This sure is curious!Tweets New York Times investigative reporter Nick Confessore today:New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before "Triggered" was released. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Don Trump Jr.'s book.Oh boy.Purpose of disbursement: donor memos. lol.New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before "Triggered" was released. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Don Trump Jr.'s book. pic.twitter.com/vsmmsgrYCp— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) November 21, 2019 Read the rest

A single Trump golf outing brought Trump's club $28,800 in Secret Service spending.The U.S. Secret Service spent over $250,000 taxpayer bucks at Trump golf courses and hotels just in the first half of 2017 alone, reveal new FOIA docs obtained by Property of The People.From Natasha Bertrand's coverage at Politico:The expenditures -- amounting to $254,020.94 in total -- raise new questions about the extent to which Trump is personally profiting from the federal government, which is prohibited by the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause. The president has called the provision “phony,” and his lawyers have argued that it only bars him from receiving compensation as part of “an employment-type relationship” with a foreign or domestic government.Trump refused to divest from his businesses upon taking office, choosing instead to hand off control of his organization to his two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. Ethics advocates warned at the time that the arrangement raised conflict of interest and Emoluments Clause concerns. This stunned me. A single golf outing by @realdonaldtrump in April 2017 appears to have brought Trump's club $28,800 in spending by the Secret Service agents who protect Trump.Thanks to @propotp for obtaining these documents. https://t.co/TpzSeLcdqv— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) November 21, 2019Trump golf cart rentals have now cost US taxpayers more than half a million dollars -- and rising. Trump has spent about 20% of his work days on the golf course, and almost always his own golf courses. @JustinRohrlich https://t.co/oxef9ufnTP via @qz— Craig Holman (@CBHolman) November 21, 2019Just terrific #FOIA work and reporting from @PropOTP @_rshapiro and @NatashaBertrand. Read the rest

A Colorado school district has closed 40 schools to stem the spread of two unidentified viruses that cause vomiting and fever, reports CNN. "Onset of symptoms for both types of viruses, including vomiting, is incredibly fast. The second version also causes fever in several cases," Mesa County Valley School District 51 said in a statement. From the article:It's the first time the Mesa County Valley School District 51 has had to close all schools due to illness, the district said Wednesday."We are taking this highly unusual action because this virus is extremely contagious and spreading quickly across our schools," Nursing Coordinator Tanya Marvin said in the statement.More than a dozen schools in the state's 14th largest district reported increased absences "due to illness and several incidences of vomiting in public areas of the schools," according to the Mesa County Public Health Department.Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay Read the rest

Pretty amazing pull quote from this New York Times profile of Dr. Fiona Hill, former top US diplomat in Ukraine, who testified today in the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump.Excerpt:Dr. Hill, 54, had an unusual path to academia. The daughter of a coal miner and a midwife, she had a hardscrabble childhood in northeast England — a childhood that bred toughness, her friends say. Once, when she was 11, a boy in her class set one of her pigtails on fire while she was taking a test. She put the fire out with her hands, and finished the test. And she confirmed it today, live in the hearings!Sheryl Stohlberg's @nytimesworld profile of Dr. Hill is quoted by Rep. Jackie Spier. Yes, confirms Dr. Hill, it is true that a boy lit my hair on fire while I was taking a test at the age of 11, and that my response was to swat the fire out and finish taking the test.— Lisa Goldman (@lisang) November 21, 2019And it resulted in a BOWL HAIRCUT which still traumatizes her!Upon questioning from Speier, Hill confirms that at 11 years old, a boy set her pigtails on fire. She put out the fire and finished her test. She said she tells the story sometimes because: “It had some very unfortunate circumstances, my mother gave me a bowl haircut.”— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) November 21, 2019More:Fiona Hill Viewed Serving Trump as Risky. Now She’s an Impeachment Witness. Read the rest

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh today pled guilty to conspiracy charges and tax evasion in federal court.“She surrendered her passport, under terms that would allow her to go free pending her sentencing,” the Baltimore Sun reports:She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion. The counts entail much of the sweeping allegations against Pugh in the initial indictment — that she knowingly sought to defraud purchasers of her books, reap the financial and political benefits, and pay little or no taxes on the windfall.After Pugh’s plea, Chasanow instructed Assistant U.S. Attorneys Martin Clarke and Leo Wise to read through the facts pertaining to those four counts, which Pugh would be stipulating as true under the terms of her plea agreement.“Ms. Pugh, you need to listen carefully,” Chasanow said.The four counts to which Pugh pleaded guilty collectively carry a maximum sentence of decades in prison, though she could receive far less than the guidelines allow at sentencing.Under the terms of the plea, Pugh did not acknowledge guilt in relation to seven individual counts of wire fraud.Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh pleads guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion in ‘Healthy Holly’ book scheme [baltimoresun.co] Read the rest

A truck drove down a street in Flores da Cunha, Brasil, opening a large sinkhole as it passed, reports Gauchazh. A few seconds later, a car drove over it and was swallowed. The driver broke bones in her face and was hospitalized.[via r/WTF] Read the rest

This dog didn't mind at all that his human companion did something weird and unnecessary to his playground.The driveway is done, now we can relax from r/Wellthatsucks[via r/Wellthatsucks] Read the rest

Mark Davis designed a font for BuzzFeed News based on Trump's distinctive handwriting (as seen on the I WANT NOTHING script he hand wrote yesterday). It's called Tiny Hand and you can download it for free. Read the rest

There’s breaking news, fake news, a news flash, even news you can use, but they all supposedly share one attribute: their information is new.

On Slate Star Codex, psychiatrist Scott Alexander offers a "book review of "All Therapy Books", which is a jumping-off point for asking how it is that psychotherapy is periodically rocked by new therapies that seem to perform incredibly well, but whose confirmed efficacy shelves off over time.He proposes four different possibilities to explain this: maybe the first people to practice a new therapy are the most plugged-in, best psychotherapists, and then, as mediocre therapists adopt the practice, it dilutes the findings; maybe once the therapy is more familiar, the placebo effect (driven by excitement at trying something new) fades; maybe the underlying ideas in the new therapy get widespread attention so patients show up already having received much of the benefit the therapeutic perspective brings; or, maybe the inventors of the therapy are "true believers" who do quick studies that are countered by wider follow-on studies.Here's the question: does therapy actually work? That is, do patients undergo lasting transformations that reduce their unhappiness from interacting with therapists? I believe I had such an experience -- after a very traumatic period in my life, I had serious depression, and I saw a therapist who introduced me to cognitive behavioral therapy. Not only did my depression recede as I started practicing CBT, but subsequent bouts of depression (some situational, some seemingly random) were much easier to deal with thanks to application of CBT principles (with one exception, about 18 months after the Trump election, when I saw another therapist who helped me understand that my social isolation was contributing to my lack of equilibrium and whose encouragement to carve out explicit time to socialize with friends has been seriously helpful since). Read the rest

Perfect material for a pretentious video game trailer, or the closing montage of a movie where everyone dies.The official audio for Never Gonna Give You Up (Pianoforte).From the new album The Best Of Me. Buy/Listen: https://RickAstley.lnk.to/BestIDLimited edition formats available on Rick's store: https://RickAstley.lnk.to/storeIDIt's still not as good as the legendary cover that Slayer performed in 2011. Read the rest

We all know those gifts we get "for the kids," the ones that parents are secretly more excited to open. Drones are a perfect example, but there's a model out there that really doubles down on that appeal.Introducing the Space Fighter Building Block Drones, a series of space fighter drones that are a blast to fly and teach some pretty vital STEM skills.Straight out of the box, any kid who's familiar with interlocking building blocks will be able to assemble their own flyer from the ground up.From there, they're airborne with the press of a button. The 6-axis gyro and auto-stabilization keep the learning curve low for young pilots while allowing for fancy maneuvers like 360-degree flips.The included controller gives pilots an effective range of nearly 250 feet, while the battery allows for flight time of up to 12 minutes. The best part about the ABS plastic materials is that they're resistant to high impacts, like all building blocks. That's especially relevant for rookie pilots, but it also helps them learn. Since the blocks are compatible with other leading brands, they can customize the build and find out about weight distribution and other engineering concepts while they're at it.The Space Fighter Building Block Drone is available in four different styles—Sidewinder, Snow Shooter, Destroyer, and Shuttle. They're on sale for $39.99, but you can take an additional 15% off using the early Black Friday discount code of BFSAVE15, making the final price just $33.99. Read the rest

In this video, an astoundingly dedicated player demonstrates how to complete Minecraft without ever picking up an item. It requires an example of unbelievable luck -- an End Portal which already has 12 eyes in it -- and some save scumming to beat the Ender Dragon with one's fists.Here's the embed, via Reddit:Beating Minecraft with no items from r/nextfuckinglevel Read the rest

Though the wonderful wizard of Northampton may strike me down, I must confess: HBO's new Watchmen series is really, really good. I would argue that it actually has more in common with Moore's adaptive approach to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—alluding to some established literary canon, but remixing the elements into a story all its own.Just as the original comic featured news clips and other articles at the end of every issue, the TV show has an online "Peteypedia," a collection of supporting text documents that exist within the world of the series. For example: a social work pamphlet about "Extra-dimensional Anxiety and You." This is, of course, supposed to be a reference to the climactic events of the 30-year-old graphic novel, where a (fake) squid-like alien is sent through an extra-dimensional portal into the middle of Manhattan, killing millions of people, traumatizing millions more with telepathic psychological damage, and, ultimately ending the Cold War by uniting USA and USSR against a common enemy.But honestly it…just kind of sounds like living in the United States in 2019 in our own reality. The pamphlet warns of the common PTSD-like symptoms of EDA such as flashbacks and obsessive rumination; hyperavoidance and hypervigilance; negative changes in identity, relationships, or worldview; and paranoia, thrill-seeking, or suicidal thoughts. While, yes, it is supposed to be a somewhat-satirical riff on the generic language of support groups, it also feels like an accurate and relatable description of social media in the Trump years. Read the rest

Meet the Claire's Accessories gom jabbar! Insert a finger into the box and it will print the image of your choice on the nail. Though intended for use by professionals, you can get them on Amazon for just shy of a grand and a few consumer reviews have turned up.It takes just 30 seconds to print a design, according to this reviewer 👇It's the "hottest trend" in nail salons this year, reports Art Insider 👇Here a nail artist jokingly complains of being replaced by robots 👇In this video, Natalie of Natalie's Outlet explains how it works: by "going left and right and bbrrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrb!" 👇O'2nails Digital Mobile Nail Art Printer [Amazon] Read the rest

It's a little corny but William-Sonoma's R2-D2 Popcorn Maker will probably appeal to most fans of POP culture, even at its $100 price tag. Something fun: Its head doubles as a serving bowl. Give snack time the intergalactic edge with this popcorn maker shaped like everyone's favorite Star Warsâ„¢ droid. Simply plug him in, add corn kernels and watch as R2-D2 makes quick work of air-popping a healthy snack for movie night.(I'm still nostalgic for the Joe Namath "Butter-Up Popper" we had in the seventies!)Previously: Wrap makes your Instant Pot look like R2-D2(The Awesomer) Read the rest

Portal Icosahedron is a sculpture by Anthony James, "famous for setting fire to a Ferrari in a birch forest." Created with steel, glass and LED lights, the mirrors within generate an incredible repeating view of its own structure without including the observer or the exterior. It reminded me at one of William Chyr's new game, Manifold Garden.Here's the gallery langue de bois:Anthony James’ work takes up the concepts of the universal and transcendental in order to demonstrate the impossibility of their representation. The historical cosmology of Plato is a primary inspiration, both for the sculptures of icosahedrons and for the silhouette of Baroque architect Francesco Borromini’s dome for Sant’Ivo in Rome. Colorful rings of neon nod to the ancient concept of the universe as a set of concentric planetary orbits. The effect is both esoteric and industrial, orphic and distinctly concrete. Modern art historical references abound as well – Bruce Nauman, Ellsworth Kelly, Minimalism – but the artist’s attention is on the wonderment and possibility presented by distant ideals.Portal Icosahedron, 2017Steel, glass, LED lights60 × 60 × 60 in152.4 × 152.4 × 152.4 cmContact for price Read the rest

iSongs is a YouTube channel that shows popular songs being recreated from scratch with the music-making app that comes with the iPhone. It's an excellent and incredibly dense tutorial, too, for those with the "observe and copy" learning style. Read the rest

It's not impossible for an emerald to be valued at $280 million. In 2017, a 794-pound emerald was found in Brazil and valued at $309 million:However, in the ongoing litigation over the 2018 Camp Fire, PG&E has asked for proof that a married couple really lost a $280 million emerald when their home burned down. Their "Beleza Emerald" was described in court documents as a 500-pound "solid block of black schist and quartz with green crystals."Aside from the immense value of the emerald, Market Watch notes a few suspicious factors:While the Camp fire burned hot enough to melt aluminum — which has a melting point of 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit — emeralds start to degrade at temperatures around 1,800 degrees FahrenheitA Google search found no record of a "Beleza Emerald."According to Realtor.com, the house in question was an 8-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot home in Paradise with an estimated value of $586,000 — raising further doubts that it contained a gem worth more than 477 times the price of the house.In an effort to verify the claim, PG&E has requested proof of ownership such as photos of the emerald, or receipts for security precautions such as temperature control or employment of security personnel. Read the rest

The hardest part of web design can be nailing down the look. These days, even non-designers can easily spot a stale stock photo or lazily-made icon.What's the solution? No matter what kind of artist you are, it's always a good idea to widen your palette. And with more than a million vector images to choose from, VectorGrove is the quickest and easiest way to do just that.This service is a treasure trove for graphic designers who need quick, original images. The interface makes it easy to browse and pick images in a variety of formats (.SVG, .EPS and .JPG), which is good because there is a ton to choose from - 1.2 million, actually. They run the gamut from simple icons, shapes, and fonts to characters and backgrounds.Best of all, it's all worry-free. Download each image as many times as needed and resize to fit your brochure or web page without a drop in quality. No royalties, no license fees.You can sign up for VectorGrove for $39 today and take an extra 15% off that final price by using the early Black Friday discount code BFSAVE15, lowering it to $33.15.Don't wait for Black Friday—you can get these top-sellers at deep discounts today! Read the rest

Consumer Reports' Digital Lab does groundbreaking privacy research: they're hiring for eight positions including technologists ("resident hacker," "digital standard manager," "information security researcher," "program manager, security and testing," and "privacy testing project leader"); journalists ("digital content manager"); policy and comms ("senior researcher, digital competition" and "associate director, strategic communications — technology and privacy"). Most of the positions are NYC or SF or DC based, several allow for remote workers. (Thanks, Ben)!) Read the rest

Here's a spicy take! South Bend, Indiana Mayor and would-be Democratic presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg told CBS that he was "troubled" that Obama extended clemency to the whistleblower Chelsea Manning, freeing her from the prison where she had been tortured and incarcerated for upholding her oath to defend the Constitution by revealing evidence of US war crimes.He also dislikes Ed Snowden.Buttigieg told CBS News Radio on the sidelines of the South by Southwest Festival where he spoke over the weekend that he was "troubled" by former President Obama's decision to commute the 35-year prison sentence for Chelsea Manning days before he left office in 2017. 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg "troubled" by clemency for Chelsea Manning [Steve Dorsey/CBS](Thanks, Kathy Padilla!) Read the rest

Chloe Haines, 26, received a £85,000 (US$105,000) bill from Jet2 airlines after she was charged with beating a crew member and trying to open the plane door while in flight. As a result of her alleged antics, the pilot made an emergency landing while being escorted by two RAF fighter jets. In addition to the bill, Jet2 banned Haines for life.The Sun has photos of Haines looking unhappy at her court appearance.Image: NY Post video screenshot Read the rest

[Rosemary Frei is an independent journalist who broke the story that Google's Sidewalk Labs had quietly sewn up the rights to turn most of Toronto's lakeshore into a surveilling "smart city" (Google/Sidewalk lied about this at first, were cornered, admitted it, and rolled back the plan). Now she's back with a report on last night's "Public Update on Quayside" meeting, where any hope anyone nursed that Google would be pursuing humane urbanism, rather than surveillance and extraction, were firmly dashed. -Cory]At Waterfront Toronto’s first meeting for the public after its board of directors voted Oct. 31 to continue negotiating with Sidewalk Labs on the parameters of a 12-acre surveillance district, officials from the public agency made it clear they’re already wedded to the Google sister company.The hundreds of attendees of last night’s ‘Public Update on Quayside’ were each given a package that included a copy of an Oct. 29 letter from Waterfront Toronto President and CEO George Zegarac to Sidewalk Labs’s Chief Development Officer Josh Sirefman. Zegarac lays out in the letter how the two bodies will work closely together -- with Waterfront Toronto taking the lead in on such things as negotiations with all three levels of government – to "develop an ‘Innovation Plan’ to advance and achieve Waterfront Toronto’s priority outcomes." Based on this newly arrived at ‘realignment of Master Innovation and Development Plan threshold issues,’ Waterfront Toronto’s final decision on whether to proceed with the plan will be taken by its board by March 31, 2020. Read the rest

The past couple years has seen a rise in prison profiteers who strike deals with state corrections departments to provide "free" tablets to prisoners (these being the flimsiest, cheapest, least reliable hardware imaginable), and then profiting by charging exorbitant sums for prisoners to send emails (selling "digital postage stamps" that have to be affixed to each "page" of email), videoconference with family members, and provide media, charging prisoners for music that they lose every time a prison changes suppliers.At the same time, these companies lobby prisons to eliminate in-person visits, paper mail, and even libraries in the name of safety, contraband interdiction, and cost-savings. This replaces the prison-administered systems that encourage rehabilitation and smooth re-entry with private systems designed to extract large sums from prisoners' families. As bad as prison-administered systems are, the private systems can be worse -- and when you combine them, you get the worst of both worlds: prisoners who violate the vendors' terms of service get sent to solitary.A recent presentation by Katy Ryan from the Appalachian Book Project describes in gruesome detail how this affects in-prison reading. In West Virginia, a company called Global Tel Link has the contract to provide prisoners in ten prisons with "free" tablets, for which they charge $0.05/minute for reading ebooks, primarily drawn from Project Gutenberg, a free online service of volunteer-produced, public domain and CC-licensed ebooks.Not only does this deprive prisoners of more recent titles, including "how-to guides (carpentry, starting a business, repairing small engines, etc.), contemporary fiction, popular mysteries and sci-fi, African American literature, Native studies, recent autobiographies" -- it also makes prison reading fantastically expensive: they estimate that a quick read of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four would clock in at $19.80, while a used paperback would cost the prisoner less than a dollar (and a copy checked out of the prison library would be free). Read the rest

Is your brain a machine? Are your thoughts and feelings just malware of the mind? (And what "really" is a machine, anyway?) John and Eva referee the transhumanist fight of the century. In the blue corner, we have Eva meeting founder and Bryan Johnson, CEO of Kernel, straight from his office in LA. And in the red corner, John meets with To Be a Machine author Mark O'Connell in a cafe in Dublin. Time to get out the popcorn! Round One, ding-ding...The Life Cycle is a production of Klang Games, creator of Seed, the planet colonization MMO -- watch the new trailer here. Subscribe to The Life Cycle on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow The Life Cycle on Twitter and Instagram. Read the rest

“I’m excited to hold him. I get to rub the belly – the fuzzy belly. When I last saw him, he was maybe the size of a large burrito and now I’m assuming he’s the size of four large burritos.” — Sasha's human, Viktor Usov. Portland resident Viktor Usov’s cat went missing five years ago. The black, long-haired catboi was found in New Mexico, recently, and returned to his loving owner.Sasha the cat was flown from Santa Fe NM to Portland International Airport, with help from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society and American Airlines.Don't miss the wonderful reunion video at the Shelter's website -- and consider donating!FOX 12 spoke with Usov as he waited for Sasha to land. This, folks, is the best quote of forever.Excerpt:“I’m excited to hold him,” Usov said. “I get to rub the belly – the fuzzy belly.”“When I last saw him, he was maybe the size of a large burrito and now I’m assuming he’s the size of four large burritos,” Usov added.And from the story in the Santa Fe New Mexican today:Officers from the city’s Animal Services Division picked him up on a south-side street and delivered him to the Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society, where staff scanned for a microchip to determine if he had a human. A phone call shortly after revealed the extent of Sasha’s expedition across the American West.“I let him out one night and he never came home,” said Viktor Usov of Portland, Ore., who had been Sasha’s owner and was expecting to be reunited with the feline Tuesday. Read the rest

For all that tech that gets squeezed into them, the best wireless earbuds are ones we barely have to think about. That's the whole point, right? We get wireless because we just want to hit play and have a hands-free, cordless soundtrack for the rest of the commute.If that's your philosophy, definitely give these Kharbon IP67 Wireless Earbuds a listen. With nearly a week's worth of continuous playtime capability, their battery puts comparable buds to shame.That's no typo. The Kharbon's IPV6 low energy protocol allows for 150 hours of battery life, and with that kind of juice, you can even use the charging case as a 2,000 mAh power bank for your phone or other devices.As far as durability goes, the aluminum casing is solid and coated for an IP67 waterproof rating. The ergonomic design hugs the ear canal for a firm fit even on long runs, and the Bluetooth 5.0 capability ensures a smooth connection. The sound is balanced all the way through thanks to ambient noise cancellation.You can get a set with charging case and manufacturer's warranty for 60% off the list price now - but use the online code BFSAVE15 to knock an extra 15% off that final price, lowering the price down to $67.15. Read the rest

A startup based in Seattle says they plan to offer an alternative to human burial and cremation in Washington state, now that it's finally legal. Yep, human composting.Won't take it personally if you don't read the rest of this blog post.Seriously.The Seattle Times was among the first to report of the human composting service Recompose last week, when founder Katrina Spade hosted a launch event in Seattle’s Sodo district.Officials say Spade partnered with a soil scientist who led a successful research trial and convinced legislators to change state law effective May 2020 about the disposition of the dead.Company officials say Recompose is expected to open in 2021 and cost $5,500 each customer, more than basic cremation, but less than most funerals.Officials say each body would produce about 1 cubic yard of soil.Officials say excess soil is expected to be sent to land intended to become an ecologically sustainable village.More at AP via Oregon Live. Read the rest

Unsend, unsend, dammit.

Donald Trump’s desperate PR attempt “speech” from this morning read kind of like the lyric sheet from some obscure Radiohead-wannabe art-rock band.So naturally, comedian Emily Heller took it to the next level by feeding it into OpenAI’s “Talk To Transformer” Neural Network.I fed the first part of Trump's I WANT NOTHING note into @OpenAI's Neural Network on https://t.co/SlTLJPJh3z and the computer did the rest pic.twitter.com/fS43ZLoEoY— Emily Heller (@MrEmilyHeller) November 20, 2019I assumed this was real, but I still wanted to try it out for myself. And wow, the results were not disappointing.First up: the opening scene to a noir novel. Not quite “shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not losing any supporters”-level, but it’s close.So I tried again. And this time, the Neural Network came out with a straight-up Ramones song.On my third try, the Artificial Intelligence showed a greater capacity for aspiring towards human emotions than Trump himself ever has.And this one basically just sounds like Trump talking in his sleep during a wet dream.As we can see from below, even the Neural Network knows that dozens of women have credibly accused the President of sexual assault.And finally, this one that … actually just sounds like the way Trump talks on a good day.You can try to fill-in-the-blanks on your own with OpenAI’s Talk To Transformer neural network. Whatever it is the machine spews out will still probably be more coherent and articulate than anything Trump himself has ever come up with. Read the rest

Time Magazine reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, freshly embarrassed in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, is planning to quit. Trump is making him look bad.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told three prominent Republicans in recent weeks that he plans to resign from the Trump Administration to run for the U.S. Senate from Kansas in next year’s elections. The problem: how to get out in one piece. Pompeo’s plan had been to remain at the State Department until early spring next year, the three Republicans tell TIME, but recent developments, including the House impeachment inquiry, are hurting him politically and straining his relationship with Trump.Earlier today, Ambassador Gordon Sondland's testified to the House that "everyone was in the loop" for Trump's "quid pro quo"—refusing to release aid to Ukraine unless it announced an investigation into Trump's political rivals. Read the rest

A light box is an excellent tool for illustrators. It allows you to place a sheet of paper with a sketch on it, then place another piece of paper on top of it, and trace the original drawing. A lot of artists do a pencil sketch on a sheet of paper, then use a nicer piece of paper to trace the sketch in ink.Andreas Ekberg, a wonderful illustrator who makes beautiful stenciled skateboards (like this Jackhammer Jill deck) and other things, told me about this USB light board. I already have a light board, and I've used it for over 30 years. It's a clunky metal box with fluorescent tubes and I used it draw illustrations for the early issues of the bOING bOING zine.I ended up buying a 5mm-thick USB powered light box for my daughter for Christmas a few years back. It works so much better than my old-school light box. The brightness level is adjustable, the LEDs will last much longer than the bulbs (mine currently has one burnt out bulb and I've been using it that way for years), and best of all, it is much more portable. Read the rest

As high winds, warm dry air, and extreme fire risk returns to areas of Northern and Central California today, Pacific Gas & Electric is again shutting off people's electricity to reduce fire risk.On Wednesday, some 375,000 accounts in Northern and central California lost power. PG&E is doing this to prevent live electricity lines from sparking wildfires, as they have in the past.From Associated Press:Some people in the wine country counties of Napa and Sonoma north of San Francisco lost power at about 7 a.m. Power was also cut farther north in portions of Mendocino, Lake and Yolo counties, said Katie Allen, a PG&E spokeswoman.Nearly 170,000 initially lost electricity, but the shut-offs that started Wednesday morning were expected to affect more people as the outages spread to 18 counties and last into Thursday.A virtually rainless fall has left brush bone-dry and forecasts called for low humidity and winds gusting at times to 55 mph (89 kph), which might fling tree branches or other debris into power lines, causing sparks that could set catastrophic fires in the region, PG&E officials said.Lights out in California again with high wildfire danger [AP] Read the rest

At least 145 coffins have been discovered underneath King High School in Tampa, Florida. Apparently a citizen researching area cemeteries advised the school district that in the first half of the 20th century, there was an African-American graveyard on the site. So far, ground-penetrating radar revealed 145 coffins just a few feet below the surface. From Bay News 9:The pattern of the findings matches historical records for a "potter's field," or pauper's field, called Ridgewood Cemetery, the district said."Hillsborough County Public Schools remains committed to respecting the individuals who are buried there, and their families," officials said.This is just the latest of several "forgotten" African-American cemeteries found in Tampa in the past year.The coffins are believed to be from Ridgewood Cemetery, which was designated by the city of Tampa as a pauper’s cemetery decades ago. The school district purchased the property in 1959, and built King High School soon after. pic.twitter.com/Jzhwyj693n— Emerald Morrow (@EmeraldMorrow) November 20, 2019 The discovery of Ridgewood Cemetery under King High School makes the second discovery of an erased black cemetery in Tampa this year. This is a pattern. It was intentional. pic.twitter.com/UTM8VQ2PFY— Emerald Morrow (@EmeraldMorrow) November 20, 2019 Read the rest

"Nearly every Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to fully reauthorize the Patriot Act through March 2020, extending the right of federal agents to use all sorts of secret surveillance against Americans," reports Reason.As the EFF says, "The USA PATRIOT Act broadly expands law enforcement's surveillance and investigative powers and represents one of the most significant threats to civil liberties, privacy, and democratic traditions in US history. [It] gives sweeping search and surveillance to domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies and eliminates checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that those powers were not abused. PATRIOT and follow-up legislation now in development threaten the basic rights of millions of Americans."Kudos to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 9 other Democrats for voting against it! And boo to the 219 Democratic representatives who voted to deprive us of our civil liberties!Yeah that’s gonna be a no from me dog https://t.co/O6t8h6zkgs— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 18, 2019(Image: Fred Frederickson, CC-BY,unmodified) Read the rest

Well, old Donald sure has got himself into a mighty fine pickle.Gordon Sondland testified under oath today that yes there absolutely was a quid pro quo in the Rudy-Giuliani-led drug deal involving Javelins and the president of Ukraine, and Burisma and young Hunter Biden -- and that whatever he did, Sondland says he did it at the direction of the President of the United States.Here's what Trump tweeted.Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrumpImpeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER! Ambassador Sondland asks U.S. President (me): “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas & theories. What do you want? It was a very abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. He (the President) just said,”...Next Trump tweet:...”I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NOTHING! I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO! TELL PRESIDENT ZELENSKY TO DO THE RIGHT THING!” Later, Ambassador Sondland said that I told him, “Good, go tell the truth!” This Witch Hunt must end NOW. So bad for our Country!And then, the Fox News video clip with the same phrase that was on his weird notes.I WANT NOTHING! pic.twitter.com/KKUfwSIRAi— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2019It's like he knows what's coming.Giuliani is on a tear right now, too, livetweeting against the impeachment witnesses.Republican lawyer doesn’t do his own research and preparation, and is instead picking up Democrat lies, shame.Allow me to inform him: I have NO financial interests in Ukraine, NONE! I would appreciate his apology. Read the rest

For some children with severe epilepsy, the best treatment may be a very rare surgical procedure in which a large portion -- even half -- of the child's brain is removed or disconnected. Amazingly, many of these individuals can relearn motor, language, and cognitive skills. How? The brain reorganizes itself and builds new connections. To better understand this incredible process, and hopefully inform new interventions and rehabilitation, Caltech neuroscientists conducted brain scans on six adults "all of whom received the surgeries as children and now have relatively normal cognitive abilities." From Caltech:"Despite missing an entire brain hemisphere, we found all the same major brain networks that you find in healthy brains with two hemispheres," says Dorit Kliemann, lead author of the new report and a postdoctoral scholar who works in the laboratory of Ralph Adolphs (PhD '93), the Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology, and the director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center.The brain scans also revealed an increased number of connections between the brain networks in the patients compared to healthy individuals. For example, the regions in the patients' brains that control the function of walking appeared to be communicating more with the regions that control talking than what is typically observed."It appears that the networks are collaborating more," says Kliemann. "The networks themselves do not look abnormal in these patients, but the level of connections between the networks is increased in all six patients...."Says Kliemann, "It's truly amazing what these patients can do. Read the rest

What is even going on anymore? I thought this was a viral photoshop, but it is not.President #DonaldTrump holds notes while speaking to the media before departing the White House for Texas 📷: Mark Wilson #QuidProQuo pic.twitter.com/9Ee3tqKL8Z— Getty Images News (@GettyImagesNews) November 20, 2019Here's what it says:I WANT NOTHINGI WANT NOTHINGI WANT NO QUID PRO QUOTELL ZELLINSKY TO DO THE RIGHT THINGTHIS IS THE FINAL WORD FROM THE PRES. OF THE UNITED STATESThis important photograph was captured by photographer Mark Wilson of Getty Images.Reuters has another image, slightly sharper.A sharper image, via @reuterspictures pic.twitter.com/Uc1iykPyho— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) November 20, 2019How did we get here.TRUMP'S WEIRD NOTES 📷: Mark Wilson @GettyImagesNewsI WANT NOTHINGI WANT NOTHINGI WANT NO QUID PRO QUOTELL ZELLINSKY TO DO THE RIGHT THINGTHIS IS THE FINAL WORD FROM THE PRES. OF THE UNITED STATEShttps://t.co/6ytuOJwxve pic.twitter.com/ToF8nwR5St— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) November 20, 2019Will it ever end.When your brain absolutely rocks pic.twitter.com/9BeByUyeJL— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) November 20, 2019 Read the rest

On Sunday, a 16-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly using a remote control car to smuggle meth from Mexico. According to the US Border Patrol, the RC car likely made several trips back and forth to haul more than 50 pounds of meth near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in the San Diego-Tijuana region. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:Border Patrol agents believe someone on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border was able to slip the drug-laden car through a gap in the bollard-style fencing and then drive it to the teen waiting on the north side of the fence, said Border Patrol spokesman Theron Francisco.An agent spotted the boy hiding in thick brush near the border, about a mile north of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, around 12:30 a.m. Sunday. The teen had two large duffel bags and a remote-controlled car with him, and agents found 50 packages of methamphetamine weighing more than 55 pounds in his bags. Read the rest

This is Cecil H. Dill, a farmer from Traverse Coty, Michigan, who discovered his unique, er, talent for making music with his hands. In the year of 1914. In the month of February. Read the rest

Hint: Don't dig around in there with a cotton swab. Read the rest

If you think the Electoral College should be scrapped because it sometimes results in getting a candidate elected that most of its citizens didn't vote for, then you might not have to wait forever for a Constitutional amendment to abolish it.In his latest video, CPG Grey outlines a plan to subvert Electoral College using the Electoral College, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The idea is to get States to "agree to cast their Electoral College votes for the candidate who gets the most votes from citizens nationwide."Here's a map showing which states have already enacted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact into law. As you might expect, states that usually vote for the Democratic candidate like this bill more than states the vote Republican. Read the rest

Robert J. Lang, an origami artist, shows how to fold a cicada 11 different ways, from easy to complex. The final one is basically sculpting the paper with many folds into something that looks very much like a real cicada. Read the rest

KHQ6 reports that John Rabago, a Hawaii cop accused of forcing a homeless man to lick a public urinal, plans to plead guilty on a civil rights charge. Another officer, Reginald Ramones, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge: "Ramones says Rabago convinced him not to report it."More from the AP:The homeless man feared he would be arrested and reluctantly obeyed Rabago’s orders, according to Ramones’ plea agreement. Rabago had previously threatened another man he was questioning by saying he wouldn’t be arrested if he stuck his head in a toilet, the document said. Alt headline: Blue water blues for the boys in blue Read the rest

The Maine Democratic Party has teamed up with the progressive sticker-and-more company Bumperactive (previously) to produce a line of Stephen King-themed, anti-Susan Collins merch, with proceeds going to unseat the Republican Senator whose repeated acts of cowardice (especially during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings) demonstrated that she had no commitment to either her stated principles or the people of Maine. There are four graphics in all: "Trump as Pennywise the Clown, Susan Collins in 'Debt Sematary', Susan as Jack Nicholson from The Shining, and of course, Stand By ME," available as tees ($30), posters ($25 or $45 for four) and vinyl stickers ($4 for 2 or all four for $15).Steven King Inspired Collection [Maine Democrats] Read the rest

Through the 1940s and 1950s, the DoJ went to war on the "studio system" -- a system whereby studios locked up actors in exclusive contracts and then bought or strong-armed all the movie theaters in America so that they'd screen whatever the studios made, freezing out independent productions from movie companies that might offer their talent a better, less restrictive deal.The result was the "Paramount decrees," a set of rules that, for 70 years, have acted as a check on monopolistic conduct from the increasingly monopolistic film industry, which is now down to four major studios, thanks to the US government's consent to a merger between Disney and Fox.Now, in response to "changing market conditions," the DoJ is set to ask the Southern District of New York to end the rule, just as new streaming services are set to end creators' access to residual payments for the ongoing use of their compositions, scripts, performances, and other creative endeavors.The new regime could see mergers with America's already vastly over-concentrated movie theater industry, which has been sewn up by the Chinese owned AMC and a handful of also-ran competitors. It could also see a return to "block booking" and other practices that let the major studios tie up movie screens, depriving smaller and independent producers of access to audiences.The DoJ is also set to get rid of up to 1,000 consent decrees, including the ones governing music licensing, giving far more power to ASCAP and BMI.“The sunset period will allow the defendants and movie theaters a period of transition to adjust to any licensing proposals that seek to change the theater-by-theater and film-by-film licensing structure currently mandated by the decrees,” Delrahim said in a speech to the American Bar Association’s fall antitrust gathering. Read the rest

The "pay-for game" is that gotcha game that Conservatives like to play, wherein the ridiculous boondoggles favored by the right (billions for Trump's wall, more than a trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, massive increases in Pentagon and intelligence agency spending, even a $16 million bomb used for no military reason) can be financed with infinite amounts of deficit spending, while any program that benefits the majority of America needs has to be "fully funded," generally by making cuts in other programs that benefit the majority of America -- something that the idiotic Democratic establishment has bought into.When Republicans are asked how they'll pay for their corporate welfare, authoritarian up-armoring, mass surveillance and military adventures, they are silent, or, if they are Donald Trump, the insist that "Mexico will pay for it."America has spent $10b on Trump's wall so far (Trump picked a design that can be carved through in minutes with a $100 reciprocating saw and a $15 blade), a downpayment on the $21b+ that Trump has pledged to spend. On the campaign trail, Trump promised the "Mexico would pay for the wall" more than 200 times.Trump has added $4t to the national debt in less than 3 years in office. Republican' "pay-for game" is an unfunny joke: they are the party of fiscal irresponsibility and unfunded liabilities, while Democrats are the party of paying for programs with a proven ROI: public health, public education, sustainable energy, green resiliency, public infrastructure, and other programs that deliver more dollars out than the government puts in to them. Read the rest

The UK is having an election in less than a month, and last night, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn debated Tory archclown Boris Johnson for a televised debate in which Johnson had to defend his record as a lying, racist, philandering, cowardly failure of a human being, and of a leader to his party and the nation.During the debates, the @CCHQPress Twitter account -- which has a Twitter "blue check" indicating that its identity has been verified by the company -- changed its screen name to "FactCheckUK," a name very similar to the existing UK impartial fact-checking service "FactCheck." Having done so, the account emitted a stream of calumnies and falsehoods about the Labour Party, all appearing under the "verified" FactCheckUK by-line.Twitter has publicly characterised the move as "[an attempt] to mislead people by editing verified profile information" and has sworn that any repeat of this stunt or similar moves by the Tory party will lead to "decisive corrective action."Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly insists that there was nothing wrong with his party's actions."It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename their twitter account 'factcheckUK' during this debate," said Full Fact, an independent British fact-checking charity in a post. "Please do not mistake it for an independent fact checking service."Twitter has a policy against impersonation that states: "Twitter accounts that pose as another person, brand, or organization in a confusing or deceptive manner may be permanently suspended under Twitter's impersonation policy."Britain's Labour Party joined the wave of criticism saying, "Conservatives' laughable attempt to dupe those watching the #ITVDebate by renaming their twitter account shows you can't trust a word they say," the party tweeted from its official account. Read the rest