Former US Secret Service agent Lee Robert Moore was indicted in a Florida federal court Thursday on child porn and teen sex charges. He is being held in federal custody in Delaware on separate charges that while he was on White House duty, Moore sexted a Delaware Child Predator Task Force undercover officer, whom he believed to be a teenage girl. (more…)

I frequently cut myself shaving when I travel. I'm not sure why, because I don't cut myself very often at home when using the same type of razor. It's a hassle to get a cut, especially when I'm about to attend a meeeting, because the bleeding takes a really long time to stop. I used to carry a styptic pencil with me when I travel, but I must have left in a hotel bathroom because I can't find it. It worked pretty well, but it was messy to use and left a white spot on my skin, so when I looked for a replacement, I bought these KutKit styptic swabs instead.On my last trip, I finally got a chance to use one. It looks like a Q-Tip. I snapped the tip with a ring around it, which broke a glass tube filled with aluminum chloride-6-hydrate. The liquid flowed into the white tip and I applied it to the cut on my neck. It smarted a nit more than a styptic pencil, but it stopped the bleeding instantly, and left no residue. Good stuff.

Newly released court documents show that Brock Turner, the former Stanford student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside of a frat house, behaved in an “aggressive” and predatory way towards other women just one week before the attack. The 471 pages of documents released Friday by the Santa Clara County Superior Court show that Turner lied to investigators about having no experience with using drugs and alcohol before college. (more…)

Ah, the magic fortune telling fish! If it curls one way, you are certainly one sort of person! If it curls the other, you are another! Magic, right? We've spent the morning making our own fortune telling shapes! All you need is some cellophane.https://youtu.be/5ygTQfFRH5kHow does it work? I always thought it was body heat, but this simple morning distraction taught both my daughter and I that cellophane is hygroscopic! The sodium polyacrylate that cellophane is made of seeks out water, and as it absorbs even trace amounts -- like from the palms of our hands -- the molecules start changing shapes! The fish starts writhing around! Cutting out your own is a lot of fun, but lacks the cool packaging of the traditional!Hygloss Cello Sheets, 8.5 by 11-Inch, 48-Pack via AmazonThe Magic Fortune Telling Fish (pack of 10) via Amazon

Guitarist Eva Vergilova, from Sofia, Bulgaria, posts videos of herself playing classic rocks songs on the electric guitar. Here's her rendition of Aerosmith's "Dream On." Last year she covered Prince's "Purple Rain."

It's one thing to dream up a business idea, and quite another to successfully get it off the ground. But how to ensure your idea gets the attention it deserves?One way: this comprehensive Marketing Copywriter course bundle - available for any price you want to pay.Here are the included courses ($285 total value):Facebook Marketing for Small BusinessesTwitter Marketing for Small BusinessesEffective Copywriting PrinciplesIntro to Marketing AnalyticsImprove Your Business WritingHere’s how it works: pay any price, and you’ll get access to two courses. But pay anything over the average price paid, and you'll receive three additional courses of premium marketing instruction.With this full course package, you’ll understand how to lure customers, why they're coming, and how to keep them. A $285 value, this full Marketing Copywriter Bundle is available for whatever price you want while this offer lasts.

A thief stole a bicycle from a bike rack at a Walmart parking lot in Eagle Point, Oregon. 9-1-1 was called and the woman who owned the bike along with a few others chased after him on foot, but couldn't catch him. Luckily, a rancher named Robert Borba happened to be there. He went to his trailer, jumped on his horse, and captured the guy with his lasso.“When we arrived, there was a large crowd standing around a younger gentleman who was on the ground, the rope around his ankle, hanging on to a tree,” Adams said. Victorino Arellano-Sanchez was arrested and charged with theft, the police said. Read the full story here.

Motherboard used public records requests to extract 3,000+ pages of court docs from a massive 2010 RCMP mafia/drug bust in Montreal, codenamed "Project Clemenza," which revealed the full extent of the Mounties' secret use of Stingrays -- AKA "IMSI Catchers," the fake cellular towers that let cops covertly track whole populations by tricking their phones into revealing information about them. (more…)

This must be even harder on the poor rapist than not being able to eat his favorite beef dishes because of party culture. (more…)

Our dear friends Richard Metzger and Tara McGinley of the essential Dangerous Minds blog are profiled in the new issue of Cincinnati Magazine. Richard and Tara recently moved to Cincinnati, where Tara and I both grew up! From Cincinnati Magazine:When Dangerous Minds does dig for a bone, moreover, it digs deeper than the others. For instance, one day Metzger was spelunking through the ’net for La Dolce Gilda, a black-and-white short film he remembered seeing on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s. “I couldn’t believe no one had put it on YouTube,” he says. “I discovered that the director had also done a feature film that was never released to home video. It starred Bill Murray. So I found it on an underground torrent tracker. Dubbed in German.”Mere days after that 2014 Dangerous Minds scoop, complete with a link to the full lost Bill Murray movie Nothing Lasts Forever, articles on the film popped up in the Chicago Tribune, Yahoo!, and Slate. It was front-page news for Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper. For Dangerous Minds, it was just one of 13 articles posted that day, among them “Make Your Own Marcel Duchamp Chess Set with a 3-D Printer”; “Scenes from Marc Bolan’s Funeral”; and “Freaky Armadillo Purse.”“Richard is an anthropologist of high weirdness,” says David Pescovitz, a partner and editor at the popular blog Boing Boing, which is like an older, cyber-oriented brother to Dangerous Minds. “He doesn’t judge. He doesn’t exploit. His fascination and obsession is infectious.”"Weird, Inc." by Laurie Pike (Cincinnati Magazine)

LAist offers a fantastic look back at 100 years of the Santa Monica Hippodrome.Such a beautiful, storied building. I loved reading the stories and memories of this iconic, waterfront landmark. Via LAist:In the 60s, the building had a very famous visitor, though many who encountered her were probably oblivious."Towards the end of her life, Marilyn Monroe was living in Brentwood and hung out at the Santa Monica Beach a lot," Harris says, noting that many of the iconic photos George Barris took of the actress were shot here.Harris continues: She would come to the Hippodrome to find solace. She'd sit on a bench and watch the horses go round and round. Being sensitive to who she was, she would come in disguise wearing a scarf and overcoat and sunglasses. One day, the gentleman who was operating the carousel walked up to her and said something along the lines of, 'Why do you come here every day? You're young and you should get a job.' She then revealed [her identity] and said, 'I do have a job, I'm Marilyn Monroe.'On the second floor of the building, you'll currently find office spaces, including the office where Harris works. However, in the 60s and 70s, the second floor contained apartments. Author William Saroyan and musician Jimmy Henderson used one of the units to work, while actor Paul Sand and his then-girlfriend Joan Roan lived in another. Perhaps the most interesting person to live there was an outspoken activist named Colleen Creedon."[Creedon] was a prominent women's activist," Harris says. "She would protest the Vietnam War, she held fundraisers for Cesar Chavez and Daniel Ellsberg."She was also close friends with musician Joan Baez, who often crashed at Creedon's place. In 1974, two young men lit the trash cans outside of Creedon's apartment ablaze. The flames licked up the side of the building to Creedon's unit. Creedon managed to escape the fire, but long believed that the arson was more calculated than two wayward youths causing trouble. She told Harris herself that she believed she was targeted because of her beliefs."Until the day she died, she insisted that the fire was set deliberately to shut her up," Harris said. "And, she might not be far off with that reasoning."Creedon, who passed away a few years ago, long claimed that two other women activists in the area were also victims of arson. Whatever the cause, the fire permanently disrupted residential life above the carousel. The building was condemned and everyone was evicted. The upper floor would remain vacant until 1983, at which point it became office space.

The DEA is suing states for warrantless access to millions of individuals' medical records, so they can inflict more misery on people in chronic pain or other legitimate needs for controlled substances.Daily Beast:In his 2014 ruling against the DEA, District Court Judge Ancer L. Haggerty called warrantless searches of such data an egregious invasion of privacy.“It is difficult to conceive of information that is... more deserving of Fourth Amendment protection,” Haggerty said. “By obtaining the prescription records for individuals like John Does 2 and 4, a person would know that they have used testosterone in particular quantities and by extension, that they have gender identity disorder and are treating it through hormone therapy.“Although there is not an absolute right to privacy in prescription information... it is more than reasonable for patients to believe that law enforcement agencies will not have unfettered access to their records,” he added.The Obama administration disagrees, and argues that since the records have already been submitted to a third party (Oregon’s PDMP) that patients no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy.

Gawker Media was crushed by the $140 million legal judgment in Hulk Hogan's invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, which we now know was financed by a bitter and resentful Peter Thiel. Nick Denton's gossip news site Gawker.com published a sex tape featuring former wrestler Hulk Hogan, and the former wrestler (real name: Terry Bollea) sued with Thiel's help. The publishing company is now putting itself up for sale, reports the New York Times, citing an anonymous source. Gawker Media Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday “after a judge overseeing the suit against the company entered the full judgment and denied Gawker’s request for a stay under terms the company could meet.” (more…)

Peter Kafka reports that Gawker's filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Hulk Hogan the $140m judgment he won against it. Though legal experts believe the judgment will be much-reduced or overturned at appeal, the filing readies Gawker for the block. Ziff Davis, the tech publisher, is reportedly offering $90-$100m.Gawker and its banker Mark Patricof assume that the company will eventually see higher bids while it is in bankruptcy protection. Last year, in advance of the Hogan trial, Denton figured his company was worth something in the $250 million to $300 million range.But in any case the company won’t trade hands until Gawker either beats back Thiel and Hogan or it finishes a court-approved restructuring. Because no one wants to buy an ongoing lawsuit from Peter Thiel.Ziff Davis itself is a company that has gone through the Chapter 11 process. The company was once a dominant force in the trade and hobbyist magazine business, but its fortunes declined along with the print industry, and it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008.It emerged in recent weeks that billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hogan's lawsuit, exacting long-awaited revenge for Gawker having outed him as gay in 2007.

The secretary bird looks and moves like I'd imagine a dinosaur looked and moved. Here is one giving a rubber snake the business. From Reuters: "Scientists are studying the snake-hunting ability of the secretary bird from sub-Saharan Africa, which can kick a snake to death with a force five times its own body weight."

Senator David Perdue from Georgia led attendees of the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in a good-natured prayer for Obama's early death. He said, “We should pray for him like Psalms 109:8 says: May his days be short and let another have his office.” The crowd, no doubt aware of the passage, chuckled at the thought. Here's more from the passage (New Living Translation):Let his years be few;let someone else take his position.May his children become fatherless,and his wife a widow.May his children wander as beggarsand be driven from their ruined homes.May creditors seize his entire estate,and strangers take all he has earned.Let no one be kind to him;let no one pity his fatherless children.May all his offspring die.May his family name be blotted out in a single generation.May the LORD never forget the sins of his fathers;may his mother’s sins never be erased from the record.May the LORD always remember these sins,and may his name disappear from human memory.Naturally, many people outside the conference took issue with Senator Perdue's remarks, and it was reported in the media. Perdue spokeswoman Caroline Vanvick issued a statement blaming it all on the awful, awful press:“Senator Perdue said we are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and for our president. He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that. However, we should add the media to our prayer list because they are pushing a narrative to create controversy and that is exactly what the American people are tired of.”

Toting around a giant toolbox is how your grandparents fixed stuff. Bring your repair jobs into the modern day with the 10-bit Cycop Bitool, now a discounted $39.99 in the Boing Boing Store. This handy tool replaces the mountain of tools that's been driving you nuts, and can handle virtually any repair job you throw at it. It's a screwdriver and ratchet wrench all in one package, allowing you to fix stuff quickly and easily at a moment's notice.The Cycop Bitool’s 10 ultra-hard S2 steel bits fit nicely inside its slim aluminum casing, which you can carry around for everyday use. Just drop a bit securely on to the Bitool’s magnetic ratchet head and you’re ready to reach screws and bolts that a regular screwdriver or wrench couldn’t touch.Once you start appreciating the simplicity of the Bitool’s flexibility and Swiss Army knife-style versatility, it’ll become a mainstay of your repair jobs.The Cycop Bitool usually costs $45, but it’s available right now for just $39.99 while this offer lasts.

I sure miss Soul Train.

Last year, the Richmond, California city council passed a ban on space-based weapons that are secretly causing physical and psychological damage against people via "remote transmission." This legislation was driven by a community of people who have banded together to fight the "operatives" they believe are targeting them and ruining their lives with mind-control weapons. Today's New York Times reports on the phenomenon, called "gang stalking" and the people who claim to be "targeted individuals (T.I.s)." Dr. Lorraine Sheridan, who is co-author of perhaps the only study of gang-stalking, said the community poses a danger that sets it apart from other groups promoting troubling ideas, such as anorexia or suicide. On those topics, the internet abounds with medical information and treatment options.An internet search for “gang-stalking,” however, turns up page after page of results that regard it as fact. “What’s scary for me is that there are no counter sites that try and convince targeted individuals that they are delusional,” Dr. Sheridan said.“They end up in a closed ideology echo chamber,” she said.In instructional tracts online, veteran T.I.s explain the ropes to rookies:• Do not engage with the voices in your head.• If your relatives tell you you’re imagining things, they could be in on it.• “Do not visit a psychiatrist...."Perhaps unsurprisingly, the (T.I.) community is divided over the contours of the conspiracy. Some believe the financial elite is behind it. Others blame aliens, their neighbors, Freemasons or some combination.The movement’s most prominent voices, however, tend to believe the surveillance is part of a mind-control field test done in preparation for global domination. The military establishment, the theory goes, never gave up on the ambitions of MK Ultra, the C.I.A.’s infamous program to control the mind in the 1950s and ’60s."United States of Paranoia: They See Gangs of Stalkers" (NYT)

Someone stumbled upon a preference of Google's not to offer "crimes" as a suggested search term following a person's name. Unsurprisingly, the same sort of folks who think Obama has a secret birth certificate are sharing a conspiracy video.Vox explains why this is silly:Choose any famous American who has been accused of a serious crime and Google their name followed by the letters "cri," and in no case does Google suggest the word "crimes." That’s true even of people like Kaczynski and Madoff, who are famous only because they faced prosecution for serious crimes.Apparently, Google has a policy of not suggesting that customers do searches on people's crimes. I have no inside knowledge of why it runs its search engine this way. Maybe Google is just uncomfortable with having an algorithm suggesting that people search for other people's crimes.In any event, there’s no evidence that this is specific to Hillary Clinton, and therefore no reason to think this is a conspiracy by Google to help Clinton win the election.

Dane Rusk was driving his car in Regina, Saskatchewan when he saw a panhandler at the intersection holding a cardboard sign. Rusk took off his seatbelt to give $3 to the panhandler. Moments later he was pulled over and issued a $175 traffic ticket for unbuckling his seatbelt. The officer who pulled him over explained that the panhandler was an undercover cop who reported Rusk to the patrol car officer. Rusk said he was “pretty shocked” by the incident. “The ticket’s $175 and the three dollars I gave to him – I’m out $178 all because I was trying to help out a homeless guy.”But Regina police say this is nothing new. It’s part of a project that has police watching for traffic violations at intersections.“Intersections are probably one of the most critical areas when it comes to accidents obviously, and our high-volume intersections are ones that we tend to target,” said Insp. Evan Bray. “So we will run random intersection projects throughout the city.”

Think twice before you honk! Here's a video of a motorcyclist who honks at an unmarked SUV that turns out to be a cop car. The cop is stopped at a yield sign, talking on his cell phone. The biker stuck behind him gives a quick honk, but when the SUV doesn't budge, he honks a bit longer. Nothing too rude, but the cop in the car doesn't take kindly to it.

Celebrated film composer John Williams, 84, who scored Star Wars, the Indiana Jones films, E.T., and so many more, says that he will be writing the music for Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One," based on the marvelous 2011 novel by Ernest Klein. After that, it'll be time to return to a galaxy far, far away to score the next Star Wars film.“If I can do it, I certainly will. I told (producer) Kathy Kennedy I’m happy to do it, but the real reason is, I didn’t want anybody else writing music for Daisy Ridley,” he told Variety.Last night, Williams received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, the first given to a film composer in the award's 44 years.Here's classic video of John Williams conducting the Boston Pops performing the Star Wars Main Theme:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rQSJDLM8ZE

My strobes for underwater photography eat batteries up. These cheap, high capacity, rechargeable AA batteries have been great!I'll generally get 30+ exposures out of a set of disposable batteries, before they start to show visible drop off on the same flash settings as when fresh. With a set of these rechargeable batteries I get nearly twice as many shots, and I'm not throwing them out.The biggest advantage is I'm changing batteries less frequently on a device that may leak underwater if I'm not careful. What'd usually happen is I take the camera on the first dive, and didn't bother changing batteries. This really screws up my UW photography as I'm typically only figuring out what I want to shoot/do based off the conditions of the first dive. I decided to try some better batteries and they make a huge difference.I'll assume they work just as well above water. EBL 16 Pack AA 2800mAh Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries via Amazon

Economist John Kay, who writes for the Financial Times, delivered a powerful, eminently readable critique of the finance industry last month at the Bank of International Settlements conference. (more…)

Matt Taibbi takes to Rolling Stone to tell us about the lessons that the US military learned from the powerful bruising it received from Muhummad Ali's refusal to fight in Vietnam: namely, that America should fight its wars with all-volunteer armies whose ranks were disproportionately drawn from the poor and desperate, which dissipated the political pressure that arose from drafting the rich, the powerful and the famous to fight. (more…)

Spain's anti-austerity, left-wing Podemos ("We Can") Party (previously), which grew out of Spain's Occupy-like Indignados movement, has just published its election manifesto for the June 26 election -- in the form of an Ikea Catalog. (more…)

Jesse Orion writes, "This is Jean 'Moebius' Giraud's '40 Days in the Desert B' recreated page by page with characters from Charles Schulz' 'Peanuts'!" (more…)

In 1994, Neal Stephenson and his uncle George Jewsbury published a novel called Interface, about a high-tech, poll-centric election. (more…)

"Gloves." The voice is powerful and paternal, yet somehow inviting. "They protect us."

In the first of a series of documentary videos about 'Future Cities,' WIRED UK has released a wonderful short doc on Huaqiangbei, the vast market district in Shenzhen, China. They picked the best host and guide imaginable for this project, hardware hacker and researcher Andrew "Bunnie" Huang. (more…)

Here's Source Assured's pitch: landlords, if you write a requirement for tenants (and prospective tenants) to let us access their social media accounts into your lease/application process, we'll scrape all that data, use an unaccountable system to analyze it, and produce libelous, life-destroying dossiers on them that you can use to discriminate against people who seek shelter, the most fundamental human need after sustenance. (more…)

The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several 'Electronic Recovery and Access to Data' devices to install in police cruisers for seizing funds from prepaid debit cards during roadside arrests. (more…)

Today Uber rolled out their new Scheduled Rides option, allowing you to schedule a ride 30 minutes to 30 days in advance. This could be especially handy for people needing an early morning lift to the airport. One hitch is that for now, it's only in Seattle, although it'll be "followed by other top business travel cities." Here's how it works, according to Uber:Select uberX and tap “Schedule a Ride.”Set your pickup date, time, location, and destination.Confirm the details of your upcoming trip and tap “Schedule uberX.” You can cancel at anytime before your ride is on the way.We’ll send you reminders both 24 hours and 30 minutes in advance of your pickup. You’ll be notified after your ride is on the way, as well as whether surge pricing applies.Just make sure you're on time for your scheduled ride – otherwise you'll be fined. And if you're not in Seattle, you can still sign up to be the first in your city to try it. For more details on Uber's Scheduled Rides click here.

In India and Pakistan, the variety of traditional sweets prepared for special occasions seems infinite. One popular treat is laddu (or ladoo), sweet little sugary carb balls. They're basically cookies, and they're munched at big celebrations--weddings, births, and the like. (more…)

President Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton for president today, in a video posted to the Clinton campaign's Facebook and YouTube accounts, instantly shared far and wide. (more…)

A house caught fire in a home on High Street in Walworth, New York. After extinguishing the fire that was contained in a single locked room, investigators found 40 to 50 marijuana plants under grow lights inside.According to the AP, the fire is thought to have been caused by an electrical problem. One of the home's residents was charged with a misdemeanor for illegally growing weed.

The East Bay Times reports that "at least 10 prospective jurors" refused to participate in Judge Aaron Persky's next trial in protest at the cozy 6-month sentence (out in 12 weeks) he gave Stanford rapist Brock Turner."I can't be here, I'm so upset," one juror told the judge while the lawyers were picking the jury in the misdemeanor receiving stolen property case, according to multiple sources.Another prospective juror stood up and said, "I can't believe what you did," referring to the six-month county jail sentence Persky handed to Turner, who was convicted for sexually assaulting an unconscious intoxicated woman last year outside a Stanford University frat party.In each case, the judge said, "I understand," thanked the prospective juror and excused her or him from duty.Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden wrote an open letter to Turner's victim today, praising her willingness to speak out about her treatment by her attacker and by the legal system.And I am filled with furious anger — both that this happened to you and that our culture is still so broken that you were ever put in the position of defending your own worth.It must have been wrenching — to relive what he did to you all over again. But you did it anyway, in the hope that your strength might prevent this crime from happening to someone else. Your bravery is breathtaking.You are a warrior — with a solid steel spine.

Brian Brushwood is is the creator and host of over 400 episodes of Discovery’s Scam School, with over one million subscribers on YouTube. In 2015, his first full season of Hacking the System debuted on the National Geographic Channel (now available on Netflix). Brian has performed thousands of live stage shows (appearing in every state in the continental US), headlined 3 years at Universal Orlando, and recorded two Billboard #1 comedy albums with his “Night Attack” co-host, Justin Robert Young. (more…)

A "small" bomb exploded in a women's bathroom at the Target store in Evanston, Illinois Wednesday, and police said they thought the attack was related to the company's pro-transgender policies. They changed their mind, however, after taking a 44-year-old woman into custody, reports the Chicago Tribune."The detectives are not currently looking for any known additional suspects, and (at) this point there is no indication that the incident is related to any policies that the Target store has in place," the release reads.Evanston police requested the help of the Cook County bomb squad late Wednesday afternoon after an explosion in a Target store restroomWGNtv's Patrick Elwood reported that no-one was in the bathroom when the device exploded and that it caused minor damage. The bombwas housed in a plastic bottle and contained no shrapnel.Target upset conservatives recently by announcing that transgender customers would be permitted to use the bathrooms that they are most comfortable using, and police at first suspected a connection.

Six US states have banned the sale and use of the Kratom, a psychoactive plant-derived drug from Southeast Asia that is available online and in head shops. Researchers studying kratom have found that it affects brain receptors for strong opioids.From C&EN:A new study provides some data to support those states’ concerns (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b00360). A team of researchers shows for the first time that kratom’s primary constituent, mitragynine, and four related alkaloids bind to and partially activate human µ-opioid receptors (MORs), the primary targets of strong opioids in the brain, spinal cord, and gastrointestinal tract.Countdown to kratom landing on the list of federally controlled substances in 3... 2... 1...

After being shamed out of the Tribeca Film Festival, Anti-Vax hoaxer Andrew Wakefield continues to spread his lies. Someone in Kansas City thought giving time to Vaxxed, his conspiracy flick, was a good idea.Via The Kansas City Star:The anti-vaccination documentary “Vaxxed” was set to be part of this spring’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York. But then the festival and one of the film’s defenders, actor Robert De Niro, came under fire and pulled the film.Now Kansas City area audiences will have a chance to see the controversial film for themselves......Wakefield is the British gastroenterologist who claimed to link autism to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. (De Niro has an autistic child.) Since then, his research has been called “an elaborate fraud,” and Wakefield’s medical license was revoked.

Grace VanderWaal, age 12, got a standing ovation for her ukulele performance of her original song on America's Got Talent.

One of my favorite computers of the 8 bit era, hocked by one of my favorite technology sales people of any. Pre-dating his fine work for Priceline, Shatner learns to sell us the future!(Thanks, Hugh Pearson!)

I'm glad I bought a cheap oral thermometer, and not a fancy one. I called my vet, vet asked me take the dogs temperature. I thought "I can do that."Don't tell Hannah, she'll want me to wash it!Clinical Digital Thermometer by Medalli® via Amazon

The Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has determined there is no second amendment right to concealed carry.Via Mother Jones:This morning, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a long-awaited opinion in a case challenging how concealed-weapon permits are issued in California. Writing on behalf of the seven-judge majority, Justice William Fletcher delivered a blow to pro-gun advocates, stating that "there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public."The case's lead plaintiff, Edward Peruta, had argued that the state's current system for issuing concealed-weapons permits is arbitrary and unconstitutional, since it gives sheriffs and police chiefs broad discretion in determining who has the "moral character" and "good cause" to pack a hidden gun. In his finding that such regulations are constitutional, Fletcher cited the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller decision, which affirmed the right to keep guns for self-defense, but found that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."

The Book of Gossageby Howard Luck Gossage and Jeff GoodbyCopy Workshop2006, 308 pages, 8 x 10 x 1 inches (softcover)$42-$50 Buy a copy on AmazonJust down the street from San Francisco’s North Beach strip clubs and Beat Museum, I had the privilege of interning for an ad agency located in one of the city’s original firehouses. When I started, I had no idea that the building once belonged to Howard Luck Gossage, an advertising legend. After taking a spin down the firepole I was given a copy of The Book of Gossage and told that if I wanted to work in advertising I needed to read this book. It opened my eyes to how amazing advertising can be, and introduced me to an icon that too few people know about. The book is dense, as it’s part textbook, part history lesson, and is filled with some incredibly witty and thought-provoking ads. The book collects a bulk of Gossage’s writings where he tackles the big issue: Is Advertising Worth Saving? He also covers topics like: How To Be Creative, The Shape of an Idea, and Our Fictitious Freedom Of The Press. His ads filled tires with pink air, started the international paper airplane competition, and prevented the Grand Canyon from being flooded. While his creative insights alone would be worth the price of this book, there is also a lot of historic context that’s provided by colleagues, and people who were influenced by his work. Hearing about his charm and love of parties makes you understand why people like Tom Wolfe, John Steinbeck, and Stan Freberg would just hang out at his agency. As Gossage said himself, “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.” If you’re curious about advertising, pursuing a creative career, or just want to learn about a very interesting man, then this book will interest you. – JP LeRouxNote: The first edition contains some colored photos of Gossage’s work, while the second edition (linked above) includes a CD-rom with a collection of his work – either is worth picking up.

Last week I found a black widow in my mailbox. Luckily, it was during the day so I spotted it right away. But we often pick up the mail at night. I told Carla about the spider and now she is nervous about getting the mail. I just ordered this motion-activated mailbox light on Amazon for $12. I hope it does the trick.

Singer and actress Heba Magdi doesn't seem to be enjoying herself on this good-natured prank TV show, in which she was "kidnapped" by fake ISIS terrorists and forced to put on a suicide vest. C'mon Heba, lighten up!From YouTube:Is this the world’s cruellest TV prank ever? Actress is tricked into thinking she has been kidnapped by ISIS in Egypt and is made to beg for her life on video.The video shows Heba Magdi surrounded by men dressed as ISIS fanatics.She is then ordered 'at gun point' to pose for pictures infront of an ISIS flag.Repeatedly begs for her life as TV crew set off fake gunfire and explosions.