenner's face is "falling apart," Melanie Griffiths' looks are "gone for good," and that Tori Spelling's "Frankenface" is "starting to unravel." All according to this "top plastic surgeon" who, we are assured, "has not treated" any of these stars. Perhaps because he's too busy critiquing them?"Drugs, gay sex, lies & intimidation" at Fox News are the surprising target of attack on the cover of this week's Trump lapdog the 'Enquirer,' promising to expose 'What They're Still Hiding!"Beneath the headline "Fox News' Secret Web of Sin!" the 'Enquirer' unveils the "chilling truth about racism, drugs, sex, wiretaps, payoffs, lies and evil dirty tricks" at the Trump-loving network. It goes beyond the sexual harassment payoffs made on behalf of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, pulling together old dirt with fresh innuendo and gossip. Would the 'Enquirer' have attacked Fox News without White House approval, I wonder? Could this signal a new level of paranoid isolationism from the Oval Office?We also have the 'Enquirer' reveal the "real reason behind Comey's FBI firing!" Trump brilliantly "short-circuited a plan by the intelligence community to seize control of the White House - and the country!" An unnamed insider tells the magazine: "The American people owe President Trump a huge debt of gratitude for not allowing a rogue intelligence community to usurp our democracy." Yes! We should all thank President Trump for preserving our democratic way of life from autocratic tyrants. Where would we be without him? Flying in to Van Nuys airport, is my guess.Thankfully we have the intrepid investigative team at 'Us' magazine to tell us that Chrissy Teigen wore it best, Jeffrey Tambor loves baking bread, Madchen Amick carries lavender oil, a bead necklace and Crest toothpaste in her vintage handbag, and that the stars are just like us: they drink, eat, catch cabs and carry groceries. What exciting lives they must lead!'Us' magazine devotes its cover to Katie Holmes and Jamie Foxx's romantic "Secret Paris Getaway!" Calling them "the most private couple in Hollywood," the magazine finds that it can't penetrate into their privacy, as the duo travel in cars with tinted windows, take secret back elevators, and dine in private rooms at restaurants. In short, the magazine confirmed that the duo were in Paris together, and little more. It's the kind of ground-breaking journalism we've come to expect from 'Us.''People' magazine brings us 'The Obamas' beaming from the cover like the stars of a new reality TV series, promising to reveal the delights of "their lives now." And their lives sound an awful lot like reality TV fodder: The Obamas are traveling to exotic locations, exposing flesh while indulging in watersports, are writing their memoirs - allegedly for a combined $60 million - and are trying to figure out how to work the coffee machine. Ex-Presidents: They're Just Like Us!.Fortunately we have the 'National Examiner' to tell us that "Pets do go to heaven!" and how to "develop your psychic power." A hint: wear loose, comfortable clothing, dim the lights, clear your mind and say a prayer. There's even a helpful warning: "Psychic work should never be undertaken when you are angry or under the influence of drugs or alcohol." But where's the fun in that?Of course, it's the 'Examiner' that tells us that Neanderthals came to America 100,000 years before previously thought, and are the "missing link" to the "elusive Bigfoot." If only big feet meant little hands, there may be an explanation for the Neanderthal in the Oval Office.Onwards and downwards . . .

In case you missed "I'm Just a Lie" on Tuesday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live, here it is – the updated version of Schoolhouse Rock's 1976 "I'm just a Bill."

Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story with the headline "Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation." But another nugget was hidden towards the bottom of the article:Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.But isn't it legal in the United States for journalists to publish leaks whether they are legally obtained by someone else or not? According to The Guardian:The real danger, which got far less attention, was that Trump might use the draconian 100-year-old Espionage Act to target reporters with prosecution for publishing classified information. Less than six months into his presidency, we now have reason to believe this is a distinct possibility.The Espionage Act is blatantly unconstitutional, which is part of the reason why every justice department in modern history has avoided reaching the point of prosecution against a newspaper. But it has long been a specter hanging over journalists: if you read just the text of the law, it is being violated almost daily by reporters at every major paper in the country. (And it’s not just journalists: the law is so wildly broad that just by reading the New York Times, you are arguably guilty.)Many lawyers have believed the law would be struck down if a prosecution ever took place, but it’s not exactly a chance anyone wants to take. Just by bringing a prosecution without conviction, Trump can surely halt an untold number of stories that come right up to the line.But the Guardian goes on to explain that there is good news as well:The Trump administration’s obsession with leaks has only emboldened more people to come forward, and journalists to push even harder behind the scenes. There are almost too many examples to count of the administration admonishing employees not to leak behind closed doors, only to see their warnings promptly leaked to the press.Ironically, Trump firing Comey – in part for not being aggressive enough in leak investigations – has opened the floodgates to more leaks on what his administration was doing to potentially obstruct justice.Image: Bill Kerr

A fellow named Alain Ducas posted video that he says he shot in Bangor, Maine from the roof of the Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway Bangor overlooking the Penobscot River. I don't think that's a new river cryptid though. More likely it's the Loch Ness Monster on vacation in Maine. After all, Nessie hasn't been spotted in her Scotland home since May 7 when the video below was captured. That said, the Penobscot River Monster could just as easily be Champ, the monster residing in Michigan's Lake Champlain. (Mysterious Universe)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGuTMF9jlQThe new Penobscot River Monster video is very similar to the Olsen Champ video of 2009.https://t.co/gqlVesQlHUHere's a 2009 screen grab. pic.twitter.com/NKxCKL2WTV— Loren Coleman (@CryptoLoren) May 11, 2017

When you sit next to a texter in a movie theater it can be a little irritating. But when Brandon Vezmar from Texas took his date to see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, he became so annoyed that he's now suing her for $17.31 – the cost of the movie ticket. According to USA Today: “This is, like, one of my biggest pet peeves,” he told Austin’s American-Statesman.“It was kind of a first date from hell,” he told the paper, saying that about 15 minutes after the movie began, his date – who he met on dating app Bumble – started texting.In his lawsuit, which was filed at a Travis County small claims court, Vezmar said the woman “activated her phone at least 10-20 times in 15 minutes to read and send text messages.”But perhaps it's not just the texting that left the 37-year-old gentleman smarting. When he told her to leave the theater if she wanted to text, she went outside and never came back, leaving him to find another ride home.Apparently, the couple, who met on the dating app Bumble, were not a match.Image: Jhaymesisviphotography

I tried using a gas barbecue for a couple of years. I like charcoal grills much more. The food tastes better. And instead of using starter fluid, I use this Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter ($15 on Amazon). I've had it since 2013. After four years, it's showing some signs of rust but is perfectly serviceable. To use it, you crumple a couple of sheets of newspaper and put it in the bottom chamber, and fill the top chamber with charcoal pieces or charcoal briquettes. Light the newspaper with a match and let it go to work. In about 20-30 minutes you'll have glowing coals. Pour them into the grill and start cooking.

Many thanks to the good folks who came out to Bellingham's Village Books for last night's Walkaway event; tonight, I'll be appearing in Vancouver before flying home to Burbank for an event at my local Dark Delicacies on Saturday and then going straight to the airport for the start of my UK tour. (more…)