OnlyBabyCare will no longer be able to sell children's clothes with the phrase "Daddy's Little Slut" through the Amazon Marketplace, reports TMZ. Amazon removed the item from its database after people on social media said the thought the shirt was inappropriate.From TMZ:The product description is pretty rich ... with OnlyBabyCare claiming the garment was suitable for "playing outside, birthday party, baby shower, baptism, wedding, baby photography, daily wear, family day."At least there's no sexism when it comes to these sluts ... the manufacturer said the shirt was unisex and suitable for "little girls or boys."This brings to mind the kid's overalls I saw at a store in Tokyo called "Slut": Read the rest

SanDisk's official Nintendo Switch 128GB micro SD card is on sale at Amazon today for . This is the same price as the unbranded version. Read the rest

In this video, produced by the Mihama Veterinary Clinic in Fukui, Japan, you'll learn how to transfer the contents of a fertilized chicken egg to a plastic cup so you can watch it develop into a live healthy chick. As the narrator says, "The process of the growing egg is like a magic, don't you think so?"[via Twister Sifter] Read the rest

I lost it when he licked his hand pic.twitter.com/YktVwohYPT— Blankzy (@Blankzy_) November 6, 2019Watch this guy give Patrick what's coming to him in an expertly choreographed fight scene.Image: Twitter Read the rest

Tourists in China recorded a video of an unusual-looking fish. A woman can be heard on the video saying "See the fish has become a fairy, it has a human-like face."Image: Live Leak Read the rest

If you have a pulse, you've seen memes starring "Hide the Pain Harold," an older man sitting at a desk, one hand holding a coffee cup, the other on a laptop keyboard. He is smiling, but his eyes tell a different story, one filled with regret, self-doubt, fear, and sadness. The man behind the meme is András Arató (74), a former electrical engineer, who says he is actually a happy person. He wrote an essay for The Guardian about what it is like to become accidentally famous. Wisely, Arató took control of the meme by starting a Facebook fan page and uploading videos and stories to it.That started everything going. People noticed that I had taken ownership of the meme and got in contact to offer me work. I was given a role in a television commercial for a Hungarian car dealer. In one of the adverts, I travelled to Germany to buy a used car and it broke down halfway home; if I had bought the same car through their company, the brand claimed, it wouldn’t have happened. The fee for that commercial changed my wife’s mind about the meme.Now my life has changed dramatically. People ask me to talk about my story, to demonstrate the power of memes. A football website flew me to England to make a video about Manchester City; I got to tour the ground and watch them play a Champions League game. The German mail-order giant Otto flew me out to make commercials for them. Read the rest

Scientists at Oxford and Fudan University in China have developed a way to make fake rhino horns from horse hair. They hope these phony horns will be used to "confuse the trade," and make poaching less lucrative.From BBC:The scientists say the "horn" of a rhino is not like the horn of a cow, but is formed from tufts of tightly packed hair that are glued together by secretions from the animal.And the team of zoologists in Oxford and molecular scientists in Fudan University in Shanghai have developed a way of compressing and moulding horse hair in a way that looks and feels similar even when the "horn" is cut.If credible fakes could be produced cheaply, the scientists say it would cut prices and reduce the incentive for killing the rhinos."It appears from our investigation that it is rather easy as well as cheap to make a bio-inspired horn-like material that mimics the rhino's extravagantly expensive tuft of nose hair," said Prof Fritz Vollrath, from the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology.He said he hoped the technique could be used to "confuse the trade, depress prices and thus support rhino conservation".Image: CC0 Public Domain Read the rest

In making No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers were concerned that the implacable, affectless hit-man Anton Chigurh would be too reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's legendary turn as The Terminator. So they tasked actor Javier Bardem with approaching the role as a murderous eccentric, a performance that would earn a Best Supporting Actor nod at the following year's Oscars. And now, a decade later, the face of Arnold himself, deepfaked into the movie's most famous scene.Voice over by Joe Gaudetctrl shift facePatreon: https://www.patreon.com/ctrl_shift_faceTwitter: https://twitter.com/ctrl_shift_faceYou know, the gas station scene is the most misunderstood scene in modern cinema. Consider this: you're a hitman on the way to a $3m job, you just killed a cop and a bystander, then stole a car, and pulled into a gas station on a stretch of desert road hundreds of miles long. A nosy attendant makes a point of having seen you and where you came from. You, a criminal who does it for a living, would kill him immediately. Not this weirdo:Here's the original: Read the rest

A pickup truck was blocked in by a wall and three cars. Amazingly, the driver was able to maneuver the truck out of the tight spot.Caption this .... from r/ThatsInsane[via r/ThatsInsane] Read the rest

LEGO offers us the opportunity to build Harry Potter's Knight Bus.Generally a wild time for Harry, the triple-level Knight Bus comes with Stan Shunpike, Ernie Prang and Harry minifigs.With Ernie at the wheel, how can things go wrong?LEGO Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban Knight Bus 75957 Building Kit, New 2019 (403 Pieces) via Amazon Read the rest

Donald is throwing Gordon Sondland under the Trump bus.You knew this was inevitable.Remember that time Sondland gave him a million dollars?Speaking to reporters on Friday at the White House, Donald Trump went into denial mode on Gordon Sondland.“I hardly know the gentleman”, said Trump of Gordon Sondland, whom Donald appointed as Ambassador to the European Union, and who donated $1 million to his inauguration.Here's the video.Trump on Sondland: "I hardly know the gentleman." pic.twitter.com/gz7v2DaSoP— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 8, 2019And observations from reporters.At least 3 other people Trump did this “I barely knew him” thing to, were convicted of felonies & served time in prison - Papadapolous, Manafort, Cohen. Take note Mr. Sondland (& Rudy). https://t.co/k9mKShxzbc— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) November 8, 2019Trump on Gordon Sondland: “I hardly knew the gentleman.”!!!— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 8, 2019There it is. @POTUS on Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the political appointee who gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and whose revised testimony lays out a quid pro quo: “I hardly know the gentleman.”— Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) November 8, 2019According to his closed door testimony, Sondland had the ability to call Trump directly, and he did so multiple times as Amb. to the EU. https://t.co/cS8pwzvStJ— Shelby Holliday (@shelbyholliday) November 8, 2019Alas, poor Sondland, I hardly knew thee.— 𝐎. 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 (@TheAlanNoble) November 8, 2019Trump says of his ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland: “I hardly know the gentleman.” When he thought Sondland’s testimony would be good for him, he called him a “really good man and great American.”— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 8, 2019Gordon Sondland, a major donor and now ambassador to European Union and who spoke to Trump multiple times in recent months. Read the rest

Mary Cain, a champion middle-distance runner, reports that her male coaches' constant demands she get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner” hurt her health and career. The crux of the problem: she joined a program operated by Nike, whose priority is selling shoes, not training athletes.The New York Times:The problem is so widespread it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, like Cain, Gold was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. She developed disordered eating to the point of imagining her own death.“America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls,” said Lauren Fleshman, who ran for Nike until 2012. “When you have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following directions to the point of excelling, you’ll find a system that’s happy to take them. And it’s rife with abuse.”It's a big warning to young athletes: if Nike comes calling, you're being selected as a mannequin, not a champion. The head coach, Alberto Salazar, would weigh her in front of her teammates and humiliate her if she failed to reach his arbitrary targets.Consider how even after years of constant scandals, this sort of abuse, and this sort of man, still thrive at the place two opposed goals meet. Read the rest

“They shouldn’t be having public hearings,” said acting president of the united states Donald J. Trump today, about a week after he demanded public hearings.Trump today said Democrats should NOT be holding public hearings, which contradicts what he and his Republican toadies were pushing for last week -- they were complaining that the hearings should NOT be done behind closed doors.Okay, Boomer. Whatever.In the same mouth-diarrhea spew today, Trump also said he's thinking of visiting Russia soon for state ceremonies honoring Soviet heroes at May Day. More on that below, from the poor journalists covering this spectacle live in Washington.After weeks of Republicans demanding that Schiff open up the doors and allow the public to see the impeachment proceedings, Trump says this morning: “They shouldn’t be having public hearings.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 8, 2019Trump tells reporters this morning that he’s considering visiting Russia in May. Putin invited him to the May Day parade; Trump is thinking about going— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 8, 2019Trump says Democrats should not have public hearings, which is odd because I thought the Republicans were pushing for hearings to NOT be done behind closed doors?— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 8, 2019Trump calls people who testified against him “Never Trumpers”; there’s no evidence for this (he seems to be redefining the word to mean anyone who criticizes him). He says nobody has firsthand knowledge here (wrong). He calls the phone call “perfect.”— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 8, 2019One rock-solid consistency of Trump is deference to Russia: expressing admiration for Putin, taking his word over that of US intel, delaying Russian sanctions, downplaying Russian aggression, echoing Kremlin talking points. Read the rest

Grab your headphones.Haven't had a chance to read the entire Mueller Report on foreign interference in America's 2016 presidential elections? It matters even more now that the impeachment of Donald Trump is proceeding.Now the report has been adapted to podcast form, by Lawfare, featuring a special group of journalists. Really worth a listen, whether or not you've read any of it.“Here it all is,” tweeted Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessy. “The entire Mueller Report adapted into a podcast narrative, told by the journalists who broke the stories and experts providing legal context.” “15 episodes, 13.5 hours. Give it a listen. It matters now more than ever.” From the show's tease:On April 18th 2019, the Justice Department released the redacted Mueller Report to the public. The 448 page document details a story that has captured America's attention. From Russian plots to interfere in our election to constitutional questions of executive power, the Mueller Report is potentially one of the most important and consequential documents of our time. But there's a problem. Very few people have read it.There is still so much confusion about the Report. What it says, who it implicates, and what it means for our country. At Lawfare, we are distilling the report into a multi part audio narrative series, telling you the story of what is in this document, the story Mueller wants you to understand.Produced by Goat Rodeo for/with Lawfare. They did a great job on the production! Read the rest

No touchie snek.Snek no like Lil Pump.Photos here. They're yucky.Rapper and noted idiot Lil Pump was shooting a music video on Thursday night, with, for no good reason, a live snake. Snakes aren't props. They're living creatures. TMZ (I know, I know) reports that the attack “left him a bloody mess.”From TMZ:The rapper was shooting a music video Thursday night and the crew was handing off a snake to Lil Pump, who was sitting on some sort of stair-like throne. Then, it happened.The snake, out of nowhere, whipped around and sunk its fangs into Pump's left hand. The scary moment was captured by podcast host Adam Grandmaison -- aka Adam22. You can see Pump flail as he extricates himself from the reptile. He then shows off the gnarly injury.LP's left hand is covered in blood. And, if you look closely near the end of the vid ... it appears as if the snake's setting its sights on a second victim.Good news for Lil Pump ... he doesn't seem that hurt, saying, "I just got bit by a snake WTF." He threw in a snake emoji on the caption and a few laughing ones before adding, "I can't f**k [with] no snakes. I hope I don't die."Totally deserved it. Team snek. Read the rest

It's on.The 'Baby Trump' political art protest balloon has followed Trump around the world, mocking him mercilessly. Baby Trump is reportedly headed to the site of this weekend's football game between University of Alabama and Louisiana State University, at which Trump is expected to be booed loudly again.WE DID IT!!! Baby Trump is coming to Tuscaloosa! Thanks for making this endeavor a thing. All extra funds will he donated to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. Will update once we have a location. He needs a lot a space seeing as he is a big baby. https://t.co/3Ygh44Aw5r— Ñic Gulas (@Nic_Gulas) November 7, 2019From The Hill:Organizers raised more than $4,000 in about 12 hours on a GoFundMe page to bring the “VIP (very important protestor)” to an area near Bryant-Denny Stadium on the Alabama campus, which is hosting the game that President Trump is expected to attend.Nic Gulas, who organized the effort, told The Hill the fundraiser had already brought in $700 more than the needed funds to transport and set up the “Baby Trump” balloon.As of 11 a.m. the fundraiser had exceeded its goal by $1,045.The fundraiser will remain open until 5 p.m. CST, and all additional funds will be donated to the Equal Justice Initiative, he said.'Baby Trump' balloon heading to LSU-Alabama game [thehill.com]PHOTO: Michael Reeve, 'Trump Baby blimp rises over London’s Parliament Square.' July 13, 2018, CC by-sa/2.0/ Read the rest

An unknown number of mobile phone users in America received weird texts on their phone on Wednesday. Nobody's sure where they came from, but the problem seems to have been that a bunch of texts sent months ago were suddenly delivered months later. In some cases, long after a bad breakup.“Friends who hadn’t talked to each other in months were jolted into chatting. Others briefly panicked,” the AP reports:The best explanation seems to be that old texts sent in the spring suddenly went through. Two people said they figured out the original messages were never received. It’s not clear why this months-long delay happened. Phone companies blamed others and offered no further explanations.Stephanie Bovee, a 28-year-old from Portland, woke up at 5 a.m. to a text from her sister that said just “omg.” She immediately thought something had happened to her newborn nephew at the hospital.She started calling everyone. Her sister and her sister’s husband didn’t answer. She woke up her mom, freaking her out. It was three hours before she learned that everything was fine and the text was an odd anomaly.“Now it’s funny,” she said. “But out of context, it was not cool.”A Sprint spokeswoman told a reporter a “maintenance update” for messaging platforms at multiple U.S. carriers was to blame, and T-Mobile called it a “third party vendor issue.” Verizon and AT&T would not respond to the reporter's questions.People puzzled by peculiar texts, and no one can say why [apnews.com, photo: pexels] Read the rest

Gfycat is a site that people upload GIFs to so they can share them with other people reliably. Used most conspicuously to host memes, clips from other media, and animated porn, it announced Wednesday that it was planning to permanently delete old, anonymously-posted images within days. Archive Team, a web preservation initiative coordinated by Jason Scott, set about archiving the site's soon-to-vanish content. So Gfycat's CEO, Dan McEleney, threatened it with a lawsuit, describing archival of the memes it hosts as a "denial of service attack" and demanding compensation.The fallout is ongoing on Twitter, with users of the site panicking about their old content and the company asking for (and being refused) private negotiations with Internet Archive, which Scott points out is not the same entity as the legally-threatened Archive Team. Read the rest

We all knew that 3D printing was too cool of an innovation to stay out of the hands of the masses for long. Sure, there are makers out there who are willing to save up for a decent SLR printer, but when will we have something that hits the trifecta: Easy to use, affordable and a quality end product?Looks like that leap is happening sooner than we thought. The SparkMaker Original SLA 3D Printer Starter Bundle is on the market, and it definitely lives up to the crowdfunding hype.The SparkMaker guys promised plenty when they raked in over $500,000 in Kickstarter pledges in 2018, and they seem to have delivered. Their starter bundle boasts a max molding size of 3.9" x 2.2" x 0.5" and it makes the most of it. Designs can be rendered in 100µm XY resolution and up to 20µm Z layer thickness with no fuss. In other words, it's packed with some incredible tech that produces amazingly sharp designs. Just press the button and watch as an LED light keeps tabs on your progress.Designs are fed to the SparkMaker via a simple SD card, which means you can print offline. Best of all, the whole package is available for well under the $500 you might expect. Even the UV LCD resins it uses are affordable.The SparkMaker Original SLA 3D Printer Starter Bundle is now available for nearly 25% off the MSRP. Read the rest

Mac Pierce created a simple wearable to challenge facial recognition: do a little munging to an image of a face, print it on heat transfer paper, iron it onto see-through mosquito netting, slice, and affix to a billed cap -- deploy it in the presence of facial recognition cameras and you'll be someone else. It's the kind of "adversarial example" countermeasure that fools computers pretty reliably but wouldn't work on a human. (via JWZ) Read the rest

This Sunday, November 10th, see the wonderful science fiction writers Charlie Jane Anders (previously) and Annalee Newitz (previously) in conversation with Terry Bisson at the always-great SF in SF lecture series; doors open at 6PM at the American Bookbinders Museum (366 Clementina Alley) ($10/$8 students) with a post-show podcast from Somafm, and books on sale from our friends at Borderlands Books. Read the rest

Tech-wise, the modern office employee has never had so much freedom. More and more businesses are kicking away from the desk and getting work done remotely on tablets, laptops, and phones.That's great for the worker. But for management — and especially IT — it can be a real hassle configuring settings, installing security protocols and keeping up with updates.For Apple users, there's an easy fix with Jamf Now. For those out of the loop, Jamf Now is a mobile device management solution that's perfect for businesses of all shapes and sizes. It works specifically with Apple products and can deploy company apps directly onto your team's devices with minimal fuss. After it's installed and settings are tweaked to management specifications, Jamf Now keeps everyone on the same page by automatically taking care of updates and license changes.All of this gets done remotely, taking a ton off the plate of management and the IT team. Need to make a major change or switch out team members? Jamf Now ensures you're still in the driver's seat with the ability to lock devices or set restrictions.It adds up to huge savings in time and money. And with a new deal that allows companies to manage three devices for free, Jamf Now is definitely worth checking out. Read the rest

Billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to designate himself as a Democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential election, according to The New York Times. Bloomberg, a 77-year-old centrist, "would present a grave and instantaneous threat to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been struggling to raise money and assemble a ideologically moderate coalition," says the Times.Image: by Bloomberg Philanthropies - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bloombergphilanthropies/29828795984/, CC0, Link Read the rest

Once when I was on a train in Tokyo, I saw a sumo wrestler board and take a seat. He looked like a real life superhero and moved with grace that defied his massiveness. One of the things that made him look otherworldly was his topknot hairstyle. In this video, we meet Kato Akira, who had been the hairdresser for elite sumo wrestlers for over 50 years. He uses both hands and his mouth to tie knots in the wrestlers' hair, and uses a number of beautiful wooden combs.Image: YouTube Read the rest

The Avontuur's cook, Lasse Scharz, is accustomed to making food under less-than-ideal conditions. In this video, the camera is fixed to the ship, so we don't see it rock. Instead we see Scharz comically leaning as plates fly off the counter as if enchanted.[via Neatorama]Image: YouTube Read the rest

The New York Police Department should be commended for keeping 106 pounds of psychoactively inert hemp off the streets, where it might have fallen into the hands of unsuspecting weed smokers simply wanting to get high. Even though the hemp had been tested and certified to contain less than the legal limit of THC and had been legally FedExed with the proper documentation by a licensed hemp grower to New York, the NTPD couldn't resist the thought of a big drug bust to brag about, so they set up a trap and arrested the recipient.After the arrest, the police officers set up an forced perspective photo that made the 106 pounds of innocuous plant material look like it was a major haul.From the NYPD 75th Precinct FaceBook account: "Great job by Day Tour Sector E yesterday. Working with FedEx and other local law enforcement, they were able to confiscate 106 Lbs. of marijuana, and arrest the individual associated with the intended delivery."The man who was arrested in the bust replied in the comments: "These officers tossed out all the legal documents that was in each box. They were emailed by the farm that is registered by the dept of agriculture food and market. They have no clue about the new laws and if that was the case then every corner store and deli should be locked up too. They messed up bad this time."[via Reason] Read the rest

Karen Wang launched a Kickstarter campaign yesterday for custom gaming dice with a modest funding goal of $20,000. Twenty-four hours later she's raised $1.66 million and the number continues to go up. I am especially enamored of the enamel pins she made: Read the rest

I enjoy r/delusionalcraigslist, where people post ads for overpriced crap they found on Craigslist. Here's one where something is hoping to sell 8 bite-size Snickers bars, "including the elusive 'C' and 'K.'" Read the rest

The Chinese government is concerned that children are spending too much time playing computer games, reports The New York Times. It has issued new regulations forbidding young people from playing games after 10pm, and limiting playtime to 90 minutes on weekdays. Spending on in-game merchandise is capped at $28 - $57 a month. To ensure compliance, players must use real names and identification numbers.From the article:Chinese officials said the regulations were meant to combat addiction.“These problems affect the physical and mental health of minors, as well as their normal learning and living,” the National Press and Publication Administration said in a statement that was published by Xinhua, the official news agency.Analysts said the regulations had been largely anticipated by the industry and were unlikely to hurt revenue. Many of the biggest technology companies, including Tencent and Netease, have already imposed limits on younger users.Young gamers are also likely to find ways around the regulations, such as using a parent’s phone and identification number.“There are always going to be loopholes,” said Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, a research and consulting firm. Read the rest

I bought a few of these touch sensor lights years ago to put in closets without lights, and we use them all the time. To turn the light off, you just touch the contacts on the light. They are battery-powered and have an adhesive backing to stick them to walls and under shelves. They cost on Amazon. Read the rest

The Associated Press reports that a New York judge today ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2m for misusing the Trump Foundation, supposedly a charity but evidently an extension of his political and business interests.Judge Saliann Scarpulla also signed off on an agreement Thursday to close the Trump Foundation and distribute about $1.7 million in remaining funds to other nonprofit groups. A request for comment was emailed to Trump’s lawyer. New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit last year alleging Trump and his family illegally operated the foundation as an extension of his businesses and his presidential campaign. Read the rest

The Swiss are the richest people on Earth, with median wealth per adult os $227,891. Haiti is the worst ($214). Howmuch.net created a map of the world that shows the median net worth per adult in different countries. The United States ranks 22nd, at $65,904. The world median wealth per adult is $7,087. Read the rest

This DYMO Xpress embossing label gun is the boss. Read the rest

Rats flee sinking ships?The president is speaking and you can see folks streaming out of the arena. It’s just unusual for his rally events. Those who remain are fired up. pic.twitter.com/nfxm1NVXeO— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) November 7, 2019 Read the rest

A restaurant in Singapore is under fire for putting live crabs in a claw game vending machine. After social media backlash, the restaurant owner has apologized and removed the crabs.From Oddity Central:The restaurant had posted a video of clients using its controversial claw machine to catch live crabs in early October, and then lifestyle website Shout posted its own video on it as well, which drew a lot of attention on social media. Apparently, for a $5 token, clients could try their luck at the claw machine, only instead of a plush animal, they could catch a live Sri Lankan crab. If they were lucky enough to catch one of the 500 to 800 gram crustaceans the restaurant would cook it for them for free.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Watch two of the world's greatest living actors play the role of Donald Trump in his now infamous extortion phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky. Read the rest

According to the Louvre museum, 80 percent of 10 million people who visit the famed Paris art museum come to see the Mona Lisa. "[A]nd most of them leave unhappy," writes Jason Farago, art critic for The New York Times. He recently went to the Louvre and described the dreadful experience:[Y]ou must line up in a hideous, T.S.A.-style snake of retractable barriers that ends about 12 feet from the Leonardo — which, for a painting that’s just two and a half feet tall, is too far for looking and way too far for a good selfie.Apparently the painting is beneath some nifty new nonreflective glass, but at this distance how could I tell? My fellow visitors and I could hardly see the thing, and we were shunted off in less than a minute. All this for a painting that (as the Louvre’s current show confirms) is hardly Leonardo’s most interesting, and that has drowned out the Venetian masterpieces in the Salle des États, such as Titian’s “Woman With a Mirror,” or Veronese’s “Wedding at Cana,” which Beyoncé was smart enough not to neglect. The museum is admitting as much with the pathetic new signs in the Salle des États: “The Mona Lisa is surrounded by other masterpieces — take a look around the room.”Image: by Victor Grigas - Own work, , CC BY-SA 4.0, Link Read the rest

This was just explained to him.THIS was just explained to the President of the United States.His tweet: It was just explained to me that for next weeks Fake Hearing (trial) in the House, as they interview Never Trumpers and others, I get NO LAWYER & NO DUE PROCESS. It is a Pelosi, Schiff, Scam against the Republican Party and me. This Witch Hunt should not be allowed to proceed!I keep thinking it can't get any more surreal and weird, and it does.Every.God.Damned.Day.Lots of this today. The walls are closing in.The degenerate Washington Post MADE UP the story about me asking Bill Barr to hold a news conference. Never happened, and there were no sources!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019The Amazon Washington Post and three lowlife reporters, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Carol Leonnig, wrote another Fake News story, without any sources (pure fiction), about Bill Barr & myself. We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it. A garbage newspaper!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019PHOTO: At Donald Trump's 'Keep America Great' hate rally in Monroe, Louisiana, Trump hammered the whistleblower attorney, Mark Zaid, based on a Fox News article earlier in the day. Read the rest

A young Massachusetts woman who recently graduated from Tufts University is convinced that she has found a 'secret' encoded message in “Paradise Lost,” the poem by John Milton.The Boston Globe reports that Miranda Phaal, who is 23, discovered what she believes is an acrostic, a coded message one sees when scanning the first character in multiple lines, while she was re-reading the poem when she was a senior at Tufts University last year."Paradise Lost" is about the story of Adam and Eve from the Christian bible.The first letters of eight lines in one section spell “fall” three times, Phaal says, and she believes this refers to the 'falls from grace' of Adam, Eve, and Satan. Phaal also says it could be a coincidence, but Milton is known to have enjoyed secret messages.Read the full story:Tufts student may have found secret message in ‘Paradise Lost’ [image: WIKIPEDIA] Read the rest

Police in a Phoenix, Arizona suburb received a 911 emergency call recently from a 5-year-old boy who just wanted to order a Happy Meal from McDonald’s, and who, other than this, didn't have an actual emergency.The City of Mesa Police Department published the call audio on their Facebook page. In the recording, Charlie Skabelund, who is five, asks if he's speaking with McDonald's.“Do you have an emergency?” dispatcher Anthony Bonilla replies. There's a pause. Then, the kindergartener says he would like “One Mc-Happy Meal.” The child then hangs up the phone.Fifteen minutes later, Mesa police officer Randolph “Scott” Valdez arrived at the Skabelund’s driveway to deliver the Happy Meal in person to Charlie.Officer Valdez also spoke to the child about how 911 is to be used properly.The boy's dad, Randy Skabelund, spoke to the dispatcher in a follow-up call later to apologize and explain that there was not an emergency, but that little Charlie probably got a hold of dad's cellphone.Kim Skabelund, Charlie's mom, says officer Valdez handled the situation with “love and kindness.”[More: Today.com, PHOTO: City of Mesa Police Department] Read the rest

If you have any unpaid parking fines at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, and you have a loaf of bread and some peanut butter and jelly, you can now reduce or cover the cost of your tickets by making a PB&J sandwich.Anchorage local NBC news affiliate KTUU-TV reports the university will take donations for their annual payment bartering tradition until November 8, to help combat student hunger. From KTUU-TV, ktuu.com:The food goes to the university's emergency food cache, which provides food to students who face hunger on a regular basis. The drive typically runs for two weeks. This year, through a partnership with the on-campus dining facilities, week two will focus on collecting canned soup for the emergency cache program.Parking fees can be offset by different amounts depending on the size of any donation, but there is a limit to how far you can spread that peanut butter. Parking services capped the number of PB&J payments at two citations per individual. Two 16 oz. jars will be good for a $10 credit, three jars will cover a $35 citation, and five jars will cover a $60 ticket. Tickets must have been issued within the past 45 days, or be within the 60-day "late status" window.According to the UAA Parking Service's webpage: "Any nut butter-almond, cashew, peanut butter- or any flavor jam, jelly, marmalade, preserves, etc. will be accepted. All donations must be commercially produced (no home canning), unopened and not expired."This week only: UAA Parking Services will take PB&J as payment for citations [ktuu.com]PHOTO: “A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made with Skippy peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly on white bread.” WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, PUBLIC DOMAIN Read the rest

In Northern California, sheriff's deputies helped a large bear get out of a locked trash bin, which the bear somehow managed to get stuck inside while dumpster diving for dinner.The bear was discovered Monday in a locked trash bin in Kings Beach, on Lake Tahoe’s northern shore, by Placer County sheriff’s deputies.From AP:Video the agency posted to Facebook shows a deputy shining a flashlight on the dumpster and the bear suddenly popping its head out. As the startled deputy jumps back, others laugh and say “whoa!”They recognize it as the bear they’ve dubbed “T-Shirt” for a patch of white fur on its chest. The agency says the animal has had run-ins with deputies before.They unlock the dumpster from a distance and fling open one of the doors. The bear is stuck in a smaller opening in the top of one of the doors, but eventually drops down, pushes it open and lumbers out.California deputies help dumpster-diving bear escape [associated press] Read the rest

H.P. Lovecraft's only good short story is now a movie starring Nicolas Cage. Here's the trailer; it's out January 24, 2020. They've updated the setting to the present day and it's looks like they've gone all in for contemporary cosmic horror, a la Annihilation, over the original's disquieting radioactive miseries. Can't wait! Read the rest

In 1902, scam artist Cassie Chadwick convinced an Ohio lawyer that she was the illegitimate daughter of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. She parlayed this reputation into a life of unthinkable extravagance -- until her debts came due. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Chadwick's efforts to maintain the ruse -- and how she hoped to get away with it.We'll also encounter a haunted tomb and puzzle over an exonerated merchant.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Tyler Russo: "Let's eat raw chicken now/Drown me in chicken now/Please eat raw chicken with me."Previously: Keep fucking that chicken. Read the rest

His first mistake was driving his front-wheel-drive compact onto the loose sands of Tynemouth, England. His second mistake was calling the police instead of a tow truck.Northumbria Police:"At about 7am this morning we received a call from a man who had been fishing on Tynemouth Longsands. He reported that he had got his car stuck in the sand after driving it on to the beach. Emergency services attended and the car was brought to safety ... The 32-year-old man who made the call has also been reported to court for the offences of driving with no insurance and driving without a licence." Read the rest

The reputation of Damascus steel goes back as far as the 3rd century, to ancient Syria. Without getting into the nerdier aspects of metallurgy, there's a good reason it was highly prized by the weaponsmiths of old.These days, you can still get a taste of its distinctive look in this Hand-Forged Damascus Steel Chef Knife Set.That telltale wavy pattern isn't just for show, either. It's the result of layering high-carbon steel over lower-carbon steel as much as 200 times. The result is a blade with a hardness rating of 55 HRC, suitable for display in any serious chef's kitchen.This particular set of three knives comes with pakka wood handles that only increase its pedigree as an heirloom. This kind of performance requires a little extra TLC, and a wipe with vegetable oil will keep it rust-free. But with proper care, it'll be in your kitchen for many expertly-cut meals.You can now get the full set of three for more than 20% off the retail cost - just in time for Thanksgiving. Read the rest

This video, apparently depicting teens driving around and yelling mostly non-problematic compliments at pedestrians through a bullhorn, recalls the halcyon days of 2014. Read the rest

This video shows a firefighting helicopter pilot refilling its bucket in a backyard swimming pool in Portugal, to tackle a nearby blaze. João Guimarães, the next-door neighbor, writes that the fire was brought under control in 20 minutes.I woke up this morning to this show. A loaded helo (Eurocopter AS350) from the portuguese firefighters landed in front of my house, droped 5 men in full gear, hooked up a bucket and started waterbombing a fire that broke out (or someone started, most likely) right next to a neighbor's house. After 20 mins the fire was controlled by a 6 men team :).Many thanks to the unseen team on the ground, for risking their lives to save other's property.Here's a closer angle, apparently shot by the pool's owner:More from Guimarães:I became friends with the pilot flying on the video, he has a very nice onboard video from another mission ... filling at swimming pools is only done as a last resort (but not illegal in Portugal) because of the risks involved (children playing, damage to property, flying debris such as garden furniture, etc), but he did so on this case because there were houses in danger and the water source was so convenient. ... He also detailed the operation a little bit more: he was returning to the airfield from another bushfire when he saw the initial smoke column. He took the initiative to land and start the attack on his own since the fire was so close to houses. Read the rest

A remarkably effective example of the "minor key" genre, where software is used to shift the chords and notes of an uplifting song to give it it a downcast mood (or vice versa). Read the rest